Who is the Optimal Candidate for R5?
Bocksarox
Member Posts: 329 ★★★
I like both of these champions. I see pros and cons for prioritizing either over the other. I run 5/5 Deep Wounds. Valkyrie is sig 200.
Who is the Optimal Candidate for R5? 93 votes
Nick Fury
79%
74 votes
Valkyrie
20%
19 votes
1
Comments
Fury is easier to use, helps with avoiding Miss mechanics, and relies on Bleeds to do the most of his damage
Valk is much trickier to use, completely shuts down unstoppable, and relies on attacking into blocks.
I'd push back slightly that she relies on hitting into blocks. To ramp, you can hit them or the block. Yes she does way more damage into the block once the pierce are going. And sp2 into block is key.
Valkyrie is amazing at dealing with unstoppable cause it's not a debuff placed on the defender. And technically she's a power control champ because you're hitting into block. She's ramping but they're getting way less power.
Lets look a quick breakdown for no suicides
1 point in courage
2 in despair (minimum)
5 in cruelty/precision
1 in assassin
5/5 in stupefy
Now , its not required but its beneficial to max willpower even if youre not running suicides just based on champs like KP or facing debuff champs so
Willpower 3/3
The above is pretty much a given with the exception of WP which is good to max
Now if you play BGs, 5/5 MD for defence is a must.
Lastly, i have my petrify at 3/3 because it helps reduce regen rate/power gain when stunned which is good for parry heavy champs, CGR, and in general having to bait less specials cause enemy gets power slower.
With all that I don’t see how it’s possible to fit 5/5 in DW. One might correct me and say for eg “you dont need 3 in petrify or WP” but more champs benefit from these than the few amount that do from WP.
Which takes me to my final point , the fact that NF relies on maxing out a mastery when theres just not enough room makes him inferior to KP imo
Basically it comes down to how valuable your bleed champs are as the mastery is very useful for a lot of them like venom, blade, joe fixit, carnage etc; even archangel those extra 2.5 seconds lasting bleeds can be very useful to apply more poisons to convert depending on AI and nodes that make u wait around.
But that 5/5 deep wounds literally triples NF damage output or something silly and makes him one of the highest damage dealers for medium length fights in second life, and importantly it makes his first life viable to play which completely changes the champ, especially useful in war. Also you give the opponent less power as I usually parry or light intercept then just do LLLL (omitting the medium attack) as most of his damage comes from that bleed so opponents can throw specials a bit less.
His bleed becomes so strong he is able to clear nodes that he absolutely shouldn't be able to like hazard shift void! He can deal with power gain nodes by just tanking the sp3 and going into his next life if needed and he has a great purify mechanic and can just ignore miss and evade and autoblock and stun which is epic. A lot of the time I just ignore protection nodes and his bleed just powers through and kills them as it is so strong which is very useful if you have to intercept rhino or nova or something. I think most die-hard NF players like me would probably agree that without deep wounds and high sig he is probably 3rd best skill champ but with those 2 I reckon he becomes top skill champ and he just outclasses my r5 sig 200 kingpin in battlegrounds and war (to my initial surprise).