Duelist Maelle
Overview
Learn how to use the highest damage character in Expedition 33 with the Maelle One Shot Build. Our guide on Maelle will show you the best recommendations for weapons, luminas, skills and combos. We hope you enjoy this build on your journey to defeat the Paintress. One shot Maelle does just that, she one shots everything in the game turning the world into her playground. Under the right conditions, that are quite easy to achieve, Maelle can one shot even the most difficult of bosses several times over without you even needing to try. This Maelle build is intended for a solo setup but with a few lumina swaps it can also dominate with a team.
Stances
Maelle’s stance mechanic is one of the simplest in the game; she just has three modes: Offensive, Defensive, and Virtuose. Offensive stance Increases her damage but also the damage she takes. Defensive stance boosts her tankiness and AP generation. Lastly, the Virtuose stance which gives her a massive damage boost with zero downside. Every skill ties into a stance, applying effects and shifting Maelle between them. The catch is that Virtuose is harder to enter… normally. That’s where the Medalum weapon breaks the game design. Once you have it, you can stay in Virtuose permanently. The game intends for Maelle to alternate between stances each turn for balance, but Virtuose damage scaling is so absurd that there’s never a reason to make a build around any other stance.
Act 1 & 2
Maelle starts strong and never stops. She can carry you from Act 1 through Act 3 with minimal setup.
- Fencer’s Flurry applies defenceless to all enemies and provides solid AoE. It combos perfectly with Breaking Rules and makes the right-side skill tree more rewarding than the Fire path.
- Breaking Rules will break shields in rare cases but, more importantly, grants an extra turn against defenceless enemies, being able to have an extra turn in the early-game is very strong before you get the Cheater lumina.
- Fleuret Fury is a powerful early pick, but only if you’re in Virtuose stance (which requires Medalum). If you don’t have it yet, skip this until you get Last Chance.
- Last Chance is the key to making Maelle an absolute powerhouse, it grants you entry into Virtuose even without Medalum. Combined with the In Media Res and Solidifying pictos, it lets you play at low HP very safely and hyper-offensively.
- Mezzo Forte keeps you in Virtuose longer and restores AP if you need an extra turn to delay.
- Payback is great for solo runs. Since enemies focus you, this mitigates AP costs through parries and still hits hard enough to justify its slot early on.
If you’ve acquired Medalum, your gameplay is very simple, spam Fleuret Fury and Free Aim shots, maintain Virtuose with Mezzo Forte, and use other tools situationally. Without Medalum, rely on Fencer’s Flurry + Breaking Rules for AoE, extra turns and shield breaking. Once Last Chance enters your possession, it all comes together. At that point, you can open with Last Chance, swap into Virtuose, and start chaining Fleuret Fury and Free Aim as intended. Free Aim is extremely powerful with Maelle in combination with Virtuose stance from the huge damage boost.
Leveling
|
Level |
Spell/Passive |
|
1 |
Thunderfall |
|
2 |
Wildfire |
|
3 |
Electrify |
|
4 |
Lightning Dance |
|
5 |
Earth Rising |
|
6 |
Thermal Transfer |
|
7 |
Storm Caller |
|
8 |
Elemental Genesis |
|
9 |
Rockslide |
|
10 |
Crustal Crush |
|
11 |
Terraquake |
Attributes
Assuming you are using Medalum start with Defense for survivability and weapon synergy, then prioritize Agility to out-speed enemies. Finally, invest in Might to maximize raw damage. This setup takes full advantage of Medalum’s scaling and helps Maelle’s speed and survivability.
