Nova Talents

Table of Contents

• +Introduction
  • 1. Quick Reference for Nova
  • 2. Introduction
  • 3. Strengths
  • 4. Weaknesses
  • 5. Role in the Current Meta
  • 6. Reading Further
  • 7. ChangeLog
• +Abilities and Strategy
  • 1. Tips on Nova's Ability Usage
  • 2. Snipe
  • 3. Pinning Shot
  • 4. Holo Decoy
  • 5. Triple Tap
  • 6. Precision Strike
  • 7. Permanent Cloak (Trait)
  • 8. Ghost Protocol
  • 9. ChangeLog
• ×Talent Build
  • 1. Nova's Talent Build
  • 2. Nova's Common Talent Paths
  • 3. Level 1 Talents for Nova
    • 3.1. Discussion
  • 4. Level 4 Talents for Nova
    • 4.1. Discussion
  • 5. Level 7 Talents for Nova
    • 5.1. Discussion
  • 6. Level 10 Talents for Nova
    • 6.1. Discussion
  • 7. Level 13 Talents for Nova
    • 7.1. Discussion
  • 8. Level 16 Talents for Nova
    • 8.1. Discussion
  • 9. Level 20 Talents for Nova
    • 9.1. Discussion
  • 10. ChangeLog

General Information

On this page, we present the viable talent choices for playing Nova in a competitive environment in Heroes of the Storm. For each talent, we explain what they do and why they should or should not be taken.

The other pages of our Nova guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

About the Author

Oxygen is a veteran of the MOBA genre, which he has been playing for nearly 15 years. He has coached some of Heroes of the Storm's most prominent North American players and teams alike, including Team Liquid. As a Master player, he enjoys playing all Heroes and roles.

1. Nova's Talent Build

Level	Choices
1	✔ ✘ ✔
4	✔ ✔ ?
7	? ✔ ✔
10	✘ ✔
13	✘ ✔ ✘
16	✘ ✔ ✔
20	✘ ✔ ✘ ✔

Create your own build and share it with friends!

2. Nova's Common Talent Paths

3. Level 1 Talents for Nova

3.1. Discussion

Longshot improves the reliability of Pinning Shot, which in turn improves the reliability of your other Abilities and Basic Attacks. The increased Basic Attack range clause of the talent synergises particularly well with Anti-Armor Shells.

Covert Ops's effect is reasonably powerful, but must compete with other Talents we feel better complement Nova's playstyle.

Advanced Cloaking provides a reasonable amount of Mana regeneration, allowing Nova to roam with Health as her only true limiting factor. The Talent also enables the use of Abilities in PvE situations, whereas Mana would otherwise be a major concern. The added mobility is also welcomed in combat, as it allows you to reposition quickly between bursts. You should still, however, see to remain Mounted while generally traveling, as your Mount still proves to be faster than walking.

4. Level 4 Talents for Nova

4.1. Discussion

Rapid Projection improves Holo Decoy by allowing it to be cast more often. This allows you to absorb skillshots and generally confuse opponents more often. Rapid Projection is recommended along One in the Chamber.

Holo Stability improves Holo Decoy by increasing its range and generally increasing its damage output. The range increase is particularly useful for threatning Heroes that would otherwise be positioned out of your effective range. Holo Stability synergises particularly well with Lethal Decoy and Rewind, as it essentially doubles your damage output against isolated targets.

Covert Mission stacks are rather difficult to acquire given Nova's role as a roamer. Even if you do manage to get enough kills to readily make use of Covert Mission, you still end up sacrificing significant utility and damage potential for a few Mercenary kills. The tradeoff is difficult to gauge, but the Talent may find use on Battlefield of Eternity and Infernal Shrines, where capturing the Fallen Shaman Mercenary Camp can be effective when timed right before the Maps' respective Objectives.

5. Level 7 Talents for Nova

5.1. Discussion

Perfect Shot essentially amounts to a 33% damage increase for Snipe. Out of all the Talents available at this tier, Perfect Shot provides the highest damage output, provided you can reliably hit Heroes.

One in the Chamber provides more DPS than Anti-Armor Shells, but comes at the cost of requiring better uptime and weaving Basic Attacks in between every Ability cast. One in the Chamber tends to be better against teams that do not have the means of pressuring you so that you may maximise the efficiency of your attacks.

