Disclaimer: This article contains curated tips, guides, other useful information posted on Inven KR by the users. Please note that such guides and information are not objective truths and may not reflect the latest patch or meta changes.

*Original guide from BDO Inven KR by 봉땅

The first thing you need to do in the pre-Awakening phase (before level 56) is learn certain elements that will be necessary after the Awakening, and level up swiftly.

Skill Tree

You can always reset the skills you have chosen by clicking the respec button shown on top right of the picture before you reach level 56. You can use this feature to select any skill you want to try out and reset while leveling up. As soon as you reach level 56, you need a skill reset ticket, purchased with real cash, if you want to reset the skills.

The skills with red titles are the ones you need even after the Awakening. The ones with green titles are unnecessary, hence it is not recommended to distribute skill points to them. If you insist, distribute the points to the ones with a green underline. Those who don’t have much time to play the game, or are busy with alternative characters, can focus on selecting skills with red titles, Sword of Judgment, movement skills, and others.

Note that you need to reset the skills when you are about level 55.90 and reach level 56 after selecting skills with red titles. After reaching level 56 and completing the Awakening quest, you then need to use skill points on selecting Awakening skills located in the Awakening Weapon tab.

Some may say that Shield Throw is a mandatory skill, but it is not used often during grinding and raids and the damage is weak.

The repeated combo listed below is the most convenient and fastest:
Celestial Spear → Ultimate: Sword of Judgment → Sword of Judgment Ⅰ → Sword of Judgment Ⅱ Ultimate: Sword of Judgment → Sword of Judgment Ⅰ → Sword of Judgment Ⅱ → Forward Slash × 2

Punishment can be great if you are willing to level up at the Sausan Garrison and get Ultimate: Punishment. It would be wise to have it when you are about to do PvP.

Specialization

The skill reset is free before level 56, but you need a Memory Fragment if you would like to change one specialization. Therefore, beginners tend to select properly and leave them rather than choosing any specializations.

Celestial Spear, Sword of Judgment, and Shield Throw are normally recommended. Shield Throw is rarely used for its Awakening effects, thus it is better to change to Righteous Charge later and receive the effects of reduced casting speed and increased accuracy.

Below is the list of specializations for the most effective grinding and raids. Select them in the following order:

Level 50 Specialization Celestial Spear
Attack against monsters +20 for 8 sec. for self / All Critical Hit Rate +20% for 9 sec. for self

Level 52 Specialization Righteous Charge
All Accuracy +5% for 12 sec. for self / All Casting Speed +10% for 5 sec. for self

Level 54 Specialization Sword of Judgment
All Defense +10 for 10 sec. for self / All Evasion +3% for 10 sec. for self

Use Righteous Charge as an initiating skill, followed by Celestial Spear and Sword of Judgment to remove delays on each skill. This order is useful for maintaining the Awakening effects with their short cooldowns. 6 effects are mostly well-maintained during a fight in this order.

Pre-Awakening Combo

Grinding

As mentioned above, it is very simple. Use Righteous Charge, Celestial Spear, Ultimate: Sword of Judgment, repeated Sword of Judgment, and recover SP with Forward Slash.

This combo provides the basic buff and specialization effects as shown on the table below, and you can use Ultimate: Sword of Judgment - the pre-Awakening skill with the highest dps - almost indefinitely, and also maintain SP to its maximum amount with Forward Slash × 2.

Celestial Spear has the passive buff of +80% critical hit rate for 5 seconds, and the specialization effect of additional +20% critical hit rate for 9 seconds. This means that you have 100% critical hit rate for 5 seconds, 20% for 1 to 2 seconds, and then 100% again. The passive and specialization effect of Celestial Spear are crucial even after Awakening. In particular, most attacks of the Valkyrie have a 100% critical hit rate with skills associated with the critical hit rate, such as Celestial Spear, after Awakening. You do not need to use Valor Crystals in gloves, but use Melee Attack Crystals instead to increase AP without costing too much. You can also use crystals that have the nullifying grapple effect for PvP, but it is not necessary at this point.

The effect of attack against monsters +20 is the most important specialization effect that must be maintained at all time. This is the reason why you need to select specialization effects of attack against monsters and critical hit rate with Celestial Spear at level 50.

The effect of casting speed +10% for 5 seconds with Righteous Charge is a big difference compared to other specializations which only provide +5%. The effect of accuracy +5% can cover the insufficient amount of accuracy needed for grinding and raids.

Although there is no specialization particularly needed with Sword of Judgment, it is a main skill nonetheless, thus selecting defense and evasion would be a good choice. Ultimate: Sword of Judgment activates right after Ultimate: Celestial Spear, and both are pre-Awakening skills that provide reasonable damage even after the Awakening. The combo of Righteous Charge, Celestial Spear, Ultimate: Sword of Judgment (or normal Sword of Judgment), and Promptness in that respective order allows you to use all 3 specializations.

Use Breath of Elion to manage HP. If Breath of Elion is not good enough, max out Severing Light and use it against a pack of monsters when HP is low, or equip a crystal with an HP auto-recovery effect in a weapon. You can also have the HP recovery specialization.

Pre-Awakening Movement

The movement skills of the Valkyrie are considered quite bad, so you do not need to blame your control skills. The recommended way written here is a bit more convenient and faster, but the skills are still generally bad nonetheless.

Receive the movement buff from Breath of Elion (Shift + E), and keep pressing ↑ + Shift + F. This allows the character to use Righteous Charge at its cooldown and move as fast as she can.

In cases where you need to perform a bit faster movement control, use the combo below:

Breath of Elion (Shift + E) → Righteous Charge (↑ + F) → Guard (Q) followed by Shield Chase Ⅰ, Ⅱ, and Ⅲ (keep pressing Shift + ↑) → Jump (Space) while casting Forward Charge (Shift + ↑) → Forward Slash (L click) right at the time of the jump will allow you to move forward a little bit faster. You can repeat this at the end of the cooldown.