A good Sciel build in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 leans into her capacity for dealing high damage and keeping the party healthy. There’s no shortage of risky builds out there that have Sciel take extra damage just for a chance to land more critical hits, but we aren’t messing around with those. Instead, this one’s all about prepping strong combos and having the tools to keep the party topped up with health and AP.
Below, we break down the best Sciel build in Expedition 33, including her top weapon choices, most useful skills, and how to use them effectively.
Best Sciel build overview
You have plenty of ways to make Sciel hit hard, but she’s also one of the only characters with access to a selection of absolutely fantastic support skills. So, with Verso and Maelle having damage covered from every conceivable angle, we’ve opted for a support Sciel build. In addition to low-cost attacks with high damage potential, this build gets you a bit of free healing, some extra AP for the party, hefty damage buffs, and the opportunity to attack multiple times. And all of this without using a weapon that makes Sciel take extra damage.
The way Expedition 33 structures Sciel’s skill tree means you won’t be able to get every skill until a little ways into Act 3, unless you grind a lot. However, that’s not really a problem. You can get through Act 2 without the costlier buffs, and they aren’t essential until you’re facing down some of Act 3’s more challenging optional bosses.
Best weapon for Sciel
Sciel’s best weapon changes once you progress into Act 3. For most of Act 2, Ramasson is the ideal choice, both for the attributes it scales with and the passive healing buffs it provides. You can get Ramasson by defeating the Greatsword Cultist in the Flying Manor.
- Element: Physical
- Scaling: Vitality (A), Agility (S)
- Level 4: Consumes one Moon charge at the start of a turn to recover 20% of each active ally’s health
- Level 10: Base attack gives one Moon charge
- Level 20: Moon skills give one additional Moon charge
You’ll find it harder to enter Twilight mode with Ramasson eating a Moon charge each turn. But the passive health regeneration far outweighs Sciel dealing extra damage, since it costs no AP and it doesn’t take a skill slot or turn action. You can stick with Ramasson to the end of the game if you fancy it, though there is one other choice once you visit Lumiere in Act 3: Litheson, which you can get in Lumiere by defeating an enemy in the Central Plaza.
- Element: Physical
- Scaling: Agility (A), Luck (S)
- Level 4: All allies gain Greater Rush during Moon, and all enemies gain Greater Slow during Sun
- Level 10: During Twilight, all allies gain Greater Rush and all enemies gain Greater Slow
- Level 20: Once per turn, gain three AP for applying a buff or debuff
Speeding up allies and slowing down enemies without having to spend AP and an entire turn just to do it is an immense help, and that high luck stat comes in handy for one of Sciel’s more powerful skills.
Best skills for Sciel
- Sealed Fate
- Fortune’s Fury
- Plentiful Harvest
- Intervention
- Marking Card
- Searing Bond
This set of skills avoids using any high-AP cost moves like Twilight Dance in favor of easier-to-cast options, with Sealed Fate being Sciel’s biggest opportunity for dealing damage. That leaves you free to devote AP to support skills like All Set and Intervention, and when you do want Sciel to deal damage, you’ve got Searing Bond to apply Foretell and Sealed Fate to consume Foretell to deal even more damage. If you invested in Luck for the Litheson weapon, you’ll also have a high chance of landing critical hits, which keeps Foretell stacks applied on the target after using Sealed Fate. This skill also uses the weapon’s element, so you can wield it effectively against dark-aligned enemies.
Plentiful Harvest consumes Foretell to give the party extra AP, though if you find you don’t need extra AP, feel free to swap that for another Sun skill or Grim Harvest for party-wide health restoration instead.
Intervention lets one target ally act immediately, which is useful in general, but specifically so if you’re running something like a Dualiso Verso build, since that setup sees him act twice in a single turn. Fortune’s Fury doubles a single ally’s damage in their next turn, which can lead to some very high numbers indeed. We listed Marking Card to help Sciel set enemies up for allies to deal higher damage while stacking Foretell. However, if you’re struggling to survive and don’t need help dealing more damage, consider replacing it with All Set. That one applies Powerful, Shell, and Rush to the whole party in a single go.
Best Pictos for Sciel
- Stay Marked
- Double Mark
- Inverted Affinity
Sciel’s Pictos help keep marked enemies marked for others to take advantage of. Double Mark requires one extra hit on a marked foe before the mark disappears, useful for multi-hit attacks like Sealed Fate, and Stay Marked has a 50% chance of keeping the mark active when you attack a marked foe. Inverted Affinity won’t be available until much later in the game, but it makes Sciel “inverted” for three turns and increases her damage by 50%.
It’s also worth noting that, before the endgame, it doesn’t really matter if you have, for example, Double Mark as a Picto choice or a Lumina. By the start of Act 3, the important thing is just having the abilities available.
Best Luminas for Sciel
- Painted Power
- Augmented Counter
- Augmented Counter 2 (or 3 or 4, the goal is just stacking counter power)
- Energizing Turn
- Energizing Start
- Critical Burn
- Dodger
- Burning Shots
- Marking Shots
- Dead Energy
- Recovery
- First Strike
This set of passives gives Sciel plenty of AP to play with and helps bump up her damage when you parry. The burn and mark Luminas are what they say on the label — here to help apply burn and mark — while Recovery gives Sciel some HP restoration when her turn starts, and First Strike ensures she’ll play first. That one is important for using something like All Set or Fortune’s Fury before anyone else gets a chance to act.
How to play Sciel
This Sciel build has no rigid rotation and is flexible enough to let you choose what to do depending on the situation. If you want to press an advantage, use Sciel’s damage skills to wear foes down. If you need to set up a big hit from someone like Verso or Maelle, use Fortune’s Fury and cross your fingers that Marking Shots lets Sciel’s free-aim hits apply mark. The only rotation you definitely want to keep in mind is the one that’s mandatory for playing Sciel in general. In situations where you have the freedom to, make sure you use Sun skills to apply Foretell before you use Moon skills, since Moon skills deal much more damage when they can consume several stacks of Foretell.
Best party members for Sciel
Support Sciel works well with anyone, even Monoco. But if you’re wanting a team with the highest damage potential, that’d mean pairing Sciel with Maelle and either Verso or Lune. Maelle exists to deal damage, so she’ll be the party’s main DPS regardless of who’s with her. Verso also has a high damage ceiling and benefits a lot from Sciel’s buffs to the point where he can rival Maelle’s damage output, though Lune’s no slouch either. Her burning skills in particular help wear foes down while Maelle finishes the job.
If you use Lune instead of Verso, and if Lune is built around burn, focus Sciel’s buffs on Maelle, and don’t forget to use Intervention from time to time. Fortune’s Fury is nice, but with Intervention letting Maelle act again, you can manipulate her stances much more efficiently to set up powerful combos.
