Final Fantasy 16 has many new systems and mechanics that make it quite different from previous series entries. One of the things you may have run into while playing Final Fantasy 16 (FF16) is the new ability system and the way you unlock skills to gain access to them, but you can also choose to spend a large amount of ability points to master each ability — here is an explanation of what mastering abilities actually does.
What Mastering Abilities in Final Fantasy 16 (FF16) Does and When Its Optimal
When you visit the Abilities tab in the menu, you’ll find the selection of abilities that are available to you, and some will be pre-learned and mastered already by your character by default. As you defeat enemies, level up, and progress through the story, you’ll gain a ton more ability points to assign across the Ability Tree. The first stage is simply to acquire them and gain access to that ability. I would recommend everyone focus on obtaining all the skills that they wish to have access to before thinking about Mastery.
Once you’ve got all the abilities you like the sound of, you can work on saving the larger amount of ability points needed to master the abilities that you enjoy using the most. Most of the abilities have an additional effect or benefit that is obtained when you choose to master that ability. For example, mastering Phoenix Shift grants increased distance that you can shift, while mastering Charged Magic reduces the time it takes to charge up the attack. These are useful effects but not super powerful or worth going after right away if you still have other good abilities that you could learn first for less ability points.
The point at which you really might want to prioritize mastering abilities in Final Fantasy 16 is when you have more than one Eikon available and want to be able to use one of your favorite Eikon abilities with another Eikon in use. This is possible through mastery as the additional effect on most Eikon abilities is that they can be assigned to any Eikon, not just the original Eikon that they belong to when they’re simply learned and not mastered.
That explains what mastering an ability does in Final Fantasy 16 — they’re additional improvements to the abilities, but usually you’ll want to prioritize learning abilities over mastering them for the biggest improvements in combat! For more about FF16, check out how many chapters are in the game.
