Coming hot on the heels of Napoleon (He was really more of a Gotterdammerung part 0 banner) we have Sigurd and the Valkyries. We’re still in the final days before the anniversary, and we’ve now met the anniversary servant in the story, giving players the first taste of her powerful reputation. So, should you spend your quartz with Skadi just over the hill?
The Valkyries are worth pulling on the Gotterdammerung Banner if you intend to put a concerted effort into pulling Skadi next week. Otherwise this banner isn’t as good despite Sigurd’s popularity.
Banner Composition
We don’t have tons of rotation on this banner since there’s only one additional character beyond the new adds. Sigurd and Brynhild share the banner at SSR, but won’t actually be rate-upped simultaneously until the last stage. You get four days with Sigurd, three with Brynhild, three more with Sigurd, and the remaining days feature all rate-ups simultaneously. The only SR is the three-in-one Valkyries (or Walküre, if you prefer the German spelling), which is pretty fortunate since they’re markedly more mechanically desirable than Sigurd.
As for CEs, we’ve got three new options, one for each of the premium rarities. As usual, the R isn’t worth talking about. The SR, Cleaner, is a budget version of Another Ending and can do well if you lack the SSR version or are strapped for team cost. Easy to get your hands on lots of copies if you’re doing ten rolls, so an MLB isn’t out of the question.
The SSR CE, Child of Atlas, is in the style of cards like The First Shot and Origin Bullet, but gives permanent defense ignore instead of piercing invulnerability or Evasion. It packs a niche damage bonus against Berserkers to boot. Either ability would give it a nice niche, both together is icing on the cake. You won’t find yourself using it all the time, but these sorts of CEs never hurt to have. They will save you headaches.
Brynhild isn’t new, she’s here because she appears in the story, but she’s at least fairly good. Her ability to spike a boss is solid thanks to a mix of a wide niche on her NP, and Mana Burst (Flame). Beyond that, Hero’s Bridesmaid is extremely good, and targetable, so it can make her a better damage dealer or support. She’s limited and hardly ever gets a banner, so if you’re hurting for a semi-supportive character, she’s a good option.
Sigurd Details
Class: Saber
Rarity: ★★★★★
Attribute: Earth
Stats & Internals
| Sigurd | Attack | HP |
| Lv. 90 | 12,465 | 13,975 |
| +Grails/Silver Fous | 14,645 | 16,310 |
Base NP Charge – Attack: .62%/hit
Star Gather Rate: 97
Deck: QAABB NPB
NP Charge – Defense: 3%/hit
Star Generation: 10%
Hitcounts: Q – 4 A – 3 B – 2 NP – 7 EX – 5
Skills and NP
Primordial Rune (Warrior) B
Increases Critical Damage for self for 3 attacks, stacks last 3 turns (50% at Lv. 1 → 100% at Lv. 10)
Cooldown: 7 turns → 5 turns
Dragonkind Modification EX
Increases Buster Performance for self for 1 turn (30% at Lv. 1 → 50% at Lv. 10)
Applies 1000 HP Guts to self for 3 turns.
Cooldown: 9 turns → 7 turns
Crystallized Wisdom A
Increases Star Generation for one Ally for one turn (+50% at Lv. 1 → +100% at Lv. 10)
Grant them Debuff immunity for one turn.
Cooldown: 7 turns → 5 turns
Noble Phantasm: Bolverkr Gram
Deals damage to a single target (600% at Lv. 1 → 1000% at Lv. 5)
Overcharge: Deal bonus damage to Dragon Enemies (150% at 100% → 200% at 500%)
Passives
Magic Resistance A
Increase Debuff Resistance by 20%
Riding A
Increase Quick Performance by 10%
Divinity B
Increase damage by 175
Should you Roll for Sigurd?
Probably not. In terms of both raw damage and supportive capabilities, he just doesn’t stack up to his competition. He’s okay, certainly, and he won’t be joining the particularly bad SSRs like Scheherezade and Osakabehime, but he’s just plain not inspiring. His only real claim to fame is high burst created by the exceedingly short-lived Primordial Rune. Half his kit is essentially just a worse version of Merlin’s Hero Creation. You can do a lot worse than Hero Creation, but that’s one skill, and it takes Sigurd two to get a worse version that can’t be targeted.
The upshot is that while you will burn through all your Primordial Rune charges in a single Brave Chain, it does technically stay for three turns. Think of it as ‘whichever happens first’, crit three times or spend three turns, either way, it’s gone. At their best, these sorts of skills are like the best of both worlds between single turn buffs and multi-turn ones, but this isn’t one of those situations.
Because Dragonkind Modification is also a single turn buff, there’s no proper multi-turn buff to pair with those crit benefits. This makes both skills play a lot like a single turn buff in all but name. Thankfully, Primordial Rune is quite a large buff to make up for that limited scope, it’s just hard to recommend single-turn ST characters in a world with break gauges. Unfortunately, Dragonkind Modification doesn’t do a lot to help, its effect is only marginally better than stock Mana Burst and it took a two-turn cooldown nerf to pay for it.
