Valkyr needs QoL changes

[AlienUniCorn]

Valkyr is one of the older frames and suffers from numerous flaws that make playing her much less enjoyable. She is by no means "weak", but there is so much unrealised potential.

Back in the day most poeple played her just for the 4th ability which was essentially an endless godmode button due to the ability draining very little energy. De decided to nerf Hysteria to cost way more energy without changing/buffing any of her other abilites (while no one complains about wukong being immortal, but that´s for another topic). Nowadays building purely for hysteria is pretty much impossible because of how fast the energy cost ramps up even at max efficiency and as far as I know energy leech eximus units drain energy even in hyseria. Thus most poeple shifted to builds centred around warcry, which was a chance to give valykr a new role in the game as an actual tank/support frame instead of a walking revivebot.

Sadly, warcry right now is in a weird spot. In theory it provides a crazy speed and armor buff to allies and decreses the speed of enemies in range. In practice you have to think about the way the ability works in an actual mission. First of all, warcry needs range, strength, duration and to some extent efficiency to function properly. In addition to that the buff is applied only on cast which affects the debuff the most. Combined with the terrible base stats of the ability, that makes warcry much weaker in practice than it appears. Thankfully, as with most things in the game, there is a bandaid for some of these problems and that is her augment eternal war. Well, at least that´s what you might think. While her augment is very strong, the only thing it changes is not having to worry about efficiency as much (but that would completly kill any use of her hysteria for more than 10-15 seconds). The max duration of eternal warcry is still affected by duration mods, the range is horrible without range mods and same applies for strength.

The worst parts of the augment are: 1) Allies running into nullies lose their buffs and you cant recast it. 2) The speed debuff part of the ability which is the only reliable form of cc in valkyr´s kit (paralysis is pretty bad, more on that later) becomes useless since it only applies on cast. 3) Most frames dont even benefit from the % armor buff and the melee buff (if they dont use melee/are too squishy).

That means valkyr doesnt provide much to the team while feeling cluncky at the same time (warcry cast time doesnt help that). Her other 2 abilites are flawed too. Ripline is pretty much useless with parkour 2.0, provides next to no cc and doesnt to anything against groups of enemies. Her paralysis for some reason scales with your shield and doesnt seem to work most of the time when an enemy is in ANY other animation making it too unreliable. Add to that how squishy actually is at higher lvls because of busted enemy scaling and she isnt even a tank anymore without her hyseria (which is nerfed to the ground). Despite all that fixing her isn´t as hard as it seems.

The following suggestions should make her much more enjoyable and useful:

1) Give warcry buff to all allies in affinity range.

2) Slow debuff should become an "intimidation" aura around valkyr, similar to equinox with peaceful provocation augment, just a lot weaker. Range should be affected by range mods. So to buff allies you woudnt need range (affinity range) but to debuff enemies you need it.

3) Make warcry recastable.

4) Increase base stats of warcry slightly so it´s easier to mod for (5 seconds more base duration, 5-10% higher base attackspeed/armor buff). Considering 2) slow debuff would have to be adjusted and capped.

5) Remove lifesteal from valkyr´s hysteria and move it to warcry (lifesteal is unaffected by mods). Lifesteal only applies to melee weapons and valkyr, but making it heal allies in affinity range could be an option too (like harrow, just limited to melee). Right now you either need a lifesteal mod or be in hysteria 24/7. Switching from melee to hysteria every couple of seconds kills the flow of combat.

6) This one I am not too sure of, but I think having a shared combo counter between standard melee and hysteria would make switching less annoying.

7) Simply fix paralysis not working most of the time.

I realize that some of the changes might seem a bit over the top, but I think it fits that berserker playstyle of valkyr really well, which is exclusive to her nerfed 4th ability right now.

I am curious what the community thinks on that matter and if she even needs any tweaks or maybe some other kind of changes.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 24, 2017 by AlienUniCorn

[Dahx11]

As a loyal Valkyr main, I can safely say this is the best post i've read on her in a long time.

Really, the only thing I might disagree with is moving the life steal from hystaria. That would just give players less incentive to use the ability.

Other than that, I am definitely on board with all your other suggestions.

