Nova [small] rework concept

General Discussion
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I will not talk about what’s wrong with Nova in this thread, as I already did that in: Let's talk about Nova
Also, I wouldn’t mind a bigger Nova rework (than what I am suggesting in this thread, thus the “small” in the title), but this one is less time consuming to think of, and for the devs to apply, if they like it. My goals are thus:

  • Do not introduce concepts that would require new assets
  • Keep Nova relatively the same, while fixing her main problems
  • Balance Nova in a way, that allows players to pick her over other ranged assassins in favorable conditions.
  • Clean up existing talents, consolidate weak talents
  • Increase the amount of viable builds Nova has

CORE KIT

Basic attack damage increased from 105 to 150

Nova is currently one of the lowest dps ranged assassins. This buff will put her on par with her peers (listing their dps, and not dph; Nova has 1 aps, so her dps is the same as her dph):
Raynor: 126,25 base; 165,7 with the trait; 215,4 with trait + adrenaline rush.
Zul’Jin: 117,5 base; 146,875 with trait activated; up to 293,75 with trait activated, while at 1 HP. These numbers are without any trait stacks, or talents
Valla: 125 base; 225 while at 10 hatred
Cassia: 173,33 base; 208 to blinded targets
Falstad: 148,72 base
Fenix: 153,55 base
Greymane: 148 base; 222 while W is active
Hanzo: 132 base
Tychus: 200 base
So this change will keep her on the lower damage end of ranged assassins, but will greatly increase her sustained damage, which she is currently lacking so much.

Health increased from 1300 to 1350

Nova is currently one of the squishiest heroes in the game. She should at least have as much HP as Valla.

Trait - Permanent Cloak

Gain Stealth when out of combat for 3 seconds. Taking damage, attacking, using Abilities, or Channeling reveals you. Remaining stationary for at least 1.5 seconds grants Invisible.
Passive: Gain 15% Movement Speed, while Stealthed.

[1] Ghost Protocol

Cooldown: 60 seconds

Activate to instantly grant Stealth to Nova. Nova is Unrevealable for the first 1,5 seconds, when Stealthed by Ghost Protocol.

Passive part unchanged. The decoy is removed from Ghost Protocol, but the unrevealable duration is increased, so it can be used as an escape tool, and so she can get some better talents.

[Q] - Snipe

Mana Cost: 50
Cooldown: 6 Seconds

Snipe - Deals 250 damage to the first enemy hit.

Damage increased by 20, baseline quest removed. Just for comparison:
Raynor’s Q deals 220 dmg to all enemies on its path.
Cassia’s Q deals 175 damage to the 1-st enemy hit, and to the enemies to its sides.
Falstad’s Q deals 121-242 dmg to all enemies in its path.
Valla’s Q deals 160 + 2*80 = 300 damage.
Zul’Jin’s W deals 116-232 damage to all enemies in a ring area;
So while Snipe will still be on the strong side damage wise, it will still be on par with its peers, who still deal more basic attack dps than Nova. The nerf however is there because of the basic attack damage buff.

[W] - Pinning Shot

Mana Cost: 65
Cooldown: 12 seconds

Deal 100 damage to an enemy and Slow it by 40% for 2.25 seconds.

Unchanged, it’s fine as it is.

[E] - Holo Decoy

Mana Cost: 50
Cooldown: 15

Create a Decoy for 5 seconds that appears to attack enemies, dealing 1% of Nova’s normal damage. Using this Ability does not break Cloak.

Decoy’s damage is already insignificant, however, current Nova had to suffer some nerfs because of it. I’m ~almost~ removing it, so Nova herself can be stronger baseline, while keeping decoy’s ability to interrupt enemies and dismount them.

[R1] - Heat Seeking Missile

Mana Cost: 50
Charge Cooldown: 35 seconds
Charges: 3

Locks in on the target Hero over 0,625 seconds, then fires a shot that hits the first Hero or Structure it comes in contact with for 372 damage.

I decided to give Nova a bit more freedom with this ultimate. While the channel time should’ve been 0,75 sec to be on par with the old TT, I decided to make it slightly lower, so it’d be more reliable to compensate for the overall power loss.

[R2] - Precision Strike

Mana Cost: 100
Cooldown: 60

After a 1.375 second delay, deals 435 damage to enemies within an area. Unlimited range.

Just reduced the delay a bit to make it feel more reliable, after the movespeed buff

TALENTS

I tried to keep her talents as close as possible to what she currently has, or to what she had before the stealth nerf.

