Discover the Best Valby Build Guide for The First Descendant and how to create a powerful character with Skills, modules, and weapons.
Creating an effective build in The First Descendant involves carefully selecting and optimizing various components of your character, including modules, reactor stats, weapons, weapon mods, and skills. For a Valby build, we will focus on optimizing your skill power and survivability. Let us walk you through creating the best Valby Build in the First Descendant with our guide below.
This guide has been updated for Season 1,Hotfix 1.1.0of the First Descendant.
Valby Build Guide for The First Descendant
Valby is an area (AOE) damage dealer who uses her water abilities to maneuver around the battlefield, deal damage, and evade enemy fire. She’s an excellent choice for players seeking a character with strong damage output and good survivability. Due to her focus on AOE abilities, Valby excels against groups of enemies but is less effective against bosses. Mastering Valby involves understanding the nuances of her abilities and applying attack and movement strategies thoughtfully.
Valby is straightforward to play, offering high damage and mobility. She can preemptively place damage on the ground before enemies appear. However, she struggles in boss fights or scenarios where you can’t control the movement. To maximize Valby’s potential, Bubble Bullet can be used to create small puddles at its impact point. These puddles damage enemies within them over time and allow you to consume less mana while standing in them, enabling you to spam abilities almost for free when combining water and bubble tactics. Below, we walk you through a guide on the Best Valby Build Guide in the First Descendant.
Features and Mechanics for Valby Build in The First Descendant
The following list presents all the essential Valby Build Features and Mechanics for this First Descendant guide:
How to unlock Valby in The First Descendant
To unlock and play Valby in The First Descendant, you must either purchase her from the store or research her.Moreover, if you choose to purchase Valby, she will cost 600 Caliber, which is the premium currency. Otherwise, to craft Valby, you will need:
Finally, to craft Valby you must speak to Anais in the Albion Mountains area. She will grant you access to the Research Institute, where you can choose to craft several additional descendant characters.
Valby’s Exclusive Equipment
Valby’s exclusive equipment is her Arche-Hydro Symbiosuit, which is her environmental suit that is automatically given to the player upon acquisition of the Descendant. You can access it by clicking details in the Descendant menu and customizing the appearance of her suit. Below are the details on Valby’s Exclusive Equipment:
“With her Arche abilities, Valby can turn into water, anytime and anywhere. As such, her unique drawbacks are also like water. Over time, moisture evaporates, and she is unable to maintain her shape. Valby’s exclusive suit is an environmental shielding suit that was designed to compensate for this. Not only does it assist in Arche-hydrogen bonding, so she can take on human form, but it also features shape memory technology that enables Valby to assemble, and disassemble, with Arche, providing her with various tactical capabilities.”
The main theme with Valby’s skills is the Laundry debuff inflicted via water. you’re able to also create damage over time with this debuff and gain regen standing inside it. Therefore, target enemies and stay inside water and puddles when you can. Below are all the skills for Valby:
Best Skill for Valby
Bubble Bullet is the best skill for the Valby Build Guide in the First Descendant because it does damage on impact, damage over time, debuffs enemies, and lowers mana consumption when standing in the water trail left behind. The main idea behind Valby is to debuff enemies with Laundry (water), lowering their resistances to Electric and Non-Attribute. This Laundry debuff is helpful for any player using the Thunder Cage Ultimate weapon or playing Bunny and Sharen builds.
The best way to use Bubble Bullet is at far range because the more bounce it takes, the more damage it will produce when landing on a target. The skill’s cooldown is 10 seconds but can be lowered with modules. The Materialized Mixture reactor will boost the power of Bubble Bullet and other Fusion descendant attribute abilities like Laundry Bomb.
For boss fights, use Valby’s Bubble Bullet at range for the puddle left behind. Even if you don’t hit a boss, you can step inside the water area to lower the mana (MP) abilities cost. You should fire out Bubble Bullet first, then Laundry Bomb, to transform your weapon into a massive water cannon. Then, you can shoot out bombs while in the puddle to lower your cost of damaging the boss or clearing mobs.
Lastly, Bubble Bullet Laundry debuff also reduces Chill resistance. You want to pair Bubble Bullet with Blizzard from Viessa for optimal damage combo. Using the debuff first, then Viessa’s Blizzard ultimate skill will produce massive damage to a single target or AOE. Overall, this lower cooldown, great damage, AOE, and resource-sustaining tool should be your opening attack and the focal point of any Valby build.
Bubble Bullet
Bubble Bullet Skill Features in The First Descendant:
How to use Bubble Bullet: Valby’s primary skill is to trigger puddles and laundry status effects. Bubble Bullet, while a single target, can hit multiple enemies in a small radius for a while, leaving a puddle that deals continuous damage. Primarily, we rely on this skill for damage and status effects. Moreover, it makes enemies vulnerable to electricity and chill, and it is useful for playing with aBunny buildor others who are buffed by those elements.
