Warframe Guide: How to Valkyr Like a Boss

This guide will attempt to sum up why Valkyr so amazing (despite how easy she can feel to play), what makes her special, and how to have fun with her even after more than 400 hours playing on just her alone. 

In addition, this guide will present 3 builds which are great for her as well as some alternatives - plus reasoning for the mods. This guide will also include melee builds and explains further why they are effective.  Lastly, this guide includes some extra add-ons for each build in terms of the Focus system and arcanes. 

So as a brief summary, Valkyr is the Warframe Berserker. She loves to get close and personal while being so tough the enemy really cannot retaliate. Her abilities all enhance her mobility, strength and tankiness and along with some 'can-opener' abilities, she really is incredible for any enemy at all stages of the game. 

She is a good pick for any and every solo mission, as well as every assassination, difficult sortie and high level encounter. 

This guide will summarise each of her abilities, including her passives, then present three builds with explanations and an example of a Melee Mod setup to achieve maximum carnage and effectiveness.

Her raw stats as shown in-game:

Her Warframe pieces also all drop from Alad V on Jupiter (Themisto).

Based off of Valkyrs moderate Health, Low Shield and Low Energy Pool an inexperienced Tenno wouldn't be mistaken in assuming that Valkyr is perhaps rather weak. And in these regards she does appear lackluster. However, Valkyr has the highest Armour value in-game as of patch 18.6.3, and a nice Sprint Speed to add a little bonus.

The Armour value is probably one of Valkyr's best innate features, as it means that even new Tenno with access to few, or low level defensive mods are already being compensated. This is due to her armour of 600 giving her a 66% damage reduction to damage against her health. Her armour with 'Steel Fibre' of 1260 means she has an 81% damage reduction to damage against her health. This is why she is a serious tank.

The Armour greatly helps against most enemies throughout the entire game, never really falling off until level 90 and above. Her lackluster Health and Shields are therefore fully compensated by her Armour value, and late-game Valkyr will need none of these stats as her abilities can carry her way into end-game and out the other side. 

As a defensive Warframe, Valkyr herself is exceptionally tanky. As I will show with her abilities later on, Valkyr has the ability to outlast any other Warframe in the game, however in a team environment her defensive capabilities fall off somewhat, as she is unable to transfer her toughness to her allies. But her high armour and amazing abilities keep her in the running for as long as the playing Tenno can be bothered to mash his E button.

As quoted from the Wikia - 'Valkyr is nimble, capable of recovering from knockdown 50% faster, as well as having the ability to land from great heights without stopping.'

This passive is exceptionally potent - it gives Valkyr the edge in maneuverability over a lot of Warframes. Valkyr in her normal form does very well against knockdowns (due to Nimble) and can clear maps exceptionally quickly due to the fact that she never stumbles after a high fall. 

Combined with her innate stats and we have a tanky Warframe, capable of dealing a tonne of damage, who are also highly resilient to the strongest forms of crowd control that enemies have - especially the Grineer and Infested.

Scorpions, Ancients, Napalms, Bombards, Leapers and Juggernauts can be so annoying/ strong due to their ability to knock a Tenno down for a couple of seconds, which in high level missions can be deadly to most Warframes. Due to Nimble, Valkyr shrugs these off, basically removing the whole threat of those enemies (but be warned, Commanders are still irritating).

As quoted from the game - 'Valkyr hurls forth a hook. If it hits an enemy, she pulls them to her. If it hits terrain, she pulls herself to the hook's location.'

Ability Effects - Rip Line drags Valkyr is a direction, or can be fired onto enemies to drag them towards Valkyr. This ability deals damage, fires Valkyr in a single direction, can be refired in the air and can be cast on allies, pulling Valkyr towards them.

Power Strength will affect the damage of this ability - more Power Strength = more damage when you hook an enemy, it does not affect how strong the pull on Valkyr is.

