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I don't know what it is, after importing my save I seem to be missing a lot of the abilities. All of the convert x damage to y are gone, sword throw options never come up anymore, additional damage x as %y, and so on. Most of what I have as an option are flat increases to damage, percentage increases to damage, critical multiplier, and that's it. At first I thought this was an update or something to clear out a lot of the superfluous stuff but I'm not sure anymore.

So I don't want to leave things on a sour note here, because the last post I made feels like a very negative post for a game that I honestly love. I still love the game that hasn't changed and if anything I only love it more than when I first discovered it. I'm just going to be posting in the comments a lot less because all of my feedback is going to be going to the discord rather than on here. If anything I'll probably occasionally post builds on here for new players to try out because sometimes this game can get a bit overwhelming with the large number of combinations you can have for a character.

I will restate that this game is probably one of the best games on itch, period. It's a real hidden gem on the site. Currently the dev is really good about taking any feedback you might have for them and they are constantly updating and tweaking the game which means any complaint or criticism you see in my past comments has actually been addressed or explained. The game is phenomenal and I really can't state enough how much fun I've had playing it (or how many hours I've spent playing it). Some games on this site feel rather disposable, something you can pick up play for a couple of hours and then forget. Path of Achra is not that, I'll be driving home or doing something else and I'll think of a build I'd love to run in the game and despite how quick a session might go I have a hard time trying everything out that I want to try just because of the shear volume of different potential builds you can play.

Long story short, if you like a game with rich build variety and tons of options or you like seeing how ridiculous you can get with a character this game is second to none.

It is me I am back again, I've sunk another 12 hours or so into the new build of the game. It's in a few words: a mixed bag. There are some really great things to it, there are some rather bad parts to the changes. So I'll get that all out of the way, I will say that the game is still fun though it doesn't feel as good as it did before the changes but we'll get into that.

The good
The way removing level up bonuses and just making them bonuses from increasing stats is great. I wish this had been around from the start, it really makes me want to mix stats, though will really doesn't get enough in any sense of the word I wish will added something else even if it was just minor bonuses to other stats, though admittedly will always provided very little. The bonus to will was that you didn't need to be close to the combat. The fact that I can dip into dex to get my speed above 10 or 20 is really nice, it means that I'm not stuck with a build that either hard invests in speed or actively wants 1 speed, though that's still a thing. I do kind of wish that still gave a small hp bonus maybe half the points you get from purely investing in hp (or further increase the bonus you get from just investing in hp because stats are still always going to be worth more). I love how all of the classes and races provide more (including speed and health which again means you'll more easily be able to reach a speed over 10 if you want that.

The bad
Block is better but it's still not great, I did successfully build a block armor build thanks to the bonuses you get from wearing hand armor and using shields though I might suggest that giving the block % a bonus from inflexibility might be useful as well even if it's just a small additive one. Block still struggles because some things add one kind of block and others add other kinds, though the elimination of the defense stat is generally good and I applaud doing so. The 

The ugly
The simplification of the damage system is...rough. Where as the elimination of level up bonuses makes me want to spread out my stat points the elimination of stat scaling on weapons and powers has done the opposite, it has also notably killed will or builds that use will. Powers don't scale very well and are for the most part to expensive to invest in them as much as you like, you can no longer really afford to spread out your powers as much as you could and are more rewarded for grabbing 2-3 powers and investing only in them. Even more so a pure martial build is the most powerful option you can choose. The mubarizum build is almost untouched except that it has a worse dodge and speed making it so it doesn't get as far into the void, the strength build struggles for damage end game because str doesn't really add much for damage, and will builds are dead. Summon builds are slogs because you can't support your own summons with damage and if something is heavily resistant to what you do you can sit there for minutes waiting for your summons to chip them down. The kinesis powers are terrible for damage without heavy power point investments and if you kill everything on your way to the obelisk you will end up with 23 glory or 28 power points to spread around and you need to make sure you're investing in your heavy damage dealers because putting points in a power is where the damage comes from, not stats. The only stat that makes any amount of difference for damage really is dex and even then at most you're probably going to see a 1.5x increase in what you do. While the changes may make things simpler, I think it is to the detriment of other mechanics.

The mixed
I don't know where else to put this because it's neither ugly nor all bad nor all good. The new level up system is a bit of everything. It definitely has problems but it also fixes some problems. Getting a build off the ground is much easier and you aren't as incentivized to kill everything in the room, but the increase of required experience points to level means that while the early game is easier because you level up faster at first, the late game is much more demanding and can turn into a slog, compounding with the other problems. With how damage scaling now works I almost think that the old experience scaling can still work with how starved every build is for power points now that powers are the main source of damage.

