Final Fantasy 16 has you encountering 10 Eikons, extremely powerful beings that you’ll be defeating throughout the game. As you progress, you’ll be able to utilize 8 of these Eikons, allowing you to integrate them into Clive’s abilities.
As you progress through the game and start really getting into the groove, you’ll realize that FFXVI has a lot of instances where specific Eikons can really do you good. Because of this, we’re going to be ranking all Eikon abilities in FFXVI.
This list goes from worst to best.
8. Shiva
Element: Ice
Shiva Abilities: Ice Age, Mesmerize, Rime, Diamond Dust
Eikonic Feat: Cold Snap – Slide effortlessly across the ground in any direction.
Starting off with the worst Eikon ability, her innate ability – Cold Snap is basically a glorified dodge that also temporarily freezes enemies. Other than that, the powers themselves aren’t all that great.
Freeze is the unique mechanic for Shiva and abilities like Ice Age and Mesmerize do some AoE damage, and Rime summons an ice crystal that deals damage to enemies trapped inside of it. Overall, you won’t really feel like Shiva’s kit is all that special. Cold Snap will be barely used, and the most useful ability in this kit is Diamond Dust, thanks to its massive AoE damage.
7. Phoenix
Element: Fire
Phoenix Abilities: Rising Flame, Secret Cyclone, Heatwave, Flames of Rebirth
Eikonic Feat: Phoenix Shift – Close the gap between a target.
Phoenix isn’t half bad. The innate ability, Phoenix Shift, really allows you to close gaps and is the most useful ability in the kit. Besides that, you won’t really be using most of the other abilities, such as Rising Flames and Heatwave.
Flames of Rebirth is a solid damage dealer, and it also gives you a partial heal, which can be useful at times. But there are just a lot of other options you can utilize for more damage. So. all in all, you’ll probably be using Phoenix Shift from this kit most of the time.
6. Ifrit
Element: Fire
Ifrit Abilities: Ignition, Will-o’-the-Wykes, Limit Break
Eikonic Feat: –
Ifrit has Limit Break, Ignition, and Will-o’-the-Wykes. These are abilities you’ll probably be going to be using throughout your playthrough. Will-o’-the-Wykes, in particular, lets you absorb some damage and also deal consistent stagger damage to your enemies.
And, even when you have staggered your enemies and are building up your multiplier for your big damage-dealing attack, Will-o’-the-Wykes is great for that because it constantly keeps hitting your enemy. Ignition also is an excellent ability, allowing you to weave through enemies and deal damage to them.
5. Garuda
Element: Wind
Garuda’s Abilities: Gouge, Wicked Wheel, Rook’s Gambit, Aerial Blast
Eikonic Feat: Deadly Embrace – Grab an enemy from afar and pull it toward Clive.
The innate power here is Deadly Embrace. This sends out a claw, grabbing an enemy and pulling it towards you. The key reason why we’ve ranked this kit at number five is because you can stagger heavier enemies thanks to Deadly Embrace, allowing you to deal more damage to them for a certain amount of time.
So, because Deadly Embrace is so good, we’ve ranked it at number five. Albeit besides that, some of the Garuda abilities, such as Gouge and Wicked Wheel aren’t too shabby.
4. Ramuh
Element: Lightning
Ramuh’s Abilities: Pile Drive, Thunderstorm, Lightning Rod, Judgement Bolt
Eikonic Feat: Blind Justice – Launch a barrage of ball lightning at one or more enemies.
Ramuh’s Blind Justice launches a barrage of ball lightning. Once locked, it’ll deal additional damage. We found this ability to be somewhat disruptive to the overall combos we were pulling since the ability locks you in an animation.
But, besides that, almost all of Ramuh’s abilities are very useful. Pile Drive deals massive sums of damage thanks to its electric status. Judgment Bolt was pretty good, thanks to its insane single-target damage, especially if an enemy is staggered. The damage is further amplified when you upgrade these abilities.
Ramuh’s abilities are at number four because of their damage, the fact that they combo well, and because electric damage is awesome for hitting staggered enemies.
3. Bahamut
Element: Light
Bahamut’s Abilities: Impulse, Flare Breath, Satellite, Gigaflare
Eikonic Feat: Wings of Light – Begin casting Megaflare.
The Wings of Light’s innate power is good, but it isn’t all that great. We actually prefer Megaflare because you still have control of your character. The other abilities like Impulse are great CC to keep enemies away from you.
Flare Breath deals heaps of damage, and we honestly feel like it lasts a bit too long, considering the amount of DPS this ability has. Satellite spawns two orbs in front of you which deal damage if you dodge or use magic attacks for your enemies.
It is an okay combo spell, and we weren’t really able to use it much as it doesn’t seem to really flow well with other abilities – which is kind of its primary purpose, to begin with.
The ultimate, Gigaflare deals so much damage to enemies. We almost feel like the damage numbers that pop up are inaccurate because this ability is an absolute must-have if you really want to dish out some damage. Hit the Thunderstorm from Ramuh and Gigaflare from Bahamut, and you have an excellent combo.
2. Titan
Element: Earth
Titan’s Abilities: Windup, Upheaval, Raging Fists, Earthen Fury
Eikonic Feat: Titan Block – Block enemy attacks.
The main reason why Titan is at number two is thanks to the innate ability, Titan Block. And this is the only way you can block in the game. Timing it right allows you to block an enemy attack and, when used perfectly, allows you to initiate up to 3 counterattacks as well.
Windup doesn’t really line up with your combat flow. However, Upheaval really goes well with a lot of abilities since you can throw enemies in the air. Earthen Fury is also a great AoE damage ability.
In essence, you get a lot of utility from this kit, and almost every ability is useful in one way or the other, which is why we’ve ranked this Eikon ability set at number two.
1. Odin
Element: Darkness
Odin’s Abilities: Gungnir, Heaven’s Cloud, Rift Slip, Dancing Steel
Eikonic Feat: Arm of Darkness – Replace Clive’s current weapon with Odin’s blade.
To no one’s surprise, Odin is the best Eikon ability in FFXVI right now. The key reason for this is Arms of Darkness. This replaces Clive’s current weapon with Odin’s blade building up your Zantetsuken gauge.
When you have it maxed out, it’s probably the largest single-damage ability in the game. And it also hits enemies around you as well. We can’t even identify the radius of the ability because it ends up hitting enemies off-screen as well, quite strong.
The different powers, like Dancing Steel and Gunghir, are just meant to build up the gauge. Dancing Steel, in particular, is just a flurry of attacks that’ll take your gauge to level 3 quite quickly, allowing you to deal a lot of damage.
Conclusion
That’s all you need to know about the best Eikon abilities in FFXVI. Remember, we’ve ranked this list based on our playthrough of the game. Your style of playing and habits may lead to very different results. All in all, you can’t really go wrong with any of the Eikon abilities.
They’re all fairly balanced, and you’ll have a great time with any of them. Except for Rift Slip, no one uses Rift Slip.