My names Fayethe. I've spent a lot of time playing video games, and I transitioned into HoTS after playing League for 4 years. I've also played a lot of shooters, but that doesn't really translate into anything.

Other than that, I don't really care if you want to know my credentials or not, I think you'll know a good guide when you see a good guide, so I'll just let it speak for itself.

This is my first guide, and probably only guide. I'll rewrite it whenever I can or have time.

The first thing I want to get out of the way immediately is that Nova is a pubstomper.

What does that mean? It means she is REALLY good at winning games in solo or duo queue, but as soon as you go against a full team she is extremely difficult to play. Most of her power is in her passive Cloak, which is difficult to see if you're not used to it, but as you play the game more becomes quite obvious to the trained eye.

I know a lot of people will tell me that "Oh she's amazing with a good team." but I can guarantee you that any organized cohesive team will stomp the living **** out of a Nova and make her regret it. The first part of playing Nova is accepting that her inherent character design preys on uncoordinated teams and new players.

Does this make Nova bad however? No; she's still a very fun hero to play and you will be able to carry a lot of games with her. Nova is a burst ranged assassin; her job is to get a kill and walk away unscathed. She doesn't sit on a lane and farm, she doesn't push objectives, her only job is to look for kills and to make kills happen.

Another mentality that you need to get out of your brain (especially if you're transitioning in from games like DOTA and League) is that Nova is not an AD carry. Her autoattacks do absolute garbage for damage unless you Talent into it, and by then she is no longer an autoattack dependent champ. Your ability to orbwalk will do very little for you when you fire a shot every second. If anything, Nova is a burst mage.

Pubstomp Build

This is the build I use most of the time, and for good reason. Lots of damage, kills quick, gets resets. Don't get interrupted during your ults and you'll lead the scoreboard.

Pre Level 14 you'll be leading in with your Snipe. Go for low enemies in the back line. Use your Cloak to get into good positions. Get in, make the kill and get out. You're a deleter. Your objective is to swing any and every battle in the favor of your team by immediately eliminating a person to make fights 5v4.

You can choose to deploy the Holo Decoy early to bait people into believing that you revealed your position on your initial Snipe. However if you use brush or shoot over a wall, this isn't necessary. Your Holo Decoy should only be deployed in retreating situations.

Team Fighting Build

This is the build I use when it's on a map with heavy teamfighting (Tributes, Doubloon turn-in points) or if I'm being actively hunted. Until Level 20, you'll be helpless when retreating until you get Bolt. Let others initiate first. You'll usually be in the backline of your team now, hoping that they will peel for you when you get jumped. You'll rarely be out in the front looking for a free kill.

Don't look to use Precision Strike for just last hitting low enemies. If your team initiates an AOE, use the ult. Examples are if E.T.C. or Uther jumps in. Throw that bad boy down. This build isn't as focused on getting kills, as much as making you a general threat.

Objective Based Build

It's a build I've been trying out on maps with heavily grouped objectives such as Haunted Mines and Garden of Terror. With this build you will easily be able to take out camps extremely quickly. Explosive shot will do a 50% damage AOE, while Railgun will do 50% damage to troops behind the shot. Potentially if something is grouped enough this means that you will do a 100% damage Snipe to all characters in the area. Additionally due to Railgun your cooldown on Snipe will be at around 2-3 seconds, allowing you to fire shot after shot after shot. Railgun is also be effective when pushing lanes and towers if you fire down the sides of the walls.

Again you'll be in the backlines. Your autoattack will be faster as you didn't Talent into Anti-Armor Shells so make them count.

The only problem I have with this build is that it denies Nova of her Cloak. With your constant Sniping and autoattacking you will break Cloak extremely often and if you are jumped there is very little hope for you. Nova's kit unfortunately does not have an escape till Talented at Level 20. If you have a team that can reliably peel for you, initiate and group enemies for you, then this is indeed a strong build.

Honestly this isn't required reading. If you know what her stuff does then skip. There are however some small nuances.

You're cloaked after being out of combat for 2 seconds. You break cloak when you are hit with a skillshot or AOE attack or Clairvoyance. You break cloak momentarily when mounting.

Snipe is your bread and butter shot. It does 146 damage initially at Level 1 and 735 damage at Level 20. That's approximately 3 bars off a hero. It has great range, but make sure to lead the shot. HoTS is pretty unforgiving with skillshot hitboxes.

Pinning shot is the only CC is your kit, which is a slow. It isn't a reliable source of damage, only slightly stronger than auto, but you can use it in a combo. It becomes much better if you talent into it.

Nova has no escape, so she must rely on deception. Holo decoy is an exceptionally diverse skill. Use it to bait fights, to dodge skill shots and more. The Decoy itself however does not deal damage unless you talent into it. However, it can behave surprisingly convincingly..

This is your first heroic ability (after which I will now refer to as ults). For League players, it's a Caitlyn ult. For DOTA players, a Sniper ult that can be intercepted. It has absolutely ridiculous range once locked on, but it can be blocked by both heroes and buildings. In some ways its pretty brainless to use. See a low guy you can't finish off? Press R.

