Valkyr Prime Eternal War build

[(XBOX)D34thst41ker]

I recently returned to the game, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that the Prime Access was Valkyr Prime (Valkyr was my preferred Frame before my hiatus). I immediately grabbed it, and I'm looking for input on a build for her. Unfortunately, I didn't really have a set build with my Valkyr, so I can't just swap everything over. Here's what I'm thinking:

Aura - Steel Charge. I'll probably eventually Forma this to remove the polarity, but Steel Charge works best for me, so that's a low priority.

Exilus - Power Drift. Nothing else really appeals.

Eternal War - The cornerstone of the build.

Rage - Energy generation. Primarily used to power Hysteria. Sure,it's not the focus of the build, but that free Lifesteal on hit is too good to pass up.

Steel Fiber-  Standard durability mod, and particularly effective with Valkyr.

Vitality-  Same as Steel Fiber.

Intensify + Transient Fortitude - Increased Power Strength.

Narrow Minded + Continuity - Increased Power Duration.

 

That's what I have for the Frame. I'm a little more uncertain with the weapon. I prefer faster weapons; of the ones I actually have, the best ones seem to be the Venka Prime and the Tipedo. Venka Prime has better overall damage thanks to slightly superior damage stats and it's modified Melee Combo Counter, while the Tipedo has better Range and Attack Speed. I'll probably stick with the Venka Prime, but I remember Tipedo being really good once upon a time, so I'm throwing it out there for consideration.

The big problem is how to mod it. My first thought is Body Count, Blood Rush, Berserker, Pressure Point,  Jagged Edge, Spoiled Strike, True Steel, and Organ Shatter. However, that setup doesn't have any elemental damage. Would that be a bad thing? If so, what would I pull for the elemental damage, and what element should I go for? If I try to cover the weapon's weaknesses, a combination of Corrosive and Magnetic seems like it would be good, but it would take 4 slots, and possibly a few dual-stat mods.

Anyway, as you can tell, I'm pretty lost on the weapon, so that's my main section of interest. However, I don't mind input on the Frame build, hence the reason I included it.

[Xekrin]

50 minutes ago, (XB1)D34thst41ker said:

Steel Fiber-  Standard durability mod, and particularly effective with Valkyr.

I truly believe this is a waste of a slot on every frame imaginable.  Any frame that benefits from this already has enough armor, otherwise they'd not benefit from it, hence useless.  Valkyr Prime has 700 armor, you are building for Eternal War, so there is a ton more armor already.  

50 minutes ago, (XB1)D34thst41ker said:

Rage - Energy generation. Primarily used to power Hysteria. Sure,it's not the focus of the build, but that free Lifesteal on hit is too good to pass up.

While great for those 'oh crap' moments of activating hysteria, chances are good your energy pool is going to be full anyway just from energy orbs.  Remember, you have no spam abilities really, eternal war keeps that one up constantly, so little need for a constant supply of energy.  

The rest is what I use as well.  Though I believe I just use constituion and stretch (to share the buff with squad), and not narrow minded unless I'm solo.  

As for weapons I prefer Lesion gas/slash build or Jat Kittag.  Eternal War massively increases attack speed and with the Vulcan Blitz augment there are explosions everywhere.

[(XBOX)D34thst41ker]

Point taken on Steel Fiber. Not so sure about Rage; I'm not doing T4 Survival/Defense missions exclusively, so relying on Orb drops is something I'd rather not do.

is there any other advice anyone can give, or is the build pretty much perfect as-is?

[YouSir_Won]

I put primed flow instead of transient fortitude just incase i need to go into hysteria. other than that my build is pretty much identical to yours

[-Apple-Pie-]

Thats a good one:

Spoiler

If you are more into efficiency, than to buffing allies as far as possible, replace Stretch with Streamline.