Level 1 Talents:

[W] Longshot

Increases the cast range of Pinning Shot by 30%. Pinning Shot also increases of Nova’s basic attack range by 1,35 (30%) for the next 3,25 seconds.

It’s 3,25 seconds, so she can proc it on up to 3 basic attacks instead of just 2. Also, right now this talent has anti-synergy with OitC build Nova, so this also aims at fixing that. But to compensate for the utility buff, I nerfed the basic attack range it provides. So now her basic attack range will be as long as her upgraded Pinning Shot range.

[W] Covert Ops

Increases Pinning Shot’s damage by 15%. After being Stealthed for 4 seconds, Pinning Shot’s Slow is increased to 55% and costs no Mana. Bonus is lost after losing Stealth for 1 second.

That talent is good as it is, but a bit underapreciated. So I thought that a little unconditional buff may help it a bit… nothing significant tho.
Later on, when I do the damage calculations, I am taking this talent into consideration. However, if it’s a bad idea to buff this talent, then baseline Pinning Shot should incorporate the 15% damage buff.

[D] Advanced Cloaking

Stealth grants you additional 10% Movement Speed. While Stealthed, regenerate 2 Mana per second.

Just reverting the unneeded nerf to this talent. Since both other talents are getting buffed, why not the most underperforming one too?

Level 4 Talents:

[E] Holo Stability

Increases the cast range and duration of Holo Decoy by 120%.

Fine as it is.

[E] Rapid Projection

Reduces Holo Decoy’s cooldown and Mana cost by 50%.

Fine as it is.

[Passive] Ghost Efficiency

Nova’s basic attacks deal 25% increased damage to non-heroes, and splash to non-heroes within 2,5 units radius of the original target.

Currently one of Nova’s biggest problems is the lack of early game waveclear. This talent, combined with her increased baseline attack damage is aiming at fixing exactly that. Unlike Covert Mission, this talent doesn’t require her to collect stacks, and bribe mercs. She is getting constant value out of it, so it’s much more efficient.

Level 7 Talents:

[Q] Snipe Mastery

Quest: Hit enemy heroes with Snipe to get a stack (up to 1 per cast), up to 15 stacks. Each stack increases Snipe’s damage by 5%. Missing a Snipe reduces your stacks by 4. Dying removes half of your stacks.

Reward: After getting 15 stacks, Snipe gets additional 25% damage, and you no longer lose stacks when you miss.

At 15 stacks, your Snipe will be dealing 500 damage. Before the stealth nerf, Nova’s Snipe was dealing up to 542,5 damage, so it will be closer to its old value, but will be much harder to get there. Yet once you have the 15 stacks, you will no longer be punished for missing, only for dying, which will also reset the reward, and you will need to get 15 stacks again before you can start missing again.

So this quest is much harder than before. You need to get 15 hits in a row + 4 per every miss on the way there. Yet it’s players’ decision whether to go for it, or not. They wouldn’t be punished for a choice they didn’t make themselves.

I’m actually not sure how difficult it will be to complete this quest… if it’s too hard, then maybe you can lose just 3 stacks per miss, and 5 when you die. That would be for the balance team to decide.

[Passive] One in the Chamber

After using an ability, Nova’s next Basic Attack within 3 seconds deals 50% additional damage.

While the % was nerfed, due to the baseline damage buff, the raw value from this talent is actually a bit higher than before. I balanced it in a way that OitC build Nova would be close in damage to her old OitC self.

[Passive] Anti-armor Shells

Nova’s basic attack speed is reduced by 60%, but she deals 150% more damage. Her basic attacks also ignore positive armor values.

Quest: Basic attacks against enemy heroes further increase the damage bonus by 1%

At 1-st I thought that this talent will be overpowered, due to the basic attack damage buff. However, after calculating her damage (you can check that after the talents section), it turned out that it wasn’t overpowering Nova, due to the baseline Snipe nerf (quest removal). It only shifted bigger part of her damage from Spell to Physical.

Instead of 456,5 (spell) + 301,875 (physical), she is dealing 350 (spell) + 375 (physical). But her damage over time is higher (which was the point of her basic attack damage buff).

Also, Nova will be getting up to 1,5 + 4% damage every 2,5 seconds; Zul’Jin can get 1 damage every 2-4 sec; Zagara can get 1,5 damage every 4 sec; However, Nova is not the type of hero who is constantly attacking heroes, so she will be getting less stacks than the other 2 mentioned heroes. And her quest comes on level 7, while the other 2 get theirs baseline and on level 4.

