Once you defeat Renoir in the Monolith, some story scenes will play out. When they're done, you'll spot a portal right in front of where you're standing. Walk through it to reach Monolith Peak. As soon as you arrive, look to your right and you'll find the Expedition Flag (Monolith Peak) for this area.
Keep walking along the path that goes upward. Eventually, you'll reach a cliff area where The Paintress is waiting. There's going to be a pretty long story sequence here before the actual fight begins.
How to Defeat The Paintress?
The Paintress is probably one of the toughest bosses you'll face in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. This boss battle happens in two phases, and each has a different set of attacks. Before you start this fight, make sure all five of your characters are ready to go.
Phase 1
The first phase is all about getting used to The Paintress and her attack patterns. She doesn't have any weakness to specific elements, so you can use whatever attacks work best for your team setup.
| Attack | How to Counter |
|---|---|
| Void Meteor | Watch the leftmost orb - parry right after it flashes, then keep the rhythm going |
| Gradient Attack | Wait for the screen to turn black and white, then parry after about one second |
| Chroma Waves | Parry three times quickly when the sound cuts out, then wait for the fourth wave |
| Chroma Scatter | Listen for the "tsk" sound from the orb, then parry right after |
| Rock Throw | Watch the rocks pull back, then parry as they start moving toward you |
During this first phase, you want to focus on staying alive and dealing damage. The Paintress hits hard, but her attacks follow clear patterns once you learn them. Lastly, Fire attacks work well here because they add burning effects that deal extra damage over time. Once The Paintress reaches 5% of her health, a cutscene will play with The Paintress summoning a giant statue of herself, and Phase 2 will start right after the cutscene ends.
Phase 2
The second phase is relatively harder. You'll be fighting in front of a giant statue. The major attack to watch out for is her Corrupted Chroma attack.
| Attack | How to Counter |
|---|---|
| Brush of Light | Parry as the brush starts moving toward you, not during the windup (Three consecutive attacks) |
| Flies into the Air | Parry when she swoops down - watch for timing changes as she gets closer |
| Rips apart the Reality | Wait for the projectiles to curve, then parry each one |
| Unleash | Seven hits on one person, then one hit on everyone - memorize the pattern |
| Corrupted Chroma | Can't be avoided - this puts a death timer on your whole team |
When The Paintress reaches about half of her health, she'll use her most dangerous attack: Corrupted Chroma. This attack does three things at once:
- Puts a death curse on your entire team - Every character will die in exactly 2 turns
- Gives her 9 shields that you must break before you can hurt her again
- Applies Powerless and Defenceless debuffs
This turns the whole fight into a desperate race against time. But here's the lifesaver: black orbs will appear floating around The Paintress's head. You need to target these orbs with your free aim attacks. Each orb you destroyed gives that specific character extra turns before the curse kills them.
After she uses Corrupted Chroma, The Paintress also gets nine shields that you need to break through before you can damage her health again. This is why you need to focus on parrying her attacks - successful parries deal extra damage and help break through those shields faster. A successful team-wide counter can help you take down 3 of those shields at once.
If your main team dies to the curse, don't panic. Send in your backup characters immediately. They'll also get cursed pretty quickly, but those extra turns might be just enough to finish her off. After you defeat The Paintress, you will get the following items:
- Painted Power Pictos
- Resplendent Chroma Catalyst x3
- Recoat
- 8,520 Chroma
- 144,780 XP
After you beat her, get ready for a bunch of story scenes. They go on for quite a while, so just sit back and watch. When everything wraps up, you'll start playing as a different character named Alicia and continue your journey into the Epilogue.
