Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has plenty of side content to keep you busy for hours, and you really have the freedom to do whatever you want once you reach the endgame. There’s only one main task required to complete the game during Act 3, but there are an estimated 30+ hours of content to explore in addition to finishing up the main story. These tips will help you navigate the late-game areas of Clair Obscur and give you a bit of guidance on how to unlock all the secrets across the Continent.

There are a handful of useful things to know for the endgame after you enter Act 3, such as how to fill out the rest of Monoco’s skills, where to track down all the remaining White Nevrons, or simply preparing for and locating all the secret bosses in Clair Obscur. Certain things in the endgame should be obvious, like equipping the Painted Power Pictos, but that’s simply not going to cut it against tough bosses like Simon.

10Side Content In Act 3 Is Much Harder Than The Final Boss

You Can Defeat The Final Boss Before Doing Optional Content

The first thing you should know is that there’s no downside to completing the main story whenever you feel like you’re ready to see the end. You aren’t required to complete any side content before seeing how the main story ends, and after completing the game, you can reload your save, which will set you back at the flag just before the final battle sequence. At this point, you can enter NG+ from any flag, but you don’t have to.

You can effectively complete the game and then continue to explore the remaining side content until there’s nothing left to do but advance into a NG+ run. That said, you don’t need to be max level (99) to defeat the hardest enemies in the game, even in NG+ when they are way stronger. You can save side content for the end of your NG+ run if you’re eager to dive back into the main story, but ultimately, there’s no wrong way to approach the endgame. Just be aware that when you start NG+, there’s no going back.

Use The Endless Tower To Unlock All Monoco’s Skills

The Endless Tower Has Nearly Every Nevron Foot Monoco Needs

When you first reach Act 3, it’s very likely that you won’t have anywhere near all of Monoco’s skills unlocked yet, but you’re in luck. The Endless Tower is a unique location that serves as a “Gauntlet” of boss-type enemies. Because Monoco’s skills are unlocked by defeating specific enemy types, you’d have to actually travel to each enemy’s location to take them out. The Endless Tower, however, allows you to simply advance through the Gauntlet to unlock these skills.

Completing the Endless Tower will depend largely on your weapon choices, party comp, and how many Lumina points you have available for each of your active party members (see below). It can be done relatively early if you have strong builds, or you can always use the Stendahl method with Maelle (also see below). Ultimately, you can unlock nearly all of Monoco’s skills by completing the Endless Tower. Just be sure to have him in your active party at each stage.

Don’t Kill The White Nevrons (Unless You Already Have)

If You Spare All The White Nevrons, There’s A Bounty Of Colour Of Lumina In It For You

At this point, you’ve already run into a handful of White Nevrons in Clair Obscur, and you’ve hopefully figured out by now that there are associated challenges or quests for each of these White Nevron NPCs. The important thing to consider at this point is whether you decided to go out of your way to kill any of the White Nevrons you’ve seen so far. If you haven’t killed any, then it’s in your best interest to keep it that way.

There’s an area in Act 3 called The Fountain where you’ll meet Blanche, who will reward you with 100x Colour of Lumina if you didn’t kill any of the White Nevrons. This includes the White Nevron Chalier in Floating Cemetery, who asks you to kill him after you defeat him in battle. You can collect your reward from Blanche after completing the White Nevron quests and sparing them all, then you can go back and kill them for the extra rewards. Alternatively, if you ended up killing one already, you might as well take them out along the way.

Equip These Three Luminas On Every Character

Cheater, Second Chance, & Energy Master Are Game Changers

There are three Pictos I would recommend converting to Lumina as soon as possible and equipping on every single one of your characters: Cheater , Second Chance , and Energy Master . Second Chance is unmissable, and you will have it as soon as you defeat Renoir at the peak of the Monolith, so you can start using it at the end of Act 2 and into Act 3. Cheater is available much sooner than Act 3, but only if you have it in you to defeat Sprong, the giant Nevron in the ocean.

Energy Master will be the biggest challenge of this set, requiring you to defeat the Serpenphare Axon flying over the Boat Graveyard. However, there’s a trick to defeating Serpenphare by overloading it with AP, so it doesn’t necessarily have to be a tough fight. Regardless, each one of these Lumina effects will make your life considerably easier during the endgame.

Grab The Best Weapon For Each Character

You Can Build Around Any Weapon, But Some Are Better Than Others

Crtain weapons for each character in Clair Obscur stand out among the rest, despite it being possible to put together a good build around any weapon. The first of these is Maelle’s Medalum, and if you missed it during the Gestral tournament, it’s worth taking on Golgra as soon as you can.

Character
“Best” Weapon
How To Get

Maelle
Medalum
Win the Gestral Village Tournament or Defeat Golgra in a duel.

Verso
Chevalam
Defeat the Chromatic Gold Chevalier in Crimson Forest.