Level 13 Talents:

[Q] Railgun

Snipe pierces trough all enemies on its path, and its range is increased by 15%.

While this talent wouldn’t be necessary anymore for non-Snipe build Novas, it will be the bread and butter of Snipe build Nova, as it will be allowing her to hit her desired target more reliably.

But even the other builds can benefit from this talent, if they didn’t take the Ghost Efficiency on level 4, and they want to get some waveclear, that doesn’t require a heroic.

[W] Double Tap

Pinning Shot now has 2 charges.

Reverting an old nerf, as it will have better talents to compete with.

[1] Tactical Retreat

Reduce Ghost Protocol’s cooldown by 30 seconds. Using it grants you 30 armor, that lasts for 3 seconds after you leave stealth.

Passive: Reduces the delay before you naturally enter stealth by 1 second.

This talent will make Ghost Protocol a lot more flexible, and will further enhance its “escape tool” powers. I like this better than the current Ion Force Field. And also, this talent has great synergy with the new level 20 talent.

Level 16 Talents

[Q] Perfect Shot

Hitting an enemy hero with Snipe reduces its cooldown by 3 seconds, and refunds its mana cost.

Reverting it to the way it was before, as her Snipe build is also quite close to what it used to be.

[W] Crippling Shot

Pinning Shot lowers a Hero’s Armor by 20 for the duration of the Slow, causing them to take 20% increased damage.

Fine as it is… I could’ve reverted the nerf it got, but I don’t think it’s needed, as Nova will be stronger baseline.
However, if her level 7 talents are weaker than the way I’m suggesting them here, then this talent should be reverted to remove 25 armor to compensate, as I balanced Nova to be as strong as she used to be… Although numbers aren’t everything, and the Nova I’m suggesting is actually more versatile, even if the numbers she has are the same. Anyways, I guess that would be for the balance team to decide.

[E] Lethal Decoy

Increases the damage Holo Decoy deals to 50% of Nova’s damage.
Decoy benefits from all of Nova’s talents

Since Nova will no longer be able to leave a decoy with Ghost Protocol, she can finally get some love on this talent… Currently 2 decoys deal 60% of her damage, so having only 1 decoy, with just 50% damage should be fine.
It should also be benefiting from Snipe Master, unlike now.

Level 20 Talents:

[R1] Your name’s on it!

Heat Seeking Missile pierces trough all enemies, until it reaches its target.

You basically get a small Pyroblast that damages everyone on its path, instead of everyone around your target.
Current Version’s cooldown reset is cool and all for QM, but too niche. This talent will make HSM a lot more reliable, although, due to the damage split into 3 charges, you should still be able to leave Nova’s range before she can fire them all at you, so there is counter play.
And things that counter Pyroblast, can be used to counter HSM too.
But if the 3 charges are indeed making it overpowered, then I suppose this talent can reduce the amount of charges she has by 1; or remove the charges, and also increase its damage. Whatever is balanced.

[R2] Precision Barrage

Precision Strike gains a 2nd charge and its cooldown is reduced by 30 seconds.

Fine as it is.

[Active] Ghost Maneuvers

Cooldown: 60 seconds

Teleport to a nearby location, resetting the cooldowns of your Snipe and Pinning Shot, leaving a Decoy at your old location.

An alternative for Rewind, that doesn’t allow her to spawn more than 2 decoys at a time, that also gives her some mobility.
Since this talent doesn’t reset Holo Decoy’s cooldown, it’s a bit worse with OitC, but since it gives you mobility, something you otherwise lack. It’s actually as good as Rewind, if not better.

It could also be made to “swap your position with that of your decoy”, but then Lethal Decoy should be further buffed, and its synergy with Holo Stability will be insane - you’ll have a really long distance teleport. So I don’t really like this version.

[D] Slippery Ghost

Increases Ghost Protocol’s unrevealable duration by 0,5 seconds, and using abilities or attacking no longer reveals you while you are unrevealable. Using Ghost Protocol removes all negative effects and DoTs from you.

Another survivability talent. It brings back the old Ghost Protocol, but it’s also better, since it also removes slows, roots, blinds and DoTs from you.
It may actually be too good, considering the cooldown reduction from the level 13 talent. However, Valeera has a similar talent on much shorter cooldown, and currently Valeera is in a much better spot than Nova, so maybe this is okay.