The overall
The game is still fun though I think it could get frustrating. The change to how stats works makes some powers and a lot of weapons not worth taking or using. The builds that were strong are all weaker, some far more than others. Other than the old mubarizum build (invest everything into dex, focus and vitality. Look for the ash sword, the shifting green shield, and or the dualist's claw depending on what damage you want to focus on: slash, bludgeon, or pierce. Look for the pants that make each of those better respectively). The builds I've listed thus far are mostly irrelevant (which I would expect when the game grows and changes).  So far as I can tell martial is the most powerful power tree. Str builds are tanks, Dex builds are damage, and will builds don't currently work. I'll post more after I've played more if I have more to say, still enjoying the game even if some of it frustrates me and looking forward to what comes next.

Well looks like my review of each of the elements is going to be on hold for awhile considering how things have changed. On the changes having played this for about 6 hours so far today, I can say they are somewhat exciting. I finally was able to bring a non summoner will build to the void thanks to changes and the dex build has become...different. I think this will add more diversity of builds from what I've seen.

The change to focus actually encourages you to have at least 2 points in every stat and it makes the humbaba mubarizun build deal insane damage when you stack it. Ironically it's probably not all that good for str two hander builds. Dual wielding is dead thanks to this, it used to rule dex builds but this also means that you are not as item bound with finding a claw, and a rinoir and makes spears actually usable weapons. It also made the whip, usually a frustratingly useless nothing weapon into one that's worth using. On the other hand a dex mubarizun really only wants to stand and fight when they need to heal in combat with blood rage, otherwise they should be constantly on the move. You can't just tab and forget with the build now, it's a very active and engaging playstyle. The changes actually incentivize you to just focus martial though, as the massive damage bonus from skera is no longer a thing, though I do enjoy that skera and shamshar are no longer weight locked  I do think they are less useful overall.

I think you'll enjoy knowing that life/blood is now a very solid build thanks to the introduction of vinakenisis and the changes to piercing vines now doing blood damage instead of piercing. I think it fits thematically just as well as life/death. A Naqui Ascetic of Mehtar is an incredibly solid build that has an answer for most things, they can summon for the early game to get off the ground. They have solid area damage, and with Piercing vine they have very good damage with bleed but can fall back on the ever reliable blunt damage. With access to Mehtar they can reliably heal themselves as well. I'm glad to finally see something mesh with blood because along with the psychic and astral power pools, I think that blood needs a lot of love as they are all fairly weak. Related a similar build exists for life/ice with obedient ice and cryomancy, though this one is far more passive and focuses mostly on just catching enemies in your damaging area.

A suggestion that I thought of that might incentivize mixed stat builds. It was something when I saw how focus works with it's passing attacks. Consider giving different weapons and powers a primary and a secondary damage stat. Perhaps for axes for example, str has 2x damage multiplier and dex has a normal 1x multiplier. This way you get more from investing in str but the few points you do put in dex actually make a very big difference as well. A character that has a 12 and a 1 in dex would hypothetically get 24 damage out of the axe but if they invested 2 points into dex they would end up with 72 because the dex acts as a multiplier. Something to consider is all.

*Edit: Recently got time to test out the infinite scorch build, it's not really overpowered at all. Scorch only goes off on game turn which for some builds can be a rather long time, on top of that any enemy that can have upwards of 10 instances of scorch applied to them has more to worry about than the scorch in the first place. Any attack that could apply enough instances of scorch to be worrying would be an attack that either kills any monster in one hit, or kills it in two hits. Keep in mind, that to apply ten instances of scorch with pyromancy you would have to do 1000 damage, and the scorches themselves would only do 300 damage in total. Could be powerful with immolation but again if you're doing 1000 damage in fire, the next hit doing 2000 or 3000 or even 4000 isn't all that important, you can only make an enemy so dead and there are easier ways to do 2k or more damage by the time you reach the void. Best way to do so would be through hadad's blessing so far as I can tell.

