Alright, I’ve sunk many hrs into Nova on QM, and even a couple matches on ranked (to the obvious dismay of my team-mates)
I will talk about strategies and “how” to play Nova in a bit, but the build is first.
Here is the one and true build that has never ever failed me.
[T3312122,Nova]
T1: Advanced cloaking
This talent allows you to not only rotate faster, but to essentially mount while moving. I experimented with this in a custom match. If you take nova and another hero start at their core, it takes nova only roughly 1-1.5 seconds to reach the other side of the map after the other hero … what does this tell you?
For one, it tells you that Nova has a virtually perfect base mobility. that extra 25% total move-speed may not be 30%, but the 1 second time it takes to MOUNT, nova is already moving and rotating, so she might even get there .2 or .4 seconds ahead of a normal mount-and-rotate hero, so this talent is a must.
T4: Covert Mission
This is essentially bribe. Heroes grant 10, minions grant 1. This will be much more useful later at level 10.
T7: Perfect Shot
This talent is critical in terms of Nova’s damage, poke, and contribution to a team or team-fight. It reduces your snipe cooldown, AND restores your mana when you hit a hero.
T10: Precision Strike
This talent is not only versatile in cutting off a choke-point or punishing a retreat. IT IS FIRST AND FORE-MOST A WAVE-CLEAR AND FORT FINISHER dang near ANY time I have used it otherwise I have sat with my ability ready for like 40-80 seconds doing NOTHING with it.
T13: Psionic Efficiency
This talent, believe it or not, is better than double-tap.
Not only does it increase the range of your snipe, making it more likely to hit something, it now grants 2 stacks of base-line snipe quest per hit.
If you know what you’re doing, you will be hitting snipes without using pinning shot, and saving that for retreating heroes.
T16: Crippling shot.
That extra burst-damage from the -20 armor along with the slow … just … why the hell would you pick anything else?
T20: Precision Barrage.
This talent is a must. Not only do you have 2-charges of Precision strike, but you half the cooldown of it. Turning a 60-second wave-clear into a 30-second wave-clear.
Now you may think “OOOOO, 1 second cloak Apollo suit will be good”, NO, that’s a 100% noob-trap … unless Blizzard makes it like it was SUPPOSED TO BE AND MAKE IT SO THAT AA’S AND ABILITIES NO LONGER BREAK CLOAK LIKE THE TALENT WAS ORIGINALLY MEANT TO WORK. You may think “ok then, what about re-wind?” … if you’re doing this build correctly and you’re half-decent at hitting your snipes, you won’t need rewind, plus it doesn’t rewind your heroic ability … so why rewind a 2 to 6 second cooldown that’s your primary damage when you’re bursting … meanwhile if you have enough time to use pinning shot twice for it’s full effect, you’re likely getting ganked, and laugh at the Holo-Decoy because that thing is damn-near useless except for scouting. I’d rather an ability called “Ghost Visor” that’s my E that allows me to spot cloaked heroes and see over terrain than that.
Alright, before I go on to strategies, I want to clear up some mis-conceptions and counter them for Nova.
Misconception #1 & 2: “Nova’s wave-clear SUCKS, and she’s a gank-only hero.”
Probably the 2 most classic arguments about Nova … you see, part of Nova’s kit is a sniper. What does that mean? It means she has range. USE IT TO YOUR ADVANTAGE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! If you’re in a lane, that doesn’t mean you can’t target minions and have to wait in the shadows for an opportunity to kill the hero in the lane. HELP YOUR MINIONS OUT. If the enemy hero in that lane is pushing, stutter-step your retreat while AA-ing them, and snipe them if they come past their minions.
If you’re up against ANYONE who knows nova in even the slightest fashion, they know that they do NOT want to get sniped. How do they avoid that? They hide behind minions. You wanna hide behind minions? Ok, i’ll just AA your minions until you come forward to wave-clear or retreat … both are a win in Nova’s book … err, visor … err … whatever.
Mis-conception #3: “Nova loses all her stacks upon hitting a non-hero like a minion or a structure.”
… I swear to god if I hear ANOTHER post / reply about this argument I WILL REACH THROUGH THE INTERNET AND SLAP YOU. It doesn’t grant stacks, but it doesn’t lose them either. So these heroes retreating behind cannon-gates thinking Nova will lose all her stacks if they hit the gate or tower … well, you’re just flat out wrong. Nova loses all her stacks if they fail to hit anything at all.
Mis-conception #4: “Nova is a Niche’ pick that is only useful against teams with no healer and/or no CC.”
This is just flat-out not-true. I literally got MVP in a storm-league match TWICE with highest hero DMG, and nearly 115k siege damage in BOTH of them. I won one, AND LOST the other one … yet I got MVP …
Wanna know the enemy team comp for the one I won?
Muradin, Artanis, Qhira, Kel-Thuzad, and Anduin.
Wanna know the enemy team comp for the one I lost?
Diablo, Artanis, Jaina, Anduin, Vikings.
Mis-conception #5: “Nova has to rely on good/risky/ganking positioning in order to kill heroes or make them retreat. She’s also useless on objectives because … ya know … if she engages in any sort of advantageous position any half-brained team will dive her and kill her because she tried to gank on objective.”
See mis-conceptions #1 & 2.
