Noctis
The only playable brother. Noctis alone can equip all weapon types, warp, wield the Royal Arms, charge Armiger, and bear the Ring of the Lucii. Everything on the Combat and Weapons pages is his toolkit. Your job in any fight is to drive Noctis's positioning and weave the brothers' Techniques into the gaps.
Roles & signature Techniques
Each brother charges his own Tech bar in combat (and via Ascension nodes). Spend it on a Technique with L1 + a face button. The standouts:
| Brother | Role | Key Techniques |
|---|---|---|
| Gladiolus | Shield / bruiser — soaks hits, big single blows, survival utility on the road | Tempest (sweeping greatsword AoE), Royal Guard (timed guard-counter), and later Dawnhammer. His tree boosts party survivability and gathers items as you travel. |
| Ignis | Strategist / buffer — the brain of the party, and the cook | Enhancement — imbues Noctis's equipped weapon with fire/ice/lightning for a stretch; pick the enemy's weakness and damage soars. Also Regroup (reposition + recover) and Analyze. He cooks the camp meals (see Ascension). |
| Prompto | Gunner / ranged — pokes weak points, controls crowds, tags daemons | Trigger-Happy (a sustained barrage), Gravisphere (pulls enemies into a cluster for AoE), Piercer, and Starshell (a flare that weakens daemons). He also takes the trip photos. |
Link-strikes & keeping them alive
- Link-strikes. Attack from a blindside or off a parry and a brother often chains in for a cooperative finisher — free, big damage. Position for backstabs.
- They go down, not out. A brother reduced to 0 HP is downed, not dead — revive them (or they recover after the fight). If Noctis goes down in Danger with no one to help and no item, that's the loss.
- Buy their Tech nodes. The Teamwork/Technique Ascension grids raise Tech-bar gain and unlock stronger Techniques — cheap, high-impact early purchases.
Astral summons
The Astrals (XV's summons) aren't on a button — in open battle a summon prompt appears under the right conditions, and holding it calls a god for a screen-clearing attack. They're situational by design, not spammable.
| Astral | Element | Tends to appear when… |
|---|---|---|
| Ramuh | Lightning | The most common in-battle summon — favours prolonged fights; hurls Judgment Bolt. |
| Titan | Earth | Wide, open battlefields. |
| Leviathan | Water | Near water / large open areas. |
| Shiva | Ice | Cold regions and dire straits — Diamond Dust freezes the field. |
| Carbuncle | Light | A protective companion tied to dreams/early game — can pull you back from the brink. |
| Bahamut | Light | Story-bound — the King of kings, reserved for the climax. |
Summon chance rises when a fight drags on, when allies are downed, when your own HP is low, and on terrain that suits a given Astral. You can't force one reliably — treat a summon as a bonus, not a plan. Ramuh is the one you'll see most.