Almost every game as Nova I have the highest hero damage and highest number of kills. Which is surprising to me because it doesn’t really feel that way to me. I don’t feel like I’m doing much damage yet the stats say I’m no.1 hero damage dealer. And the important part here is that she is 0 AoE so that no.1 hero damage was single target so it’s not trumped up stats like Azmodan.
I think that’s pretty impressive.
Nova’s 0 macro is mitigated with Precision Strike. With that she can at least take out a stacked wave on her own. These days I never go triple tap anymore just so I have the ability to wave clear.
Lastly, her full rewind combo at 20 with decoy build deletes any non-healing hero. I think that’s pretty terrifying. Like if I see the healer occupied with healing the tank/bruiser I go in from behind and kill the primary assassin. 1v1 vs tanks she wins.
So considering high kill count, highest hero damage (thus highest hero sustain damage?), insane level 20 power spike, and passable wave clear after 10, is Nova really that bad?
I mean like at 20 butcher is scary but I’ve been blowing up butcher the moment he makes contact with my teammate and been winning games because of that. And there’s nothing Butcher can do to stop me from blowing him up 100->0 in 2.5 seconds.
Compared to Genji she is trash 100%. But when you don’t compare her to Genji… is she really that bad?
She’s not that bad, especially in the hands of someone stubborn enough to learn her
But most of what she does others can do with a much lower skill floor and with fewer restrictive scenario’s
And a big part of it is because due to things like Stealth and her point and click slow, not to meniton Triple Tap, Nova being viable in higher tiers would make her in her current state a stomp monster in lower ranks which also have to be considered.
It’s quite easy to hit highest hero damage as Nova if you went AAS. But from my perspective (when I’m playing as Nova that is), it kinda has some padded stats feel. Poke every AA cd timer → highest hero damage. Padded stats lose some of its value if there is a healer. Yes, I also did say, padded stats is not always wasted (as it’s damage healer needs to heal up, the hero needs to recover from), but in sustain fights, you can’t help but feel less impactful.
I would say she’s still ok in QM. I will almost always never pick her in SL.
Depending on the player she can be either fine or trash and 90% of the time she is trash cause most of them got carried by her Alpha kit that oneshotted most low hp heroes. Now they dont have a clue how to play her and even think they dont need to soak/defend lanes.
very few people played alpha, and if you think the only reason people can be bad with Nova is because they all remember her gameplay from 8 years ago, you are gravely mistaken.
Most heroes have greatly change since alpha; Abathur has probably changed the least.
Nova is also generally trash at soaking. She only has ONE talent that helps her soak, and it’s at lvl 16. The other way she has to help with soak is by using her Ult. It’s the biggest weakness in her kit, and it is an OK weakness to have in QM because she can easily secure kills there.
The big problem with Nova is that her dmg is healable, so she can’t secure kills in competitive as easily as Zeratul, Genji, Tracer or other ambushers.
They redesigned her to be a poke hero, but left the weakness of an ambush hero. This combination makes her great when there’s no healer or tank, mediocre when there is.
There’s a difference in being a bad hero, and being a niche hero, and being a generalist hero.
More generalist assassin like Sylvanas, Valla, Jaina, Raynor, or whoever you’d consider generalist are able to do anything. They can soak, team fight, have some sort of CC, and are pretty well rounded heroes and are good in a vast amount of situations.
Heroes like Nova, Genji, Tracer, Sgt. Hammer and such… are not so well rounded and specialize in one category or metric. Nova is great for roaming, blindsiding, and bursting down enemies. Genji and tracer are excellent finishers who can finish someone by diving, and then getting out to safety. Sgt. Hammer is good at zoning, but can struggle at other things. That’s why they’re niche heroes. Nova, Genji and Tracer have bad wave clear because of their strengths. Its how they’re balanced. If they had the ability to do everything like a generalist hero they’d be OP.
I really like Nova and despite what people say, I think she’s a good hero… at what she does. If you picked Nova for wave clear… that’s the problem. Not saying you would obviously, but you get what I mean.
Nova’s biggest problems is you effectively have to play twice as good as other ranged assassins to get similar value and frankly, unless you’re last drafting her you’re setting your team up to fail.
Doesn’t mean you will fail…but there’s a much larger chance of outright losing during draft or queue if you leeroyjenkins out a Nova pick without considering what that means for your team and the opponent’s team.
As people have said, Nova’s macro is largely defined by 10 - Precision Strike (and 20 upgrade) and 16 - Explosive Round. However, she can waveclear a bit or freeze the lane at need with Decoy. If you break stealth by firing at a minion and then Decoy, minions will focus on the Decoy. This allows your wave to gain the advantage while you assist and soak the exp. Then your wave can advance to chip at the towers. Obviously not great, but something else to consider.
Also: bad or not, Nova is one of the only heroes that I genuinely enjoy playing no matter the circumstance or result. She’s just so fun!
Personal feats of strength don’t mean anything when trying to gauge the average effect a Nova will have on a game when you see one on your team. Just like every hero, there are bad ones, and good ones, but as far as Nova’s kit goes, I personally would rather have a Valla/Orphea/Zul’jin/or most other ranged assassins on my team than an equally skilled Nova. Also, there are a lot of really bad Novas out there so it is safe to assume the one you have on your team will be more of a hindrance than a help.
Nova excels in non-coordinated enviroments (QM, and Metal Ranks). Outside of that as soon as players start to realize when and WHERE Nova rotates to, her value is basically just stat padding damage and maybe securing a kill here and there.
If the latter is all Nova is doing, you’d want basically any other ranged assassin (Valla, Cassia, etc) over Nova, both for burst damage and for sustain.
Nova is extremely squishy and lacks mobility/waveclear. She needs full stacks on her quest for snipe to deal reasonable damage too, so you’re punished hard for missing. There are heroes who can poke and/or gank better than she can without completely sacrificing Waveclear. The only real thing in her kit that provides significant utility is pinning shot, but there are far better ganking tools out there.
Her lack of utility and flexibility is supposed to be balanced around heavy single target deletion potential, but that tends to be frustrating to play against and get nerfed which leaves her as a hero who gives up a lot for not much in return
Snipe build is the way to go and it is very good when the enemy team lacks capability of breaking into your own back line, but unfortunately it takes too long to become slightly stronger than your average mage or Junkrat/Chromie/Hanzo; all of which fill an identical role in a sense of providing vision.
yyea this hero sucks she can’t do anything meaningful aside from kill kelthuzad because she can’t sneak behind forts and destroy healing fountains anymore
