Dissidia Duellum Final Fantasy abilities guide for getting powered up

• Dissidia Duellum Final Fantasy offers a competitive co-op, PvP, and PvE spin on the series
• And it also features a whole host of potential skills to use
• Sort them all out by reading through our Dissidia Duellum Final Fantasy abilities guide

Dissidia Duellum Final Fantasy offers an interesting mix of co-op, PvP and PvE action, all featuring your favourite heroes from across the hit JRPG franchise brought to modern-day Tokyo. All in all, it’s a pretty interesting way to experience the world of Final Fantasy, but as is always the case with Square Enix, some things can get a little… confusing.

In this case, the skills and powers you use in battle. How do they work? Why are they marked with certain elements? And why are some usable by any character, and others exclusive to particular heroes? Well, that’s where we come in. Read on and find all the questions you wanted answered in this quick guide to Dissidia Duellum Final Fantasy abilities.

Different types of abilities

Abilities can be broadly split into two categories: general and character-specific options. The most general can be applied to any character and are usually pretty straightforward, with options for damage, healing and versatile AoE effects. Meanwhile, Character-specific versions will synergise much better with your chosen hero and cannot be applied to anyone but that hero.

And of course, for you completionists out there, these character-specific versions usually reference famous attacks and spells used in their respective character’s games. The only way to get the highest rarity, that being UR, is to pull one for a specific character. For example, my Warrior of Light has the Supreme Soul ability. The higher the rarity, the more powerful they’ll be in general, with the hero-specific UR skills the most desirable.

How elements affect Dissidia Duellum Final Fantasy’s abilities

Well, this one is simple enough. Elements are simply synergies, depending on what element your hero is associated with and which one the ability is marked with. Equipping abilities with the same element to the right hero grants a boost. You can check out what element your hero synergises with on their character page, as well as finding out their other skills and intended role (but has the star rating for 'ease of use' ever been right?).

Aside from drawing them, one easy way to gain more is by using Sealed Ability Crystals. These are gained by playing through casual and ranked battles, as well as challenges. You’ll find them on the main menu, occupying a limited number of slots. They will open over time, meaning you’ll need to pace your playtime to ensure you get the most, but each guarantees an ability when broken.

Stat boosts from using support slots

While active abilities are used directly during a battle, you can also grant your character another power-up by equipping otherwise unused versions in support slots. Rather than being used directly during a fight, they instead provide half the usual passive bonus that they would if applied to an active slot.

In short, it’s worth making sure your support slots are always filled, something you can easily do and even optimise for certain builds by using the auto feature. And remember, you can always refresh yourself on the exact percentages and stats with the in-game help menu. Some abilities, such as the collectible Memoria, can only be equipped in a support role and will grant a synergistic effect if the character comes from the same game as the Memoria.

Levelling up abilities

Since your character’s strength is mostly tied to what they equip, you’ll mainly grow stronger by actually upgrading the abilities of your hero. This is where you’ll mainly use Growth Eggs to upgrade them, either by doing so for each level or using the alternative option to max it out.

To increase the level cap for abilities, you need to draw more of them. This does mean that you don’t need to draw additional versions of the same character to increase their level, so instead you’ll just have to draw additional spells and attacks (small mercies, eh?).

Other ways to upgrade your character

Of course, these abilities are only one part of the game, and there are alternative ways to increase your character’s strength. Job Medals are a key means of doing so and will grant specific boosts based on the classic of the medal. Jobs are the Final Fantasy way of referring to a character’s ‘class’ as they’d be known in other RPGs, by the way.

You can either unlock medals specific to a character, or apply a shared medal that may not have the best synergy but which will still provide a partial boost to your stats. Medals of the same colour will grant a synergistic boost, incentivising you to reroll your medals.

Overall, Dissidia Duellum Final Fantasy abilities are pretty straightforward once you understand how they work. But if you’re a complete newcomer, you can also check out our Dissidia Duellum Final Fantasy beginner’s guide for some more tips ‘n tricks on how to play the game!