Also the changes to focus really hurt str based melee builds specifically (though once again it's great for dex based ones). Rampage would help but rampage is too MAD or multi attribute dependent and costs too much to be useful. When you're nearing the void, anything that is going to trigger rampage has to have gone through your armor which means it's dealing over 200 damage more than likely. At best if you do an even spread between str and will (which would be suboptimal in almost every other aspect) you would have to sink 5 skill levels into rampage to not lose health on it on average and around 200 damage is pretty average for what you run into near the obelisk. This would in an average run leave you with enough points to buy one focus to increase the speed damage of rampage, which would admittedly do over 1000 damage in retaliation but the real question is for how long and the major difficulty would be simply getting to the point where it actually became powerful enough to matter. I've tried running any build that could make it work and I usually die before I get past the green tower. Playing the most efficient character possible you will see positive returns at around level 10 or so, when getting hit returns 33 hp. The build is unfortunately a hot mess up to that point and just reaching that point requires a good amount of luck, the kind of luck I didn't find in 10 runs with the appropriate class. I would honestly suggest either knocking points off the cost or lowering the divisor. Even if the build was to reach late game its HP would be low because instead of getting to a certain strength bench mark you'd have to evenly spread between str and will to make this work, which requires insane rng when it comes to items, enemies, and level lay out. A more balanced build would take 4 rampage, 5 vitality, and 1 focus but that would be a bandaid and the vitality would struggle to keep up with the eventual attrition from rampage just not keeping up even with a perfect balance.

The final thing I want to bring up is the trees because not all trees are built equally either. Some of them are very powerful and very reliable and others really need some help. We'll go from left to right with them starting with Martial.

Martial is a very solid power to pull from, it's basically required if you're running a melee build or really anything but a pure will build. Unfortunately due to the nature of the game, Vitality and Focus are really the only two things that are worth taking from it; though those two abilities alone justify taking the power. Focus makes you faster and you attack more often on top of that though the attacks themselves don't deal much damage, both things you want if you're going into melee; you also supposedly get more hit dice though if that is true it doesn't show up on your character sheet. Vitality is the best end of combat heal in the game and the best armor ability in the game. The others are situational and not as good as you think. Pugilist feels like it needs just more power and possibly a decrease in the cost, its weakness comes from the fact that weapon effects can be powerful beyond the damage they can do. Guard relies on you getting hit and the damage you deal in response though a good damage type just isn't high enough to justify keying off of armor and block, especially with a character that probably doesn't have much health or strength to begin with. Alacrity is good but it relies on an rng based defense for a character that would probably be better off just attacking more rather than rolling the dice on dodge, I don't think the dodge bonus actually works though because the numbers don't increase and even when I take it a lot I don't see a difference.

Fire, it has the most powers out of any of the trees and so many of them are summoning powers. Ironically fire is probably one of the worst powers you can take if you are a summoner in my experience as a lot of what it does has friendly fire problems and even with high fire resistance you'll be frying your own minions pretty quick.

-Pyromancy is a trap, only will characters will want it but it will kill your minions.

-Burning heart is a rather disappointing heal though I suppose it could work for a dex build if there wasn't already a better element for a dex build. The real strength of this power comes when you get immolation.

-Inflame is a great way for a will character to increase their accuracy, something will characters desperately need. The ifrits are nice but suffer from the same problem summoning with fire does

-Immolation can be good on a strength build though it only really shines when you have burning heart and can apply a lot of scorch really fast. Combine the two and you can see some truly terrifying damage numbers come out.


-Shamshar feels bad. It's a worse version of skera in a number of ways. You're basically stuck playing a dex build with this and even then it's going to be a sword and shield murabizun which isn't the best option there. I honestly think this would function better if it gave you bonuses if your encumbrance was higher on account of the fact that the best blunt and slash weapons are all usually heavy enough to put you close to the limit on this tried running a fire lightning mubarizun and it was a nightmare to get running and was worthless against the beetles that show up early in the game and once again the bonus hit dice didn't show up in the character sheet. To expensive and weaker than a similar option.

-Flame cultists are really cool for that deal fire in a line nonsense they have when any summoning happens but once again you'll kill all of your summons doing that. Can make for a decently fun summoner early game but gets hard stopped by anything with a lick of fire resistance. The damage they pump out and the damage the fire lines do is paltry for the price though, there are better summoning options.

Lightning is a star player in the powers, it's the go to if you are playing a dex character and that's it but what it does it does well. Sadly it really only does one thing well which is Skera.

-Electrokinesis is a trap, any character that's going to want to use it is a will character and will have summons for defense. This will kill your summons pretty fast actually. 

-Electromancy is a summoning ability and the ability to pray enemies to death, could be a fun way to run a zealot but you run into the problem if you run out of prayers and everything isn't dead because your summons probably will be.

-Power Charge suffers from being a low damage increase, there are better ways to pump your damage. Might function well on a dex speed character that can really pump up their charge level but Skera exists and it's really powerful.

-Skera the premier ability of the lightning Tree. An incredible pick, expensive but worth it. The damage increase is sizable the speed increase is always nice. If you're playing a dex build there is really no reason not to take this. You should in fact be trying to get this by the green tower if you can.

