Heroes of the Storm Nova

[Damien 1,514]

This thread is for comments about our Nova build guide for Heroes of the Storm.

[Guest F Scheltens]

Hi,

 

i would just like to point out i really disagree with the choice for nova's heroic.

At level 20 triple tap will enable you to kill not just one, but multiple heroes in quick succession. The key though is to weaken the heroes with snipe so they are low on health before you use your heroic.

In a big teamfight where the situation is chaotic and you can stand a little distance away, you can pick off heroes which are low on health, make the next one low on health with snipe if needed, and use heroic again. I don't personally play in the big leagues, but triple tap is my favorite for just this reason.

[Guest James]

Triple tap is garbage dude...easily countered and roots you for 3 seconds...you waste 2 talents on a heroic that will only work in bottom tier mmr

[Guest Hedredo]

Disagree with  Railgun . This skill just gives Nova huge minions wave clear, even really useful to burstdown camps. And powerful in TF. Even if Snipe is thin (Railgun doesn't change anything about it), it's the most powerful basic ability of Nova, so you just need to master it if you want to be a "good nova". Really adds a dimension to Nova playstyle. After playing it a lot, that skill just seems an absolute must-have on Nova. 

Double fake doesn't bring so much in the game, i always felt that one decoy well used is enough. I played mostly crippling shot before railgun, but its range is really low and more situational. Still a good talent.

 

 

[Guest Kroshak]

Disagree with  Railgun . This skill just gives Nova huge minions wave clear, even really useful to burstdown camps. And powerful in TF. Even if Snipe is thin (Railgun doesn't change anything about it), it's the most powerful basic ability of Nova, so you just need to master it if you want to be a "good nova". Really adds a dimension to Nova playstyle. After playing it a lot, that skill just seems an absolute must-have on Nova. 

Double fake doesn't bring so much in the game, i always felt that one decoy well used is enough. I played mostly crippling shot before railgun, but its range is really low and more situational. Still a good talent.

 

i dont agree tbh, nova is by definition the "Glass Cannon" of Hots, this build that is provided is a build that exploits this.

Split pushing in Nova is not good, usually (and this is for xp, and looking tournaments where she got in and everybody where like WTF) she is played as a ganker, a Treath against the lane, not a split pusher, Why? easy, she can chip life away, forcing the use of the cp cup, and the forcing the retreat to the base to heal, meaning an xp loss if there is only one hero in the lane

 

And what is that double fake doesnt bring much??????? do you not see the synergy between the talents, and sorry but the holo decoy build is way to popular

 

http://www.hotslogs.com/Sitewide/HeroDetails?Hero=Nova

 

There you have numbers if you dont believe me, all sum together is around 70% chance of winning, in masters this builds is mandatory with the change of the lvl 20 talent depending on what you need, mobility or more damage with rewind

[Guest MetalX]

Great guide. I usually pick all the recommended skills, but use decoy and orbital strike a little differently.
 

When I use decoy I normally throw it out first and try to bait heroes into wasting their skills, then follow up with pinning shot and snipe with 1 other ally to take a hero down. I guess saving it to block a skill after a skirmish breaks out would be useful (if I was that good), but until someone masters the game it seems like it would be a good use to throw it out from a safe angle at the beginning of a skirmish and bait heroes to waste a few skills.

Orbital strike I'm alright at casting, and I do watch for allies to lay down some cc on targets, though I never use it in a set rotation of my skills. I use it generally when there is a skirmish near a bottleneck in the map (or in a team fight) where it either hits multiple heroes, or more likely forces their team to split and pushes a few heroes up front for my allies and I to pick off without their teammates being able to immediately help. If my team is behind, I use it defensively when the enemy team is beginning an assault on a fort wall in order to buy some time for allies to arrive to reinforce it.

[Guest Kroshak]

Great guide. I usually pick all the recommended skills, but use decoy and orbital strike a little differently.

 

When I use decoy I normally throw it out first and try to bait heroes into wasting their skills, then follow up with pinning shot and snipe with 1 other ally to take a hero down. I guess saving it to block a skill after a skirmish breaks out would be useful (if I was that good), but until someone masters the game it seems like it would be a good use to throw it out from a safe angle at the beginning of a skirmish and bait heroes to waste a few skills.

Orbital strike I'm alright at casting, and I do watch for allies to lay down some cc on targets, though I never use it in a set rotation of my skills. I use it generally when there is a skirmish near a bottleneck in the map (or in a team fight) where it either hits multiple heroes, or more likely forces their team to split and pushes a few heroes up front for my allies and I to pick off without their teammates being able to immediately help. If my team is behind, I use it defensively when the enemy team is beginning an assault on a fort wall in order to buy some time for allies to arrive to reinforce it.

