HP: 1300
HP Regen: 2.711/s (480~ seconds to reach max)
Damage: 105
Attack Speed: 1/s (1 second cooldown)
Attack Range: 6.5
Unit Radius: 0.625
Minor aside: for some reason, almost all of Nova's Abilities have code for setting her Basic Attack cooldown to somewhere less than its max cooldown (Mostly to 20%), but... none of it's in use. It's a bit odd.
Trait
Permanent Cloak
If Nova hasn't taken damage, attacked, used an Ability, or attempted a channel for 3 seconds, she enters Stealth until she does something to break Stealth. While Stealthed for any reason, Nova gains +15% Movement speed.
Note that Mounting breaks Stealth, but Nova can reenter Stealth while Mounted, and of course by default will reenter Stealth while Mounted. I should also explicitly point out that Permanent Cloak's Movement speed boost does not stack with the boost from being Mounted.
Since this is the first Stealth-capable Hero I'm covering, I should also talk about Invisibility: any Hero who is Stealthed and holds still for 1 second will acquire Invisibility, which disables their collision with other units and also completely hides their model from enemies rather than just making it transparent and all. If your Hero is currently Invisible, the edges of your screen will have a purple Nexus Triangles effect.
This mechanic is technically universally available, but in practice is close to exclusive to Nova, Zeratul, Valeera, Sergeant Hammer if she takes Ambush, and Erik of the Lost Vikings if they take Spy Games, as these are the only sources of Stealth that can persist indefinitely. Most sources of Stealth last only a few seconds; lasting even 10 seconds is fairly exceptional, and 10 seconds of Stealth works out to at best 9 seconds of Invisible. That said, Medivh's Dust of Disappearance Storm Talent applies Invisibility for a whopping 40 seconds, so with Medivh's support anybody can pretty readily get up to shenanigans with Invisibility... in the very late stages of a match, mind.
invisibility blocked by objective contesting... except Hanamura Temple, oops
Q Slot
Snipe
Mana: 50
Cooldown: 6 seconds
Windup: 0.1 second
Fires a 0.75-long and 0.75-wide Skillshot projectile in the chosen direction, which travels at speed 50 out to up to range 10.8725 and does 230 damage to the first enemy it hits. If a given shot hits a Heroic enemy, Nova gains a stack of Precision Sniper, causing all future shots to add 6% of base damage (ie +13.8 damage), up until 5 stacks are reached at which point no more stacks can be gained but an additional 25% of base damage is added. (ie a total of +55% of base damage, or +126.5 damage) If a given shot hits no target whatsoever, all current stacks of this effect are lost, including the max-stack bonus, and Nova has to rebuild it again.
need to double-check code for range, make sure I didn't mess something up at some point
speed 50 is the same as her Basic Attack. Pinning Shot uses the same speed.
I don't understand Snipe's range code at all. the guide is for 10.8725, though
W Slot
Pinning Shot
Mana: 65
Cooldown: 12 seconds
Windup: 0.1 seconds
Fires at a chosen target enemy within range 6.5, doing 100 damage and applying a -40% Slow that lasts up to 2.25 seconds. Nova automatically attempts to Basic Attack the target afterward.
E Slot
Holo Decoy
Mana: 50
Cooldown: 15 seconds
Windup: Instant
Targets a pathable location within range 8, spawning a Holo Decoy at the location, which lasts up to 5 seconds. This does not break Stealth (Nor does it delay Permanent Cloak's activation), but will disMount Nova. The Holo Decoy is a Heroic summon that looks exactly like Nova to her enemies (Including that the stat summary given when selecting them lies to maintain the illusion), has the same max HP as Nova, is generated with the same current HP as Nova had when casting it, does not have collision with units, spawns in Stealth if Nova is Stealthed when Holo Decoy is cast and not in Stealth if she's not in Stealth when the Ability is cast, and uses Basic Attacks, Snipes, and Pinning Shots. These all have base damage values that are 10% of Nova's own damage, meaning 10.5 Basic Attack damage, 23 Snipe damage, and 10 Pinning Shot damage, and Holo Decoy Pinning Shots only apply a 5% Slow for 2.5 seconds. (Their Snipe cannot build Precision Sniper stacks and does not benefit from Nova's own stacks) Holo Decoys hurt themselves for all damage they take, effectively doubling the damage they take from any source without affecting leech rates and so on. By default, a Holo Decoy will hold position and not break Stealth until a Heroic enemy is in range, at which point it will approach the Heroic enemy and attempt to Snipe, then Pinning Shot, then Basic Attack that Heroic enemy. If a Holo Decoy has already gone after a Heroic target but then loses track of its target and has no new Heroic target in range, it becomes willing to attack Structures, Summons, and already-provoked Mercenaries, but will still only use its Abilities on Heroic enemies. Holo Decoys are able to collect Experience Globes, and will do so intentionally if they're not currently focused on a Heroic target. Talents that passively benefit Nova normally fully apply to her Holo Decoys as well.
