In the world of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, players have discovered a game-changing strategy that allows Maelle to unleash over 2 billion damage with her nuke build. Dive into this article to understand how to achieve this staggering damage output and learn about the adjustments Sandfall Interactive is implementing in response to this overpowered tactic.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Updates

Stendhal Hurts, A Lot

As the gaming community delves deeper into Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, new discoveries keep surfacing, including Maelle's ability to deal up to 2 billion damage. After completing the main story, players are drawn into the endgame, which offers additional narrative elements and formidable bosses. Facing these challenges, particularly bosses with massive health pools and one-hit kill capabilities, players have devised a nuke build strategy. Be warned, this article contains minor spoilers.

Maelle's skill, Stendhal, is central to this high-damage strategy. When in her Virtuose stance, Stendhal's damage can be amplified by up to 200%. To maximize this nuke build, players must equip Maelle with two specific Luminas: Cheater, which grants an extra turn, and Shortcut, which provides another turn when Maelle's health drops below 30%. Additionally, equipping Maelle with her weapon, the Medalum, starts her in Virtuose stance, and the skill Last Stand further enhances this by placing her in Virtuose stance while reducing her health to one hit point.

To round out the build, Maelle should also equip three of the following skills: Painted Power, which allows damage to exceed 9,999; Death’s Door, which boosts damage by 50% at low health; Confident Fighter, which adds 30% damage but prevents healing; and Inverted Affinity, which increases damage by 50% but turns healing into damage. With the right combination of Pictos and Luminas, Maelle can surpass 2 billion damage. This is significantly more than the 45 million HP of endgame boss Simon, enabling Maelle to defeat him 48 times over.

Players continue to experiment with different strategies and characters to push the boundaries of damage output, making the challenging post-game content of Expedition 33 both exciting and rewarding.

Stendhal Getting Nerfed

Recognizing the impact of Stendhal on gameplay balance, Sandfall Interactive announced on May 8 via Twitter (X) that they would be adjusting Maelle’s skill. Originally, no balance changes were planned for the early stages of the game, only bug fixes. However, the extreme damage output of Stendhal necessitated a rethink. Sandfall admitted that during development, Stendhal was initially underwhelming, but a last-minute pre-release balance pass resulted in an unintended power spike.

"We still want you to be able to break the game—and you absolutely still can—but Stendhal was making it a bit too easy," Sandfall Interactive stated. The adjustments to Stendhal will be part of the first full hotfix set, scheduled to go live on Steam today, with subsequent releases on other platforms.

2 Million Copies in 12 Days

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has reached yet another milestone, selling 2 million copies in just 12 days since its launch, as announced on Twitter (X) on May 6. The game has also received recognition from French President Emmanuel Macron, who praised Sandfall Interactive for their representation of French culture and creativity on Instagram.

With such success and ongoing updates, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a strong contender for this year’s Game of the Year. The developers are committed to enhancing the game further, with potential DLC on the horizon.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is now available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. For the latest updates on the game, be sure to check out our related articles.