Final Fantasy 16: How Healing Works

There are a lot of tricky fights that Clive needs to overcome in Final Fantasy 16. While he’s a very skilled warrior, he’s far from invincible and there are plenty of boss fights and other encounters that will put the player’s sword-fighting skills to the test. When he inevitably takes damage, players will need to know how to heal so that they won’t wipe to a tough enemy.

While it might sound like a simple task, it’s important to know the ins and outs of how healing works in Final Fantasy 16 so that players know how to best stay alive. There are a few different options when it comes to staying healthy that players should keep in mind since there are pros and cons to all of them. Here’s everything you need to know about how healing works in Final Fantasy 16:

More Final Fantasy XVI guides:

All Guides & Walkthroughs | Best Weapon Unlock Guide | All Consumable Upgrades | How to Unlock the Chocobo Mount |

Healing Explained

Clive’s health bar is found in the top left corner of the screen during combat. When he takes damage, the bar will empty and the HP number (which represents how much health Clive has remaining) above the bar will go down–simple enough. After taking damage, players will notice that the green bar goes down, however, there’s a lighter green bar that doesn’t diminish all the way immediately after being hit.

Essentially, the solid green bar represents how much total health Clive has left and the lighter green bar shows players how much health they can get back using certain magical methods. The light green bar will automatically disappear over time if you don’t heal a few seconds after getting hit or if you get hit again so you’ll want to use the methods below in order to make the most out of your healing options.

When using magic, you won’t be able to recover any HP that’s beyond where the lighter green bar reaches. In order to fully heal, you’ll need to use potions.

All Healing Methods

As mentioned above, there are a handful of different healing methods that you can use in order to regain health, however, they don’t all heal Clive equally.

• Potions: Potions are consumable items that instantly restore health past the light green line and can be mapped to the directional buttons by assigning them in the menus. They can be bought from vendors or found while exploring and will heal you for various amounts depending on what type of potion you’re using. The main drawback to potions is that you can only hold a limited number of them at once so as soon as you’re out, you won’t be able to use them anymore. If you pick up a potion while exploring and don’t have any open potion slots, Clive will simply heal himself with the potion automatically.
• Limit Break: This healing method isn’t unlocked until partway through Final Fantasy 16‘s story, but it can be extremely useful for regaining health when you’re low on potions. Limit Break is unlocked during a pivotal part of the game’s story in the first act and allows Clive to deal massive damage over a short period of time. In addition to dishing out a lot of pain for enemies, when using Limit Break by clicking R3 and L3 at the same time, Clive will regain health when landing attacks. The ability can heal you past the light green health line so it’s extremely useful to take advantage of when you’re out of other options.
• Party abilities: In Final Fantasy 16, you won’t be personally managing the party that travels around with Clive, however, of the people you fight with do have healing abilities. If you get hurt in battle, sometimes they’ll use their abilities on you in order to regenerate some health. The frustrating thing is that they’re totally inconsistent about when they do it so it’s best to not rely on them after taking any major hits.
• Torgal’s Cure: Clive’s dog Torgal has magical abilities and one of them is an AoE cure spell that heals wounds up to the light green line. Torgal’s Cure can only be used in combat and doesn’t last for very long, but if you’re in the spell’s healing radius, you’ll regain HP at a rate of 5HP per second.
• Flames of Rebirth: Flames of Rebirth is an Eikon Power in the Phoenix branch that can be used to heal yourself while dealing damage to enemies. The ability needs to be unlocked and is pretty pricy, so you’ll need to save up experience in order to equip it. When used, Flames of Rebirth does a large AoE fire attack that also heals Clive up to the light green line.
• Level up: Every time Clive levels up, he’ll be fully healed. Similar to the party abilities listed above, relying on leveling up to heal isn’t a completely reliable strategy, but if you’re getting to the end of a fight and have taken heavy damage, it might be worth it to finish the battle to see if you can regain your health that way instead of using a finite potion.

Now that you know how to heal, it’s not a bad idea to learn how to carry more healing items so that you don’t need to rely on magic or level-ups in order to regain your strength. Check out our guide on how to get all consumable upgrades right here.