The guide is currently under construction as new formatting has been implemented.
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Nova is excessively squishy and for good reason. She has one of the highest burst damage builds in the game with a rather interesting passive. Her passive allows to stay cloaked as long as she hasn't taken damage for two seconds; this cloak buff is removed if she uses a skill, decides to autoattack, or takes damage from any source. |
Generally speaking, because of Nova's low health pool and lack of escape abilities she is optimally played by doing damage and staying on the move. The builds that I've laid out all rely on this concept but some tweak it slightly, you'll see as we go through.
The last major thing to touch on here is positioning and that is is paramount. This will have its own chapter but know that if position is not your strong suite in MoBAs then Nova might not be the Hero for you.
Ambush Snipe
General damage boost a great talent to take if you plan on bursting or even harassing, which you should do both. Can be applied from stealth or 1 second after breaking stealth.
Gathering Power
Pretty much a no brainer for me, flat damage boost for a burst caster, sign me up.
Hot Shots
Auto Attacks do 330% damage but your attacks are 3 times slower. Basically what this means is you front load all of your auto attacks. It is important to note that this means you must try to maximize your auto attacks as much as possible.
Precision Strike
Global AoE with high damage, sounds good to me.
Lethal Decoy
With Rewind gone this is the default choice for increasing your damage at this tier.
Crippling Shot
Great for bursting a target solo or with a team. Huge upside is that this ability is purely passive, not costing you any extra mana to use it, unlike Overdrive.
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(Trait)
Permanent Cloak, Sniper | While being out of combat for 2 seconds Nova is cloaked from vision. A small shimmer of her silhouette can be seen in game but she will not show up on the minimap. While cloaked Nova can not be directly targeted by abilities but can be hit with Area of Effect spells, taking damage will knock her out of cloak. If she uses an ability or auto attacks this will also break cloak. |
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(Q) Snipe | Nova's primary damage dealing ability and the most defining ability of her kit. Snipe is a long range skill shot that deals damage to the first enemy it collides with. The damage scales nicely throughout the game and combos well with a pinning shot especially when talents are involved. |
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(W) Pinning Shot | A relatively generic soft cc, direct target ability that deals moderate damage and slows for 2.25 seconds. This ability can be used to allow your team to catch up to the target, slow it for easier landing of Snipes, or as a minor escape mechanism if you really need to slow someone before running. |
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(E) Holo Decoy | This ability is very interesting and has some very interesting niche uses. The default Decoy can be spawned a decent range away from Nova and grants a small amount of sight while it is alive. The Decoy can also block skillshots and should be used as such. Primary things to block are Muradin stun hammers, Zeratul Singularity Spikes, Stitches Hooks, and Nova Triple Tap/Snipes. |
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(R1) Precision Strike | One of the few global abilities in the game, even non-talented. When called down it does a significant amount of damage in a medium sized area. This ability should almost always be paired with a CC of some kind. Ideal candidates for pairing are Diablo's Apocalypse, Zeratul's Void Prison (tricky!), Malfurion's Roots, or Kerrigan's Grasp. |
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(R2) Triple Tap | Nova's second Ultimate ability, a single target high damage triple shot ability. One thing to note about this ability is that each shot may be intercepted by the enemy team or buildings and has some funky functionality when it comes to cloak. In all of the builds above you will see that I opted to go for Precision Strike over Triple Tap mostly due to this point. |
As mentioned before your positioning is paramount. However, in addition to positioning you need to know as much as you can about the enemy team and their composition. What I'm about to say applies to the entire MoBA genre and generally anything PvP related.
In order to get the most bang for your buck while staying alive you need to know where the enemies are and what resources they have at their disposal. These two things are incredibly important for Nova because she has no escapes at her disposal and with this knowledge you can push your dps a bit further.
To set up the basics, I'm assuming that you have those two ideas practiced and know how to use them. I will use the terms "Auto" and likely "AA" while I list these rotations for you, this term simply refers to right clicking or basic attacking an enemy unit.