Yeah at least at the start of the game the decoy is used just like you said, plus bodyblocking some abilities if you are good at it, when you reach the talents that give the decoy damage then you need to master even more its use, or you use it as a tool to make the enemy waste cooldowns or you use it to burst someone down

 

The way you use orbital is also good, usually is better paired with a good cc or slow so it can land, it can be used for defense, almost all ultimates can be used in this way, yeah you waste it but knowing when to use a big cd that "Makes you live to fight another day" is also good, hard to decide, but good

[Guest NWA]

On 5.2, you can also add Murky's Octograb. It combos well with Precision Strike.

[Guest EVB]

It doesn't root you, it completely stun locks you. No auto attacking, no abilities, no nothing. Given you are the squishiest hero in the game save for murky, this is an issue.

[Haven 0]

Hi,

Regarding level 7 talents, when facing comps with multiple heroes with Block, is it still worth taking Anti-armor Shell? or switching to other talents?

[Guest Tazernova]

I'd like to put in different option for novas. I am familiar with the build here and played with it myself for sometime when i was new to Nova and it is alright sure. However my problem was that i didn't feel present at the maps as much as each person should be. Hunting for the leftovers or limited squishies. For those reason nova isnt liked hero either, which again is a problem to me. So irritating at the beginning of each maps when people start crying "no nova plz".

 

So the skill output and few talents are what is different, ill explain my reasonings.

 

Combo: Tazer->clone -> snipe-> PStrike-> Rewind-> repeat

 

Though the only part that really matter is putting tazer in first and rest is optional based on the situation you are at. Nontanks are dead before Rewind already.

As you shoot tazer you will instantly proc first chamber which means you can follow with second (clone or snipe) right away, then you wait for about half sec before 3rd ability.

 

Why Tazer first?

- to gain max benefit from Crippling shot talent

-it will instantly unload one autoattack without needing to click on the person, where as clone and snipe do not ( this is important, this is why you begin with Tazer even before you have Crippling shot talent.)

-the slow gives you better aim for snipe ( not a big deal for really good players but still)

 

Now the talents then.

 

Tazer round instead of Ambush Snipe.> The 20%dmg to snipe is simply inferior with this tazer version of Nova. your "combo"  can often take more than 2 sec so having the 25% increase from later trait is must. It also gives you the control to disengage if things go wrong( as with this build you are more than capable to brawl any oppononet), help allies, etc. Its practically deathmark to that opponent no matter what.

 

Chamber instead of Anti-Armor.> Now i noted that in the guide it is still written with 50% increase where as its actually 80% nowadays, lack of interest to update id assume. Chamber deals a lot more dmg. to put it in numbers as how many autoattacks you shoot per sec with both.

 

0sec    Chamber 1,8    Anti-Amor 2,5

1sec    Chamber 3,6    Anti-Armor 2,5

2sec    Chamber 5,4    Anti armor 2,5

3sec    Chamber 7,2(Pstrike)    Anti-armor  5

-> Rewind

 

So as you can see already at 1sec you are bypassing the dmg with chamber. Not to mention since your hits are divided Block doesnt hurt you much either. Furthermore if you follow with clone it will take second block before your second autoattack lands.

 

Anti-Armor does give you more room to move true. But i don't see it worth it considering the damage you would offer. Iv had no problem with the normal crab walking, it actually feels much easier to me than timing 2,5sec. So unless you do that perfectly you would once again offer damage.

 

 

This build does have about 1sec slower burst but the damage you can unload is much, much higher. Can easily kill even the beefiest tanks with the assist of rewind. I think the overall unload on dummy was about 9-10k when everything hits. By far higher than anyhero iv tried so far.

 

You are slighy riskier obviously since with the other builds you are only showing your face for second or two. But considering the presence you bring with verstatile and huge damage pool it seems only fair. Wont be just scavenger anymore. People have actually enjoyed playing with me when im not just ganker ghost.

 

Additionally the leveling curve feels very nice, with each new talent you are building your damage steadily, once you get the chamber you can already start brawling, as at that point the combo is enough to kill people already or severily damage them.

 

So to put it simply.

 

Pros

- more damage

- no hard counters to damage

- not heavily punished by LOS or colission as Snipe and Clone are only portion of the burst

- group members might not hate you.

- aim friendlier

- you can brawl any hero short of douple trolls.

 

Cons

- not as lightspeed burst

- so more vulnerable

[Guest ShockSword]

I personally really like advanced cloak. The regen is really nice, but the speed allows you to roam the map without having the risk of mounting. Mounts can show your position as on mounts, your sprite is quite large, making easy for enemies to spot you (as well as knowing you're not a decoy). Also, you need to fix one in the chamber. It's been buffed and its now pretty good.