But if it is overpowered, then I suppose the “attacking while unrevealable doesn’t reveal you” part can be removed.

Numbers

Now I will compare the numbers of old Nova, current Nova and the Nova I am suggesting, just to show that she will not be overpowered, or underpowered:

NB!: For the suggested Nova, I am using Pinning Shot with Covert Ops talent. Without it, the damage will be slightly lower, and that’s why I said that if the buff for Covert Ops doesn’t happen, then at least a baseline buff is in order.

Note: for the old and suggested versions, the time for her combo is ~1,75 seconds, while for the current version it’s ~2 seconds, because now you also need to use Ghost Protocol twice for full value, which increases the required time for execution.

Another note: I’ll be calculating stuff with the highest damage possible, and not always “the best for the build” talent just to make calculations easier, since in her old version one talent was better, but in the suggested version, another one is, thus potential confusion. So I’ll just avoid it this way.

OitC + Double Tap + Crippling Shot + Rewind/Ghost Maneuvers:

Old Nova: 2796,25 + 4% dmg over 6 sec. Or 2560 + 4% dmg over 5 sec.
Current Nova: 2606,8 + 4% over 6 sec + 189,45 + 4% Decoy damage.
Suggested Nova: 2602 + 4% dmg over 5 sec. Or 2782 + 4% dmg over 6 sec.

AAS + Double Tap + Lethal Decoy + Rewind/Ghost Maneuvers:

Old Nova: 2034,75 + 4% dmg over ~1,75 sec
Current Nova: 2073,125 + 4% over ~2 sec
Suggested Nova: 1960 + 4% over ~1,75 sec (and it increases, as you collect stacks)

Snipe Master + Double Tap + Lethal Decoy + Rewind/Ghost Maneuvers:

Old Nova: 2212 + 4% dmg over ~1,75 sec
Current Nova: 1891,8 + 4% dmg over ~2 sec
Suggested Nova: 2410 + 4% dmg over ~1,75 sec

While a higher number, the quest is harder to complete, so I think it’s a fair trade off. And the biggest reason for the higher damage is the increased basic attack damage, combined with the increased Lethal Decoy damage.
However, I do think Nova needs a high risk, high reward build, and that that is exactly it.

AAS + Double Tap + Crippling Shot + Rewind/Ghost Maneuvers:

Old Nova: 1470,625 + 4% dmg over ~1,75 sec.
Current Nova: 1510,6 + 4% dmg over ~2 sec
Suggested Nova: 1441 + 4% dmg over ~1,75 sec (It also increases as you collect AAS stacks)

Snipe Master + Double Tap + Crippling Shot + Rewind/Ghost Maneuvers:

Old Nova: 1855 + 4% dmg over ~1 sec
Current Nova: 1321,6 + 4% dmg over ~1 sec
Suggested Nova: 1771 + 4% dmg over ~1 sec

As you can see, her numbers aren’t much higher, or much lower than her old, or her current self.

Thank you for your time :slight_smile:

EDIT: I think that it’s possible to switch level 7 and level 13 talent’s places for balance purposes. While getting a quest as late as level 13 may be counter-productive, these talents may end up being too strong for level 7. But that is just a suggestion in case she does in fact end up too strong early-mid game. I was also considering switching only OitC and AAS with Double Tap and Railgun, but being able to take both SM and OitC/AAS at the same time would also be too much.
Also, if AAS does prove too strong, despite of Nova having relatively the same numbers, it can reduce her attack speed to 50%, and increase her damage by 100% instead.

12 Likes
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I really like it, I’m not a fan of current nova’s low auto attack damage, and this should make her feel a lot better.
Also, doesn’t nova have a higher AA range than most heroes (I think the same as raynor?) so I hope the buff wont make her damage too safe, after all hanzo’s AA range got nerfed for that very reason.

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Yeah, she has 6,5 range, which is as much as Raynor. But Raynor will still have more dps than Nova, thanks to his trait… So just having 150 dps at 6,5 range shouldn’t be a sufficient condition to call for a nerf, as Raynor has 165,7-215,4 dps with the same range.
When we take talents/builds into consideration, the balance may shift, but I don’t really think it will call for a nerf. But even if it does, I think she can sacrifice 0,5-1 range in order to be good :stuck_out_tongue:

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Eh… nah. Nova isn’t supposed to have waveclear or be good at PvE. Honestly, one thing that irks me about Nova players is when they’re in lane attacking minion waves when they should be moving around ganking (or other players not picking up a lane Nova is stuck in to let her roam). Almost every Nova rework idea I’ve seen involves doing something to give her better waveclear, and I’d argue that lack of waveclear is kind of the point of Nova; you don’t pick her when the team needs waveclear.

