Final Fantasy XVI Beginner Guide

This Final Fantasy XVI Beginner Guide covers different Tips & Tricks for the game such as recommended side activities that you should be doing, how to efficiently farm resources, an overview of the combat system, and more. Before we start, we recommend you go through the Prologue to understand the basic combat mechanics and check the “Tutorial Messages” of the game to view all of the previously unlocked guides in the System menu.

FF XVI Getting Started Guide: What Are Timely Accessories?

When you start FF 16, you will be given the option to choose your difficulty between Story and Action Focused. Regardless of the mode you play, you will have access to using Timely Accessories which you can find under Gear & Eikons. Timely Accessories are a unique set of trinkets that allow the player to adjust the difficulty in combat by providing Clive with “Auto Effects”. If you are new to action games or require assistance in some aspects of combat, then we highly recommend using these accessories.

Final Fantasy XVI Beginner Guide - 1 - Timely Accessories

Equipping Accessories is the only way to create a soft build for Clive and it heavily ties in with what Eikon and Abilities you are using, however, you are limited to only using up to three of them. At the beginning of the game, it’s okay to equip all three Timely Accessories if you’re still getting used to the combat but for the time being, as you progress, we recommend equipping at least one and reserving the two slots for other useful accessories.

There are different “Auto Effects” such as Healing, Dodging, Parrying, Blocking, Commanding Torgal, and even Attacking to chaining combos. One important note though is that some of these accessories have limits. For example, the Ring of Timely Evasion will only work as long as Clive can evade some attacks so remember to choose wisely.

FF XVI Tips & Tricks: Side Quests Are Important

Side Quests are critical in Final Fantasy XVI. Not only do they provide you with additional lore and rewards, but they unlock some features such as being able to ride a Chocobo. These become available during story progression, specifically as you reach The Hideaway and are marked with a green icon on the world or area map. Side Quests gradually become available as you progress through the story, so always open the map or keep an eye on the Notice HUD. Also, make sure to speak to Gaute to check the Alliant Reports or your mail in Clive’s chambers to view more of them.

Final Fantasy XVI Beginner Guide - 2 - Side Quests Are Important — Side Quests Are Important

The two types of Side Quests in FFXVI are generic and important ones. Generic Side Quests are marked with a green exclamation point, and they normally provide you with basic objectives and different rewards. On the other hand, important Side Quests are what you want to keep an eye on, and these are marked with a green + sign.

If you see one, make sure to complete it in order to unlock certain features and upgrades such as improving the potency of consumables, Chocobo riding, increasing the Limit Break bars, and more. In the latter section of Final Fantasy XVI, you will start to gain Renown points. By earning a certain number of Renown, Clive can collect donations such as GIL, Items, and even AP. You can do this by visiting Desiree at the Patron’s Whisper.

FF XVI Best Tips: How to Quickly Stagger Enemies

Staggering is the most important mechanic of the game when it comes to combat, you will find it extremely useful against large enemies and bosses. To identify the stagger meter of a target which is divided into two segments, you can refer to a yellow bar underneath its health bar. By breaking its first segment, the target becomes shaken for a brief moment, while successfully bursting the second segment will have them completely fall to the ground, allowing you to follow up with chains of attacks and combos before they can even recover. If they do recover, the bar refills and it’s a matter of repeating the process of shattering their stagger meter once again.

Your weapon and abilities play an important role here as the value of the weapon or the number of stars for an ability will determine how fast you can stagger an enemy. You will want to prioritize Stagger over Damage because when you do, it just breaks the game in a way that you can’t give your target the chance to attack you. So always look at the values of your weapon before you buy or craft one.

As for Eikon Abilities, you will find the Scarlet Cyclone, Garuda’s Gouge, and Aerial Blast as the must-haves together with Titan’s Abilities. One example here is the unique Block Ability, which deals a significant amount of Stagger Damage. Additionally, some accessories can alter the effects of your abilities such as increasing their damage or reducing the cooldown.

FF XVI Beginner Guide: How to Chain Combos

In combat, you have two basic attacks. You have a four-hit combo by pressing Square and a ranged magical attack by pressing Triangle. Your basic combo is a mixture of melee and magic where you press Square and Triangle, respectively, finishing it off with a magical blast that throws light targets off their feet. To complete it, you can close the gap with Phoenix Shift by pressing Circle and then Square to execute a mortal blow.