You see, Nova has a very good snipe AND AA range, one of the longest default ranges in the entire game. You should treat her as such. I’m gonna say it again, USE IT TO YOUR ADVANTAGE. You shouldn’t be ganking on objective, you should instead be poking and AA’ing whoever’s at the front and occasionally those sweet, sweet, squishy ranged or melee heroes that get out of position. You should be using your snipe and AA to punish heroes that dive your team-mates … once they use their diving ability, it’s on CD … perfect time to slow them with pinning shot, snipe, and then AA them.
Now … on to strategies as Nova.
If you aren’t good at hitting skill-shots or making sure your snipe at least hits something
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Why the hell are you playing Nova? It’s literally 80% of her kit, please leave.
Levels 1-3:
At these levels, your primary task is to get to level 4, because the beginning of the game is a race to see who gets an advantage on levels and talents first. This usually means there are about 1/2 to 1/3 of the total game deaths … and you know what that means with bribe? FREE … ENEMY … SIDED … CAMPS.
Levels 4-6:
At these levels, your primary tasks are 1: to kill heroes for bribe since early game camps are harder to take, and 2: to get to level 7. Once you reach level 7, your snipes are going to do a LOT more DPS in team-fights and in general.
Levels 7-9:
At these levels, your primary task is to kill heroes for the same reason I listed above.
Levels 10-12:
At these levels, you have your Ult. Use it almost as soon as it’s cooldown runs out. This will also help you build game-sense and strategic awareness of people ganking you. This is also great for taking care of a push towards one of your towers or keeps while you’re helping your team on objective. Throw a Precision strike at a push. You’ll get siege damage, as well as bribe stacks, and still remain at objective.
Levels 13-15:
At these levels, your primary task is to poke the ever-living hell out of heroes with your now virtually sight-long snipe, and annoy them so much that they charge/dive you and make mistakes because of their rage at how much DMG you do at range and “WTF, WHY DO YOU DO SO MUCH DAMAGE AT SUCH A FREAKIN’ LONG RANGE AND HAVE A 2-SECOND COOLDOWN ON IT THIS IS BULL****”.
Levels 16-19:
At these levels, most of the time you’re either in a group, or soaking because you have a hero number disadvantage. For the group, pump out snipes until a hero gets to around 1/2 to 1/3 max health, slap them with the pinning shot, and focus ‘em as they try to feebly get away while being slowed and have -20 armor from you AND your team-mates’ attacks.
Level 20 onward:
At this point, it’s the same as above, except you NEVER leave your team, and use your Precision Strikes to wave-clear because your team can’t be everywhere at once.
I’ve talked strategy, as in the long-term game, now let’s talk about tactics.
A.K.A: stuff that doesn’t rely on talents.
Nova requires this mindset and ability to play her:
- The ability to hit your skill-shots.
- Mini-map awareness of a near constant vigilance.
In laning, as I mentioned further above, use stutter-step and poke minions to “bait out” your opponent to be sniped.
In almost every scenario with an enemy hero, you’re going to want to engage with a snipe (not pinning shot), followed by the free AA, followed by a false retreat, then repeat again as you poke them to death.
Whenever an enemy hero is being a coward behind minions, or not present in the lane CHECK THE MINI-MAP, you may be getting ganked. If not … well … you have free permission to use your holo-decoy to attract the minions’ attention while your minions get free DMG on them along with you. Same rules apply if the enemy hero in the lane starts to dive or engage you.
It’s also a sort of mis-conception that Nova needs to be cloaked in order to engage and that it hides her … it doesn’t, I can see you clear as day unless you’re standing still.
Cloak is useful for 3 things, and 1 of those things isn’t even that great.:
- To stealth your rotate, which is completely useless to anyone who has any map awareness at all.
- Move-speed bonus.
- To stealthily go in and out from getting enemy camps.
… that’s it … that’s why the level 20 Apollo suit is meant for noobs as a noob-trap and serves literally no purpose.
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I’ve talked to you how to play nova, the talents, strategy, tactics, etc.
Now I’m going to list the things she has a problem(s) with:
- Her lack of escape/dis-engage tools. “But Ghost Proto-” That’s a joke and you KNOW IT … … “bu-” SILENCE!!!
- Her survivability. It’s no secret that Nova’s health pool is the 2nd/3rd/4th/whatever lowest in the entire game. This, combined with the lack of escape/dis-engage tools makes her, ironically, more squishy than the heroes she’s “meant to counter”.
- Last, but not least, talent choice and variety. It’s no secret that things like “Stable Decoy” at level 4, “ionic forcefield” at level 13, or god-forbid “Lethal Decoy” at the laughable 16th level are picked 2-5% of the time … why? … di-, did you seriously just ask why? … the same reason you don’t pick apollo suit at level 20 … THE SAME REASON IMPERIUS AND SOME OF HIS SPECIFIC TALENTS GOT NERFED … there’s just simply flat-out superior options, and that forces you into 1-2 builds, that’s it. No diversity, just predictability. And predictability is what gets you into traps and gets you killed.
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I hope you stayed long enough to read all of this. I genuinely hope this helped and gave all players a different perspective on Nova as a character.
Thank you.
P.S: Blizzard, please address Nova … something … anything … I would appreciate it.