Edited February 5, 2017 by mobilehacker

[Slaviar]

For crit based melees I always go for same build- Blood Rush, Body Count, Organ Shatter, (Primed) Pressure Point, Berserker/Primed Fury, Life Strike and, depending on faction, elementals. Vs Grineer Radiation, Corrosive or Viral (depends if who you want to quicker- Bombards, Gunners or if you want to have roughly same damage against all of them- Viral proc is also most useful proc for low status weapons), vs Infested Corrosive, vs Corpus pure Toxin (because it takes only one mod I fill empty slot with Smite Corpus).

Drop Jagged Edge and Spoiled Strike. Both of these provide too small boost compared to elementals. True Steel isn't necessary as well, Blood Rush with Venka gives high crit chance quickly.

On 4.02.2017 at 0:10 PM, Xekrin said:

I truly believe this is a waste of a slot on every frame imaginable.  Any frame that benefits from this already has enough armor, otherwise they'd not benefit from it, hence useless.  Valkyr Prime has 700 armor, you are building for Eternal War, so there is a ton more armor already.

It isn't. Steel Fiber gives significant EHP boost to most armored frames. It gives additional 13% DR to Valkyr Prime. That's a lot as you take almost half less damage than you'd take without it.

Edited February 5, 2017 by Slaviar

[(XBOX)D34thst41ker]

There's a question: how often should I be channeling? I never do because I want to make sure I have energy for my abilities,  but I only recently got Eternal War, so I'm still figuring out what I can get away with as far as energy consumption. 

mobilehacker, I'm surprised that you don't have Vitality. Even with Valkyr Prime's massive armor, not having Vitality seems like it would result in being relatively frail. Of course, I'm far from an expert player, so I may be way off-base.

As far as Power Range goes, I generally do most stuff solo, so I don't really need any Range. I'll probably therefore skip Stretch.

I considered Blind Rage, but I'm worried that it will hamper my ability to keep War Cry up. Yes, Eternal War helps, but I'm nowhere near 60 minute Survival/Defense, and I'm honestly not sure if I'll ever be particularly interested in it. Most of what I'm doing is running around planets opening up relays and clearing out the missions, so I'm not guaranteed to have enemies rushing me for easy kills. And outside of Survival/Defense missions, I expect that even with Eternal War, I'll be casting War Cry more than you guys are expecting. If I have Blind Rage, it will take 117 Energy to cast War Cry (assuming I'm doing the math right), making it far less useful. Which is annoying, because that Power Strength is really nice. Anyway, that's why I went with Transient Fortitude. While the reduced Duration is kind of annoying, it's balanced out by the fact that I'm stacking Duration, so overall it's a net gain.

As far as the Melee mods go, I'm kind of surprised that Spoiled Strike and Jagged Edge are bad. The +90% and +100% are pretty nice numbers. I suppose I can see cutting them to make room for other...utility mods is the only phrase I ca think of, though I'm not sure it's correct. But I would think they'd still be pretty good in and of themselves. Is there some behind-the-scenes math stuff I'm missing or something? I'm not saying I feel they absolutely have to be in the build; I'm just trying to understand what makes them bad so I can look for similar issues with other builds I might put together.

Should probably mention, I currently don't have any Primed mods other than Primed Fast Hands. I was away for a while, so I missed Baro, and I'm trying to get a handle on what I need before I start gobbling up every Primed mod in Trade Chat. Once I know what I'm looking at, I'll start looking to get Primed versions of the mods. So don't be surprised if you say "Primed Flow" and I come back with "Flow".

[Kylo.]

3 hours ago, mobilehacker said:

Thats a good one:

  Hide contents

If you are more into efficiency, than to buffing allies as far as possible, replace Stretch with Streamline.

Warcry caps at 250% power strength as far as ingame shows.

[Xekrin]

1 hour ago, Slaviar said:

It isn't. Steel Fiber gives significant EHP boost to most armored frames. It gives additional 13% DR to Valkyr Prime. That's a lot as you take almost half less damage than you'd take without it.

