Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – Clea Boss Fight Guide

Out of all the members of the Dessendre family, Clea gets the least amount of screentime in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. While you might not be formally introduced to either version of her until Act III, the Nevrons you found throughout the game do whisper about a mysterious “Mistress,” their creator. It isn’t until you finish a boss rush in an optional zone that you come face-to-face with the painted version of the eldest sister and are forced to battle against her. Clea will test players’ mastery of one of the game’s core mechanics, so allow me to help anyone struggling to take her down. This guide will show players how to beat the Clea boss fight in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

How to Beat the Clea Boss Fight in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

The Clea boss fight can be found within the Flying Manor, found above the mountains to the southwest of Monoco’s Station. You will need to reach Act III and unlock Esquie’s Fly ability to reach this location. Once you do, you will need to make your way through the area and defeat 3 bosses: Eveque, Goblu, Lampmaster, and Dualliste. You can tackle them in any order. Once you have defeated all of them, you can grapple across a small gap near the center of the manor to find a giant door. With all the bosses dead, you can open the door and find Clea. Approach her and, after a cutscene, the battle will begin.

Party Prep

Clea is weak to Void damage while being resistant to Physical damage, but more important is her healing ability. Each time she attacks, she will begin her turn, surrounding herself with Chroma. Whenever she lets out an attack, the combo will end with her regaining a massive amount of health. You will need to parry the full combo and perform a counterattack to interrupt the Chroma, which will then stop her from healing. Even if you dodge all of her attacks, she will still get her health back. So you will really need to learn her combos or beat her in a single blow to get through this battle.

Since Clea is weak to Void, you will need to make sure you have Maelle in the party since her Stendhal attack isn’t just a powerful Void skill, but is just one of the moves with the highest damage potential. You will also need the Last Chance skill. This skill will drop you to 1 HP but instantly switch you to Virtuose Stance and give you 9 AP. When in Virtuose Stance and buffed by your team, use Stendhal to do massive damage. You should also have several Gradient Attacks that will switch you into Virtuose Stance at this point in the game, so use them when you can. I also suggest the Medalum weapon that you get for either winning the Gestral tournament with Maelle or defeating Golga with her. With this weapon, you will start in Virtuose Stance and give you a chance to instantly end the fight, which we will cover later in this guide.

Sciel can be used to apply Mark to get massive damage potential for follow-up attacks from the rest of the party with the Marking skill, but her main goal is to buff up Maelle with Fortune’s Fury. This move will double the damage of the selected character’s next turn. I also suggest using Intervention, which will allow you to select another party member to instantly play a turn with an additional 4 AP.

The last character should be Verso to further buff Maelle. Verso should use the Powerful ability to give the party the buff of the same name. This will give him and the party more damage for the next few turns. He will need to have an attack that has the ability to Mark. This can be Marking Shot, Defiant Strike, or a Pictos that has a chance to inflict Mark like Marking Shots. You can also use moves like Follow-Up and Steeled Strike if you end up getting a turn with Verso that isn’t used to buff the rest of the party. When you start the move, your turn will end, and you will need to reach Verso’s next turn without taking any damage. If Verso is hit, he will be knocked out of the move and it will be interrupted, meaning the only thing that happens is you just lost a lot of AP and a style rank. If you can get to your next turn, Verso will let out a massive 13-hit combo that deals extreme Physical damage with even more damage done if you’re at S-Rank.

To make sure you get the most out of your attacks, you will need to have the right Pictos and Luminas to buff up your characters. Firstly, make sure you have Painted Power to remove the game’s damage cap. After defeating The Paintress, this Pictos/Lumina should just be a mainstay on all of your characters. Because of Clea’s parry gimmick, having as many Pictos that give you buffs and extra damage when parrying is imperative. Use any Lumina that gives you AP on Parry, extra counterattack damage, or extra Gradient Charge.