(will post the rest at a later date, I have stuff to say about all the elements but life is coming up)

Separating these comments out based on what they're about. Next thing I want to mention is defenses, because not all defenses are built equally. We'll start from best to worst:

At the top of the bunch is speed, speed is the best defense. It's also the best offence. Speed won't actually protect you if you do get caught in an attack but it can keep you from getting caught in an attack altogether. If you know the enemy you can dance in and out of its AOEs and you just dance around them in general. You'll have more attacks and better mobility and mobility is king.

Second is dodge, unreliable at the beginning but the best in the end game where it really hurts to die after sinking so much time into a game. It's incredibly reliant on dex to increase. As of now don't bother with powers and abilities that increase dodge dice, so far as I can tell they don't do anything; or at the very least if you check your stats afterwards they don't show them doing anything. This is a consistent problem with a lot of the skills and powers but I'll talk about that later.

Third (and a distant third at that) is armor. Armor is easy to get, and easy to get a lot of. It's consistent early game and will carry you almost all the way to the void depending on what you're playing. It's weakness comes when you're dealing with anything nonphysical and the fact that while you can raise it pretty quickly with powers, you are usually sacrificing precious damage or precious speed to do so because you could be buying that instead. Actual equip able armor itself can be a crap shoot because it can give you a massive armor bonus but usually at the expense of speed which is a better defense over all.

Fourth is HP, though it's probably tied in usefulness for Armor. It'll keep you alive though for a lot of builds it can be the difference between dying in one hit or dying in two. You only need to worry about this if you're a strength character. Other characters just need to worry about healing DoT damage that they receive for the most part or the odd AOE they get caught in in the early game.

Fifth is resistances, you'd think they'd be higher but if you play a skeleton you know otherwise. These can help a lot with Armor and HP but you should not rely on the as they only go up to 75 and it'll be nearly impossible to cover all your bases. Physical, Poison, Blood, Fire, and Lightning are the ones you'll most want to cover though as they're the easiest ones to get caught with and have the DoTs you need to watch out for.

At the bottom at a very, very, very distant sixth is block and defense. They're tied because they're the same defense and because of this they're both broken. The only character that can pull this off is a mubarizun pugilist and that isn't a very good build to begin with. The weakness of this is that it relies on two stats to work: Dex and Str. You need to have a high dex for your defense because without defense you won't block, then you need a good strength for block so that you can actually block. Mixed builds don't currently work very well and a high dex will give you a good dodge and a good speed anyway. On top of this, on paper block is better than armor but in play it's basically the same. The difference is that when you block you don't receive chip damage and you don't get the DoT that can go with it. On the other hand it doesn't work on AoEs so that's a wash anyway. Skills and powers that increase block work but because of how inconsistent this defense is and how hard it is to build for it, it's not worth it.

So it's been a few days and I've really been going over builds to see what works and what doesn't. I feel like I'm missing something though cause I still have a hard time getting very far in the void. Still, despite my hardships in the void I feel like I find myself falling into a dominant strategy and it's hard to pull myself out of it. Even more, playing unconventional builds feels not fun. Sometimes getting past the first screen can be a bit of an rng fest even for a solid build but if your build comes online late or is experimental it is like trying to win the lottery.

First the solid builds I've found: Lochra Warrior of Hadad (or Humbaba but ironically Hadad plays better), Kull Mubarizun of Humbaba (like warrior you'd think Hadad, but Humbaba benefits it more), Naqui Zealot of Mehtar (already posted about this one as a solid prayer/summon build), Stran Amir of Ashem/Eresh (a good starter build to get glory flowing as mentioned earlier, Eresh can be fun but you can end up with a domina effect that wipes out all your summons with little effect).

I've gotten to the void with all four of these builds, ironically the melee ones are actually the easier ones to reach the void with and the Mubarizum is the only one I've gotten remotely close to reaching the end of the void with. I have yet to find a will build that doesn't rely at least somewhat on summoning to stay alive. Each of the attribute builds have a weakness to them:

Strength can survive hits but unless you invest heavily in vitality you will die a death of a thousand cuts you also have to be somewhat careful of your encumbrance because you can't afford for it to be too high because you need speed to hope to make it . Speed is key for any melee build and you want to have over 20 at least for melee though over 30 is better. This also limits you on inflexibility but less than you would actually think. Tends to die from the fact that your best defense is armor and armor is mostly worthless late game because most enemies do non physical damage and you won't have enough armor to handle that. Unlike most other builds though, strength builds don't really need to every change out their items and can get by with what they start with if you go warrior.

