#this is a build where Valkyr herself is the weapon itself and you can just get good at bullet jump and spin melee if there's air enemies

[frameconfessions]

Valkyr Prime No Forma Queen Steel Path Circuit Armor Strip Deluxe Build AKA Can We Get Much Higher

There's room for improvement (like adding forma and maxxing out the other arcane), but I don't feel like it right now.

Here's the Valkyr Prime mods & arcanes setup. Use Terrify (Nekros helminth) over ability 3 for armor strip ability. Use these archon shards to get the 100% armor strip too and good energy economy. Feel free to ask about any of these mod or build choices, this build is from like 2 years ago that one of my partners helped me set up and still going strong. Delusion helmet and Gersemi skin for appearance.

Prime Talons mod setup. Blast damage is the current meta as of December 2024 so you can see the original before Damage whatever number update point 0 we're at now compared to the original build.

Equip Naramon, it's extremely important for power scaling and end-game level damage.

Fully ranked up Power Spike is the only focus school stuff you need, but having the waybounds unbound is always good for operator/drifter survival, combat, and movement.

Manage your energy economy by getting parazon finisher kills on eximus units if you start running low, just edge the health bars until you see the prompt and your energy will shoot up to almost max if not max. More than half the time arcane energize should kick in and give you a boost on top of the archon shard energy boost (not sure if the effects of the shards and energize multiply/stack or not as I'm not a build math gal but it feels like it does).

Here you go @issilya and anyone else wanting a no forma Valkyr Prime that scales well into higher levels.

[heartslogos]

seas who could sing so deep and strong [7]

It is not Kore’s intention to linger long at Maroo’s Bazaar.

For one thing, Maroo irritates her. Most people do, but Maroo is exceptional in that Kore has a distinct type of irritation just for her. Kore has a distinct kind of irritation for most traders and merchants. It is not always related to the thoughts of the Corpus and the phantom-memories that the Valkyr warframe seems to carry with it.

Another reason is that Kore is uneasy around so many people. She can’t watch all of them. All of them, however, could easily be watching her. It’s paranoia beyond belief, but it is something that has been printed and rubbed and sanded into her skin through years of training and conditioning. Years of isolation during and after the war. Years of being alone in her own head.

Judge’s isolation presents itself as a tactile need and paranoia of always being in an endless cycle of dream-wake, unable to trust his own senses without external and independent confirmation.

Kore’s rears its head as a violent, snapping and electric mad-scramble in her chest that tries to suck her in like a black hole until she is nothing, invisible, gone. Untouchable as Judge likes to call her, but also unknowable.

(Ironically, it is something in her chest - that same something, or maybe a sister of it - that yowls and scratches and cries to be known. To be understood. To be seen. To be wanted. Not from everyone. From a very specific person. The same person who named her untouchable.

Is to be untouchable the same as unobtainable?)

There is too much noise here, too many moving variables - unpredictable and undeniable. The best Kore can do when navigating the necessary annoyance is to go using some of her most unfriendly warframes.

Nidus, Nekros, Valkyr - the ones that do not invite closeness or any lingering attention.

She’s gotten the most she can get for the dozens upon dozens of blue Ayatan stars she’d been finding. Normally she would just save them until she had enough appropriate statues and then sent them to Maroo for Endo but it’s the third time that a gem has gotten stuck in her Carrier’s vacuum port and she knows it’s only a matter of time before one of her Kubrow chokes on one. Her Kubrow aren’t stupid or as invasively curious as Judge’s Kavat, but she’d rather not risk losing one of her Kubrow to something as stupid as them accidentally swallowing a gemstone and choking to death.

Kore is not here for anything else than that - she is not here to barter, buy, or sell. Kore’s business at this station is done.

And yet -

Nidus and her own attention is drawn to a row of vendors, their wares displayed with bright colors and whizzing machines to catch attention. Kore normally has no need to look at any merchants that aren’t selling weaponry, materials to build weapons, or other such things.

Most things a Tenno could need or want on the physical side of things can be obtained through careful trading. It is not a good idea to be wandering around bartering and buying things for a child’s body when the entire system is unaware of the Tenno’s true origin.

Kore knows how to synthesize nutrient bricks and water packets aren’t especially suspicious to buy. Flavor powder is also easy to synthesize and there are about a dozen different Tenno she knows of that she can get into contact with to trade for some. Kore also knows some Tenno for clothing and other such aesthetic needs. There’s also a chain-group of Tenno who send each other fragments of data for free as long as you contribute back. Kore is part of this group because it requires no talking aside from statements of where, when, and how such data was found.