Bizarrely, Holo Decoys are heavily prioritized by Structures, Minions, and Mercenaries, even though those will all ignore real Nova if they have non-Heroic targets nearby. As in, if Nova drops a (visible) Holo Decoy in front of a pair of Towers currently occupied firing on Minions, the Towers will immediately focus on the Holo Decoy and ignore the Minions until the Holo Decoy is gone. This gives Nova a non-obvious ability to support Minion and Mercenaries in their push even though her waveclear starts out horrendous, as a Holo Decoy can soak quite a bit of punishment relative to Minion durability.
I should also emphasize that Holo Decoys being Heroic targets means all effects that care about hitting a Heroic target can trigger on them. If you're playing Nova and laughing to yourself at how dumb the enemy Zul'jin is for always targeting your Holo Decoys... no, Zul'jin is just happy to have an easy opportunity to build You Want Axe? progress, and you're making things harder on your team. By a similar token, Whitemane can heal her team more easily and triggers various Talents more easily if you give her an easy Heroic target, and various other Heroes can potentially build Quest progress on Talents that require hitting Heroic targets, which is a common form of Quest Talent. Special mention for Kel'thuzad, where producing Holo Decoys can not only give him easy progress on Master of the Cold Dark but does in fact let him Stun Nova with Chains of Kel'thuzad even if no buddies are around; don't thoughtless toss out Holo Decoys around him!
Though they don't count for kills on Heroic targets, at least. You don't have to worry about giving The Butcher Fresh Meat with careless Holo Decoy use, among other examples.
A wrinkle to Holo Decoys is that Invisibility can be leveraged for significant mindgames, as casting Holo Decoy doesn't interrupt the Invisible state and there is no immediate difference from the enemy perspective between 'a Holo Decoy appears out of nowhere' and 'Nova exits Invisibility'.
Oddly, the code seems to indicate Holo Decoys are meant to benefit from Nova's Precision Sniper stacks, but they don't do so. I'm unsure if this is intentionally-cut functionality or if it's code that's intended to function and just wasn't noticed as being non-functional.
won't collect globes if in Brush. check for globe searching behavior ticks every 0.25 seconds. checks in radius 10
does not have enough time for a second snipe by default, nor a second pinning shot
Heroic 1
Triple Tap
Mana: 100
Cooldown: 100 seconds (10 seconds if interrupted in windup)
Windup: 0.8 seconds
Recovery: 0.5 seconds
Targets a Heroic enemy within range 25. The instant the windup initiates, the target is Revealed, with this Revealed status overruling the Unrevealable status. Upon the windup completing, Nova fires a shot immediately, and then every 0.75 seconds over the next 1.5 seconds fires an additional shot, resulting in 3 shots total; this is a channeled state, and Nova cannot end it herself and cannot take any other action during said channel. The shots themselves home relentlessly on the designated target, but are 1.25-long and 0.66-wide Skillshot projectiles that stop and do 372 damage to the first Structure or Heroic enemy they hit, even if it's not the intended target.
