The First Descendant Best Valby build: Skills, Modules, and Loadout

With the best Valby build in The First Descendant, you get a character who is extremely efficient for crowd control and mobbing. Come hell or high water, Valby's utility never fails to deliver, and, to top it off, her playstyle is quite easy to learn. With a focus on AoE damage and a high critical hit rate, an optimized Valby build can be quite the menace in the right hands.

In this guide, we will discuss everything about the best Valby build in The First Descendant. We will also focus on where to get her parts, which weapon to use, and which Modules to prioritize for leveling and endgame.

How to unlock Valby in The First Descendant

Valby's parts require some resources from mid-game areas like Vespers (Image via Nexon)

To craft Valby in The First Descendant, you must first craft all three of her parts: Cells, Stabilizer, and Spiral Catalyst. The following are all the resource requirements needed.

Valby Enhanced Cells can be crafted with:

Repton x422: Found in Munitions and Resource Boxes in Kingston
Superfluid x571: Found in Munitions and Resource Boxes in Sterile Lands
Data Processing Neural Circuit x48: Drops from mobs in Vespers
Valby Enhanced Cell Blueprint: Amorphous Material Pattern 016 (Executioner)
200,000 Gold

Valby Stabilizer can be crafted with:

Monad Shard x246: Found in Munitions and Resource Boxes in Kingston
Compound Coating Material x239: Found in Munitions and Resource Boxes in Echo Swamps
Murky Energy Residue x4: Drops from Sterile Lands Infiltration Operations
Valby Stabilizer Blueprint: Amorphous Material Pattern 029 (Devourer), Amorphous Material Pattern 086 (Pyromaniac)
200,000 Gold

Valby Spiral Catalyst can be crafted with:

Metal Accelerant x519: Found in Munitions and Resource Boxes in Sterile Lands
Hardener x386: Found in Munitions and Resource Boxes in Vespers
Encrypted Neural Circuit x32: Drops from Echo Swamp monsters
Valby Spiral Catalyst Blueprint: Amorphous Material Pattern 009 (Stunning Beauty), Amorphous Material Patter 023 (Dead Bride)

Valby Code can be obtained from Amorphous Material Pattern 032 (Devourer) and Amorphous Material Pattern 036 (Pyromaniac). Since the drop chances are low, you should use a Shape Stabilizer to help your odds.

Once you have all of these parts, you can craft (research) them all by visiting Anais in Albion. You can also purchase Valby for 600 Caliber (premium currency) if you want to skip the grind.

Best skill rotation for Valby in The First Descendant

Laundry is the gel to hold all of Valby together (Image via Nexon)

Valby's skills are geared towards rebuffing enemies by inflicting the Laundry debuff, which increases all Electric and Chill damage on enemies. Here's what each of Valby's skills do:

Ability	Skill Attribute and Type	Description
Bubble Bullet	Non-Attirbute, Fusion	Throw a quartet of bubble projectiles that will bounce four times on the surface and then explode to deal damage. The projectiles also explode upon contact with enemies, but their damage is based on how many times they bounce.
Plip Plop	Non-Attirbute, Dimension	Teleport to the targeted spot, creating a puddle in your initial and final position. Knock back all targets in the final position and reduce Plip Plop cooldown based on the number of enemies affected by this.
Clean Up	Non-Attirbute, Dimension	Gain the Liquefied buff. Grants damage reduction and phased movement. You cannot jump or use skills for the duration, and you leave a trail of water in your wake.
Laundry Bomb	Non-Attirbute, Fusion	Equip Valby's signature Bubble Launcher. Shoot out up to four globs that create giant floating bubbles. Bubbles pull in (Tow) nearby enemies affected by Laundry, hold them in, damage them for a while, and then spit them out.

Valby's Passive is Water Intake, granting her a 30% decreased MP cost for Skills. Generally, you want to use Plip Plop on enemy clumps to keep a high uptime on this ability. This is your spam ability, with which you create giant puddles, crowd-control enemies, and do a fair amount of area damage. Afterward, when further damage is needed on Elite enemies, use Laundry Bomb for almost guaranteed victory.