Rip Line has a combo meter - if the ability is recast in a set amount of time after the initial cast it will deal 2x the amount of damage before and reduce the energy cost by half. Any further cast will lock the ability into dealing 4x damage and will reduce the energy cost to 25% the initial cost. Power Duration will extend how long this combo meter is active.

More Power Range simply increases the range at which the Rip Line will hook onto a surface or a target - more Power Range = further away you can grab stuff. However, the strength of the pull on Valkyr if she hooks terrain (how fast she will be pulled towards the target surface), is affected by the Power Range. The further away you are, the stronger you will be pulled towards the hooked terrain.

Simply put, Efficiency reduces the energy cost of Rip-Line, but at an original cost of 25 that scales down due to the combo meter, it is rarely advised to set up Valkyr to max the efficiency of only her Rip-Line.

This mod allows Valkyr to fire Rip-Line out once (using energy for that initial cast) and while airborne the ability can be fired infinitely with no energy cost. However, this is purely for movement and due to the low energy cost and combo mechanic of Rip-Line anyway, it is a redundant mod (except for pretending to be Spiderman for a game or two). This mod is not recommended

Rip-Line is simply a nice touch to her skill set. It is fun to catapult yourself across the map, it isn't her bread and butter skill. This is especially true as the ability does poor damage later on in the game and will lose large amounts of range in the builds that work best overall on Valkyr. This is combined with it being single target, so becomes a poor offensive ability in mobs, and also will sometimes cause you to miss the target, maybe dragging yourself somewhere you don't want to be.

In most cases, Rip-Line is used as an extra skill, one to help drag you across the map when you're trying to speed yourself along or to pull Grineer Hellion out of the sky in a sort of 'screw you' maneuver.

As quoted from the game - 'Valkyr lets out a rallying cry that bolsters her allies melee speed while slowing down nearby enemies.'

Ability Effects - Warcry provides a Slow onto enemies within range while bolstering the melee attack speed and armour values of Valkyr and any allies affected, for the entire duration. Allies must be in range of the initial cast to recieve the benefits, but will retain them for as long as Warcry is active.

Power Strength will affect the three effects of this ability, two of which are buffs, and one of which is a slow on enemies in range. For Warcry, more Power Strength = stronger buffs and debuff when activated.

Power Duration will affect the duration of this ability on Valkyr, her allies and her enemies. More duration = effects lasting longer.

Power Range will increase the range of effect of the initial cast - after this initial cast Range is virtually useless on this ability.

Power Efficiency reduces the energy cost of Warcry, but due to the build, this ability will either be used once or not at all, per mission, so efficiency on this ability is not a necessity. However, it is not a bad idea, since it has a rather hefty energy cost of 75.

This augment will extend the duration of Warcry for Valkyr and any allies affected by it for every melee kill Valkyr obtains during its duration. This is one of the best augment mods in game for melee combat, as it allows Valkyr to have an indefinite melee speed buff that synergises well with Hysteria or any melee builds she takes. I would highly recommend this mod.

Warcry is either her second best, or tied best ability with Hysteria. Warcry gives Valkyr such a massive offensive and defensive boost that this ability alone is worth building around. Indeed, the best builds I have seen and experimented with have involved maximising the effect of this ability and Hysteria simultaneously. 

The slow is actually the least useful part of this ability, but the Melee speed increase and Armour boost is an incredible bonus to melee focused teams. Teams with Excalibur, Wukong or even Chroma rejoice with a good Valkyr in the team, simply due to how well her Warcry stacks with their own innate skills. 

In most cases, Warcry is used as an ability to enhance or replace Hysteria, depending on the mission or mood I'm in. Since Warcry hugely increases Attack Speed it is perfect for crit builds, crit weapons and especially when used in conjuction with the Narumon invisibility perk. This is the staple ability for two of my builds, and is definitely worth experimenting with if a new Tenno wishes to try, or return to Valkyr.

As quoted from the game - 'Valkyr unleashes her shields, stunning and damaging enemies around her.'