If you have defeated Sprong, Cheater is also super useful since it allows you to play twice in a row. Shortcut is also really good since it will allow you to instantly play when you drop beneath 30% for the first time in a battle. If you couple this with Last Stand and Shortcut, you can get 3 turns back to back. I also suggest having Full Strength, Immaculate, and At Death’s Door. The first one will give you a 25% damage boost when at full Health, the second one will give you a 30% damage boost until you receive a hit, and the final one will give you 50% increased damage when you drop beneath 10% health.

Finally, here are some Pictos/Lumina suggestions that you could use in this fight:

• Painted Power- Exceed the 9,999 damage cap (All party members)
• Cheater- Always play twice in a row (All party members)
• Shortcut- Immediately play when falling below 30% Health. Once per battle (Maelle)
• Energizing Turn- Gain 1 AP on turn start (All party members)
• Any of the Energizing Starts- Gain 1 AP at battle start (All party members)
• Energizing Shots- 20% chance to gain 1 AP on Free Aim shot (Verso)
• Energizing Parry- +1 AP on successful Parry (All party members)
• Energy Master- Every AP gain is increased by 1 (All party members)
• Dodger- Gain 1 AP on Perfect Dodge. Once per turn (All party members)
• Empowering Parry- Each successful Parry increases damage by 5% until the end of the following turn. Taking damage removes this buff (All party members)
• Healing Parry- Recover 3% Health on Parry (All party members)
• Perilous Parry- +1 AP on Parry, but damage received is doubled (All party members)
• Shortcut- Immediately play when falling below 30% Health. Once per battle (Maelle)
• Longer Powerful- On applying Powerful, its duration is increased by 2 (Verso)
• Gradient Fighter- 25% increased damage with Gradient Attacks (Maelle)
• First Strike- Play first (Verso)
• Charging Altercation- +10% of a Gradient Charge on applying a Buff. Once per turn (Verso and Monoco)
• Inverted Affinity- Apply Inverted to Self for 3 turns at battle start and gain 50% increased damage while Inverted (Maelle and Verso)
• Charging Critical- 20% of a Gradient Charge on Critical Hit. Once per turn (Maelle and Verso)
• Full Strength- 25% increased damage on full Health (Maelle and Verso)
• Glass Canon- Deal 25% more damage, but take 25% more damage (Maelle)
• At Death’s Door- Deal 50% more Damage if Health is below 10% (All party members)
• Critical Moment- 50% increased Critical Chance if Health is below 30% (All party members)
• Teamwork- 10% increased damage while all allies are alive (All party members)

Clea Encounter

Clea is the creator of the Nevron enemies that you’ve encountered throughout The Continent, so it only makes sense that her attacks consist of different combinations of Nevrons that share a theme. This means that you will need to recognize the attacks of many of the game’s enemies to parry and interrupt Clea’s Chroma collection successfully. One of these attacks comes from “Creepy Nevrons.” This is a 4-hit combo that starts with 3 attacks from 3 different Noire enemies. Starting to the left of the targeted party member, a Noire will appear and, as it materializes, will pull its arm back. After a short pause and stepping slightly forward, the Noire will swipe at you. After this, the Noire will disappear, and then another one to the right of that enemy will appear and do the same attack. A third Noire will appear to the right of that enemy after it attacks to do the same thing. After all 3 Noire attacks, a Hexga will appear and run towards you. It will try to fake you out by throwing its club in the air before slamming down its hand on its target. Don’t parry when it throws the club, and instead wait a moment and counter the slam to ensure you avoid damage.

Another combo to watch out for is the attacks from “Powerful Nevrons.” Starting to the left of the target, Dualliste will appear and perform an overhead slash. After that, a Braseleur will jump in the air and take a long arc to perform a slam with its hammer. Finally, a Portier will perform its jump attack.

