How to deal 9,999 damage to Ono-Puncho in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

In Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the Gestrals are an enigmatic and playful species that you’ll find across the continent. During your journey through act one, you visit their home, Gestral Village, and can talk to a Gestral named Ono-Puncho in the back of the the arena. He challenges you to deal 9,999 damage in just one hit.

While that might seem like a huge challenge, it is possible to complete this during act one of the game thanks to Maelle’s Percée skill, plus some key pictos and lumina that boost her damage to marked enemies. Below, I’ll break down exactly how to set up your party, plus Maelle’s skills and stats to deal 9,999 damage to Ono-Puncho without too much trouble.

If you haven’t found Ono-Puncho yet, head to the Gestral Village arena where all the fighters are gathered. To the right of the two tall Gestral arena fans, you’ll find an archway leading to a small path with Ono Puncho sitting in the corner.

How to deal 9,999 damage to Ono-Puncho

The trickiest part of dealing 9,999 damage to Ono-Puncho isn’t hitting that number—you’ll frequently hit that number in act two and three of the game. No, the challenge is getting there with little to no setup, since you can only hit Ono-Punch once.

To deal 9,999 damage to Ono Puncho, I used the following build and setup with Sciel and Maelle. If you haven’t recruited Sciel, you’ll need to complete the main Gestral Village storyline. Otherwise, here’s what to do:

1. Recoat Maelle’s stats and invest your points into Might and Agility evenly
2. Equip Sciel’s Fortune’s Fury skill
3. Unlock Maelle’s Last Chance and Percée skills
4. Equip Marking Shots and/or the Augmented First Strike pictos/lumina to Maelle

The core of this setup revolves around Maelle’s skills. The first is Last Chance, which allows you to sacrifice 99% of your health to enter Virtuoso stance and regain full AP. In this stance, Maelle does 200% damage, and since Ono-Puncho doesn’t attack, you won’t have to worry about her dying due to low HP.

The second skill is Percée, which does a lot of damage and only costs 2 AP when in Virtuoso stance. Additionally, it does even more damage if the target is marked.

Investing your points into Maelle’s Might and Agility will give you more turns, ensuring you’re set up to deal maximum damage with Percée. We’ll also be using Sciel’s Fortune’s Fury skill to double that damage.

Finally, equip the Marking Shots picto or lumina to give Maelle a 20% chance to mark the enemy she shoots in free aim. You can find this picto in the Flying Waters area, before you meet Maelle and visit The Manor:

1. From the Noco’s Hut Expedition Flag, turn around and walk back through the level along the path dotted with lamp posts.
2. You’ll eventually reach an area with bombs on chains scattered throughout, and a path that diverges up a hill to your right
3. Take this path and defeat the enemies at the end on your right—the Marking Shots picto is just behind them.

Additionally, you can equip Augmented First Strike to deal 50% more damage on Maelle’s first hit of a fight, although this isn’t needed with all the extra damage buffs we are already getting from marking the target and Sciel. You can get the Augmented First Strike picto by defeating the Mime in Esquie’s Nest.

Now that you’re fully set up, it’s time to take on Ono-Puncho. Follow these steps to defeat him:

1. Skip Sciel and Lune/Gustave’s first turn
2. Use Maelle’s Last Chance skill to refill your AP and switch to Virtuoso stance
3. Skip Lune/Gustave’s second turn
4. Use Sciel’s Fortune’s Fury skill on Maelle
5. As Maelle, shoot Ono-Puncho with free aim until he is marked
6. Use Maelle’s Percée skill to deal 9,999 damage

The only catch with this setup is that if you get unlucky and don’t mark Ono-Puncho by the time you hit 2 AP with Maelle, you need to restart the battle and repeat the steps—simply talk to him again to do so. It’s also worth noting that a variety of different setups will let you beat Ono-Puncho. You’ll realise later in the game, but 9,999 damage isn’t actually that hard to reach once you’ve levelled up.

Upon successfully dealing 9,999 damage to Ono-Puncho in one hit, you’ll get the Sakapatate outfit for Maelle, and the quest will finish.