[Kalvorax]

Support for the warcry buffs.

and how "weak" are we talking about for the slow debuff? currently it is 75% max but due to it being applied only at cast its pointless...especially with the augment

for your changes at BEST i would reduce the range only to maybe 20-25 meters cap (large enough for evil hookshots to be slowed....ithink)

Edited September 24, 2017 by Kalvorax

[AlienUniCorn]

1 hour ago, Dahx11 said:

As a loyal Valkyr main, I can safely say this is the best post i've read on her in a long time.

Really, the only thing I might disagree with is moving the life steal from hystaria. That would just give players less incentive to use the ability.

Other than that, I am definitely on board with all your other suggestions.

I think even with theses changes there would be enough reasons to use Hysteria since it´s full dmg and cc immunity and valks claws are absolutely insane when moded right (that sweet slide attack). I can understand where you are coming from tho. The main reason I suggested the lifesteal on Warcry is so that you are not forced use lifesstrike on your melee for Warcry valk, because I feel like right now you have to swtich to Hysteria way too often and due to it´s cast time it breaks momentum (and seperate combo counter for Hysteria/Melee are annoying too). Honestly, I think they should at least make the Hysteria cast animation a little faster just so it´s not as annoying.

 

1 hour ago, Kalvorax said:

Support for the warcry buffs.

and how "weak" are we talking about for the slow debuff? currently it is 75% max but due to it being applied only at cast its pointless...especially with the augment

for your changes at BEST i would reduce the range only to maybe 20-25 meters cap (large enough for evil hookshots to be slowed....ithink)

I am not sure about the numbers myself, but the slow debuff should definitely be somewhat weaker than slow equinox, to give every frame a niche (equinox --> better slow, valk --> attackspeed buff). That means giving it either a lower slow cap or range cap than equinox, but they should at least be something like 50% slow and 20m range respectivly. To be honest I would prefer more range but I think a higher slow would fit her design more.

 

Edited September 24, 2017 by AlienUniCorn

[(PSN)Croewe]

Actually using her hookshot increases her movement by a massive amount.

[AlienUniCorn]

45 minutes ago, (PS4)Chris_Robet said:

Actually using her hookshot increases her movement by a massive amount.

I don´t know about "massive". She travels slightly faster in more open areas, but in narrow hallways you will get obstructed or accidently hook an enemy. I dont think that it´s a good ability right now, but neither are most other frames first abilities and this one can be kinda fun every now and then. That´s why I didn´t suggest any changes to it in my post. Working on warcry and fixing paralysis takes priority.

[(PSN)Croewe]

16 minutes ago, AlienUniCorn said:

I don´t know about "massive". She travels slightly faster in more open areas, but in narrow hallways you will get obstructed or accidently hook an enemy. I dont think that it´s a good ability right now, but neither are most other frames first abilities and this one can be kinda fun every now and then. That´s why I didn´t suggest any changes to it in my post. Working on warcry and fixing paralysis takes priority.

Meh, both are fine imo. She's a single target melee killer. She's not a team support as you said. 

[AlienUniCorn]

Just now, (PS4)Chris_Robet said:

Meh, both are fine imo. She's a single target melee killer. She's not a team support as you said. 

That´s exactly the problem. She can´t really support a team right now in any meaningful way (except for being an occasional field-medic), yet her warcry is supposed do just that. If none of her skills showed any kind of supportive role you would be right, but as it stands now, her warcry just isn´t good at what it´s supposed to do while also feeling kind of underwhelming. And her paralysis is not "fine", it feels almost random in how it stuns enemies. It´s just unreliable and just a worse inaros 1 that cost a bit less energy. At least make it function properly.

Also, single target (melee) killers have a hard time in a game that throws enemy hordes at you like there is no tommorow (unless you play solo survival, DE pls increase solo survival spawnrates). Luckily valkyr´s dmg is so insane that her "single target" almost feels like aoe because of how fast she can mow through enemies, but the changes would just make her much more desired in squads and add to her survivability which is supposed to be high but outside of Hysteria is actually pretty bad at higher lvls. Just compare her to the more recent "tanks" of warframe like inaros and nidus, that do CC/teamsupport + tankyness right.

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

I build Warcry for myself and just leave the team to itself. It does't affect my movement speed, only melee attack speed, so It's not like I leave them behind in fast missions. It just means i can have a longer/stronger buff for myself and not worry about range (since the slow is mostly pointless).

