Feats, slots & Mastery
- One Feat per Eikon. The Feat is bound to that Eikon and changes with it — Phoenix Shift's warp, Titan's parry, Odin's blade. Switching Eikons swaps your Feat instantly.
- Two ability slots per Eikon. You fill them from that Eikon's learned abilities. Three equipped Eikons = up to six abilities live at once, each on its own cooldown.
- Mastery is the magic word. Spend AP to buy an ability, more AP to upgrade it, and a final lump to Master it. A mastered ability can be equipped under any Eikon — so you can run Garuda's Gouge while standing in Bahamut, etc. This is the entire build game.
- Respec is free. You can refund AP from any ability at no cost, anytime outside combat. Never hoard — buy, try, reset, repeat.
- Element is mostly flavor. Your Magic element follows the active Eikon, but XVI has very little hard elemental weakness — pick Eikons for their abilities and Feat, not their element.
Read each ability as one of three jobs: Will-breaker (drops the stagger gauge fast, low HP damage), damage-dump (huge HP numbers, save for the stagger window), or utility (a counter, a gap-close, a passive turret). A good loadout has both breakers and dumps. The Builds page turns this into concrete loadouts.
The eight Eikons
Clive earns the first seven through the story; Leviathan is added by The Rising Tide DLC. Below, each Eikon's Feat and its standout abilities.
◆ Phoenix — Fire (your starter)
| Ability / Feat | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Phoenix Shift (Feat) | Utility | Warp-dash straight to a target. Free, near-instant gap-close — the mobility tool you'll keep mastered and equipped on everything. |
| Rising Flames | Will | An uppercut that launches you and the enemy — opens air combos and solid Will damage. |
| Scarlet Cyclone | Will / AoE | A spinning fire sweep; good against groups and respectable Will damage. |
| Heatwave | Utility | A wall of fire that reflects projectiles back — a ranged counter. |
| Flames of Rebirth | Damage / Heal | A huge fire eruption that also heals Clive. Long cooldown; a stagger-window dump that buys survivability. |
◆ Garuda — Wind
| Ability / Feat | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Deadly Embrace (Feat) | Utility | A grab: yank a small enemy to you, or pull yourself to a big one. Pulls staggered foes back into range to keep dumping. |
| Gouge | Will | A fast, repeatable claw rush with a short cooldown — arguably the best sustained Will-builder in the game. A near-mandatory mastered pick. |
| Wicked Wheel | Will / Air | A spinning aerial attack — strong Will damage and keeps you airborne. |
| Rook's Gambit | Utility | A counter-stance: evade an attack and riposte for big Will damage. |
| Aerial Blast | Will / AoE | Plants a stationary tornado that ticks Will damage in an area while you do other things. |
◆ Ramuh — Lightning
| Ability / Feat | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Blind Justice (Feat) | Utility / Ranged | Paints targets and fires homing lightning; chargeable. The best pure ranged option for fliers and skittish hunts. |
| Pile Drive | Damage | A lightning slam with good single-target damage. |
| Thunderstorm | Will | A lingering orb that periodically zaps a target — passive Will you can leave running. |
| Judgment Bolt | Damage | A massive bolt; a long-cooldown stagger-window dump. |
◆ Titan — Earth
| Ability / Feat | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Titanic Block (Feat) | Utility | A timed parry. Perfect-block an attack to negate it and open a counter — answers moves a dodge can't, and powers up his abilities. |
| Windup | Damage | A chargeable haymaker — big single hit you can hold and release on a stagger. |
| Raging Fists | Damage | A flurry with block windows mid-combo; rewards aggressive defense. |
| Upheaval / Earthen Fury | Damage / AoE | Rock pillars and a charged ground-shatter nuke (Earthen Fury builds power from successful blocks). Heavy stagger-dump damage. |
◆ Bahamut — Light
| Ability / Feat | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Wings of Light (Feat) | Utility / Ranged | Hover and fire homing light bolts; charge for more. Strong ranged pressure and air control. |
| Gigaflare | Damage | The signature chargeable beam — one of the highest single-hit damage abilities in the game. The classic stagger-window dump. |
| Satellite | Damage | Deploys orbiting orbs that auto-fire at your target while you keep attacking — excellent free background damage. |
| Impulse | Damage | A chargeable light blast; solid ranged burst. |
◆ Shiva — Ice
| Ability / Feat | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Cold Snap (Feat) | Utility | An ice dodge: evade with the right timing to freeze the attacker briefly and counter. A defensive Feat that also sets up damage. |
| Rime | Will | Ranged ice shards — steady Will chip at a distance. |
| Mesmerize | Utility / Will | Draws enemies toward a point — group control plus ice damage. |
| Diamond Dust | Damage | A charging ground AoE that builds and detonates for huge damage — a premier stagger-window nuke. |
◆ Odin — Dark
| Ability / Feat | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Arm of Darkness / Zantetsuken (Feat) | Damage | Landing hits builds the Zantetsuken gauge (stacks shown on screen); release it for a slash whose damage scales with stacks — at max, one of the biggest hits you can land. Building stacks before a stagger, then releasing into it, is peak Odin. |
| Gungnir | Will | Spear throws that also feed the Zantetsuken gauge. |
| Heaven's Cloud | Will | A swift slash combo — fast gauge-building. |
| Dancing Steel | Damage | A multi-hit blade sequence with strong damage and gauge gain. |
| Rift Slip | Utility | A teleport-evade that keeps you on the target. |
◆ Leviathan — Water (The Rising Tide DLC)
Added by The Rising Tide, Leviathan brings a water/aether kit built around ranged whip-beams and a Feat that lets you fire and reposition at distance, plus abilities that blend strong Will damage with sustained pressure. It slots into the same Mastery system — learn it, master its standouts, and cross-equip like any other Eikon. See Progression for how to unlock the DLC.
⚠ Spoiler — the late-game Eikon
The story's antagonist wields Ultima, and in the finale Clive turns that power against him — the climactic fights hand you sweeping, screen-clearing Ultima abilities for their duration. These are largely scripted spectacle rather than a permanent build Eikon, so plan your loadouts around the eight above. We keep the why-and-how behind this spoiler.