Nova
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Build: Utility
Level 1
Level 4
Level 7
Level 10
Level 13
Level 16
Level 20
In summary, this build is designed to put Nova behind her own front line, slow down enemy heroes for her team, and secure kills. The entire build is designed around the idea of assisting her team in getting kills. The result is that this build will not put you at the top of the damage meters or kill counts. But if played correctly, your team will come out on top in overall kills which will help secure a win, and allow you to do this from a safe distance, as opposed to the traditional (and riskier) method of roaming in the flanks to catch out an enemy hero.
Tier 1 - Longshot (Required)
The core of the build is right here in this first talent pick. With Pinning Shot's improved range as of the Feb 2nd patch, this talent makes Nova more useful in team fights. Longshot will allow your team to get a kill even when the enemy hasn't overextended. This allows Nova to remain safely in her own back line, as opposed to her traditional flank position for striking at healers and soft assassins. In general, this talent does not require you to take Pinning Shot upgrades in later tiers, but doing so gives more team damage and position control in team fights, at the cost of Nova's overall damage output. To alleviate this, Longshot has gracefully given us a 30% range bonus to the first Basic Attack, and we'll see why this is important later in the build.
Tier 2 - Rapid Projection
The primary reason I've included this talent over Remote Delivery, which is a great talent in its own right, is to preserve mana. This build requires constant use of Pinning Shot to give your team the advantage. Also of importance is that the current patch sees Li Ming and Kael are everywhere. Frequent decoy emplacement is important to protecting both Nova and her team - to intercept Ming's Arcane Orb and Kael's Gravity Lapse. Rapid Projection provides more frequent scouting and distraction to protect Nova in fights.
Tier 3 - Anti-Armor Shells (Required)
Here is where Longshot gains significantly increased value. Longshot allows Nova to hit the enemy's back line in team fights, from behind her own front line. Since Nova always auto-attacks her Pinning Shot target after decloaking, you immediately do a significant burst of damage into a support or squishy assassin in the back line, from a safe distance. This also helps Nova to secure a larger percentage of kills on weakened, fleeing targets that would otherwise be out of range or require chasing.
Tier 4 - Precision Strike
Triple Tap's greatest use was from the flank of a fleeing team to secure kills, where it is far more difficult to body block shots. Since Nova will be in her own back line and targets will be moving away from her in a horizontal line, TT has significantly reduced effectiveness in this build due to easy body blocking. Precision Strike gives Nova the ability to disrupt objectives anywhere on the map, scatter an enemy team formation, or contribute to a wombo combo, and that's why I've chosen it here.
Tier 5 - Double Tap (Required)
Two Pinning Shots for twice the price. This talent is strong mainly because of Crippling Shot, which allows you to drop two 25% damage increases on a particularly beefy enemy over five seconds or two separate heroes for a teammate's AOE attack. It also gives you two Basic Attacks beefed up with Anti-Armor Shells at a range that will hit the enemy's back line, hard.
Tier 6 - Crippling Shot (Required)
The old standby, Crippling shot gives you that valuable 25% damage bonus to Anti-Armor Shells and whatever else your teammates throw at your target. Think of it as a Hunter's Mark at improved range, with a slow effect but a shorter timespan, and you get two of them with Double Tap. This will put a serious dent in teams that rely on a 2-tank front, should your team be unable to hit that back line.
Tier 7 - Rewind (Recommended)
Choosing Rewind here allows you to drop 4 Crippling Shots in quick succession across the enemy team, or if you need that extra burst to burn down a hero with Crippling Shot + Snipe. This is important for a build that emphasizes team utility in fights. It also allows for multiple decoys on the field to further confuse the enemy if you're fighting to survive. Precision Barrage is a great talent here as well, but only if your team is positioned to setup wombos.
Honorable Mentions
I didn't mention every talent in this build, because while most of them are useful in their own way, not all of them are viable. Here are a few that warrant close inspection:
Tier 3 - Snipe Master
This talent is a great idea on Blizzard's part, but not well executed. If Nova takes this and Anti-Armor Shells she is far less useful in jungling or clearing minion waves, and this talent only serves to remove her further from overall objective and fight utility. Few players are also willing to commit to the rigor of making every single Snipe count, as it requires taking no chance shots on a juking hero. If this talent were altered to lose 50% of stacks on a miss, or lose 1 stack on contact with a minion or monster, it would be far more viable. But as it is, it only encourages the kind of gameplay that made Nova one of the most hated heroes in the game: a from-stealth "noob killer" that appears to 1-shot enemy heroes. With the changes I've suggested it could definitely make a Snipe build viable with later Tier picks for team fights, but at the expense of team fight utility and a further reliance on Nova as the sole damage dealer.
Tier 5 - Psionic Efficiency and Tier 6 - Perfect Shot
If you find yourself in Quick Match as the sole DPS on your team or having no team coordination (the latter, a Quick match trademark) you may find that you need to deal more damage to match the enemy's output. In this case, it is worthwhile to invest in these two talents to put out more Snipes. I do think that these two talents would overall make Nova far less useful to her team, as the combined team damage funneled into Crippling Shot could more than make up for Nova's sole damage output. But if you want to do more single target damage yourself, these are the two talents I would recommend. There is also some potential for jungling here in combination with Decoy, but I haven't done enough research on that, and will update this guide when I do so (or perhaps produce a new guide).
Tier 7 - Ghost Protocol
This is a far far better talent than Bolt of the Storm, because it gives Nova so many more options. This talent could theoretically make Nova a far more potent killer than she was back when Hot Shots first came out, before it was nerfed and renamed to Anti-Armor Shells. With Ghost Protocol, Nova could unload her full arsenal within 2 seconds almost entirely from Stealth, since it requires breaking stealth to use. If you chose to take the Snipe Master talent and build Nova around that, it could give her the ability to delete heroes off the map like she used to. But this kind of dedication would undermine the rest of your team during the match, as you'd preserve your Snipe only for killing soft heroes while they are around their teammates, as better players seldomly roam alone with a Nova in the match. Combine Ghost Protocol with Advanced Cloaking and you would be very hard to discover and kill once you've attacked. Add Double Tap to this and you can de-stealth with a Pinning Shot, enter Ghost Protocol, then Decoy and Snipe. I haven't run the numbers on this yet to see what heroes could die to this burst (and what exact build it would require) to facilitate a quick escape, but I will update this guide when I do.
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