Easy enough and it can be transmitted through text instead of audio.

But toys? Candy? Games?

Those do not have places in the Tenno network. They do not have places in Kore’s world.

Kore’s focus lingers on a brightly colored display surrounded by children.

Children are not so rare on Maroo’s station. Refugees, escapees, children of outcasts and merchants and soldiers and Syndicate members and other planets.

Kore has a very brief and very nauseating image of herself as one of those grubby children - jostling for position in front of the stand, whining and wishing her parents could spare more credits.

From here she can pick out the things the merchant is describing for them. A quick search of the vendor’s information through Maroo’s database shows that he specializes in replications of Old Earth candy and sweets.

“And this,” The man holds up - Kore zooms in - a small rectangular case and shakes it, “This, children, is chewing gum. You chew it and it starts out hard and dry between your teeth but the more you chew the more it softens and it becomes sweet. Or sour. Or cold. Or hot. All depending on what flavor you pick.”

Kore’s mind flashes to Judge and his bitten lips and his hands that always seem to wander to touch and grip and search for something to hold onto. For something to anchor him to here and now and the promise of reality.

Kore is not here for Judge. Kore is not here for old earth candy and what is most likely a scam. He might not even like it. Maybe Judge would choke on the damn thing.

Maybe Ugly will choke on one.

Nidus’ fingers slowly curl and uncurl at the frame’s side - patiently waiting for Kore’s decision. It should be clear.

Go. Your business is done.

Nidus slowly turns on his heel to head back towards the landing bay docks, a wry curl of are you sure? that winds itself around her soul like a Kavat’s tail. Kore feels her own irritation at herself.

Fucking fine, Kore thinks at her heart, you win.

Nidus goes to find a hidden nook. Kore hates this idea already.

Kore stares down at her kneeling Nidus frame, and reaches her hand out. Nidus leans into her palm. Her skin already feels like it’s crawling and she’s only standing in a narrow niche by the landing bay. No one is even here looking at her. She checked.

No cameras.

Kore takes in a deep breath and Nidus’ hand reaches up to tap its long fingers against the back of hers, slow and sluggish movements with a touch of timeless grace that only the Infested seem to have.

She unzips her hood from her suit, folding it and puts it on Nidus’ lap. Nidus’ other hand goes to hold it immediately. She stares down at the rest of herself and there’s no mistaking that she looks like not a normal child.

Between the pink hair, her eyes, and her somatic scarring -

Kore groans softly and puts her head in her hands. This is a terrible idea.

For once in her damn life she wishes she listened to Ballas and stuck with the creams and golds and pretty blue-greens. That would blend in. That would make her look forgettable.

But here she is in her stark black and white with her gold and pink looking like such obvious - obviousness.

Kore takes a deep breath and then does a quarter turn on her heel. She hears the soft almost squeak of her boot on the shiny floors.

She grinds her teeth and steps out into the light.

Kore isn’t much taller than the other children already at the stall and while she did draw some looks, her own glare was enough to make sure those looks were cut short. She can feel her heart in her palms. She swallows softly as she carefully lingers at the back of the crowd.

Her skin feels like it is literally crawling with Infested maggots. She’s been brushed against, looked at, bumped, jostled, and any plethora of slight touches that are making her mind rapidly retreat into the deepest recesses of her.

And now there’s this crowd of six to seven children that are elbow-to-elbow that she has to somehow figure a way to squeeze into.

Kore can feel herself blanching.

She’s saved, for once, by her own appearance when the merchant in charge of the stall notices her lingering and waves her over.

“Pretty girl, in the pink! You want something sweet to match your face?”

Kore, in a desperate attempt at anonymity, had taken out her piercings and switched the part of her hair to cover her somatic scars. It works as long as she keeps her head down at an angle and is very careful about how she moves.

She grinds her teeth and slowly inches forward, heart pounding so hard against her chest she thinks it’s a miracle that she hasn’t bruised her own organs.

“Don’t be shy, make room brats, make room,” the man waves at the children already assembled who squeeze closer together giving her appraising glances as they make a sliver of space for her.

Kore slots in with a deep breath and forces down the buzzing in her ears.

After a few seconds she realizes the man is still talking to her and she glances up, body tensing at the hand thrust in her face. It’s not the chewing gum he’s holding this time, but something else.

Kore forces her mouth to open, to take in air and she forces the words out - “Chewing gum.”

“Pardon? Speak up, girl!”

