This guide will look to provide some insight into RE: Resistance’s Valerie Harmon, a support character and great asset in the hands of a crafty survivor.
Guide to Valerie
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Basic Ideas and Tips
Characterized as a support survivor, her role is to not only ensure that the team remains healthy for fights, but to stay alive herself, as her Fever Ability is arguably the strongest in the game at the present moment, and can be a game changer in dire situations. Not only must you monitor your HP, but the HP of your team members to ensure that you are consistently in range to offer support where it is most needed. You should be the last person in danger, because if you go down, your team loses a massive amount of pressure against the Mastermind.
A good Mastermind will be prioritizing you and January as targets, and you should keep this in mind should you decide to linger behind your team or advance further ahead. Get comfortable with dodging enemy attacks and using the Quick Turn (Default “Q”) to put distance between you and approaching foes. Remember, your Fever Ability is best saved when it can be used to affect most of your team, and the less you have to burn it on yourself as a last resort, the better.
Your greatest asset in terms of equipment will be flashbang grenades. Keep a stack of 3 whenever possible because as stated, a good Mastermind will prioritize you with the Tyrant whenever the opportunity arises. Stunning the Tyrant and allowing yourself to safely retreat ensures that even if everyone else on your team is incapped, you can still resuscitate them with your Fever during the stun animation, so long as they are relatively close. Like hand grenades, flashbangs can either be found in the environment or occasionally purchased in the Armory in certain rotations for 100 credits. However, with Valerie’s passive, you will ideally come across enough grenades from dropped foes during the run that burning credits will not be necessary. Space is less of a concern with Val as her backpack gives her an additional 2 inventory slots, for a total of 10.
As of the Beta, Valerie is one of two characters to spawn with a ranged weapon, the other being January. While the MUP is quickly outclassed by better weapons, it is a great tool for clearing traps and disabling cameras when January’s ability is on cooldown.
Abilities
Active
- Survival Instinct: Upon activation, Valerie emits a pulse with herself at the epicenter, tagging all items and creatures in range and allowing herself and teammates to see them through walls and terrain. The effect lasts approximately 15 seconds and has a 30 second cooldown.
This ability is fantastic for ensuring that your team is not needlessly purchasing equipment that can be found lying around, thereby saving them and yourself credits by reducing the number of missed pick ups. This quickly adds up and presents the additional benefit of ensuring that players do not waste precious time scanning the environment for every pick up. This ability is also useful when the lights get cut, as the highlights of creatures and items will still be visible.
Take note that the pulse does not move with Val; wherever you activate it is the area it will scan. If you are unsure of which bodies on the ground are fully defeated, a scan will help reveal the active enemies lying in wait. The scan will not highlight traps, so don’t rely on it to detect them if bodies fall on them or if they are hidden around corners or in the dark.
Fever
- Modified First Aid Spray: Valerie places a first aid spray at her feet that deploys an AOE cloud of healing mist, restoring the HP of all allies inside and resuscitating any allies in the Dying State. The spray will also cure any infected allies that step inside the mist. The effect lasts for approximately 10 seconds before being placed on a base cooldown of 150 seconds.
This ability is what makes Valerie so powerful in the hands of a competent survivor. Not only can she save her entire downed team at once, but she reduces the need for survivors to burn multiple auxiliary items such as sprays and herbs. Be aware that survivors must be in line of sight of the canister to receive its benefits. Additionally, the cloud operates in a flat circle rather than a sphere, so survivors on different elevations than the spray will not receive its benefits. Mentally note this if you and your team get pinned on a stairwell or a lift. Teammates who leave the aura will cease being healed.
The animation to place the spray down is lengthy, so don’t expect it to be a saving grace if you’re in the middle of taking damage. Getting hit will knock you out of the animation, however, the ability will not be placed on cooldown, allowing you to try again when it is safe. Additionally, teammates can perform other animations while simultaneously being healed. This includes kicking doors, being grabbed, using the Armory or using key items, as well as the transition between stages.
Passives
- Biochem Expertise: Valerie and allies in close proximity receive bonus healing from all sources.
Again, this is another passive that assists allies in conserving valuable sprays and herbs, as doing so in close proximity to Val will increase their effectiveness, and discourage the use of multiple healing items when not necessary. Simply put, the healthier your team is, the less time you use up on revives. Try to keep it in the back of your mind to stick near wounded allies when safe to do so, so that when they pop a healing item, it will be of more benefit to them.
- Explosives Knowledge: Enemies have a chance of dropping either frag or flash grenades upon death.
As mentioned in the General section, this passive ability will keep you and your team topped up on grenades so that purchasing them becomes less of a necessity. Given how valuable flashes are to stunning the Tyrant, it’s imperative to try to keep a stack on you for whenever he spawns. Frags are obviously useful for clearing bunches of enemies, and can be a great way to make a clearing in order to safely use your Fever.
Equipment
- Novice Gear: Like all survivors, Valerie starts when the Novice Gear, which enables auto aim and will occasionally activate healing items when at low health.
The nature of the Novice Gear being the only current equipment means that you can somewhat predict the usage of healing items on your team. This is why you want to be near wounded survivors if at all possible, because even if your teammate decides not to immediately heal up, the game may do it for them, and Biochem Expertise will help that heal mean something.
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