In response to a recent co-op tier list and video I thought I’d put my own rankings for Nova and reasons why. (The tier list ranking was SS, S, A, B, C, D.)
S Tier - P3 Infiltration Specialist While this prestige does lose some early game power via Nova shot gun it is nothing that can’t be overcome by adding some hellbats. The radius and cool down of her nuke and sabotage drone make pushing into enemy bases almost too easy. Also, with Super Cloak getting vision of enemies back lines is simple allowing you to target the high value areas.
A Tier - P0 Dominion Ghost This Prestige is one of the most balanced in the game. Each power spike is offset by an APM, positional, or mineral requirement. This prestige is super solid but switching between Nova modes can present issues. Also, this prestige costs more minerals to attempt to have the fire power of P3.
B Tier - P1 Soldier of Fortune This prestige is very situational. Using it requires a major disruption to your build order. On some maps you may not have units in time and will need to rely on your ally. While having mass Raid Liberators is a fun idea there are too many situations that you will lack the appropriate composition to counter the enemy threats.
C Tier - P2 Tactical Dispatcher This prestige is one that has kind of baffled me. Mobility has never been an issue Nova suffers from so I don’t know why its here. Admittedly I have never played this one, primarily because it give no advantage over standard Nova and you lose time to drop air strikes. Just can’t bring myself to use it.
What are your thoughts and reasons for Nova prestige rankings?
Don’t have that specific of a system (though not sure what qualifies those anyway considering you’re doing 1 CO). That said, P3 > P0 = P1 > P2. There is no real practical delay with P1 vs P0, but the extra cooldown is still gated behind resources. So it’s tid for tad. P1 does offer a more “fun” way if you will but gimmick gets old fast.
I’d say the power of P1 is even more dependent on player skill than P0. Bad decisions and mistakes are punished worse and map+comp understanding and accurate micro are rewarded more.
Agreed, hence I personally rate P0 = P1. A poorly choiced P1 is definitely more punishing than a poorly choiced P0 at the less experienced end. On the flip side, an experienced player really has no actual advantage in P1 over P0 either.
It is just a style difference of “do you want more ghosts, more liberators, more of x, etc.” or “do you want to mix and match more”. Either way, even at the rate of P0’s cooldown, it’s plenty of power using 1 type of unit. Spare APM rewards both ends… maybe P0 more. Since strategy wise, the theoretical best composition is Lib/Tank + Rav/Ghost. Between the switches of all those, it is difficult (and entirely unnecessary for any brutal game lol). Both that and mass x in P1 are limited by resource.
That said, P1 rewards a bit more when choiced correctly I suppose as well.
A Tier - p2 Nova’s lack of mobility is a very real problem with her. Being able to air lift Nova instead of the usual suicide into instant respawn to reposition her is nice. The downside to this prestige is barely noticeable except on Oblivion Express where you might have wanted to Air Strike both trains when they dual spawn.
B Tier - p1 Makes Nova a lot less flexible. Also requires players to scout the enemy composition before committing to their first building, this isn’t always possible on certain maps and generally requires you to sack a worker if it is. Delays your expansion.
C Tier - p3 A direct nerf to p0 Nova. The only map that this prestige is better on is Dead of Night, where you immediately abandon your ally to clear buildings. Every other map you would fare better and move faster just having Nova tank for your army as you clear the map as an unstoppable ball. Not having Nova available to tank makes her glass cannon army pretty much just assigned to clean up duty or I DEF status.
I use p3 Nova for public random map Brutal+ queue. A good way to look at p3 Nova is comparing it to p2 Zeratul: it’s worse than p0 in 95% of situations, but there’s still that 5% chance that you really wish you chose that prestige for the game. Sometimes the mutators are so cancerous that turtling and playing the long game is the best call. Here it’s nice to have a super stealth Nova.
Nova’s lack of mobility (which isn’t a “very real problem” if you just plan ahead) is solved with airstrike, wich p2 nerfs. So no, P2 is her worst prestige.
P1 makes her very flexible as long as you know what are you facing. Mass ghosts vs zerg, mass goli vs mech air, etc., roll over the enemy, your only weakness is, as someone mentioned, being careless with Ravens.
P3 is very strong if you let Nova clear bases and your army follows a bit later to cleanup while she moves to the next base. Probably the strongest prestige if you can multitask correctly.
I dont really understand your tier list, I have played many, many games with Nova - peraphs my most played commander- and I don’t see why you think that way.
P1: Can be very effective. It can take some time to get used to less reinforcements from alt buildings, but it’s not even as bad as I imagined before I tried, and while I mainly go for Barracks, those that don’t will just enjoy the early unlocked alt production buildings.
