Why does Valkyr feel kinda squishy?

[mosaickle]

I think it might be a misconception for me to be honest but I can't help but feel like Valkyr's quite squishy

Note that this is without her Hysteria on (since she's invulnerable so yeah). Like, I have way over 1k armor but I feel like I'm always getting my shield popped within a second. I have the standard stuff like Vitality, Redirection, Steel...whatever the standard armor mod is, but I dunno, I just feel kinda squishy...

Am I not using Hysteria enough or something?

[Jabarto]

I've noticed the same thing and concluded that armor is pretty much a junk stat unless you have an ability that specifically scales off it. 

EDIT: Just saw you specifically mentioned shields; she has the lowest shield value in the game I think (excluding the frames that don't have them at all) so it's kinda to be expected.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Jabarto

[chainchompguy3]

Are you using Warcry/Eternal war augment?

 

If yes, she's not squishy.

If no, yeah, she kinda feels that way.

 

2 minutes ago, Jabarto said:

I've noticed the same thing and concluded that armor is pretty much a junk stat unless you have an ability that specifically scales off it. 

I can say that I personally can notice the difference between the survivability of a Max-armor-mods Inaros and a No-armor-mods Inaros.

but otherwise, yeah, pretty much.

[Jabarto]

Just now, chainchompguy3 said:

Are you using Warcry/Eternal war augment?

 

If yes, she's not squishy.

If no, yeah, she kinda feels that way.

 

I can say that I personally can notice the difference between the survivability of a Max-armor-mods Inaros and a No-armor-mods Inaros.

but otherwise, yeah, pretty much.

Right, I forgot to add that Inaros and Saryn are the only two frames where I actually use armor for damage reduction and not powering an ability.

[Stefe]

Her shields aren't really adequate for the small amount of defense they give - they're mostly there for Paralysis spam (if you're into that kind of thing). Her huge armour value allows you to take a controlled amount of damage, but you still have to top her health off with something. Her claw swipes while in Hysteria will restore health with each hit, so be sure to keep her alive with that. Other alternatives include Life Strike, the Furis with the Winds of Purity augment and any syndicate weapon that restores health with syndicate procs.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Stefe

[taiiat]

Valkyr has low Shields... that is to be expected. Valkyr is a Health based Warframe.

[Moysa]

24 minutes ago, Atylia said:

I have way over 1k armor but I feel like I'm always getting my shield popped within a second

first off, armor does absolutely NOTHING for shields. only affects health.

24 minutes ago, Atylia said:

Am I not using Hysteria enough or something?

i personally dont use hysteria at all on my setup, partly becuase it doesnt use blood rush, bodycount, drifting contact, or weeping wounds. it actually lowers my damage output. too lazy too boot warframe atm to link a screenshot. i built full warcry. high strength, decent duration, and somewhat low efficiency. add in the augment, warcry lasts forever. i get low, start channeling for life strike, and thats if im not using hirudo, which heals off every crit.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Moysa

[Xekrin]

15 minutes ago, Stefe said:

Other alternatives include

Also Hirudo and the melee mod that heals when attacking anything that is afflicted with status effects.

[mosaickle]

I forgot that armor does nothing to shields, I do feel much tankier when shields are gone.

But just to clear up, it doesn't discourage me from playing Valkyr, in fact it makes it more exciting to play her, knowing that they're onto my health gives me a mini adrenaline rush when I play her. In a sense an easy shield pop makes me like to play her more so yeah :P

But yeah I also forgot that she has really low shields. I only spam Paralysis for the CC, not for the damage and besides it's only 5 energy cost so it's not a problem for me.

[Stefe]

1 minute ago, Xekrin said:

Also Hirudo and the melee mod that heals when attacking anything that is afflicted with status effects.

Right, that one too.

[Xekrin]

28 minutes ago, Atylia said:

Like, I have way over 1k armor but I feel like I'm always getting my shield popped within a second.

Quote

Shields also receive no damage mitigation from armor and are significantly less effective at absorbing damage as a result, especially for well-armored Warframes.

From the wiki.  Armor does nothing for shields absorbing damage.  I only say this because you specifically mention shields popping fast.  It is your actual health that takes advantage of your high armor rating.

Edit - and just noticed you realized that 2 minutes before I posted. Nevermind.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Xekrin

[AXCrusnik]

23 minutes ago, Stefe said:

Her shields aren't really adequate for the small amount of defense they give - they're mostly there for Paralysis spam (if you're into that kind of thing). 

This... Like I wouldn't even use Redirection unless you're building specifically for strong Paralysis.

[redeyedtreefrog]

Valkyr isn't meant to use her shields. In fact, her third ability literally strips her shields (possibly so that she synergizes even better with the rage mod... I mean, after all, rage is her theme). 

Hysteria is the most obvious way to make valkyr tanky; if you have a rage mod equipped, it turns health into, essentially, another mana pool. In fact, if you combine rage, quick thinking, and flow, valkyr can spend all of her time in hysteria(even with the new scaling energy costs), just by absorbing damage from some source in order to go back into hysteria. In most circumstances, I'd leave quick thinking off, but if you're expecting to get hit by HUGE damage numbers (sortie-level assassinates or endless runs that will take you past level 100) it basically allows you to tank even the heaviest hits(and you only need to tank one, remember, because if your health goes away you'll have a nice big pool of energy for hysteria).

