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The Paintress is a challenging boss fight inClair Obscur: Expedition 33. She loves using consecutive attacks that can be hard to read, curse party members, and deal a ton of damage.
However, The Paintress can also be easily defeated if players come prepared. Preparation includes choosing the right party members and skills, learning her attack moveset, and knowing a good strategy to take her down.
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That’s where this guide comes in. Read further to learn how to beat The Paintress inClair Obscur: Expedition 33in order to bring this expedition to a successful conclusion.
How to Prepare For The Paintress
In order to properly prepare for The Paintress, players will want to make sure they choose the best party members and their best skills. We discuss both in the following sections.
Best Party Composition
The best party composition for The Paintress isMaelle, Verso, and Sciel.These three are not only the strongest in the game, but they also work together perfectly if you equip the right skills.
Sciel’s Foretell will allow her to deal more damage to The Paintress as the fight goes on, and the same goes withVerso’s Perfection system. Meanwhile,Maelle can apply Burnto The Paintress, which will deal additional damage after completing a turn.
Best Skills
Your party is only as good as their skills, so it’s essential to carefully choose them before attempting The Paintress boss fight. Check out the grid below for my recommendations.
Party Member
Description
Deals extreme single target Fire damage. 3 hits. Applies 5 Burn per hit. Offensive Stance: Applies 2 more Burn per hit.
Rain of Fire
Deals medium single target Fire damage. 2 hits. Applies 3 Burn per hit. Defensive stance: applies 2 more Burn per hit.
Degagement
Deals low single target Fire damage. 1 hit. Target becomes weak to Fire damage for 2 turns.
Fleuret Fury
Deals high single target Physical damage. 3 hits. If in Virtuose Stance, stay in Virtuose Stance. Can Break an enemy.
Speed Burst
Deals high single target Light damage. 5 hits. Damage increased by Speed difference with the target. C Rank: Increased damage.
Deals medium single target damage. 3 hits. Uses weapon’s element. Heals self by 20% Health if the target Burns. B Rank: Increased damage.
Removes all Status Effects from all allies and applies them to Verso. Gains 1 Rank.
Berserk Slash
Deals medium single target Physical damage. 3 hits. Damage is increased for each Health Verso is missing. C Rank: Increased damage.
Grim Harvest
Deals medium single target Dark damage. 1 hit. Heals all allies by 30% Health. Consumes Foretell to increase Heal by 5% per Foretell.
Plentiful Harvest
Deals medium single target Physical damage. 2 hits. Consumes all Foretell on a target and gives 1 AP to a party member for each Foretell consumed.
Sealed Fate
Deals high single target damage. 5 to 7 hits. Uses weapon’s element. Each hit can consume 1 Foretell to deal 200% more damage. Critical Hits don’t remove the Foretell but still gets the damage increase.
Final Path
Deals extreme single target Dark damage and applies 10 Foretell. 1 hit. Can break an enemy.
Feel free to add any of your favorite skills to the remaining two slots for each party member if they’re not already listed above.
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These skills are what got me through the Paintress boss fight with almost no struggle at all. This guide will explain why these skills are the best choices in the “How to Beat The Paintress” section further down.
The Paintress Attack Breakdown
Before we get into how to beat The Paintress, it’s important to fully understand her moveset and the best choice of action against those attacks.
First Phase
While The Paintress' first phase isn’t as challenging as her second, it can still be pretty brutal. There are five attacks in total to look out for during the first phase of the boss fight. Check them out below.
Attack Phrase Indicator
“The Paintress summons Void meteors”
The Paintress summons 7 meteors above her head and sends them down one at a time, each meteor attacking a different party member.
“The Paintress performs a Gradient Attack”
The Paintress lunges forward and creates an orb in front of her, then raises her fist and slams it down to perform a Gradient Attack.
Gradient Parry
“The Paintress throws Chroma Waves”
The Paintress shoots off four waves of light with a second between the first three. The fourth wave has a slight delay.
“The Paintress scatters Chroma”
The Paintress reaches into the sky and creates a giant black orb. When the black orb is full, it explodes five times in a row. Each explosion occurs one second apart, with the last explosion being slightly delayed.
“The Paintress manipulates Rocks from the Monolith”
The Paintress summons three rocks and launches each, one at a time, at all party members.
Completing the first phase of The Paintress boss fight boils down to timing her attacks and perfecting your parries to get a counter in. Luckily, it’s fairly easy to get the timing down for all these attacks after seeing them in action a couple of times.