The Heat Seeking Missile suffers from the same problem as Triple Trash so I don’t really see the point other than allowing Nova a bit more freedom of movement with separate charges. The level 20 talent you suggested fixes the problem, but it’s kind of disappointing that an ult needs its level 20 talent to actually be any good.

Other than that, I like the other changes, especially the baseline buffs.

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And that’s exactly it. You can’t pick Nova if your team lacks waveclear, and the main purpose of this rework is to make Nova viable.
If your team has waveclear anyways, you are free to pass on the talent, but I see nothing wrong with allowing Nova to fit into more compositions, without punishing them.

Yet it will not be the only heroic that requires level 20 to be good. I think it will be too good for it to have its upgraded effect baseline.
But perhaps it can have 1 piercing charge on level 10, and the upgrade increases the charges to 3. Something like that…

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Or you could just give her 20% splash baseline, lower snipe damage by 8%, increase her AOE talent to 100%, and make her gain a stack of snipe every 20-30 seconds. This would fix 95% or her problems without grossly overpowering her in kill potential.

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Why would you even try to compare Nova to real AA heroes? This makes completely no sense. Same as talking about dps. Mephisto got high dps but low burst. Nova can have low dps but high burst.

Lethal Decoy + GP clone is what caused nerf, not baseline decoy. Removing GP + LD synergy fixes that. And it should be done long time ago. Right after the rework when she received GP, LD completely dominated the tier regardless the build.

I thought Nova is a sniper who should be rewarded for accuracy?

For the XXth time.
Reworked Nova was frikkin strong. She was a sniper. They did something right. Her waveclear was worse than its now, so she doesnt need it.

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@WereElf, I must say I am very intruiged by your concept!

Especially the ultimate change sounds really fun to be perfectly honest.
It does not require a lot of FX tweaks, as you simply use the Triple Tap animation, but let it cast once. It makes it a lot more flexible as well.
The upgrade sounds fun too, will make interesting plays!

The talent changes also sound very well thought out, and bringing back some talents / effects from previous iterations of Nova is a good idea.
But there are a few pointers which I think could be different:

  • [E] - Holo Decoy: The damage should stay at 10% It is not significant to be dangerous, but the small numbers could make a difference in a fight.

  • [Passive] Ghost Efficiency: I absolutely disagree with giving decoy splash damage. I would rather see Decoy gain more survivability instead.
    My idea: Decoy no longer deals double damage to herself.

This might not help in wave clear, but if you intend to bring back Railgun, that talent can take its place. Personally I dont find the need for Nova to have waveclear, she can stall with decoys already.

  • [Q] Railgun: I never played with the original Railgun talent, but I feel that any heroes after the first should receive less damage.
    First target 100%, all subsequent targets 50% or something.

  • [Active] Ghost Maneuvers: I feel the combination of teleport + reset is too powerful. But I like the idea with a decoy spawning after teleporting.
    Maybe instead of resets, it could provide a CDR of x-seconds / x-percent of basic abilities.

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Doing this just to show that this change wouldn’t make her more powerful than the rest of the ranged assassins. Currently one of Nova’s biggest problems is her low damage outside her combo. So I’m fixing this problem, and doing the comparison just to show she will not be broken.
But let’s take Jimmy for example, on level 20 with Ace in the Hole, Bounty Hunter and Weak Spot Acquired, he deals 904 + 6% of max HP as damage in less than a second (actually could be more… I’m not sure if WSA applies the armor debuff prior to the hit, like AAS, or after it). He’s supposed to be a sustained damage hero, right? Then why does he have burst damage option?
Or let’s look at Valla, who is another one of the heroes I gave for comparison. With Puncturing Arrow + Repeating Arrow + Seething Hatred, Valla deals 1386.8 + 4% + 402,5 damage over ~1,25 sec (actually the time required to deal that damage is a bit longer, but the time to set it up is about that long). That’s as good burst damage as Nova’s while also having much better sustained damage.
My point is, that even if Nova is supposed to be burst damage hero, she should still have at least some sustained damage.

While true, I feel that OitC was nerfed exactly because of Decoy’s damage. If you look at the numbers, you’ll see that OitC Nova deals about the same damage as before, but only when you take her Decoy’s damage into consideration.