[Guest Kroshak]

I'd like to put in different option for novas. I am familiar with the build here and played with it myself for sometime when i was new to Nova and it is alright sure. However my problem was that i didn't feel present at the maps as much as each person should be. Hunting for the leftovers or limited squishies. For those reason nova isnt liked hero either, which again is a problem to me. So irritating at the beginning of each maps when people start crying "no nova plz".

 

So the skill output and few talents are what is different, ill explain my reasonings.

 

Combo: Tazer->clone -> snipe-> PStrike-> Rewind-> repeat

 

Though the only part that really matter is putting tazer in first and rest is optional based on the situation you are at. Nontanks are dead before Rewind already.

As you shoot tazer you will instantly proc first chamber which means you can follow with second (clone or snipe) right away, then you wait for about half sec before 3rd ability.

 

Why Tazer first?

- to gain max benefit from Crippling shot talent

-it will instantly unload one autoattack without needing to click on the person, where as clone and snipe do not ( this is important, this is why you begin with Tazer even before you have Crippling shot talent.)

-the slow gives you better aim for snipe ( not a big deal for really good players but still)

 

Now the talents then.

 

Tazer round instead of Ambush Snipe.> The 20%dmg to snipe is simply inferior with this tazer version of Nova. your "combo"  can often take more than 2 sec so having the 25% increase from later trait is must. It also gives you the control to disengage if things go wrong( as with this build you are more than capable to brawl any oppononet), help allies, etc. Its practically deathmark to that opponent no matter what.

 

Chamber instead of Anti-Armor.> Now i noted that in the guide it is still written with 50% increase where as its actually 80% nowadays, lack of interest to update id assume. Chamber deals a lot more dmg. to put it in numbers as how many autoattacks you shoot per sec with both.

 

0sec    Chamber 1,8    Anti-Amor 2,5

1sec    Chamber 3,6    Anti-Armor 2,5

2sec    Chamber 5,4    Anti armor 2,5

3sec    Chamber 7,2(Pstrike)    Anti-armor  5

-> Rewind

 

So as you can see already at 1sec you are bypassing the dmg with chamber. Not to mention since your hits are divided Block doesnt hurt you much either. Furthermore if you follow with clone it will take second block before your second autoattack lands.

 

Anti-Armor does give you more room to move true. But i don't see it worth it considering the damage you would offer. Iv had no problem with the normal crab walking, it actually feels much easier to me than timing 2,5sec. So unless you do that perfectly you would once again offer damage.

 

 

This build does have about 1sec slower burst but the damage you can unload is much, much higher. Can easily kill even the beefiest tanks with the assist of rewind. I think the overall unload on dummy was about 9-10k when everything hits. By far higher than anyhero iv tried so far.

 

You are slighy riskier obviously since with the other builds you are only showing your face for second or two. But considering the presence you bring with verstatile and huge damage pool it seems only fair. Wont be just scavenger anymore. People have actually enjoyed playing with me when im not just ganker ghost.

 

Additionally the leveling curve feels very nice, with each new talent you are building your damage steadily, once you get the chamber you can already start brawling, as at that point the combo is enough to kill people already or severily damage them.

 

So to put it simply.

 

Pros

- more damage

- no hard counters to damage

- not heavily punished by LOS or colission as Snipe and Clone are only portion of the burst

- group members might not hate you.

- aim friendlier

- you can brawl any hero short of douple trolls.

 

Cons

- not as lightspeed burst

- so more vulnerable

 

i like different approaches to all the heroes, but maybe, maybe not idk, the idea behind your build and behind this build are completely different, not bad or wrong, just different in my opinion. Yours, as you pointed out, lets you brawl/duel better

This build is pretty much exploiting to the max what nova main play style is, that is a roaming burst ganker.

 

First the part of just "hunting down the squishies/leftovers" is actually a wrong approach in my opinion, yes you should focus those because usually those are priorities, in the case of the squishies at least, (Supports/Carries) that must be eliminated/cc to let your team have an advantage in the next team fight, this is usually in the mid-late game

 

in the early game usually the idea with the 20%  is to force the laner to hide or to recall, making him lose xp or making him recall during a map objective.