Ballas’ voice echoes in her head and Kore feels a spark at her knuckles that she desperately drowns.

“Chewing gum,” Kore repeats, “I heard you had some. Is there still any left?”

“Sure, plenty for a sweet girl like you,” he says and she hears him moving around to - presumably - get some. Kore doesn’t look up from the colorful riot of candy on display in her direct line of sight. “What flavor do you want?”

Kore drags her eyes up just enough to see the many boxes he’s holding. Green, pink, red-orange, yellow, darker-green, white-green and -

“What’s blue?” Kore asks.

He puts the other boxes down and flips the blue one open and rattles it, gesturing for her hand.

“It’s easier to show than to tell, dear. Have a taste.”

Kore slowly raises her hand towards him - the memories are violently threatening to follow that hand and Kore begs them not to. Not here. Not right now.

(Kore kneels, hands raised in front of her as Ballas counts out one, two, three pills. Enough nutrition to keep her alive through five straight days of combat if she moves fast and constant. Not enough for what he wants from her.

“Please,” Kore croaks out, “Master.”

Ballas hums speculatively before dropping two more in her hands.

“Do not waste it.”

“No, Master.”)

Kore puts the small thumb-sized square between her lips. It feels smooth, like a pill. And then she carefully closes her teeth around it.

Just like he said - at first it’s just like nothing. Plastic. But the more she chews the softer it becomes. And then cold. Cold. Bitterly cold as if she had been in Frost on Europa for a few cycles. It coats her mouth and throat and lungs with it.

Kore blinks, startled into looking up and meeting the man’s eyes. Or where his eyes would be if he weren’t wearing a visor screen.

He smiles.

“All the blue ones,” Kore says.

The man pauses, “All?”

“All the blue ones you have,” Kore says - and then, on a whim, “White-blue, white-green, and half of your orange-red.”

The children begin to chatter around her but she ignores them.

“Maybe you should ask your parents first, sweet,” He says slowly but she knows merchants and she knows she has her hook in his gaping mouth already.

Kore moves quickly, jostling children aside until she’s in front of the credit transfer device at the edge of his stall and opens it up.

“How much?” Kore says, fingers at the ready.

Greed is a poison Kore knows how to use well.

“Twenty thousand credits,” He says, “For just all my stock of blue. Another twenty thousand for the white-blue and white-green stock together. Fifteen thousand for half my orange-red.”

“Any bulk discount?” She asks.

The man hesitates and she can see him running the numbers in his head.

“Twenty thousand for the blue, fifteen thousand for the white-blue and white-green combined. I won’t budge on the orange-red.”

“I’m buying you out,” Kore says, “Thirty thousand for the blue, white-blue, and white-green together. Ten thousand for the orange-red. And maybe I’ll come back. Maybe I’ll buy more.”

She knows that if Judge has this problem there are probably other Tenno that do. And she can probably trade this chewing gum for some other things. Or for favors. It never hurts.

“Exactly! You’re buying me out! I should be keeping stock for other children,” The man complains, “Greedy.”

Kore raises a single eyebrow and flicks her wrist, deactivating the credit terminal.

“Suit yourself. I’ll just get pop-rocks at some other vendor,” Kore jerks her head down the row. “I hear they have the same affect.”

Her heart still pounds in her chest.

She does not want pop-rocks. Pop-rocks are too dangerous and are too easy to synthesize incorrectly.

She wants the chewing gum.

Kore forces herself to extract her body from the children and turn to walk away.

“Wait,” The man cries out, “Fine! Who are your parents, girl, that you learned to drive such a hard bargain? You planning on starting a business? Give me warning if you do.”

Kore begs herself to keep an even breath as she turns around and begins the credit transfer. It’s not like she’s using her credits for much aside from DNA stabilizers for her Kubrow and Kavat.

“Maybe,” Kore says, and then patiently waits for the man to pack up the boxes of chewing gum and hand them over to her. “Thank you.”

Kore hurries back as fast as she can without looking suspicious to her warframe.

Nidus is exactly where she left him and looks completely undisturbed.

Kore puts the boxes down and throws her arms around it, focusing on breathing steady. The warframe slowly puts its hands on her shoulders and awkwardly pats.

She pulls back and refastens her hood to her suit - and after a moment - begins to seal it up. Kore doesn’t normally do that, but right now -

The less of her exposed the better.

She needs to disappear.

Kore sinks into Nidus as the frame begins to move and pick up the boxes upon boxes.

No one gives her Nidus a second glance as they leave the station, gum and all.