This is your second ult and requires a lot more...skill to deploy. It's a global AOE nuke that fires after a short delay. It does a healthy amount of damage to squishies (1000 damage or 4 bars at Level 20) but it's more difficult to aim.

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BEST Ambush Snipe - 20% extra damage is pretty negligible early game; it's true. The power to this talent really lies later in the game. If you follow this build, its a 20% damage along with 20% extra ability power from Gathering Power and 25% from Crippling Shot. It's generally an extra 100 - 200 damage; basically another auto attack that may have ensured a kill.

DECENT Psi-Op Rangefinder- It's not too bad. You really want this more for the range than cooldown. Longer range means you have more exit room and they therefore have a longer detection time. The cooldown is nice for retreating enemies. If you feel that the extra damage in Ambush Snipe is negligible then feel free to take this one.

BAD Tazer Rounds - The only real plausible use for this Talent is for your Level 16 Crippling Shot. This will help to ensure that all your Triple Tap shots can take advantage of the extra 25% damage. While this is potentially an extra 300-400 damage, it's much more unreliable. Triple Tap should generally be your execution skill and not your main source of damage. I normally aim to kill by the 2nd shot. The slow byself is very negligible during the game.

AWFUL Conjurer's Pursuit - I tried to give this another shot, but I really didn't like it. Nova isn't suppose to sit on a lane and camp orbs, so you're never going to farm enough to make this useful. While Nova does have mana issues, it's usually not during a dire situation. If you have a mana problem as Nova, the situation is usually that the enemy team is dead, or you're already on the retreat.

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BEST Gathering Power - High risk, high reward. This is effectively adding 20% to your entire kit, which is a huge boost in power. A good Nova should be out of sight and out of mind, so as long as you don't die often, this Talent will pay for itself VERY quickly. Triple Tap synergies very well with this Talent in that it can easily rack up kills for you. If you get Fast Reload, you can often find that even upon dying, you can very well get those stacks right back up.

DECENT Envenom - I would only pick this up if you know that you would die a lot or get hunted a lot so you can't make stacks (see matchups). It's good upfront burst, but it can negated by heal over time and it has a long cooldown. The damage does scale, however.

BAD Remote Delivery - There is no point to this Talent. Not only do you miss out on damage, but Nova can effectively scout the entire map without being detected.

AWFUL Perfect Shot - When they were developing Nova I'm sure they wanted this talent to synergize with Railgun. The problem is that Snipe doesn't have a huge mana cost to begin with, so trying to save mana on it is redundant. If you're going to take Railgun, you're still better off taking skills that increase your damage.

AWFUL Focused Fire - This talent is seriously awful and in dire need of a rework. For starters, the cooldown on Pinning Shot is 12 seconds, which means you effectively are going to need to land at least 6 shots to get your Pinning Shot out of cooldown. This completely negates the entire "get in, get out" methodology of Nova. Secondly, it doesn't even work on Bosses. Either it's bugged or the skill doesn't apply to bosses, but this is an awful awful talent and should be skipped, no questions asked.

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BEST Anti-Armor Shells - Your previously weak autoattacks now do substantial damage. In fact, as soon as you Talent this in your auto will do 300 damage. That's pretty much a slightly weaker snipe. Level 7 is where Nova really shines as she starts to erase people from the map.

DECENT Explosive Round - I used to antagonize this skill, but with the damage build, it's not bad. The AOE is pretty big and it's nothing to scoff at, especially if your team gets a good ult where everyone is grouped (e.g. Maw). You also regain the ability to autoattack normally which is helpful for gathering Doubloons and Seeds and Skulls.

BAD One in the Chamber - This is usually what you get when you misclick Anti-Armor shells and go "OH MY GOD WHY DID I DO THAT." It really is quite awful considering that Nova's cooldowns are relatively long and that your autoattacks don't do very much damage in the first place.

AWFUL Digital Shrapnel - The only good thing about this is the cooldown reduction. The explosion does such meaningless and laughable damage.

AWFUL Covert Ops - This is really such a useless talent. Why would you be planning to use your Pinning Shot multiple times?

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Triple Tap - This guide mainly focuses on Triple Tap because it is a much more pubstompy skill. It's a brainless, press R to kill skillshot which does loads of damage. Sure you can block it, but sometimes the enemy has to ask himself "Do I really want to?" With the Level 20 Talent this is a pretty awesome ult and it makes you feel like you're really skilled even when it's just...hover over a guy and press R.

Precision Strike - I am not saying this skill is bad at all; it is arguably even the better skill. It's just not the focus of this guide. If you want to get it, you need to know how to aim it, and you need to lead very well. Great for teamfights and if your teammates actually respect you.

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BEST Advanced Cloaking - Pretty straightforward. You move faster in cloak and your cooldowns are reduced. Seeing as how you are always in Cloak and you always need to get SOMEWHERE to do SOMETHING, this is a pretty great talent.