Ability Effects - The ability throws Valkyrs shields out in a circle around her. This staggers enemies, opens them up to finishers and deals damage based off of her current shields and the distance the enemy is from her at the moment of casting. It will also use up a third of her shield to cast.

The stats:

Power Strength will increase the multiplier of Valkyr's shields that turns into impact damage, as well as will increase the knockback of the ability (how much the enemies are pushed back).

Power Range will increase the range of the ability, which is effective as the damage of the ability and knockback decrease the further away from Valkyr the enemy is. 

Power Efficiency reduces the energy cost to a minimum of 1.25 energy per cast. As this is an effective 'can-opener' ability that opens up armoured enemies to melee finishers which ignore armour, it is a very effective ability at higher levels.

This mod increases the duration of the stun of Paralysis, and also has the bonus of dragging enemies towards Valkyr. It is not recommended as Paralysis has such a low cost that it can be easily spammed, so the increased stun duration isn't necessary.

Important Note: This mod can also be used to group enemies in a clump to maximise area of effect damage. This sounds like a nice, if niche, use of the mod. 

This ability is fairly useful for clearing space around yourself if indeed you are being crowded, or there are tough enemies in the nearby vicinity that you need a finisher to kill or need to stun. Although it becomes less effective later on, as it roots you in place for the cast it is still effective for bringing down enemies faster. 

However, more prefer Hysteria as it has a move to knock enemies down (from an aerial to ground attack) which is often just as useful as Paralysis, and can be executed as quickly with no energy cost.

As quoted from the game - 'Valkyr is imbued with energy and becomes a ball of vicious rage, capable of unleashing a torrent of deadly claw attacks on unsuspecting foes.'

Ability Effects - The ability causes Valkyr to revert to a melee stance, not using any of her equipped weapons, while becoming invincible and draining her energy over time. The ability will also emits an aura that stores 30% of the damage she ignores and, if the ability deactivates in range of an enemy, 25% of the stored damage will be dealt to Valkyr. The damage scales off of specific melee mods, and a percentage of the damage she deals will be given back to her health.

Normal Attack Damage - Lv 1 = 100, Lv 2 = 125, Lv 3 = 200, Lv 4 = 250

Normal Attack Range - 2m

Wall Attack Damage - Lv 1 = 300, Lv 2 = 375, Lv 3 = 600, Lv 4 = 750

Slide Attack Damage - Lv 1 = 300, Lv 2 = 375, Lv 3 = 600, Lv 4 = 750

Aerial Attack Damage - Lv 1 = 200, Lv 2 = 250, Lv 3 = 400, Lv 4 = 500

Slam Attack Damage - 300

Slam Attack Range - 5m

Critical Chance - 50%

Critical Damage - 200% Multiplier

Status Chance - 10%

Ground Finisher Damage - 1600% Multiplier

Melee Finisher Damage - 6400% Multiplier

- The stats of the melee weapon Valkyr has equipped will not affect Hysteria, only the mods equipped on the weapon will.

- The ability damage is split equally between all the damage types (Slash, Puncture and Impact).

- Power Strength and Melee Strength mods will only affect the Damage, not the Lifesteal percentage.

- This Ability has its own stance with different combo attacks. It will unlock more combinations as Hysteria levels up.

- Valkyr is still vulnerable to energy-leech eximus units which will increase the rate of energy loss that she experiences.

- Valkyr will take no damage from current status effects, becomes immune to any further status effects and will not be knocked down under any circumstances. Although slows and Commanders will still affect her.

Power Strength will increase the damage of all of Hysterias attacks, and will increase the finisher damage, but not the multipliers. It does not affect the amount of damage Valkyr absorbs, or the amount of damage she takes if her aura deals damage to her.

Power Range will affect the range of the aura Valkyr emits. Power Range has no affect on her melee range. As such, a lower power range is very beneficial for a Hysteria Valkyr Build. 

Power Efficiency reduces the initial cast energy cost as well as the energy drain that Valkyr takes per second. 

Power Duration affects the energy cost while the ability is active. A higher Duration will decrease the energy cost per second.

