Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 guide: Six tips to vanquish the Paintress
24.04.2025
Di Matt Cabral, Contributor
Choose to interact with the seemingly innocuous character, and you can expect the beret-wearing chap to promptly hand you your backside. The encounter will likely be the first of many difficult fights you face, but it'll be far from the last.
Of course, your battle with the busker will also provide a necessary lesson: Clair Obscur's turn-based skirmishes are sophisticated affairs that won't be won with brute force or mindless button-mashing. Deep, layered, and potentially daunting for the uninitiated, the engagements demand more brains than brawn.
With that in mind, we've moved past our embarrassment of being bested by a mime to put together a few hints, tips, and strategies to help future expeditioners gain the upper hand on the battlefield.
Maelle is the key to understanding combat
If you've heard anything about developer Sandfall Interactive's ambitious JRPG-inspired adventure, it probably involves the Paintress, a mysterious antagonist who inexplicably decides fates by scrawling doomed numbers in the sky. Beyond that intriguing set-up, though, you might be aware of the game's unique combat mechanics, which mix turn-based and real-time elements.
Even if you're familiar with these genres, however, you're still probably not ready for Clair Obscur's fresh take on party-based battling. An optional tutorial is provided early on, but once you play through it—which we highly recommend—you'll likely be craving a bit more practice to get comfortable with the complex systems and mechanics.
Thankfully, you can do just that toward the end of the prologue with young expeditioner Maelle. Foster sister to protagonist Gustave, Maelle is an ally that invites you to a playful duel, which serves as a perfect training session you can play over and over again. Whether you easily beat her, or she shows you who's boss, it's a good idea to keep challenging Maelle to rematches until you feel comfortable with the nuanced combat.
Perfect parry and dodge to reap rewards
This duel with Maelle also provides the perfect opportunity to learn the ins and outs of parrying and dodging. The two defensive moves define the real-time side of the combat, as you can seamlessly trigger them when an enemy attacks during their turn.
Dodging an incoming melee or ranged attack will avoid damage; parrying has the same result, but with the added bonus of earning an AP (attack point) you can invest in skills on your turn. The catch, however, is that a parry is much more difficult to perform than a dodge.
It's smart to only attempt parries once you've studied and sussed out an enemy's attack pattern, which brings us back to dodging. Because dodges are a good deal easier to pull off, it's best to leverage them early in a fight when you're still figuring out when and how a threat will be delivered. After a few dodge-focused turns, you should have a good handle on how your enemy plans to pummel you into the ground.
Decipher the difference between Pictos and Lumina
Clair Obscur's ambitious blend of turn-based and real-time combat elements is packed with nuanced layers that, when properly synergized, can turn seemingly tiny tweaks into big benefits on the battlefield. One of the coolest (but potentially most complex) involves Pictos and Lumina.
In the simplest terms, Pictos are items that characters can equip to boost their core stats, such as health, attack power, and defense. Each character can carry up to three of them. In addition to increasing stats, Pictos also carry a passive effect called Lumina.
This is where it gets tricky. Win four fights with a Pictos equipped, and you "master" it, unlocking its Lumina for any character to use. Other members will need to invest acquired Lumina Points to equip the passive bonus, but they won't need the original Pictos it was attached to.
So if you wish to put powerful Pictos' passives on the menu for everyone—like the ability to earn three extra attack points upon killing an enemy—you'll want to make sure you're regularly swapping out Pictos to achieve their mastery levels.
Master each member's unique battle mechanic
Unleashing basic attacks, smartly using skills and items, managing your AP pool, and knowing when to dodge and parry will get you a long way in a fight. But all these elements also tie into the most important tool in your arsenal: each expeditioner's special power.
While every hero can harness the aforementioned core combat elements, each also has a unique ability that is no mere palette swap of another character's defining death-dealer. Gustave, for example, sports a prosthetic arm that can be charged up to deliver health bar-halving devastation, while Lune uses a complex system of elemental "stains" to significantly enhance the enemy-obliterating effects of her skills. Meanwhile, Maelle leverages her fencing talents to strategize her attacks with a sophisticated stance system.
Again, none of these special powers are anything like the other, so adding a member to your team means essentially starting from scratch to learn what fresh twist they bring to the fight. For example, mastering Lune's table-turner requires putting in the time to not only learn what her elemental stains are capable of, but which of her skills generate or consume said stains.
All this is to say that, while it's tempting to lean heavily on the basics, it's well worth investing the time to focus on each expeditioner's defining power until you're comfortable with it. Putting the effort in early as each new character is introduced will pay off later when Clair Obscur's combat grows more challenging.
Free Aim and First Strike are your best friends
For all its deep, intertwined systems and mechanics, Clair Obscur also offers a couple of incredibly simple and straightforward ways to gain an edge against its frightening assortment of fantastical foes.
First up is "Free Aim," the real-time ability to point your ranged weapon wherever you like and fire off a shot. The game communicates that you'll need to use this method to bring down flying baddies, but it's also quite effective against ground-based threats, especially those with obvious weak points.
Free Aim does consume AP, but the tradeoff is worth it. Shooting weak spots will see a sizable chunk removed from your target's health bar, while the depleted attack points can be easily earned back in battle. There are also unique opportunities—like, say, a baddie clutching a land mine balloon just begging to be blasted—that do even more damage.
In many cases, you can eliminate an enemy entirely from the board with this strategy. Best of all, you can fire as many rounds as you have available in a single turn. In addition to the benefits that come with having a good blaster by your side, you can also use the element of surprise to your advantage. Specifically, starting a battle with "First Strike"—meaning you make the first move before entering the combat interface—gives you the upper hand.
Rather than having to quickly react to an enemy's random blow, you'll be placed at the top of the turn order, giving you plenty of time to survey the battlefield and strategize your own plan of attack. Beginning a fight with First Strike then immediately targeting weak points with Free Aim is a simple yet effective strategy that can mean the difference between gaining an advantageous headstart and hanging on for dear life.
Loot early and often
Like any good RPG worth its weight in shiny trinkets, Clair Obscur's world is littered with plenty of resources, currencies, and other items ripe for collecting. That said, the adventure's first five-or-so hours could fool you into thinking loot isn't all that important.
While you'll stuff plenty of goodies into your inventory, you'll have little use for most of them until you make it to the expeditioners' camp and meet the first vendor. Because of this, it can be tempting to forgo exploration and focus on finding your next fight, which is usually right around the corner.
But trust us—retracing steps, following paths to obvious dead ends, and even getting lost is all worth it. The world is packed with nooks and crannies, and you'll want to seek them all out. There's a ton of glowing loot to be discovered and, while it may seem superfluous at first, you'll appreciate having a stacked inventory when you reach the story's six-or-so hour mark.
You can enjoy Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 right now on Epic Games Store.