Act 1 & 2 Luminas
|
Lumina |
Location |
|---|---|
|
Augmented First Strike |
Esquie’s Nest – Defeat Francois |
|
Breaker |
Ancient Sanctuary – Defeat Ultimate Sakapatate |
|
Burn Affinity |
Frozen Hearts – Glacial Falls |
|
Confident Fighter |
Visages – Joy Path |
|
Critical Burn |
Spring Meadows – Small Cave |
|
Dead Energy |
Spring Meadows – Through a cave |
|
Dodger |
Spring Meadows – Defeat Portier |
|
Energising Break |
Flying Waters – Past the Chromatic Troubador |
|
Energising Start I |
The Continent – Beach North of Gestral Village |
|
Energising Turn |
Sirene – Defeat Boss |
|
First Strike |
Stone Wave Cliffs – Near Paintress Shrine Flag |
|
Glass Cannon |
Visages – Sadness Path |
|
Immaculate |
Visages – Boss |
|
Inverted Affinity |
Forgotten Battlefield – Trader Kasumi |
|
In Media Res |
Dark Shores – Sneak Past Mobs |
|
SOS Shell |
Flying Waters – Before Flag |
|
Staggering Attack |
Flying Waters – Before Flag |
|
Weakness Gain |
Inside the Monolith – Near Tainted Cliffs Flag |
Weapons
|
Item |
Location |
|---|---|
|
Weapon 1  Medalum |
Gestral Arena as Maelle |
Weapons Overview
As mentioned earlier, you’re going to want to get Medalum from the arena fight. Make sure you use Maelle and win the arena fight to obtain this game-breaking weapon. If you lose the fight or miss out on this weapon do not worry it’s absolutely not essential to have in the endgame. Medalum just allows you to almost always be in Virtuose stance without relying on other abilities, you will instead just enter every fight with an immediate 200% damage boost with zero effort.
Medalum is the weapon early, late, and forever. It’s obtained by beating the Gestral Village Arena with Maelle, which is easy since she’s built for it. Medalum instantly grants Virtuose access, making it the lynchpin of this build. However as I mentioned earlier it is absolutely not essential for the build because we will be using Last Chance to enter Virtuose stance at the beginning of fights anyway. You can really use anything you would like with her as long as it scales with Agility, Defense or Luck and has high base damage. Other options could be Stalum, Brulerum or in my opinion her best overall weapon by far which is Yeverum, the downside to this weapon is it’s one of the latest to acquire in the entire game.
Act 3 Luminas
|
Lumina |
Location |
|---|---|
|
Auto Powerful |
Floating Cemetary – Chalier |
|
Charging Critical |
Endless Tower – Stage 5, Trial 3 |
|
Charging Weakness |
The Reacher – Purchase from merchant |
|
Cheater |
The Continent – Defeat Sprong |
|
Energy Master |
The Continent – Defeat Serphenphare |
|
Greater Powerful |
Sirene – Purchase from merchant |
|
Painted Power |
Defeat the Final Boss of Act 2 |
|
Powerful Shield |
Endless Night Sanctuary |
|
Roulette |
Flying Manor – Petank |
|
Full Strength |
Lumiere – Purchase from merchant |
Pictos Overview
For Pictos use Cheater, Double Mark and Energising Turn. These will give you full critical chance and save you a bunch on Lumina cost.
How to Play
Once Act 3 begins, it’s time to retire Fleuret Fury and Payback in favor of Stendahl and Phantom Strike.
- Stendahl is the infamous button that turns Maelle into a divine being. The damage scaling is broken to the point of parody, and it will delete anything you point it at.
- Phantom Strike is slightly weaker but vital for AoE-heavy encounters. It builds Gradient Charge for using Gommage, which will also melt everything.
After obtaining the Cheater lumina, combat becomes trivial, open with Last Chance to trigger all your SOS luminas. Use Stendahl for single targets or use Phantom Strike for groups. That’s the entire loop, these three buttons will erase the game even against the final hidden boss, it turns one of the hardest fights in gaming into a joke.
This build is made for solo use, but there’s a trick to push it even further: send in an auto-death companion stacked with death-buff and debuff pictos. They’ll die immediately, giving Maelle solo bonuses while still weakening enemies. It’s optional, but it turns the build from a 10/10 into a 12/10. If you do decide to use her within a team then look no further then Support Sciel which can ramp her damage up even further beyond.
Check the links below to browse more of the Best Builds for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33!
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