There are only two types of equippable gear in the game, Pictos and weapons, and with such limited categories of gear, it’s no surprise they’re both quite important. Pictos give bonuses to various derived stats like Health, Speed, Defense and Critical Rate when equipped, but they also impart passive effects, which can be learned and then used even when the Pictos is unequipped. This page will cover these skills - Luminas - and how to equip them using Lumina Points, and how to use Colours of Lumina to increase a character’s maximum Lumina Points pool in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33!

Page Breakdown¶

How to Use and Share Colours of Lumina¶

Colours of Lumina will give a character one Lumina Point when used, allowing them to equip more Luminas (passive skills). To use Colours of Lumina, you must complete the Flying Waters dungeon after which you can make camp, where the Curator can be found in a cave. Talk to him and pick the option [Upgrade Expedition Resources] to use Colours of Lumina on characters. You should spread these out evenly, as some quests/encounters require specific characters. There are hundreds of Colours of Lumina in the game, so while valuable and finite, they’re not particularly rare.

Learning Luminas from Pictos¶

You can get Pictos from various sources: gestral merchants, as loot found on the ground in dungeons and on the world map, or even as drops from enemies. Once found, Pictos can be equipped to any characters, boosting their derived stats (Health, Speed, Defense and Critical Rate) and granting them a passive skill. Each character can have up to three Pictos equipped at a time and higher-level Pictos will have higher stats on them. Like weapons, Pictos can randomly upgrade when fighting enemies and will also upgrade when you find higher-level variants of the same Pictos, but unlike weapons Pictos cannot be upgraded manually. The Luminas (skills) on Pictos will not improve when the Pictos levels up, unlike the stats, but higher-level Pictos may be worth equipping for the stats alone, even if they don’t have the most appealing Lumina. It’s also worth noting that there are various tiers of similar Pictos that may grant Luminas with the same or similar effect: Energizing Start I, II, III and IV, for example, all grant a Lumina that gives the equipping character +1 AP at the start of battle, and the effects of these Luminas stack.

While the stat bonuses are quite important, the Luminas are arguably the most important gameplay element in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. If you played games like Lost Odyssey or Final Fantasy VI you should be familiar with the Pictos/Lumina system inasmuch as you can permanently learn the Luminas on a Pictos by having them equipped. In Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 this is a pretty straight-forward system: have a Pictos equipped for four battles and you will learn its Lumina with every character. The strength of the enemies you defeat has no bearing on this progress whatsoever, so if you just need to learn a Lumina quick-like, nothing’s stopping you from going back and picking on weak foes to get this done quickly. Just note that a character has to be in the battle party in order for their equipped Pictos to gain any progress - you can’t just stick Pictos on benchwarmers so they can passively learn Luminas for you.

Once a Lumina has been learned after four battles, every character can equip that Lumina without having to equip the Pictos. This won’t get them the stats from the Pictos, only the effects of the Lumina (skill). For example, let’s say you find an Energizing Start I Pictos that gives +300 Health and the Energizing Start Lumina when equipped. Fight four battles with that Pictos equipped and every character will have the Energizing Start I Lumina added to their list of known Luminas, and they can all choose to equip it or not. Multiple characters can have the same Lumina equipped, unlike Pictos which can only be equipped onto one character at a time - you can even mix and match, if you prefer to keep the Pictos attached on a character, they can benefit from the Pictos’ stats and everybody else can still access the learned Lumina from said Pictos. There is one limitation, however: equipping Luminas sans Pictos requires Lumina Points.

Equipping Luminas and Lumina Points¶

Learn a Lumina from a Pictos and you can equip it even without having the Pictos equipped, but each Lumina has a Lumina Point cost that limits how many Lumina you can have equipped at a time. Lumina generally range in cost between 2 and 30 Lumina Points (with most requiring 5 or 10 Lumina Points), and there are two ways to gain more Lumina Points: Leveling up or by using Colours of Lumina. You will get one Lumina Point per level up, plus one point for each Colour of Lumina used - it’s not a stretch to say that the number of Lumina Points a character has (and hence the number of Lumina they can equip), so accumulating a library of Lumina and a stockpile of Lumina Points to spend on equipping them should be something you prioritize, as much as is possible.

Colours of Lumina¶

Aside from just leveling up - mostly a factor of progressing through the game - your Lumina Points will be determined by finding and using Colours of Lumina. Colours of Lumina come from various sources - defeating chromatic nevrons, finding them on the ground, trading with gestral merchants, dive spots, etc. There are literally hundreds of Colours of Lumina items in the game - enough to be split evenly between the party members and give everybody a substantial pool of Lumina Points. This is a wise idea, as some quests and encounters (especially late-game) require specific characters, so even if you’re not using a character regularly now, it may be a good idea to give them Colours of Lumina. As far as we can tell, Colours of Lumina are numerous, but finite - the enemies that drop them (like chromatic nevrons) do not respawn, nor do they reappear as loot once plundered and the gestral merchants don’t restock their wares.

While you’ll undoubtedly find some early in the game, you can’t actually use Colours of Lumina until you complete the Flying Waters dungeon, after which you will be able to set up camp. At camp, the Curator can be found in a cave, and if you talk to him and pick the [Upgrade Expedition Resources] option you can use Colours of Lumina on your various party members. There’s no shame in stockpiling them if you don’t have a compelling reason to spend them (in case you want to wait for new characters to join, or to acquire new Pictos that might have Lumina worth grabbing). You cannot refund spent Colours of Lumina by using Recoats, making it the one aspect of character progression that’s truly permanent.