Junior Member
Are you on ps4, if so add me. " SwaggTheRoy " I would like to duel lolOriginally Posted by CaptianBeetle Go to original post
Junior Member
Alright. So, I've hit rep4 on Valkyrie two days ago and had to take a break (swollen thumbs from gamepad... you really have to work for your kills).
I wouldn't call myself a decent player, sure I have W/R at 60%+ but who doesn't. I miss a good portion of parries, I can't remember when was the last time I've landed a conscious counter to guardbreak (which is funny, since in beta I never had problem with it - I know the timings changed but damn, nearly impossible to land in the heat of battle) and I spam light attack to win. That being said, reading about upcomming buff I have mixed feelings. I mean it's a good thing because right now I have to work about 10 times harder for my victories and on Elimination or Dominion I'm more of a burden when Orochi kills 3 enemies in the time Valk needs to dish out enough damage to kill anything (also, **** Lawbringer, it's like fighting a raid boss HP wise when playing Valk) so damage buffs are more than welcome as right now it's icausing death by a thousand cuts. Also in every other match I get complains of spamming Sweep combo whenever possible - people apparently don't get it that there's literally nothing else in her kit to use in some situations. I mostly destroy people with Valk because most people are bad and don't play defensive **** you card.
Keeping that in mind my issues:
- there's something wrong with block. You miss one and then you can't get your shield back up fast enough. It's mostly visible against fast hitting enemies, even if they never change their attack you just can't block and have to double-dodge-roll-back out of there ASAP (for some reason dodge backwards is really short...)
- all of her attacks are rather slow - lights are easily blocked after 1st hit, heavies are so slow that you practicaly never use them for any other reason than to cancel into shield bash and an overhead heavy when they're down on the floor.
- window in which superior block on light attack and dodge counter are active are extremally small - I can get them going with some consistency in local play against AI but online, not a ****ing chance - the window is so small that with added latency between players it seems to be mostly impossible to do consciously and in a planned manner
- you can be guardbroken while dashing back and entering shield tackle full block stance. I mean you should be able to be guardbroken if you do sit in full block stance and wait for something to happen but being grabbed while performing it?
- shoulder pin - something that could be potentially good. Could be. If either it was easier to land (not only because of Dodge Counter small window but also because it's not an unblockable attack - you can block it, dodge it, roll out of it) or dealt more substantial damage or bleeds. One or another. I'd opt for it being easier to land to bring some consistency to the table while also making it unblockable attack.
- range is surprisingly short for a character that wields a ******* Javelin. Her kit is built about pushing enemies around and half of the time you don't have any followup to that other than to pounce forward for some miniscule poke damage
- spear sweep can be dodged sideways... like, she's sweeping 180 degrees infront of her, how a 45 degree change in position makes you somehow avoid it?!
- spear sweep into heavy into shield bash into spear sweep combo is stupid, does no damage and is easily avoidable. I'd rather it be guaranteed, noticeable chunk of damage rather than wet noodle worth of damage stamina sink - maybe at a cost of not being chainable. This is generally stupid mechanic (chaining same CC over and over - hello Warden!) that's rather unentertaining in my opinion. It's literally less stamina consuming to land guardbreak (granted you're not playing against counter guardbreak, parry, dodge god, then there's nothing you can do) and do top heavy for the same damage...
- absolute lack of any swift horizontal attack makes Valkyrie an absolute ***** to play, when you're facing any of the characters that dodge sideways like there was no tomorrow - all your "fast" attacks are rather slow and are thrusts and zoning attack is so sluggish it's literally not viable to be used at all as the only thing it guarantees is that you will get parried and it cost like 50% of your entire stamina pool. For some reason Warden moves rather bulky two handed sword like a feather but Valkyrie can't swing the pole around in a timely manner.
- headbutt seems like a nice idea to push enemies back while draining their stamina but the truth is there are no follow ups to that. Since blocking, parrying and dodging has no stamina cost you can't exhaust your enemy, you just prevent them from being aggressive for about two seconds before they've got all the stamina back - if it didn't require guardbreak then maybe it would be good to push back that super aggressive enemy but since it does, there's literally no reason to ever use it.
- recovery after missed attacks takes eternity. Any of them really. It's better to get blocked and parried than it is to miss any of your moves.
- her moveset info seems to be wrong, they say you can cancel Shield Tackle into Pouncing Thrust by pressing light attack while in Shield Tackle - this is not true at all, while you certainly can do it (and thankfully at ANY point either straight from Shield Tackle or during the actual shield charge) you need to press dash forward+light attack just like you normally would. That's fine, I mean it still works, however there's supposed to be another cancel - cancel into guardbreak. I've never seen anyone doing it (be it AI or player) and I can't do it myself. You can cancel Shield Tackle by dodging but doing dodge+guardbreak resembles a snail on a highway - you see it from miles away.
