What does mastering abilities do in FF16?

It isn’t always clear what upgrading your abilities does in Final Fantasy 16. It’s possible to upgrade all your abilities and still not see any difference. No one wants to spend thousands of ability points to upgrade an ability without knowing what will change, so let us help you find out if it’s worth it. Read on to find out how to find out an ability’s upgrades and what happens when you master an ability.

FF16: Mastering the abilities

The mastery of abilities Final Fantasy 16 can lead to many different outcomes depending on what you’re upgrading. You can hover your mouse over the ability to learn what it changes. Then, press triangle to see the ability’s details, upgrades, mastery, and battle techniques.

Square Enix Creative/Square Enix – via Polygon

Not every ability’s mastery is the same, but they will tend to follow the same pattern. If the ability is an Eikon’s ability such as Phoenix’s Rising Flames, you can Any Eikon can be mastered by assigning the ability.. For example, if you’re using Phoenix and Garuda and you’ve mastered Phoenix’s Rising Flames, you can swap out one of Garuda’s abilities for Rising Flames.

Square Enix Creative/Square Enix – via Polygon

Eikonic Feats, such as Phoenix’s Phoenix Shift, don’t follow the same route that abilities do. You can’t apply them to any Eikon, but the ability itself will be upgraded. Mastering Phoenix Shift, for example will allow you to travel further. Every other ability that doesn’t go into an Eikon’s ability slot, will also have a unique upgrade. Magic Burst’s mastery extends the trigger window; Charged Magic’s mastery reduces the charge time; Stomp’s mastery increases the maximum kicks to two, and so on.

Ultimately, if you’re wondering if mastering an ability is worth it for you, check out the ability’s details first. Test out all the abilities! You can refund your points for free. If you don’t like the mastered ability, you can always get all of your ability points back for free and spend it elsewhere.