Nova Prime

[Airu]

I recently got Nova Prime and i have few questions in preparation for grinding her and some other stuff to max rank;

1. How good is she in general?

2. What are her general strengths and weaknesses?

3. I've heard there are (at least) two ways to mod her out, what are those two setups, which one is better overall and what mods are needed for it (i mostly play solo)?

4. How does playing her solo / in groups differ?

5. How is she best played?

6. What are the best places for ranking up frames and other stuff at different stages of progression; when you're unranked, when you have some level of power and when you're almost max rank (my quess? Void, those Death Orbs are effectively an infinite energy source as long as you use them even semi sparingly and there are missions for just about any rank there as well)

7. Which of these are best overall for Nova Prime and why?

Primary: Braton Prime, Boar Prime, Soma Prime

Secondary: Lex Prime, Vasto Prime

Melee: Broken War, Dakra Prime, Skiajati

8. Are there better equipment for Nova Prime than these, and if so, what (they must be either vaulted or MR 9 or below)?

[FourGreenFields]

3. I suspect that refers to intentionally modding her for low ability strength (or not doing so). Her 4 can speed up enemies with low enough ability strength. Usefull for speedruns.

[Watermelons]

1. She's very good at her role, which is glass cannon.

2. Can do massive amounts of damage through Anti-matter Drop and Molecular Prime. Is also a stealth-speed frame, as her Wormhole makes for very quick travel in some places, like the open world locations. She's not very tanky though, and that's only mitigated by her Nullstars, which strip themselves if you get anywhere close to enemies.

3. Either full strength, or strength loss. The reason to try strength loss is that it affects Molecular Prime in a funny way. Normally, it coats enemies in a slow down effect and a damage multiplier, as well as exploding on death. With less than 100% strength, it actually speeds enemies up instead of slowing them down. This makes it useful for speeding up the process of mission types like Defense, while still applying a lighter damage multiplier and keeping the death explosions. For losing your Power Strength, you'll need Overextended and/or Power Donation, which all reduce your Power Strength.

4. Not in any significant way. Her abilities don't affect anyone really, except that Wormhole can be used by teammates and since Molecular Prime applies to enemies directly, everyone benefits from it by simply shooting them.

5. Up to you. Nuking the hell out of enemies with Anti-Matter Drop means you need to pack a weapon that does very high damage. It soaks up whatever you shoot into it ( and with the augment, what enemies shoot into it ) up until a cap, which is dependent on your Power Strength. Then when it lands on a surface or enemies, it blows up. You can nuke groups of enemies easily like this. With A-MD relying on a Strength build, you can simultaneously be a "Slow Nova" or "Slowva" as the community likes to call her, since Molecular Prime with 100% or higher Power Strength slows enemies down. That's a good CC ability and psuedo team damage buff all in one.
Otherwise, with negative strength builds, it makes any Defense missions, especially Infested, go by a lot quicker. Exceptionally popular in Orokin Derelict Defense or Dark Sectors for farming resources along side a Nekros and/or Hydroid.

[Sceles]

She manipulates enemy speed across a large distance and causes them to take double dmg. She can make enemies faster or slower depending on your build and is a top pick for public interception missions.

She can also be used to teleport around really fast but to do that you need to put range on her, which is not very useful for other purposes.

[Airu]

Updated main post with three new questions

[Carnasid]

I'd suggest none of those weapons you chose for Nova, and instead suggest a high damage, single shot weapon such as Tigris so you can nearly instantly charge Antimatter Drop. Less down time between fully charged murder balls the better.

[Airu]

Originally posted by RB:

I'd suggest none of those weapons you chose for Nova, and instead suggest a high damage, single shot weapon such as Tigris so you can nearly instantly charge Antimatter Drop. Less down time between fully charged murder balls the better.

Reason why i wanted to pick something from those is because they're all i have atm

Im only MR 8, soon to be MR 9. There's no way im going to grind my way to MR 13, i've pretty much given up on it because of how pain in the ass it is. However, Tigris Prime and Galatine Prime were added at the same time and were vaulted at the same time as a result meaning they should become unvaulted this summer, June 19th 2019 to be precise

Once they become unvaulted, i can kill two birds with one stone and buy both amazing weapons with a pre-installed catalyst without needing to meet the MR requirement

As for whether they're worth the money, i'll be the judge of that

[Yuki]

As one of the if not the first player of Nova, and then later Nova prime, ill try to answer ;)

1. Imho best in game. Can literally solo every content, is always useful to the team and incredibly fun to play.
Take personal bias away and you are still left with one of the top 5 core frames everyone should probably have.

2:
Strength:
-High speed
-Highest damage skill in the game (Antimatter Drop), likes to one shot lvl 100+ Bosses.
-Awesome versatile CC and Buff. Massive Slow (or speed), doubles damage, in lower levels: clears whole tiles by chain explosions.
-If you want to: Can solo every mission, including even Arbitration Corpus Intercept, all Sorties, Kuva Survival, you name it, she clears it. Fast. Because:
-Useful in every mission type, often excels at it. Fastest frame for spy missions, must have in defense, giant killing speed boost in ESO if paired with Saryn (which you usually are), back in the days she was even a must have for raids (...)
-She doesnt mind which enemies she blows up, just goes rampage on everyone. Corpus? Wayne, Grineer? Easy. Sentients? Octavias quest has never been more easy, not even with Umbra.
-Awesome synergies with a wide range of frames. Many will love you.
-If you want, you can also troll on an epic level....just listing it, i wont recommend it :P
-Nice scaling: In difference to many other frames 3 of her 4 abilities keep being extremely effective over the whole game, from 10 to even lvl 1000+. Thus again she as well stays valuable everywhere, in difference e.g. to frames like Ember or Banshee.
-Nice balanced caps for an extremely wide variety on builds. E.g. she only needs 145 power for maximum slow. Leaving a lot of room for a lot of other useful stuff. Speed, more shields, range, there is no real cookie cutter build for her, just maybe a "cookie cutter core".