While it involves a much more constricted loadout or mod setup, valkyr can be a pretty effective tank as well. Life strike, or hirudo, or even healing return are good choices for health regen, and are all melee choices... and melee is something that valkyr is very good at. She gets bonus attack speed from warcry and can perform finishers using her paralysis skill.

My personal suggestion is: don't worry about valkyr's shields. In fact, unless you don't have any other mods to put on valkyr, I'd lose the redirection mod entirely. If you don't have rage, I'd recommend picking that mod up: it's a fairly rare drop, but you can pick one up in the market for under 30p. Once you do have rage, you may even want to run missions with a decaying dragon key in your gear wheel(they reduce shields by 75%, which allows you to more easily access your health as an energy source).

[mosaickle]

6 minutes ago, AXCrusnik said:

This... Like I wouldn't even use Redirection unless you're building specifically for strong Paralysis.

So it's not really worth having Redirection? I'm running out of mod drain capacity, should I might as well take it off her?

[Stefe]

1 hour ago, Atylia said:

So it's not really worth having Redirection? I'm running out of mod drain capacity, should I might as well take it off her?

Yeah, take Redirection off and put on a Rage if you haven't already.

[Xzorn]

Well Valkyr does happen to be the squishiest of the tanky frames but I wouldn't call her squishy. Banshee is squishy.

[AXCrusnik]

10 hours ago, Atylia said:

So it's not really worth having Redirection? I'm running out of mod drain capacity, should I might as well take it off her?

Yeah her base shields are too low, you can spend less mod capacity and probably get more tankiness out of her with something like Armored Agility or the Eternal War augment for Warcry (Warcry increases armor).

[Rolunde]

Something to keep in mind about Armor.

It's nice to have and more is always better. But, no matter how much you have it'll never actually seem like enough.

Because in low-level content there's seldom much threat, enemies will die and you won't.

But when you hit the point where enemies have scaled up enough then it's a short jump from "threatening" to "lethal" and even 90% damage reduction probably won't be enough to just stand there and face-tank everything. 

At lower levels shields are great. You can see what the difference is by doing a Nightmare (No Sheilds mode) mission. If you're cheese-killing everything before it has a chance to attack you, you'll really notice that damage comes in pretty fast and adds up quickly.

But then Sheilds also kind of suck because at higher levels there are procs that bypass Sheilds entirely (most notable: Slash and Toxin) and if you're on an actually "squashy" frame (low health and low armor) you'll get wrecked by the procs alone.

So Armor helps, but like I said even high amounts don't really feel like they do as much as we think they do. 

And as far as Sheilds go for Valkyr their more tied to her powers (Paralysis) than actual protection. So boosting them doesn't really help her out much.

One of the things Valkyr does have going for her is that she is fast and nimble, so she can be really good at avoiding damage if you have a very active playstyle. 

So try to "dodge" things, parkour and roll to avoid and mitigate damage. It's a sadly underdeveloped skill with a lot of Tenno. 

Use Paralysis to stun nearby enemies, Warcry to boost your own survivability, and Ripline can be used to provide extra mobility and some ranged CC.

Hysteria, if used with some consideration, can be used to face-tank damage and also activated for a quick heal.

You just can't stay in it 100% non-stop because eventually, it will all catch up with you.

[mosaickle]

13 hours ago, Stefe said:

Yeah, take Redirection off and put on a Rage if you haven't already.

I've been looking for a Rage mod for months and still for the life of me can't get a hold of it somehow, otherwise I would've had it on Inaros for ages

[Xzorn]

38 minutes ago, Rolunde said:

So Armor helps, but like I said even high amounts don't really feel like they do as much as we think they do. 

 

It's not as much because of an enemy's raw damage but because damage modifiers double dip into armor for damage calculations.

Positive modifiers like Puncture damage not only gain a bonus in damage against armor but they ignore a portion of the armor's damage resistance entirely. You might have 90% damage resistance on paper but you have 1/2 that armor value against Puncture damage.

It's why buff based mitigation like Shatter Shield, Link and Shield of Shadows are more reliable than armor based mitigation.

ie  A Corpus Tech will shred Chroma in half the time as Nidus, even though they have the same 98% damage reduction.

[MrJxt]

Replace redirection with armored agility or vigor. Or try adding more power strength or duration for warcry. Add rage whenever you get one.

Also, puncture damage deals increased damage vs armor. Corpus techs will kill you very quickly compared to a heavy gunner.

[NinjaZeku]

1 hour ago, Atylia said:

I've been looking for a Rage mod for months and still for the life of me can't get a hold of it somehow, otherwise I would've had it on Inaros for ages

Void Containers have dropped Rage at a ~decent rate for me (yay Parkour Rooms),
failing that, there's always Trading (25 Plat is the highest I've recently seen, 15 or less should be doable).