I feel like you didn't really read or possibly interpret what I wrote correctly.  Yea Valkyr benefits, of course valkyr benefits, her armor is already astoundingly high, which is the only way to get any benefit from this mod.  The point is she doesn't 'need' it.  Those that do need more EHP get literally nothing from this mod.  Thus, useless.  But sure that extra 13% DR definitely looks very pretty on paper.

In laymen's terms, the rich get richer the poor get poorer (in armor / EHP).

[Slaviar]

1 hour ago, Xekrin said:

I feel like you didn't really read or possibly interpret what I wrote correctly.  Yea Valkyr benefits, of course valkyr benefits, her armor is already astoundingly high, which is the only way to get any benefit from this mod.  The point is she doesn't 'need' it.  Those that do need more EHP get literally nothing from this mod.  Thus, useless.  But sure that extra 13% DR definitely looks very pretty on paper.

In laymen's terms, the rich get richer the poor get poorer (in armor / EHP).

I would still say it's more beneficial for Valkyr to use Steel Fiber with Warcry. Without any power strength mods she should reach ~85% DR which is more than she can squeeze without Steel Fiber but with all power strength mods.

And she does 'need' it. Simple math- Bombard rocket does 1k dmg. Valkyr without Steel Fiber will take 300. With it- 170. It's not "on paper", it cuts damage she receives by almost half. Valkyr isn't Inaros with 4k+ HP, unless we're talking Hysteria her only way of tanking is her high armor- which doesn't provide enough EHP to outlive even unmodded Inaros.

1 hour ago, (XB1)D34thst41ker said:

There's a question: how often should I be channeling? I never do because I want to make sure I have energy for my abilities,  but I only recently got Eternal War, so I'm still figuring out what I can get away with as far as energy consumption. 

mobilehacker, I'm surprised that you don't have Vitality. Even with Valkyr Prime's massive armor, not having Vitality seems like it would result in being relatively frail. Of course, I'm far from an expert player, so I may be way off-base.

As far as Power Range goes, I generally do most stuff solo, so I don't really need any Range. I'll probably therefore skip Stretch.

I considered Blind Rage, but I'm worried that it will hamper my ability to keep War Cry up. Yes, Eternal War helps, but I'm nowhere near 60 minute Survival/Defense, and I'm honestly not sure if I'll ever be particularly interested in it. Most of what I'm doing is running around planets opening up relays and clearing out the missions, so I'm not guaranteed to have enemies rushing me for easy kills. And outside of Survival/Defense missions, I expect that even with Eternal War, I'll be casting War Cry more than you guys are expecting. If I have Blind Rage, it will take 117 Energy to cast War Cry (assuming I'm doing the math right), making it far less useful. Which is annoying, because that Power Strength is really nice. Anyway, that's why I went with Transient Fortitude. While the reduced Duration is kind of annoying, it's balanced out by the fact that I'm stacking Duration, so overall it's a net gain.

As far as the Melee mods go, I'm kind of surprised that Spoiled Strike and Jagged Edge are bad. The +90% and +100% are pretty nice numbers. I suppose I can see cutting them to make room for other...utility mods is the only phrase I ca think of, though I'm not sure it's correct. But I would think they'd still be pretty good in and of themselves. Is there some behind-the-scenes math stuff I'm missing or something? I'm not saying I feel they absolutely have to be in the build; I'm just trying to understand what makes them bad so I can look for similar issues with other builds I might put together.

Should probably mention, I currently don't have any Primed mods other than Primed Fast Hands. I was away for a while, so I missed Baro, and I'm trying to get a handle on what I need before I start gobbling up every Primed mod in Trade Chat. Once I know what I'm looking at, I'll start looking to get Primed versions of the mods. So don't be surprised if you say "Primed Flow" and I come back with "Flow".