The “Nevrons from the deep” attack actually has two different variants, with one being an actual combo and the other being an undodgable move that can completely derail your run. If you get the text for the “Nevrons from the deep” and the first enemy you see is the Bourgeon, that means it will be performing its eat attack. This means it will eat a party member and remove them from the battle. Unlike the real Bourgeon enemies, you can’t just break the target to get this foe to spit your party member out; they are just gone from the rest of the fight. Luckily, this is the only move in this sequence.

If the “Nevrons from the deep” combo starts with a Rocher enemy appearing, this will be a 6-hit sequence. The Rocher will perform its two swing attacks that can be a bit hard to read before being followed up with Goblu’s two quick swipes. A Bourgeon will then appear to perform its head slam attack. As the Bourgeon disappears, Dualliste will make a surprise appearance and try to ambush you with its airborne slash attack. After a short pause in the air, it will quickly launch itself at its target for a swipe attack.

These last 3 combos are some of the hardest to dodge because instead of each Nevron simply performing their attacks one after another, these combos will mix combos of multiple Nevrons together. The “agile Nevrons” combo contains 6 hits and starts with two Lanceliers appearing on both sides of a party member and putting their spears behind them for a slow attack, before they perform these attacks, however, a Benisseur will suddenly appear and perform its spear combo. The Benisseur will perform two quick slashes before spinning. During the spin, the space is filled with the Lanceliers performing their thrust attack before quickly being followed up by an overhead slash by the Benisseur. The Benisseur will quickly leap and spin as a Jar enemy appears behind it. After a very brief pause, Benisseur will perform its last downward slash while the Jar spins toward you. After the spin, Jar will raise its weapon above its head and will slam it down on its target.

The “musical Nevrons” combo is a 5-hit sequence combining the attacks of the Danseuses and Troubadour enemies. Two Troubadours will appear and dance around to distract you. Then, a Danseuse will appear above the left Troubadour and perform the final attack from its dance combo, where it shoots a beam of energy in the air. Another Danseuse will appear to the right of the previous one and perform the same attack. This happens two more times, ending with 4 total attacks, with the last one being above the right Troubadour. After these 4 attacks, the Troubadour will charge forward and perform an upward swipe in unison.

The final attack to watch out for is a 7-hit combo from the “Violent Nevrons.” A Chalier will appear with Stalacts on either side of it. The Chalier will pull its sword behind its back and charge up a huge horizontal swing. While the enemy pulls the sword above its head to charge another attack, the Stalacts will stomp the ground in unison, performing an attack you will need to jump over. Once you land back on the ground, parry the Chalier’s swing. After this swing, the Stalacts will perform another jumpable stomp while the Chalier also jumps in the air. Parry the Chalier’s overhead slash right as you land from your jump. After this final attack from the Chalier, the Stalacts will stomp one final time. While it might appear the combo is over, they will perform one last swipe in unison after a short delay.

To 1-shot Clea, you should make sure you have the Cheater Pictos on every character, a high-level Medalum and make sure Verso goes first with Sciel following him. Have Verso apply Maelle with Powerful and use Defiant Strike to Mark Clea. Then, have Sciel use Fortune’s Fury and Intervention to double her next attack as well as make her play instantly with 4 additional AP. Along with some AP-boosting Pictos, she should start the fight with at least 8 AP. Then, use Stendhal. Make sure you have Cheater and Shortcut here. On your second turn (if the first didn’t already just beat Clea), use Last Chance to fill your AP bar and reenter Virtuose Stance. You will get a third turn immediately since you dropped below 30% health. Use Stendhal again. This should defeat Clea.

When she is defeated, you will unlock the Clea Achievement and get the Clea’s Life Pictos. Return the Young Boy spectre at the center of the Flying Manor and talk to him. You will get to select one of the female party members to whom you want to give the Clea outfit. You will only be able to get one per playthrough.

You can now defeat the Clea boss fight in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Stay tuned to Gameranx for more news, updates, and guides for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as well as other great games in the future.