Why you shouldn't use Maelle

[Garvi]

Clair Obscur is a fantastic game with striking visuals, amazing animation and a great soundtrack. However, from the end of Act 2 onwards the game looses all sense of balance.

Perhaps, like me, one of the aspects that drew you to the game was the engaging combat system. The sense of accomplishment from overcoming a tough boss fight, akin to that of a souls like is rare in today's gaming scene. Maelle, without optimisation, can and will trivialise content in the game. I was intensely disappointed to one shot the final story boss. All of the build up, the epic setting and sound track, simply deleted with a button press. I was level 55 (when i entered the zone) at the time, far from the level cap. I had made no effort to farm for optimal weapons or pictos.

TLDR:

If you want to maintain the challenge presented in the first act and the early part of act 2 - Don't use Maelle or at least her late game abilities.

[NOCTURN 浪人]

you should not use Painted Power for the main game content! Maelle is not the problem. Stendahl is one of her weakest attacks with the damage cap, as she only does 9999 max damage once instead of several million. the max damage of 9999 should only be broken for the optional endgame bosses. I did all the side content (except the two super bosses) before I went to Lumière at lv90 and had to reset my points and remove all my pictos, as well as only doing attacks that do less than three hits to make the final boss a little challenging. thankfully you can reset your points at any time. a typical rpg problem when you are allowed to do optional stuff before the actual end. Painted Power should only be obtained after the final boss and not after Act 2

[Fenrir]

There's no real way to avoid using an overpowered party member unless you just remove everyone and run solo with someone.

Verso is overpowered, Maelle is overpowered, Sciel is overpowered, Lune isn't as good as these 3, but she can still stand on her own, Monoco sucks early on, but gets good later as you find more feet.

[zefyris]

Just don't use Medalum and Stendhal. These two need to be fixed or/and nerfed.

There are really cool synergies that you can use instead of you still want to use Maelle.

Having her use her ability that deals damage in proportion of how much burn there are on target when your party can put hundreds upon hundreds of burn ( my second test of this build led to 850 of them just saying, and it wasn't optimal by a long shot) in two turns by smart team builds is way more satisfying than hitting one Stendhal button on turn one.

That's just one of the many possibilities you can do. Videos on YouTube are obsessed with giving the ultimate build that deals the most damage so they all flock for the same crap for her, but Maëlle isn't just that.

[Widgit]

Originally posted by zefyris:

Just don't use Medalum and Stendhal. These two need to be fixed or/and nerfed.

You don't have to use either of them. It's a single player game. Stop trying to nerf stuff you don't have to use in a single player game.

[Haruspex]

You're based if you use Monco anyway.

[Liquid_Softgel]

Originally posted by Widgit:

Originally posted by zefyris:

Just don't use Medalum and Stendhal. These two need to be fixed or/and nerfed.

You don't have to use either of them. It's a single player game. Stop trying to nerf stuff you don't have to use in a single player game.

This.

[Nero]

It wouldn't change thaaat much, but it would be cool if the devs did some balancing stuff regarding Stendahl.
Maybe Painted Power gets tiers?
PP normal -> max 99.999 - 5
PP II -> max 999.999 - 10
PP ultimate -> uncapped - 20

That would be 35 LP, if they work only when all are active at the same time.
But that wouldn't change that much.


Nerfing Stendahl would be another solution... but well... there is literally the cheater pictos in the game... So the devs maybe want you to break the game.


So the only realistic approach (which is still pointless if someone uses Stendahl) would scaling for story-bosses.

[Alt]

Main problem are specific pictos that give MORE damage when you have low HP, when someone dies, etc. And pictos that give you multiple turns in a row. If you use too many of them. Each characters in the party gets to make like 2-3 turns in a row before boss. That breaks all balance.
Right now im using solo Maelle Fire build in new game plus. And with all extra turns she gets it feels very balanced, with all 3 characters it feels very OP. Devs need to have a hard limit on pictos. Some picto's should not be able to be used with others. Or if you used one picto's passive for one character, then you should not be able to use it for another. Exception for painted power. Then you wont see insane damage and wont break turn system.

[fred]

You can self patch the game:
-Don't equip painted Power on maelle
-Don't Use the Void skills

There, patched.

Also, this:
''Maelle, without optimisation, can and will trivialise content in the game. I was intensely disappointed to one shot the final story boss''

...gaslighting. This is just untrue. Maelle is strong, she's very very strong, but breaking her is completely intentional. And no, you definitily cannot one shot the final boss if you didn't intentionally break her. In fact, late game Verso matches Maelle's damage almost to the number.

It's a single player game, you're responsible on how you play it. The balance is your own.

[Sharkinbear]

Originally posted by Fenrir:

There's no real way to avoid using an overpowered party member unless you just remove everyone and run solo with someone.