Yup, and people will have the option to build her as a Sniper. And if you look at the numbers, she will be even slightly stronger than she ever was, although it’d be harder to get there! It’s just that she will also be more useful in general, and wouldn’t be as niche, which is the purpose of the rework.

I had to check if I worded it wrong, but I haven’t. The splash damage is for Nova’s basic attacks. While the decoy will benefit from it as well, that isn’t the talent’s purpose.
She can get a talent on 4 increasing her decoy’s survivability too, I guess. But I’d still like her to have this option there.

Problem with Railgun in the way I suggested the rework is that it comes at levels 13. While this is still earlier than level 16, it’s still mid-game.
Stalling a wave with decoy isn’t good enough, as she also needs to clear the wave, not just stall it. Stalling isn’t helpful when nobody else is coming to help you clear.
But Ghost Efficiency is mostly there, so you don’t force your team into heroes with waveclear, instead you can cover for them if needed. It’s not a go-to talent material, but it’s still useful in some situations.

Idk, I started playing the game way after Railgun. But if Nova can have 90% splash damage, then having 100% pierce damage makes sense. I mean, generally speaking, piercing usually hits less enemies than splash. And if it indeed does less damage, then it will not be able to fulfill its purpose. And even if it does deal less damage, 50% is way too harsh. That would make it deal just 125 damage baseline, or up to 250 with Snipe Master…

The purpose of the cooldown reset is mostly there so you can confuse enemies, by casting your spells right away, as a Decoy would. I don’t know if it will be too strong… It will pretty much be a better version of the current Rewind, which is only good when you have taken Lethal Decoy, as Snipe already has short enough cooldown, and Pinning Shot’s damage is laughable.

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Everything you mentioned can be done with her current kit and baseline values.

All she needs is Blizzard to grow some and ignore QM whiners.

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I see I accidentally thought of Decoy only, my bad. Might be the name you gave to the talent.

I can get into the increased damage against PvE elements, I would personally prefer it over Bribe myself as well.
But I do not agree with giving her AoE on her basic attacks, it feels so off and unecessary. To me she is a single target dps hero and not an AoE generic hero.

Fair point, I think it would be a balancing matter.
In corridors a piercing E will have a lot longer reach (esp. with +15% range), since it can also reach the backline. Current explosive rounds keep the backline healers safe from harm, that is why I feel it shouldn’t be 90% at least.

The cooldown of Nova’s abilities is low enough to not need a reset after a teleport. Not giving a full reset on talents adds a bit of cooldown-management to Nova players as well.
In the current idea of yours you could do a lot of damage with Lethal decoy:

E > Q > Teleport > E > Q

3 decoys dealing 50% damage (esp. with snipe stacks / railgun), and a free escape card will make Nova impossible to kill while she will be able to blow you up every 60 seconds like that.
Which is why hard resets in this case sounds very overpowering to me.
Soft resets in a the shape of CDR would therefore be more balanced.
Medivh already has the very first soft-reset talent which is a %-CDR for heroics, so the mechanic exists too.

12

It has all been taken into consideration. She will not be able to do much more than she used to be able to do before. She will just be able to use if defensively too. But when she uses it offensively, she can no longer use it defensively. If she uses it defensively… well, she can risk using her abilities, but doing so will give the enemy a chance to catch up with her via mobility/cc. So starting to run right away would be the best option in most cases, which sacrifices her damage potential.

I actually balanced my rework solely around this talent providing her with cooldown resets on her Q and W. If that goes away, I suppose some other parts of her kit could be buffed to compensate.
Or she can simply keep her current Rewind, and get the teleport, leaving a decoy behind as a separate talent.

13

Both could work in essence.
The finer details for numbers can always be solved through playtesting either way.

All in all, I like your mini-rework concept of Nova a lot.
Except for the AoE splash in the lv 4 talent section, I feel that is a completely unnecessary added mechanic which isn’t a number matter.

14

Well, I suppose it could also be something like Tyrande’s Huntress’ Fury, or Tracer’s Ricochet - makes her basic attacks jump to a nearby non-hero. I do think that she needs a waveclear talent, but I don’t feel that a simple damage increase against non-heroes wold be sufficient by itself.

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I see your point, but I don’t think Nova’s lack of viability is tied to her non-existent waveclear. You also can’t pick Gazlowe when your team needs a healer, or Valla when your team needs a tank.

