Serpent Beacon Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 - How to Defeat It

Strategies for defeating Serpent Beacon

Serpent Beacon has a rather nasty strategy: it can disable your characters' skills. Indeed, on each of Serpent Beacon's turns, it absorbs your characters' action points (AP) and applies several shields that make it largely immune to damage. The simplest solution for defeating Serpent Beacon involves using specific characters' skills. Maelle becomes particularly interesting here, as she is able to steal its shield, either thanks to her weapon Barrier Breaker, or thanks to her skill Broken Rules. This technique greatly reduces one of Serpent Beacon's two biggest defenses. You can also count on Monoco, who will tirelessly reinforce your party with his skills Cruler Barrier, Shield Fortification, and Sanctuary. The latter will keep your team's HP at maximum, leaving you free to focus solely on dealing with its attacks.

Finally, another good technique is to equip a character capable of applying Shell, Powerful, and Rush type buffs, all while making use of Lumina that maximize AP. Monoco, with his Shield Fortification skill, applies Shell to the team. By adding specific Lumina, you can exploit a whole category of positive effects:

• Energizing Shell: generates 2 AP for the team
• Powerful on Shell: also applies the Powerful effect
• Energizing Powerful: generates 2 additional AP
• Rush on Powerful: adds the Rush effect
• Energizing Rush: generates 2 more AP

This combination makes it easy to get 6 AP from a single skill, giving your characters the energy needed to use their most powerful attacks (which cost 8 or 9 AP). The Lumina Energizing Turn and Cheater also form a formidable duo for increasing your characters' mobility and energy.

Rewards and benefits after victory

Defeating Serpent Beacon in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 will grant you rewards that are altogether worthwhile, and which amply justify the effort invested in this difficult fight. Here is what you can obtain:

• 1,950,000 experience points
• 22,240 Chroma
• 1 Perfect Chroma Catalyst, a rare and coveted item!
• 3 Grand Chroma Catalysts
• 1 Recoat, a useful item for customizing your equipment
• The Pictos Energy Master
• An A-rank achievement

The Lumina obtained from Serpent Beacon is one of the most valuable in the game. Although costly, it completely transforms the way your characters generate AP from their actions, and will give you a considerable strategic advantage in your later battles.

Tip

An alternative strategy (a particularly clever one!) is to deliberately let Serpent Beacon absorb your AP. If you generate too much AP without using it, the boss will eventually become overloaded and explode, losing a large portion of its HP and stunning itself. This explosion can be dodged, and it will create the ideal window of opportunity for you to deal massive damage, all while preparing your team with heals and buffs.

The fight against Serpent Beacon represents one of the most complicated, yet also most rewarding, challenges in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. By following this guide and adapting your approach, you will be able to triumph over this formidable opponent and reap its precious rewards!