Verso is overpowered, Maelle is overpowered, Sciel is overpowered, Lune isn't as good as these 3, but she can still stand on her own, Monoco sucks early on, but gets good later as you find more feet.

Monoco does not suck early on. He might actually be the best support character in the game until damage cap is removed and you swap him out for Sciel. Monoco has several abilities that will fill an entire break gauge in one turn, can heal and buff thr entire team, and can bypass enemy shields directly. All of those abilities can be acquired as soon as you get him.

[zefyris]

Originally posted by Widgit:

Originally posted by zefyris:

Just don't use Medalum and Stendhal. These two need to be fixed or/and nerfed.

You don't have to use either of them. It's a single player game. Stop trying to nerf stuff you don't have to use in a single player game.

Well I don't use them. However, there has been plenty of peoples by now pointing out that those are bugged. And a fix would heavily nerf them.

Are we saying that since it's a single player game bugs are fine too?

[Fenrir]

Originally posted by Sharkinbear:

Originally posted by Fenrir:

There's no real way to avoid using an overpowered party member unless you just remove everyone and run solo with someone.

Verso is overpowered, Maelle is overpowered, Sciel is overpowered, Lune isn't as good as these 3, but she can still stand on her own, Monoco sucks early on, but gets good later as you find more feet.

Monoco does not suck early on. He might actually be the best support character in the game until damage cap is removed and you swap him out for Sciel. Monoco has several abilities that will fill an entire break gauge in one turn, can heal and buff thr entire team, and can bypass enemy shields directly. All of those abilities can be acquired as soon as you get him.

There's literally no reason to pick him early on when you already have access to Verso, Maelle, and Sciel, who are all significantly stronger than him. You can brag about how good his "support" is all you want, but he pales in comparison to everyone else, even Lune. It isn't until later on, when you manage to fight the more powerful enemies, that he can actually be good.

Even then though, there's absolutely no reason why you would opt for him when you can just make a team consisting of Verso, Lune, Maelle or Verso, Sciel, Maelle. You unironically don't even need the abilities you're bragging about him having. You can clear all of the content in this game without using him even once and it's not even difficult to do so, lol. Obviously, there's a part where your party is split and you're FORCED to use him, but yeah, you never have to willingly put him in your party and even in tier lists, he's considered the weakest among all of them (outside of Gustave anyway, who is worse than him).

[Widgit]

Originally posted by zefyris:

Originally posted by Widgit:

You don't have to use either of them. It's a single player game. Stop trying to nerf stuff you don't have to use in a single player game.

Well I don't use them. However, there has been plenty of peoples by now pointing out that those are bugged. And a fix would heavily nerf them.

Are we saying that since it's a single player game bugs are fine too?

go fight simon with the 'bug' and tell me it isn't fine.

[Soulshift]

I WANT to be OP. Plz link me the correct builds to focus on. Lol. And which weapon to upgrade to minimize wasted respec and upgrade items.

I use sciel maelle and verso

I dont even need full builds. Just which weapon stat to start pumping so i dont have to respec and which weapon to spend uograde resources on for each character. What is the goto opening combo for these chars.

[Sharkinbear]

Originally posted by Fenrir:

Originally posted by Sharkinbear:

Monoco does not suck early on. He might actually be the best support character in the game until damage cap is removed and you swap him out for Sciel. Monoco has several abilities that will fill an entire break gauge in one turn, can heal and buff thr entire team, and can bypass enemy shields directly. All of those abilities can be acquired as soon as you get him.

There's literally no reason to pick him early on when you already have access to Verso, Maelle, and Sciel, who are all significantly stronger than him. You can brag about how good his "support" is all you want, but he pales in comparison to everyone else, even Lune. It isn't until later on, when you manage to fight the more powerful enemies, that he can actually be good.

Even then though, there's absolutely no reason why you would opt for him when you can just make a team consisting of Verso, Lune, Maelle or Verso, Sciel, Maelle. You unironically don't even need the abilities you're bragging about him having. You can clear all of the content in this game without using him even once and it's not even difficult to do so, lol. Obviously, there's a part where your party is split and you're FORCED to use him, but yeah, you never have to willingly put him in your party and even in tier lists, he's considered the weakest among all of them (outside of Gustave anyway, who is worse than him).

This kind of reads as tell me you haven't used :Monoco without telling me you haven't used Monoco" energy. He is absolutely monster of a character to use. He blows Sciel and Lune out of the water on the damage front as well until post game. Lune requires setup to even get rolling. Sciel also requires set up to get rolling but let than what Lune needs. With the right set of skills, Monoco is immediately useful and does insane amounts of damage.

But as soon as damage cap comes off he still does insane amounts of damage but he can't compare to Sciel giving people free turns and doubling one person's damage. At the beginning of Act 3 I would say that he is the strongest character because his damage is built in upfront but falls off due to character synergy later. I was easily hitting 100k reliably on first turn as soon as Act 3 started.