How I would rework Valkyr

[BlachWolf]

Valkyr back in 2015 was the first frame I ever build and the time I spend with her was glorious. I had a lot of fun with her and ended up calling myself "the human meat grinder". That said her kit hasnt aged that well and is somewhat disappointing now days. She's still functional and easily scales into endgame, but her kit is just stale. This is broad upon half of her kit basically being worthless, while her 4 negates parts of her 2. To be more exact, here are the main issues I have with Valkyr:

• Rip Line: This ability has been long overdue for a rework, since parkour 2.0 made it long obsolete. The augment is also pure trash.
• Paralysis: Even before the CL nerf, this ability alone in my opinion has always been worthless thanks to how slow it was. Now that finishers cant guarantee a death, my opinion of this ability is further strengthened. The augment though is perfectly fine.
• Hysteria: Makes the armor part of her 2 worthless and reduces possible synergies. In general in my opinion having long invulnerability phases should never be part of a frames kit.

Warcry and her passive on the other hand are good abilities.

With this rework Suggestion I dont aim to increase her power by a whole lot, but make her kit a lot more fun to play. In addition I wont be introducing any forced synergies, since that can easily lead to dependencies, which is something new frames have started to suffer from. That said here are my suggestions:

Her Base stats (Base and prime):

Spoiler

 

• Base health: Increase to 150hp (450 at lvl 30).

Note: Since I'll be removing the invulnerability of her 4, I aim to boost her ehp a bit over 15k in order to make up for it.Right now she lands around 13k ehp with a full umbral build.

 

Her one (New ability): Pounce

Spoiler

 

Ability description: Valkyr pounces on her unlucky pray, performing a ground finisher with her currently active melee weapon, which rejuvenates her and knocks down nearby enemy units. Finishers performed with pounce have increased dmg.

Technical description:

• Energy consumption: 25 energy.
• Knockdown range: 10m.
• Targeting range: 60m.
• Damage buff: 50% multiplicative.
• Health conversion: 20%.

Augment (new): Relentless pounding

Description: On a successful pounce kill Valkyr gains a 0.5m buff for 15s which stacks up to 4m. Performing a pounce refreshes the the duration of the buff.

Note: The main use of her 1 was to get valkyr close to the enemy, by making this into an actual pounce we can achieve that and essentially give her an innate gab closer.

 

Her two (Tweaks): Warcry

Spoiler

 

Tweaks:

• Remove the slowing effect, since there is a better place where we could take advantage of it.
• Increase the armor buff to a base of 150%.

Note: As stated before warcry is a good ability, but because I'm playing on removing the invulnerability of her 4, her armor buff will become a lot more relevant. This will allow her to reach around 20k ehp with a fully umbral build not considering adaptation.

 

Her three (Reworked): Paralysis

Spoiler

 

Ability description: Valkyr lets out a loud roar, which knocks down enemies and eats away at their resolve, thus slowing them down.

Ability description:

• Energy consumption: Stays the same.
• Range: Increased to 15m.
• Slow debuff: 30% with 15s duration.
• Can still be recasted.
• Double casting speed.

Augment: Remove stagger duration buff, since it isnt needed anymore thanks to the innate slow of paralysis now.

Note: Paralysis was an easy one to fix, by giving it the slow effect of her 2 it gains a lot more potential as a cheap light CC ability, which can be recasted.

 

Her four (Tweaked): Hysteria

Spoiler

 

Tweaks:

• Remove invulnerability.
• Reduce energy consumption to 5 energy / s.
• Remove life steal, since her 1 covers that part now.
• Add a synergy with her 3. Enemies killed with her 4 under the effect of her 3, will spread the debuff in a 10m radius.
• Add a synergy with her 1. On a successful kill with her 1, while using her 4 valkyr spawns a viral cloud weakening her enemies.

Note: The changes will make her hysteria still appealing, since it still will provide something more than just dmg and invulnerability. I havent thought about how I would change the augment, since now her 1 replaces it, but once I have an idea I will post it right away.

 

 

 

Conclusion:

Valkyr while in need of a rework, is by no means the prime candidate right now. That would be my dearest Zephyr. None the less she still requires one and I hope DE has an eye on her. 