As far as Triple Trash goes, I would suggest removing the projectiles and just allowing the ability to deal point and click damage on a delay. Maybe decrease the damage of each hit and increase the delay to give the enemy time to react. The level 20 talent could be something like giving Nova unstoppable while using TT and making Snipe hits reduce it’s cool down or something.

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I actualy think that the decoy is one of the things that makes this ability less generic. I think its better to keep this one.

And again an ability made as generic as possible and removing any interesting aspects of it.

Just because of these 2 changes im already disliking this rework before i did even read the remainder (and note, its not a bad rework! its just these 2 changes that i dont like because they affect the base kit too much).

Nearly all reworks of older heroes added some dynamic part to the hero. In some cases that was a quest, in some cases it was changed entirely, and sometimes they added new abilities that synergize with the existing ones and potentialy buff them that way. Removing such parts is only going to make a hero more dull.
But hey, lets see if the quests can at least do something interesting to justify these 2 changes.

(and at this point i started reading the talents because i dont want to be negative before actualy reading it all. Who knows if talents improve the downsides i see now.)

And at the level 7 talent i see what you did there. You basicly made a very OP talent. A basic ability that normaly can deal 250 damage, now can be boosted with 75% from the quest directly and 25% from finishing the quest. A 500 damage shot.
This basicly becomes a TMT quest of medivh by supplying a massive damage boost. The other 2 talents cant even compete. This is dangerous design to me and is the reason for me to instantly comment about it.

But anyway, lets go through it per level:

For the level 1 talents i dont see anything weird and they read like regular level 1 talents, sounds fine.

At level 4 however i see a missed potential because its still just boosting the ‘useless’ E button (yes i know it isnt useless, but it gives only 1 option to avoid E). And its a waveclear talent.
Sure it can be balanced, but i rather would have seen some more unique feature regarding the D or Q button.
For example we combine both E talents and add a new one:

  • When a nearby minion dies, reduces the D cooldown by 1 second. Hero deaths instantly refresh the cooldown.
    This could be combined with your ghost efficiency (Except having the hard reset in that case).
  • Quest: Chain a W and Q hit 10 times. After 10 times, hitting W Boosts the next Q shot by 10%. (10% because with later damage stacks this can be quite high damage)

For level 7, other than your new quest nothing changed, but with such drastic change to Q, the other talents will need to get buffed to compete. I think changing the quest itself would be better as it can leave this tier mostly as is.

Your Level 13 changes does sound a bit strong on the Q due to your level 7 talent, but without it actualy sounds quite fair. The other talents here seem ok. I like the active ability on 1 though. It sounds like a very suitable addition to her talents in general

Level 16 is already quite similar to how it works now and doesnt sound like it needs changes.

But that leaves us with the level 7 talent that i still think is going to be broken in balance. I think we should split these again to become baseline for a part, but also allow this talent to boost the snipe a lot.
For this i think putting the snipe quest on its baseline would be ok, but just like this talent, being far more graceful for misses.
But this also needs to be stretched out a bit further for that. So lets make it 50 stacks where each stack adds 1% (125 damage upon completion). Deaths still reset half of it!
At level 7 we can then create a talent that increases the damage, but also increase the miss penalty:
Each hit now grants 2% damage (allowing a 100% boost), but missing removes 6 stacks.
To prevent going to 0 too quickly. As bonus you now can permanently preserve 1 stack for each takedown up to 25 stacks.

So as conclusion, i think there should be more dynamics between the basic abilities to justify removing the quest on Q. But even without removing it, making it more graceful would already be enough (your idea at least gave some inspiration for me to rework it to something i think would work better). But other than that, most changes should work out ok.

And now the ultis.
As R2 didnt change. I will only comment on R1.
The first thing i notice is that instead of being 3 shots forced at once, its now 3 seperate shots. And although being mostly similar there, i think the old system had the charme of forcing to self root you. This forced some timing to get the most out of it (although usualy didnt work how it should).
I think this will definitely solve that issue. But i would still like a way that allows you to remain locked onto a target when they retreat beyond your locking distance.
Maybe make it a toggle? And an interupt just stops at whatever shot you were so it doesnt go on full cooldown?

