The toughest battles in God of War are against the Valkyries — nine super-strong enemies that have awesomely-powerful attacks, a crazy amount of speed, and huge amounts of health. They represent the game’s biggest challenge and require players to have good equipment and great reflexes.
The Valkyries aren’t unbeatable, though. With a little preparation and patience, you can learn the ins and outs of their attacks, outlast them, and defeat them. Doing so earns a few of God of War‘s toughest trophies, as well as some of its best armor and gear. The super-tough fights are also some of the most fun you can have in the game. Use these eight tips to help you get the upper hand on the Valkyries and rip their wings off for good.
Take your time and avoid damage
The Valkyrie fights are ones in which your focus shouldn’t be on dishing out damage, but avoiding taking it. That’s a bit of a shift from most of the battles in the game. The Valkyries all carry a huge amount of health and deal out massive damage when they hit you, so a couple of rounds of slashing away with the Leviathan Axe isn’t going to cut it — you need to be in the fight for the long haul, and that means playing smart. Your biggest focus should be on learning each Valkyrie’s set of moves and avoiding their biggest damage dealers. There’s some overlap, but each Valkyrie has its own particular set of moves that require quick reflexes to avoid damage. Keep your guard up when you can and watch out for unblockable red circle attacks. You’ll find that avoiding Valkyrie attacks will usually help you find openings to strike back, but don’t overcommit to attacking and leave yourself exposed. Deal a little bit of damage and stay back. Staying alive is the best way to win.
Bring the highest-level armor you can
There are a lot of stats and perks available along with weapons and armor in God of War, but the most important aspect of your equipment is always its overall level number. You’ll need powerful gear to take on the Valkyries. In all cases, the Valkyries deal a ton of damage when they hit you, and it’s unlikely you’ll be able to fully avoid their attacks as you do battle. Higher gear levels are necessary for allowing you to absorb the Valkyries’ punishment for those moments when an attack gets through. Some are tougher to obtain than others, though: The first few you can reach, in places such as Thamur’s Corpse, tend to be easier than the ones that become accessible after visiting Helheim.
Generally speaking, you’ll want your Level to be at least 6 to take on the Valkyries — but a more realistic point for beating the majority of them is around Level 8. For the Valkyrie Queen, you might even need to push up to Level 9. If beating a Valkyrie is giving you trouble, it’s best to go work on upgrading your gear in places like Muspelheim or Niflheim, rather than continuing to bang your head against the wall of trying to defeat a Valkyrie that’s too tough for you.
Focus on health-boosting equipment
Several pieces of armor, some Enchantments, and even a Runic attack or two are geared toward restoring your health. You’ll definitely want them, as well as armor that boosts your defense and vitality stats. Ivaldi’s armor, which you can craft in Niflheim, for instance, is handy because it continually restores a small amount of health (it also carries a ton of Enchantment slots and can be upgraded to Level 8). Likewise, the Gift of Apollo Heavy Runic Attack will restore some health as you rack up damage against enemies. You should also consider buying Atreus’ Runic Vestment armor, because he’ll occasionally toss Health Stones Kratos’ way in battle situations, which might mean the difference between winning and losing at a key moment. You’re going to want anything you can get to keep yourself alive in some of the toughest Valkyrie fights, so don’t leave any advantages behind.
Pay attention to the Valkyrie’s health
If you look closely at the Valkyries’ health bars at the bottom of the screen, you’ll notice they’re heavily segmented. Pay attention to how much damage you’re dealing when you attack each Valkyrie, and how fast you can get down to those segment markers. When you do enough damage to completely empty one of those segments, the Valkyrie will drop a Health Stone, and you’re likely to need every one of them. If you can pay enough attention, you’ll know when you can expect a Health Stone and how much damage you need to do, and that information can help keep you alive. In any case, keep your eye out for the Valkyrie to drop those Health Stones, and then make sure you don’t leave yourself open when you pick them up.
Use high-damage Runic attacks
When choosing your Runic attacks for Valkyrie fights, skip the ones with a high stun quotient and go for damage instead. Likewise, area of effect attacks aren’t all that useful, since all the Valkyrie fights except one are one-on-one (one of the Valkyries will summon Draugr to make your life more difficult). Picking good Runic attacks and upgrading them fully before a Valkyrie fight can really make a difference. Generally, Runic attacks can deal out big damage, as well as interrupt incoming Valkyrie attacks. They also generally can’t be interrupted by the Valkyries’ attacks themselves. At critical moments, a Runic attack can do enough damage to get a Valkyrie to drop a Health Stone. Use your Runic attacks as often as you can to keep your damage low and get an advantage in the fight.
Save your Spartan Rage for emergencies
While Runic attacks are good for dealing a lot of damage as often as possible, Spartan Rage is something you’ll probably want to save up for when you really need it. Activating the Rage makes it impossible for a Valkyrie to interrupt your attacks while you’re wailing on it, and it also restores some health. This second aspect makes it great to deploy in times of emergency, because you’ll heal up a little while you injure the Valkyrie, and you’re likely to make it drop a Health Stone or two as well. Just remember to be careful about avoiding damage as soon as your Rage has ended.
Always have a Resurrection Stone
Once you can buy Resurrection Stones from the dwarves, you should always keep one handy — but they’re pretty much essential to take down the Valkyries. These creatures have a huge amount of health and hit extremely hard, and chances are good you’re going to die, but a Resurrection Stone will help you go the distance. Obviously, you want the best one you can get; late in the game, a purple Legendary Resurrection Stone becomes available that gives back a low amount of health, but provides full Spartan Rage. Your play style will determine whether that stone will serve you better than a health boost when you get back up. Still, it’s important to remember to replenish your stones every time you take on a Valkyrie, because nothing is worse than getting close to victory, and then dying with no way back.
Use Atreus to keep the Valkyries out of the air
Several of the Valkyries have seriously powerful and extremely frustrating attacks they use specifically when they take to the air. One fires off a shockwave that can blind Kratos, while another has a huge, powerful hammer attack. You can disrupt a lot of these attacks, though, with Atreus’ arrows. Atreus is not especially helpful in the Valkyrie fights in general, since his arrows can’t stun the Valkyries and he usually can’t get in close for attacks. But when the Valkyries take to the air, you should bombard them with arrows to try to knock them back down to Earth. That’ll save you from some of the worst attacks the Valkyries throw at you and can often leave them vulnerable to a follow-up attack if you can move in quickly.