How to Beat the Paintress in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

The Paintress is the omnipresent, unsettling presence at the centre of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. From the moment you arrive in Lumière, she’s impossible to escape; her towering Monolith casts a shadow on the horizon, a dire warning that time is short.

Each year, she wakes up to paint a new number, counting down what remains of the so-called Last Generation. Although the Paintress is the primary threat, she is still a mystery. No Expedition ever sent to face her on the Continent has ever come back, which only serves to enhance her frightening legend. She is powerful, untouchable, and the focal point propelling the story.

What is the Paintress in Expedition 33?

The Paintress isn’t just a name spoken in terror; she’s a ghostly, gigantic creature whom you can actually see from the city of Lumière. She manifests as a giant wooden mannequin with wispy white hair. Her size is unknown, but based on how easily she looms on the horizon, it’s certain that she stands at tens of thousands of feet tall. And yet, the Monolith she guards? It’s bigger still.

She’s locked chiefly in, coiled at the base of the Monolith in a deep, seemingly dreamless sleep. But once each year, always at the exact moment the sun is setting, she awakens. With a maddening precision, she scrubs away the digit painted on the Monolith and repaints it by one fewer. Any person whose age currently equals the new number is beset by the Gommage, a bizarre, instantaneous wiping from existence. No warning, no respite. They simply vanish, as though they were never born.

How to Beat the Paintress in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33?

Preparing your Party

In regards to destroying the Paintress, the optimum party is Verso, Maelle, and Sciel. Not only are these characters some of the most powerful ones in the game, but their abilities also complement each other well, particularly with the proper ability set.

Sciel creates enormous value via her Foretell system, which allows her to deal progressively greater damage while healing and generating AP for the team as well. Verso’s Perfection system works in the same way, allowing him to scale up his damage over time. Maelle, meanwhile, does much of the legwork by laying down Burn on the Paintress, which establishes a damage-over-time effect that stacks well with the others’ attack momentum.

In tandem, this trio forms a self-perpetuating cycle of burst damage, status ailments, and resource replenishment, perfect for outlasting and overwhelming the Paintress in one of the game’s most challenging fights.

Required Skills

Maelle’s Skills

Pyrolyse: Single-target Fire damage (3 hits) is high. It gives 5 Burn per hit, and +2 additional per hit when using Defensive Stance. This is your go-to Burn tool; use it frequently to maintain pressure.
Rain of Fire: Moderate Fire damage (2 hits). It deals 3 Burn per hit, or +2 additional in Offensive Stance. Excellent for rapid burst burn stacking and remaining safer.
Degagement: Low Fire damage (1 hit), but the actual value lies in weakening the target to Fire for two turns. Use this to enhance damage from Pyrolyse and Rain of Fire.
Fleuret Fury: Powerful Physical attack (3 hits). Maintains Maelle in Virtuose Stance if already active. Also has a chance to break the enemy. This is your go-to damage skill when Burn is already set.

Verso’s Skills

From Fire: Heals Verso for 20% Health if the target is Burning, completely pairs well with Maelle’s kit since it can sustain.
Burden: Removes status effects from friends and applies them to Verso. Use this to remove Curse and other debuffs. Also gains 1 Rank.
Speed Burst: High Light damage (5 hits). Scales damage based on the Speed difference with the target. Best for creating Perfection rapidly.
Berserk Slash: Steamrolling Physical damage (3 hits), increased by lack of health. Best for risk-takers looking to get the most output in critical situations.

Sciel’s Skills

Final Path: Massive Dark damage (1 hit) and inflicts 10 Foretell. It can also break the target. Employ this early to initiate her other skills.
Sealed Fate: Heavy damage in 5–7 hits. Every hit can use 1 Foretell to inflict 200% more damage, and critical hits do not consume Foretell to allow for additional efficiency.
Grim Harvest: Moderate Dark damage (1 hit) and restores all allies by 30%. For each Foretell consumed, +5% healing, which makes this your recovery of choice.
Plentiful Harvest: Strong Physical damage (2 hits). Burns all Foretell on target to give 1 AP per Foretell to a targeted ally—great to feed Maelle or Verso additional turns.