Simoso
Defeat Simon in Renoir’s Drafts.

Sciel
Blizzon
Defeat the Chromatic Ballet in Falling Leaves.

Lune
Scaverim
Defeat the Scavenger in Falling Leaves.

Monoco
Joyaro
Defeat the Lampmaster in Flying Manor or the Ultimate Sakapatate in Endless Night Sanctuary.

For Verso, your best weapon is Simoso, but you’re not going to be able to get that straight away, so Chevalam is a better bet and is rewarded for defeating the Three Blades challenge boss, the Chromatic Gold Chevalier in Crimson Forest. Blizzon and Scaverim are both picked up in Falling Leaves, while you can get Monoco’s Joyaro by defeating the Lampmaster in Flying Manor before facing Clea.

Don’t Skip These Five Locations

The Reacher, Flying Manor, Renoir’s Drafts, Endless Tower, Painting Workshop

There are five locations I think are must-visits in the endgame: The Reacher, Flying Manor, Renoir’s Drafts, the Endless Tower, and the Painting Workshop. While there are obviously many more locations in Act 3, all of which have some level of reward worth tracking down, these five provide additional narrative context about the main characters in the Dessendre family.

If you’re interested in learning more about Clair Obscur’s story, each of these side locations provides some background to key characters, specifically Clea, Simon, Alicia, Aline, and Renoir, among others. Aside from additional character development, each location includes excellent rewards that are well worth the trip.

Complete Every Relationship Quest

You Can Romance Sciel Or Lune, But Maxing Out Relationship Levels Is Most Important

Aside from visiting the above locations, completing each relationship quest is probably the most important thing you can do in Act 3. Doing so will unlock the third and final Gradient skills for each character, and it will also unlock Esquie’s ability to swim underwater. Further, you’ll end up traveling to areas like The Reacher for Maelle’s quest and Sirene’s Dress for Lune’s, which both have worthwhile rewards.

More importantly, you’ll be able to resurrect Noco in the Sacred River for Monoco’s relationship quest, but you will have to face off against Golgra yet again. Advancing all relationships to max level is well worth the time, and aside from the final quests, all this requires is speaking to each character back at camp.

Stendahl Is Still The Best Skill In Clair Obscur

Maelle Can One-Shot Most Enemies Even After The Nerf

It didn’t take long for players to figure out that you can pretty much annihilate even the toughest enemies in Clair Obscur in a single shot using Maelle’s Stendahl skill. Originally, you were able to deal absolutely ridiculous amounts of damage with this skill through various buff and debuff bonuses, but Sandfall Interactive ultimately realized this was way too overpowered and released a nerf for the Stendahl skill.

An effective solo build is completely reliant on the Luminas you have equipped on the character.

However, this nerf doesn’t make it impossible to one-shot every enemy in the game. You can very easily buff Maelle as a solo build with Luminas such as Inverted Affinity , Solo Fighter , etc., that can get Stendahl’s damage into the multi-millions on the first turn, killing even the hardest bosses before they get a chance to play. Granted, this is a bit of a cheese, but it is intentional, and Sandfall stated on the official Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 X Account that the team still wants you to be able to “break” the game in some fashion.

Level Isn’t As Important As Lumina

Revisit Old Lumiere For A Colour Of Lumina Harvest

Ultimately, your endgame should be more focused on collecting, farming, or even buying as many Colour of Lumina as possible as opposed to leveling up your characters as high as possible. Lumina passives are easily the most useful buffs for your characters and party as a whole, and you won’t stand a chance without them. The next important thing is your weapon upgrade level, as Level bonuses and damage output will help defeat enemies much faster.

As of this writing, there is an exploit in Old Lumiere that you can take advantage of for theoretically an infinite amount of Colour of Lumina, though I haven’t seen this tested to its absolute limits yet. It’s likely to be patched soon, so if you haven’t gone back to explore Old Lumiere, make sure you take on the Chromatic Danseuse and harvest as many Colour of Lumina as you can.

Simon, Clea, Alicia, & Serpenphare Are Essential Boss Fights In Clair Obscur

Take These Bosses On If You Want The Full Clair Obscur Experience

Custom image by Katarina Cimbaljevic

There are a few essential boss fights that I don’t think you should skip in the endgame, which are Simon, Clea, Serpenphare, and Alicia. Not only do these bosses reward some of the best loot in the game, they are some of the most unique fights in the game in terms of boss skills and difficulty. If you want the full Clair Obscur experience, you absolutely need to fight Simon the old-fashioned way, just to see how your skills actually hold up.

If you can’t defeat enemies like Simon or Clea, you can always resort to the Stendahl method. However, I think it’s incredibly rewarding to defeat enemies like Simon by surviving all his phases and actually managing to dodge or parry his ridiculous attacks. Overall, taking on Simon and these other bosses will be the ultimate test of your Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 skills.