 

The fact that people hate her can be 2 reasons, first, when she is in your team, usually they dont play her correctly or they dont know how to play, abathur has the same bad reputation, not because he is bad, not because of the builds, but because people just jump to the hero without any xp invested in them and people usually complains in qm scenario, which is the WORST because we all know how weird the comps can be

The second complain usually comes from people that is facing her because she is the ultimate punish against bad players or bad decision, (you know staying in the goddamn line with no life, personal one: i play ETC i manage to save a hero that is about to die and suddenly he turns around and got killed....... in my mind is i big WHY? i didnt do that for you to go ham but for you to escape), there was a time where people asked for a nerf to nova because she was doing way too much damage and she was op, a lot of the community pretty much laughed and trolled the ones posting this so the theme was forgotten

 

The other thing that you dont seem to understand, at least for what i read, is that you claim that one in a chamber does more damage than anti-armor, youre right, o dont deny it, BUT it is in your build, to put it in simple words: one in a chamber is for constant damage, meanwhile the anti-armor is for burst damage, there is the difference constant/burst

 

In the pros and cons you got it right except for the counter and the hate

Your hardest counter is muradin, in terms of damage mitigation, trying to bring him down while he is in avatar, popping stone form with spellshield is a bad decision, why? because it will take a lot more resources to bring him down than if you for example use one rotation against a priority target, rewind and target another one

 

the hate is not only on nova, people like you if you play well and bring results, in any role you play, if you play warrior they expect that you know how to peel, how to engage, how to create opportunities, if you play assassin they expect you to do the damage correctly and don't stand in front of the enemy team, as a support, well pretty obvious keep everyone alive and don't get killed, specialist well that's the weird one but pretty much just play well

[Guest Guest]

Hi everyone,

 

As you may know, Blizzard has done a big change in a lot of Nova's talents, decreasing her burst damage for a more general damage. The reasons are found in the patch notes.

 

Many people are complaining, saying she's know unplayable, that her talent "snipe master" ( I think it's called like that in english, I play in EUR zone) is unfair because even though you can stack more power with Q, if you miss a single target you start from 0 again. I agree with that, even Butcher has a talent to preserve half of the meat he picks up.

 

I was wondering what is your opinion on the subject, if you're still gonna play her and if there's gonna be a new build for her in this site, since even though I think I won't play her for now I wonder if there's a chance to seize these changes for the better.

 

Seems like with Li Ming's incorporation to the game she's the new OP assassin in detriment of Nova tbh, I'm sad about this since I loved to play her, she was one of my main pjs.

[Oxygen 446]

Hi everyone,

 

As you may know, Blizzard has done a big change in a lot of Nova's talents, decreasing her burst damage for a more general damage. The reasons are found in the patch notes.

 

Many people are complaining, saying she's know unplayable, that her talent "snipe master" ( I think it's called like that in english, I play in EUR zone) is unfair because even though you can stack more power with Q, if you miss a single target you start from 0 again. I agree with that, even Butcher has a talent to preserve half of the meat he picks up.

 

I was wondering what is your opinion on the subject, if you're still gonna play her and if there's gonna be a new build for her in this site, since even though I think I won't play her for now I wonder if there's a chance to seize these changes for the better.

 

Seems like with Li Ming's incorporation to the game she's the new OP assassin in detriment of Nova tbh, I'm sad about this since I loved to play her, she was one of my main pjs.

 

Hi,

 

Unfortunately, Nova is extremely undertuned (read: not enough damage, and too little utility to justify this low damage) in her current state, making it difficult to justify picking her over any other assassin, such as Li-Ming for burst, or Zeratul for ganks. A patch is coming out soon™ which, hopefully, should look into some of her issues. She's currently at her worst, and arguably one of the worst heroes in general, and I just can't recommend playing her as of right now.

[Guest Guest]

I played with snipe master, and after getting full stacks, the burst damage with vulnerability can easily kill a squishy hero with no problems. Besides, missing a snipe really shouldn't be a problem when you're playing nova in competitive; especially with the slow.

[Oxygen 446]

I played with snipe master, and after getting full stacks, the burst damage with vulnerability can easily kill a squishy hero with no problems. Besides, missing a snipe really shouldn't be a problem when you're playing nova in competitive; especially with the slow.

 

I think it becomes more of a problem against good players who actively try to dodge snipes. I've never been a fan of all-or-nothing talents, but if it works for you, great!

[Guest Kittensune]

One in the Chamber really doesn't work for me, either. It feels really minimal of an increase vs Snipe Master

[Oxygen 446]

One in the Chamber really doesn't work for me, either. It feels really minimal of an increase vs Snipe Master

 

Go in try mode, and hit a the dummy with both talents. OitC deals something like 200 more sustained DPS, and doesn't require you to have 100% accuracy on Snipe.

[Guest KVPMD]

Hi everybody.

I really like to play nova and I really like the other guides I've read but I dont like this one at all. 

First oft all it contains many copy pastes from before patch. And second it does not contain many synergies like lvl1 movement with Ghost protocol, lvl16 snipe with one in the chamber, Laser with OitC, snipe full build which allows to bully even tanks from Lane, remote delivery with snipe (Vision) , faster decoy cd for OitC.... 

 

It feels like every Talent is looked at by itself not like a build

[Oxygen 446]

2 hours ago, Guest KVPMD said:

Hi everybody.

I really like to play nova and I really like the other guides I've read but I dont like this one at all. 

