Final Fantasy 15 AP Grinding: how to get AP quickly to unlock new abilities

Here's ways to buy new skills with a shed load of AP as quickly as possible.

Experience Points and leveling up are one thing, but Final Fantasy 15's character progression is actually divided into two distinct segments. While the concept of buying skills on a separate grid isn't entirely new to Final Fantasy, FF15's implementation is quite a bit different, with the currency used to buy skills, AP, earned in its own unique way as well as simply by leveling up and collecting EXP.

This is one of the few areas of the game not changed in some way over the first year of its release leading up to the launch of FF15 Royal Edition and FF15 Windows Edition for PC. On this page we're going to explain how AP and the Ascension System works, plus how to earn AP quickly.

• For more FF15 help, including advice on how to spend that hard-earned AP, check out our full Final Fantasy 15 Guide.

Final Fantasy 15 AP / Ability Points - how AP works

Character growth in FF15 works in two distinct trees of progression. The first is leveling up via EXP, which is covered elsewhere in our full FF15 guide. The second is AP and the Ascension Menu - an important system to understand and correctly exploit if you want to get the most out of the game.

The ascension menu is sorted into a variety of categories with each page containing a variety of skills, all of which will either improve Noctis, his buddies, the way they interact or just about all of the above.

Anything on these menus costs AP to activate, so having enough AP to spend and spending it wisely is important. There are some clever and small ways you can maximize your AP gain with minimal effort, however, and that's what we're here to help with. Let's get on with that, shall we?

How to earn AP fast in FF15

You'll earn AP for all the things you imagine: for levelling up, for finishing quests and so on. You'll also earn AP for smaller things such as answering in specific ways during conversation prompts or by battling in a certain way. Occasionally, your buddies will stop you before a battle to suggest a strategy. Go along with their suggestion and fulfil the objective and that'll be worth a little bit of AP for you - handy.

There are some little things you can do to ensure you get AP more quickly, however. A few tips on that...

• Defeat an enemy with a warp strike, blindside or parry. Doing this will be worth 1 AP per enemy. If you see an enemy with low health, smash Triangle/Y to hit them with a warp strike, quick!
• Camp. You earn 1 AP every time you do so, but you won't earn this if this is the same camp site as the previous time you camped - move around!
• Complete Tours. Tours are side-quests that are little favours for your buddies that will pop at random the morning after camping. There's several of these and they're worth 20 AP each.

On top of these bonuses, there are a number of skills you can pick up in ascension that'll give you AP bonuses when you complete certain actions. These are:

• Armiger Action: This skill on the armiger page gives you 1 AP every time you activate armiger.
• Armiger-Chain Reaction: This skill offers 1 AP every time you activate armiger chain.
• Magic Action: This skill gives you 1 AP every time you cast a spell.
• Roadrunning: 1 AP given for every 1 and a quarter miles driven in your car. This counts for when Ignis is driving so long as you don't fast travel and for when the car can fly later on.
• Chocobump: 1 AP given every so often when you're riding a Chocobo.
• Chocojockey: 1 AP each time you win a Chocobo race.
• Angler Action: 1 AP for catching a fish.
• Appetize: 1 AP for cooking a party member's favourite food, marked on the cooking menu by SNES-era FF style sprite of them celebrating.

These skills are mostly found in the Exploration section of Ascension and are serious business. 1 AP might not look like much, but it adds up. Even those driving bonuses: just let Ignis drive and go get a sandwich - you'll earn 3 or 4 AP along the way, which is very useful indeed. If you want some advice on other skills to pick up, we've got you covered - have a read of our page on the best skills to unlock in the ascension grid early on.

Grab these skills early and it'll pay off big-time over the course of the game - you'll be doing a lot of the actions they reward very often indeed.