P0: Work well as it is. While P1 get some bonus, P0 may be easier to handle overall.
P3: Now it may look bad ranking, but P3 while somewhat fun can be very bad and inappropriate against some games, thus losing against the previous 2. When it’s not bad, it could be much better than P0 and P1, but final ranking is on an average, sorry.
P2: Tychus transport got 3 charges, and they heal and cloak. Losing the airstrike, partially or totally, is not worth it. Whatever situation that prestige tried to address, should probably have been addressed another way.
There’s generally not a time when P1 performs worse than P0, but many a time P1 works better. Even losing Ravens isn’t that big a deal, as both Infantry and Mech P1 have other ways to heal up.
P3 will generally be the best prestige for her if you are good at multitasking. However there are some maps (eg. Miner Evac and Void Launch) where it doesn’t provide that much extra value on the surface. However, on maps like that you still get her larger sabotage drones and nukes, and twice the nukes at that. The loss of assault mode does hurt some, but with some creative play there’s not much missing in the long run.
P2 is a pretty uncontroversial pick as last place.
I see P0, P1 and P3 as equally decent only P2 is very weird.
P0 is… ok. Since it is the benchmark, there is not much to say.
P1 is also ok. Overall the total charges recovery is relatively the same. You get 4 charges in 600s for 1 building while only 1 charge for the other 2 buildings in 600s. In 600s, your 3 buildings still provide roughly 6 charges the same as P0 (2+2+2). Surely u have to scout first but Factory and Starport still cost 100 gas, with the optimal eco build by the time you finished the 2nd refinery, you still only have 30-50 gas why not send a SCV out to scout? It is not much different from any other Prestige build may be 1 minute delay but so what?
P3 is… How should i say. Alright? The Assault mode is probably the least useful thing Nova has, at least in my opinion. You can try to use it to tank for mostly the early to mid game and only in case the Comp is not air. Ain’t no way that Assault mode can survive Reavers or Dominators’ continuous spell onslaught. They burst Nova opened like a balloon those heavy comp. Most of the time it’s the Defensive drone that saves your units, not assault mode. In P3, with a good timing you can sabotage drone the attacking wave and since the area is bigger that becomes more feasible. Also Nuke is good if you know where to plant them. The problem i notice when i play P3 is my micro is often time not good enough to push with Nova on one side of the map and control my army on the other side. It may be a problem of style and skill.
Now P2 is the bottom of my list. Let be honest you do not talk Amon out of a fight as Nova. You beat the bean out of the hybrids with the super buffed units and the 1000-mineral Airstrike. What good is teleportation if you have a weak army? And Nova’s army is only strong if you ensure their survival into late game to accumulate the army count. Nova is not other commander so if she lose too many units during the game she ain’t able to make replacement (due to the charge long recovery time). Teleportation does not save her army, it just delay the fight and while i am not a frequent muta players having 30s cooldown airstrike mean i can use that ability in quick succession because that can happen many times in muta.
P1>P3>P0>P2
I scout early, build mass counter units, erase waves and enemy bases.
normal cd of nukes, and normal range of sabotage drones are enuff for me to wreck waves and bases.
I can only imagine anyone thinking P2 is good if they don’t know how to use sabotage drone + airstrike or struggle with map awareness. Wave clearing and base pushing are both hurt by nerfing airstrike.
With the right build order on DoN you can have heavy siege tanks out before Nova pops; thus protecting your ally and the base. Nova and banshees clear both day and night. With good micro you can clear from 7 o’clock to 3 o’clock before the start of night 2 (11:00 in game time).
P3 has required me to improve microing both Nova and her units separately to get the most value, in the early game. However, in the mid-late game I still combine them.
To all who feel P1 is the best I wonder how you effectively counter all applicable units?
My standard composition is liberators, ravens, goliaths, and ghosts. (tanks are substituted for libs on infested maps, a set of early marines, and hellbats as needed) While I do tailor the build depending on the composition, more ghosts vs zerg, more goliaths vs air, more libs vs ground I have almost never wished I had more of X units. In fact when I don’t have access to my standard set I find it less effective.
I don’t necessarily think it’s the best of the 4, but P1 still quite strong.
My opinion is:
P0 you can counter the enemy comp, P1 you can hard counter it. Roach/Ultralisk versus 6 Ghosts, Ghosts will eat a good chunk of them. Same comp versus 12 or more Ghosts, the comp won’t be able to attack.
Mass Raven is micro intensive, but humorously strong. Add some Libs for missions like SoA and you’re gold.
Becomes less important as you get better, but it’s more resilient to getting wiped. Your main units come back faster.
hmmmm lol.