A Valkyrie is a female class that uses long swords and shields. She uses Lancia as her awakening weapon and is a support tank class. She can be deadly if played correctly. After the reboot, her PVE clear in low-end spots is so great that you only need to hold down the right click and space bar, one hitting those mobs while grinding. In high-end areas, she tops A tier, maybe even S tier in some grinding areas, as most of her skills have been buffed in the recent update.
In group PVP siege node wars and solare 3 vs. 3, she shines the most with her buff healing abilities and reducing damage, and her Q block helps the group to push offensively. Her role requires a lot of positional awareness, while in solo PVP, her potential is lower due to her lack of mobility. Most players call her a class in a wheelchair because her chance of being in a bad position in PVP is high. She is not easy to master, and she may seem clunky the first time you play her, but she gets better the more you practice.
PVE Guide
Let us cover her PVE skills first. Take all awakening skills to the maximum. For her pre-awakening skills and skill enhancement skills/rabam skills, you only need to use those skills as filler, buff, and mobility.
While grinding in low-end spots, you can spam two skills: Sacrum Ferit, with its flow skill Lucem Fluxum holding down the right mouse button(RMB), and Promptness (spacebar).
That is it! You play like a bulldozer truck clearing those mobs, killing them with one hit. It is chill, easy and fast grinding. However, it is different in high-end spots because you must use combo, buff, and debuff the mobs’ abilities. These are your primary skills in grinding. You mainly use these skills whenever they are off cooldown and ready to use.
The first skill you need to use before you do the combo skills is the Celestial Spear skill, which is a self-buff skill. It is an 80% Critical hit rate buff, and if you use an add-on of 20% critical hit rate, that becomes 100%. It also provides healing for self and party/allies, making it the best healing skill of the game. You can now use Promptness (spacebar).
Then, do a combo, starting with Purification, a skill putting a debuff of -20 defense for a target for ten seconds. Follow up with Castigatio and then Blitz stab, with flow ultimate blitz stab. After that, use Sanctitas de Enslar with flow Divina vult. It is also known as F jump because after using Celestial Spear; you can follow Sanctitas De Enslar by pressing the F key.
The last skill you need to use is Verdict Lancia lustitiae.
These are your combo skills, while the rest are just filler skills like Divina inpulsa, Hastiludium, and Tera Sancta.
S+E > spacebar > shift+LMB > S+LMB > W+RMB > F+F > shift+RMB
PVP Guide
Now for PVP, awakening Valkyrie is a very deadly class if you have mastered her kit. Most of her skills are protected cc skills, and they hit hard, maintaining her block while waiting for the enemy in an open/unprotected state.
These are some examples of her combo:
Combo 1
This combo is good for DR and Evasion opponent build classes.
Grab > Promptness > Purification > Hastiludium > Sancrum Ferit+Q cancel > Sanctitas de Enslar+Divina vult > Terra Sancta > Blitz stab+Ultimate Blitz Stab
- KEY INPUTS: E > spacebar > shift+LMB > W+F > RMB+Q cancel > F+F > S+RMB > W+RMB > RMB > shift+Q
Combo 2
This combo is good for opponents with an Evasion build with a floating combo.
Grab > Promptness > Divina Inpulsa > Hastiludium > Sancrum Ferit > Promptness > Purification > Terra Sancta > Blitz Stab+Ultimate Blitz Stab
- KEY INPUTS: E > spacebar > shift+Q > W+F > RMB+Q cancel > spacebar > shift+LMB > S+RMB > W+RMB > RMB
Another tip is to maintain your Q block every time you use a skill right after the animation. When canceling animation, you need to press the Q block. Never let your guard down.
Mobility
You need some mobility to engage and disengage during a fight waiting for your primary DPS skills to cool down, especially in a 1v1 scenario. Death line chase, Shining Dash, Shield chase, and Hastiludium–these four skills are your main mobility skills. The good thing about them is the frontal guard and evasion are protected by super armor while the skills are in animation.
When disengaging during a fight, you use Shield to chase away from your enemy, but this will set you to a pre-awakening state, meaning your Lancia weapon is hidden, and you swap to your sword and Shield. You cannot use your awakening skills in this state.
Next is Death line chase, but the downside of this skill is it has a cooldown of 2 seconds. When you are chasing an enemy, you better not spam this skill because that 2-second cooldown puts you in an unsafe state with no super armor and frontal guard.
There is another technique I want to share in disengaging during a fight. Hold the right and left buttons simultaneously when you want to disengage in the awakening state by holding shift+D. Doing this will disengage the protection evasion. This technique is so good that your evasion buff lingers while doing this.
Next, we engage in a fight. Hastiludium is a skill protected by super armor. You use this skill while chasing an enemy. You can also use Promptness before the last second of the animation of Hastiludium ends to extend your distance from your enemy.
Another skill is Shining Dash, which only has a frontal guard, meaning you are only protected in front but not on your side or at your back. You mostly use this skill before you grab the enemy because we tackle engaging the enemy in PVP if the enemy is far, but when close to your aim, you can use the Sanctitas de Enslar F jump to engage.
Build and Gears
Valkyrie is a tank support class and is very good in super armor trading in PVP. She is dependent on her block and frontal guard gauge. For a Valkyrie, damage reduction and HP should be your stat build.
While the defense has a big role in every MMORPG game, Black Desert is different. Even if you have 500 defenses, the chance of being killed is high if the enemy stuns you. By that mechanic, your HP’s role enters when an opponent CCs and struggles to kill you using combo because you have high HP. Survivability is better than an offensive gameplay style when playing Valkyrie.
Choosing Valkyrie as Your Main Character
Valkyrie is in a perfect state as of this article, and we have played her as our main character since the first time we played this game. At first, she is kind of heavy and slow to use due to her lack of mobility, but as you play her, you will notice the challenge in her gameplay, especially with her awakening.
Valkyrie awakening is one of the most balanced classes in the game. However, everything will be rewarding in endgame, especially in the siege, node war, and solare. It is also noticeable that there is always a Valkyrie in every region PVP event. This character is good, above average, and second in rankings compared to other classes.
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