Since Nova is “ma ma’n” (my main), I thought I’ll make a little guide for her.
1. Talents:
Level 1:
- Longshot - Decent for poking enemies, due to the increased range, but bad when you devote yourself to get the kill, since you still need to get closer after the initial shot, thus any value from this talent is wasted. It works well with both AAS and Snipe talents on 7, but it’s terrible if you decide to go for OitC. It also makes you more mana hungry than the other 2 talents.
- Covert Ops - My go-to talent. The difference between 40% slow and 55% slow is insane. It makes it a lot easier to reliably hit enemies with Snipe and PS after the Pinning Shot, and it also saves you mana in the process. The condition to be in stealth for 4 seconds is not really noticable, as your job as Nova is to flank and gank enemies, so you should be stealthed most of the time anyways. The only problem is when you take double tap on 13, as your 2-nd Pinning Shot gets no benefits, but that’s not so much of a problem, as your 2-nd shot is usually there just to secure the kill.
- Advanced Cloaking - this talent could’ve been decent if it didn’t have a delay, but it’s kind a bad thanks to it. You don’t really need to mount with this talent (although mounts are still a bit faster). However, this talent lacks the kill potential the other 2 talents on this tier have.
Level 4:
- Rapid Projection - decent talent for OitC build due to the reduced decoy cooldown, allowing you to proc your OitC more often. Not much of a reason to pick it for other builds tho.
- Holo Stability - A great talent overall, due to the increased cast range you get. You can use your decoys to attack retreating enemies, by placing them where they’d have a clear shot (with Lethal Decoy on 16), and it’s good for scouting, without overextending, as the normal decoy cast range usually allows enemies to attack you while you are placing it. The increased duration is also helpful to sometimes fool enemies, or to just get more damage out of your decoys for their span time.
- Covert Mission - an okay talent for some maps, as Nova somewhat mends one of her weaknesses, which is map presence. However, collecting stacks is not always fast, and if enemy team has devoted laners, the camps don’t get much value. You also need to sacrifice utility and kill potential to get this talent.
Level 7:
- Perfect Shot - With this, you can constantly poke enemy team, and you also get some TF capabilities after level 16. It’s usually good on maps, where TFs are inevitable and there isn’t too much clutter around, like Hanamura, or BoE. It’s also the go-to talent if enemy team doesn’t have a healer (QM), or they consist of a beefy frontline, and 0-1 fragile heroes you’d usually feast upon.
- One in the Chamber - This talent gives Nova some reliable sustained damage, if she can’t hit her Snipes all the time, as well as some PvE potential on maps like BoE. However, it’s not as good as AAS for bursting down enemies.
- Anti-Armor Shells - It may seem like a trap talent, but it’s actually the best option she currently has for deleting squishy enemies. While OitC improves your damage over longer periods of time, this talent makes you a lot more bursty. You can kill some enemies before they can do almost anything (especially if they weren’t full HP when you attacked them). Nova’s job is to delete squishies, and this talent enables her to do just that. On top of that, it also allows you to move freely for 2,5 sec before you can attack again, allowing you to kite better, not having to worry too much about stutterstepping.
Level 10:
- Tripple Tap - while situational, this ulti is far from the worst one in the game, as people seem to think. There are some conditions that need to be met for it to work, but when it’s working, its power is quite the sight to behold. It can take away 70-80% of squishy heroes’ HP with a single cast, so it’s almost a certain kill. However, your enemy needs to be isolated, with no friendly heroes, who can block the missiles, nearby. And the enemy must be away from structures (walls included), that can also block your missiles. Then the enemy/enemy team needs to not have any abilities that can nullify your damage, like Varian with upgraded Parry, Genji with Deflect, Medivh with his W, etc, or they need to be on cooldown when you use TT.
It’s a great ult when playing against mobile enemies, who can easily juke your PS, and when the map allows splitting up (DS, IS, WHJ, TOD). - Precision Strike - this ulti is more flexible, as you can use it without worrying about enemies blocking the shots. It also gives Nova the so much needed waveclear. Using this ulti to clear waves is not wrong, as it has fairly short cooldown, and it’s usually sufficient to clear a large wave of minions, completely turning the tide on the lane (relieving map pressure from your team, and granting you extra exp). You can also use it to interrupt channeled objectives, or zone enemies. But the usual usage is to finish off fleeing enemies (or just zone them away from safety, so you/your team can finish them off yourselves), or as part of her combo, which significantly increases her burst damage, allowing her to kill a bit bigger part of the hero pool than she usually can. It is however hard to use on enemies with Mobility.
