So what's the best way to use Nova?

[ZedClampet]

Just finished leveling her. Ran her a couple of times for kicks. I mostly just spammed Molecular Prime and did a bit of teleporting. Antimatter Drop seems good for crowd control and maybe cranking up some damage on high end enemies. Not sure I see a huge use for Null Star unless I commit to a full duration set-up.

I just set her up for a combination of Range and Duration to start. How do you use her?

[robruckus65]

there are 2 setups usually used for nova. The standard slova build mostly durationa dnaenough power strength to hit the max slow down effect i think transient fortitude and power drift is all you need. THen a speedva build which uses overextended to make the powerstrength as low as possible to increase the speed of mobs to make them run to the defense target faster. Speedva is great for farmign defense missions quickly but it can be dangerous if people cant handle sped up mobs.

[TheSuit]

4th ability is mainly support - either add a ton of power strngth to slow down enemies
or rduce power strength to make them speed up.

Nova also has one of the bigest burst dps attacks with her second ability.
Use a massive burst damage weapon like a tigris and shoot her golden ball - then have it hit a large group of slow targets. Which will scale the damage to fairly large amoutns.

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

Originally posted by The | Suit:

4th ability is mainly support - either add a ton of power strngth to slow down enemies
or rduce power strength to make them speed up.

I would strongly advise against adding "a ton" of power strength when going for a slow Nova build, as the slowing effects of her 4th ability hit their maximum at merely 145% strength. Further strength only serves to increase the damage of the explosions created by enemies who die under the effects of Molecular Prime, and those explosions are rarely useful since most non-Antimatter Drop Nova builds have all duration and negative range.

[Dai]

For Molecular Prime you only need 145% power strength for the slow effect, anymore than that only increases the explosion damage and on the other hand Speed Nova needs negative power strength to speed up enemies. Knowing which to take for what missions is kind of important, such as taking a speed nova for resource/affinity farming or a slow nova for sortie interception, regular interception, mobile defense, etc.

Here are both of my builds for Nova:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1293663384

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1293663546

For my Slow Nova build I have a little bit more than 145% power strength but that is fine enough and I want high duration to make it last longer / spread out further and then to add to that I use Escape Velocity so my Portals give a Speed buff to anyone who enters it making it quite versatile to use on the Plains for instance.

While for Speed Nova build I have the negative power strength, high duration, enough efficiency so I don't need to worry about energy which is why I am not using P Flow, and Escape Velocity so I can go fast.

For both builds I easily take advantage of duration for Null Star's damage reduction and I have a Boar Prime with a multishot + damage riven so I can easily fully charge up Antimatter Drop within a matter of a few shots to nuke an area for tons of damage. But that is my general preference and you can play however you want anyways.

[ZedClampet]

Thanks all

[76561198216066933]

Just gonna pop in to say that Null Star adds 5% damage reduction (90% max) to nova's health, not shields per particle. So it's useful to have it up all the time.