Triple Tap overruling the Unrevealable status is completely unique to it, and gives it unusual utility against opposing Stealth-capable Heroes. Particularly notable is that it overrules Valeera's Smoke Bomb, which can be a big benefit if Nova is operating alongside Heroes who are very Basic Attack-oriented or have one or more Abilities that are directly targeted on units. (eg Diablo with Shadow Charge and Overpower) Though since it can't be targeted on a unit that's not currently visible, this is only useful if either Triple Tap is activated in anticipation of Smoke Bomb, or if Valeera wanders out of the Smoke Bomb radius without activating Vanish first.
It's also pretty important to Triple Tap's functionality, as Triple Tap is interrupted if the target becomes Untargetable, which Stealth normally does and the Unrevealable state normally assures Stealth will break such effects even if Revealed is involved. (eg The Butcher's Ruthless Onslaught Reveals the target, but is still instantly broken by Stealth effects thanks to them normally including Unrevealable initially) Thanks to this unique property, Triple Tap's only special interruption conditions are: it stops if the target dies, it stops if the target manages to get more than range 50 away from Nova, and it stops if the target becomes Untargetable some other way. (Mostly: by entering Stasis or gaining Invulnerable)
Note that Triple Tap only gets the shortened cooldown if interrupted in the initial windup. It goes on full cooldown if interrupted after the first shot has been fired.
initially searches in a radius 1 and 45-degree arc in front of Nova on firing
starts from speed 30, decelerates by -30 to a minimum of 20
Heroic 2
Precision Strike
Mana: 100
Cooldown: 50 seconds
Windup: Instant
Recovery: 0.25 seconds
Nova targets a radius 4 area anywhere on the battlefield, with no need for sight. Immediately provides radius 5 vision in the area, then 1.5 seconds later every enemy in the radius 4 area takes 435 damage. The vision lasts for 6 seconds past the initial cast. After the damage hits, the vision radius is increased from radius 5 to radius 6 for 1 second, before returning to radius 5 for the remaining 3.5 seconds.
Note that this does in fact disMount and decloak Nova. It's also important to keep in mind that it doing damage to anything on the enemy team briefly makes Nova visible to the enemy team, regardless of her location. As such, careless use when behind enemy lines can get Nova killed because someone noticed her on the minimap and beelines straight to her. This is particularly important to keep in mind if trying to use Covert Mission's potential for sneaking enemy-side Mercenary Camps.
Annoyingly, the in-game description says it hits 1 second later, not the 1.5 seconds that is the actual delay.
waveclear, execution, dropping Forts/Keeps that are low
1 Slot
Ghost Protocol
Cooldown: 60 seconds
Windup: Instant
Nova becomes Stealthed and generates a non-Stealthed Holo Decoy on top of herself. Nova is Unrevealable for the first 0.5 seconds.
Ghost Protocol is of course first and foremost a panic button, letting Nova respond to things like Ruthless Onslaught by just vanishing while dropping a distraction. The Holo Decoy itself is unlikely to fool experienced players (Unless Ghost Protocol is used in a moment where Nova is not visible to the enemy), but for one thing it can be used to intercept nasty Skillshots; having Maiev toss a Containment Disc only to hit your Holo Decoy can be a lifesaver!
Level 1 Talents
Longshot
Pinning Shot's maximum range is increased from 6.5 to 8.45, and casting Pinning Shot raises Nova's Basic Attack range from 6.5 to 8.5 for one shot. This latter effect times out after 2 seconds if not expended.
The Basic Attack range increase is there purely because Pinning Shot issues an Attack order on the target, and so Nova using Pinning Shot will result in her firing immediately as usual rather than needing to walk forward almost 2 units of distance.
Covert Ops
If Nova has been Stealthed for at least 2 seconds, casting Pinning Shot costs no Mana and the Slow for such a shot is raised from -40% for 2.25 seconds to -60% for 2.25 seconds. There is a grace period of 1 second after Stealth is lost before this effect is lost. Nova's Holo Decoys derive no benefit from this Talent.
A UI convenience feature's that's a bit easy to overlook is that Pinning Shot's frame will glow red if Covert Ops will currently apply to it.
Advanced Cloaking
Anytime Nova is Stealthed, she regenerates an additional 6 Mana each second. If Nova has been in Stealth for more than 1 second, her passive Movement speed bonus for being in Stealth is raised from +15% to +25%.