Level 13:
- Psionic Efficiency - a decent talent for Snipe build. It allows you to hit your Snipes from further away, making it more reliable when used on further away enemies, allowing you to kill them when they would’ve otherwise escaped. The double stacks you gain when hitting with Snipe makes your misses a lot more forgiving as well.
- Double Tap - Great talent for all builds. It increases the uptime of your CC, making it a lot harder for enemies to escape. It also gives you this extra source of burst damage, that you may need to finish off some of the enemies. Has great Synergy with OitC build, as you can proc your basic attack dmg bonus additional time. It’s also good for AAS build, where you leave a target at really low HP, but usually have no means to finish them off before they escape, as you can’t even basic attack them anymore, or it can at least buy you enough time for additional basic attack.
- Ionic Force Field - A terrible talent. It doesn’t do anything for Nova’s kill potential, and what it does for her survivability is laughable.
Level 16:
- Explosive Rounds - the pinnacle of Snipe build. It allows you to hit your desired target more reliably, even if there is another enemy in the way (unless your target is somewhat far away from the blocking enemy). It also makes her TF capabilities actually respectable, especially when combined with Nanoboost from Ana, then Nova alone can almost wipe the entire enemy team, even the tanks. But even without Nanoboobs, Nova still dishes out decent AoE sustained damage, that most healers have problems to deal with (not all tho).
- Crippling Shot - the go-to talent for OitC build. It increases yours and your team’s damage on the target by 20%.
- Lethal Decoy - this talent has been nerfed too much. However, it is still the go-to talent for AAS build, since now you can actually spawn up to 4 decoys (with Rewind on 20), which means total of 120% more single target damage! (80% more Nova damage compared to without the talent). It’s bad in TFs, although you can still secure some kills on retreating enemies with it.
Level 20:
- Fast Reload - in situations where TT is good, FR can also be good, as you can sometimes wipe the whole enemy team (mostly in QM tho).
- Precision Barrage - it’s a great talent, as you can use your ult a lot more freely.
- Apollo Suit - An Okay Level 4 talent, in the wrong neighborhood.
- Rewind - the pinnacle of AAS build, greatly increasing your kill potential, as you can spawn 2 additional decoys, as well as use additional Pinning Shot and Snipe. At this point you can kill half (or more) of the hero pool 1 v 1, or should I say 5 v 1 (due to the 4 decoys you spawn). The extra decoys create extra clutter, and it’s much harder to hit you with a skillshot, and also, using Ghost Protocol cancels enemies’ basic attacks against you, making it much harder for them to focus you.
2. Builds:
- Snipe build - Precision Strike on 7, Psionic Efficiency on 13 (optional), Explosive Rounds on 16, ult upgrade on 20, as you don’t really need Rewind with this build.
Great for TFs, and poking enemy team, when you can’t otherwise get isolated kills. - AAS build - Holo Decoy on 4, AAS on 7, Double Tap on 13, Lethal Decoy on 16, Rewind on 20.
Amazing for killing isolated targets, bad at everything else.
https://youtu.be/P3gKAAgzkbI
There can actually be 2 arguments to actually take Crippling shot on 16, instead of Lethal Decoy: 1) You are getting the majority of your kills via ganking, and not so much alone, and your teammates have mostly spell damage. 2) In TFs, you can’t be sure that the Decoy will attack the correct target.
But if you are mostly getting your kills alone, by picking off overextended enemies, then Lethal Decoy is the way to go. - OitC build - Rapid Projection on 4, OitC on 7, PS on 10, Double Tap on 13, Crippling Shot on 16.
PS is recommended, because it’s instant cast (although it has delayed effect), and can be used to proc your OitC as well, while you can’t get OitC value with TT.