This ability is what makes Valkyr overpowered. A Valkyr modded specifically for Hysteria is well equipped to outperform any other Warframe in a survival and can head over the two hour mark fairly easily. 

Hysteria not only scales off of Warframe mods, but also regular melee mods which is what helps scale the ability so much further. That and its infinite defense capabilities.

Pressure Point, Buzz Kill, Auger Strike, Collision Force, Primed Heavy Trauma, Spoiled Strike.

- Critical -

True Steel, Organ Shatter. (Blood Rush and Body Count do Not affect Hysteria).

- Elemental Damage - 

Fever Strike, Shocking Touch, North Wind, Molten Impact, Focus Energy, Virulent Scourge.

- Usability - 

Reach, Primed Reach, Berserker, Fury.

This build is the normal Build when running Exterminate, Capture, Sabotage, Hive and Archwing Missions.

-Valkyr comes with a V aura Polarity, so Steel Charge naturally suits her, as well as Valkyr being a melee frame so it double helps.

- It helps clear rooms much faster and to provide some more manueverability. To me, the mod also gives an incredible looking 'string' effect to bullet jumps on cast, as shown in the image on the left.

Co-action Drift (+15% Aura Strength, +15% Aura Effectiveness) which increases the effect of Steel Charge.

Power Drift (+15% Power Strength, +30% Chance to Resist Knockdowns) which will increase the damage of Hysteria, Paralysis and Rip-Line, and will increase the Attack Speed buff of Warcry.

-This mod is perfect for a Warcry or Hysteria focused Valkyr. This will prevent the Hysteria aura from harming you and will have no ill effects besides making Paralysis slightly less effective and Rip-Line reach less far. However it will drastically reduce the energy cost per second of Hysteria and increase the duration of Warcry,making it by far a good trade-off.

-This is simply a mod that increases my survivability and gives the mod Rage more efficiency, as Rage gives energy from health damage sustained. As Valkyr has tiny shields, Vitality is the most efficient on her other than Steel Fibre, which you can replace with Eternal War.

-Combined with Vitality, this gives Valkyr near infinite energy. As my playstyle involves popping in, and out of Hysteria this mod keeps your energy topped up, while using Hysteria to keep my health topped up. In this way you have a perfect balance of health and energy.

-This mod allows me to activate Warcry once, and then never again during a mission. It allows me to keep a continual attack speed buff up, thus increasing my damage per second.

-This mod provides a damage boost to Hysteria, and gives a slight increase to the attack speed buff of Warcry. It also gives no negative affects, so I take this mod as opposed to a corrupted one.

-This mod increases the duration of the attack speed buff of Warcry, and also reduces the energy cost per second of Hysteria. It also increases the combo window of Rip-Line, making it more spammable.

-This mod decreases the energy cost of all abilities and the energy cost per second of Hysteria. A must have mod.

-This mod at rank 4 brings the Power Efficiency to maximum, at 175%. At rank 4, it gives the most efficiency possible, for the least amount of Power Duration loss. 

Please note: Melee weapons stats do not matter when Hysteria is active, any melee weapon is fine if going for a Hysteria heavy build.

For this melee setup (which is Hysteria focused):

-This mod is the most important one for a Hysteria focused Valkyr build. A maximum, or high level Primed Reach is able to melee attack Corpus Nullifiers without being hit by the Bubble. This excessive range neutralises one of Valkyr most annoying opponents.

-Nothing special here, it just increases all damage of Hysteria and the weapon.

-This mod combo gives +180% Corrosive damage, which is a status that ignores 25% of a target's armour when the unique proc affects the enemy.This is exceptionally useful against heavy armoured enemies, especially with the Grineer and Corrupted, but will also help with the Infested.

-This mod gives good damage against shielded enemies (so a lot of Corpus units) and some heavily armoured Grineer enemies. As such, this mod fills in the weakness of the Corrosive damage. It's proc will also slow enemies down by 50% which is uselful against capture targets. 