Nova is a fairly Mana-hungry Hero (And can easily be played in a manner that rarely picks up Regeneration Globes), so additional Mana can noticeably reduce her need to Hearth regularly. At Level 1, this is in fact tripling her Mana regeneration anytime it's active, since base Mana regeneration is 3/s.
It's a bit less impressive by Level 20, as base Mana regeneration has risen by 1.8525/s by then, but adding 6/s to 4.8525/s is still more than doubling Mana regeneration.
The Movement speed boost, meanwhile, lets Nova basically ignore Mounting, relying entirely on her passive Stealth-based Movement speed boost.
Level 4 Talents
Rapid Projection
Holo Decoy's base cooldown is permanently reduced from 15 seconds to 6 seconds, and its Mana cost is reduced from 50 to 20.
Notice that the Mana drain rate stays the same if one assumes Nova is spamming Holo Decoy constantly with or without the Talent.
Holo Stability
The base cooldown of Ghost Protocol is permanently lowered from 60 seconds to 45 seconds. Holo Decoys have their maximum duration raised from 5 seconds to 11 seconds, and the maximum range of Holo Decoy is raised from 8 to 16.
The range boost is wild, letting Nova drop Holo Decoys noticeably past line of sight, which both makes Holo Decoy a much more versatile tool for scouting and also makes the mindgame potential of Holo Decoy much greater, especially in conjunction with the duration increase: instead of Nova being somewhere nearby if you spot her, even if what you actually spotted was a Holo Decoy, she may well be nowhere nearby and searching for her is futile.
Note that the duration increased is enough for a Holo Decoy to fit in a second Snipe, but not a second Pinning Shot.
lets them use a second snipe, but not a second pinning shot
Covert Mission
Additional activatable ability
Cooldown: 0.25 seconds
Windup: Instant
Uses and requires 25 stacks of Bribe to instantly defeat a neutral non-Elite Mercenary within range 6. If all Mercenaries in a camp are defeated in this way, the time until the camp respawns is halved for that instance. Nova generates 1 stack of Bribe anytime an enemy Minion is either killed by her (Including by her Holo Decoys), or if they die within radius 12 of Nova. (Holo Decoys don't count for this latter effect) She gains 10 stacks anytime she gets a Takedown credit. Nova can store a maximum of 100 stacks.
As Nova is by default quite poor at taking Mercenary Camps, and is a Stealth Hero who can slip into enemy territory relatively easily, Covert Mission is quite appreciated and can let Nova do some pretty mean things, where she snatches a Mercenary Camp deep in enemy territory very quickly and gets away safely.
Level 7 Talents
Perfect Shot
If Snipe hits an enemy, half its Mana cost is refunded (ie 25 Mana is refunded), and its current cooldown is reduced by 2 seconds. If the target hit is Heroic, both these effects are doubled, resulting in the entirety of its Mana cost being refunded and its cooldown being reduced by 4 seconds. (Effectively giving it a 2-second cooldown)
Note that Holo Decoys partially benefit from this, as they get the cooldown reduction on their own Snipes, but the Mana refund does nothing. This is handled strangely, in that Nova will get to see a popup for a Mana refund occurring when a Holo Decoy triggers Perfect Shot, potentially giving the impression that Holo Decoys can generate Mana for Nova or have their own Mana supply, neither of which is so. It's a pretty strange decision: it's not like enemies can see Mana refund triggers on their foes, so it's not contributing to fooling enemies. All it's doing is potentially confusing Nova's player.
Perfect Shot itself does a lot to offset Nova's Mana hunger, especially when fighting Heroes, as Snipe really is the biggest drain on her Mana due to its low cooldown: it's 8.33/s drain if fired every time it comes off cooldown, whereas Pinning Shot is 5.416~/s and Holo Decoy is 3.33/s. When shooting non-Heroic enemies, Perfect Shot brings Snipe's max drain down to 6.25/s, and against Heroic targets it's of course bringing it down to 0/s so long as Nova keeps landing the shots.