Final Fantasy XVI Beginner Guide - 4 - How to Chain Combos — How to Chain Combos

It does take timing and you cannot just press the buttons in quick motions. When you press Square, there is a window or a delay as Clive swings his sword, then you can follow up with magic, then back to another melee hit, and finally, another magic attack. You can also transition into using an Eikonic Ability if you want to. After two to three melee hits, quickly press R2 and Triangle or Square to trigger the ability. If you launch enemies in the air, you can teleport to your target and continue with an air combo upon activating Phoenix Shift.

When it comes to continuously chaining combos, this is where Torgal comes in. Torgal has two basic attacks, specifically, Sic, which is a ground-based melee attack, and Ravage, which launches the enemy into the air. There are many ways you can use Torgal and his attacks change depending on your combos. If you execute the four-melee attack, by pressing Up on the D-pad just as Clive lands the fourth swing, Torgal’s Sic becomes a spinning attack and leaves the target in the air for about a second. This lets Clive follow up by jumping into the air for an aerial combo or by using Garuda’s Deadly Embrace that pulls the target close to him allowing for more ground combos. Luckily, there is a training room that you can use to hone his skills.

FF XVI Beginner Guide: Practice in the Hall of Virtue

The Hall of Virtue, which becomes available through story progression, is a training room that can be accessed by using the Arete Stone in The Hideaway. Here, you can play with the different combat parameters and choose what enemy you want to fight against. This is very helpful since it allowed me to experiment with the abilities that work well together, and it gave me a better understanding of how to properly utilize Torgal’s attacks. By pressing the DualSense’s Touch Pad, you can view the Training Options such as adding Torgal, Input Display, Burst Timing, enemy behaviors, and a list of targets to fight against.

FFXVI Beginner Guide - Hall of Virtues — Hall of Virtues

If you want to put everything into action without worrying about dying during the main campaign, you can always run the Arcade Mode or Stage Replay where you can revisit previously cleared areas.

FF XVI Beginner Guide: Early Best Eikons and Abilities

Since this is a Final Fantasy XVI Beginner Guide, I will focus on listing down the best Eikons and Abilities to use early on. For Basic Abilities, you’ll want to unlock the following to give you an advantage in combat:

Charged Magic allows Clive to charge his magic attack by holding down Triangle and releasing it.
Swift Recovery immediately lets him recover when knocked back or downed by an enemy.
Burning Blade adds an attack that imbues Clive’s sword with flames and releases a powerful knockback.
Lunge and Downthrust provide more moves for aerial and grounded attacks.

All of these are very helpful during a combo and you can use them in various situations.

As for Eikons, you will start off with the Blessing of the Phoenix. By default, you have access to Rising Flames and Scarlet Cyclone. When you start, after unlocking the Basic Abilities mentioned above, I recommend saving enough AP in order to unlock Flames of Rebirth. This skill is an AOE attack that continuously damages enemies while restoring your HP. But only use it when necessary since it has a long cooldown.

FFXVI Beginner Guide - 6 - Early Best Eikons and Abilities

I also found that Scarlet Cyclone is an OP Ability. Not only does it attack enemies around you but it has high Stagger Damage, knocks back enemies, and has a short cooldown. As you may have noticed, Abilities that have AoE capabilities are very useful here since most of the time, you will be fighting them in groups.

Once you have progressed, you will be able to channel the abilities of Garuda. The wind Eikon specializes in targeting a single unit but it does a considerable amount of Stagger Damage, making it the most used Eikon you will use until you unlock more. Make sure to have Gouge equipped since it has high Stagger Damage and it hits multiple targets if you are lucky to have two or more enemies in front of you. Garuda’s Unique Ability is Deadly Embrace, which can be used to pull enemies to you or if you break the first segment of their stagger bar, pull them down and follow up with more attacks. You may also want to save enough AP to unlock Aerial Blast, which summons a tornado that lifts light targets in the air and deals a significant amount of Stagger Damage to large enemies and bosses.

FFXVI Beginner Guide - 6.1 - Early Best Eikons and Abilities

When it comes to combos, I like to punish targets by using Scarlet Cyclone and hitting them with basic attacks. Once I break the first segment of their stagger bar, I switch to Garuda and press Circle to use Deadly Embrace. During the animation, you want to switch back to Phoenix and use Phoenix Shift to close the gap, then switch back to Garuda, Gouge, and finish off the combo with either Flames of Rebirth or Aerial Blast. You can even use both as long as they are not on cooldown. When you gain access to more Eikons, the possibilities of mixing different Eikon Abilities are endless plus, you can always try out the many combinations at the Hall of Virtue.