First oft all it contains many copy pastes from before patch. And second it does not contain many synergies like lvl1 movement with Ghost protocol, lvl16 snipe with one in the chamber, Laser with OitC, snipe full build which allows to bully even tanks from Lane, remote delivery with snipe (Vision) , faster decoy cd for OitC.... 

 

It feels like every Talent is looked at by itself not like a build

Hello,

Thank you for taking the time to comment. When writing guides, I purposefully omit to make mention of certain synergies, either to avoid being too explicit ("spoonfeeding"), or to avoid confusing readers or otherwise seem like I'm recommending something that I would not. This is partly why the core of talent-related discussions often specifically revolves around talents that are recommended or situational. You did allow me, however, to find a mistake (which you mentioned regarding Snipe Master and OitC - the mistake was calling it Double Tap instead of OitC, specifically).

As for copy-pastes, I'm not exactly sure of what you mean. Guides aren't typically fully changed to account for newer patches, simply because... not every element sees change. We still try to look for cohesion.

[Guest BadIdeas]

I would have to say as a long time Nova player with a solid win rate, even in ranked, the current build guide is well...crap. It is not that the build is bad, but there is some reasoning that is weak imo. At this time Nova's talent picks are almost all viable, but you need to have an end build in mind. Nova is a late game hero, and you need to plan for that. I see so many Nova's play a decent early and mid game, only to get trashed late game because their build has no synergy.

That being said, lets look at some of those talents.

Level 1 Talents

The only talent that you should never pick is tactical espionage. It looks decent on paper, but in practice you burn mana so fast as Nova, that it only makes a difference of maybe teleporting one or two extra times for mana in a game without it. Unless of course you are just running around being a waste of a pick and not using your abilities, just so you can restore mana. Covert ops is decent, but only in certain comps, and unless you really know Nova and every hero you are matched with, I would stay away from it. If you are building OITC (One In The Chamber), you want long shot for sure. If you are building snipe mastery, I would recommend advanced cloaking. While the author of the guide refers to it as "situational", the two situations it is useful is fleeing, and chasing. Which tend to be pretty important. It is not a real escape, but if you can evade hits long enough to stealth, you can usually get away with this talent. Also, when chasing, you can run down players without having to stop to mount, and allow them time to escape, which is really important as Nova's primary role is to finish players.

Level 4 Talents

For a OITC build, get rapid projection, it is by far the best synergy wise. For snipe mastery, any one will work. I lean towards remote delivery myself, as it is good for providing sight, and unless you are playing real low ranks, that is about all it is good for. Holo stability can also be good though, if you want to use your decoy to drain ammo. Ofc, if you are going to do something crazy with your build later, get the talent that works best.

Level 7 Talents

This is really the key talent to whatever build you plan to use. If you are not comfortable with your skill, or you are up against a lot of heroes that have quick evasive moves, get OITC. It doesn't require skill to use, and if you got long shot on the level 1 tier, it is safer then going with sniper master, as you can stay further away. If you are a higher skill Nova, snipe master is my personal recommendation, unless you are up against picks that can dodge, as you don't want to fire, and as you do, that illidan/luna/valla/etc. moves out of the way. The only pick I would avoid is AAS (Anti-Armor Shells), as it is near useless. It gives the lowest DPS potential, and less burst potential than snipe master. The only time I would say to take it is if you are going with lethal decoy later, and you want a low skill burst.

Level 10 Talents

I have gone back and forth on this tier since Beta. Originally precision strike was insanely strong when using the right build, which was not the OMG burst build most Beta Nova's thought was good. Using the correct build in beta you could drop a strike every 30 or so seconds, which was pretty crazy. After a number of changes though, I found TT (Triple Tap) to be better. A skilled Nova could time a decoy deployment so the decoy used pinning shot to armor break as you hit your target with TT. It made TT a sledgehammer to punish out of position heroes. However, I am fairly certain that the current decoys do not get the crippling shot buff on their pinning shots, so I have switched back to precision strike. Not to mention it provides emergency wave clear. TT is still good against a team of squishies, because it always hits something, and if the other team is all squishy, it doesn't really matter who you hit, they are going to get hurt. Also, almost all heroes that are not fat tanks, can dodge strike unless slowed. 

Level 13 Talents

This is where talent picks get interesting. If you took OITC, get double tap. It provides much better synergy. If you took snipe master, you can either go full snipe build, in which case take psionic efficiency, for those free snipes on hits, and increased range. If you are like me however, and your building for maximum burst, get double tap with snipe master so you can synergize with pinning shot on the next tier. If you ignored my advice and took AAS, this may be where you take explosive round, so you can synergize off lethal decoy on the next tier.