If you are using tanky frame with Rage you are very unlikely to ever be low on energy so you should be free to channel. Though if we are talking non-endless, I don't think you'll be able to keep Warcry up and you may have occasional energy problems but it should be big issue because non-endless must be Sorties to offer any challenge.
I'm listing Life Strike because it's one of the best ways to heal. On higher level you will be usually channeling as soon as you see mobs but even after slaughtering them you should be high on energy.

As for Spoiled Strike and Jagged Edge- math for increasing dmg with pure dmg mods is (base dmg)+(base dmg*dmg mod 1)+(base dmg*dmg mod 2) etc. So a weapon with 100 base dmg, equipped with Pressure Point (+120% dmg) and Spoiled Strike (+100% dmg) will deal 100+(100*120%)+(100*100%)=320 dmg.

Elemetal mods scale by adding their respective element after all pure dmg mods. So our weapon equipped with two dmg mods and Fever Strike will have extra 320*0.9=288 toxin dmg, for 608 total dmg per hit.

IPS dmg mods require their respective dmg type to be present to have any effect and their scale from its modded value. Say, we have weapon with 100 total dmg, divided between 50 slash and 50 puncture. Put dmg mods on and we have 160 slash and 160 puncture for 320 total dmg. Now we put Jagged Edge on it and it will have 464 total dmg-160 puncture and 160*1.9=304 slash.

That's why Spoiled Strike and Jagged Edge lose if you have to choose between them and elementals. If weapon deals 220 dmg Spoiled Strike will increase it to 320 and lower attack speed but Fever Strike-to 418. IPS mods lose because there isn't a single melee weapon with only one physical dmg type so it will never increase dmg as much as elemental.
There's also one more thing- mobs are weaker to elemental dmg types than physical. Viral deals extra 75% dmg to Grineer and 50% to Corpus and slash deals only extra 25% while falling off harder against armored mobs. Of course it doesn't mean physical dmg types are useless- slash status is one of the strongest procs and it works well with Corrosive against Infested- but elementals usually win.

And yeah, Vitality always wins with Steel Fiber though they work best together.

I hope I didn't make this post impossible to read. My apologies if I did.

[Xekrin]

2 minutes ago, Slaviar said:

I would still say it's more beneficial for Valkyr to use Steel Fiber with Warcry.

That's fine, OP asked for advice, I gave him mine, you gave yours. Personal play style preferences are sure to differ.

[Slaviar]

7 minutes ago, Xekrin said:

That's fine, OP asked for advice, I gave him mine, you gave yours. Personal play style preferences are sure to differ.

True, after all Steel Fiber won't help her get extra melee speed.

[DarthKadra]

My Eternal War build:

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/81465074622431795/21096A1025C36BF27C482996678EFBA0654224B7/

The amount of power you want depends on the weapon, so you might wanna switch to TF or even Intensify instead of BR, if the combos you want become impossible to pull off. Primed Continuity is quite enough to maintain the buff if there are enemies around, if there are no enemies and you lose it - you got P. Flow, you just recast it when you find enough meat. No need to lose range for Narrow Minded (which I used in the past), most of the time there's either enough enemies to fuel Warcry or too few even for Narrow Minded, but if you feel like you must have a few extra seconds, you can install Narrow Minded instead of P. Cont. QT will add A LOT to her survivability. Vitality + Steel Fibre are just a must on any Valkyr Build. Handspring is a nice alternative for the exilus slot if you get enough speed without those extra 15% from Power Drift.

You might wanna try out a Paralysis build. It's mighty fun. I actually use it all the time now instead of Warcry build. See packs of enemies pulled towards your feet and have a 25m CC. And the bonus is you don't give flying fuck about Nullifiers anymore cause you aren't losing any buffs :-) It has somewhat less EHP, but you got the CC.

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/81465074622432018/2D7E5CBCBA45B51938CFDFA70A5D7D8F1B0942CB/

 

Edited February 6, 2017 by frohdoe

[DarthKadra]

On 2/4/2017 at 2:10 PM, Xekrin said:

I truly believe this is a waste of a slot on every frame imaginable.  Any frame that benefits from this already has enough armor, otherwise they'd not benefit from it, hence useless.  Valkyr Prime has 700 armor, you are building for Eternal War, so there is a ton more armor already.  