Bubble Bullet Skill Advanced Stats
Basic Info
Small Puddle
Plop Plop Skill Features in The First Descendant:
How to use Plop Plop: This skill can be used as an escape mechanism, debuff, and charging gap closer. What makes Plop Plop power is the water that’s left behind as you activate the skill and continuous damage over its duration. Moreover, the cooldown is 25 by default. This skill also triggers electrical and chill resistance decreases, which is perfect for a party composition withBunnyandViessa.
Plop Plop Skill Advanced Stats
Big Puddle
Clean Up Skill Features in The First Descendant:
How to use Clean Up: this skill acts as a mobility tool, debuff, speed boost, and defensive increase.You can move through enemies, which is a big bonus, but you cannot use skills. Therefore, you can use this to charge in and debuff enemies or escape a situation where you are taking too much damage. Moreover, skate through enemies to debuff them and turn around for a Laundry Bomb if your skill is active.
Clean Up Skill Advanced Stats
Liquefied – Values
Waterway – Values
Values for Laundry
Laundry Bomb
Laundry Bomb Skill Features in The First Descendant:
How to use Laundry Bomb: the best usage for Laundry Bomb is debuffing enemies with the Laundry status effect before using it, then dropping the bomb when they are debuff. The base damage is weak but can ramp up to 200% and has a traction radius of 8 meters. This is your AOE nuke skill you want to use in conjunction with others when enemies are debuffed.
Landry Bomb Skill Advanced Stats
Basic Information
Skill Effect
Water Intake (Passive)
Water Intake Ability Features in The First Descendant:
This incentivizes you to stand within puddles to decrease MP cost. Less MP cost means you can chain skills back to back. Moreover, you can use the lingering pool post fight to recover some MP before advancing.
How to Play Valby in The First Descendant
To effectively play Valby, stand in water to conserve mana while ensuring enemies within puddles take continuous damage. Valby uses her Arche connection to water to move fluidly across the battlefield, delivering area-of-effect damage to groups of Vulgus. Additionally, she has a knockdown ability, providing extra crowd control to support her team. Her playstyle revolves around using her Bubble Bullet ability and puddles to damage enemies, recover MP, and navigate the battlefield.
Area Damage and Single-Target Damage: Valby’s toolkit is focused on AOE damage abilities, making her most effective against multiple targets. Her single-target damage depends largely on the weapon she uses. Utilize Bubble Bullet and Plop Plop to create large puddles. One skill is ranged, while the other is centered on her position. Use these skills when at a distance or surrounded to increase damage over time and sustain resources.
Movement and Speed: Valby is second only to the Bunny class in terms of speed and movement in The First Descendant. Her Laundry skill allows her to move through enemies, boost her movement speed, and create a path of water. This skill can be used both offensively and defensively.
Bosses and Ultimates: During boss encounters, keep puddles under the enemy at all times. Monitor your cooldowns and rotate skills to maintain high uptime on puddle damage. Use Laundry Bomb to pull in enemies if mobs appear during encounters.
Defenses and Survival Tips: Valby’s Clean Up ability enhances her survivability and defense while dealing a bit of damage over time. Activating it makes her completely invulnerable and increases her speed. While in this state, she cannot use other skills, but it’s perfect for escaping tight situations.
Descendant Modules for Valby Build
Frugal Mindset,Battle of Stamina, andSpear and Shieldare the best modules (mods) for a Valby Build Guide in the First Descendant.We choose Frugal Mindset because it lowers your skill cost and increases damage radius. Battle of Stamina is great because it boosts your max HP and skill duration. Lastly, you want Spear and Shield because it increases both defense and skill power. Consequently, all three of these mods together will give you incredible survivability and skill power. Thus allowing Aalby to take advantage of her damage-over-time and crowd-control playstyle.
In The First Descendant, modules are essential components that enhance and customize your character’s abilities, stats, and overall performance. Modules can be acquired through questing, missions, loot drops, and vendor items. Moreover, you have limited resources to slot mods; therefore, some slots may be empty depending on your chosen setup.
Valby Best Modules for Leveling
Below is a list of the best leveling mods for Valby Build in the First Descendant:
Valby Best Modules
Below is a guide list of the best mods for Valby Build in the First Descendant:
Best Reactor Stats for Valby in The First Descendant
Materialized Mixture is the best reactor for a Valby build guide in the First Descendant because it boosts your Non-Attribute and Fusion skills. Non-attributes are your descendant attributes, and fusion increases Bubblet Bullet and Laundry. The second choice is the Materilized Phase, which buffs Non-Attribute and Dimension type, effective Plop Plop, and Laundry skills. Below is our recommendation for the best Valby reactors:
In The First Descendant,reactors are powerful enhancementssignificantly impacting a character’s abilities, stats, and overall performance. They function as core components that provide substantial boosts and unique effects, enabling players to tailor their characters to specific playstyles and strategies.