And since the armor buff doesn't seem to affect my Kavat, I don't see it being useful for allies at all, since they either have tank abilities already, or have so little armor even a 200% boost wouldn't help.

[AlienUniCorn]

1 hour ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

I build Warcry for myself and just leave the team to itself. It does't affect my movement speed, only melee attack speed, so It's not like I leave them behind in fast missions. It just means i can have a longer/stronger buff for myself and not worry about range (since the slow is mostly pointless).

And since the armor buff doesn't seem to affect my Kavat, I don't see it being useful for allies at all, since they either have tank abilities already, or have so little armor even a 200% boost wouldn't help.

As I said myself, most allies cant profit from the % armor buff. Sadly, changing it to a flat armor buff which helps even super squishy frames would probably result in a nerf to valkyrs tankyness. The only way to fix that would be having different buffs for valk (a % based one) and her allies (a flat one), or just add straight up damage reduction for both. Since I was to lazy to provide effective values I left out that part when suggesting possible changes to the abilites.

You having to worry about range is the problem. If the ability just buffed allies in affinity range like trinitiy´s blessing or harrows 2nd you could be providing support to your team without going out of your way to build range just so they can run into a nullifier moments after. The slow is only "pointless" right now because it applies only on cast. If you ever played as/with an (slow-)equinox or nova you would know how powerful a slowing ability is in this game since it slows down every animation of the enemy (it even increases the duraiton of status effects on enemies if I remember correctly, at least for nova´s slow).

So even if you only build and use warcry "for yourself" you can still increase both your and your allies survivability by alot. That also means bringing valk to missions where you have to defend something would make a lot more sense and give her much more reason to be played than right now.

Edited September 24, 2017 by AlienUniCorn

[-AoN-CanoLathra-]

3 minutes ago, AlienUniCorn said:

If you ever played as/with an (slow-)equinox or nova you would know how powerful a slowing ability is in this game since it slows down every animation of the enemy (it even increases the duraiton of status effects on enemies if I remember correctly, at least for nova´s slow).

I use slowva on a regular basis. I do find the slowing of elemental effects annoying at times, as I like to use Gas/Toxin and Slash, and it slows down the DPS of those procs. Otherwise, yeah, it's very useful.

Edited September 24, 2017 by -AoN-CanoLathra-

[AlienUniCorn]

2 minutes ago, -AoN-CanoLathra- said:

I use slowva on a regular basis. I do find the slowing of elemental effects annoying at times, as I like to use Gas/Toxin and Slash, and it slows down the DPS of those procs. Otherwise, yeah, it's very useful.

As far as I know slowing an enemy doesn´t decrease the DPS of slash/Gas procs. It just extends their duration, for example if slash proc did 7 ticks on a normal target it would let´s say tick 12 times on a slowed target. If I am wrong pls correct me, but looking it up in the wiki right now I couldnt find anything suggesting a dps decrease.

[peterc3]

As a regular Valkyr player, I am baffled by a lot of this.

Why should every ally within 50m get the buff. What other powers act like that, given Valkyr is combat oriented not a support character?

Pop in to Hysteria to regain health then back out to resume shooting and whatnot. If you are saying Warcry should be at affinity range, why have life steal added to it? Valkyr buffs allies around her but is really for her own benefit.

If you are actually looking at this from the perspective of making her more of a berserker, there should be no team benefits to anything. Hysteria should drain health, not energy. "Nerfed" Hysteria is more useful and doesn't promote the awful gameplay it used to. Real fun to just hit 4 and be invulnerable for... a while.

Do you actually play the frame often or are these suggestions coming from the outside, I only ask because it doesn't seem like this is coming from someone who plays Valkyr much.

[AlienUniCorn]

18 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

As a regular Valkyr player, I am baffled by a lot of this.

Why should every ally within 50m get the buff. What other powers act like that, given Valkyr is combat oriented not a support character?

Pop in to Hysteria to regain health then back out to resume shooting and whatnot. If you are saying Warcry should be at affinity range, why have life steal added to it? Valkyr buffs allies around her but is really for her own benefit.

