[Valkyr]: The Noise Box

Goal: Buffs and Survival

Note: This build uses an umbral forma. That is a very hard resource to obtain. If you don't like the playstyle of recklessly charging in then consider using a different mod than [Umbral Vitality]. Adding shield with crystals can help.

This build is designed to get the most out of [Valkyr]'s [Talons] during her Hysteria (Ability 4) and letting you survive even in the steel path. Using her [Talons] and a melee weapon will be the best way to take advantage of her various buffs. Some other weapon suggestions follow the main blurb about her abilities and the mods.

The Abilities

[Valkyr]'s 1: Rip Line is for mobility convenience on Jupiter and some railjack tilesets. That's it. It's not effective for damage. So I replaced it for [Rhino]'s roar to help build up an insane level of damage. With Duration and Power as high as they are in this build, Roar will last a long time (60 seconds!) for shedding through the biggest targets.

[Valkyr]'s 2: Warcry is fantastic but costs too much for limited time. Use [Eternal War]. You can easily get through entire missions without Warcry ever dropping. That makes it a one time expense (albeit a costly one at 45% efficiency). It's armor boost also puts you at 94% damage negation with 5035 armor. [Valkyr Prime] has the highest armor of any warframe in the game and this build MAXES that fact out. The attack speed boost is less vital as her damage is so insane nothing lives more than a couple hits. Still, 146% attack speed boost is pretty nice nonetheless.

[Valkyr]'s 3: Paralysis is pretty useless. If you prefer mobility then replace this with Roar instead. It relies on her shields which this build doesn't have much of. I keep it incase I get some serious shield buffs from a teammates and then can jump headfirst into a big pile of enemies and use it. It has a really short range though so you do need to be right in front of them before activating it.

[Valkyr]'s 4: Hysteria is what this build is all about. Take [Enraged] to jack up the damage numbers! Ideally you've saved up max energy and already have Warcry going. Activate the replaced [Rhino] Roar and then Hysteria for absolutely crazy damage. Since [Enraged] Hysteria no longer drains energy per second you get an insane amount of damage for more than long enough to kill everything around you. The flat cost also makes using Roar with [Valkyr] viable. Otherwise using roar will consume so much energy you lose any meaningful time with a normal Hysteria.

Don't only use Hysteria for damage. It is also effective to just activate on its own for only a second or two to hit an enemy once to heal to full health.

Note: Remember that the Talon's don't benefit from a lot of mods with stacking effects! This includes combo counter mods! People forget that and throw things like [Blood Rush] onto it and waste a slot that never will do anything. I'll include a link to Valkyr Talon's wiki page to see what does and doesn't work.

The Mods

Most warframe builds only use 2 of the umbra mods for good reason. The benefit of Umbra [Vitality] is limited and it makes the build require an umbra forma. I main [Valkyr] so its not a big investment for me but you can look for alternatives if your just trying her out. You'll find tripling up on her is more common than any other frames for a reason though.

The Survival Mods:
[Umbral Fiber] and [Umbral Vitality] keep her alive long enough for your [Adaptation] mod to stack. With 94% damage resistance from armor (Warcry active) and 90% of that remaining damage covered by [Adaptation] there is very little that can kill you. That is .6% damage that gets through. Watch out for those status procs though! They are a good sign to either activate Hysteria for invincibility or to fall back. This build has no built in way to clear them.

The Strength Mods:
[Blind Rage], [Umbral Intensify] and [Power Drift] are what give her the killing power. They boost Warcry to 146% armor buff and 146% Speed buff. [Rhino]'s roar is buffed that even the hemilith nerf it gets doesn't really feel relevant. Obviously 291% Strength is going to make Hysteria absolutely devistating.

The Duration Mod:
[Narrow Minded] makes this work so easily. It lets you go crazy with hysteria for a long time which is just fun! It does make the cooldown longer if you use Hysteria to completion but the survivability of this build doesn't really make that critical. You should be fine till it come's off cooldown. [Rhino]'s roar also benefits to having 60 seconds of activation. Roar is the most expensive of the moves in this build and having it last longer is important. Warcry then gets such a big boost it is nearly impossible to not keep it up even when enemies are slow to spawn in.

The Aura Mod:
[Steel Charge] buff's your melee. This does impact Hysteria. Its a simple mod. There isn't much to say about it. Take it for bigger numbers.

The Augments:
These are critical. This build falls on its face without these. [Eternal War] makes the huge cost of 45% efficiency not relevant. With Roar costing over a hundred energy you need this to reduce energy costs for a level. [Enraged] is also critical for this reason. [Valkyr] without [Enraged] drains energy per second. It makes it so you have to care about efficiency and thus reducing the mods available for defense or power. Enrage makes it cost just it's upfront cost which is really low since it normally drains. Only 39 energy for a very long lasting move plus it also has incredible damage and critical chance buffs for Hysteria. Having the only expensive move be Roar makes it viable to have such low Efficiency.

