Let me start of by saying that I have no experience of what Valkyrie was like before she was nerfed or if she functioned any differently back then. As well all know, Valkyrie is due for some buffs with the next update. These buffs are:
- Light Attacks: reduced recovery time
- Light Chains: reduced time between attacks
- Pouncing Thrust & Hunter’s Strike: Increased damage and link options after those moves
- Shield Crush: add link to Light Attack chains
- Hunter’s Rush: reduced recovery time
Now whilst these buffs are great and definitely welcomed, I feel as though it isn't enough. I know it's hard to say this when the update has yet to be released but hear me out. I have played Valkyrie a lot and I think the upcoming buffs will really help her. But I don't think it will solve some of the issues I currently have with her. So I guess you could call these fixes rather than buffs. These issues are:
- Superior Block Property. This is a great ability which I very rarely see anyone use. Putting latency aside, the window of opportunity to use this ability seems incredibly small. Even smaller than the deflect window. It's even more difficult to use thanks to P2P connection. I think it would be nice if the timing for this ability was a bit more forgiving.
- Shoulder Pin. Never mind the poor damage of this move, the fact that it can be blocked adds insult to injury. Why on earth is this move blockable? There's literally no reason to use it in its current state.
- Shield Tackle. It says on her moveset that you can cancel Shield Tackle into a GB. Which is a lie. You can not cancel into a GB at all. This needs to be fixed in the next update.
- Shield Crush. The biggest issue I have with this is that it loses to everything. It can be interrupted so easily. Attacks I can understand but why does Shield Crush lose against a Warden Shoulder Bash, Warlord Headbutt, Lawbringer Shove etc? I might be alone in thinking this, but I don't think this is right at all. The 2 moves should cancel each other out.
- Spear Sweep. The issues I have with this are that the recovery time for it is far too long, and that an opponent is able to sidestep it. Dodging backwards I can understand but she does a 180° sweep in front of her. So why can Orochi, Peacekeeper etc simply side step it?
- Stagger. I hope I'm not the only one who thinks this but the amount of recoil Valkyrie suffers from is insane! She has a shield for God's sake. Why does she get pushed back so far from blocking attacks?
Lastly I think she could do with a little bit more range on all of her attacks and a slight speed buff to her heavy attacks. Despite wielding a spear, it often feels like I'm wielding a dagger instead.
You present valid points on her.
I have extended use of her. But the is lacking on the damage and utility department. I've dominated many 4v4 games with her but it's more attributed to playins the same tactic over and over again. Pinning the enemy on walls or keeping them on the ground with shield bashes and landing heavy attacks after GB only to follow with more shield bashes. Also pushing enemies over edges. But on stable ground doing 1v1 with her. I can pretty hold my own but her damage output is so low on the sense that duels take forever with her.
It's hard to say what was her preset before release because Valkyrie, Shugoki and Lawbringer were not present on the Alpha/Beta tests.
I actually believe the new patch for her will put her up with on speed with the rest of the cast. And not only does she get a speed and damage boost but she can link many moves now on to other combos And that is going to be the mayor key, she will have a lot of options to go for while the opponent has to be guessing and predicting on a higher level.
As of now I use her on 4v4 matches as a support character. Bashing enemies to the ground and pinning them while my team beats them to death. Also her lvl3 feat javelin and lvl4 are incredibly powerful.
I'm by no means a great Valkyrie player, but there are some inconsistencies that haven't been addressed in the planned buffs for her. I still can't understand the utility of Shoulder Pin. As a part of her kit, the deflect->Shoulder Pin is great to have, perhaps one of her few game-changing moves. However, dodging into the direction of an incoming attack sometimes just dodges the attack altogether. That, paired with the ridiculous time window in which you can perform a Shoulder Pin, PLUS the fact that it's blockable just makes the whole effort worthless. Has there been any word on how and if the devs will work on this?
The one additional change I'd like to see included in the next updates (before seeing where Valkyrie lies and re-evaluating) is making Shoulder Pin unblockable. Currently, I don't think that the reward from hitting a Shoulder Pin is worth the risk of attempting one. Shoulder Pin's design makes it seem like a high-risk way to skillfully punish players, but it does not punish players for recklessly attacking at all if they block it.
Dodging into an attack is inherently risky and requires precise timing that varies with each attacking character. Dodging too early can mean eating the damage or avoiding the attack entirely. Even if you avoid their attack, it's possible to commit to a counterable heavy attack instead of a Shoulder Pin. Dodging too late means eating damage from an attack that could have been blocked or even parried with much more consistency. Additionally, enemies can feint to bait out dodges, which leaves Valkyrie vulnerable to counters.
Considering all of these possibilities, knowing when to go for a Shoulder Pin means knowing what you're risking in going for it. The big issue with allowing players to block Shoulder Pins is that the risks can return absolutely nothing despite the Valkyrie doing everything they can control correctly.
1) the window is "about" equal to a normal parry (maybe a tiny bit shorter, but def. longer than deflects). the problem is that it does WAY too little damage to justify using it, you cannot chain into anything after doing it and it can be auto-blocked by some classes (nobushi light attacks for example).Originally Posted by Dizzy4213 Go to original post
2) the damage is in the ok-ish are (wouldnt mind it being buffed slightly though). it has the same problem as superiour block as it can be auto-blocked. it can ONLY be followed by a shield-crush as the heavy-attack that triggers the pin will count towards the heavy->gb from a shield-crush but it WONT count toward a normal chain (heavy->light->anything) AND you cannot do a normal guardbreak, as it will as stated above convert into a shield-crush (if you wait a few moments after the pin to do a guardbreak, that guardbreak can be countered)
3) bugged or not implemented.
you CAN however dodge out of the shield-tackle stance in any direction.
this is kind of useful as you can do forward-dodge->GB which connects most of the time as people will side-dodge the expected shield-tackel-charge
or you can side-dodge-attack if they get too close
or (and this is the MOST USEFUL thing) you can dodge back into another shield-tackle-stance XDXD (/sarcasm off)
3) true, while not being able to dodge out of it with side-dodges at all would probably be OP, it should take a stricter timing to dodge out of it.
same as with dodging out of attacks, if you dodge too early the tracking will follow you all the way and still hit you, same should be true for leg-sweep on side-dodges.
just make it harder to side-dodge out of it, but dont make it impossible
4) true. its every recovery time she has that is quite too long... miss a shield-crush or even a shield-tackle und you can go make dinner while she recovers.
we NEED a damage buff on top-heavies to assure an execution if the enemy is at the last bar of health.
seeing them survive with just a sliver of health left is probably the most frustrating thing with her.
The followup of a pin is a lightattack. My testing indicates that a light to the same side is unblockable. Kinda obvious though with how long the staggering is. Raising the damage to 36. Unfortunately the bleeding doesn't stack so back to back shoulder pins are a bit disappointing.Originally Posted by SethEnraged Go to original post
Dunno how peeps are missing something so obvious. I didn't test it against the full cast yet but 4 characters so far couldn't block the light. Also the blocking of the shoulderpin is likely a glitch.