If you are actually looking at this from the perspective of making her more of a berserker, there should be no team benefits to anything. Hysteria should drain health, not energy. "Nerfed" Hysteria is more useful and doesn't promote the awful gameplay it used to. Real fun to just hit 4 and be invulnerable for... a while.

Do you actually play the frame often or are these suggestions coming from the outside, I only ask because it doesn't seem like this is coming from someone who plays Valkyr much.

You see, I could probably post a complete rework for her here that makes her more of a berserker, but the chance for it ever getting realised is pretty close to zero. So I tried my best to use what she has now and improve on it, not neccessarily to only make her much more powerful, but to make her more useful for a squad and more enjoyable to play. Because as it stands now her only other useful ability besides hysteria, which is nerfed (It is a lot weaker, not "more useful" lol. I never said I liked playing eternal afk valk myself. It was just the most popular way to play her pre-nerf) is warcry. When I look at warcry all I see is a mostly failed attempt to incorporate some team oriented elements into her kit. My reason for even starting this thread was lvling Harrow. I know he is a support frame, but his 2nd skill gives tons of reload speed, firerate, attackspeed and lifesteal in affinity range. His ult makes him immune to status and dmg. And then gives him insane crit chance. All those things at very high duration and with basicly infinite energy and reliable CC. Meanwhile our so called "berserker" has the same things just a lot weaker and without any synergy with the team.

Do you see the problem? Even when you say she is not a support, why does a support outperform her? I think making the slow an aura and making at least the buffing part of warcry have affinity range are reasonable suggestions. They dont take much work on part of DE either, since everything that I suggested is already there and just needs minor adjustments. I really like the tought of my enemies trembling in fear when I get close to them with valkyr after using warcry. It´s a (baby) step in making valykr the intimidating berserker she is supposed to be, not the energy starved grumpy cat she is now.

And yes, I do play her alot. She was the first frame that I built but I see myself playing her less and less, because of her outdated mechanics (and still numerous bugs, pls fix paralysis).

[peterc3]

13 minutes ago, AlienUniCorn said:

You see, I could probably post a complete rework for her here that makes her more of a berserker, but the chance for it ever getting realised is pretty close to zero. So I tried my best to use what she has now and improve on it, not neccessarily to only make her much more powerful, but to make her more useful for a squad and more enjoyable to play. Because as it stands now her only other useful ability besides hysteria, which is nerfed (It is a lot weaker, not "more useful" lol. I never said I liked playing eternal afk valk myself. It was just the most popular way to play her pre-nerf) is warcry. When I look at warcry all I see is a mostly failed attempt to incorporate some team oriented elements into her kit. My reason for even starting this thread was lvling Harrow. I know he is a support frame, but his 2nd skill gives tons of reload speed, firerate, attackspeed and lifesteal in affinity range. His ult makes him immune to status and dmg. And then gives him insane crit chance. All those things at very high duration and with basicly infinite energy and reliable CC. Meanwhile our so called "berserker" has the same things just a lot weaker and without any synergy with the team.

Do you see the problem? Even when you say she is not a support, why does a support outperform her? I think making the slow an aura and making at least the buffing part of warcry have affinity range are reasonable suggestions. They dont take much work on part of DE either, since everything that I suggested is already there and just needs minor adjustments. I really like the tought of my enemies trembling in fear when I get close to them with valkyr after using warcry. It´s a (baby) step in making valykr the intimidating berserker she is supposed to be, not the energy starved grumpy cat she is now.

And yes, I do play her alot. She was the first frame that I built but I see myself playing her less and less, because of her outdated mechanics (and still numerous bugs, pls fix paralysis).

Yet Harrow plays very differently than Valkyr. Aren't the buffs only for Harrow, the lifesteal only applying to him while the health gained is shared to other players? How is that superior to what Valkyr does, given she isn't a support character and can maintain Invulnerability for quite a bit longer than Harrow, even after that heinous nerf.

If I want stealthy play I can go Loki or Ivara, or even Octavia or Ash with a bit more needed from them to have the same play. Why does DE even release more frames, the community can just pick 4 of the meta ones and they can put their time and effort into other parts of the game. Different people will want different things.

With Eternal War, you can keep Warcry up indefinitely for you and anyone else that was buffed by killing with melee... and her melee exclusive mode Hysteria brings does that.

