In customizing your character builds is the use of Pictos you find everywhere throughout the world. Pictos are kind of like Materia in Final Fantasy 7, or Guardian Forces in Final Fantasy 8: you equip them to your characters to grant them a variety of ive benefits, always including one or two stat boosts and a special condition. Once you've had them equipped for four winning battles, all your characters learn them permanently as Luminas, and can use their special conditions without having the Pictos equipped.

Almost every Pictos can be game-changing, and the ease and flexibility of character customization is a driving force behind Clair Obscur's excellent Metacritic scores. But you're constantly gaining new Pictos, and it can be difficult to pick out the ones you really need. While there are few truly bad Pictos in Clair Obscur, some of them are simply more useful than others, and can be used in conjunction with other Pictos and Luminas to make extremely powerful builds that'll carry you through the endgame. Here are some recommendations for the best Pictos to find and equip early.

10 Auto Shell Creates A Powerful Defensive Synergy

The Best Offense...

Auto Shell is a good enough Pictos on its own, granting you 411 additional HP along with the ability to automatically apply Shell at the beginning of each battle. You can gain it by helping the Hexga find three crystals while exploring the Stone Wave Cliffs area. All three crystals are inside the Tidal Caverns; two of them can be found by breaking the glowing blue crystals on the ground, and one is a reward for beating a unique enemy variant in the back of the area, near the rope down.

Shell increases your defense, decreasing the damage you take from each and every hit while it's active. It's good to have on its own, but I recommend combining it with a handful of other Luminas to bolster its effects:

• Longer Shell: Gives you two additional turns of Shell.
• Greater Shell: Additional 10% of damage reduction with Shell.
• Powerful on Shell: Auto-casts Powerful (damage buff) whenever you activate Shell.
• Energizing Shell: +2 AP whenever you apply Shell.

This was my go-to Pictos combo in the endgame, and gave my characters a much-needed defensive boost against the final bosses.

9 Dodger Keeps Your AP High

Don't Forget To Use It

Dodger is quite literally the first Pictos you get in Clair Obscur; it's added to your inventory after you recruit Lune and beat the Portier in the Spring Meadows, just shortly after you reach The Continent. It gives you a boost to speed and critical rate, both of which are good, but also grants you an additional AP every time you pull off a perfect dodge (only once per turn).

This Pictos actually becomes better near the endgame, though, when you really start to nail the dodge timing and manage perfect dodges more often. You'll also likely find upgrades to this (and other) Pictos throughout the game, so your final version of Dodger is almost certain to be even more powerful than the one you find in the beginning of the game. Either way, I wound up using Dodger throughout most of the game, as it's an easy way to increase your AP so you can use more special moves.

8 Auto Regen Keeps You Healthy

Stayin' Alive

If you've ever played a turn-based RPG before, you're probably familiar with the concept of Regen. It's generally a spell that gives you automatic healing on each of your turns, advantageous because it frees up your healer's turn to attack or offer additional buffs, and because it only requires a single expenditure of AP. But the Auto Regen Pictos allows you to start every battle with Regen already cast, so you don't even have to have a character with a Regen skill in the party.

You can find this PIctos on Sirène, the large, tiered colosseum where you face the Axon boss of the same name. From the Dancing Classes checkpoint, take the path to the right of the room with the large statue. Travel to the bottom and either face or avoid the Benisseur to pick up the Auto Regen Pictos. It'll also give you an additional 479 to your defense stat.

7 Healing Fire Is A Must For Casters

Burn Your Dread

While you'll be casting a lot of elemental spells in Clair Obscur (especially when playing as Lune), perhaps the most common element for any character's special abilities is fire. Fire is a vital part of not only Lune's moveset, but also Maelle's; she can use burning enemies to enter Virtuouse stance, the most powerful of her three fighting styles. There are also several Pictos you can use to boost your fire-elemental skills, including Healing Fire.

Healing Fire is also found in Sirène, along the main route near the Crumbling Path checkpoint. It gives you 240 points towards your defense, 118 points towards your speed, and the ability to heal up to 25% of your max HP whenever you attack an enemy who's Burning. This will help keep your party healed, and can be combined with other Pictos that increase the length of Burning or the ease of applying it in order to boost its efficacy.

6 Healing Share Makes All Heals More Effective

Spread The Love

You'll inevitably have to do a lot of healing in Clair Obscur; dodge timing is tight, and most enemies are balanced to hit you hard at the level you naturally encounter them. You have lots of options for healing: most characters have abilities that restore their own HP, and many have healing skills they can share with the whole party. Certain healing Pictos and Tints (i.e., potions) are also available, but you don't always have the time in a round to heal every party member who needs it.

