Everyone Abused This OP Build in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33—Now It’s Getting Nerfed

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In Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Stendhal was previously the quickest means of annihilating everything. Upon unlocking this skill for Maelle, it became clear that it wasn’t merely powerful – it essentially shattered the entire game.

With the appropriate tools, enhancements, and planning, Stendhal was capable of dealing colossal amounts of damage, even reaching billions. Although this level of power was rewarding (and indeed it was), it came with a trade-off: it made the game’s most challenging encounters, such as the notorious endgame boss, Simon, seem trivial.

What exactly made this build so overpowered? It was primarily the Medalum weapon that amplified the damage greatly, causing Maelle to instantly enter her Virtuose stance, thereby enhancing her immediate damage output. To make things worse, abilities like Cheater, Shortcut, and Last Stand were also employed, resulting in an unyielding explosion of power, essentially creating a nuclear-like effect.

In simple terms, the impact wasn’t limited to a single occurrence. Skilled players, given the right tools and cycling abilities, could deal anywhere between 20 million to over 3 billion damage in a single strike, effectively transforming complex multi-stage battles into instant victories. The developers at Sandfall Interactive were well aware of this trend.

Initially, during the majority of the game’s production period, Stendhal was deemed unimpressive by them. This lackluster impression resulted in a sudden increase in its power just before launch, which was intended to be a minor adjustment. However, this seemingly small modification ended up creating a combat skill that was excessively potent, outshining all other available combat options.

Once the community found ways to overuse it, Stendhal transformed from an ordinary tactic into an unfair advantage, almost like a secret trick. Starting May 9th, Sandfall is implementing a fix that reduces the damage caused by Stendhal. It’s not a complete overhaul since developers still encourage players to creatively manipulate the game, but this specific situation got out of hand.

As Stendhal’s creators themselves put it, Stendhal will remain potent but balanced with other high-impact abilities, rather than being ten times more powerful than anything else. This adjustment has left some players dissatisfied, prompting the familiar response that “it’s a single-player game, so let people play as they choose.

As a hardcore gamer myself, I can relate to those who play on Expert mode. We thrive on being pushed to our limits and relish in the challenge. However, it’s not about disregarding skill or talent; it’s more about refusing to artificially handicap ourselves just to validate our victories. Winning through self-imposed struggle doesn’t feel like a true testament of our abilities; instead, we prefer to earn our triumphs fairly and squarely.

Indeed, there are other builds in Expedition 33 that some players might consider overpowered (OP). For instance, burn-focused setups using Verso or Sciel can deal massive damage when executed correctly, and players keep discovering methods to amplify buffs, lock the boss in stun, or exploit parry sequences. However, none of these strategies surpass the straightforward power of the Stendhal nuke in terms of sheer simplicity.

Ultimately, the purpose of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been to encourage players to test limits from the beginning. The developers are comfortable with designs that bend some guidelines, provided they don’t lead to a complete disruption of the game.

In Expedition 33, the adjustment to the Stendhal effect doesn’t signify the demise of excessively powerful gameplay. On the contrary, it could pave the way for previously overlooked tactics to become more prominent.

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2025-05-09 08:51