Valor Form



Valor Form (ブレイヴフォーム) is the first Drive Form attained in Kingdom Hearts II. This form is obtained along with Sora's new clothes at Yen Sid's Tower. Sora merges with Goofy to transform. Once you obtain Valor form, you automatically start with the Kingdom Key and Star Seeker Keyblades. This form focuses on attack, and is the most offensive of any form. Valor Form allows Sora to get in close and bash away to do heavy damage in a short amount of time, at the cost of losing the ability to cast magic.

While in this form, Sora can run faster than usual, making Valor the second fastest Drive Form, compared to Final's gliding ability. Like Wisdom Form, Valor Form consumes three Drive Bars.

Leveling Up
The Valor Form is extremely easy to level up compared to the other forms in the game. It levels up simply by landing successful hits on an enemy, and Valor Form is noted for very quick but powerful combos.

It is possible to level up Valor Form to LV3 easily almost as soon as it has been obtained. After leaving Hollow Bastion, clear the route to Beast's Castle and, after seeing Beast take his rose from the parlor, head out into the main hallway. Drive into Valor Form, and defeat all the Hook Bats: three in the center, four near the door to the courtyard, and three at the top of the stairs. Then quickly return to the parlor before the Drive Gauge runs out and exit to the World Map. Upon re-entering the world, the Drive Gauge will be re-filled to max. Simply repeat this as many times as desired, but note that you cannot level up the form higher than lv3 at this stage.

For leveling up past LV3, go to the Land of Dragons, after having beaten all the episodes. Start from the Throne Room, and go to the Antechamber, moving along until your Drive Gauge reaches 1, then returning to the Save Point before you've reverted from Valor Form, exiting to the World Map, and coming back with a full Drive Gauge. If you transform in the Throne Room, you will have zero chance of transforming into Anti-Form. With Drive Boost and the high form gauge that Valor is known for, you can easily travel to the Village and back.

Another way to level up Valor Form would be to go to Hollow Bastion and start in Merlin's house. Go out, and before encountering Heartless, change into Valor Form. Defeat all Heartless there if the Drive would last that amount of time, than quickly enter Merlin's house and exit, then enter again. There is a good amount of Heartless in the area, making Hollow Bastion's town area a good place to level up. Also, boss battles are a good way to level up because bosses have lots of HP.

By leveling up the Valor Form, Sora will develop the ability High Jump, which allows him to jump at previously unreachable heights. Sora also gains Combo Up abilities by leveling up this form.

Try equipping weak Keyblades to level up Valor Form, as it will give you more hits on an enemy before they are defeated. Sweet Memories (STR: 0; MAG: 0) and Hidden Dragon (STR: 2; MAG: 2) are good choices.

Support
Pros


 * EXP is gained as Sora strikes enemies, thus making it the easiest Form to level up.
 * Omega Finale allows finishing blows to be executed without completing a combo, allowing Sora to do high amounts of damage easily.
 * Sora's speed is increased, making him run twice as fast as his normal form.
 * It has the exceptional ability to stay in the air, rarely having to touch the ground if surrounded by many enemies (e.g. Rapid Thrusters)
 * Fast slashes in midair.
 * Slashes can block other enemy attacks.
 * Attacks are able to stun most enemies.

Cons


 * Magic is disabled, thus no long range magic such as Thunder or Blizzard to finish off an enemy from far away, nor healing magic, is available. However, this can be negated should Donald serve as a healer; still, Donald may not always heal in time. A good way is to stock up on Potions and keep them in the Shortcuts menu.
 * Takes more time to defeat an enemy without magic aid.
 * Although most Nobodies are stunned by Valor's attacks, Berserkers remain unaffected by its stunning attacks.

Representation
Goofy combines with Sora to represent courage and strength. It is quite similar to Roxas's fighting style because it abandons all defensive and magical capabilities in favor of power and speed.

Mirror Description
In Yen Sid's tower the mirror on the far right side of the room describes Valor Form as "An image of you utilizing your strength to its fullest flows into your mind."

Appearance
This form turns Sora's clothes into a red and black color scheme with a fleur-de-lis on each sleeve and pant leg. In this form, Sora wields two Keyblades. No matter what world Sora is in, Sora's hands glow light red and flicker with red electricity. When Sora runs in Valor Form, flakes of Red energy fly off of his hands in a streak.


 * Halloween Town Sora's mask turns into a devil-mask, slightly reminiscent of the mask Lock wears. Arguably the devil mask also looks like that of a Bomb from the Final Fantasy series.
 * Timeless River: Sora's health icon becomes red in tint.
 * Christmas Town: A red fleur-de-lis appears on Sora's santa hat and on the back of his shirt.
 * Space Paranoids: Sora's circuit lines turn red, similar to that of Sark.

Helpful Hints

 * Morning Stars and Crimson Jazzes are both enemies which take a lot of damage, and to make it even better their attacks are easily disrupted by Valor Form's, and they drop a lot of Drive Orbs when defeated. These enemies appear together in both Hollow Bastion and Beast's Castle, making those both good places to train Valor Form; Beast's Castle also has the added benefit of a Save Point right next to the battlefield, and closely grouped enemies.


 * Because Donald will not always be able to heal you in time, it is wise to have a Potion or a Hi-Potion in your quick menu when using Valor Form.


 * You may consider using it on every boss and going to the village cave in the Land of Dragons. Destroy all of the Heartless in the area and if possible, use your square combo to break the carts to restore a bit of your time and go to the summit and kill all of the Heartless possible in your time left.


 * Alternatively, you may level up in the Chasm of Challenges in Agrabah - if your Drive Gauge is higher than 5, you may take two rounds with the trials and defeat all the Heartless possible within the time limit. Once that is done, go to the nearby Save Point, exit the world and re-enter the same Save Point to replenish your Drive Gauge. This strategy may be used for all other forms except Final Form.


 * The best Keyblade to use for this form is the Sleeping Lion or Star Seeker, since Valor form levels up by number of hits landed increasing the length of combos makes it so that you gain more EXP more quickly. Both of them are best paired with each other. Alternatively, if you equip Sweet Memories, which has no strength boost, your hits will deal less damage and allow for more hits per enemy.


 * Another good place to go to level this form up is The World That Never Was. Since there are many Nobodies here it makes it easier to land the required number of hits to level up.


 * If you play Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix and you are at least in LV48, try training Valor Form in the Cavern of Remembrance: the enemies are powered-up versions of their original counterparts, which take more hits to be defeated. Also, many of the enemies (particularly Magic Phantom) drop Drive Orbs, and there are five balloons in the Cavern of Remembrance which drop Drive Orbs.

Trivia

 * If one uses a cheat device to get this Form while still playing as Roxas, they will discover that Dual-Wield Roxas and Valor Form have the same abilities.
 * Arguably, Valor Form is one of the lesser forms, (being the first introduced) due to its lack of magic as well as not being able to guard. However, it is very easy to level up. This makes it very valuable right up to the end of the game. However, because he uses two Keyblades with his Magic disabled, this Form is also takes away virtually all of Sora's defensive capabilities; only Anti Form is more vulnerable to enemy attacks than this Form.
 * Strangely, even though Goofy has special abilities that use up magic, Valor Form does not.
 * In this form Sora is very dexterous, sometimes even spinning the Keyblade on a single finger during a combo.
 * Over the Horizon is the exact same as the first hit of Valor's aerial combo, except that it covers much more horizontal distance.
 * Valor Form's name may refer to a Final Fantasy spell of the same name. Valor, also known as Bravery, is a spell that boosts the target's attack damage.

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