Summary
- Unique Gradient Attacks in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 offer strategic advantages beyond just dealing damage.
- Gradient Attacks like Sanctuary and Tree of Life focus on healing and support, essential for success in battles.
- Break Point and Tremor Gradient Attacks provide offensive power and utility, perfect for breaking shields and dealing high damage.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has a lot of mechanics that evolve as the game goes on. For example, it seems at first that players can only use Dodge or Parry to negate an enemy attack, but then a jump-based version will unlock later, and that's not all.
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There is a system in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 similar to Final Fantasy's Limit Breaks, wherein players can charge a shared meter among the party to use powerful skills called Gradient Attacks. Despite the name, not all Gradient Attacks are offensive. Of the party members in the game, players can unlock fifteen Gradient Attacks, and these are the ones that stand out the most, which will be ranked by their usefulness.
8 Doom
Dark Damage To One Target And Applies Debuffs
- Character: Sciel
The Doom Gradient Attack belongs to Sciel, and it can do a high amount of dark-based damage to one enemy, which is great if the enemy is weak to dark attacks. More importantly, it will imbue the enemy with several of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s status effects and apply Powerless, Defenceless, and Slow for a few turns.
Powerless will weaken its attacks, Defenceless will lower its defenses, and Slow will reduce its speed, meaning that it will have fewer turns during battle. It’s a good Gradient Attack for strategists out there.
7 Sanctuary
Applies Regen And Two Shields To Party
- Character: Monoco
The Sanctuary Gradient Attack will not do any damage at all and is instead a supportive skill for Monoco. It will apply Regen to the party, which will heal them on every turn for a few rounds, which is a great way to heal in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
The other effect will give characters two Shields, and Shields in general can absorb complete damage for a solid hit. Once a Shield is hit, it will disappear, but they are nice to have in a pinch.
6 Tree Of Life
Heal HP And Status Effects For All
- Character: Lune
The Tree of Life Gradient Attack is another supportive type, and Lune can learn this one. It will heal the party a good amount and, more importantly, it will remove pesky status effects like Powerless, which can lower attack power.
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It’s easily one of the best healing skills in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and players may choose to save Gradient charges just to have this on the back burner. It may get used a lot in battle, but it is far from the coolest Gradient Attack in the game.
5 Tremor
Earth Damage Targets All And Breaks Shields
- Character: Lune
The Tremor Gradient Attack is another one for Lune, and this one is an offensive type. It will target all enemies on the battlefield and strike them with high earth-based damage. Unfortunately, not many enemies are weak to earth-based attacks, but that’s not what makes Tremor good in the first place.
It will also remove every Shield the enemy party has with just one attack, which is huge for bosses or certain enemy types who like to apply Shields a lot like those sacrificial knights in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s Stone Wave Cliffs.
4 Break Point
High Damage To One Target And Can Break Them
- Character: Monoco
The Break Point Gradient Attack is another one for Monoco, and this one is an offensive type. It will target one enemy and do a great deal of damage, which is nice, but not the major perk. The Gradient Attack will automatically apply Break no matter where the enemy’s Break meter is.
Broken enemies in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 can lose a turn, buffs applied to them, and can take more damage, which is most useful against very tricky enemies like the many optional Mime bosses.
3 Gommage
The Ultimate Insult
- Character: Maelle
The entirety of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 revolves around characters being Gommaged, which means they get erased from existence based on their age. To avoid direct spoilers, let’s just say that Maelle gets the power to Gommage certain foes within the story.
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Eventually, players can get the Gommage Gradient Attack to use whenever they want in battle with Maelle. On weaker foes, it will kill them automatically, but on stronger enemies, like bosses, they will take an absurd amount of damage instead.
2 Angel's Eyes
High Damage To One Target, Raises Perfection, And Applies Auto Revive To Verso
- Character: Verso
The Angel's Eyes Gradient Attack is the one good one for Verso, which deals a great amount of damage to one foe and hits it multiple times. Verso’s specialty is called Perfection, which is a letter-based grade system that starts at D and goes up to S in a descending order, which is typical in Japanese games, albeit confusing from an alphabetical perspective.
Angel’s Eyes will raise Verso’s grade with each hit, basically guaranteeing to get up to rank S after the attack, and ranks will boost attack power. Also, Verso can withstand death once during battle as if an angel is watching over him.
1 Phoenix Flame
Burn Enemies And Revive Allies
- Character: Maelle
The Phoenix Flame Gradient Attack is a great one for a very specific situation, but still amazing on a grand scale. If Maelle is alone in a party after witnessing her teammates die, Phoenix Flame will resurrect them with a good amount of health.
It will also apply a large stack of Burn status effects onto an enemy, and players use their builds for Maelle right in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, they can absolutely dominate a boss by using Burn and fire-based attacks. That’s the biggest reason why this Gradient Attack is useful, but hopefully, players won’t go through losing two party members often.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
- Released
- April 24, 2025
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Violence
- Genre(s)
- Turn-Based RPG, JRPG, Fantasy
