If you’re here, it’s highly likely that you’ve run into a strange, metal creature known as a Petank. These enemies aren’t the most threatening, but they can be quite troublesome to fight given that they will flee after a set amount of turns. It’s worth your time trying to fight them, however, as these fellas drop loot that can be used to upgrade your expeditioner’s weapons and stats.
If you’re at all familiar with Persona 4’s Wealth Hands, or even Honkai Star Rail’s Trotters, you’ll quickly understand what the deal is with Clair Obscur’s Petanks. They’re tanky enemies, and if you don’t think fast, they’ll flee before you can get any rewards. To help you prevent that from happening, though, here’s our guide on how to beat Petank in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
How to beat Petank in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
The first of many Petanks that you will likely run into is found in Ancient Sanctuary during Act 1 of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, just beyond the area’s Entrance fast-travel flag. Upon approaching the creature, you’ll notice that they’ll run away, and they’re a bit faster than your expeditioners.
To actually begin a battle with a Petank, however, it isn’t a matter of catching up with them. Instead, you want to look for a platform on the floor nearby which has glowing blue sigils on it (shown below) and chase the Petank, luring them onto the platform. Once on the platform, you can attack and commence battle.
Once the battle begins, it’s important to note that you’ll have a limited amount of turns to try and beat the Petank before it flees. Once it flees, you can rest at a nearby Expedition Flag to make it respawn again. There are also multiple Petank’s to find following this encounter in Ancient Sanctuary, with the creatures proceeding to get more and more difficult as you progress through Clair Obscur’s story.
With that out of the way, the first thing to note is that the glowing orb inside of the Petank’s shell is not a weak spot, so there’s little use wasting your free-aim shots (and AP) on trying to fire at it. Instead, the best way to go about beating a Petank is carefully managing your AP and using a mixture of your expeditioner’s most powerful attacks so that you can deplete its health before it flees. That, and ensuring you successfully pull off parries – and therefore counterattacks – as much as possible.
You can use Gustave’s Lumiere Assault – or any of your expeditioner’s multi-hit attacks – to quickly dispel any shields that the Petank summons. The benefit of Gustave’s Lumiere Assault, however, is that it will simultaneously provide him with Overcharge stacks. If you have a Pictos that lets you regain AP, even better, as this can then allow Gustave to quickly use Overcharge.
Rinse and repeat while using Lune and Maelle’s most powerful attacks where possible, and you should make light work of the Petank. It might take a couple of attempts, however, as the difference between beating the Petank and fleeing could very well be just how many critical attacks you’re able to land.
Anything that boosts critical rate or AP regeneration is worth equipping for these fights, so you can use your strongest attacks and land critical attacks more often, especially as Petanks become tougher and tougher to beat in Clair Obscur.
For more on Clair Obscur, check out how to help Katarom, who you’ll soon run into, as well as how to help the Demineur and how to help The Small Burgeon, in case you’ve missed them.