-This mod will massively boost all of Hysteria's damage, due to Hysteria starting with a high critical chance and relatively high critical damage multiplier. 

-This increases the critical chance of all of Valkyr's melee attacks. As such, the normal 50% Crit of Hysteria is boosted up to 80%. 

-This mod synergises well with True Steel and Hysteria's incredibly high crit chance. As such, Berserker will always be procced. As well as this, Berserker will stack to give a maximum of +75% Attack speed for 24 seconds. This greatly increases Valkyr's damage output.

This build is good for survival missions that will reach high levels and start relatively highly too. It is entirely Hysteria focused, with no room for other gameplay.

Damage done via a finisher to a level 120 Eximus Bombard - 396,784. This is why this build works at higher levels.

For this build:

-Valkyr comes with a V aura Polarity, so Steel Charge naturally suits her, as well as Valkyr being a melee frame so it double helps.

-This will increase the damage of Hysteria, Paralysis and Rip-Line, and will increase the Attack Speed buff of Warcry. As such, it is vital on a build that will encounter enemies far above level 150.

-This mod is perfect for a Hysteria focused Valkyr. This will prevent the Hysteria aura from harming you and will drastically reduce the energy cost per second of Hysteria and increase the duration of Warcry. This is vital, as the less time out of Hysteria, the less time you will spend dead. At high levels, Hysteria is all that is between you and being one-shot, which is why Rage is not a part of this build, and Vitality has become redundant here.

-This is simply a mod that increases the time spent in Hysteria and increases the duration of Warcry. The knockdown recovery is redundant as Hysteria means Valkyr cannot be knocked down, but the duration is the necessary part.

-This mod is simply there to give Warcry's attack speed a massive boost, and takes Hysteria's damage up to ludicrous levels. The reduced efficiency is not ideal, but is made up for by the massive amount of Power Duration forced into this build and the ability to shred large amounts of energy.

-This mod allows me to activate Warcry once, and then never again during a mission. It allows me to keep a continual attack speed buff up, thus increasing my damage per second. I have never not found this mod useful, as in high levels, energy conservation becomes key as Valkyr, as losing Hysteria can mean certain death. As such, the less this ability is activated, the better.

-This mod provides a damage boost to Hysteria, and gives a slight increase to the attack speed buff of Warcry. It also gives no negative affects, so I take this mod as opposed to a corrupted one.

-This mod increases the duration of the attack speed buff of Warcry, and also reduces the energy cost per second of Hysteria.

-This mod decreases the energy cost of all abilities and the energy cost per second of Hysteria. A must have mod.

-This mod at rank 5 brings the Power Efficiency up to 135% which is the maximum of this build due to the reduction given by Blind Rage. Although it also reduces the Power Duration, this is made up for by Primed Continuity.

As the damage counter shows only 30% of the damage taken, you can easily sustain more than 150,000 damage with this build (and this was only performed in the Simulator).

Please note: Melee weapons stats do not matter when Hysteria is active, any melee weapon is fine if going for a Hysteria heavy build.

For this melee setup (which is Hysteria focused):

-This mod is the most important one for a Hysteria focused Valkyr build. A maximum, or high level Primed Reach is able to melee attack Corpus Nullifiers without being hit by the Bubble. This excessive range neutralises one of Valkyr most annoying opponents.

-Nothing special here, it just increases all damage of Hysteria and the weapon.

-This mod combo gives +180% Corrosive damage, which is a status that ignores 25% of a target's armour when the unique proc affects the enemy.This is exceptionally useful against heavy armoured enemies, especially with the Grineer and Corrupted, but will also help with the Infested.

-This mod gives good damage against shielded enemies (so a lot of Corpus units) and some heavily armoured Grineer enemies. As such, this mod fills in the weakness of the Corrosive damage. It's proc will also slow enemies down by 50% which is uselful against capture targets. 

-This mod will massively boost all of Hysteria's damage, due to Hysteria starting with a high critical chance and relatively high critical damage multiplier. 