One in the Chamber
Using an Ability adds 65% of Nova's Basic Attack damage (ie +68.25 damage) to the next Basic Attack performed within 3 seconds. Does not stack if multiple Abilities are cast without performing a Basic Attack.
triggered by Ghost Protocol and Heroics (basically useless with Triple Tap, but a nice little boost to Precision Strike)
Holo Decoys benefit, getting a damage bonus when they use Snipe or Pinning Shot (and thus benefits from Double Tap and Hole Stability)
synergy with Crippling Shot and Double Tap
adds 130% damage, so you do 230% damage with a quick Pinning Shot and then Snipe combo
Anti-Armor Shells
Nova's Basic Attack damage is raised from 105 to 262.5, but her Basic Attack speed is reduced from 1/s to 0.4/s. (ie making her Basic Attack cooldown 2.5 seconds) Her Basic Attacks also apply a -15 Physical Armor penalty to Heroic targets, which lasts up to 4 seconds past last application. Nova's Holo Decoys have their Basic Attack damage raised from 10.5 to 26.25 and their Basic Attack speed reduced from 1/s to 0.4/s, but do not apply a Physical Armor penalty.
This spent a while lowering Armor before it applied its damage, but that oddity got done away with, slightly nerfing Anti-Armor Shells.
code indicates weapon fire is actually suppressed for 3 seconds; would be easy to test, just compare against recloak in try mode
appears to be implemented as 0.5 second cooldown, except then +2 happens. for some reason.
Level 10 Talents
Triple Tap
or
Precision Strike
Level 13 Talents
Psionic Efficiency
Snipe's maximum range is raised from 10.8725 to 12.2225, and hitting a Heroic enemy with Snipe grants 2 stacks of Precision Sniper instead of 1.
Okay?
Double Tap
Pinning Shot's base cooldown is permanently raised from 12 seconds to 14 seconds, but it stores 2 charges. There is a 1-second delay between charge uses.
Note that Holo Decoys fully benefit from Double Tap, spawning with 2 charges of Pinning Shot. Since they can't last long enough for Pinning Shot to finish cooling down, even if Holo Stability was taken, it's actually a much cleaner boost to their performance than it is to Nova's own performance.
benefits Holo Decoys, and causes them to Pinning Shot->Snipe->Pinning Shot in their opening moments
Ionic Force Field
Anytime Nova exits Stealth, she gains +25 Universal Armor for up to 3 seconds. Her Holo Decoys fully benefit from this Talent, including that Holo Decoys that spawn without Stealth still get the Armor bonus as if they just exited Stealth.
Note that Nova does not get the Armor while Stealthed. This is particularly important when it comes to telegraphed effects that are very slow or very long-ranged and able to target Nova while she's Stealthed, such as Pyroblast or Consume Souls; to protect against such, Nova will need to do something to exit Stealth before impact. The usually-best way to do this is to start Mounting, which harmlessly breaks Stealth and isn't dependent on having available enemies to target and won't give up Precision Sniper stacks and doesn't put a valuable Heroic on cooldown, but if Nova is already Mounted up at the time then she can start Hearthing instead. (Unless in ARAM, where Hearthstones are disabled; Sniping into empty air may be the only available option)
I wish it actually did give Nova Armor while she was Stealthed, and just had it only start timing out once she's exited Stealth. The current mechanics are pretty counterintuitive in their implications, where eg Nova getting lethally poisoned by Lunara might be able to survive by entering Stealth and then deliberately breaking it.
Level 16 Talents
Explosive Round
Snipe additionally hits all enemies in radius 3.5 of the primary target. The damage to secondary targets has a -10% damage penalty applied. (ie -23 damage, by default resulting in 207 damage, or 333.5 damage if Nova has max Precision Sniper stacks) Holo Decoys instead have a base damage of 20.7 for the area damage, and so interact differently with additive modifiers.
Note that Precision Sniper stacks cannot be granted by the area damage. That said, the area damage absolutely benefits from Precision Sniper stacks, and due to the nature of additive modifiers the area damage gets a greater proportionate benefit compared to the main hit. By a similar token, Perfect Shot doesn't interact with the area damage: Nova has to hit a Heroic target directly if she wants the maximum Mana and cooldown refund, not catch them as a secondary target while blasting a Minion.