Attack Pattern of the Paintress

Part 1

Void Meteors: The Paintress summons seven meteors overhead, dropping them one by one, each targeting a different party member. Time your dodges carefully to avoid getting overwhelmed.
Gradient Attack: She lunges forward, conjures an orb, then slams it with her fist. The slam deals significant damage, so parry or dodge the final strike.
Chroma Waves: Sees four waves of light in a row. The first three arrive quickly, with the fourth arriving slightly delayed—wait for that last baited breath before letting your guard down.
Chroma Scatter: A massive black orb materialises above. When complete, it explodes five times, each one a second apart, with the fifth delayed. Master the rhythm and timestamp your dodges.
Monolith Rocks: She tears three rocks from the Monolith and throws them one by one at your team. These are quick and simple—be on guard and respond accordingly.

Part 2

Palette Weapon Summon: The Paintress takes flight and draws out a giant sword from her palette. The actual battle starts here.
Brush of Light Combo: She swings the sword three times with ~2.5 seconds between each. The third swing is slow, so don’t dodge that early.
Aerial Slash Barrage: She flies up and comes down on one party member, slashing five times. There’s a pattern here: each hit is spaced by ~2 seconds, except for the fourth, which is faster than usual. Expect the speed change.
Reality Rift: She creates a rift and shoots five orbs, each at a different party member. Observe the sky and prepare to block or dodge.
Seven-Swing Slash: She rushes in and strikes one party member with six rapid sword attacks, then concludes with a delayed seventh. The last hit lands the hardest—don’t drop your guard.
Corrupted Chroma Rain: Dark Chroma falls from her hands, dealing Curse to your team and protecting herself. Make sure to cancel the debuff and shatter her shield soon.
Distance Assault: A chain of three light attacks: first, a wave from the ground, then two light beams, and finally, one massive blast. The order of the attack may catch you off guard—pay attention to labelling each component.

Part 3

In the third and last stage, the Paintress no longer attacks. She falls, hurt and defenceless. This is more of a scripted scene than a fight.

You just have to keep on attacking. She will even heal your party as you do so. You don’t need to parry or dodge; it’s just a matter of pushing through until her health bar reaches zero.

Beating the Paintress

Defeating the Paintress is no easy feat—she’s the main menace in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 for a reason. To win, every party member must have a set role to play, employing their skills to help each other out and make the most of status effects. Here’s how to organise your strategy for optimal effect.

Maelle’s primary role is to use Burn as much as possible. This can be accomplished efficiently with Rain of Fire and Pyrolyse.

Always use Degagement to make the paintress vulnerable to fire before stacking the burn, to multiply all damage and status conditions from the fire, and to increase the use of burn that will be consumed. Maelle also earns from using Fleuret Fury, a tremendous damage skill that extends her in Virtuose Stance, maximising over-time output.

Verso’s function is to stack Perfection as fast as possible, something that can be done with Speed Burst and Berserk Slash.

These multi-hit moves charge up the Perfection meter very fast. After Maelle has applied Burn, Verso can follow up with From Fire, which not only damages but also heals Verso when low on health.

Verso is also a vital support character with Burden, which cancels Curse whenever the Paintress uses it.

Sciel is a versatile powerhouse in this battle. She uses Foretell with The Final Path, and then uses it back with a mix of effects like Sealed Fate, which does 5 to 7 attacks. All attacks can use 1 Foretell to inflict 200% damage. Grim Harvest restores all allies for 30% Health, with +5% per used Foretell. Abundance Harvest absorbs all Foretell to the target and gives 1 AP for every Foretell to a party member.

Through alternation among these skills, Sciel maintains healing for the group, dishes massive damage, and creates additional AP, which opens up for additional skill use board-wide.