Marvel: Avengers Alliance's Latest Roster Addition - Valkyrie

I've finally completed Spec Ops 5 a day ago, and look who's in my team now!

Yes, it took me a couple of weeks to finally get to her, with the extra ISO-8 bonus from the kind people behind M:AA's Facebook page, which helped me through the last task, defeating the Destroyer. Still, it was all worth it. Well, sort of.

Asgardian: Like her fellow Asgardians, Thor and Sif, Valkyrie is immune to Burning, Chilled, Poisoned and Radiation, though she is still vulnerable to other status afflictions, such as Bleeding.

Escort of Souls: Valkyrie gains health every time an ally is knocked out of commission or saved by Deathwatch, a status effect endowed by one of Valkyrie's moves, Sacrificial Blessing, on herself and her allies at random.

Shield-Maiden: Valkyrie will protect allies nearing death, with the few exceptions that any of them was granted Deathwatch or critically injured.

Geirr: At lower health, Valkyrie deals more damage through Geirr's Desperation Attack effect, and more so on Exposed enemies through its Exploit Exposure effect. Fun fact: Geirr means 'spear' in Old Norse.

Dragonfang: Valkyrie remains alongside Storm the only characters capable of inflicting Static Charge, triggered only under the circumstance that an electric-type attack is used nearby. Aside from its Charged Attack effect, Dragonfang, a three-hit move, grants the Deathglow effect on an enemy as well, which restores a considerable amount of health on every member of your team soon as the enemy's health drops to zero.

Sacrificial Blessing: Valkyrie sacrifices 25% of her health, and she can only do so to no more than 5% of it, in exchange for granting Deathwatch on herself and any one of her allies at random, which brings them back with 25% of their health restored in the event of their getting knocked out.

Flight of the Valkyrie: An area attack inflicting both Off-Balanced, which removes any counter-attack effects, and Exposed, which lowers defense.

Valkyrie may be the first weapon-wielder to be classified as a Bruiser, which I find odd, considering the fact that the word alone brings to mind the likes of Hulk and She-Hulk, and that two other sword-wielders in my M:AA roster, Sif and Deadpool, are both Scrappers. At least Thor won't be the only Asgardian in their ranks.

A few of the downsides of using Valkyrie are that while both her Attack and Defense are considerably high, for a Bruiser anyway, both her Accuracy and Evasion are nigh pitiful, so do stock up on ISO-8 to boost them up while training her. Throughout the course of Spec Ops 5, where all her skills are temporarily open for use to complete all three missions, only Dragonfang seems the most threatening of all, not to mention useful, considering its application of Deathglow on an enemy, which restores a considerable portion of health back to everyone on your side soon as he or she drops, while keeping your Vitality score high as possible after a battle. Unfortunately, Dragonfang's hit rate is perhaps the lowest in comparison to her other two offensive skills, such that being a three-hit move, you can only expect one or two hits to get through the enemy's defenses most of the time. Even with her Accuracy boosted by ISO-8s, it doesn't seem to help Valkyrie use Dragonfang to its full effect.

Then there's the newest M:AA update. Before, any Bruiser bullying a Scrapper would receive the Enraged status effect that serves to ramp up his or her Attack and Defense stats and can be stacked twice as well. Now, it seems that the Enraged status effect is modified to ramp up all the Bruiser's stats, doubly so if stacked twice, which may be good news for anyone wishing to use Dragonfang to its full effect, and that's only with a Scrapper present on the other side of the battle.

Seeing how damaging Dragonfang can be, I've neglected to use Valkyrie's other skills, aside from Geirr, which is quite useful as well, and works best as Valkyrie continually takes damage. As to her last offensive move, Valkyrie's Flight of the Valkyrie, being an area attack, does seem lacking in terms of damage, regardless of the elaborate animation that plays out every time it is used, with which I would sometimes imagine Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries playing along.

Overall, while Valkyrie's stats are akin to Hulk's and Thor's, who are also both found lacking in terms of Accuracy and Evasion, she's not that much a force of nature like the other two, and it all comes down to how you choose to employ her in battle, and when.