Path of Achra: Cycles

In this series I will play cycles of Path of Achra, trying to beat them. I am not going to 'promise' that each cycle will be beaten with an entirely fresh combination but I will try to mix them up a bit. It is best to consider this an 'irregular' series as, past around cycle 10 or so, things start getting very, very, VERY VERY VERY HARD. So, I'll try and record further but, for all intents and purposes, with each 'cycle' video that comes out consider it the 'last' until further notice. Unlike a lot of my stuff, due to the nature of how PoA is played, I will actually do - *gasp* - editing. Minor editing (which is the most skilled editing I can do) to show off what I call 'bloopers' at the start of the video which will come with a timestamp, just to show how many attempts it took to beat that cycle without boring you to tears with dozens of minutes (in some cases it may be a few hours, in the later cycles) of footage of me losing. That said... not every episode will necessarily have text unique to it, but if it does, it'll be below but above my usual link to my other channel. In this episode, we take on (as the title says) the first cycle. Now, it being what it is, I decide this is the best and only time really to 'go in on' a powerless run for the unlock in the game's equivalent of an 'achievements' section, where you get lore. The reasoning being that, while this game does get 'harder' in 'farther' cycles, the reality is that there's nuance to the difficulty of the game and in fact there's strategies that DON'T work in early cycles that work in later cycles, and vice versa. Now, waiting until you can Anroth is AN INCREDIBLY SOLID STRAT GUYS AND YOU SHOULD TRY IT FIRST IF YOU'RE HAVING TROUBLE BEATING A CYCLE. You just wait until Glory 20 and then you can start getting powers. It's stupendously strong and imo it's literally the strongest prestige class in the game, bar none. Especially given how in later cycles you basically get to level 20 before you leave the first area. But here, because we're running with the most basic stuff available in the very, very first run of this save file, we're going to use its power to enable us - along with a lucky, synergistic find - to coast right into victory relatively easily. One thing that also can be said here is that, if you're looking for tips on how to get through the early game, it's a solid strat to have your wooly buddy the tugar just be a massive tank on a character that uses the powers (after Anroth'ing of course) that beef up familiars/allies so that he's stupidly, stupidly OP. I really mean that, I sorta understated it in the video but the tugar we had was unreal in how strong it was for a completely powerless run, giving that thing buffs from the life tree or the astral tree for instance, probably would've made the 'lucky gear find' at the end insignificant/unnecessary. Anyway: My non-gaming YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Logic-Mysticism/featured My YouTube channel for gaming-related content: https://www.youtube.com/@Anterogradegaming My other, non-gaming Rumble channel (there'll be Rumble-exclusive content someday): https://rumble.com/c/c-7776076?e9s=src_v1_cbl This is not Rumble-exclusive content.

In this series I will play cycles of Path of Achra, trying to beat them. I am not going to 'promise' that each cycle will be beaten with an entirely fresh combination but I will try to mix them up a bit. It is best to consider this an 'irregular' series as, past around cycle 10 or so, things start getting very, very, VERY VERY VERY HARD. So, I'll try and record further but, for all intents and purposes, with each 'cycle' video that comes out consider it the 'last' until further notice. Unlike a lot of my stuff, due to the nature of how PoA is played, I will actually do - *gasp* - editing. Minor editing (which is the most skilled editing I can do) to show off what I call 'bloopers' at the start of the video which will come with a timestamp, just to show how many attempts it took to beat that cycle without boring you to tears with dozens of minutes (in some cases it may be a few hours, in the later cycles) of footage of me losing. That said... not every episode will necessarily have text unique to it, but if it does, it'll be below but above my usual link to my other channel. In this episode, I try first to do a Virya Warrior playthrough only to switch gears and try to do a Virya Aslan of Eris playthrough, repeatedly, until it finally works. Not much to say here other than the means by which to heal in PoA are somewhat limited, and as you can see in the video, Flame Healing is particularly good if and only if you can get the right setup going to make it, essentially, heal you faster than you take damage. Once that falls apart, it turns from being a 'regenerator' build into a disintegrating build and you can find yourself having to take levels in vigor just to stay alive in fights - a tactic that is NOT sustainable. We manage though after some effort. For some behind-the-scenes knowledge, the bloopers came from a recording session that was about fifty minutes in length, cut down to the ~8m15s you see here. I won't mention the length of the cutting room floor material again, I just wanted to have that here for reference that yes it was a good bit of fanagling to figure out how to make this build work for the second cycle. Anyway: My non-gaming YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Logic-Mysticism/featured My YouTube channel for gaming-related content: https://www.youtube.com/@Anterogradegaming My other, non-gaming Rumble channel (there'll be Rumble-exclusive content someday): https://rumble.com/c/c-7776076?e9s=src_v1_cbl This is not Rumble-exclusive content.

