A recent global lab patch notes (2/6/2026) and to a larger extent, the past 2 years have had odd changes for Awakening Valkyrie. In the 2/6/2026 global lab patch notes, they stated that Awakening Valkyrie was a “bruiser” that was tanky while doing significant damage. However, me and many other Awakening Valkyrie players have found this false over the past year or two of her balance. Furthermore, they have stated their view of Succession Valkyrie to be the “supportive” spec. Ever since succession, Awakening has been seen as the supportive class while Succession was the closer to a bruiser of the two. This identity was further pushed with the Awakening Reboot that gave Awakening Valkyrie a 3-second SA buff to self and allies on Breath of Elion. With the categorization of Awakening Valkyrie as a “bruiser”, I can’t help but see that Awakening Valkyrie’s kit does not have the capability to support her role as a “bruiser”.

Who I Am

My name is Swid, I’ve been playing Black Desert Online and Valkyrie for the better part of 8 years. I’ve worked to create an extensive collection of Awakening Valkyrie PvP Information as well as maintaining the Valkyrie Class Discord information. I originally chose Awakening Valkyrie because it has a cool identity of being a flexible support that can both support your backline and be a powerful frontliner.

Awakening Valkyrie’s Class Identity

The current state of Awakening Valkyrie has a large issue with that it lacks any coherent identity. In the past, there were mainly 6 core pillars that Valkyrie’s identity was built upon.

1. 100% BSR

   1. This was an iconic trait of Awakening Valkyrie. With the perfect setup and positioning, a good Awakening Valkyrie could wipe out a group of people. However, the 100% BSR has been left behind with the current meta as classes are easily able to move out of the range of the 100%. Additionally, the damage powercreep has rendered Awakening Valkyrie’s 100% nothing more than a regular skill compared to certain new classes.

2. Super Armor to allies on Breath of Elion

   1. This was a new core trait of Awakening Valkyrie Post Awakening Reboot. It was a powerful bailout for teammates, giving them Super Armor when they are in danger. Before the nerf, the cooldown was 30 seconds which was extremely powerful. The skill definitely needed a nerf, but this also interfered with the sustain because they tripled the cooldown to 1 minutes and 30 seconds.

3. Q Block

   1. Valkyrie belongs to the family of shield classes that get 360 SA and Frontal Guard on their Q block. However, this archetype has been mostly rendered obsolete by classes like Deadeye, Scholar, Archer, etc… Which can near permanent sit in Super Armor and weave excessive invincibility frames into their gameplay.

4. Vacuum

   1. Another core identity that many Valkyrie players point out would be the vacuum on Wave of Light. For years, Wave of Light had been a powerful tool to engage an enemy as it would lock them in place, controlling the area. However, between the movement powercreep and vacuum nerfs, the skill has become weak and sometimes borderline useless. The delay on the skill makes it impossible to lock down classes with kiting abilities like Deadeye or Musa. Additionally, it is the only vacuum in the game to my knowledge that is currently unprotected (among the main vacuum classes).

5. Strong Heals

   1. Many used to see Valkyrie as a reliable healer that could sustain a guild in PvP. However, the nerfs to Valkyrie’s healing have significantly nerfed her ability to support a team in this way. Purification used to be a powerful spot heal that healed 20% to allies and herself every 8 seconds. While powerful, it has now been reduced to being only an extra potion heal now. Since it is a frontal guard, there is little reward for the risk gained from using it. The other two heals, Breath of Elion and Celestial Cry, both had their cooldowns tripled. This turns the gameplay loop into only really feeling like you are a class every 2 minutes.

6. Fast Movement

   1. Another core value many people played Awakening Valkyrie for was the speed she brought to the battlefield. She offered freedom of movement to those that were willing to learn her blindingly fast movement. She had complex and advanced movement combos that showed off your mechanical skill. While this has not been nerfed, movement powercreep has slowly been making Awakening Valkyrie’s speed less of a unique feature.

These core pillars in the past combined to make Awakening Valkyrie a strong jack-of-all-trades class that was desirable. However, the dilution of all these pillars have made her unable to perform a role in PvP situations. While it may have had too many strong pillars in the past, it now has none to stand up on.

Inability to Play a Role in PvP

Again, the developers stated that Awakening Valkyrie was a “bruiser”, "enduring attacks while dealing strong damage". However, her kit does not allow her to do either of these. A true bruiser in Black Desert Online would be something more akin to an Awakening Striker, Awakening Mystic, or Scholar. Both of these classes have significant survival tools through both invincibility, healing, and movement. Awakening Valkyrie's kit cannot fit a "bruiser" for the following reasons:

1. Valkyrie lacks the self-sustain in group fights.

   1. As mentioned previously, the skill Purification is a tiny heal compared to the heals many DPS classes have these days. For example, let's look at Succession Sorceress’ sustain. It has three main ways to heal; Dark Tendrils, Bloody Calamity, and Abyssal Flame. Combined, this gives Succession Sorceress almost double the total healing/second over Valkyrie. In the current meta, melee characters need strong survivability through either invincibility or healing; both of which Awakening Valkyrie lack. Beyond the healing/second, two of Valkyrie's heals are intended to be used supportively which often reduces the actual HP/s in combat scenarios.

