Equipping Pictos allows characters inClair Obscur: Expedition 33to learn passive skills that give them a major edge in battle. Thanks to Gustave’s invention, the Lumina Converter, they can equip a lot more of those effects than previous Expeditions could. Luminas have the same effect as the Pictos that you learn them from.
With only three Pictos slots for each party member, and limited Lumina Points preventing you from just piling on all the best passives, you’re going to have to make some tough choices when it comes to outfitting your team. When in doubt, these top-grade Pictos and Lumina are always worth the investment.
10Energising Start 1
There are actually several Energising Start Pictos, and they all have the same effect; the equipped characterstarts each battle with an extra AP. It goes without saying that being able to cast morePowerful(that is, expensive) Skills straight away is a huge advantage, soeverybody should have at least one Energising Start Lumina equippedat all times.
Curiously,the earlier in the game you find an Energising Start Pictos, the better its Lumina is. The Pictos themselves will have different stat bonuses, especially based on their upgrade levels, buteach Energising Start Lumina in the series is more expensive to equip, for the same effect.Energising Start 1 costs 5 LP, Energising Start 2 costs 10, and so on. That means that if you’re planning to stack their effects,equip the Pictos for higher-numbered versionswhile taking advantage of the cheaper costs of the Luminas for lower numbers.
9Double Burn
Burn builds won’t be ideal for every battle, since some enemies are immune to Fire damage, but all other things being equal you may devastate your foes by having Maelle and Lune take point in a fiery party setup. For builds like this,Double Burnwill form a cornerstone of your strategy.
As its name implies, this Pictosdoubles the number of Burn stacks that the character inflicts, no matter how they do it. Whether the Burn is coming from Skills, weapon effects, or even other Luminas, it gets doubled, meaning the affected enemy is taking twice as much damage when their turn comes up.
Maelle in particular can apply dozens of Burn stacks at once with this Pictos.
8Roulette
Consistency is king in a lot of games, so it’s understandable if you’re inclined to shy away fromRouletteat first. Every attack made by a character equipped with this Pictoseither has its damage halved or doubled, with a fifty-fifty chance of either.
Statistically, though, Roulette means that you’ll deal roughly the same amount of damage overall between every attack you make. The trick is to stack it on top of other damage multipliers, like thePowerfulbuff orMaelle’s Offensive and Virtuose Stances; that way, when you get the damage doubler (which should be every other attack), you’ll double the multiplied number. If you get half damage, the buffs will negate most of the loss.
Critical hits also go a long way towards making Roulette effective, soequip it to characters with a high Luck.
7Sweet Kill
Clair Obscur is the kind of game where it’s a good idea tofind ways to heal without taking a turn to do so.A turn spent healing is a turn where you aren’t dealing damage, which gives the Nevrons another chance to strike again, dealing the damage right back.Sweet Killhelps you stay on the offensive byhealing the equipped character whenever they defeat an enemy.
Not only does Sweet Kill save on turns and AP, but it can alsopreserve your precious Tints and Chroma Elixirs. There’s no need to heal between fights if you may restore everyone to full just by striking the final blow of a battle!
6Solo Fighter
Battles can come down to one last character making a final stand surprisingly often in Clair Obscur. It may not always be efficient (or even feasible) to resurrect fallen teammates with a Revive Tint, so sometimes you’ll have to just grit your teeth and win a battle solo. Thankfully, there are a lot of Pictos and Lumina that are designed to help you do just that.
While it’s a good idea to have at least one character likeVersokitted out as a solo combatant, it’s a bit pricey in terms of LP to do this for everyone. Luckily,Solo Fighteronly costs one Lumina Point, making it easy to fit into everyone’s build. It increases all the damage they deal by a respectable fifty percent whenever they’re caught fighting alone, so make sure everybody has it… just in case.
5Shared Care
Lots of enemies, and nearly every boss, will hit the entire party at once, but healing powers that target more than one ally are very rare. Equipping your healers withShared CaremakesRecoverymuch more efficient, keeping your team fighting longer while spending less AP to do so.
Whenever a character with Shared Care heals one of their allies,they also heal themselves.The trick, of course, is not to get it mixed up. For example, if Lune has Shared Care and castsHealing Lighton Sciel,both characters will heal, but if Lune casts the spell on herself thenonly she will receive the benefit.
Like Energising Start,Dead Energyhas a full series of Pictos to find, and they’re one of the best ways to work some AP recovery into your build. Characters equipped with this powergain 3 AP upon defeating an enemy.
One of the best ways to get the most out of Dead Energy, even early in the game, is topick off weakened foes with Free Aim shots.If you may destroy a Nevron with three or fewer shots (possibly by hitting a weak point), you’llget back all the AP you spent as ammo, and possibly more. You can then actually take the character’s turn and use a Skill on another enemy using the recycled AP.
3Second Chance
Second Chanceis a very expensive Lumina, so it’s bestkept to a single character by equipping it as a Pictos. However, it can really save the day in harder endgame battles, so give it to a character who can hold the line on their own.
Second Chanceresurrects the equipped character automatically the first time they fall in a fight. It only works once per battle, but that will usually be all you need. Try pairing it withDeath and Revive Pictosto get the perks that come with dying and coming back, without any of the actual drawbacks!
2Cheater
It’s hard to find a bonus better than getting an extra turn. Taking more turns that your opponents is one of the surest ways to tip the scales of battle in your favor, makingCheaterone of the best late-game Pictos you can get.
A character equipped with Cheateralways takes a second turnimmediately after their regular turn. The list of ways you can exploit this benefit is huge. You can heal and attack without any loss in tempo. You can make a Base Attack to build up AP that you wouldn’t have had otherwise, then unleash a 9-AP Skill. You can empty a full clip of Free Aim shots into a foe, then drink an Energy Tint to get your AP back and do something else.
This is one expensive Lumina that’s worth making room for in everyone’s build. If your entire team has Cheater, they’ll fight twice as effectively!
1Painted Power
You’ll receivePainted Powerautomatically at the end of Act 2, and your first priority should beacquiring its Lumina and equipping it to everyone. Painted Powerremoves the damage cap on attacks, letting your team deal more than 9,999 damage in a single strike. It’s not just good, it’s positively essential against the powerful foes you’ll face in Act 3.
If you need proof that Painted Power is a requirement, not a bonus, look no further than its LP cost. A power this exceptional should cost a lot more than 5 Lumina Points… unless it’s expected that you’ll need it to have any chance of survival. As soon as you have Painted Power, equip it and never remove it.
As if you were ever going to do otherwise.
