Final Fantasy 16 Guide – How to Farm Ability Points

In Final Fantasy 16, like in previous entries, you’ll earn Experience Points (EXP) from defeating enemies. After earning enough, Clive will level up and receive flat increases to all his stats. The leveling process is pretty painless, and it’s easy to remain at the same level as your opponents, even without doing any Side Quests or Hunts. Ability Points or AP is a different matter.

Ability Points are doled out after each encounter and used to upgrade your Skills, including each Eikon’s Skills, but at a lower rate. While Clive’s basic Skills aren’t too expensive, Eikonic Skills will start to demand more and more AP as you progress (especially the Ultimate Skills like Flames of Rebirth). They can be upgraded, further boosting their power, and Mastered, letting you assign them to any Skill slot, regardless of the Eikon equipped.

These are amazing benefits, so how do you farm AP to freely unlock and upgrade the Skills you want, especially if you’re going to pursue New Game+? You could go into Stage Replay and retry any stage at your current level, mowing down enemies and earning EXP/AP. However, the amount rewarded is significantly lower than the first go around. Fortunately, there are some other farming methods.

How to Quickly Farm AP

In the early going, you can travel to Caer Norvent Glorieuse Gate from the Hideaway on the World Map. It will take you to the same keep where you fought Benedikta in the story. Some distance from the spawn point, there are several Imperial enemies. Slay them quickly, netting about 80 AP in total, and then fast travel back to the Hideaway. Once there, go back to Caer Norvent and repeat this process. If you’re around level 20, this is a decent method for quickly gaining AP.

A faster method is available later in The Free Cities of Kanver (as part of the Main Quest, “Evenfall”). You should have access to Accessories like The Wages of Warcraft, which increases Ability Points earned from regular encounters by 20 percent. If you have the Accessory to reduce the cooldown of Flames of Rebirth, equip that as well. Make sure to use Skills like Ignition, Flames of Rebirth, Judgment Bolt, Windup, Thunderstorm and any sixth Skill which deals a high amount of damage. Having these fully upgraded would also be ideal.

Go into the stage and unleash Ignition on the first group of enemies. On the second group, use Flames of Rebirth – the only surviving enemy should be the Akashic Tognvaldr. Use Windup to partially stagger it, then Judgment Bolt for the full stagger and your sixth Skill for damage. Attack with other combos until Ignition is off cooldown, and then use that to finish it off.

The next part will have a group of enemies, including some spellcasters casting Protect. Take out the spellcasters first, then clean up the rest of the enemies. Once this is done, open the World Map and fast-travel to any location. You’re informed that your progress will be lost when leaving the area, but that only applies to the encounters cleared. The AP earned will remain. After leaving the stage, re-open the World Map, and jump back in to restart “Evenfall” from the beginning. Keep farming this continuously for massive AP gains.

Tips for Earning Ability Points

If you want a break from farming, there are other ways to earn Ability Points. The first and most obvious is to slay enemies. You don’t have to fight every single one you come across (especially since there is no level-scaling), so pick and choose your battles accordingly. Make sure to have The Wages of Warcraft Accessory equipped when doing so.

Hunts and Notorious Marks give a decent amount of AP, though the bosses encountered throughout the game offer more. You can also partake in Side Quests, but prioritize the ones that give AP instead of just Renown, EXP or Gil. Even for those that don’t, the EXP is well worth it since increasing in level makes it much easier to use the farming methods above.

Finally, if there are any Skills that you’re not enjoying or want to change things, you can refund their AP cost entirely. Since you can only have six Eikonic Skills (and three Core Skills), unlocking everything isn’t required. Save up enough to get the Skills you want, and things should be good.

Final Fantasy 16 is available for PS5. Check out our review here and 15 tips and tricks here. You can also find out how to increase the potency of Potions and inventory space here.