This build has more sustained damage than the rest, and requires you to land a basic attack between each of your abilities. Its burst damage actually isn’t that much lower than that of AAS, but you can’t just use your abilities and be done with it, you need to devote yourself a bit more, and if you can kill an enemy for 2 sec with OitC, you can kill them instantly with AAS (which gives them less opportunities to do anything).
3. Strategy
- As Nova, your role is to roam the map and punish overextended enemies, or gank them in general. Your waveclear is one of the worst in the game, so there is no point from staying on lanes, apart from soaking the exp from there, if there is nobody else to do that job. Your main form of waveclear has global cast range, so you don’t really need to be on the lane even then.
You can often hide in bushes, or stay near them (in case enemy likes to throw skillshots in them before entering) and punish enemies who try to rotate. - Early game, you should mostly rotate from lane to lane and attempt to kill enemy team’s solo laners.
- Mid-late game you can also attempt to punish rotating enemies, or enemies who try to take camps (and steal the camp).
- Always try to position yourself in a way, that allows you to hit with your Snipe, as it’s your main damage source, even if you aren’t Snipe build.
- Open up with Pinning Shot, followed by fast Snipe. If you really want that kill, you can also put down a Precision Strike right away. With Covert Ops, you are almost guaranteed to hit the enemy, unless they have mobility.
- You can spawn your decoys next to the enemies to make them more tempting to attack. This is actually a good strategy against enemies who just want to attack stuff. Or if you expect them to run away from you, and you have Lethal Decoy. This way the Decoy will hit them more times before they actually escape from it.
- You can spawn your decoys between you and your enemies to use them as meat shield, so they block enemy skillshots. Good against heroes with blockable skillshots. You can also block skillshots aimed at your allies.
- You can spawn your decoys on yourself to make it harder to destinguish the decoy from the original, as well as make it harder for the enemy to click on the real you (although that can sometimes make it harder to click on the decoy instead). This strategy is bad against heroes with AoE spells like KT and J.na.
- You can sometimes spawn your decoys before actually attacking, to fool enemies. Switching between attacking 1-st and spawning decoy 1-st in the same game can confuse enemies. Just try to attack them yourself fast enough, so they don’t realize the decoy didn’t hurt them much.
- You can also spawn a decoy in a nearby bush, so they move out of the bush (while still stealthed) and make enemies think that this is actually you.
- Don’t rely on Ghost Protocol to be an escape tool, because it’s not. You could fool some enemies, if you use it when you enter a bush, but that totally depends on their heroes, and how close they were to you when you used it. It’s mostly used to spawn a decoy (esp when you’ve taken Lethal Decoy on 16), to cancel abilities like Butcher’s charge, or simply to force basic attack heroes to stop attacking the real you for a bit. While not always, it sometimes helps enemies give up on trying to chase you (if you are close to safety).
- If you’ve taken Tripple Tap, and you are playing against heroes like Tracer, or Genji, or w/e, use your ult after they’ve used the tools they have that can prevent it. I know this is obvious, but just be patient about it, don’t feel forced to use TT if the conditions are bad. These heroes are pretty much 100% dead without their prevention tools.
- In TFs, if you have gone Snipe build, you can simply stay in the back and spam Snipe (after level 16), as if you are just another ranged assassin. Not need to attempt flanking, you are likely to get the most value like this anyways.
- In TFs, if you have not gone for Snipe build, you can either focus whoever your team is focusing, so they’d die faster. Either you can attempt to flank and kill someone from enemy team’s back line. The latter is being quite risky tho, as you are pretty much dead as soon as enemy team turns around, if your team doesn’t have other heroes who can harass the back line. But TFs are not Nova’s strong point, when she’s not Snipe build.
- Try to kill isolated enemies before a TF breaks out, creating an advantage for your team. Even if you die, if you killed enemy team’s support, you have still gotten more value than them, as you aren’t really good at TFs anyways, while enemy can hardly TF without a support.
I feel like I’m still missing stuff, but this is already quite lengthy guide, so I guess you can ask me stuff, and I’ll just fill more info (if needed) in the comments.
![:stuck_out_tongue:](https://d3rakab8gpdsa3.cloudfront.net/en/heroes/images/emoji/twitter/stuck_out_tongue.png?v=6" ":stuck_out_tongue:")