I recommend putting Healing Share on your less tanky characters (Lune or Sciel) while leveling it up, as they need healing most.

Enter Healing Share, a Pictos that grants the character who equips it a 15% of any heals affecting other characters in your party. Equip this to the entire party, and any single-target heal will help keep your entire party fighting fit. You can buy it from the merchant in Visages.

5 Cheater Gives You Two Turns In A Row

Get The Drop On Them

In Clair Obscur, you'll live and die by the turn order. On many occasions, in many battles, you'll watch your teammates die because you just didn't have enough turns to heal them, or because you couldn't take off the last sliver of the boss' HP before their next turn. This is especially prominent in the late game, when even regular enemies have such high speed that they can often take two, even three turns in a row. You need to keep up, and the best way to do that is with the Cheater Pictos.

Cheater gives you two turns in a row every time you play, plus 1198 points to your health and 400 to your speed (which'll also help bump you up in the turn order). This means doing twice the damage each time you taken a turn (perhaps even more, if you're applying status effects like Weak and Mark liberally). You can only get it by beating Sprong, an enemy that roams the waters near Crimson Forest on the world map.

4 Clea's Life Heals You Fully Every Turn

Become Immortal

Clea's Life is an important (if not the most important) endgame Pictos you can get in Clair Obscur. Besides giving you a whopping 5,591 health, it also heals you to full health on the start of each of your turns, provided you didn't take any damage in between. This is an endgame exclusive Pictos for a few reasons: for one thing, it's incredibly powerful, making you effectively immortal as long as you keep up with your doge, parry, and Gradient Counter timing. It's basically a must for taking down some of Clair Obscur's superbosses.

You can only find the Clea's Life Pictos by defeating Clea herself, who's located in the Flying Manor. As such, you'll need to finish almost all of the main campaign, up to the point where Esquie finds Soarrie and unlocks the ability to fly, before you can attempt to take it. Do note that Clea is one of the hardest bosses in Clair Obscur, so you'll want to come prepared.

3 Auto Death Is A Surprisingly Handy Pictos

Self-Sacrifice

You may not understand the point of Auto Death when you first buy it from Pinabby in Yellow Harvest. This Pictos kills your character instantly on their first turn in combat. But while death is undeniably a pretty big deal in the story of Clair Obscur, it doesn't hurt nearly as much when it happens in combat. This is mainly because revival is pretty easily done with Revive Tints, of which you always have a regular supply. Therefore, you can use Pictos like Auto Death to create powerful synergies with other Pictos that activate special abilities when a character dies. Try combining it with the following:

• Breaking Death: Immediately breaks an enemy when the equipped character dies.
• Protecting Death: Allies gain Shell when you die.
• Shielding Death: Allies gain three stacks of Shield when you die.
• Burning Death: Enemies receive three stacks of Burn when you die.
• Energizing Death: Allies gain +4 AP when you die.

You can even combine this with Pictos that give you special effects when you're revived (see below) to gain a variety of benefits the moment you come back to life. Just don't equip Auto Death to your entire party at once, unless you want to trigger a game over.

2 Revive Paradox Is Key To Powerful Revival Synergies

Back From The Dead

If you're playing with Auto Death equipped and want to find a way to boost your characters after they're revived, start with Revive Paradox. This Pictos lets you play immediately after you're revived, potentially giving you an extra turn depending on how you're situated in the turn order. It'll give you an opportunity to heal yourself, sure, but perhaps more importantly, it can be combined with the following Revive Pictos for an even more powerful return from the dead.

• Powerful Revive: Auto apply Powerful upon reviving.
• Revive Tint Energy: If you're revived with a Revive Tint, you start your next turn with an extra 3 AP.
• Energizing Revive: +3 AP to all allies when you're revived.

You can find Revive Paradox as loot after defeating Chromatic Danseuse. This is one of the optional chromatic enemies you can face in Clair Obscur.

1 Painted Power Is Your Best Clair Obscur Pictos

Maelle's Strength

Arguably the most important Pictos you can find in Clair Obscur is Painted Power. This Pictos is received automatically after some important story events near the end of the game - I won't spoil exactly what happens, but know that you literally can't miss it. There's a giant pop-up on your screen as soon as you find it. Painted Power effectively removes the damage limit, allowing you to deal more than 9,999 damage on any single attack. That includes individual attacks within longer combos.

It depends on how much leveling you've been doing, but learning Painted Power can feel like the training wheels have been taken off. It greatly boosts the efficacy of every single one of your characters, making their best moves stronger than you ever knew they could be. It's practically a necessity for beating the final boss of the main campaign, not to mention all the endgame bosses Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has to offer.