Sciel is a true heavy-hitter in your Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 party, offering a fairly straightforward way to make number go up compared to her counterparts.
While, yes, Lune and Maelle can dish out serious damage, both require some preparatory work to achieve that output, whereas Sciel only requires you to be aware of her comparatively more streamlined Twilight mechanic.
If you’re interested in the best of the best for your scythe-wielding teacher, this Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 guide will break down the best Sciel build, including her best weapons, attributes, Pictos, and skills to quickly dispatch foes.
Best Sciel build in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Image: Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive
Sciel works as a support unit and DPS, but we believe her talents are much better in a damage-dealing role. She’s at her best as the team’s primary source of damage.
With Sciel, you want to apply Foretell stacks on enemies and then trigger those stacks with the appropriate skills. The best skills for Sciel will allow her to mark enemies as well for her other teammates to trigger, so she works well with at least one other dedicated damage dealer — preferably Maelle.
The best Sciel build in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is:
- Attributes: Defense and Luck
- Weapon: Charnon
- Skills: Twilight Dance, Sealed Fate, Final Path, Delaying Slash, Fortune’s Fury, and Plentiful Harvest
- Pictos: Immaculate, Glass Cannon, and Inverted Affinity
Sciel’s best attributes by far are Agility and Luck. Her skills and playstyle are meant for someone who can attack often and deal critical hits, too. What’s more, in the game’s opening act, the best weapon for Sciel, the Scielson, scales well with the stats mentioned above. As you progress, you’ll be swapping weapons to the Rangeson and Charnon, respectively, but once you reach the endgame and the Charnon, you’ll have access to guaranteed critical hits. This allows you to Recoat her attributes away from Agility and put them into Defense instead.
Below, we’ll explain in more detail why this is the best Sciel build in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
Best attributes for Sciel
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Your attribute spread for Sciel will look different depending on how far in the game you are. Make sure to save a Recoat for the late game so you can prioritize the perfect attributes for the final stretch.
In Act 1, prioritize Agility and Luck for the extra turns and crit chance. (You can also put points into Vitality to give Sciel some survivability in the early game.)
In Act 2, the best weapon for Sciel becomes the Rangeson, so her attributes should reflect that. You should alter your strategy and prioritize Agility and Defense.
Once you get Charnon, you’ll want to Recoat your attributes again, only this time prioritizing Defense and Luck for that weapon’s scaling.
Image: Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive via Polygon
The best weapon for Sciel is the Charnon.
This missable weapon can be found by defeating the Gestral Merchant, Grour, at Renoir’s Drafts. To find this merchant, you must have Esquie’s diving ability, which you get when he reaches relationship level 6. Defeating Grour will allow you to purchase the Charnon. Hopefully you’ve been saving your cash — it costs a whopping 89,884 chroma!
The weapon’s strength comes from its Level 4 passive, granting guaranteed critical hits when Sciel is in Twilight. Sciel’s abilities fit into one or two categories, Sun and Moon. Using a skill will generate a card of the assigned typing. Once you’ve generated both a Sun card and a Moon card, Sciel will enter Twilight, offering increased damage and double the amount of Foretell you can stack on an enemy.
The goal is to ensure Sciel spends as much time in Twilight as often as possible, so it only makes sense you’d want a weapon that empowers the stance to new heights.
Best Pictos and Luminas for Sciel
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You will need some time to build up the best Pictos and Luminas for Sciel. The best Pictos in her case are Immaculate, Glass Canon, and Inverted Affinity. Below are the detailed descriptions of what these Pictos do and the stats they grant bonuses to.
- Immaculate — Speed and Crit Rate. 30% increased damage until a hit is received.
- Glass Cannon — Speed. Deal 25% more damage, but take 25% more damage.
- Inverted Affinity — Health and Crit Rate. Apply Inverted on self for three turns on battle start.
50% increased damage while Inverted.
These Pictos are pretty much the “One Shot Setup.” They provide Sciel and other DPS characters the scaling and damage necessary to dictate the battlefield. However, the trade-off of these Pictos is low survivability. If you’re not a God at Expedition 33’s defense mechanisms, maybe you should practice them as you make your way through the game and to Sciel’s perfect build. You can also offset this weakness a bit with the right Luminas.
We’d recommend using the following Luminas, depending on how many Lumina Points you have.
- Augmented Counter I
- Auto Rush
- Critical Burn
- Dead Energy II
- Roulette
- Empowering Parry
- Energising Jump
- Energising Parry
- Energising Start II
- First Strike
- Tainted
- Full Strength
- Painted Power
- Recovery
- Cheater
- Solidifying
- Sweet Kill
- Warming Up
Image: Sandfall Interactive/Kepler Interactive via Polygon
The best skills for Sciel are the following:
- Twilight Dance: Deals extreme single target Dark damage. 4 hits. During Twilight, extends Twilight duration by 1 turn. Consumes all Foretell to deal additional damage.
- Sealed Fate: Deals high single target damage. 5-7 hits. Uses Weapon’s element. Each hit can consume 1 Foretell to deal 200% more damage. Critical Hits don’t remove the Foretell but still gets the damage increase.
- Final Path: Deals extreme single target Dark damage and applies 10 Foretell. 1 hit. Can Break.
- Delaying Slash: Deals medium single target damage. 2 hits. Uses weapon’s element. Consumes Foretell to increase damage and delay target’s turn.
- Fortune’s Fury: Targeted ally deals double damage for one turn.
- Plentiful Harvest: Deals medium single target Physical damage. 2 hits. Consumes all Foretell on a target and gives 1 AP to a party member for each Foretell consumed.
These moves allow you to properly set Sciel or your chosen sub DPS unit for success. Fortune’s Fury will be your primary skill. Combined with a skill like Marking Card, it is perfect for unleashing considerable damage on the game’s more challenging encounters. Final Path and Twilight Dance are your primary sources of damage if you prefer another weapon. However, with the Charnon and its awesome critical hit passive, you can’t go wrong with Sealed Fate.