Although Anti-Armor Shells may seem like an unintuitive choice at first, the usefulness of delivering nearly 3 seconds worth of Basic Attacks in an instant is indisputable. Leaving aside the fact that burst is harder to respond to than sustained damage, the attack speed reduction allows you to freely move for ~2.5 seconds between each and every attack all while sustaining optimal damage per second. This indirectly increases your survivability. Anti-Armor Shells is particularly powerful against nimble Assassins such as Genji, Li-Ming, and Tracer, as burst damage tends to force such Heroes to play more defensively.

6. Level 10 Talents for Nova

6.1. Discussion

As mentioned on the Abilities page, Precision Strike deals a significant amount of damage in a large area from global range, meaning that you do not to be physically present to partake to large combos. Its Cooldown is also relatively short when compared to most other Heroic Abilities. Successfully hitting with a Precision Strike, Snipe and Anti-Armor Shells Ability chain will outright kill most non-Warrior class Heroes. However, Precision Strike's 2-seconds delay makes it easy to avoid. Pinning Shot, as well as crowd control effects provided by your allies, can ease or secure hits.

The Abilities in the list below can combo nicely with Precision Strike to yield deadly results.

• Howling Blast (Arthas)
• Apocalypse (Diablo)
• Mosh Pit (E.T.C.)
• Grav-O-Bomb 3000 (Gazlowe)
• Ring of Frost (Jaina)
• Primal Grasp + Impaling Blades (Kerrigan)
• Entangling Roots (Malfurion)
• Storm Bolt (Muradin)
• Zombie Wall (Nazeebo)
• Leap (Sonya)
• Earthquake (Thrall)
• Divine Storm (Uther)
• Devouring Maw (Zagara)
• Graviton Surge (Zagara)
• Void Prison (Zeratul)

As mentioned on the Abilities page, Triple Tap, while able to deal an unparalleled amount of single-target damage against isolated targets, suffers from the fact that its projectiles can be intercepted by undesirable targets such as resilient Heroes and structures. This makes the Ability only situationally powerful. Furthermore, its lengthy channeling time — which you may not manually interrupt, should you be endangered — leaves you open and vulnerable. Its Cooldown is also much longer than that of Precision Strike.

7. Level 13 Talents for Nova

7.1. Discussion

Psionic Efficiency is unimpressive; the range increase is minuscule, and the Mana cost removal is superficial to Nova, whose Mana consumption is minimal.

Double Tap synergises very well with some of our other recommended Talents, though notably with Crippling Shot. The movement speed reduction provided by Pinning Shot combined to the armor reduction provided by the Cripping Shot Talent allows Nova to threaten even tanks, assuming that your teammates provide some damage of their own.

Ionic Force Field provides nearly meaningless and short-lasting amount of Armor when you need it the least.

8. Level 16 Talents for Nova

8.1. Discussion

Explosive Round's area of effect radius is too small for the Talent to realistically be useful.

Crippling Shot provides a significant damage increase for yourself and your entire team against anything Pinning Shot hits, which is incidentally almost always your intended kill target. Crippling Shot is a key talent for burst team compositions, especially when picked with the Hero Level 13 Talent Double Tap for sustaining the armor reduction effect.

Lethal Decoy turns Holo Decoy, a defensive Ability, into an offensive one. When picked along Holo Stability and Rewind, Lethal Decoy allows you to put out a large amount of pressure against any target. The damage of a full Holo Decoy-Rewind-Holo Decoy combo should not be underestimated, especially with Anti-Armor Shells to reduce your kill target's Armor.

9. Level 20 Talents for Nova

9.1. Discussion

Fast Reload is a winmore Talent that relies on the unlikely event that you directly kill a Hero with Triple Tap. Rewind is simply more useful and reliable.

Precision Barrage has the potential to inflict a significant amount of area of effect damage. This damage potential is, however, gated behind Precision Strike's archetypal weakness of relying on crowd control for successful hits. Against team compositions that either prevent you from isolating vulnerable targets for effective Rewind kills, Precision Strike's long range is a boon. When ahead of your opponents in terms of Hero Levels, and especially before Bolt of the Storm comes into play, Precision Barrage allows for successive kills that are extremely hard to avoid, something that Rewind does not do.

Apollo Suit competes with vastly superior offensive Talents.

Rewind allow you to rapidly cast all of your basic Abilities twice in a row. A proper Rewind chain essentially allows you to kill all but the toughest of characters. It even has defensive properties in the form of spawning 2 decoys through Holo Decoy, making it utterly impossible to tell Nova apart. Rewind also synergises with One in the Chamber.

10. ChangeLog

• 16 Dec. 2017: Updated talent discussions following Stealth and Nova rework patches.
• 27 Sep. 2017: Updated talent discussions following the changes in Ana's patch.

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