Loadouts: Fortuna/Orb Vallis Nezha (U24.0.8)

Another type of post showcasing the loadouts I use. Again, these are by no means the best loadouts, just ones that I enjoy and have found to work well. In this post I'll be covering my current go-to Fortuna/Orb Vallis loadout, featuring Nezha.

Overview

Quick overview of the loadout, Nezha with Tiberon Prime, Synoid Gammacor and Gram Prime (Monado II). Zenurik as Focus school, Helios Prime as Companion.

Gram Prime is there because it is my current go-to melee. Any decent melee will work fine, I don't use it much in the Vallis anyway.
Zenurik is used naturally because of Energising Dash, which makes energy a non-issue. Vazarin is also a solid option for its Protective Dash, as there are a lot of defence-type missions in the Vallis.

Helios Prime is there mainly for scanning purposes, and because Deconstructor Prime is actually really powerful. Carrier is also great for the Vallis because of its relatively sparse ammo drops and potential for extended periods of play. Ammo Case helps significantly with ammo recovery, especially if you intend to hang around for a while. Looter is also a nice convenience mod to have, especially with Vallis containers potentially having ores, gems and fish parts.

Nezha

Of the frames I've tried so far, I've found Nezha to be my favourite for the Vallis. He has a great combination of both offence and defence that I really enjoy, and that suits the Vallis well.
The build I use is a relatively general purpose build. Transient Fortitude, Intensify and Health Conversion for strong Warding Halos (3) (which scales off both Power Strength and Armour), Adaptation for further increased tankiness. Health Conversion far outclasses Steel Fiber or even Umbral Fiber + Umbral Intensify on Nezha, and Nezha can reliably activate it. Streamline and Primed Flow for good energy economy, allowing a lot of casting before getting anywhere close to running out of energy. Primed Continuity to patch up the negative duration from TF, as well as increase the duration of all his abilities besides Warding Halo. Safeguard allows the casting of Warding Halo on allies, which as I'll discuss later, is great in the Vallis.
Speed Drift for a mobility and cast time boost, Corrosive Projection because the majority of the toughest things in the Vallis are of course armoured. Arcane Guardian also helps boost Warding Halo further, and Energise makes energy economy even eaiser to handle.

Notably, I have no shield or health mod slotted in. This is partly because I have no space for it, but mainly because in my experience, I have found extra health and/or shields to be unnecessary. With this build, the damage reduction from Warding Halo as well as Adaptation make Nezha practically invincible below level 100, and still very tough beyond that if played well.


Firewalker (1) is a cheap-to-cast ability that provides a bit more mobility and a bit of light CC. The short stun from Fire procs offer a nice reprieve from enemy attacks, and is useful for warding off enemies during the defensive missions, especially the container capture one. It's probably the least useful of the four abilities, but does have its uses.

Blazing Chakram (2) has a number of uses. It causes marked enemies to drop health orbs, which is fantastic for activating and maintaining Health Conversion, and is also great for patching up Sentinels. With the amount of AoE attacks in the Vallis, Sentinels are likely to take a lot of damage even without an weapon equipped, so having a reliable way to heal them is quite useful. This in turn makes Health Conversion really easy to activate, since picking up health orbs for companions still activates it. Blazing Chakram is also great for making tough enemies easier to kill, with my build making enemies take nearly triple damage. I use it particularly on the larger Raknoids (Kyta, Scyto), as well as the mini-bosses like Jackal.

Warding Halo (3), with its augment Safeguard, is the main reason I started using Nezha for the Vallis. Being able to cast 90% damage reduction with status immunity on almost anything allied - including Drones, Extractors and Special Duty CoilDrivers - is fantastic. It makes these defensive missions a breeze, so long as you keep an ear out for the Halo expiring. It's also a fantastic counter to the many status and knockdown attacks on the Vallis, like the various Magnetic weapons and bounce grenades. With my Power Strength, my Warding Halos have a base health of around 3000, and half of that for allies. With Health Conversion maxed out, this rises to around 9000, and again half for allies. This is of course not accounting for Arcane Guardian or absorbed damage, which is added on top again. I find that I can go multiple Bounty-5 stages without having to refresh my Halo, and that it makes defence objectives basically invincible, practically guaranteeing the bonus for those.