-This increases the critical chance of all of Valkyr's melee attacks. As such, the normal 50% Crit of Hysteria is boosted up to 80%. 

-This mod synergises well with True Steel and Hysteria's incredibly high crit chance. As such, Berserker will always be procced. As well as this, Berserker will stack to give a maximum of +75% Attack speed for 24 seconds. This greatly increases Valkyr's damage output.

As a little piece of evidence, here is the after effects of a 1 hour 25 minute T4 solo survival:

You can play this build when you feel like having some fun with Valkyr.

For this build:

-Valkyr comes with a V aura Polarity, so Steel Charge naturally suits her, as well as Valkyr being a melee frame so it double helps.

-This is a personal favourite of mine, however it is hardly a necessity. This will help clear rooms much faster and to provide some more manueverability. 

-This mod is perfect for Warcry as it gives it a huge increase to the length that Warcry can run for and gives no negatives to the ability either.

-This is simply a mod that increases your survivability which you can couple with Steel Fibre for an 80% damage reduction, with some extra health which means at lower levels (level 70 or below) enemies do far less damage.

-Combined with Vitality, this gives Valkyr a huge boost to her survivability. With her already high 600 armour, this mod takes her to 1260 which translates to almost 80% damage reduction to physical attacks. This mod wipes the floor with most enemies in the game.

-This mod allows me to activate Warcry once, and then never again during a mission. It allows me to keep a continual attack speed buff up, thus increasing my damage per second. 

-This mod is simply there to give Warcry's attack speed a massive boost. As this build focuses on making the equipped melee weapon incredible, rather than Hysteria, this mod will hugely increase the attack speed of the equipped weapon.

-This mod increases the duration of the attack speed buff of Warcry, and also reduces the energy cost per second of Hysteria. It also increases the combo window of Rip-Line, making it more spammable.

-This mod decreases the energy cost of all abilities and the energy cost per second of Hysteria. A must have mod.

-This mod at rank 4 gives a good amount of Efiieciency, while only taking away a minimal amount of Duration. A rank 5 Fleeting Expertise would be fine, but I prefer the extra duration on Warcry as opposed to a lower cost of activating the ability.

For this melee setup which will focus on the melee weapon desired:

-Nothing special here, it just increases the weapon damage.

-This mod will simply amplify your melee weapon's base damage. If you're using the Nikana Prime, the best mod here will be one to increase slash damage. Other weapons may need an Impact, Puncture or elemental damage mod instead.

-This mod combo gives +180% Corrosive damage, which is a status that ignores 25% of a target's armour when the unique proc affects the enemy.This is exceptionally useful against heavy armoured enemies, especially with the Grineer and Corrupted, but will also help with the Infested.

-This mod will massively boost all of your weapons crit damage, if indeed you are using a crit weapon (such as the Nikana Prime which is the weapon I am using for this build). 

- This mod when combined with Body Count gives a huge critical chance. When placed on a weapon such as the Nikana Prime, it quickly leads to a weapon with over 100% critical chance, meaning every strike will proc Berserker, and Organ Shatter will Mutiply every hit.

-This mod increases the window of opportunity to raise the critical chance of Blood Rush. With the extended melee combo meter time, the combo should never hit 0 as enemies should always be available to refresh the extra 12 seconds.

-This mod synergises well with Blood Rush. When the Nikana Prime reaches over 100% crit chance, every hit will proc Berserker, which only adds to the attack speed, and the damage per second.

The reason why use this on Valkyr is because use of Hysteria will freeze the current melee combo on whatever number it is on, until Hysteria is deactivated. As such, Valkyr will never lose her melee combo, as if enemies are in short supply, she may activate Hysteria and freeze the timer. Please note, that Body Count and Blood Rush do not affect Hysteria at all.

You start with a combo of 5 and 129 Energy before activating Hysteria:

After about 3 minutes and 43 seconds (so as all 129 of my energy depletes) you will still left with a combo of 5:

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Credits: Special thanks to Orthelius for this comprehensive Valkyr guide.