Weapons for Valby Build
The best weapons for Valby Build Guide are the Thunder Cage Submachine Gun and the Afterglow Sword Sniper Rifle. Thunder Cage has a high rate of fire and an overcharge bonus. Overcharge grants the following special bonus: defeating an enemy prompts that enemy to unleash an electric shockwave, dealing firearm ATK to nearby enemies within 3 meters, with additional damage. Therefore, with Thunder Cage, you’re able to gain even more AOE damage and boost weapon attacks as well.
The following list presents the best weapon choices for Valby Build:
Thunder Cage Submachine Gun
Thunder Cage features in the First Descendant:
TheThunder CageSubmachine gun emits an electric shockwave and grants a bonus to damage after a kill. It’s the highest DPS weapon for a Valby build due to its secondary Overcharge effect and rate of fire. Below are the best weapon mods for the Thunder Cage Submachine Gun:
Blue Beetle Scout Rifle
Blue Beetle Scout Rifle features in the First Descendant:
Thisscout rifleis a versatile choice for Valby because we have a lot of Fusion skills. Arcane energy helps with skill critical hit rate and adds to her overall burst potential. Moreover, the range is nice if you plan on not using a sniper rifle or want something medium-range application.
Afterglow Sword Sniper Rifle
Afterglow Sword Sniper Rifle features in the First Descendant:
TheAfterglow Swordis the best choice for ranged precision weak point damage. Once you trigger Death Propagation, you gain increased reload and damage on weak points. Use this weapon for ranged headshots if possible.
External Component
Two-piece Acrobat and two-piece Annihilation are the best modules for the Valby build guide in the First Descendant. Combining two pieces of each of these sets gives you increased skill duration, additional skill power, and firearm ATK. This allows your abilities to hit harder, last longer, and your weapons to deal more damage. The four-piece bonuses aren’t worth it. You can also use a two-piece Tomb Vanguard, which increases DEF by 25%, so if you struggle with survivability, swap Tomb Vanguard for Acrobat.
Below is a list and chart of the best stats for yourExternal Component Stats:
First Bonus:
Second Bonus
Recent Updates and Changes for Valby Build
The biggest change and update to Valby duringSeason Oneis the addition ofInvasionsandInversion Reinforcement. Invasions, the new content in season one, is the perfect fit for Valby with her survival and speed. Players are rewarded for completion time and materials used for the newest DescendantHailey. What you should know is to work towards unlocking the Inversion and completing Invasions to progress this new piece of equipment.
Valby’s Story in the First Descendant
A dealer of continuous damage who moves around freely through her Water Arche. A terrifying torrent to her enemies, she’s always a refreshing ocean wave to her teammates.
Valleys, oceans, and lakes that are drying…As a member of Ingris Environment Watch, Valby was always saddened to see Mother Nature become polluted by war. When she traveled outside Albion on pollution investigation missions, she saw rivers in Ingris disappearing one after another. The White-night Valley, where the sun never set, was now a gulch, and the Echo Plains had long turned into a swamp because of the Vulgus Kuiper mining…
From the way things were going, would there even be a place left where humanity could live in peace if they won the war? She wondered, “Was that why?” Valby found a shimmering lake somewhere in the Vespers Woodland. Calling it the ‘Last Emerald,’ she swore to protect this small glimmer of hope. Making it a home for plants and animals so that the ecosystem of Ingris could be restored… To Valby, the Last Emerald was truly her last hope.
But in times like these, hope was such a fragile gem. On that fateful day, Valby was gazing out over the lake as usual when she encountered the Order of Truth that entered into Vespers Woodland… Having completed advanced military training, Valby fought off the Vulgus, as well as requesting support from the Descendant Corps. But the lack of an Arche teleportation device in the area meant that help was delayed, leaving Valby no choice but to defend the lake alone. However, even the lowest-ranked Vulgus was too much for a non-Descendant. After being brutally attacked, Valby was thrown into the lake.
Valby Story Contiuned
As she sank into the water, Valby thought to herself, at least she could meet her end in the bosom of the Emerald… She was grateful to the lake for letting her dream of hope, even if for a little… But in the final moments, when her consciousness began to fade, Valby could not control her instincts to survive. “I want to fight again. I want to protect this lake. No… I want to become a great ocean that will swallow up every Vulgus there is…”
At that moment, a massive wave arose from the center of the lake, devastating the surrounding area. The enemies were crushed by the immense pressure of the water and vanished without a trace. And where the lake once was, a mass of water in the shape of a human was thrashing wildly. It was Valby. At death’s door, she had awoken her Arche, and her ability enabled her to merge with the water and swim without end… She had become the Last Emerald itself.
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