 

Level 16 Talents

 

Supposing you went OITC, take crippling shot. If you went snipe mastery and want maximum burst, take crippling shot. If you went snipe master for sustained dps, take perfect shot, and double down on hitting a hero every time. If you went snipe master with explosive shot on the last tier for some reason, maybe to be contrary as I did not mention it as viable, then perfect shot is good as well. If you took AAS for that low skill burst, you can pretty much take anything on this tier, depending on what you took the last tier, and your over all build. Crippling shot is best team play, lethal decoy is real good synergy for a AAS build using explosive shot, and halving the CD on your snipes is good for AAS too, just not as good as the other options.

 

Level 20 Talents

 

Fast reload should only be taken if you are consistently finishing players on the other team with TT. If not, don't take it. Precision barrage is my recommendation for OITC player that take strike, as I could be wrong but I am pretty sure OITC triggers on ults as well as basic abilities. (Did not test so am not 100% certain). Even if that is not the case, rewind provides only a small dps boost, which double precision strikes can easily match, but really they are pretty close so take the one you feel is better for the match. If you went with the full snipe build, you want double strike, unless you are missing snipes, you snipe already has a 3 second CD, and if you are missing snipes, you shouldn't be using that build. If you went burst build with snipe master, get rewind, timed correctly, you can burst every 6 seconds for 4 cycles using rewind, or my personal favorite, burst, rewind, burst again immediately. If you went with lethal decoy for some reason, you will also want rewind to drop another decoy. Lastly, there is ghost protocol. Only take this if you took advanced cloaking, for the 2 talent escape pick on a 60 second cd....yeah doesn't really seem worth it to me either.

 

 

So that is pretty much it, although I have not put my preferred build out there in a TL:DR form. So here it is:

 

Advanced Cloaking → Remote Delivery/Holo Stability → Snipe Master → Precision Strike → Double Tap → Crippling Shot → Rewind.

 

It gives the highest burst potential for Nova, and if you can get a level lead, there is nobody that is safe from you. With a 2 level lead I dropped a full HP Anub to dead in under 10 seconds when he was foolish enough to chase my half hp Nova on his own. I also have a video posted on Plays.TV of me taking a KT from full to dead in about 3 seconds without using my ult at even levels. Just keep in mind, you have to be able to consistently land snipes for it to be effective. You can game it a little by sniping tanks to build stacks, but if you can't land it on squishes, you are not much use, so stick to a OITC build.

[Oxygen 446]

Hello, and thanks for the comment. To make my response easier to digest, I'll break it down by replying to individual select parts of your post.

On 8/18/2016 at 5:34 AM, Guest BadIdeas said:

The only talent that you should never pick is tactical espionage. It looks decent on paper, but in practice you burn mana so fast as Nova, that it only makes a difference of maybe teleporting one or two extra times for mana in a game without it. Unless of course you are just running around being a waste of a pick and not using your abilities, just so you can restore mana.

When I first read this, I suspected that you did not fully understand the implications of Tactical Espionage (TN). Upon inspecting your hotslogs profile, my initial impression was confirmed: out of nearly 700 (!) recorded Nova games, you have picked TN only twice. I must urge you to actually experiment with the talent before putting it down. You might be positively surprised by the results.

As for commenting on the talent itself, it essentially provides you with double the mana to work with - never go back to base again, use your abilities liberally. Unfortunately, I can't use hyperboles in guides, but that's really what it does. Nova's early game role is to roam between lanes for constant ganking pressure. TN lets you do that very reliably while also allowing you to conserve your Healing Wells for health exclusively. It even makes you feel less bad about using your abilities on anything that isn't a hero, like mercenaries or structures, and so on; this is especially useful once you get IotC.

An interesting point is that you consider Nova to be a late-game hero. Try TN, and the consistent early/mid game gank pressure it allows you to relentlessly apply might make you reconsider that thought.

 

On 8/18/2016 at 5:34 AM, Guest BadIdeas said:

If you are a higher skill Nova, snipe master is my personal recommendation

I can never, ever recommend Snipe Master. Here's why: Although it yields a marginal ~100 more sustained DPS (20+ seconds, which is unrealistic) than IotC under perfect circumstances, it ends up losing much more than it potentially gains after a single mistake. Furthermore, you lose out on providing yourself and your team with 4.5 seconds of Vulnerability (assuming Perfect Shot @ 16), and on your ability to use Snipe against anything but heroes for fear of losing the stacking bonus. That's the worst part, really. Stats show that Snipe Master under-performs at all levels of play as well.

Looking at your hotslogs again, which actually tracks Snipe Master stats, we can see that you spend nearly 60% of your time at 0, 1, or 2 stacks. It seems that you are hardly making the most out of the talent.
 