DECENT Spell Shield - A shield that blocks 50% of all ability damage to you. It's not entirely terrible; it can get you out of some small binds. But you're having that much trouble you should just take Bolt of the Storm at Level 20.

BAD Lethal Decoy - Part of me wants to believe this is good because it can trick your enemies into believing that your Decoy is doing the damage. But seriously, 25% of your damage? That's not worth it at all.

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BEST Crippling Shot - Your CC is useful now. Hooray!! And very useful too; every subsequent damage after to the Crippled target is amplified by 25%. This is huge; your entire team can benefit off this. This will break the tanky heroes and the big golems that come lumbering your way.

DECENT Overdrive - Pretty much a Crippling Shot, except only for yourself. This does come again with the advantage that your Triple Tap shots will all do increased damage. However, the increased mana cost is substantial and will make you need to find mana often. Honestly, it really pales in comparison to Crippling Shot.

DECENT Railgun - I've been asked to reconsider Railgun by a few friends. The upsides are that you can consistently fire your Snipe (which is a considerable damage nuke), you can take down towers and walls rather quickly, and you can do objectives like Ghoul and Plant camps rather quickly. Credit where credit is due, it DOES work. However the constant loss of stealth really goes against my entire philosophy of Nova's playstyle: "Get in, kill, and get out". You can read Objective Based Nova for more information.

BAD Double Fake - I won't lie; I've been fooled by Double Fake many times. The AI is indeed very convincing. But there is a lot of damage in this tier that you will lose if you take this talent. If you feel that you need to run often, then the Clone does do a pretty good job of helping you get away. But this is a damage tier, and this is a huge sacrifice.

BAD Blood for Blood - An active that does percentage damage and slows. It's really not that good in comparison to everything else on this tier, and it has a longer cooldown. You want damage, not more CC.

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BEST Fast Reload - The resets. Oh God, the resets. How you use this talent will make you either an awful Nova, or the Nova that wipes out the entire team. Depending on how you position, you can easily ace the entire team and get back any Gathering Power stacks you may have lost. This is an absolutely huge talent. Remember that the Reset is triggered as long as one of your shots hits the target before it dies; it doesn't need to be the culling blow.

BEST Bolt of the Storm - You finally have an escape! Make good use of it. It's honestly a great skill, has a pretty low cooldown, and will get you out of a lot of tight spots. Use it to make plays. I take this if there are people consistently hunting me.

DECENT Precision Barrage - Even though Precision Strike isn't the point of this guide, it should still be noted that this is not a great talent. Holding two charges is nice, but you only usually get one big teamfight to use it in. You're much better off with Bolt.

BAD Fury of the Storm - I don't think anyone on any hero has taken this skill; the alternatives are just too good.

This is a pretty good map for Nova. Lots of space to maneuver around and plenty of tight and helpfully sharp corners for you to Snipe. You won't be playing objectives much in this one as your autoattacks after Level 7 will be too slow to effectively pop the chests open. Your main focus will be to hunt squishies and people with tons of coins.

The cannonballs will help you a lot by destroying forts and towers so that your Triple Tap has even less cover for your enemies to cower behind.

Use your Crippling Shot to help with the Core and with the Boss.

You can try using the Team Fighting Build for this map. Your Precision Strike will generally be at the Doubloon turn-in point.



This is a great map for Nova. A lot of movement in this map due to the Tributes. Plenty of juking spots.

Your clone can interrupt people getting the Tribute. Precision Strike is a viable option due to a lot of clumping around tributes. The lack of obstructions in the middle however mean that your Triple Taps can often go unhindered..

You can try using the Team Fighting Build for this map. Your Precision Strike will generally be at the Tribute spawn point.



Another good map for Nova. You can do objectives by moving back and forth to get the Shrine, but usually you'll be looking for kills. Your Cloak allows you to ninja Shrines without people noticing.

Roaming is much easier on this map due to the proximity of the lanes.

I'd advise against taking Dragon Knight, as you are very vulnerable when he explodes.



A more difficult map for Nova.
This map has both huge upsides and downsides.

On the upside, the night really helps conceal vision of you so that even in Cloak it is much more difficult to detect you. There's a lot of juking spots with Brush.

On the downside, you're really bad at collecting seeds if you choose to Talent into Anti-Armor Shells.

You can try using the Objective Based Build for this map.

I'd advise against taking Garden Terror, as you are very vulnerable when he explodes. However, at least the Garden Terror has Sprint to get away.



This map is pretty tough for Nova.

Lanes are also quite close and allow for easier ganks. However, the mines are where you will either get a lot of kills or get jumped on relentlessly. Usually the latter. The darkness does again help with your concealment, but the small area of the mines just lends to more people detecting you.

You can try using the Objective Based Build for this map.

Your Crippling Shot is VERY useful against the Enemy Golem.

Ideal Rotation

→

→

→

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W → Q → Auto → Triple Tap

This will insta-kill most squishies, and take out big guys at half health. Rinse and repeat.