In Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the battle against the Paintress serves as a pivotal moment in Act 2. This guide will help you navigate her challenging mechanics, offering strategies to defeat her, counter her attacks, and manage her emotional final phase as the story transitions to Act 3.
How to Defeat the Paintress in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
This is the last boss fight of Act 2 and upon defeating the Paintress, the final boss of Act 3 Renoir comes into play. To get to the Paintress, you’ve got to ascend up the Monolith, going through all the familiar zones and enemies all over again. She awaits at the summit, right after your battle with Renoir.
Worth Noting: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is full of emotion and the battle with the Paintress stands at the most heartbreaking. When you trigger her final phase by reducing her life to the minimum, everything goes haywire. She chooses the opposite of gaining strength and accepts her defeat by choosing to heal your party instead of attacking. This gesture makes the players select between two hard choices: should they keep fighting, or should they stop? There’s no option to flee, however, so the fight is supposed to end with your victory!
Strategies You Can Use
Facing the Paintress can be quite challenging, here are some strategies you can use against her:
- Corrupted Chroma and the Curse Mechanic: After sustaining a certain level of damage, The Paintress will unleash her Corrupted Chroma ability, applying Curse to all members of your active party. This status effect will ultimately lead to your team’s death, but you can delay its impact by targeting the orbs of light that appear above her head. Shooting these orbs grants your characters two extra turns, increasing your chances of ending the fight before the Curse takes effect.
- The Importance of Parrying: During this phase, parrying The Paintress’ attacks becomes crucial. Parrying allows your characters to inflict damage even outside their turns, buying you more time and damage output within the limited four-turn window. Maximize your damage by executing well-timed parries throughout the fight.
- Preparing a Backup Team: Despite your best efforts, your initial team might fall to the Curse. In such cases, it’s wise to have a second team ready to continue the battle. While the Curse will affect them too, they’ll still give you a few additional turns to defeat The Paintress. Equipping the First Strike Lumina ensures your backup squad acts first when they enter, giving them a crucial edge.
- Building an Effective Team Composition: For the latter part of the battle, you’ll want to lean towards an offensive setup to maximize damage during the cursed phase. However, getting to that point may require a balanced team, incorporating support or hybrid characters like Monoco or Lune. Since many of The Paintress’ attacks hit multiple targets, it’s essential to equip AoE healing skills such as Pelerin Heal or Revitalization to sustain your party.
- Buffing Against AoE and Debuffs: Aside from healing, consider using abilities that apply Powerful or Shell to your team. These buffs help mitigate incoming damage and reduce the effectiveness of The Paintress’ debuffs to your damage and defense.
- Upgrading Your Tints: If you prefer running a damage-heavy setup, don’t forget to upgrade your tints. These can be enhanced either by collecting and using shards to increase their levels or by improving their shapes, which enhances their overall effectiveness in battle.
The Paintress Attack Patterns
Knowing about the Paintress’ attack patterns and how to dodge them can give you an extra edge when you’re facing this difficult boss:
Falling Orbs
- What Happens: Seven orbs drop from above and may stun characters if hit twice.
- How to Counter: Start dodging or parrying when the leftmost orb flashes. Spam the button at short intervals until all orbs fall.
Light Pillar Slam
- What Happens: The Paintress slams down her hands to create a strong light pillar.
- How to Counter: Use a Gradient Parry right as she brings her hand down. This move can’t be dodged.
Chroma Wave Combo
- What Happens: Four Chroma waves are launched using her palette. Getting hit lowers defense.
- How to Counter: Dodge or parry when she swings her left hand. The first two waves come together, then a slight delay before the last two.
Black Orb Pulses
- What Happens: A black orb sends out five damaging pulses that weaken your team’s power.
- How to Counter: Wait until the orb fully absorbs Chroma, then time your dodges or parries. The last pulse is slightly delayed.
Falling Rocks
- What Happens: Three large rocks crash down on your team.
- How to Counter: Watch for when the rocks pull back, then dodge or parry.
Paintbrush Swings
- What Happens: A glowing brush strikes your whole team three times.
- How to Counter: Defend right before the brush hits, not during the swing.
Light Ball Toss
- What Happens: Five balls of light curve through the air toward your team.
- How to Counter: Wait for the curve, then dodge or parry at the right moment.
Dark Chroma Shower
- What Happens: Applies Curse, Defenceless, and Powerless to all, and gives her 9 Shield.
- How to Counter: This move can’t be avoided. You must defeat her quickly before the curse timer ends.
Beam and Slashes
- What Happens: A beam is followed by three slash attacks.
- How to Counter: Jump over the beam, then parry/dodge the next two fast slashes and the delayed final hit.
8-Hit Combo
- What Happens: Eight fast hits that apply Burn, with the last hitting everyone.
- How to Counter: Learn the pattern and time your defenses. Be careful with the delayed final strike.
Air Brush Attack
- What Happens: She flies and dives at your character five times, causing Burn.
- How to Counter: Parry or dodge as she comes down. Timing changes with each hit, so stay alert.
Healing Move
- What Happens: Heals one of your characters.
- How to Counter: No counter needed—it’s a helpful move.
Rewards
Upon defeating the Paintress you’ll receive the following rewards:
- Resplendent Chroma Catalyst x3
- Recoat x2
- XP: 144,780
- Painted Power Pictos