On 8/18/2016 at 5:34 AM, Guest BadIdeas said:

However, I am fairly certain that the current decoys do not get the crippling shot buff on their pinning shots

Correct. This is stated in the guide, under the abilities section. This was indeed a relatively recent change.
 

On 8/18/2016 at 5:34 AM, Guest BadIdeas said:

TT is still good against a team of squishies, because it always hits something, and if the other team is all squishy, it doesn't really matter who you hit, they are going to get hurt.

I'd argue that this is true concerning Precision Strike (PS) as well. Pinning Shot makes it impossible to walk out of PS in time. It then only becomes a matter of keeping track of movement abilities to punish.
 

On 8/18/2016 at 5:34 AM, Guest BadIdeas said:

If you went snipe master for sustained dps, take perfect shot, and double down on hitting a hero every time.

Just don't. Having access to Vulnerability by far outweighs the marginal sustained DPS increase.
 

On 8/18/2016 at 5:34 AM, Guest BadIdeas said:

but I am pretty sure OITC triggers on ults as well as basic abilities

It does.

In conclusion, I think you over evaluate Snipe Master's power (or perhaps more accurately, underestimate the downsides of the tradeoff you have to make the talent work). Reliability and versatility is what gets you far in this game. Even with a high Snipe hit rate, Snipe Master is not versatile because there are times where you simply can't Snipe, and where IotC would be paying off right away.

I must reiterate here; try Tactical Espionage, get your early ganks going, and you should be able to be much more impactful.

[Guest BadIdeas]

21 hours ago, Oxygen said:

When I first read this, I suspected that you did not fully understand the implications of Tactical Espionage (TN). Upon inspecting your hotslogs profile, my initial impression was confirmed: out of nearly 700 (!) recorded Nova games, you have picked TN only twice. I must urge you to actually experiment with the talent before putting it down. You might be positively surprised by the results.

As for commenting on the talent itself, it essentially provides you with double the mana to work with - never go back to base again, use your abilities liberally. Unfortunately, I can't use hyperboles in guides, but that's really what it does. Nova's early game role is to roam between lanes for constant ganking pressure. TN lets you do that very reliably while also allowing you to conserve your Healing Wells for health exclusively. It even makes you feel less bad about using your abilities on anything that isn't a hero, like mercenaries or structures, and so on; this is especially useful once you get IotC.

An interesting point is that you consider Nova to be a late-game hero. Try TN, and the consistent early/mid game gank pressure it allows you to relentlessly apply might make you reconsider that thought.

Well...hotslogs is not very accurate for one. I actually played maybe 5 or 6 games with tactical espionage, but the thing is, if you are playing Nova like you should, you shouldn't be spending a lot of time roaming between lanes, but actually laying down some hits in lanes. Which takes mana, a lot of mana, and after rewind your mana pool vanishes incredibly quickly. You can easily burn 2/3 your mana in about 5 seconds of combat. You shouldn't count on passive regen to gain it back, just tele and refill.

Here is the thing, even early game where you are roaming, you don't just roam, you focus on low hp heroes, numbers advantage, and ideally lanes without tanks or heals. You can't use mana as fast without rewind, but your mana pool is smaller. Unless you are spending a lot of time roaming, and not using your abilities, then that mana regen boost is not really that helpful. If your roaming and not using your abilities, then  you might as well be teleing back for a mana refill, because your impact is the same. 

TN just isn't as useful as say the speed boost you get from advanced cloaking since that will save you from a chase situation quite often when the person chasing you is just waiting for the CD on whatever dive mechanic they have. You can pick it if you like, but again, only really makes a difference if you are spending a lot of time out of combat.

21 hours ago, Oxygen said:

I can never, ever recommend Snipe Master. Here's why: Although it yields a marginal ~100 more sustained DPS (20+ seconds, which is unrealistic) than IotC under perfect circumstances, it ends up losing much more than it potentially gains after a single mistake. Furthermore, you lose out on providing yourself and your team with 4.5 seconds of Vulnerability (assuming Perfect Shot @ 16), and on your ability to use Snipe against anything but heroes for fear of losing the stacking bonus. That's the worst part, really. Stats show that Snipe Master under-performs at all levels of play as well.

Looking at your hotslogs again, which actually tracks Snipe Master stats, we can see that you spend nearly 60% of your time at 0, 1, or 2 stacks. It seems that you are hardly making the most out of the talent.

Firstly, you are ignoring the reason I suggest snipe master in the first place, burst, not sustained DPS. Sustained DPS is largely not a good way to build Nova, other picks do it better, and there is no point of playing sustained DPS Nova rather then Li-Ming, or Valla, or Raynor, or anyone that excels at that role. The reason you want to burst is twofold. They don't have a lot of time to react, and there is not a lot of time for heals to help them, particularly regen type heals. Your second point is only valid if you build full snipe master, which is a valid build, just not as good as snipe master with crippling shot.