Here's my take on how to open a can of proper whoop-*** on your enemies:
Current formatting broke here while updating, will be coming back tonight to fix.
Level 1-6 Rotation |
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Auto --> W --> Auto --> Q --> Auto. At this stage you're just posturing and instilling the early parts of THE FEAR. Although with the right conditions you may be able to pull off an early kill!
Level 7-9 Rotation |
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W --> Auto --> Q --> kite around until you can safely auto again or just reset the rotation. If you can find a squishy target you can almost certainly kill them with this rotation if they aren't 100% health. For now though, just focus on burning them down to the point where they have to Well or Hearth to base. THE FEAR is now at the level where you enemies will be checking their back every so often.
Level 10-12 Rotation |
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W --> R --> Auto --> Q --> Auto if possible.
This is where mechanical skill starts to play in, there are many variations that you can use from 10+. If a target is rooted/stunned and you know that you are going to land a Precision you can Precision first then follow with Pinning to guarantee the hit. If you don't have a previous setup then Pinning to slow for the Precision is just as good. THE FEAR is now at the point where people are afraid to go into the jungle, that's ok though, you'll come to them.
Levels 13-15
Fear Intensifies (slightly)
With the removal of Rewind at this tier if you're looking for a burst build then your only real option here is Lethal Decoy, this opens a few options depending on how you want to play the scenarios out. I'll give a generic apply-to-all to start and you can feel out your own playstyle from here on.
E --> W --> Q --> Auto. This is the absolute bare minimum you can do with this build and it has the smallest chance of failure if you're looking for a strong baseline. Depending on how quick your fingers and reactions are you can open with Precision Strike still if you want but you must make sure to lay down a Lethal Decoy
in the right spot before you continue the rest of your rotation in order to maximize your damage. For players still in the learning phase for Nova this makes things a bit harder to weave auto attacks in as you want to make sure your Decoy's Snipe hits and Auto Attacking too soon may cause your enemy to react in a way that is unpleasant for you.
Extra note for Tier 5, if you aren't comfortable with Lethal Decoy you can always go Headshot but it will shift your priority around to basically being the level 10-12 rotation and unless you're already in the lead you will likely want to engage a bit later than you normally would in order to get that wonderful reset.
Levels 16-19
THE OLD FEAR TIER
Still updating Levels 16+
Two paths emerge here, the Crippling Shot path and the Overdrive path, both are equally FEAR instilling.
Crippling Shot |
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E --> W --> R/Auto --> Q --> Auto | With this rotation your damage shouldn't change vs Overdrive and the thought process is still the same. What DOES change is that you won't be able to cross map Overdrive Precision Strike at any notice. So you sacrifice damage on command for damage with a condition but without an extra cost, a really great trade off actually. At level 20 I've found that this is actually the better build to take on paper as you can get the 25% damage buff on both of your Precision Strikes should you get the chance and now with Rewind being at 20 if you go that route it will allow for the strong double snipes without having to worry about OD running out.
Special notes for this tier: In order to get the absolute maximum out of this build, unlike level 13-15, you almost must open with Precision Strike to get the bonus damage due to the short amount of time that the Crippling Shot buff exists.
Overdrive |
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OD --> W --> R/Auto --> Q --> Auto | This will usually be enough to bring down any support, specialist (not Azmodan), or assassin to within 35% of their life or less, assuming you're equal level. The issue with Overdrive is that it will tap your mana very quickly and it is very tough to get the timing down that will allow you to have most of your abilities Overdriven and hit the target. Additionally notice that I got rid of the Auto at the front of this, you want Pinning Shot to be the thing to break your cloak so you have a bit longer to get the Ambushed Snipe off while in the grace period. Overdrive will not break stealth.
Levels 20+
THE NEW FEAR TIER
So what is THE FEAR?
It's what makes the enemy team go "HOLY #$%@" and run away scared whenever they THINK they see a shimmer on the map. That is your job as Nova, to hit 'em hard, hit 'em fast, put THE FEAR into 'em, and get the hell out.
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