Clair Obscur: Expedition 33is anawesome, JRPG-style,turn-based combat gamethat will test your limits thoroughly by its conclusion.
While combat is heavily reliant onQTE-styleparries and dodges that can make your fights much more manageable once you’ve mastered them, the early game will likely take some getting used to.
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Each member of your party hasa skill tree, which comes with many choices you’ll need to make right off the bat as you spend precious skill points to hopefully make your team as strong as possible.
However, this whole process can be a little overwhelming at first, as you might not fully understand what skills you truly need to focus on right away in order to give yourself the best fighting chance.
For this list, we’ll be taking a look at the most useful skills you may pick up in the game’s opening hours. While you’ll ultimately spend time with six total party members, the options below will only feature abilities for your first three available teammates.
This trio of Gustave, Lune, and Maelle is who you’ll unlock first, so they’re the ones we’ll focus on in order to best assist you with the early portion of the game, as you still get your sea legs in the world of Clair Obscur.
This list only includes skills you can unlock with four or fewer skill points. There are awesome skills for these characters beyond this threshold, but they fall more into mid-to-late game skills and won’t be accessible in the early game unless you grind alot.
10Lune’s Healing Light
Keep Your Team Healthy
Skill Points To Unlock
Pre-Requisite Skills
AP To Cast
Any fan of the JRPG genre will know that being able to replenish the health of your characters during combat is a talent that proves itself invaluable time and time again throughout a game. Clair Obscur is no different in this regard.
In the early portions of the game, Lune is your best option to play the role of Healer for your squad. In large part, this is due to the fact thatHealing Lightis a skill you can unlock for her as soon as you gain access to her skill tree.
With no pre-requisite skills needed,Healing Lightis a bit of a no-brainer to grab for Lune first. After selecting which teammate to heal, you’ll have a QTE to determine how much health she actually replenishes, ranging anywhere from 30% to a substantial 50%.
With a small AP cost of three points needed to use this skill, it’s a great option to get yourself out of a pinch if someone’s HP is about to run out. Additionally, the AP cost is free if Lune has two Earth or Light stains built up to consume upon casting.
9Maelle’sGuard Down
Setting Up Big Punishment
Degagement—2 Points
In anygreat turn-based game, it can sometimes feel bad to not actively deal damage with a character during their move. 6-year-old me would play the entirety of Pokémon while completely ignoring Tail Whip or Leer, just because not seeing my opponent’s HP dwindle down with each of my attacks felt boring.
In Clair Obscur, you’d be unwise to choose the same path as the first-grader version of me. Your party members can learn a nice selection of setup/buff/debuff-type skills, and you’d be smart to consider them.
Maelle’sGuard Downmove affectseveryenemy you’re currently fighting, and slaps them with a Defenceless debuff for three full turns. This makes each adversary take an additional 25% damage from each one of your party members until the effect wears off.
While casting this skill might not be flashy in the moment, you’ll be able to quickly deal with most foes once they’re burdened with Defenceless.
8Gustave’sPowerful
Getting Buff
Another move that won’t feel flashy in the moment but will pay off shortly is Gustave’s Powerfull skill. This one works as a buff, and can increase the damage dealt by each of your teammates by 25% if you nail the QTE.
Like Maelle’sGuard Down, this skill also lasts for a total of three complete turns. This gives you plenty of time to fully go on the offensive and beat every enemy onto the ground.
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The kicker here is thatPowerfulalso gives Gustave a bonus of up to two Charges, which are critically important for powering up his strongest move,Overcharge.
If you’re able to sync-up castingPowerful, fill Gustave’s charge meter, and unleashOverchargeatfull strengthwhile still buffed, not many enemies will be able to stand in your way.
7Gustave’sFrom Fire
Good Damage With The Chance To Heal
Marking Shot—1 Point
WhileOverchargeis clearly Gustave’s best attack once it’s fully charged, this process can take a while. Enter,From Fire.
This skill deals medium damage, which is pretty nice for such an early move. You’ll have to pick upMarking Shotfirst beforeFrom Fireis available on the skill tree, but you’ll see later in the list why this is a smart move anyway.
Not only doesFrom Firedeal medium damage by default, but it also hits your opponent a total of three times. This makes it an awesome option for inflicting some major pain while also only draining four AP points each time.
The move uses the element of your currently equipped melee weapon. Plus, if the enemy is burning, Gustave’s health will also be replenished by 20%.
6Lune’s Wildfire
Feel The Burn
Thunderfall—1 Point
If you’re like me, Lune won’t ultimately be in your party once you have some more options later in the game. Still, she can be incredibly useful in the early hours, and her Wildfire skill is a big reason why.