Explosive Round is a pretty significant bump to Nova's waveclear (Which is normally atrocious), especially if combined with Perfect Shot, which is particularly appreciated if Nova took Triple Tap as her Heroic Ability.
Crippling Shot
Pinning Shot additionally applies a -20 Universal Armor penalty to Heroic targets, which lasts up to 2.25 seconds past last application. Holo Decoys do not benefit from this Talent.
The in-game wording makes it sound like the Armor penalty is tied to the Slow, but this is not so. Among other points, this means Crippling Shot is pretty strong against Deathwing, rather than useless like you might expect.
I should point out that Crippling Shot is borderline impossible to use in support of Triple Tap. The second and third shots will both be fired after the Armor penalty times out even if Triple Tap is initiated from point-blank immediately after Pinning Shot is fired, and Triple Tap's projectiles are so slow that even the first projectile is very unlikely to impact in time. Initiating Triple Tap and then using Pinning Shot isn't exactly realistic either. Precision Strike, by contrast, can be easily combined with Crippling Shot.
Lethal Decoy
Holo Decoys add 200% of base damage to all their damage, by default resulting in them doing 30% of Nova's damage instead of 10%. This is an additive modifier.
This affects their Basic Attack, their Snipe, and their Pinning Shot. Since it's an additive modifier, combining it with One in the Chamber gives less of a payoff than you might hope, raising them to 36.5% of Nova's base damage on a One in the Chamber-backed shot (ie 38.325) damage, not the 49.5% that you'd get if they multiplied together. Though with Rapid Projection, that does mean you can be near-constantly harrying enemies with a decent fraction of Nova's actual damage without getting Nova that close to enemies herself...
Adding in Double Tap will result in more One in the Chamber triggers from Hole Decoys, of course.
man, I should try the One in the Chamber/Double Tap/Rapid Projection combo. actually sounds pretty effective
Level 20 Talents
Fast Reload
If an enemy Hero dies within 0.625 seconds of one of Triple Tap's projectiles impacting that Hero, Triple Tap's current cooldown is set to 0.1 second. (This requires a Takedown credit to occur to trigger)
Note that Fast Reload's reset won't occur if the target dies before any projectiles make contact, and conversely it can trigger off the death of a target Triple Tap wasn't actually aimed at but which intercepted a shot.
Precision Barrage
Precision Strike's base cooldown is permanently reduced from 50 seconds to 25 seconds, and it can now store 2 charges. There is a 3-second cooldown between charges.
Note that this immediately delivers a charge, and converts the cooldown of the base version to maintain the same percentage. ie if Nova selects Precision Barrage when Precision Strike's current cooldown is 25 seconds away from finishing, she will suddenly have 1 charge and in 12.5 seconds will generate a second charge, because that's keeping her halfway to finishing the cooldown.
It's worth pointing out that Abathur's base HP is lower than the damage two Precision Strike's will do. By the time Storm Talents are online, generally a decent Abathur is either hiding in the Hall of Storms or paying enough attention to their body to not stay still long enough to be hit with both charges, but this can be good to know if eg your team is on the back foot overall but stayed in the game enough to reach Storm Talents: deleting Abathur may be what lets your team turn things around. And even at higher skill levels, you do still intermittently see aggressive/careless Abathurs in the late game.
Precision Barrage does bump up Nova's Mana hunger a bit, raising Precision Strike from 2/s drained if fired on cooldown to 4/s drained.
Apollo Suit
The delay before Permanent Cloak activates is reduced from 3 seconds to 1 second.
Rewind
Additional activatable ability
Cooldown: 60 seconds
Windup: Instant
Resets the cooldowns of Nova's Basic Abilities. (ie Snipe, Pinning Shot, and Holo Decoy) Also resets Ghost Protocol's cooldown.
It is really weird that Rewind affects Ghost Protocol. The only other Hero with any variation on the Rewind effect where this affects more than their three Basic Abilities is Li-Ming, where Critical Mass affects all her Abilities, including her Heroic.
unused: used to be Rapid Projection
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Next time, we cover Thrall.
See you in the Nexus.