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It’s a bit of an understatement to say that there are some tough boss fights inClair Obscur: Expedition 33, but none are as unforgiving as the hidden battle against Simon. Even with a max-level party, Simon demands perfection if you want to have any hope of beating him. Even after learning all his patterns so that you’re able to safely parry most of his strikes, he’s still got plenty of dangerous, unavoidable tricks up his sleeve.
While much of beating Simon comes down to practice, preparation and strategy can help keep you in the fight when things go wrong.
How To Find Simon
When you complete Esquie’s Relationship quest in camp, he’ll gain the ability todive underwateron the Continent Map. This allows you to enterRenoir’s Drafts, a dungeon in the sea north of Old Lumiere.
Renoir’s Drafts arefull of powerful Nevrons, including Creations. If you’re able to make it to the far end,a ramp flanked by two statuesleads to the second Expedition Flag near a golden tree, and an exit to a new location calledThe Abyss.
Go into The Abyss andjump off the ledge at the end of the path.After a long drop, you’ll find yourself in a dark room withan Expedition Flag and Simon. Save at the Flag, then approach Simon to start the fight.
Recommended Level
Before you even think about taking on Simon,your entire party should be at least Level 90. Luckily, Renoir’s Drafts are a good place to grind for XP if you’ve already hunted down the world’s Chromatic Nevrons and other bosses; the enemies heredrop Colours of Lumina, so you can quickly increase your team’s Lumina Points in preparation for the fight ahead.
Simon Fight Overview
The fight against Simon isactually separated into two battles.The first fight serves simply to get you used to fighting Expedition Zero’s fallen hero; once you defeat him, hechanges formand the true battle begins.
The second fight includesmuch faster, more powerful combos, including Simon’slight speed attackthat hits the entire party at once. Simon’s second form also hasapproximately three times as much Health as his first.
In both fights,any party member who is dead at the start of Simon’s turn is removed from the battlefield, preventing you from resurrecting them. Using Revive Tints should always be your top priority because of this. As a small mercy, any characters who were removed in the first fight willreturn with 1 HP at the start of the second.
After most attacks, Simon will also gather Chroma around one of your party members,automatically reducing their HP to 1.Thisunavoidable effectputs them in extreme danger, as a single missed parry is all it takes to knock them out. Heal them if you can, sinceyou shouldn’t expect to perfectly nail every parry combo.
Finally, if any character has Shields at the start of Simon’s turn,he steals them for himself.Shields can still be a useful way to mitigate the damage from missed parries, butdon’t rely on them too muchor you’ll end up creating extra work for yourself.
First Fight
Simon’s first form hasapproximately 7.5 million HP on Expeditioner Difficulty.As long as you can withstand his combos by learning to parry them, you’ll eventually be able to get through the first battle with relative ease, which is good becauseyou’ll have to repeat it whenever you lose the second fight.
Parry Strategy
Short Combo (4 hits)
Parry just as each blow lands; the third attack is ajump dodge.
Powerful Combo (3 hits)
Parry immediately after Simon starts to swing his sword for each strike, but before it connects.Listen for the swish.
One punch, pause, slow two-punch combo, pause, slow two-kick combo.
Long Combo (5 hits)
Each hit is a little less than a second apart, except for the final one, which is preceded by a feint - be sure to delay your fifth parry accordingly.
In the first fight, Simononly uses Long Combos if his Health is below half.
Second Fight
Simon’s second form boasts a massive health bar ofapproximately 25 million HP on Expeditioner Difficulty, as well as several new combos that you’ll have to learn to parry. Simon also keeps most of his old combos from the first fight, but withshockwave followups to each strikethat require you toadd an additional parry about a half a second after each sword slash.
Short Combo (7 hits)
Use the same parries as the Short Combo in the first fight, but with an extra parry after each sword strike. Don’t forget the jump dodge, which is now thefifth hit.
Powerful Combo (6 hits)
Use the same parries as the Powerful Combo in the first fight, but with an extra parry after each sword strike. Use a “heartbeat rhythm;” one-two, one-two, one-two.
Long Combo
The rhythm for this combo is the hardest to get right; try to group your parries in twos as described above, but watch and listen for Simon’s rhythm changes. If possible,listen for sound cues instead of watching Simon’s sword, since his sword’s slipstream can make his movements visually confusing.
Sword of Lumiere
Simon opens with a feint; wait for him to bring his sword all the way around, thenparry twice quickly.Parry his next two-strike combo, which is slightly slower, then pause foranother feintbefore parrying the spin attack. Parry the jump slash, then pause again before parrying the finisher.
Light Speed
Group the attacks into smaller combos; two slow strikes, two strikes, three strikes, a brief pause, then two strikes followed by the finisher.
Even once you get the hang of parrying Simon’s combos, he has one last dangerous move. If his Health bar gets belowaround one third, he willremove the Expedition from the Canvas, destroying your entire party in a single, unavoidable attack. The only way to prevent this is todefeat him with a massive strikethat finishes him off while he’s still above that threshold. See below for ways to manage this feat.
Recommended Strategy For Fighting Simon
Beating Simon requires two key things;being able to survivewhen you inevitably miss some parries, andbeing able to finish him in the second fightonce his Health gets below the halfway mark.
Setting Up Your Party For Survival
The most important part of making sure that you’re able to survive Simon’s onslaught isyour Pictos and Lumina loadout. It can get expensive to work into your existing setups for each individual character - and you need them all at the top of their game - but everybody should have the following abilities equipped if possible:
Reason
Cheater
The extra turn is vital for healing and revival, as well as keeping pace with Simon’s turns.
Second Chance
A one-time revive for each character dramatically lowers the chances that they’ll be removed early on.
Energising Jump
Simon’s Short Combo is one of his easiest to counter, and has a jump in the middle that’s easy to exploit with this Lumina.
At Death’s Door
Since Simon is going to continuously drop characters' HP to 1, you may as well take the damage buff if healing isn’t an option.
Survivor
Like Second Chance, Survivor can save a character from death once, leaving them alive with 1 HP.
Shortcut
This lets characters “skip the line” and take their turn immediately the first time their health drops below thirty percent, which is guaranteed to happen due to Simon’s Chroma attack.
Regardless of characters' individual Attributes (they should have 99 in both of their weapons' scaled stats, and all of their gear should be fully leveled to 33 before trying to fight Simon), you shouldprioritize equipping Pictos that increase Health and Defense.Each character needs around 8,000 HP to have any real hope of surviving an unblocked hit from Simon, and ideally you’ll wantas many characters with a Health above 10,000 as you can manage.
Make sure that your Reserve Team stands a fighting chance, instead of just putting all your best resources into the main group. Simon is perfectly capable of dropping your front line with a single Light Speed, so you need to be prepared to finish the fight in case that happens.
How To Defeat Simon Before He Removes The Expedition From The Canvas
To beat Simon before he can instantly wipe your party, you’ll need to hit him for as much damage as possible -about ten to twelve million- in one attack. The best characters to pull this off areMaelle and Sciel, so you should have one of them in the main party and the other in reserve; that way, even if it comes down to a Last Stand you’ll still have a character capable of felling this monstrous boss. Maelle’s strategy requires less setup, but Sciel’s is more likely to be a killing blow as long as it’s done right.
As long as your chosen finisher isn’t stuck fighting alone, try to time your attack so thatanother character can finish Simon offif the big attack doesn’t quite take him out.