Again, Hotslogs, not really that accurate. In this case it is more the fact that I play Nova more in QM than in ranked, and as such I tend to ease off and play her a bit sloppy. You also neglected to mention I run 5 charges the most, at close to 30% of my game time, and that is with taking snipe master in QM vs picks like Illidan that are insanely hard to hit consistently. Also, I would like to point out that that is percentage of total game time with that talent pick, not just combat time. What I am trying to point out here, is I might spend 30 seconds between team fights with no charges because I took a pot shot at a fleeing hero the last fight and missed.  Where as once I am in combat, I can hit something every 6 seconds to build stacks back up. So actual time in combat with charges is going to favor more towards having charges then not.

22 hours ago, Oxygen said:

I'd argue that this is true concerning Precision Strike (PS) as well. Pinning Shot makes it impossible to walk out of PS in time. It then only becomes a matter of keeping track of movement abilities to punish.

Yes and no. You can secure the hit using pinning shot, but a hit on one player with strike is only about 50% the damage as 3 TT hits. You have to hit 2 players to break even with TT damage. Strike combos with other players stuns/ults is what makes it the better pick for most situations, but TT can still be good in certain comps, vs certain comps. Mostly you want to use it as a finishing move, when the other team is pretty much all low HP, anything you hit at that point has a fair chance of dying.

22 hours ago, Oxygen said:

Just don't. Having access to Vulnerability by far outweighs the marginal sustained DPS increase.

Again, yes and no. I don't because I strongly prefer the burst over sustained DPS, and its not the way i would want anyone to play on my team, but if you are a highly skilled Nova with a low DPS team, or a just plain bad team, you may find depending on your self to finish enemies beats counting on teammates to do so. This ofc is not true of high level team games, solo queue though...

 

22 hours ago, Oxygen said:

In conclusion, I think you over evaluate Snipe Master's power (or perhaps more accurately, underestimate the downsides of the tradeoff you have to make the talent work). Reliability and versatility is what gets you far in this game. Even with a high Snipe hit rate, Snipe Master is not versatile because there are times where you simply can't Snipe, and where IotC would be paying off right away.

I must reiterate here; try Tactical Espionage, get your early ganks going, and you should be able to be much more impactful.

Trust me, I was running OITC as my main build after playing around with the options, using almost exactly the same build you recommend, with the exception of running double strike instead of rewind, then I got matched up against someone using a build pretty close to what I run now. When you are playing Raynor, and a Nova pops out of a bush and takes you from full to under 10% HP in a few seconds, and you have to stun and run to escape, it makes you think. 

I am not saying OITC is bad, I am saying it is easy consistant dps, and should be taken against comps that include heroes with evades, but there are other viable builds depending on comps, skill level, and general situation. If you can pull off the snipe burst build, it is a stronger build. You still have the same team play with crippling shot, but you trade in easy sustainable dps, for a skill based high bust. The highest burst in the game, with the possible exception of Chromie.

The great thing about this build is you can easily build charges on tanks, and at full charges you can melt tanks. At full charges, one burst cycle can take about a 1/3 a tanks HP off. That means you can burst the tank, who at 2/3's or so HP still feels fairly comfortable in combat, then 6 seconds later you burst again, hit rewind and burst immediately, killing the tank.

All that being said, I still would not recommend nova in ranked play. No escape = glass cannon, along with no wave clear unless you build for it, and no ability to take camps. You can wrack up kills like nobody's business, but can't do much else.

Oh, and the problem with you recommendation for taking Tactical Espionage there at the end....I probably gank a lot more than you, because I burn mana extremely fast, and more mana regen does not really help. A full ability cycle uses 165 mana, you gain 7 mana/second with tactical espionage, so that means you have to stay out of combat an average of 23.5 or so seconds to regain the lost mana. If you are spending an average of 23.5 seconds between cycling your abilities, you are doing something wrong.

[Armade 0]

On 18.08.2016 at 0:34 PM, Guest BadIdeas said:

Advanced Cloaking → Remote Delivery/Holo Stability → Snipe Master → Precision Strike → Double Tap → Crippling Shot → Rewind.

Well, this is the only build i'd recommend for nova players. Yes, it is high skill caped. Yes, it is hard. But this is the best way to play as the prerework nova, whos only purpose was to kill squishes in 3 seconds flat. High risk, high reward as it is.  I don't think that the sustain damage build through w is the right way to play her, since for that purpose indeed you should just pick some different hero. In high diamond/master she trully is a situational pick for last slot tho. You can win your team a game in late, just by oneshoting enemy's support/assasin if you managed to make your way through to their backline, and with that burst you have a high chance of escaping. If you fuck up, well, prepare to be a scapegoat.