Maelle remains Clair Obscur’s boss-killing machine, even after being nerfed

It’s been three months since Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 launched, and I still can’t stop thinking about and playing it. Clair Obscur’s story is excellent, and developer Sandfall Interactive crafted a combat system that is tremendously layered, with its party members’ abilities easily synergizing, and also tremendously challenging, at times. More than a few times in my 60+ hours with the game, I’ve been humbled, wondering if I should turn the difficulty up before hitting a wall with Clair Obscur’s challenging Act 3 content.

But you know who’s not getting wrecked? Maelle.

By the time Act 3 rolls around, you’ll unlock the full skill tree for the plucky teen, bringing with it some of the game’s most powerful abilities — for any character. Prior to the game’s first patch, Maelle’s Stendhal ability made breaking the game “a bit too easy,” as Sandfall wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter). Players could deal literal billions of damage, one-shotting anyone who stood in Maelle’s way.

Even post-nerf, Maelle is still Clair Obscur’s top killing machine, making a triviality out of any fight she wants to swiftly end. She’s so powerful that sometimes I feel like I’m going through the motions in using other characters’ turns to set her up for success, like burning enemies with Lune so Maelle can quickly use Swift Stride and enter Virtuoso Stance, which lets her deal 200% damage. For lengthier, tougher fights with enemies possessing seemingly infinite health, sometimes it’s fun to see just how big Maelle’s damage numbers can get.

And I’m not alone in pushing the limits of Maelle’s power. Search “billion” on the game’s subreddit, and you’ll see post after post of players hitting ridiculous amounts of damage. Her Stendhal ability may not even be her strongest at this point — one player used Maelle’s Gommage gradient attack to hit 1.3 billion damage, while another dealt a whopping 5.8 billion. Clair Obscur features so many Pictos and Lumina abilities, which boost character stats and give them passive bonuses, that can enhance damage and make those ungodly numbers possible.

Some players don’t want to just win fights, but want to see how badly they can break the game. And while Maelle is maybe the more popular killing machine, one who can reach those high damage marks during the natural flow of battle, fellow expeditioner Sciel is no slouch in doling out damage. Intentionally going into fights not with the goal of winning, but of utterly breaking the game means determined (and patient) expeditioners can absolutely break Clair Obscur with Sciel and her scythe.

One player hit over 46 billion in damage with one of Sciel’s attacks, noting in a Reddit post they “broke the boss early” and “probably could ramp up the damage even higher.” Another game-breaking player did just that and reached an ungodly 256 billion with Sciel’s End Slice attack. Now, after looking at all these numbers, my brain is as broken as this game is.

Maelle and Sciel are likely Clair Obscur’s two best damage dealers. Lune can hit some high numbers, but she’s often more useful healing allies or targeting multiple foes for high damage versus a single enemy for extreme damage. I still struggle maximizing Verso’s Perfection, and Monoco was a tricky character to get the hang of — it wasn’t until late in the game before I was punishing enemies with Monoco, though I doubt I’ll be reaching 1.1 billion damage with him any time soon.

Even though Maelle’s powerful Stendhal ability was nerfed in May, “you absolutely still can” break the game, as Sandfall has stated and many, many players have proven. And it’s only fair — anyone who’s reached the end of the Renoir’s Drafts level knows that even having an OP build might not be enough for the game’s toughest enemies.