Second Phase
The Paintress second phase is a bit more complex. Each of the attacks mentioned below deals more damage compared to the first phase and are also a bit harder to dodge and parry.
“The Paintress summons her weapon from her palette.”
The Paintress flies up and draws a sword from behind her.
Nothing, automatically the player’s turn.
“The Paintress summons a giant brush of light.”
The Paintress swings her sword three times, with about two and a half seconds between each swing. There is a slight delay on the final swing.
Dodge or Parry
“The Paintress flies into the air”
The Paintress flies into the air and swings down upon one party member, swinging a total of five times. Each swing has a delay, about 2 seconds long. However, the fourth swing is much quicker.
Parry or Dodge
“The Paintress rips reality apart”
The giant opens a rift in reality and shoots down five orbs, one at a time. Each orb targets a different party member.
“The Paintress unleashes”
The Paintress lunges toward one party member and swings her sword seven times. The first six swings are fairly quick, but the last one has a long delay.
“Corrupted Chroma cascades from the hands of The Paintress”
The Paintress raises her sword and the giant drops Dark Chroma down on the entire party. This adds shields to The Paintress and also Curses the party.
To get rid of the Paintress shield, use your gun to remove it. Each shot will take away one shield.
“The Paintress attacks from afar”
The Paintress first throws a wave of light from the ground toward the player, and then shoots two beams of light, and then one final blast.
Jump and counter the ground wave, then parry the next three attacks.
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All of the Paintress' attacks in the second phase are pretty challenging to parry, so if you don’t consider yourself the best in that department, then focus on dodging. However, if you have mastered the parry mechanic up to this point, then I recommend going that route to execute a counter for extra damage.
Third Phase
The third phase of The Paintressboss fight isn’t really a fight at all. The Paintress will remain on the ground, wounded and afraid, and instead of fighting, she will heal your party members.
All you need to do here is continue attacking her until her health is drained. No need to worry about dodging or parrying here.
How to Beat The Paintress
To beat The Paintress in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, you want to make sure each party member plays a certain role.
Maelle’s focus here will be to apply burnas much as possible, which she can do throughPyrolyseandRain of Fire.
Make sure to also make The Paintress weak to fire through Maelle’sDegagementskill to increase the potency of Burn. Flueret Fury is a good skill to have due to its attack power, and its ability to keep Maelle in a Virtuose Stance.
Your goal withVerso is to increase his Perfectionas quickly as possible, which can be done with theSpeed BurstandBerserk Slashskills.
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Since each deal multiple hits, the Perfection meter will fill up quickly.From Fireis a good skill to use once Maelle burns The Paintress, as it will heal Verso when his health is low while also dealing damage.
Make sure to use Verso’sBurdenskill to remove “Curse” when The Paintress inflicts you with it.
Lastly, we have Sciel who is here to act as a healer, AP supplier, andheavy damage dealer.
TheFinal Pathskillwill be your primary way to apply Foretell to The Paintress, and thenGrim Harvest,Plentiful Harvest, andSealed Fatewillconsume that Foretell for increased effects.
For example, theFinal Pathskill applies 10 Foretell, and the rest of her skills can consume those to get the following effects:
As you can see, Sciel will be able to heal the party and even grant them AP quickly. This will allow your party to stay in the fight and use more skills, helping to kill The Paintress quicker.
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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
WHERE TO PLAY
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a ground-breaking turn-based RPG with unique real-time mechanics, making battles more immersive and addictive than ever. Explore a fantasy world inspired by Belle Époque France in which you battle devastating enemies.In this evolution of JRPGs, real-time actions enhance the heart of turn-based combat. Craft unique builds for your Expeditioners that fit your playstyle via gear, stats, skills, and character synergies. Open an active dimension in combat - dodge, parry, and counter in real time, chain combos by mastering attack rhythms, and target enemy weak points using a free aim system.With only one year left to live, join Gustave, Maelle, and their fellow Expeditioners as they embark upon a desperate quest to break the Paintress’ cycle of death. Follow the trail of previous expeditions and discover their fate. Get to know the members of Expedition 33 as they learn to work together against impossible odds.Explore an enchanting realm populated by surreal adversaries. Wander through breathtaking landscapes, from the Island of Visages to the Forgotten Battlefield, discovering secrets and hidden quests along the way. Find allies of fortune in creatures of legend and recruit special companions, access new travel methods and discover secret areas in the World Map.