Weakness:
-Very fragile. Actually the MOST fragile if i remember right. You NEED to keep moving and proper timing.
-Difficult to play unless you are only there to provide your Molecular Prime (Defense Mission).
Antimatter Drop, Wormholes, proper movement and timing all need practise, lots of practise. She is generally not a "one click->cash in" frame like most other favorites.
-If you are into such, note that you wont necessarily be on top of damage or kills. Even your chain explosions dont contribute to you if triggered by someone else, but to them. You are there to speed things up, provide safety and crack the toughest foes. Everything else: let your team play with the rubble. She sometimes appears to me like a kindergardener, more so than even trinity, and is indeed fun to help newbs with. Slow everything down for target practise. And then blow up the Nox so your "babies" can play safely.
-Expensive. Even the two main line of builds require some expensive mods. A "Primed Continuity" is also HIGHLY recommended, you will need a full set of corrupted mods and if you want to play around with more than the "everybodies nova" and e.g. also focus on Antimatter Drop, some of the most expensive weapons will also end up on the list. Also uses quite some Forma in either case.

Bottom Line:
Nova is at least a nice to have if you just focus on her 4 and pretty easy to play. Take cover, press 4, let your team do the rest. *yawns* If you are willing to spend some time and money into her however- thats where the real fun begins, but then she is also among the most difficult to play, deffy not for everyone.

3. The two ways are:
Slow Nova: 145+ Power and max duration. 145 slows enemies down by the max ammount (75%)
Speed Nova: <80 Power and Max Duration. Current cap would be 10, but careful! This will need a good team, because you speed your foes up including fire rate. In the beginning you may actually want to stay at a bit more power.

Note that Duration is key for the range of your 4. It travels with a set speed (only 5 m/s), for a modified Duration. Range only extends the "start size" of your power wave.

If you are just starting out: however far you can get in both. Negative Power will need some corrupted mods though, as will most proper slow builds too. You will probably want to get a whole set relatively soon anyways, so maybe now its a good time to start to get them. All of them.

4. Group: Just focusing on your 4 is a valid option.
Solo: Agile, very agile. Keep moving and blowing stuff up, continiously. I find a Nullstar augment melee nova especially fun to play :D Can be used in group too though while still providing Molecular Prime and is then always often found among the top contributors in damage and kills.

5. Slow build with ~200 duration and max run + bullet jump speed and tractor beam moa. Personal favorite for all but defense. Because never ever bring a slow nova to defense Seriously, DONT. Take another frame if you dont have the mods for speed yet (or at least use all EXCEPT your 4 then). Mobile Defense is totally fine though.

6. Frames: Hydron (Sedna) once you can. If you cant: Join a clan and ask someone to provide a taxi.
Or yes, void fissures, but please bring a proper weapon to show some effort.
Solo as you prefer: Spy missions. Make proper use of wormhole to blitz these and use sneaking instead of stealth for stealth affinity. BTW: Molecular prime also helps here ;)

7. Hydron is good for everyone, doesnt matter what your tiny level 5 Nova can or cant do.
Otherwise: Void Fissure survivals. You can provide some CC and damage to the team early on and train "keep moving". its also among the more xp beneficial, no matter if solo or in a team.

8. Weapons to consider:
"I dont want to focus on Nova, just have a useful frame for farming":
Primary:
Ignis, Corinth, Soma Prime
Secondary:
Kulstar, AKstiletto
Melee:
I would recommend a "ranged", e.g. glaive with health steal.

"Lets have fun with Nova"
Primary:
Tigris Prime (you cant recommend weapons for Nova without naming THIS ;) ), Arca Plasmor, Panthera, Rubico Prime
Secondary:
Staticor, AKbolto Prime, Pyrana Prime, Catchmoon
Melee:
Zaw with Epidemic Arcane

The why...The Tigris prime was THE one and only archetypical weapon for Nova for years. Reason is the incredible high damage of the Tigris. To "load" your Antimatter Drop you often need to shoot a lot of bullets into it. Easily emptying a full soma magazine e.g.. Tigris: ONE mouseclick. With the right (admit again expensive) mods.
The Arca Plasmor could potentially do the same today with a riven and has an imho better usability in general outside of AD. The Rubico will usually need two shots, but thats still fast enough.
Panthera is kinda a long range high accuracy High damage per shot version of the Ignis with great usability in many cases. The already named Arbitration Corpus Intercept would for example be a prime candidate for taking a Panthera over a Tigris Prime. And thats imho the most difficult mission in the game.

Staticor: It just melts enemies in a large area. Also those "fist weapons" with their Kamehameha effect are just fitting for a speedy frame :D
Pyrana and Catchmoon melt thigns too, my choice would be depending on enemy and mission type maybe.

Zaw with arcane: Remember you need to keep moving. With this setup you will fall from the sky with a melee attack and send out a wave that will levitate/stop all enemies in your path. Gives you a moment to use molecular prime or nullstar augment so you dont need to "land" in a corner/cover to do so.