Path of Achra – Melee Class Tips

Guide to Melee Class

Forget about stacking armor, dodge, or block. They’re alright, but they’re not consistent. If you’re looking for defense, go all in on vigor. HP is where it’s at for most builds. It’s your best bet for staying alive. No complicated calculations or rolls, just check if your HP is high enough. Simple, right?

Now, don’t skimp on willpower either. Aim for over 10, but higher is better. Basically, you want to heal more than half your HP in a normal turn. If you’re not focusing on strength or dexterity, willpower is your friend. It boosts your healing, which keeps you going.

As for the rest, focus on dishing out damage and being fast. Most melee builds rely on one thing: killing stuff as soon as they get close. You don’t want to linger in melee range for long. Take out enemies before they can touch you. That’s the key to survival, especially for melee characters.

• Vigor is useful as Jack says but I’ve found that in general you can get away with just ~1000-2000 life (depends on the cycle, especially at 6+, stuff is generally balanced around cycle 1)
• Willpower can be good to get around 10 to make sure you get some enhanced healing
• I like using a Lochra Reaver with Gore Cleave + Technique, Bloodbath, then other stuff, usually either fire / death, bheith nochti for armor and some melee retaliation
• I’m usually always putting Strength into that, but dexterity is always useful. Having 100+ dodge on top of high armor / block can help with a ton of potential damage
• Alhaja Templar is very fun with Humbaba and prayer-focused things
• Mubarizun you can emphasize more DEX and on-hit / on-step stuff
• Warrior starts with inflexibility and a shield, you can raise a ton of Block and use Guard + on-hit stuff – Astrohunting is very useful on builds like this to get close to long-ranged enemies
• Having a familiar or a few summons also helps a lot just to absorb initial hits, as does applying things like entangle / freeze through retaliation to slow enemies down
• Always be careful around big groups of ranged enemies / people with corrosion. Certain lands generate wide-open spaces that you might want to avoid (dune sea, pink stars)

You can be a very buff melee fighter with no armor.Viable up to cycle 10 at least, based on my recent ape adventures.

• Start with a race/class strong without armor like Ape or Reaver. Warrior is great for just the starting sword and shield.
• First add 5 levels of Bheith Nocht + the awesome Bheith Nochti prestige class
• Gods: Dumuzi or Oros to have full heals, many prayers to upgrade weapons, and summons to tank some ranged attacks.
• Add enough strength to be unencumbered, then raise willpower for damage and healing.
• Healing: either no armor + Life chant, or the Emerald Helm + no healing skills.
• By the mid-game, you have high evasion, decent block, and decent armor, and a weapon+shield with 1000 base hit.
• Add extra attacks like Technique or Herja, and extra dodge with Mirror Image or Agility.
• Move carefully near endgame ranged attackers, they can still kill you with a few lucky hits on open terrain. Melee enemies don’t last long due to your many extra attacks.