Edited December 21, 2019 by BlachWolf

[peterc3]

Where does Viral damage fit into her theme?

She's a berserker, that's what Hysteria is replicating. Not stopping until your enemies are dead. A single target life steal is a vampire. Plus, you've removed the finisher opener from her 3.

[Andele3025]

The only changes Valkitty needs is her 1 pull strengths reversed (OR AT LEAST not kill momentum when pulling yourself to a wall like Archline version, which does end half way in, but doesnt kill momentum gained by it unlike ripline) and make her hysteria work as a invul version of A2 Berserk OR AT LEAST make its energy drain scale off stored damage (increased from 7.5% to 100% damage) in proportion to her max hp instead of time while allowing you to also lifesteal it away when at full hp, but you always take the stored damage on toggle off if you have any/didnt lifesteal it all away (to make fighting the best option, not cowardice).

[(PSN)thegarada]

Overall, Valkyr is not remotely lacking in survivability department. She does not need to be a female Inarios. What she needs is a refocus to be melee frame, since that is her design focus and theme. And I would keep going with the cries (shouts? Or whatever you want to call them).

I would remove ripline. It is useless. A relic of WF stone age. Instead I will make a cry that adds 5-10-15-20% melee damage for 20 secs. Small enough for first skill, and since Valkyr is early frame, the skill is relatively inline for such. The scaling comes from the augment. Augment increases combo multipilyer by 10-20-30-40 (no gain from ability str). This makes Valkyr max combo multipilyer 14x for melee. Unique and solid addition for a primary melee frame. The melee damage bonus is shareable with allies, the combo multipilyer is Valkyr only. 

I do not agree regarding increasing Warcry armor. Valkyr is already highly survivable. What that skill needs 1) removal of slow, 2) reduction of energy to 50, 3) increase duration to 20 secs.

Skill 3, I am okay with it on live as is, or your suggestion. If ranged is increased, it would work well.

Hysteria, with the increase in range and umbra steel buff, claws can hit and can hit extremely hard. I think the skill as is on live is great. It allows for cheesing some stuff. Great for level 100 assassination and kuva liches. And honestly, it will never be able to compete with melee weapons, cuz even if it has the damage, maintain high combo multipilyer is not going to happen. I do not care much for the healing (hello magus repair), but I think it is very useful mechanic for players not highly invested in the game. I would leave it be. The skill is situational, but extremely useful when the situation needs it.

[-skimmer-]

No need to remove ripline. It has actually been slightly reworked with the liches update and its way more useful for movement now if you know how to use it. Now if it could pull enemies in the same reliable way how Inaros Devour ability does, it would be golden. They certainly have it coded already.

Pounce is already present on hysterical assault, though it would be much better if it would be cast the moment you activate the hysteria ability with enemy in your crosshairs.

10 hours ago, (PS4)thegarada said:

I would remove ripline. It is useless. A relic of WF stone age. Instead I will make a cry that adds 5-10-15-20% melee damage for 20 secs. Small enough for first skill, and since Valkyr is early frame, the skill is relatively inline for such. The scaling comes from the augment. Augment increases combo multipilyer by 10-20-30-40 (no gain from ability str). This makes Valkyr max combo multipilyer 14x for melee. Unique and solid addition for a primary melee frame. The melee damage bonus is shareable with allies, the combo multipilyer is Valkyr only.

Now thats terrible design for an ability. She would end up with two separate self buffing abilities which she would waste ton of time casting and the 20% bonus damage would be worse than useless. Might as well play Chroma if you want that kind of gameplay loop.

Edited December 22, 2019 by -skimmer-

[(PSN)thegarada]

11 minutes ago, -skimmer- said:

No need to remove ripline. It has actually been slightly reworked with the liches update and its way more useful for movement now if you know how to use it. Now if it could pull enemies in the same reliable way how Inaros Devour ability does, it would be golden. They certainly have it coded already.

Pounce is already present on hysterical assault, though it would be much better if it would be cast the moment you activate the hysteria ability with enemy in your crosshairs.