2. Valkyrie is unable to do damage in group combat scenarios.

   1. Many of Valkyrie's tools to do damage in PvP make it impossible to use in combat. Verdict: Lancia lustitae is a Super Armor skill but the damage is extremely poor and it lacks any utility in combat. Terra Sancta has a Super Armor, but it ends prematurely which more often than not leads to being caught in it. Our final Super Armor damage option is with Core: Castigatio which has mediocre damage but also contains a gap at the start (as do many core skills). Overall, most of the actual damage tools you use on Valkyrie can only be used when people are not looking at you. This does not fit the bruiser archetype and even fully ranged classes like Ranger and Archer have better protected damage with the safety of range.

3. Valkyrie must use abilities that are unprotected to maintain buffs and utility that other classes have as a baseline.

   1. An iconic trait of Valkyrie is the 80% Critical Rate buff from Celestial Spear and Sacrum Ferit, which lasts 5 seconds. With the skills being unprotected and frontal guard respectively, it makes it extremely burdensome to maintain this buff when many classes have 100% or near 100% Critical Rate by default. Beyond this, Valkyrie has the only unprotected vacuum effect of the main vacuum classes (Mystic, Nova, Corsair) on Wave of Light.

While these cover just her inability to be a "bruiser" as they defined her in the global lab patch notes, many players have found Awakening Valkyrie to be more akin to a Support or Bomber role, which she also currently lacks the tools to be effective at. In addition, they have removed the group accuracy rate buff on Heaven's Echo from Awakening Valkyrie, which has been an iconic part of her support kit. This has disappointed many that played Awakening for the support role.

Specific Issues & Fixes

• The Critical Rate buff on both Sacrum Ferit and Celestial Spear last 5 seconds. In the current meta, keeping this buff up is both mandatory and burdensome. Either extend the duration to about 10 seconds or give Super Armor on either of the skills to fix this issue.

• Divina Vult needs to be Super Armor to fix issues with Valkyrie’s ability to deal damage in a group. An older version of the skill, Revelation Sanctus, used to be Super Armor. Potentially this could be added back to add both an unprotected and a protected flow to add more player expression back.

• Make the Super Armor on Terra Sancta linger longer. The current Super Armor does not last long enough and makes it unsuitable to use in group fights.

• Overall kit damage increases; the current damage is too low to be an effective damage dealer. Priority damage increases on Verdict: Lancia lustitae (especially), Terra Sancta, Divina Vult, Divina Inpulsa, and Blitz Stab.

• Black Spirit: Sanctitas de Enslar needs a down attack modifier so the Knockdown isn't going against the skill.

• Purificatione needs a stronger heal to support Valkyrie’s ability to sustain in a fight. Additionally, the skill needs to be sped up to match the speed before the cancels were broken during the hit changes.

The Community Agrees

The current Valkyrie community has been dying out for the past two years or so because the issues with the class. I've talked with both players from North America and European servers and all have come to a conclusion Awakening Valkyrie has no identity and no role in the PvP scene.

1. ChampionJason: PA Partner, BDO Streamer, and Awakening Valkyrie PvP Player

2. CanadianCorgi: PA Partner, BDO Streamer, Valkyrie MASTERCLASS finalist

i agree with this

You hit the mark perfectly swid, I hope this class will not become forgotten by the devs

Please do anything to update awak valk to our current 2025/26 meta

I mean, this post isnt wrong, but the bruser role doesn't really exist right now for any class. Even for my class, you dont do enough damage to warrant dying as fast as you do. Brusers cant do damage, and can't tank damage so that role doesn't exist. PA has forced our classes to play as DP memes because we're incapable of doing anything else properly. It sucks.

Agree with this though pa will just buff verdict for the 10th time.. its been 2 years since hit changes? they only listened to our complaints about vacum... but i would like to see changes. Thank you for the post swid <3 

You nailed it, nicely put together

yeah what a fun experience to learn a difficult class over a few years and then have the entire kit slowly stripped away

though i guess its better than having the entire thing shot in the face like awak zerker

Well written and deserves some attention - PA, please put some thought into how this class can be adjusted to be more relevant. Lack of identity when the class previously had a distinct role is a sad feeling for players who still choose to play Valkyrie. 

hello its me, canadiancorgi as mentioned in the bottom of swids post. i have been playing valk for about 3 years now, and right now it is in such a miserable state of being powercrept and ignored that i have finally started playing other classes for nodewars, arena of solare, and open world pvp. if you watch my streams you know this is basically unheard of as i am known for only playing valk. she either needs to get buffed to compete with modern classes, or the modern classes needs to get nerfed to bring down the overall power level (not gonna happen). it sucks putting in the time and effort to consistently get rank 1 in many aspects for valk to then have the efforts mean nothing because of how much the class has been stripped away of. for example you put in triple the effort of seraph to get 1/3rd of the results, whether its positioning, survivability, damage, or even supporting your teammates (seraph has much better peel just from the grab, not to mention the amount of random SA cc's she has).