Crystallized Wisdom is good, but it’s a bit weirdly placed. Sigurd doesn’t really fit for challenge content with his burst-oriented kit, which is where you’re most likely to see debuffs. It does produce piles of stars, and it’s a neat gimmick with a few characters that debuff themselves. If you have a Frankenstein, it’s really good with her. Otherwise, this skill is basically just Instinct with extra steps.
Valkyrie Details
Class: Lancer
Rarity: ★★★★
Attribute: Sky
Stats & Internals
| Valkyrie | Attack | HP |
| Lv. 80 | 8,037 | 14,025 |
| +Grails/Silver Fous | 10,731 | 18,005 |
Base NP Charge – Attack: .86%/hit
Star Gather Rate: 87
Deck: QQABB NPQ
NP Charge – Defense: 4%/hit
Star Generation: 12%
Hitcounts: Q – 3 A – 2 B – 3 NP – 7 EX – 4
Skills and NP
Primordial Rune
Increases Quick Performance for self for 3 turns (20% at Lv. 1 → 30% at Lv. 10)
Increases NP damage for self for 3 tuns (10% at Lv. 1 → 20% at Lv. 10)
Cooldown: 8 turns → 6 turns
Svanvhit: Cygnus Mystic Code A
Grant self 1 hit of evasion lasting 3 turns
Grant self 1 charge of debuff immunity lasting 3 turns
Reduce damage to self for 3 attacks, stacks last 3 turns (500 at Lv. 1 → 1000 at Lv. 10)
Cooldown: 8 turns → 6 turns
Fateweaver B
Grant self NP Regen for 3 turns (5% at Lv. 1 → 10% at Lv. 10)
Grant self HP Regen for 3 turns (500 at Lv. 1 → 1000 at Lv. 10)
Grant self Star Regen for 3 turns (5/turn at Lv. 1 → 10/turn at Lv. 10)
Cooldown: 9 turns → 7 turns
Noble Phantasm: Ragnarök Lífþrasir
Ignore Evasion for one turn, activating first
Deals damage to all enemies (600% at Lv. 1 → 1000% at Lv. 10)
Overcharge: Chance to Instant Death Demonic enemies (50% at 100% → 100% at 500%)
Passives
Magic Resistance B
Increase debuff resistance by 17.5%
Divinity A
Increase damage by 200
Should you roll for Valkyrie?
Yes. The Valkyries are potent farmers who pair extremely well with the other half of this Lostbelt’s SSRs; Skadi. They can be a touch low on initial damage thanks to their very poor base attack value, but the kit here is very potent and responds extremely well to Fous and CE stats. The Valkyries still work uninvested, but you’ll find more nodes that they can’t perfectly loop through without it.
To start, we get to talk about a skill with a similar name but a wildly different power level. The Valkyries may come with an unranked Primordial Rune, but it’s much better. Between the Quick performance and NP Damage, you’re already beginning to produce some buff stacking to feed into itself, and here they last three turns rather than three attacks and they’re one skill. Sigurd’s was bigger, but these cover two of your three buff types and support NP spamming to clear whole nodes instead of massively overkilling one of a bosses’ three gauges.
However, more importantly, the synergy with Fateweaver is huge. NP Regen and passive Crit Star generation help add an edge to the piles of hits on Ragnarok. Between the two skills, it’s not uncommon to see enough NP Recharge to loop, paired right alongside enough stars to reliably spike any tough enemies. The HP regen is just icing on the cake and offers a bit of extra bulk in case you’re bringing along the Valkyries for an AoE Challenge Quest. Not exactly the best place for them due to long cooldowns, but the skill would be fine without it, so no reason to complain about a slight weak spot buff.
As for defensives, Svanvhit is a bit of a swiss army knife. It offers a single get out of jail free card for both big damage and crippling debuffs. Then we leave a lingering shield that can make it very hard to deal any disadvantaged damage to the Valkyries whatsoever. This isn’t the most inspiring skill for a farmer to have, but when 1 and 3 already knock it out of the park, it can’t hurt to spend a little time shoring up performance for more challenging content. Not that the Valkyries’ giant health pool needs it.
Finally, it does need to be noted that the Valkyries are best as a looping farmer and Ragnarok is a bit soft. Its damage isn’t really a buff problem, though. The Valkyries just have a pretty piddly attack stat so your mileage may vary depending on CE levels. Absolutely don’t forget the Fous though, every point matters when dealing with looping farmers. Because of this, they’re also another example of a Servant that heavily benefits from duplicates. Just one or two extra copies can shift your damage well into safe loops on nodes that were previously out of range. Remember that when farming, you really only need to worry about thin margins, once you’ve hit just enough damage to get enough NP recharge overkill hits, you’ve invested enough.