Nova, better to miss or shoot less?

General Discussion
1

Is it better to spam snipe even though half of those miss?
Or is it better to never snipe unless 100% for sure you know your gonna land it, even if it means cutting the number of shots you shoot by half?

2

Better wait, i guess.
A perfect shot can kill and the CD is like 7 seconds if you miss, which is too long in team fights.

3

I think it’s best to use it at every chance and never miss. That sounds dickish, but it’s a pretty easy skillshot, especially when Nova has a built-in slow. Some practice, and you can get a good feel for when you can gank someone and they can’t dash away.

If you’re really concerned about it, you can always build stacks in lane. If you miss but hit a minion or structure, your progress is paused instead of lost.

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4

Snipe isn’t exactly free, it costs 10% of her mana pool to cast it once. If you spam it a lot at low accuracy your win rate on the hero is going to drop really low.

So I’d say wait until you have perfect shots. That, and literally pick Perfect Shot on 7 to remove the mana issue mentioned above.

A good way to nearly guarantee hits is shift queuing w+q on a hero, slowed heroes rarely instantly react in anticipation of a Snipe (which will fire instantly after Pinning Shot).

5

If you are playing OitC build, it’s better to use it anyways.
With Snipe build, after level 13 you get your stacks back rather fast, even after a miss, although it does go on a longer cooldown. And after level 16, hitting a non-hero may not reduce its cooldown, but it still damages the heroes around. So it’s not bad to spam Snipe.
Just with AAS, you are a bit better off to make sure you hit with your snipe rather than spamming it.

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6

An inexperienced person attacks the enemy guard head on; whether it’s sparring with padded hands/feet, shinai, sticks, etc etc
That also then extend to media of martial arts where protag/commentary character gasps “They have no openings!” or “Their guard is perfect!” That’s not the case, it’s just the person/character/author doesn’t know any better.

Experience combatants aim past the guard and force the defender to react to them.

It’s a similar deal with skillshots in HotS; players tend to just use spells because they’re off cooldown (regardless of hero) and they don’t really think of what they’re going to accomplish outside of hitting (the closest) target.

While you usually want to hit something more than nothing, what really helps is how you are positioned. Usually the closer, or perceived primary target, is more away of shots at them, and may be more likely to react. However, if they’re directly in line of another character, the person behind them is less likely to react because they may expect the person ahead to take the hit instead.

So your goal is to try to be in a position so your shots will still hit something even if the intended/closer target dodges it accordingly.

Aggressive positioning allows aimed shots to anticipate a hero may dodge, and expect the shot to still hit something anyway.

However, the effect of that, as Wereelf wrote, does vary a bit based on Nova’s build. If you’re the ‘primary’ damage dealer, then you may just want to hit something; if you’re the finisher, then you may want to make sure you can hit the intended target, and if you’re the debuffer, than it doesn’t really matter cuz your contribution will come from autos and pinning shots.

7

Ok i finally decided to go AAS build because I suck with her

Is this the right build?
1 Longshot
4 Rapid Decoy
7 Anti Armor Shell
10 Precision Strike
13 Double tap
16 Lethal Decoy
20 Precision Barrage

Chosen over OitC because its easier to do the AAS combo than the full OitC combo

8

In qm and aram i dominate with her and i like going this build.

  1. Longshot.
  2. Rapid projection to check bushes and break line of sight.
  3. I love perfect shot but the aa one has nice burst.
  4. Triple tap for the memes.
  5. Psionic efficiency to make the 2 sec snipes more forgiving when missing, but i guess double tap can work with the reduced armor.
  6. Crippling shot for q or aa burst.
  7. Fast reload for the meme again. If theres someone nasty i go rewind.
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