Divine Spears (4) is a solid CC ability as always, and is great if you need to catch your breath, or if you want to hit more enemies with Blazing Chakram. My build makes Divine Spears last around 15 seconds, which is more than enough to escape, or kill everyone nearby.

Tiberon Prime

I of course use my current favourite weapon, the Tiberon Prime, as my primary. It does great damage against just about anything in the Vallis, and is effective at all ranges.

The only thing special about my Tiberon Prime build is that it is built for pure Electric. The toughest enemies in the Vallis are the two larger Raknoids, Kyta and Scyto, followed by the various robotic mini-bosses. All of these (with Alloy Armour removed as necessary) have Robotic health, thus are highly vulnerable to Electric damage. Notably, the two large Raknoids have Robotic as both their health and armour type, magnifying its damage boost further.
Against the Raknoids, Electric is far better than Radiation (though Radiation is still good), and with armour stripping, is also very effective against the other mini-bosses. A few quick Corrosive procs and a Blazing Chakram (2) are more than enough for the TibP to tear through the non-Kyta mini-bosses.

Synoid Gammacor

Electric is also neutrally effective against the Kyta Raknoid's absurdly large Proto (over)Shields, which are by far the toughest thing in the Vallis.
The Synoid Gammacor is my go-to Vallis secondary for its very rare ability to have both Corrosive and Magnetic damage, as well as high Status Chance. My Riven notably adds Punch Through, which I would otherwise slot on with Seeker anyway. The Entropy Syndicate effect of AoE Magnetic damage and proc, and restored energy is also quite useful.

With my Electric Tiberon Prime, there are two main weaknesses I have come across in the Vallis: armour (especially Alloy), and the Kyta's ridiculous overshields. Alloy Armour in particular resists Electric damage, which makes the armoured mini-bosses harder to kill. A quick burst from the SGammacor strips away their armour quickly, making them easy prey for the TibP.

Unfortunately, even with Magnetic damage, the SGam does less DPS to the Kyta's overshields than the Electric TibP. Annoyingly, the Kyta is also immune to Magnetic procs, which would otherwise make them a much easier target. It is also immune to Slash procs, Toxin procs, and receives Toxin damage to shields rather than straight to health. I have found however, that Blazing Chakram + TibP can take down a Kyta's overshields fairly quickly, up to level 90 or so.

The combination of Electric Tiberon Prime + Corrosive Synoid Gammacor can comfortably eliminate just about anything in the Vallis up to level 90, and beyond level 100 ignoring Kytas.

Alternatives/Substitutes

• Gara performs a similar job to Nezha, being able to slap 90% damage reduction on most allied units. Mass Vitrify is also a great defensive ability. From my experience however, Gara requires a lot more maintenance to keep all the Splinter Storms active, and also seems to have some buggy interactions with Splinter Storm and some of the defence objectives. It does not seem to be castable on the Drones, and does not seem to work properly with Special Duty CoilDrives. Notably, Gara also does not have status immunity with Splinter Storm.
• Any high-DPS primary can replace Tiberon Prime comfortably, up to your personal preference. Raw DPS can handle most things in the Vallis without much trouble.
• Any decent armour stripping secondary can replace the Synoid Gammacor fairly well, as I've found its Corrosive proccing ability to be the far more important of the two elements. Though Magnetic is fantastic in theory in both damage and proc, most shields can be easily brute-forced by a decent primary. The only enemy for which shields are an actual problem, the Kyta Raknoid, is immune to Magnetic procs.
• An alternative setup that would also work well is a Radiation or Viral built primary, with a high DPS Magnetic secondary, such as Pyrana Prime. Radiation does massive damage to the robotic mini-bosses (e.g. Jackal, Raptor), while Viral is brutal against all of the organics. The Magnetic secondary helps get through the Kyta's massive overshields. A Shattering Impact Sarpa would help with armoured enemies as well.