All of the issues above degrade her to spamming light attack for majority of time. Her kit in general seems to be build around being hyper aggressive - jump in their face, perform rain of attacks, counter their attacks while performing your attacks and dodging into their attacks for a counter attack and generally be this "I'm going to **** you up" kind of character backing off only to regain stamina. In theory. In practice she's too slow and all of her attacks are easily avoidable/blockable/parry-able in result - even ******* shield bash is so slow that you always see it comming. I can see it especially when playing against other Valks (funnily enough with being bad to the point where my avg KDR sits at 2.2 I've never lost a duel against another Valk, except once in Elimination when I've got buffed Javelin to the face and got 1shoted so that doesn't count). The fact that the current meta seems to be to sit there and wait for parries/deflects/guardbreaks (since it cost no stamina and guarantees counterattack) makes 80% of Valk's kit absolutely useless.
Upcomming buffs to the character address some of the issue character has (ability to finally use some attacks into chains makes so much more sense - pounce into light attack into spear sweep will make character atleast a little bit more fluid) but it's not enough (my biggest gripe would be Superior Block and Dodge Counter being impossible to use reliably in online engagements) and there would also need to be global changes for defense mechanics to change the meta to make Valk viable character. I guess making dodge cost stamina, unable to being parry with no stamina and blocking only halving the damage instead of almost entirely reducing it would be a step in the right direction. Lack of swift horizontal attack means anything that can dodge fast will rape you if it's handled by a half-decent player.
All that being said I will continue to play Valkyrie only. Playing one you're a rare sight on the battlefield.
Junior Member
Member
nice post marrond.
I've noticed all the same issues w/ valk. god forbid someone lands a light attack on you ur stuck taking the whole combo up till a heavy attack. starting a heavy attack same time as opponent more often then not his will land canceling out yours.
few other issue's ive noticed with valk.
your combo gets blocked no batter which one gives the opponent guaranteed guard break.
something I've noticed might just be me though any dash when someone gb you will give them guaranteed gb. while someone dashes left/right when you toss gb gives you no guardbreak.
Member
Seeing so many valks cry made me put my efforts after the raider into the valk and I bring you a little gift to ease your hearts:
I haven't tested it against the full cast yet, but she does seem to have a true and nice dmg combo (probably a kill combo with gear against everybody)
A guardbreak on an exhausted enemy ( be it parry -> exhaust -> gb ) or however you achieve this
Backthrow->Top Heavy -> top Light -> leg sweep -> top heavy.
From backthrow to top heavy everything will connect without a chance to dodge or roll out. Now the leg sweep part surprised me since I thought you would be able to, but e.g. orochi and lawbringer couldn't do zip**** about it and got hit no matter how hard they tried.
So that totals for 55 dmg pre-gear and of course also leaves you in a mix-up position.
After the last heavy you can light -> sweep, Light -> finish chain or shield tackle i believe. I was only in the lab this night so this is the best I could come up with without even knowing her toolkit.
Will complete the combo test against the full cast tomorrow, but honestly if you didn't find this within like 2 weeks shame upon you.
If someone finds a character that can dodge out of it just lemme know. Also top heavy has to be the attack direction before the throw of course. Can't change it after the guardbreak.
And again. Combo means combo and not just the enemy is too ******ed to dodge.
Junior Member
On PS4? I'd love to learn from you - TwelvGaugeApostl on PSN if that is your platform
Originally Posted by CaptianBeetle Go to original post
Senior Member
that was one of the first things i've discovered when i started her and tested **** against bots.Originally Posted by TTVPappusGaming Go to original post
its also fun to parry->gb and then just repeat "heavy->light->legsweep" until you run out of stamina, if they are dumb enough to neither block your light nor dodge the sweep (which surprisingly, a LOT of people dont xD)
but that leaves her with a cheesy combo and nothing else ... her light attacks are quite slow, her heavy attack damage is pathetic (esp in comparison to lets say a light-spamming PK), her range is meh, her guard-switch speed is meh, her light-parry counter damage is worthless to even go for it, the shoulder-pin would be nice but the reaction window is smaller than that of any other deflect for no reason and her throw range (sides and back) is probably the smallest in the game (sometimes you cant throw people off even though they stand 1,5 meters from the edge)
and then there is the auto-blocking from nobushis against her shoulderpins and light-parries.
Junior Member
I did that combo a lot yesterday, basically if you land a sweep on someone he is good as dead in 90% of casesOriginally Posted by SethEnraged Go to original post
And yeah its dumb combo, no honor in that kind of win, but its a win yes ? :P
Member
@SethEnraged If you find tech share it with the community. Not only do you help people out, but you reduce the labtime of others.
@czarny- That is not a combo. A combo means you hit from start to finish without the enemy being able to do anything. At best that is a mix-up and valkyrie doesn't really have a a mix-up since they are all too slow to force the enemy to guess.
Senior Member
a combo is "light-light-heavy" for example, if you hit with it is something else.Originally Posted by TTVPappusGaming Go to original post@SethEnraged If you find tech share it with the community. Not only do you help people out, but you reduce the labtime of others.
normally doing that, this one might have slipped through
@czarny- That is not a combo. A combo means you hit from start to finish without the enemy being able to do anything. At best that is a mix-up and valkyrie doesn't really have a a mix-up since they are all too slow to force the enemy to guess.
what you mean is a vortex, but valk doesnt have one as you can get out of them easily as they are always the same and cant be mixed up (like warden bash/gb)
but lets not get hung up on terminology