For the best skill rotation for any Valby build in The First Descendant is, follow this general order: spam Plip Plop and then Laundry-Bomb when the heat gets too high. Use Bubble Bullets off cooldown if you need additional chip damage, and Clean Up if you get stuck in the middle of a horde and need to get out.

It's worth mentioning that Valby synergizes with all Descendants that deal Chill damage (Viessa) or Electric damage (Bunny and more).

Also Read: How to beat Pyromaniac in The First Descendant

All Valby Skill modules

Valby has four Skill modules that modify or augment her abilities. You can equip only one of these at a time. These are:

Singing Water: Laundry Bomb Skill Conversion. Spawns a Seduction of Water where the Launcher's bullet explodes. Until it is destroyed, the spawned Seduction of Water taunts surrounding monsters and inflicts the Laundry effect on them.
Supply Moisture: Water Intake Skill Conversion. While on water, it increases Skill Critical Hit Rate, Skull Duration, and Firearm Attribute Status Effect Trigger Rate. Reduction of MP consumption does not apply.
Tidal Wave: Clean Up Skill Conversion. Does not leave watery trails when moving. When moving through a monster, it inflicts skill damage on them. When the skill ends, it deals AoE damage nearby.
Water Play: Bubble Bullet skill conversion. Creates a rectangular-shaped pool of water in front.

Best Valby Module build in The First Descendant

Valby doesn't need much Skill Range beyond the default (Image via Nexon)

Although Clean Up sounds like something you want to get up close with, Valby works best when you kite your enemies. To that end, defensive stats like HP, DEF, and Shields should be an afterthought in any Valby build. Ideally, here are the most important stats you need, in order of importance:

Skill Duration (for CC)
Skill Range
Skill Power (for nuking)
Skill Critical Hit
Skill Cooldown Reduction
HP
Shield

For a leveling build, you can prioritize Skill Power and Skill Range first, so these are the best mods to fit if nothing else:

Technician
Skill Expansion
Non-Attribute Specialist

A big quality-of-life mod you should consider is Water Play. As a Transcendent Module, it is hard to farm, but the quality of life it gives you is more than worth it. With Water Play, Valby's first ability becomes much more convenient and you can use it as a pocket puddle-carpet dispenser.

Arguably the best end-game build for Valby would go something like this:

Water Play (Skill Module)
Shock Punch (Sub-attack Module)
Nimble Fingers
Non-Attribute Specialist
Skill Expansion
Technician
Skill Extension/Maximize Duration
Increase HP
Strong Mentality
Emergency Measures
Enlightenment

Note that you must apply several Crystallization Catalysts and an Energy Activator to fit all of these mods at max rank.

We are still calibrating to the modules system in the current meta, so we'll update this article if and when we find more scope for min-maxing.

Best Valby Loadout in The First Descendant

Module setup is not everything if you want to min-max. Valby can be much more effective with the right equipment combination, as her Laundry schtick influences all sources of Chill and Electric damage.

For the best Valby build in The First Descendant, use the following loadout:

Best Weapon to use for Valby

Thunder Cage is almost tailor-made for this Descendant (Image via Nexon)

Thunder Cage is hands-down the best weapon to use on Valby. This SMG can easily carry you to the endgame if you keep upgrading its level, as it gets an innate 20% boost on its unique effect proc on enemies primed by Laundry.

To learn more about how to unlock this weapon, check out our dedicated Thunder Cage build guide.

Best Reactor to use for Valby

The absolute best Reactor you can use on Valby is a golden-rarity Materialized Phase Reactor, as it boosts both Non-Attribute and Dimension damage. Note that you will also need to equip a specific class of weapon for Reactor optimization requirements.

Best External Components to use on Valby

External Components are not as central to your loadout as the other equipment listed in this Valby build guide. Here, your goal should be to compensate for the stats your module build lacks. In this case, you are mostly looking for MP regen, Shield Recharge Rate, and Max Shield boost.

Check out our other guides on The First Descendant:

Edited by Adarsh J Kumar