Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Combat Guide | Tips & Tricks

You can make many huge combat mistakes in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and there are a lot of different mechanics between characters that can make you super powerful if you know how to use them. 

This guide covers everything you need to know about combat, so you’ll never have questions again. You’ll inevitably meet characters later in the story, so if you don’t want spoilers, save this guide and return after you’ve progressed.

Breaking Enemies

Each enemy has a Break Meter beneath their health that fills as you land hits. When it’s full, you’ll see a pulsing gold bar and a star icon, indicating that specific skills—like Verso’s Phantom Star or Perfect Break—will shatter the enemy’s guard. 

By breaking an enemy, you stun them and deal bonus damage, significantly increasing your DPS. Focus on high‑damage singular hits rather than many smaller ones to fill the Break Meter faster. Once it’s full, unleash a breaking skill to stun your foe, regain the turn, and follow up with heavy attacks.

Mastering Parry & Dodge

Although you already know how to dodge and parry, you might have missed some nuances. Parrying must be timed when the Attack connects, which can feel later than expected. Dodging is more forgiving, but generally, you should prioritize parrying because each successful parry grants one Action Point (AP) per character. 

If your entire party parries a party‑wide attack, you net several free APs. To practice, enter a battle, skip your turn, and focus solely on timing your parries until you’re consistently perfect. Equipping Picto like Energizing Parry, which grants +1 AP on parry, or Dodger, which grants +1 AP on perfect dodge once per turn, further amplifies this strategy.

Must‑Know Status Effects

You should know that Burn stacks quickly—especially from Lune’s Wildfire—and deals damage at the start of each turn, increasing exponentially with multiple stacks. Freeze prevents action for several turns but ends upon taking any damage, while Stun entirely skips a character’s turn, which is achievable by breaking an enemy. 

Inverted turns healing into damage, and Mark boosts the next damage instance by fifty percent, making it ideal before a big hit. Charm forces the target to attack an ally, Blight reduces max health by ten percent per stack, Berserk increases damage each turn up to twelve stacks, and Cursed kills the character when the effect ends. 

Bound prevents dodging and forces reliance on parry, Exhausted blocks AP gains from all sources, Dizzy causes misses, Violence prohibits skill usage, and Rage grants two consecutive turns. Many Picto interactions—such as Burning Death, which applies three Burn on death, or Breaking Burn, which increases Break damage by twenty‑five percent on burning enemies—leverage these effects for massive synergy.

Essential Abilities for Your Party

You should ensure every party member has three core abilities: a powerful single‑target damage skill, such as Sciel’s Final Path, which deals extreme Dark damage and applies Break; a multi‑target damage skill like Sciel’s Dark Wave or Lun’s Wildfire, to stack Burn; and a reliable healing skill, such as Sciel’s Grim Harvest, which deals Dark damage and heals allies by thirty percent plus extra from Foretell consumption. This combination ensures you can handle hordes, bosses, and emergencies alike.

Elemental Affinities

Enemies often have elemental weaknesses, resistances, or even absorptions. Attacks typed as Light, Dark, Fire, or Ice can deal fifty percent more or less damage and sometimes even heal the foe. Always check the affinity icons to exploit weaknesses and avoid resistance when targeting an enemy.

Weapon Scaling

Your attack power scales with your equipped weapon’s stats—for example, Verso’s sword may scale B in Luck and C in Vitality. Compare your weapons’ scaling grades and allocate your attribute points—such as Luck, Vitality, Defense, or Agility—based on your chosen gear. Remember that you can respec any time if you find a late‑game weapon you want to use permanently.

Ranged Attacks

Flying enemies often dodge primary attacks; switch to ranged combat (hold the left trigger) to shoot them down. Look for weak points—such as glowing orbs or head targets—to break shields and deal extra damage. Since ranged shots cost only one AP, you can strip shields quickly before swapping back to skills for maximum efficiency.

Gradient Dodge

When an enemy initiates a Gradient Attack, time slows, and the screen tints gray. You must press R2 just before the hit lands—not as soon as you see the flash—to successfully Gradient Dodge and avoid massive damage or one‑shot kills.

Gradient Attacks

You build Gradient Charges by spending AP with skills, and each charge enables a powerful Gradient Attack. Most characters have one Gradient Attack—for example, Luna’s all‑enemy Earth strike—that consumes one charge and can devastate single or multiple foes.

Tint Upgrades

Explore thoroughly to find shards that upgrade your potions, boosting their heal percentage (for example, from thirty‑five to sixty‑five percent) and increasing your maximum capacity for Chroma Elixirs. Keeping upgraded consumables between expedition flags means you can push further before resting.

Best Attributes

Attributes like Agility (which grants more turns), Vitality (which increases your health pool), and Luck (which raises your critical rate) are often overlooked. For example, Agility at 690 versus 300 can mean two turns per enemy turn, while Luck is especially potent when combined with Pictos, which grants extra attacks on crit. Defense reduces incoming damage and synergizes with Counterattack Pictos. Balance these attributes to suit your playstyle and gear.

Counterattacking

To counterattack, you must parry every hit in an enemy’s combo. A perfect parry chain yields a powerful counterattack with bonus damage. If you parry a party‑wide attack, your team counterattacks with augmented damage—devastating against bosses.

Buffs & Debuffs

Proper buff and debuff management is crucial. Buffs like Regen (which heals ten percent of max health per turn), Powerful (which increases damage by twenty‑five percent), Rush (which boosts speed by thirty‑three percent), and Shell (which reduces damage taken by twenty percent) can be extended via Picto interactions such as Longer Powerful. 

Debuffs like Powerless (which reduces damage dealt by twenty percent), Slow (which lowers speed by twenty‑five percent), and Defenseless (which increases damage received by twenty‑five percent) can cripple enemies when applied strategically.