Lastly, Abilities can be improved by Upgrading and Mastering them in exchange for more AP. Upgrading improves the effects of the Ability while Mastering allows the player to assign the Ability to any Eikon. You can learn more about these details by pressing Triangle on the skill itself.

FF XVI Beginner Guide: How to Respec Abilities

To piggyback off of Abilities, your next question might be “Can I respec Abilities in the game?“ And the answer is yes. It is quite simple to do, if you decide to swap to another and prefer to spend your AP on something else. You can go to the Ability that you want, then press and hold the Square Button to refund the spent AP.

Final Fantasy XVI Beginner Guide - 7 - Respec Abilities

If you have not upgraded it, the AP you will receive is the basic number for unlocking it, otherwise, you will acquire the total number of AP you have spent. There is no catch here or negative outcome since you can freely respec abilities and spend them on whatever you want. So respec freely and responsibly.

FF XVI Beginner Guide: How to Farm EXP, GIL, AP, and Renown

The basic method of farming EXP, GIL, AP, and eventually Renown points is by fighting enemies and completing Main Quests. As soon as you unlock Side Quests and the Hunting Board, I highly recommend doing these activities since they are the easiest way to acquire different resources, and might I say, a generous amount of it.

FFXVI Beginner Guide - 8 - Elite Monsters (Hunting Board)

The Hunting Board only becomes available through story progression, and it shows you a list of Elite monsters that you need to eliminate in exchange for hefty rewards. But going against them are quite challenging. Depending on their rank, these marked Elites have high health, are deadly in battle, and usually have high levels. So be sure you are ready and stocked with healing items before you hunt them down. To find a marked Elite, you must visit the Hunting Board and read the description where it has been sighted, and then from there, you need to travel to the nearest location and start searching the area.

Final Fantasy XVI Beginner Guide - 8.1 - Elite Monsters

We have already touched on Side Quests, and as mentioned, when you see an available quest, especially Important Side Quests, take the task and complete it. Alternatively, replaying a previously cleared stage in the Arete Stone’s Stage Replay rewards the player with a minimum number of resources, including random consumables and materials.

With enough Renown Points, you can also collect different rewards from donators. This is only unlocked through story progression, and you can check these by talking to Desiree at the Patron’s Whisper in The Hideaway.

FF XVI Beginner Guide: Save Materials Over Gil

Materials are quite hard to find and are scarce in Final Fantasy XVI. Rare materials exclusively drop from the Elites you hunt, others are obtained by completing certain quests, while generic materials are generously rewarded from Side Quests and commonly found as loot. When you plan on acquiring a stronger weapon or accessory that is available to be forged, make sure to check the general merchant in The Hideaway. Alternatively, in other locations, they usually have the base weapon or accessory available for purchase. This way, you can save your materials and use them instead for reforging, which upgrades the level and stats of Clive’s equipment.

As for rare materials, especially unique weapons that are crafted with the likeness of the Eikons, you are free to build these as you wish since they can only be crafted once and cannot be upgraded. The rarity of the material is grouped into colors – White is common, Green is uncommon, Blue is rare, and Purple refers to epic resources.

Managing your resources during your first playthrough is very important since consumables are expensive and sometimes you might be tempted to even buy the music scrolls and other materials that you can find out in the field. Luckily, you have Torgal who can heal you in combat and the Limit Break recovers your HP over time. Spend your Gil on healing potions and other consumables if needed and review the different weapons and accessories that are the best before using them at the forge.

Final Fantasy XVI Beginner Guide: Always Explore Areas

The different locations in Final Fantasy XVI unlock through story progression and each of them gradually increases the space you can explore. Village settlements, the forest, ruins, and even desert areas are hard to search since these are large locations and it can be confusing to walk around in the absence of a mini map.

Make it a habit to open the area map by pressing the touch pad and using the marker to set a pin. This way you can easily keep track of sections you have not explored yet. For each location you visit, before reaching the goal, always explore and check every corner to find loot and small wooden or stone chests.

These small chests can sometimes be frustrating to find since they blend so well with the surroundings, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for them. If you do find one or if you are near a chest, a small indicator with the X button will appear on it.

That wraps up our Final Fantasy XVI Beginner Guide, hopefully, it gives clarity to some aspects of the game and it guides you with your journey in Valisthea. Be sure to check out our Final Fantasy XVI Review for our thoughts on the game, or you can watch here on YouTube.

If you have any other questions, do let us know in the comment below. You can also check out our website and wikis for more guides. Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel to keep you updated with new content and for everything RPG, you can count on Fextralife.