Sandfall Interactive's wildly popular turn-based RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has only been out for a few short weeks now, but its players have already discovered ways to transform one of its best character Skills into a wildly overpowered nuke of a hit. As a result, the developer is now toning down its power with a nerf, with the change slated to go live tomorrow, May 9, alongside a variety of hotfixes on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, PS5, and Xbox Game Pass.
The Skill in question is Stendhal — an extremely powerful move in Maelle's kit that players get access to in Act 3 of Expedition 33's story. In exchange for depleting eight of Maelle's Action Points (AP), any Shields she has at the time, and hitting her with the Defenseless debuff that increases damage taken by 25%, Stendhal allows you to deal colossal high-risk, high-reward damage. On its own, it's already extremely potent; with various damage buffs and other bonuses, though, players have managed to absurdly spike its lethality, getting its damage numbers well beyond the two billion mark in many cases.
In case you're wondering, that's easily enough damage to one-shot every boss in the game, including the final one that "only" has about 45 million health. Compared to your average endgame attack setups that see you deal roughly 1 million each time, the insane power of a boosted Stendhal hit is on an entirely different, utterly ridiculous level. And for that reason, Sandfall is striking it down.
Expeditioners, a quick note on Stendhal and balance changes: We hadn’t planned to make any balance changes this early—just bug fixes, unless something clearly stood out. Well, Stendhal did.It was underwhelming for most of development, so in our final pre-release balance… pic.twitter.com/JwmC6luh3pMay 8, 2025
"We hadn’t planned to make any balance changes this early—just bug fixes, unless something clearly stood out. Well, Stendhal did," the developer wrote in a social media post early on Thursday morning.
Surprisingly, the studio revealed it was actually too weak before release, and got what was evidently a heavy-handed buff: "It was underwhelming for most of development, so in our final pre-release balance pass, we gave it a big damage boost—and clearly overdid it," Sandfall continued. "It ended up overshadowing most other options. We still want you to be able to break the game—and you absolutely still can—but Stendhal was making it a bit too easy."
Some have argued that overpowered builds like this shouldn't be fixed in single player RPGs like Expedition 33, but personally, I'm glad the devs are addressing this one. Rewarding players who intelligently buildcraft with strong and effective performance is great — ideal, even — but when setups like this completely vaporize any semblance of challenge that the game has, I'd argue an adjustment is more than warranted. That challenge is a big part of what makes Expedition 33 such an engaging experience, after all.
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Want to experience the god-killing power of Stendhal as it is now before the incoming nerf? Slap Act 2's Painted Power Picto onto Maelle to break through the 9,999 damage cap, then follow it up with Picto or Lumina options like Confident Fighter, Inverted Affinity, and At Death's Door to skyrocket your damage to orbit. Together with things like her Medalum weapon that gives you her 200% damage-boosting Virtuose Stance and enhancements from other team members, this deadly buff cocktail will have you exploding everything in sight with Stendhal in no time — and Sandfall encourages you to do so while you still can.
"You’ve got one more day to enjoy it in its current form and set some wild records. The adjustment will be included in our first full hotfix set, going live tomorrow. The patch will roll out on Steam first, and other platforms will follow," the studio concluded. "After the change, it’ll still be a strong single-hit skill with great synergy potential... just more in line with everything else."
Of course, fans of the Stendhal nuke are sure to still be disappointed. But hey, good news — fans passionate about breaking Expedition 33 have already cooked up a way to do something similar with Maelle's Gommage skill, so for now, you can still banish bosses to the shadow realm with billions of damage.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is out now on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC (Steam, Epic Games, Xbox app), and PS5 for $49.99. You also have the option of playing it on Xbox or PC through Xbox Game Pass, and can get it on sale for just $36.19 at CDKeys. It's one of the best Xbox games and best PC games of the year, and a must-play for turn-based RPG fans.