That's just heresy. Even with Quick Thinking on top of Steel Fibre you can get killed very easily. Running around without SF, gl with that. Go to simulacrum, summon a level 100+ bombard and count how many rockets to the face you can take in each case.

[Xekrin]

1 hour ago, frohdoe said:

Go to simulacrum, summon a level 100+ bombard and count how many rockets to the face you can take in each case.

lol I tend to avoid the rockets in the face scenerios, guaranteed to last longer than getting hit.

[(PSN)Onder6099]

Tbh, Steel Fiber+Rage is one of worst combinations in game because SF prevents Rage to give u more Energy.

[Slaviar]

38 minutes ago, (PS4)Onder6099 said:

Tbh, Steel Fiber+Rage is one of worst combinations in game because SF prevents Rage to give u more Energy.

Steel Fiber ensures you can survive long enough to use that energy. Otherwise you may gain more energy but you are also more likely to be dead.

[(XBOX)D34thst41ker]

So it's not really that Jagged Edge and Spoiled Strike are bad in and of themselves; it's just that Elements are just better. Partly because they scale off of total damage of the weapon instead of just the primary type, and partly because enemy weaknesses make the proper elements even more effective than just what you see on the card.

I will admit, though, that I'm still confused on why Spoiled Strike is bad. Sure, Pressure Point does the same thing with no drawback, but it seems to me that Pressure Point + Spoiled Strike + Element would be the best overall combination, as it would give the best total damage for the elemental mods to feed off of. The flip side of this, of course, is that if you need to lose a mod, Spoiled Strike should be first to the chopping block, as it's providing the least benefit.

Now I'm thinking Body Count, Blood Rush, Pressure Point, Spoiled Strike, Berserker, and Life Strike. That leaves 2 slots open for a combined element, or a single element and Fury. If we decide to bring in another element, lose Spoiled Strike. If we need another combined element, lose Spoiled Strike and Life Strike (we are talking about a Valkyr Prime frame, so while Life Strike would be more convenient, we can lose it and still get health back by dipping into Hysteria long enough to get a kill or two).

Thoughts?

[Slaviar]

18 minutes ago, (XB1)D34thst41ker said:

So it's not really that Jagged Edge and Spoiled Strike are bad in and of themselves; it's just that Elements are just better. Partly because they scale off of total damage of the weapon instead of just the primary type, and partly because enemy weaknesses make the proper elements even more effective than just what you see on the card.

I will admit, though, that I'm still confused on why Spoiled Strike is bad. Sure, Pressure Point does the same thing with no drawback, but it seems to me that Pressure Point + Spoiled Strike + Element would be the best overall combination, as it would give the best total damage for the elemental mods to feed off of. The flip side of this, of course, is that if you need to lose a mod, Spoiled Strike should be first to the chopping block, as it's providing the least benefit.

Now I'm thinking Body Count, Blood Rush, Pressure Point, Spoiled Strike, Berserker, and Life Strike. That leaves 2 slots open for a combined element, or a single element and Fury. If we decide to bring in another element, lose Spoiled Strike. If we need another combined element, lose Spoiled Strike and Life Strike (we are talking about a Valkyr Prime frame, so while Life Strike would be more convenient, we can lose it and still get health back by dipping into Hysteria long enough to get a kill or two).

Thoughts?

It's not that Spoiled Strike is bad. It's a matter of having very few slots on crit build. Pressure Point+two elementals+Spoiled Strike will provide more damage than Pressure Point+3 elementals, at the cost of lower attack speed but it shouldn't really matter with Warcry.

You definitely shouldn't drop Organ Shatter. Entire point of Blood Rush build is to get multiplier high enough to have guaranteed crits. Dropping crit damage mod in crit build, especially for Spoiled Strike, is a waste. Drop Life Strike if you want more damage but it may happen you will have to run in constant Hysteria at high levels. Though I never really tried going far with Valkyr so take it with a grain of salt.

