Summary
- While offensive skills are important in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, supportive skills are worth investing in as well.
- Monoco's Sanctuary skill applies Regen and two Shields, enhancing party survivability.
- Maelle's Degagement skill weakens enemies to fire, maximizing party damage output.
Every party member in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has a skill tree. Some of these skill trees will be fully unlocked as players acquire the character, and other trees will take more time in the story to fully traverse. Most players will probably focus on learning offensive skills based on the game's various elements, but they should also look out for supportive skills.
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This does not include healing skills in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which are important too, but are on a whole other level. Supportive skills, instead, are the ones that can buff the party or debuff enemies. Let's go through some must-have examples in the game, which will be ranked based on their usefulness in battle.
7 Leadership
Gives Allies AP
- Character: Verso
All skills in the game require AP, and there are several ways to gain it, including supportive skills to reapply AP elsewhere. The Leadership skill is one for Verso in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which will reduce his Perfection rank by one letter grade in exchange for giving his other allies two to four AP, which increases more if Verso starts in rank C.
Maelle has an AP buff too called Mezzo Forte, which will allow her to solidify her Stance and give herself two to four AP. Sciel has Intervention, which lets one ally act immediately after gaining four AP. These are both good, but Verso’s Leadership skill is the best of the three.
6 Sanctuary
Applies Regen And Two Shields To Party
- Character: Monoco
The Sanctuary skill is for Monoco, and it’s actually called a Gradient Attack, which is more like Limit Breaks, akin to Final Fantasy games. It is a healing skill, mostly as it applies Regen to the party, which will continually heal them on turns.
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Moreover, it will give each party member two Shields. A Shield can absorb damage upon taking a hit, and it doesn’t matter if that hit deals one damage or over a million. A Shield will block damage completely, but will disappear afterward.
5 Degagement
Make The Enemy Temporarily Weak To Fire
- Character: Maelle
The Degagement skill is a rare type in the game that players can use to break bosses. Maelle’s main element is aligned to fire-based damage, and most skills will apply a status effect called Burn in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
Burn will damage a foe on every turn, and the more Burn effects that are stacked, the greater the damage will be, especially if that enemy is weak to fire-based attacks. Degagement is a low-damage dealing attack, but it will transform an enemy’s weakness temporarily to the fire element, which the whole party can then take advantage of beyond Maelle’s skill set.
4 Storm Caller
Applies Lightning Damage To Party
- Character: Lune
The Storm Caller skill is for Lune in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and it will not do any damage initially. Instead, it will give all party members an extra set of lightning-based attacks when they take their turn, no matter if players are using skills or normal attacks.
This will obviously be a good way to strike foes who are weak to the lightning element with more damage, but overall, it’s just a good buff to add onto characters. Like Maelle’s Degagement skill, Luke’s Storm Call is a rare skill type in the game, which makes it greater.
3 Dark Cleansing
Cures Party’s Status Effects And Buffs Allies Based On Enemy
- Character: Sciel
The Dark Cleansing skill is for Sciel in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, who excels at buffing the party and debuffing the enemy party with a wide range of skills. Dark Cleansing will heal the party of any status effects, but then the party will also gain buffs based on which monster Sciel targets.
If an enemy has strengthened its attack power with Powerful, then the party will get Powerful in its stead. It’s a weird and maybe even a confusing skill to be sure, but it’s not a bad one to learn for Sciel.
2 All Set
Applies Powerful, Rush, And Shell To Party
- Character: Sciel
The All Set skill is a more basic one for Sciel that any player can understand from the jump. It will apply Powerful, Rush, and Shell to the entire power for a short amount of time.
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Powerful will raise attack power as previously mentioned, Rush will increase speed, allowing party members to take more turns in battle, and Shell will increase defense. Sciel also has Rush as a separate skill, while Verso and Monoco have Powerful-based skills, and Maelle and Monoco have Shell-based skills, so there is plenty to go around.
1 Doom
Dark Damage To One Target And Applies Debuffs
- Character: Sciel
The Doom skill is another one for Sciel, and it’s also a Gradient Attack. It’s like the reverse of All Set as it will apply Powerless, Defenceless, and Slow to one enemy. Not only that, it will do a good amount of dark-based damage, which is great to use against foes weak to darkness.
If players build Sciel with a lot of dark-based weapons and Pictos in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, then they can get a lot out of Doom when they use it.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 92 /100 Critics Rec: 98%
- Released
- April 24, 2025
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Sandfall Interactive
- Publisher(s)
- Kepler Interactive
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- Number of Players
- Single-player
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- Playable
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Turn-Based RPG, JRPG, Fantasy
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