With that, your level 20 at least compliments the change you made well. But i do have a questions/comments here:

  • If it pierces a hero, does it deal damage? Since in some cases it doesnt matter wether you truly hit your target. knowing it deals piercing damage does allow some additional damage. It might even make it more dangerous in general because of this.
  • I think structures should still block the shot, counter play is welcome, and especialy since it already becomes much harder to mitigate than a pyroblast (due to spreaded out damage), i think it would otherwise in some cases become a dull unavoidable system.
  • What do you think of the idea that at level 20 you no longer have to self root yourself to cast it? You still get the 0.625 charge up, but during that you can move aswel. On its own its going to be a weak level 20, but with a few other buffs this might make the upgrade more convenient.
  • And another concept for a level 20 feature: The bullet isnt piercing, but if it misses the target, sets the cooldown for that shot to 15 seconds instead of 35. This forces the locked on target to take the shot to reduce the damage output of nova. Which even if they can mitigate it, can put important abilities on cooldown for the enemy.
17

Well, I suppose you haven’t been playing the game for too long, because before they made stealth easier to see, Nova’s kit was very similar to what I am suggesting, and she was still considered as a weak hero by the majority of players.
Like, you think that 500 Snipe damage is too much, but back then her Snipe was dealing 542,5 damage, and it was requiring just 5 stacks, not 15. Snipe was dealing 310 damage without any stacks.
I pretty much reverted the rework she got along with the stealth nerfs, and gave her the rework she should’ve gotten in the 1-st place.
You can check the numbers section in the end of my rework suggestion, and there you will see a comparison of the damage Nova used to deal, the damage she deals now, and the damage she would be dealing with the suggested rework. You will notice that she isn’t much different than what she used to be, apart from some utility changes.

Whatever is balanced. If damaging everything on its way isn’t too strong, then that’s the way it shall be.

There are already abilities like Consume Souls, Pyroblast, Frost Blast, etc. Yet they can still be neglected, even if you can’t block them. Just the same counters will work for Nova’s HSM. But the spread out damage is as much of a weakness as it is a strength. Each shot’s damage isn’t that high for a heroic, and due to the charges, the enemy can leave your range before you can cast the 2-nd, or 3-rd shot.

Currently the biggest problem of TT isn’t it’s self-root, but its reliability. The goal of the rework is to solve Nova’s problems, including this one.

35 seconds is already fairly short, especially when it has 3 charges. That seems pointless to me.

18

May I just drop in and say:
Look how much discussion is going on here - in detail and just between a handful of people.
Now imagine the stress Blizzard is undergoing every time they rework something and they are judged by the entire player base. You can’t please everyone. No wonder there are complainers after every patch.

19

I have played her a lot during that time. But i also had been playing hammer, raynor and morales a lot during that, and in nearly all cases the heroes improved when they did get more dynamics in their kit. Thats why i i think going backward is generaly not a good idea. If simplifying can be done, then sure. But in this case the part where you arent supposted to randomly snipe is actualy a thing that added a dynamic part.
And also, during that time i also discovered that once the enemy is smarter and can counter your stealth, they instantly devestate you. Nova was nerfed to oblivion to save the bronze/silver players from getting anoyed too much. These times cant compare.

But again, im not stating that it doesnt work, i think its just a waste to remove these dynamic features. I rather see them being addapted in such way they arent forcing her completely into going very safe.
Hence your higher stack count, and reduced miss penalty sound like a decent solution to her current Q quest. But i would still just keep it baseline and only make the level 7 talent boost it.

The self root is a problem on this as it made her vulnerable to interupts of high damage burst. It surely isnt the only problem (and on your changes its even less of a problem), but it makes it harder to time it right as when you get interupted/bursted down, its going to be a problem to you as squishy hero. Thats why i suggested that feature.

I compared it partialy to lunara aswel. Which has 20 seconds with 2 charges. And at level 20 she gets 2 charges each 15 seconds. Hence again, i gave it as potential option. Sure, lunaras damage is lower, but lunara has her primary source of damage in a diffirent way than nova anyway. So these values dont have to be the same entirely.

Those lvl20 suggestions were only ment as inspiration for maybe an even more interesting concept.

20

The problem with the current design is that the quest is holding her back. Her Snipe was nerfed significantly in order to incorporate the baseline quest.
Also, due to the nature of the quest, players are punished for missing. And players have the quest forced onto them. Before, they were rewarded for hitting their Snipes.
While being punished for not playing well with a quest is okay, it’s not okay if that quest is part of the baseline kit.
That is why I think the quest should be removed from the baseline kit: so Nova can be buffed in other areas, and so players, who didn’t chose to go Snipe build aren’t punished for not playing the way they didn’t choose to.