Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 hard limits damage to 9,999 per hit for most of the game. The cap is story-locked and applies to every character equally until a specific point in the main campaign. You cannot remove the cap early through builds or items. That’s why Lune and Sciel feel very powerful at the start. They can stack multiple hits, procs, and damage over time, which keeps them strong even when heavy single attacks fall flat. Once removed, damage scaling takes a complete change, and a lot of late-game fights are balanced around having it unlocked. This guide shows how the damage cap works, how to remove it, and what happens afterward.
How to Remove the Damage Cap in Expedition 33
Equip Painted Power Pictos
The damage cap in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 can be removed by Painted Power Picto, which has the effect: Damage can exceed 9,999. You can receive Painted Power by defeating the Paintress in Inside the Monolith region near the end of Act 2. It’s a must boss fight, so there’s no way to miss Pictos.
Once acquired, equip Painted Power to any active party member, and win many normal battles. With the progress, the effect will unlock as a Painted Power Lumina, which you can equip freely on all characters. From this point forward, the cap will be removed permanently unless you choose otherwise.
Challenge Modifiers and Optional Damage Caps
Challenge Modifiers let you control damage limits. After unlocking Act 3: Maelle, you can visit any Expedition Flag, open Challenge Settings, and choose to cap damage at 9,999, 99,999, or 999,999. Though it’s optional and good for players who want tough or long boss fights. By default, damage remains uncapped once Painted Power is active.
What You Can Do Before Removing the Cap
Multi-Hit Skills
Skills that hit multiple times can reach the cap repeatedly in a single action and outperform single-hit nukes during Acts 1 and 2. For example:
- Lune’s chain-based spells
- Sciel’s fast, crit-heavy attacks
- Maelle’s multi-strike sword skills
You might see five separate 9,999 hits in one turn, which is exactly how the game expects you to play until the cap limit can be increased.
Burn and Damage Over Time
Burn damage ignores hit caps and stacks fast, so Burn builds are still good even if you can’t land many direct hits. They’re great against tough bosses and can make the early Maelle builds very powerful.
Weapon Scaling
Want a serious Attack Power boost? Focus on upgrading your weapons because they have the maximum influence on this stat. The better the weapon, the better the Attack Power.
Counterattacks
Counter damage respects the cap per hit but scales largely with modifiers, which makes parry-based builds powerful early in the game.
Many optional bosses and late-game challenges are tuned with uncapped damage in mind. You can beat some without it, but battles will turn long, punishing wars of attrition. Painted Power is the game’s way to let your builds breathe, and once you see the first six- or seven-digit hit, you’ll understand the damage cap’s value.