Now thats terrible design for an ability. She would end up with two separate self buffing abilities which she would waste ton of time casting and the 20% bonus damage would be worse than useless. Might as well play Chroma if you want that kind of gameplay loop.

Skills that improve parkour are 100% useless. They have zero purpose whatsoever anywhere in the game. 

How is a 14x combo multiplyer and ~40% melee weapon damage (with skill power) useless?!

[-skimmer-]

7 minutes ago, (PS4)thegarada said:

Skills that improve parkour are 100% useless. They have zero purpose whatsoever anywhere in the game. 

How is a 14x combo multiplyer and ~40% melee weapon damage (with skill power) useless?!

Spoken like somebody who doesnt even play Valkyr.

When you already deal so much damage that everybody you look at dies instantly, the only real way to improve it is to reach your enemies faster.

Its why Ripline and Warcry are important to Valks gameplay and why the beefy frames with no parkour skills will always be weaker (also too boring to play).

[Andele3025]

59 minutes ago, -skimmer- said:

No need to remove ripline. It has actually been slightly reworked with the liches update and its way more useful for movement now if you know how to use it. Now if it could pull enemies in the same reliable way how Inaros Devour ability does, it would be golden. They certainly have it coded already.

You dont even need to use the coding of inaros, just revert the pull strengths of when used against ground vs when used vs enemies. Make it so that she flings herself without losing momentum (even if the acceleration ends 1/3rd in as it does right now AND in the way itazal Archline works) while enemies get their momentum killed 1/3rd in.

Tho i would love it if her ripline augment made it so that she gets her double jump reset as a active effect and just increase the combo time for ripline by 4s instead of being the effectively worthless "no cost" (when casting it 3 times in a row at 45% efficiency is still better than casting a regular no combo time 1 3 times/is 68 energy instead of 75 and just better with efficiency down to 11 energy for 3 casts and then being 1.5 energy more for every followup, thats already functionally for free and a base part of the skill).

[Miyabi-sama]

Pure embarassment of a suggestion.

Remove ripline? Because you don't use it and think it is useless? Finishers are useless because you told so? Should we remove Kubrows too, cuz I don't use them? Heck, remove Ignis please, I don't use it. I find it useless! Remove Inaros at once, I beg you. He's useless for me! Just outright remove half of existing weapons in the game. Useless.

[(XBOX)Knight Raime]

Aside from a few QoL changes Valkyr isn't really hurting in any area exactly.  The only thing that personally bothers me about her kit is how single target she is.  Sure, you can spam her slide attack to hit multiple enemies.  Sure, the buffs with the melee changes gave her slightly more reach/aoe.  But she still falls behind here.  It DOES put more emphasis on your movement with her which is rather interesting compared to basically every other melee frame being "spam your waves this way."  But still.

I do enjoy how she also focuses on finishers a lot more as well.  but again.  it's a slower way to play.  If they could somehow improve these downsides while keeping Valkyr what she is then i'd be all for another look at her kit from the devs. 

[(PSN)thegarada]

20 hours ago, Miyabi-sama said:

Pure embarassment of a suggestion.

Remove ripline? Because you don't use it and think it is useless? Finishers are useless because you told so? Should we remove Kubrows too, cuz I don't use them? Heck, remove Ignis please, I don't use it. I find it useless! Remove Inaros at once, I beg you. He's useless for me! Just outright remove half of existing weapons in the game. Useless.

This is a massive logical fallacy. It is not that the skill is not used and thus it is useless. It is useless and thus is not being used. The "useless" part comes first. Usage is determined by skill usefulness. I cannot believe I have to explain this...

[Derium-Envy]

These changes in a nutshell:

Literally make every ability that was fun not useful at all and just make her Warcry be the only skill that she has.

[Miyabi-sama]

2 часа назад, (PS4)thegarada сказал:

This is a massive logical fallacy. It is not that the skill is not used and thus it is useless. It is useless and thus is not being used. The "useless" part comes first. Usage is determined by skill usefulness. I cannot believe I have to explain this...

Why is it useless, explain?

Edited December 23, 2019 by Miyabi-sama