Dexterity is a massive powerhouse, it starts off somewhat weak and hurts for damage in the early game. It depends heavily on items and rng to get off the ground: dodge starts out weak and is a very rng defense to begin with but is the best defense in the game because it can completely negate an attack and works equally well against everything but AOEs. You need items though to deal appreciable damage and your items are limited, because the best your strength is going to be is 5 if you took humbaba so you need to make sure they're light and have effects you care about. They're major weakness is that AOEs ignore dodge and kill you instantly if you get caught in them in the void and early in the void and aschra your dodges are not very reliable to protect you. They obviously rely on speed the most and you want a speed in the mid 60s by the time you reach the void.

Will builds very but getting them off the ground can either be a nightmare if you get swarmed early game or easy if you're playing the oozomancer. Their main defense is just having as many bodies on the field at the same time between them and their enemies and hoping it's enough, they also suffer if they have the wrong damage type for the job. You need to diversify and have as many different damage types as possible, you cannot focus in just one because not all damage types are built equal and you actually have trash damage for the whole game. Where as a melee character can run up against something that has a 90% damage reduction to their damage and still make it through due to the shear number of attacks they're pumping out, you can't. You put out one attack a round not including your summons and your summons might not be doing the right damage. Ironically Will builds care the least about incumbrance and inflexibility because you're probably going to have a speed of 1 anyway, so you can wear whatever armor you want but not whatever weapon you want because you need to hit and your accuracy is probably trash as well.

If anybody is looking for a fun minion build try out Naqui Zealot Mehtar. Go into poison and grab oozemancy. You can get a pretty sizeable army the further you get in the game as you summon oozes when you pray, early game that'll be three, late game that will be 28. You will also end up with a sizeable contingent of phantasms. The weakness to this is that most things that you need something that does fire, ice, or lightning as most things that are strong against astral and psychic damage  are also strong against poison; especially around the time you reach the red tower. Grabbing a bunch of different elements is needed to cover your bases. This build also works with just praying enemies to death with all the offensive prayers you get.

I would agree that the glory up mechanic discourages you from raising other stats. Funnily enough though the minion build I've had the most success with is usually one I run when I'm starting over the glory grind on a new computer with a Stran Amir Ashem.

Start with life and grab Piercing vines, they do incredible damage and scale incredibly well while also punishing anything moving into melee. Grab life cultists afterwards as soon as possible as they're some of the best summons for both damage and healing and are in fact the best mid battle healing power you can buy.

Next move into death and grab necromancy to get another front line fighter to go with your tugar, move back into life and grab invigoration to give your minions some survivability. Then grab the last power you're going to buy: nekrokinesis for a bit of extra damage (grab earlier if you haven't been able to get something that will deal more consistent damage off of will). After this all skill levels go into invigoration to make your summons as tanky as possible.

As for stat points, everything goes into will, wear whatever armor gives you the most benefits, don't worry about weight, you'll ideally be fighting within range of piercing vines and a high speed would actually get in the way of that.

I've entered maps and had every monster die before I got a chance to do anything as my minions spawn in and wipe everything. This usually takes me through to the second map and gets me a bunch of unlocks really quickly. Not my favorite build, it can drag if you run into a group with healers and god help you if you can't avoid a golgoranth till you get strong enough, they'll roll your entire team and then one shot you.

A real hidden gem on itch and honestly possibly one of the best games available to play on the site. I've sunk dozens of hours into this already. I feel like I've gotten to the end (or at least what feels an intentional impossible wall) a number of times. I do have a few comments

After you finish the first map of areas and move onto the star map is it supposed to be such a massive spike in power for the enemies? I usually get killed on the first screen by demons that just pound me into dust no matter my build.

The fact that you can't change equipment in combat feels like you can end up in an inescapable trap, especially for elemental characters. After the first map, the demons you run into can have 100% damage resistance and if you can't switch equipment to change up damage types you're SOL.

Minion builds I've found really seem to struggle in this game. I've played a bunch of them but the minions die incredibly quickly and depending on the map they'll all get clogged up in rooms especially if ranged minions manage to be in front.

Most healing abilities feel like a joke, outside of the odd item that heals you #*will when you pray which can feel pretty powerful. Useful early game but late game cannot keep up with even the occasional chip damage from enemies.

The game heavily rewards single stat builds but so many things rely on will in the build that if you aren't playing a build that dumps a lot into it then most trees aren't worth dipping into.

I know this is a very early build (this applies to all criticisms of course) and a very good one at that, but I wish there was something to spend my glory on after I've unlocked everything. A glory shop would be nice, though that's a whole other thing and really just a suggestion.

Sorry if this is a bit much, don't get disheartened. I'm going to have my eye on this game and the moment it hits steam (or you finish it) I'll be buying it.