The Valkyrie pr

Whoever developed the new prae strain did so egregiously and in bad faith that I do not trust them to balance it in a manner where it is a side grade and not a blatant upgrade when comparing to the other strains.

Me when I endure the TM as marine:

3 Likes

This is the LZ turrets shooting the defender FYI.

Edit: personally. Whether it’s a buff or a nerf, I love the warden too much to rework it.

2 Likes

If this was the first TM, then it wouldve been when everything was bugged. Shit was hilarious though, people running around with 65 armour just staring at marines as they do 0 damage.

Seems like most xenos like it tbh, and it certainly feels more engaging to fight than old warden, which mostly sat on the back. Having a sorta-frontline support strain on the roster feels good.

I don’t think it’s OP, I feel like people are just scapegoating the TM when marines wipe from their own incompetence. Not saying it’s perfectly balanced, just that it’s round impact isn’t as high as some people think it is.

4 Likes

After playing three rounds, back to back, of it I can definetly say that this is much more fun than base warden, and obviously less powerful. It still hits like a truck and can kill a marine 1v1, but it thrives in team plays, as it should be.

My take is that the Tantrum ability(Buff) shouldnt be able to work through walls, aka you need a clear LoS of xeno. High Gallop should have a bit less stun after a hit, maybe .1 or .2 seconds cause marines get slaughtered in the current time window if they get hit, plus not being allowed to hit through wired cades but have less cooldown if you miss a marine(down to 5 from 10 seconds maybe). Fight or Flight should use up half or more of your fury, because its a mass rejuvination of every xeno with a pretty big radius.

Marines are mad at this cause xenos just kept spamming all-valkyrie hives and winning when marines didnt know what the new strain did and just blundered really badly. I say let it bake a bit more and then TM it for a WHILE. Marines and xenos will adjust to the change and we can see how it plays out, cause at first OBVIOUSLY everyone will want to play the new caste and feel it out. Also the rounds it was on were lowpop, so yeah we need a highpop test too(8 valkyrie hive incoming).

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iirc you can actually slash normally during the stun, which is pretty stupid powerful. I don’t think it’s intentional though, it’s probably just a bug or something.

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Now this brings me back to release Warden
https://gachi.gay/B1ubW

(edit: fuck you forums this video is only 16MB, its not too big to upload it here with your 50MB limit)

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Think of Valkyrie as a warrior that trades away almost all CC and a smidgeon of damage for support, pheros, and an ungodly amount of armor.

Current Valkyrie (This version hasn’t been seen ingame, waiting for next TM) has:
30 slash damage (warrior/lurker has 35)
its only CC ability is high gallop which dashes for dashes either:

  • a 3x3 tremor stun to a marines
  • immobilize 1 marine for a root attack which always hits chest (27/24 dmg against marines in light/med armor) with a microstun as it ends.

In terms of armor it literally has more base armor than base crusher does (35 vs 30), and is the same as charger crusher’s side armor (45).

A full mag of Mk2 against a queen does 1010~ damage (crits but doesn’t kill)
against a Valk with no tantrum (base armor) it does 670~ damage (crits but doesn’t kill).
against a Valk that tantrum’s right before getting hit it does 600~ damage (doesn’t crit)

Of course, if you use AP, then the Valk dies in a measly 30 AP Mk2 (35 if SMG AP) bullets regardless of using tantrum or not.

TL:DR if you see green, use AP.

As a valk, you have no ranged damage if your high gallop is on CD, which would leave you at risk of getting obliterated by marines while trying to catch up, but you keep Warden prae’s Strong pheros which means you can have effectively 100% uptime frenzy, and high gallop doesn’t even cost any plasma to use.
Due to High Gallop’s immobilize and stun, if you high gallop a marine you get 4 free slashes off of them before they can run, and due to frenzy you’ll outspeed them even if they medded tram to avoid painslow. I think it’s best to aim chest as 5-6 slashes will frac it.

Valk is definitely a ton more fun than warden to play, although currently I think it still plays too “Safe” as its extremely high armor allows it to get away with so much stuff unless a marine has AP loaded, and due to its high armor and entry ability (Gallop) allows it to get free fracs off on marines with minimal risk of actually dying.

Overall I’d say that it’s a Medium-Low risk for Highish reward, the only way you’d die as a valk is if you have nobody around to tantrum or you get focus fired by 3 marines using AP when you go for a high gallop.

If Insanered wants to make valk a bit more high risk high reward, maybe try increase the windup/immobilize time for high gallop or reduce the strength of pheromones, but buff slash damage back up to 35/40 so that it can absolutely destroy the marine that it targets (like dancer).

1 Like

Whoever developed the new AMR did so egregiously and in bad faith that I do not trust them to balance it in a manner where it is a side grade and not a blatant upgrade when comparing to the base sniper.

6 Likes

Not a fan that it’s a warden replacement, some of us like to play the range game and this is kinda reducing the options, you have effectively have 2/3 Tier options for range, Base prae, which is kinda shit as it takes forever to stack for the burst and anyone that get’s bursted by the acid was likely AFK.

Or either of the boiler strains but you can kinda turn your brain of with how little you actually have to watch things with them.

All in all I think it should be a separate thing rather than a replacement, not even going to talk about balance because numbers can easily(?) change.

2 Likes

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I will be closing this thread. We want players to keep passionately developing for the game. While this particular PR feedback post has remained generally civil, posts such as these may disincentivized people from contributing to the community.

2 Likes