How to play with Nova (and how to improve him)

Nova is considered to be a disappointment compared to Squirrel Girl. Partially it is true, but partially is because he has a very odd play-style that is hard to grasp.

So, Nova gains nova charges through time and by dashing forward. He loses 25 charges with his second medium attack and various other effects, the former also giving an extra +30% bonus energy damage done (and +20% when above 25 charges).

The trick is to not reach 100 nova charges. As you reach 100 charges, you get an Unblockable buff for 2.50 seconds, which after expiration consumes all charges and prevents gaining charges for 6 seconds. You do not want that, unless you really need that unblockable.

What you ideally want, is to hoover around 75 charges. Why? Because when he crosses that threshold he gains a Fury buff for 7 seconds and refreshes current Fury buffs. This stacks up to 4. Each stack of Fury increases attack rating by 15%. So when played right, you can keep almost always four stacks of Fury, amounting to +60% attack rating (it is not clear to me if this includes the permanent Fury buff, or Fury buffs you get from synergies and nodes). The sig ability helps by increasing the duration of buffs by 20% - 80%

With the right rotation of MLLLL and MLLLM, you can play with your nova charges to remain around that 75 optimum.

There are two special attacks that aid you.

The special attack 1 pauses all Fury buffs for 3.50 seconds. This can be used as an emergency break. It consumes 25 charges for an Energize buff increasing power rate by 30% for 7 seconds. It helps compensating his reduced power gain. When you trigger the SP1 when at 75+ charges, it triggers a True Strike buff for 7 seconds. This can come in handy in certain match-ups and boosts his damage when facing opponents with high resistance (like Luke Cage) or armor/auto-block (like IMIW).

The special attack 2 consumes up to 50 charges for bonus damage but also gives a Nova Surge buff for 9 seconds that doubles all gain of nova charges. It can get things a bit hectic and maybe even difficult to manage, but it might be necessary to uphold those 75 charges. I'm going to fully discuss synergies later, but I want to point out the unique synergy with Darkhawk/Night Thrasher gives heavy attacks 50% chance to refresh that Nova Surge buff.

You do not want to use the special attack 3, as it consumes all nova charges for negligible damage.

There are several synergies which are helpful to him.

Gamora: she is a real must-have. Due to Phalanx Feud synergy, his Fury buffs gain a potency of 15% with her. You can also use Drax but I advise not because of the next synergy.
CAIW: with Gamora, he unlocks Cosmic Power which increases buff duration for cosmic champions by 25%. Most certainly necessary when Nova is unawakened and makes it easier to maintain those four stacks of Fury.
Night Thrasher/Darkhawk: as mentioned before, the New Warrior Blood synergy allows him to have a 50% chance to refresh Nova Surge buffs with his heavy attack. You might need it to keep up those charges.
Angela + Heimdall: it gives a permanent Fury buff of +15% attack rating. I do not know if it counts towards the maximum amount of Fury buffs. Let me know!
Ronan + Black Bolt: Cosmic Supremacy can help, up to +30% buff duration, as well the extra critical damage rating from the double Rivals synergy of Ronan with Black Bolt and Gamora. It is a lot of space wasted for something CAIW can do as well. But hey, I should mention it out of correctness.
Rhino/Iron Fist: Full Speed Ahead synergy grants extra 5 nova charges with dash-back/intercept combo's, but that doesn't really help much. A waste of space.
Bishop/Havok: Maximum Output gives 1 charge per energy attack, I wouldn't waste a space for that, or maybe against some energy-based opponents.

Sadly, I do think even played right, Nova won't be popular. His play-style needs some skill and it doesn't really pay off. He can only stack four of those Fury buffs, anything extra is void. The Fury buffs themselves are not that potent. Compare that to Gamora: her Fury buffs increase damage by +25%, can easily be refreshed and can be stacked to infinite. Nova should be just as good as her. Nova's Fury buffs should also increase attack rating by 25% and the current ceiling of four should be removed, rewarding those skilful who can maintain those through his complicated mechanics.

Let me know what your thoughts are on how to play Nova and how Kabam can improve him with the next evaluation.

Comments

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Nojokejaym

Video please

Colonaut123

Video please

I hoped someone else would do that

Tedders

Ive play around with Nova a bit i feel he's close to being a good champ but his mechanics don't work well on offense, ... For me his main problem is you get penalized for for having max nova force and using his sp3, if you were able to go from 100 to 75 by using his second medium before unblockable ends instead of having all nova force drained every time he hits 100. This would still take alot of skill but would open up his unblockable and fury mechanics for a longer period of time

Colonaut123

Ive play around with Nova a bit i feel he's close to being a good champ but his mechanics don't work well on offense, ... For me his main problem is you get penalized for for having max nova force and using his sp3, if you were able to go from 100 to 75 by using his second medium before unblockable ends instead of having all nova force drained every time he hits 100. This would still take alot of skill but would open up his unblockable and fury mechanics for a longer period of time

Yeah, very weird indeed, this must be the first champion you don't want to charge up completely. Maybe if he had like a similar mechanic as GHulk, increasing damage exponentially based on the amount of charges.

Magrailothos

It does seem odd that you lose all charges after a short period of Unblockable buff.

But it's not that short - 2.5 seconds plus 80% becomes 4.5 seconds at max Sig.
Add 25% with the Gamora/CAIW synergy and it becomes 5.6 seconds.

If you've got four stackable Furies plus your permanent Fury, I would suspect that you can do a lot of damage in 5.6 seconds. And you'll probably be able to fire off an SP2 towards the end, with a full 50% energy damage bonus per hit, and generate a Nova Surge buff to recharge ASAP after six seconds of relatively lower power.

It's a system not dissimilar to Phoenix's surges of Fury effects followed by overload, which you them build up again.

Colonaut123

It does seem odd that you lose all charges after a short period of Unblockable buff.

But it's not that short - 2.5 seconds plus 80% becomes 4.5 seconds at max Sig.
Add 25% with the Gamora/CAIW synergy and it becomes 5.6 seconds.

If you've got four stackable Furies plus your permanent Fury, I would suspect that you can do a lot of damage in 5.6 seconds. And you'll probably be able to fire off an SP2 towards the end, with a full 50% energy damage bonus per hit, and generate a Nova Surge buff to recharge ASAP after six seconds of relatively lower power.

It's a system not dissimilar to Phoenix's surges of Fury effects followed by overload, which you them build up again.

The only way to keep your Fury buffs is to spam the SP1 4 times. Losing +60% attack rating for unblockable buff seems not a good trade-off. I would only do it afzien IMIW just to finish him.

Mokkie

Just buff his fury to cap at 20. 5 fury is so pathetic

Zuro

Someone get this man into the CCP