09/02/2016 -
Nova isn't as nerfed as I first thought, and I've had success with a build, listed here. The main plus for me is you don't need stealth for damage any more.
Hey guys and girls, my name is Nite and I'm here to share with you my
Nova build, however before we get into the meat of the guide I thought I'd share a little about myself and the sort of player this guide is aimed at.
I am a casual player, I play for fun and nothing more however I always want to win, and to do my job well. I'm never going to be entering any eSports competitions, but I am going to be having a good time with a few cold beers. So basically this guide isn't perfect, it might be what all the cool kids are doing too, but that's by accident, not by design. This guide is for the solo player, or a player who plays with a couple of mates in Quick Play mode.
This is also my first guide, so be gentle :)
Q
Snipe
Snipe is no longer the powerhouse and game changer it once was, but it's still a fairly decent ability for finishing low health enemies off.
W
Pinning Shot
Pinning Shot is now the bread and butter of
Nova play and you should weave it into a rotation for serious damage. We talent into this ability so it gets better and better as the game progresses.
E
Holo Decoy
I love
Holo Decoy if only to draw out enemies attacks before launching a counter. Like
Pinning Shot however it's use in the early game is minimal due it's high mana cost.
R
Triple Tap
Triple Tap fire three high powered shots at a hero. It hits harder than
Precision Strike but is only single target.
R
Precision Strike
Precision Strike is an AOE which decimates teams.
Trait Permanent Cloak, Sniper
Not really much to say about this other than this is what causes you to go into stealth mode when doing anything other than walking, riding or placing a hologram.
Level 1
Longshot
There really isn't a great choice here which is lucky as we want to buff
Pinning Shot as much as we can. This increases the range on
Pinning Shot and also increases our next auto-attack range by 30%, great for keeping us out of harms way.
It should be fairly obvious but you want to launch a
Pinning Shot from afar, then follow it up with an auto-attack before running off to re-stealth.
Other choices
Level 4
Rapid Projection
This tier is all about your
Holo Decoy. All talents have uses, but this is the default thanks to the reduced cooldown.
Other choices
Remote Delivery gives your
Holo Decoy more range and more vision. Great if you want to scout areas, but as a stealth character you can almost always go safely on your own.
Holo Stability seriously increases your
Holo Decoy's time alive. A few players know exactly how long a decoy lasts so this messes with their minds.
Level 7
One in the Chamber
This adds 80% damage to your next auto-attack after you use an ability. As mentioned in tier 1 you should be
Pinning Shot into an auto-attack as standard. You can now follow it up with a
Snipe and then another auto-attack. If you're opponent isn't dead then chuck out a
Holo Decoy before launching a 3rd empowered auto-attack. Now this is serious damage, not quite as easy to pull off as the previous
Snipe based builds, but equally as devastating.
Other choices
Anti-Armor Shells causes your auto-attacks to do 250% more damage but fire much slower. I used to rate this highly, but now it takes far too long to get use out of. Once you get a second charge of
Pinning Shot in tier 5 and it's damaged is increase in tier 6 then you can do some big numbers, but until then you feel stifled.
Snipe Master sounds good, until you read that all your stacks are lost as soon as you miss a
Snipe. I don't think even pro-gamers can say they hit abilities every time. Just not worth it.
Level 10
Triple Tap
Precision Strike
I touched on this above but basically
Precision Strike is AOE and
Triple Tap is single target. Both hit hard,
Triple Tap slightly harder, but both are solid choices. I've chosen to recommend
Triple Tap simply because in casual play team fights are never guaranteed and at level 10 you won't have a feel for the battle to know which to take.
Triple Tap fire three powerful shots at an enemy, and is nigh on impossible to dodge (beware people who can stun/interrupt).
Triple Tap is usually a guaranteed kill as you can
Snipe the victim to half health then unleash hell. At level 20 the cooldown resets on a hero kill so you can literally wipe out a whole team. Use this on healers first, then on high hitting assassins.
The
Precision Strike AOE will take off a good quarter to a third of most heroes health. Whilst it's easily dodged, it also has the scope to wipe out entire teams in team fights. When you get to level 20 you can make it so it has two charges for even more devastation.
Level 13
Double Tap
Your
Pinning Shot now has two charges. This means you can add yet another ability to your
One in the Chamber weave.
Other choices
is useless as you simply won't be using
Snipe anywhere near as much as you previously did.
Explosive Round makes your
Snipe an AOE. You shouldn't be laning by this stage.
Level 16
Crippling Shot
Your [Pinning Shot]] now increases damage done by 25% for just over 2 seconds. So
Pinning Shot, auto-attack,
Snipe, auto-attack should just about take 2 seconds and therefore do 25% extra damage than they usually did. Oh wait, we just gave
Pinning Shot an extra charge didn't we? So
Pinning Shot, auto-attack,
Holo Decoy, auto-attack for a little extra.
Other choices
Snipe isn't anywhere near as important as 25% extra damage.
does still have potential, but definitely not in this build.
Level 20
Fast Reload
Precision Barrage
Basically just update your level 10.
With
Fast Reload you can use your
Triple Tap on all enemies one after the other and wipe them out. The trouble is if the damage isn't lethal then your cooldown is back. It currently does so much damage though, that it's lethal a lot of the time.
Precision Barrage gives you two charges of
Precision Strike. You can wipe out whole teams, or always have it to hand.
Other choices
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