As for another bit in the OP, here's the thing about Ripline, and by extension things like Tailwind. They aren't meant to be an either/or with Parkour 2.0. You can use them together.

 

[AlienUniCorn]

1 hour ago, peterc3 said:

Yet Harrow plays very differently than Valkyr. Aren't the buffs only for Harrow, the lifesteal only applying to him while the health gained is shared to other players? How is that superior to what Valkyr does, given she isn't a support character and can maintain Invulnerability for quite a bit longer than Harrow, even after that heinous nerf.

If I want stealthy play I can go Loki or Ivara, or even Octavia or Ash with a bit more needed from them to have the same play. Why does DE even release more frames, the community can just pick 4 of the meta ones and they can put their time and effort into other parts of the game. Different people will want different things.

With Eternal War, you can keep Warcry up indefinitely for you and anyone else that was buffed by killing with melee... and her melee exclusive mode Hysteria brings does that.

As for another bit in the OP, here's the thing about Ripline, and by extension things like Tailwind. They aren't meant to be an either/or with Parkour 2.0. You can use them together.

 

The lifesteal part was worded pretty poorly. The lifesteal would only apply to melee (unlike harrow), and the team healing was only a random tought I had while writing, I can see why some would consider it unnecessary. I didn´t say they had the same playstyle, just that harrows 2nd feels like some kind of upgraded warcry in a way and I think valkyr deserves to have a bit more utillity. Yes, Hysteria gives longer Invulnerability than harrows Covenant. Valkyr gets deadly exalted claws, harrow and his friends go to red crit heaven. They are different powers. But how do I say it... I feel like harrow (and most new warframes) feel more "convenient". It´s hard to get the most out of valkyr while building her and the results are always lacking in some area, while harrow (I should really stop comparing these to) achieves most of his potential just by bulding duration. I didn´t want to make it sound like there is no reason to play valkyr, I just want to put forward suggestions that I believe will make her more healthy as a warframe.

I explained why eternal war is a decent augment, but doesnt solve the problems warcry has at it´s core. Additionally, it comes with it´s own set of problems (If I buff my team and someone eventually runs into a nully his buff is gon... probably for the rest of the mission cause that warcry is, well, eternal).

Honestly, I am surprised to see poeple are defending ripline so much. I know it´s fun and all, but "using it together with parkour 2.0"... what is that supposed to achieve? In most cases it´s just a slowdown, costs unresonable amounts of energy and feels cluncky in a lot of situations. It´s cool to use for breaking the monotony of pressing ctrl + space all day, but it sure as hell doesnt compliment the movement options of parkour 2.0.

Edited September 25, 2017 by AlienUniCorn

[Rihti]

I would just like to point out that allies affected by warcry do not lose the buff if they run into a nullifier bubble. It only drops if valkyr herself runs into one.

Edited September 26, 2017 by Rihti

[Andaius]

On 9/24/2017 at 2:05 PM, AlienUniCorn said:

I think even with theses changes there would be enough reasons to use Hysteria since it´s full dmg and cc immunity and valks claws are absolutely insane when moded right (that sweet slide attack). I can understand where you are coming from tho. The main reason I suggested the lifesteal on Warcry is so that you are not forced use lifesstrike on your melee for Warcry valk, because I feel like right now you have to swtich to Hysteria way too often and due to it´s cast time it breaks momentum (and seperate combo counter for Hysteria/Melee are annoying too). Honestly, I think they should at least make the Hysteria cast animation a little faster just so it´s not as annoying.

 

I am not sure about the numbers myself, but the slow debuff should definitely be somewhat weaker than slow equinox, to give every frame a niche (equinox --> better slow, valk --> attackspeed buff). That means giving it either a lower slow cap or range cap than equinox, but they should at least be something like 50% slow and 20m range respectivly. To be honest I would prefer more range but I think a higher slow would fit her design more.

 

If your going Warcry Valkyr, yo ushould be getting plenty of energy from rage to keep up your life stealing easily. It seems redundant to me. Recastable Warcry would be more useful. Her harpoon will still get you around faster then a bullet jump. :P Your shields explode and stuns enemies, thats why it scales depending on your shields. If you want it too work better hit hysteria that way your have full shields when ever you want it to work well on a bunch of guys.

Edited September 26, 2017 by Andaius