In this series I will play cycles of Path of Achra, trying to beat them. I am not going to 'promise' that each cycle will be beaten with an entirely fresh combination but I will try to mix them up a bit. It is best to consider this an 'irregular' series as, past around cycle 10 or so, things start getting very, very, VERY VERY VERY HARD. So, I'll try and record further but, for all intents and purposes, with each 'cycle' video that comes out consider it the 'last' until further notice. Unlike a lot of my stuff, due to the nature of how PoA is played, I will actually do - *gasp* - editing. Minor editing (which is the most skilled editing I can do) to show off what I call 'bloopers' at the start of the video which will come with a timestamp, just to show how many attempts it took to beat that cycle without boring you to tears with dozens of minutes (in some cases it may be a few hours, in the later cycles) of footage of me losing. That said... not every episode will necessarily have text unique to it, but if it does, it'll be below but above my usual link to my other channel. In this episode, after a bit of deliberation I make the decision to go for a Lochra Mubarizun of Humbaba. Now, Lochra is an interesting culture to pick for its good starting life, speed, and STR/DEX/WIL spread. The resist psychic penalty can be overcome rather easily and the resist blood bonus while nice isn't exactly 'great' given that you can also rather easily stack up blood resistance. What's really unique, is that on being dealt damage, they gain stacks of berserk which allow them to have an extra attack on 'initial attack' meaning, on your first attack, you get a freebie. Now consider the Mubarizun, again it has a good S/D/W spread and starts with a decent-ish set of gear, but what gets it a double-take is that as a class, its special is stupendous - on step/block/dodge perform an extra attack against an adjacent enemy, AND, *on attack, if single-handing*, perform a 10 damage hit against an adjacent enemy. There's so much combo potential alone in this class' special ability that it really sort of explains itself if we're being real here. Now, Humbaba is an interesting religion pick because its passive, and its first and second prayers, really sort of combo with just about anything - but not too much. It's a decent sustain (healing) source but, really, it doesn't require much investment to be good, only that your character is actually y'know, killing enemies which is going to be the case for most characters. What came of this run was nothing short of a very surprising... combo? I'm not sure you can call three separate instances of incredibly combo-able segments just rolling into each other a 'combo' inasmuch as you can say a meal of 'meat, vegetables, and grains' is somehow a 'combo' but it did work out shockingly well for what it was, at least in my opinion. At about 28m or 29m in I take a look at the Samnite class and realize... ...yeah it's another pretty easy to combo kit component and just pick it up for what amounts to a Path of Achra Katamari of pain. Look folks I'm going to be real with you here I didn't think this would be a character combo that on first try would get through cycle three but, there it is I suppose. Also at some point we get a sword that straight-up deletes 2% of the target hit's HP and that just sealed the deal on our victory. Anyway: My non-gaming YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Logic-Mysticism/featured My YouTube channel for gaming-related content: https://www.youtube.com/@Anterogradegaming My other, non-gaming Rumble channel (there'll be Rumble-exclusive content someday): https://rumble.com/c/c-7776076?e9s=src_v1_cbl This is not Rumble-exclusive content.

In this series I will play cycles of Path of Achra, trying to beat them. I am not going to 'promise' that each cycle will be beaten with an entirely fresh combination but I will try to mix them up a bit. It is best to consider this an 'irregular' series as, past around cycle 10 or so, things start getting very, very, VERY VERY VERY HARD. So, I'll try and record further but, for all intents and purposes, with each 'cycle' video that comes out consider it the 'last' until further notice. Unlike a lot of my stuff, due to the nature of how PoA is played, I will actually do - *gasp* - editing. Minor editing (which is the most skilled editing I can do) to show off what I call 'bloopers' at the start of the video which will come with a timestamp, just to show how many attempts it took to beat that cycle without boring you to tears with dozens of minutes (in some cases it may be a few hours, in the later cycles) of footage of me losing. That said... not every episode will necessarily have text unique to it, but if it does, it'll be below but above my usual link to my other channel. In this episode, I end up picking the Ape, and going with the Unataak class, along with 'the Worm' deity. Let's break this down. The Ape as a culture is pretty straightforward - you have a good amount of starting life, a very hefty STR bonus at the cost of miniscule starting DEX and WIL, along with a modest penalty to psychic resistance with what (I think is, anyway) a rather humorous and flavorful passive in his preference for nakedness translating into increased resistances per empty armor slot capping at +20% for all resistances, and an inverse penalty that caps out at -40% if those same armor slots are full (-10% each). What is worth noting, and easily missed however, is that our furred friend has an 'on adjacent attack, apply inflame to yourself equal to your Strength' passive, which is actually quite strong if you're specializing into that. Which we don't, because... Unataak, the 'fighter-monk trained by the yellow church', is the class we've picked, mainly for its passive but to overview, it gives a modest starting life bonus, a pretty decent +5 starting speed bonus, as well as +3 STR and +2 WIL, with some starting gear. The passive, however, is that on stand still the Unataak removes a random *externally applied* effect from the character, and then, performs an extra attack against an adjacent enemy which repeats for each bare fist - this includes weapons that say in their description 'this weapon is a bare fist' or some such, obviously. None of that is relevant much though because we go with, for our character's deity... the Worm is an incredibly interesting religion choice. I've never, until this playthrough, on any cycle, gotten this thing to work simply because I misunderstood its passive and first ability. You see, the idea is that you cannot let the Du' Eird (the first tier prayer ability) fill up, as if it does, the main strength of picking the Worm is nullified, and as well, if you try to 'dump' more than one charge of the Du' Eird at once you risk it completely ruining your defenses. What's worth noting about the Worm is that its second and third prayer abilities aren't perhaps that strong on higher cycles, but worked amusingly and particularly well here on cycle 4. As you'll see in the video, we essentially don't play a character that is an active melee combatant despite not taking any non-martial powers, but rather, we end up playing a strange caste archetype more reminiscent of a cleric, using the second and third tier prayer abilities - Eiqab and Muejab respectively - to 'nuke' the map and snipe survivors from the initial 'nuking', also respectively. The whole thing was a bizarre run that culminated in the single most funny interaction with the King of Many Colors I've had in dozens of hours of playing Path of Achra, and as well, my first victory ever with a religion pick for which my initial evaluation clearly needs reassessment. Anyway: My non-gaming YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Logic-Mysticism/featured My YouTube channel for gaming-related content: https://www.youtube.com/@Anterogradegaming My other, non-gaming Rumble channel (there'll be Rumble-exclusive content someday): https://rumble.com/c/c-7776076?e9s=src_v1_cbl This is not Rumble-exclusive content.