Note: Range and Efficiency don't matter a ton. This build is about long periods of devastation. Warcry, Roar, and Hysteria gain no benefit from range unless you really like buffing allies. Might as well just drop Range to nothing. It does hinder Paralysis but Paralysis isn't good even if you were to build around it. Again: you are free to replace Paralysis instead of Rip Line for this reason.
Efficiency is low but since you'll still have enough energy at [Valkyr]'s max to activate both Roar and Hysteria it's all good. Energy drops are more than enough to activate Hysteria while in trouble as it's energy cost is still only 39 at 45% efficiency. Roar is really the only expensive move. On some really unlucky low energy drop missions it can be a pain to activate but that has been rare in my experience.

Conclusion: There you go! These mods have a great way of working with each other to see some crazy big numbers. Remember: activate Warcry early on when you hit a big group of enemies to get its duration high. Then when you run into a bigger threat activate Roar then Hysteria for massive damage. Activate Hysteria for a second or two whenever your health needs to be topped off or to get out of danger.

Note: Why "The Noise Box"? The reason this is called the noise box is because I realized 3 of [Valkyr]'s 4 moves activate with her screaming at the top of her lungs. That wasn't enough! With the Helminth System I found I could throw on [Rhino]'s Roar ability for some silly theming but also some insane damage numbers.

The rest of this is just some tips for more ways to build around this. It has to do with Weapons and Companions. There are still great ways to get the most out of [Valkyr] beyond just modding her. Feel free to read but the [Valkyr] build itself is done.

Weapon Tips

[Valkyr]'s [Talons]:
I'll include a link to my Valkyr Talon build. Remember that a lot of mods don't work on exalted weapons. With the arcanes, aura, and [Valkyr]'s Warcry they play very well in game.

Melee Weapons:
So whatever your preference of melee weapon is I'd say you are fine. Just build them up to perfection. Just keep in mind that its combo counter goes down while the [Talons] are out because it has it's own combo counter (This counter does nothing except heavy attack multiplier damage for the [Talons]. It does not grant combo counter bonuses). If you're stuck and want something thematic: here are my Venka Prime. [Venka] is the only weapon that gets up to a 13x stack. I throw on all the combo stacking mods and increase it's combo duration through other gear.

Primary and Secondary Weapons:
Once you have a primary and secondary weapon picked out for [Valkyr] here is my suggestion: don't worry much about them. She is best in melee with her aura mod supporting that purpose.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: Get weapon arcanes on them. Specifically, Primary Dexterity and Secondary Dexterity. This increases your combo counter timer. While not a buff to your [Talons] or anything, it will keep your combo counter high so that while the [Talons] are away your melee weapon's stacking bonuses still are high. Together that's 15 seconds of combo counter time.

Operator Tips

You probably already know this but all melee builds use the Naramon Focus Tree. Specifically all melee builds require the Power Spike branch. It prevents your combo score from going to zero the moment you run out of time. Some of the other stuff is useful and fun but not required for [Valkyr] to be more effective. This will keep your normal melee from resetting it's combo counter while in Hysteria. Combo Counter is important for melee weapons because all serious builds use mods that get more powerful the higher the combo counter goes.

Companion Tips

Take a Robotic companion! This includes Hounds from Sister's of Parvos drops and Sentinels. They have a few mods that make her much easier to play.
Medi-Ray:
You'll find that you get little chips and nicks all the time. Taking a robot companion allows them to equip [Medi-Ray]. It heals you up nicely for all the little damages making you more prepared for when a bigger threat comes along.
Primed Animal Instict:
So you need to keep killing to keep Warcry up. Knowing where to run to find and kill enemies is a very useful ability. It makes them little red icons on the minimap.
[Guardian]:
Another robotic companion mod. When your shields break (Which is pretty much in one shot for [Valkyr]) it gives a quick restore to shields so you can shield gate another hit. For those who don't know what that is: Damage doesn't carry over to your health if it hits any amount of shield first. It can do a million damage but if you have 1 shield it will only hurt the shield.
[Vacuum]:
You really need to focus on going from one enemy to the next. It can be annoying (for any warframe really) to miss picking up an item by not being close enough. It takes time and can really eat into Warcry's duration before you get to the next enemy.

After that it doesn't really matter. Take Link Health and Link Armor to make them as immortal as Valkyr herself. If you took a hound then throw on [Medi-Pet Kit] and you'll never have to say goodbye. Here is a link to an example build Hound