“On the other side of the door, is there afterlife? Or the void? In the turbulent dark flow and the tide of terror, it was her other self that took her hand. They are flowers of the same roots. Their symbiotic bloom will light up the world behind the door.”

[ATK: 412; CRT: 41]

 

 SKILL DETAIL 

 Passive Skill 1 – Higanbana's Blood Thorns 

Charged ATKs create petals that transform into 5 spikes around the target hit, each dealing 100% ATK of AOE Physical DMG. CD: 7s. Can be reset by Ultimate. Stygian Nymph equip bonus: 7 spikes are created instead.

 

 Passive Skill 2 – Kindred Mark 

When entering the battle or casting Ultimate, wielder restores 200 HP instantly and has 10% bonus Crit Rate as well as 36% Crit DMG for 10s. Stygian Nymph. Stygian Nymph equip bonus:
Saule: the bonuses above last 14s longer.
Veliona: the bonus Crit DMG above changes to 70%.

 

 Passive Skill 3 – Nirvana 

The wielder gains 26% Physical Damage. Stygian Nymph equip bonus: Gains 36% Total Damage Multiplier for Mark Damage.

 

 

 SKILL REVIEW 

Path to Acheron: Kindred (PAK for short) is the new PRI-ARM in version 4.5. This weapon is the only Physical PRI-ARM for scythe; thus, it will be hard to compare PAK with any other weapon. Instead, we will go in depth with the skill provided.

• First, there is NO active skill, only 3 passive skills that greatly benefit Stygian Nymph. 
• The first passive skill [Higanbana's Blood Thorns], will create petals that will transform into 5 spikes with each spike dealing 100% ATK of AOE Physical DMG after dealing Charged ATK. This move can only be triggered every 7 second, or you can reset this cooldown by performing Ultimate.
• For example, if you want to do trigger this skill 2 times in 7s:
• SN Charged ATK > immediately Ultimate > another Charged ATK
• There is a SN equip bonus, which are instead of 5 spikes, there will be 7 spikes equal to 700% ATK of AOE Physical DMG.

 7s timer for to show the cooldown of the spikes

 

5 spikes (the colour of spikes will be in purple)

 

7 spikes (the colour of spikes will be in red)

• The second passive skill is instantly restoring 200 HP, 10% bonus Crit Rate and 36% Crit DMG for 10s. It can only be triggered after entering battle or casting Ultimate. While 200 HP is miniscule and is not important, those Crit Rate and DMG is impressive. 
• Entering battle also count as in EVERY time you change to another Valkyrie then switch back to the wielder of PAK in one battle.

If you look closely, every time SN enter the battle, her HP will increase by 200 HP signalling that this skill does not have a cooldown

 

• There is also SN equip bonus for this skill:
  • Saule (White Seele): Instead of 10s, the duration will extend to 14s.
  • Veliona (Dark Seele): Instead of 36% Crit DMG, the bonus change into 70% Crit DMG.
• The last passive skill is the normal bonus; gain 26% Physical DMG. Clearly this weapon is for Physical Valk and not Elemental Valk, but if you do not have Skadi of Thrymheim which is another PRI scythe, then this weapon could be a replacement until you will get Skadi just because of its high base ATK and CRT.
• Of course, this skill also had another SN bonus: 36% TDM Multiplier for Mark Damage (Charged ATK of SN).

As of now, there are only 3 Physical Valkyrie that can use scythe and SN benefit the most in equipping PAK as you can see, all the skills have bonus for SN that greatly boost her damage output.

 

 

 RECOMMENDED FOR 

[Stygian Nymph]

Compared to Path to Acheron, the difference is only the number and addition of 1 passive skill:

 

The difference is small between the 5* and PRI, mainly PRI has higher number and extra passive skill. Clearly, only the number hold the difference. Following are the damage output for both weapon:

As expected, PAK surpass others scythe, even PRI Skadi when equipped with SN. This is no surprise as PAK was developed for her.

 

 

[Swallowtail Phantasm]

SP is another scythe-user Physical Valkyrie that can greatly benefit from PAK. While SP has Undine' Tail for her signature weapon, it obviously cannot defeat a PRI-ARM that are also made for Physical Valkyrie. Let number do the talk:

As you can see, PAK once again surpassed other weapon in term of damage output even when equipped by Valkyrie other than SN. Although all of PAK skills have bonus for SN, SP can equip it just fine and still gain more bonuses than Undine's Tail.

 

 

[Umbral Rose]

UR is another scythe-user Physical Valkyrie that also already had their own signature weapon Aphrodite. But just like before, PAK remain on the top because of its higher stats and additional passive skill. 

 

 

 CONCLUSION 

PAK is the 1st PRI-ARM for scythe-user Physical Valkyries, so it is hard to make comparison. Even so, from the statistic above, it clearly benefits all three Physical Valkyries that use scythe. In my opinion, it is worth our resources to upgrade it into PRI-ARM.