[(XBOX)D34thst41ker]

Completely forgot we were talking about a crit focused weapon. Thanks for reminding me. I'd say more, but I'm actually jumping into Warframe as we speak, so I'll have more later.

[(PSN)Onder6099]

4 hours ago, Slaviar said:

Steel Fiber ensures you can survive long enough to use that energy. Otherwise you may gain more energy but you are also more likely to be dead.

Not exactly, more Energy allows u to use Abilities and Channeling more often, so if u make decision to control your free space in Energy pool to let Rage work properly, thru Abilities and Channeling, u probably never die.

[(PSN)joshw1400]

Aura: Steel Charge

Exilus: Power Drift

-Narrow Minded/Quick Thinking

-Blind Rage

- Vitality

- Steel Fiber

- Rage

- Primed Continuity

- Primed Flow

- Eternal War

Al long as your keeping Warcry up, you won't need to worry about energy. And if you're looking for survivabilty, QT and Rage will give you that.

[Slaviar]

5 minutes ago, (PS4)Onder6099 said:

Not exactly, more Energy allows u to use Abilities and Channeling more often, so if u make decision to control your free space in Energy pool to let Rage work properly, thru Abilities and Channeling, u probably never die.

From my experience quite the opposite. At higher level less EHP makes it easier to die but energy won't be an issue anyway simply because of amount of dmg received.

[(PSN)Onder6099]

52 minutes ago, Slaviar said:

From my experience quite the opposite. At higher level less EHP makes it easier to die but energy won't be an issue anyway simply because of amount of dmg received.

It's more likely "Sacrifice Energy to save HP", not an Energy issue.

From your statement: 300 Dmg without SF+ Rage= 120 into Energy, so u immediately can cast Warcry with Blind Rage, which gives u 117 free space for another Dmg>Energy conversion thru Rage, while with SF u must wait for another Dmg.

Edited February 6, 2017 by (PS4)Onder6099

[(XBOX)Cotton Tail]

On 04/02/2017 at 10:19 AM, (XB1)D34thst41ker said:

I prefer faster weapons; of the ones I actually have, the best ones seem to be the Venka Prime and the Tipedo. Venka Prime has better overall damage thanks to slightly superior damage stats and it's modified Melee Combo Counter, while the Tipedo has better Range and Attack Speed. I'll probably stick with the Venka Prime, but I remember Tipedo being really good once upon a time, so I'm throwing it out there for consideration.

The big problem is how to mod it. My first thought is Body Count, Blood Rush, Berserker, Pressure Point,  Jagged Edge, Spoiled Strike, True Steel, and Organ Shatter. However, that setup doesn't have any elemental damage. Would that be a bad thing? If so, what would I pull for the elemental damage, and what element should I go for? If I try to cover the weapon's weaknesses, a combination of Corrosive and Magnetic seems like it would be good, but it would take 4 slots, and possibly a few dual-stat mods.

Anyway, as you can tell, I'm pretty lost on the weapon, so that's my main section of interest. However, I don't mind input on the Frame build, hence the reason I included it.

May I recommend the Hirudo? Very fast, mod for crit and best of all it restores health. I use Brutal Tide, Primed Pressure Point, Blood Rush, Body Count, Organ Shatter (and a vis=cious frost just to use up the points :-) ). Not even put a catalyst on it yet and it's a beast. 

I'm currently trying out a max armour build - dropped rage out of the mix but experimenting with Steel Fiber and Armored Agility,Narrow Minded and Transient Fortitude and blind Rage....initial experiments are encouraging, if extremely rapid :-)

[-Apple-Pie-]

21 hours ago, KYLoooo said:

Warcry caps at 250% power strength as far as ingame shows.

Thats not true, i just checked, there is a difference in Warcry buff with 284 i guess and 299 Power Strength.