Valkyr SP Fissure Void Cascade Run | Lvl9999 | (POST-REWORK)

So... the rework. What do I think?

(Keep in mind, speaking from a Cascade level cap perspective here, not average player experience. This was also my first and only attempt with her.)

Let's start with the positives:
Animations are better. The normal combos are smoother and generally more fun to use. I purposefully tried to use them on my other run and not rely on the spin attack to compare.
Armor increase works really well with Arcane Battery. You can easily get over 500 energy max for the purple archon shards and well beyond that to have a reserve. It was useful for rooms where there were no enemies because of the Hangar room pathing bug.
New passive allows for easier CO setups because you get a base damage baseline and then add more from your companion. Even when your companion is dead and you're not priming as long as the meter is up you're still doing very good damage.
New Ripline is pretty cool although I didn't use it often this run due to low range.
In large groups of enemies it's very easy to gain the meter back to over 150% with one or 2 slide attacks. With a shield gate active you're gonna have enough time to get it back, but it becomes your main focus. Your priority becomes getting the meter back, and I'll mention why in the negatives.

The negatives:
Biggest one for Valkyr in cascade is the operator making her vulnerable because Hysteria is a channeled ability. I talk about it quite a bit in many vids for a reason, I think it's a very annoying and unintuitive mechanic. It wasn't an issue on Valkyr before, but now it is because you have to have half the meter up before going into operator unless you wanna disable Hysteria all the time (which also means losing combo). If you're quick enough you can get away with it, but if you're not (which sometimes you just can't kill Thrax quickly enough) you will be punished for it. I paid attention to it the entire run and I messed up once, that was the only time I died during the run.
Paralysis and Ripline having low range. I know that Ripline got a range increase, but I don't like the fact that they start at 10m and 9m respectively due to how you actually mod for range. If you want to build for above 190% range you have to use Overextended. 190% range (with Stretch, Augur Reach and Cunning Drift (3 mods)) is just 19m on Paralysis. That's not a lot considering it's not a very spammable ability that you'd have to cast often on many groups of enemies. And that's IF you decide to mod for range. If you go with Overextened you're diminishing your damage that you have to compensate for. Valkyr wants strength, not only because it's a separate multiplier on her exalted (like with all exalteds), it's also attack speed on Warcry. Building for range is possible, just pretty awkward, especially considering:
Limited mod space. I went with Pillage as an easy shield gating option that synergizes with the things she wants: high strength and duration. If you don't go for Pillage you have to invest into Catalyzing Shields. If you don't have Augur mods on your secondary / Diriga with Burst Laser (like I have) you have to invest into Brief Respite. That was not necessary before for level cap (or any content in general). On top of the low base range on the 1 and 3 and still relatively high efficiency requirements she becomes pretty hard to build now when she wasn't before. I'd call that a downside.

As for normal content? I think her base armor and health hold up really well. You can even see with this build that on levels around level 500 and below I would sometimes not move because I wasn't really paying attention to the run and I wasn't dying. And I don't even have her built for armor / health at all. *Tanking is possible at normal levels*. What I (and many others) point out is the *investment*. Investing into health / armor just isn't really worthwhile considering the options we have. The numbers around tanking should be addressed somewhat but the thing that matters most is the *investment*. If you learn how to shield gate you can *have an objectively stronger build in terms of damage output*. I think that's the core issue (imo).

TLDR: She's a bit harder to play on level cap, still as easy to play on normal levels as before. Definitely still a good pick for cap runs though. Damage output is the same if not potentially better.

Last thing: maybe a small nitpick but a personal gripe I have. I don't like when characters are designed in a way that tie the strength of the character to something that scales with enemy difficulty. Like I think it's counterintuitive design wise to have a damage meter that you have up less often when your health can't keep up with enemy damage. In theory your character (Warframe) should be the same if not stronger the more difficult the enemies get, right?

Anyways rant over lmao.

Check out my discord server! If you wanna talk about WF, void cascade builds or just hang out:
  / discord  

0:00 Run
1:50:46 Build