Best Verso build in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 adds another character, Verso, to your party at the beginning of Act 2, and he’s as close as Sandfall’s RPG gets to having Adam Warlock as a character.

Built correctly, the Expeditioner can easily dish out more damage than Maelle or Sciel. However, he also has an incredibly high skill ceiling, requiring mastery of Expedition 33’s parry system to quickly max out his Perfection gauge.

Each Perfection rank, increased through successful attacks and parries, grants unique augments for certain skills and a passive damage buff. The key to a successful Verso build is getting him to S rank as early as possible to snowball his damage.

Best character build for Verso

How to play Verso

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Verso’s Perfection Rank is a special gauge that boosts his damage the better you play. It starts at Rank D and goes up to S – the higher the rank, the more damage he deals.

You raise it by landing attacks, dodging, or parrying. But taking a single hit drops your rank by one level.

Some skills only unlock extra power at certain ranks, so timing and defense really matter. Use fast attacks to build rank early, then unleash powerful moves once you hit S.

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Best attributes

Attack power and speed attributes take priority for Verso, just so you can make the most of his Perfection gauge.

• Agility: Increases your turn speed. Being able to attack uninterrupted more often will help Verso build Perfection faster.
• Might: While Verso’s skills naturally hit hard, Might is still important to keep him scaling with enemies while progressing through the story and beyond.
• Defense: Ideally, you never want Verso to get hit, but mistakes happen. For the Early Game, at least, investing in survivability is a good idea. In late game, once you’ve learned most enemy patterns and have access to top-tier Defense-boosting Pictos, you can drop Defense entirely.

If you’re having trouble keeping Verso alive with the above Early Game spread, Might can be lowered in favor of Defense until you feel confident enough to reliably perform parries.

Best Skills & Rotation for Verso

Picking the right skills is arguably more important for Verso than any other Expedition 33 character. As his Perfection gauge increases per hit and not per attack, multi-hit abilities are an absolute must to ensure S rank is reached as fast as possible.

Skill	Purpose
Light Holder	Efficient rank builder, solid Light damage
Follow Up	Top-tier AP dump at S-Rank (huge damage)
Phantom Stars	AoE Breaker and S-Rank nuke
Strike Storm	Excellent crit-based damage and S-Rank push
Perfect Recovery	Full heal + cleanse; clutch survivability
Powerful	Long-lasting party-wide damage buff

Verso also has access to some incredible party synergy skills, but these can largely be ignored until late game, where they become much more important.

Rotation

To begin a battle, Verso should focus on building Rank and setting up long-term buffs.

1. Start with Light Holder, which deals solid Light damage, grants a Rank increase, and, when enhanced, refunds 2 AP
2. Follow it up with Powerful to apply a potent team-wide damage buff that lasts 5 turns when used at A-Rank. This sets the stage for your whole squad to capitalize on amplified damage.
3. Use Strike Storm next. It delivers strong multi-hit damage and builds Rank while generating Perfection if it crits.
4. Once Verso reaches S-Rank, transition into a high-damage phase with Follow Up.
5. For groups of enemies or when Breaks are needed, unleash Phantom Stars to deliver massive AoE Light damage while potentially breaking enemy defenses.
6. Strike Storm remains a staple in this phase to maintain momentum and capitalize on high critical rates.
7. Throughout the battle, if Verso or the party gets hit with debilitating status effects or low health, Perfect Recovery serves as your panic button.

Best Pictos & Lumina for Verso

Outside of Steel Strike and other big finishers, Verso’s skills don’t consume much AP, and he’ll usually generate enough during natural combat.

You’ll want to give him a starting boost in this department, but otherwise prioritize Pictos that increase survivability and provide utility rather than his already high damage.

Pictos

The best Pictos for Verso are First Strike, SOS Power, and Sweet Kill.

• First Strike: Ensures Verso plays first, regardless of who gets the first strike.
• Sweet Kill: Verso recovers 50% Health when killing an enemy
• SOS Power: Verso gets Powerful when his health falls below 50%

Luminas

With a rather defensive Pictos lineup, focus on building Verso’s offensive with Lumina passives.

• Augmented First Strike: Enhances the first attack in battle, possibly increasing damage or applying additional effects.
• Breaker: Allows attacks to inflict the Break status effect, reducing enemy defense and potentially stunning them.
• Critical Burn: Increases critical hit chance by 25% against burning enemies.
• Dead Energy II: Grants 3 AP upon defeating an enemy.
• Dodger: Grants 1 AP upon performing a perfect dodge.
• Energising Break: Restores AP when successfully breaking an enemy.
• Energising Start II: Provides 1 additional AP at the start of battle.
• Healing Parry: Restores health upon successfully parrying an attack.
• Staggering Attack: Boosts Break damage by 50% on base attacks.

Best Weapons for Verso

Early Game

Weapon	Effects	Why it works
Sakaram	• Level 4: Can’t lose Perfection. 50% increased Base Attack damage.• Level 10: Increased Base Attack damage.• Level 20: Base Attack grants 4 Perfection.	Perfect for Early Game Verso while you accustom yourself to his playstyle, and scales well with Agility.

Late Game

Weapon	Effects	Why it works
Delaram	• Level 4: Start battle on Rank B, but 50% health.• Level 10: Recover 15% health on base attack.• Level 20: Apply Powerful on Rank B.	This makes some of the bonus conditions on Verso’s skills impossible to trigger without Leadership. The trade-off is that you reach S rank considerably faster for more DPS.