You’ll need to pick up theThunderfallskill for one point before Wildfire is available, but sinking three total points into Wildfire is still worth it and then some.
This move hits every enemy on the screen with medium fire damage. Having any move that affects every opponent is nice already, but when factoring in the fact that it also applies three Burn to every struck foe, Wildfire becomes insane.
Inflicting and stacking Burn amounts on your enemies is an easy and surefire way to make every fight in the game more winnable, so Wildfire applying it to every opponent at once is massive.
5Maelle’sRain Of Fire
The Perfect Setup
From the three earliest party members you’ll get to control, Maelle is easilythe onethat’s capable of becoming the strongest. Managing her stances takes some practice, but is worth the initial learning curve.
Sometimes, you’ll have to choose some of Maelle’s skills as setup moves for morepowerfuloptions down the line. We’ll see how this all works together later in the list, but ensuring that your opponent is burned is critically important for Maelle’s moveset specifically.
That’s whyRain of Fireis such a nice pickup early on. Not only does it deal medium fire damage to an enemy twice, but it also stacks three Burn onto whichever foe you target. If Maelle happens to be in her Defensive Stance upon castingRain Of Fire, this Burn total moves to five.
This is a great move on its own, but the next entry on this list will explain just why it’s so important.
4Maelle’sSwift Stride
Charging Up
If you’ve managed to inflict Burn on an opponent with eitherRain Of Fireor Lune’s Wildfire, thenSwift Strideis absolutely the next Maelle move you should select in a battle.
Sure, this move itself only does a low amount of physical damage to one enemy, which is certainly nothing to write home about. However,Swift Stridealso switches Maelle to her Virtuose Stance as long as the targeted enemy has the aforementioned Burn already applied.
Simply put, Maelle in Virtuose Stance is an absolute powerhouse, and it allows any attack she performs to come with a 200% damage bonus.
It’s definitely true thatSwift Strideisn’t phenomenal on its own, but the final entry on this list will prove to you why it’s so important.
3Lune’sMayhem
Breaking Point
Thunderfall—1 Point, Electrify—1 Point
Mayhemwill take a bit of investment and skill tree planning in order to pick it up early, but you should definitely think about doing so. You’ll need to unlockThunderfallandElectrifyfirst before it’s available, but each of those skills thankfully only cost one skill point each.
Mayhemis Lune’s most over-powered early-game attack. As you’re earning stains throughout an enemy encounter,Mayhemonly becomes more and more enticing.
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This move deals a high amount of elemental damage, and it only becomes stronger the more stains Lune currently has equipped during battle. Be warned that each use ofMayhemwill consume each and every stain, starting Lune back at zero each time.
Still, the damage Lune can build up with this one is super useful, and she has a high chance to Break an enemy if she consumes four stains upon usingMayhem.
2Gustave’sMarking Shot
X Marks The Spot
Picking up an early skill that requires little investment and can help carry you through the rest of your playthrough is a move well-worth your consideration.Marking Shotis one such move.
In fact,Marking Shotnever came out of my skill rotation for the entirety of my experience with the game. Its use was immediately apparent, and many of my battles were ultimately won because of it.
Marking Shotdeals low lightning damage to one opponent. As you’d expect, this alone is not what makes this move so useful. The cherry on top is that it also applies Mark to your enemy of choosing, which makes the afflicted target take an additional 50% damage the next time they’re hit.
Here’s an example of why this is huge: If Gustave applies Mark to an enemy and your next move is coming from Maelle, the 50% damage bonus from Mark combined with a damage bonus of up to 200% from Maelle if she happens to be in Virtuose Stance is truly god-tier levels of team member moveset synergy.
1Maelle’sFleuret Fury
The Finisher
Swift Stride—1 Point, Guard Up—2 Points
Finally, we’ve reached the show-stopper move for the early portion of Clair Obscur. If you’ve managed to get Maelle into Virtuose Stance through the means described above,Fleuret Furybecomes absolutely nuts.
This move takes a hefty six AP to cast, but saving up to unleash this one is well-worth it. Even if Maelle isn’t in the most advantageous of stances when you choose to useFleuret Fury, it will still hit your enemy a whopping three separate times with high physical damage.
If Maelleisin Virtuose Stance, that means you’ll deal this already awesome level of damage alongside a 200% boost from the stance.Additionally, performingFleuret Furywhile in Virtuose Stance also allows Maelle to stay in this same stance for the following move as well.
This means you’ll have back-to-back moves with 200% damage, and if you’re able to manage your AP and cast Virtuose StanceFleuret Furytwice in a row, victory will certainly be at hand.
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