Let me begin by saying that, as someone who heavily resonates with paladin themes, Valkyrie is the closest thing BDO offers to home. Right now I'm frequently dipping my toes into other classes, but simply don't connect with them to the same capacity. Something I've found interesting during my time testing said classes is that the community behind these others classes are substantially more vocal and interactive (Witch/Warrior at the moment, but I wouldn't be surprised to find even more). I feel that we fellow Valkyrie mains, however many there are, are lacking when it comes to engaging in conversation to improve the class by addressing its shortcoming so we can take it to greater heights! My hope is that this will spark said discussion.

To address why I find myself testing the waters though is because the class is found wanting. For Succession Valk, the main topic of discussion for me, the narrative is that you either 1) don't have enough consistent DPS for grind spots because your cooldowns are too long and/or generally have underwhelming damage values or 2) your mobility is heavily stunted for the areas you can one shot packs. Nothing feels stranger than getting weapon buff at Orcs or boss buff at Giants and feeling like you actually don't get much mileage out of it because your mobility absolutely cannot keep up with your ability to one shot the packs. This invariably pidgeonholes you into a place like Gyfin, where you don't have to move much and there is a spawn time buffer from wave to wave so you have your cooldowns back up. Even there though, clearing the despair adds is kind of a footnote because you can't afford to spend cooldowns on them if you want full uptime on the elites. There has to be some kind of solution to facilitate a better flow of gameplay, whether that be 1) increasing the distance on Shield Chase/Righteous Charge/Forward Slash, address the clunky animation/travel time on Shining Dash and lingering animation on Sword of Judgment, 2) smoothing out DPS rotations with more effective in-between skills like that of Purification and Celestial Spear, 3) adjusting the damage numbers of core and frequently used abilities like Sword of Judgment, Severing Light, 4) not locking you in place for a long time on BSR. I think we should also look at what is working, as a point of reference. Divine Power, Glaring Slash, Sanctitas and Gladius Gloriae all work very well. The similarities between them being aoe sizes, the ability to perform the skill quickly and interweave them in unique ways (save Sanctitas, but nothing really replaces a teleport). Sure even they each respectively have their own quirks you have to work with, but that kind of adds to the skill expression of the class. 

To foil with Awakening Valk, she has much better in-between skills with the lower cooldowns of Promptness, Castigatio, Sacrum Ferit. She also has notably better mobility with that of Hastiludium and again Promptness. That being said, AoE sizes are a notable weakness on the majority of her skills. Additionally, while the consistent DPS is great, that boon is in limited grinding locations. Despite having the mobility for one shot spots, it feels like she lacks the burst damage to be optimal for them. The opposite situation to Succession. All in all, Awakening feels more well-rounded than Succession, but has a couple of general glaring weaknesses. 

These are merely the most straight forward ideas to clean up the class, but I would love to hear other people's opinions on potential fixes. Let me know what you think I got right, wrong or didn't address at all!

They need to let Severing Light be usable again: it's cool-down is ridiculous.  Succession Warrior's version is infinitely better, and even though Valk is a healer, Warrior can self-heal just as easy with his Skill Add-ons.  Warrior puts Valk to shame in every way, except for party buff support.

Like Shai, Valk, especially Succ. Valk is a niche class, meant for a few roles.  I used to have a lot more fun with her.

Too bad fighting mobs with her isn't near as easy as Succ. Zerk.

Yeah, Severing light is pretty lackluster. To be honest, I didn't even include the dearth of unused skills [Flying Kick, Flurry of Kicks, Double Flying Kick, Sharp Light, Skyward Strike, Shield Strike, Charging Slash, Shield Push, Shield Counter]. Some of these have limited use, but a lot of them are purely a disadvantage to incorporate. That being said, I don't know how they could address so many skills in the kit being unusable. At least there's a few straightforward fixes they could implement with Severing Light. Also I totally see your point on the healing aspect. That's doubled by the fact that the party benefits you would feel with Valk, you aren't actually experiencing it in 90% of PVE circumstances. I do have to say though, Purification is insanely good, so I don't have any issues with self-heals haha. I also understand that a class can't be the best at everything, but when you ignore both damage AND mobility on one spec of a class, it feels like you might as well just say it's not viable for PVE if you want to your time input to be rewarded when compared to other classes. Maybe Succ Valk isn't meant to be mobile! The design of Shield Chase leading straight into SA/FG with insanely slow movement would imply that. I can actually vibe with that design. From that point though, we should hit like a freight train lol.

Agreed.

And for perspective:  I play Succ. Warr. without a sheild.  AP, 215.  He out performs Succ. Valk. with DUO Godr-Ayed shield, +64 Monster damage, AP 250.

I never use healing potions or buffs with either, and Succ. Warr. far outperforms Succ. Valk under those circumstances at the same grindzones, Kamasylvia and under.

I'm not a robot

I am human

Yeah, that's a tough pill to swallow that another class can perform better a full item down. Silver lining is it did feel like the gap slightly narrowed once I got to some of the mid to mid-late game grindspots, but it still pales in comparison.

On a side note, I think the response here also substantiates some of my thoughts. It seems like Valkyrie IN PVE (yes, I know she's awesome in PVP) has pretty much all but been abandoned by the community, due to the poor performance issues and neglect to have said issues resolved. PA help!!

I have mained valk through the good and (mostly)bad times for 8 years. You pointed out the main short comings perfectly. Succ has nice aoe and damage but terrible cooldowns for the required skills for PvE. Awakening has relatively poor AoE. Skills have depth (distance) which is nice and all but no width meaning many packs you miss mobs on the side. There are a lot of tricks and stuff to help out with this but spinning camera in a circle every 4 seconds isnt always fun. Some of her skills are always just unwieldy and awkward to aim and use in general. 

Both just have terrible movement especially after recent promptness changes. It was kinda silly for one shot zones but now even in places you aren't just rolling through packs it's very easy to have net stamina loss. 

Succcession valkyrie definitely needs help.

Valk could use some love in PvE

Hello guys, i cant find a decent addons for Awa Valk. Can someone point me in the right direction please?