Nova Guide

## Nova Overview

(Updated to v15.6)

Nova has excellent point damage with her drones and her snipe ability. She can mark bosses to trigger them when Anvil scans an area, which saves Anvil from picking the Nuke mastery prematurely.

The ELITE upgrades in V14.17 increase drone attack speed by +30%, drone acceleration towards the target and make drones shoot lasers at their target. On OS, Nova can reach her 25,000 score before the hour mark, usually at 50 minutes, but only with a lot of nuking. On HW, she can reach the same score around the same time, but again, a lot of nukes are required.

Since Version 15.1, with the severe nerf to Compartmentalization perk which now costs an excessive amount of minerals, Nova should delay picking Lightweight Equipment mastery until she has picked Ghost Academy Training.

## 2 Possible Playstyles for Nova

Nova has 2 possible playstyles.
The two playstyles are:

1. Pure Snipe Nova
2. Leadership-Drone Nova

A more detailed breakdown on Drones can be found here: https://cp2.fandom.com/wiki/Drone\_Hangar\_Mastery

## Pure Snipe Nova is a much more efficient playstyle

Nova is much better off with a pure snipe build for 3 and 4-player OS and HW (the pros):

1. Skipping Leadership perk allows Nova to pick Compartmentalization perk, allowing her to not spend a mastery point when picking Lightweight Equipment mastery, thus saving one mastery point.
2. Skipping Combat Drones mastery allows Nova to pick another mastery to complement her pure snipe build, thus saving another mastery point.
3. Nova can also skip Weapon Research mastery, because a pure snipe build does not require it. This also saves her 1 mastery point.
4. With 3 masteries saved, early sniping with Executioner Mastery, Ghost Academy Training, fully upgraded Ricochet and Lightweight Equipment masteries deals far greater and more consistent damage compared to Leadership-Drone Nova. Additionally, Sniping has much larger range that Drone attack range.
5. There are no snipe resistant enemies in OS and HW, except for the Hybrid Designers
6. Pure Snipe Nova avoids relying on Drone Wars talent, which is an overpowered talent, almost as good as a mastery. It greatly increases Drone attack speed. This is an unfixed game design issue that has existed for very long. Incredibly enough, Nova could potentially receive Drone Wars by Level 70, making a a drone build incredibly unreliable in terms of net damage in the game.
7. Even with the ELITE upgrade, OS games are ending by the hour mark, making Pure Snipe Nova an even better playstyle that it already is for OS, because Nova can continuously snipe mobs of enemies to allow allies to focus on buildings instead.
8. The same applies to HW games, where the ELITE upgrade does little for Nova aside proving melee firepower against Yagdras and Hives. The advantage of being an extremely powerful sniping force from the beginning of the game itself more than outweights this niche advantage of being effective against Yagdras and Hives with Leadership-Drones.
9. Without Weapons Research mastery, the huge advantage that nova has is to hit Planetery Fortresses and Odins for energy regeneration, without dealing too much damage from her auto-attacks.

The Cons:

1. Leadership-Drone Nova can pick her ultimate mastery between level 30 to level 35, since she reaches her 2500 slightly faster compared to the Pure-Snipe Nova. However, with no range (Marksman) and no fast sniping (Ghost Academy Training), she still would take very long to kill bosses. This means the benefit of picking her ultimate mastery before level 40 is very slim.
2. Leadership-Drone Nova is much better at handling high HP buildings such as Hives and Yagdras.
3. Nova without Weapons Research mastery does not cannot outrange detectors, but this is simply something that skilled Nova players can manage.

As such, the ELITE V14.17 upgrades does very little for Nova on Oldschool and Hellwalker. They might be effective in other difficulties where mechanics are different, such as the existence of many snipe resistant enemies.

## Nova's Pure Snipe Build

Nova has 4 perks for a pure snipe build. This is an expert level build, which replaces Weaponsmith perk for Toxic Waste perk.

1. Onslaught
2. Absorption
3. Compartmentalization
4. Toxic Waste

For quick entry of Perks at the beginning of the match, type (without quotes) "-perk ocex".

### Perks Explanation

1. Onslaught adds +20% snipe damage and nuke damage and auto-attack damage, which makes it a critical perk for Nova
2. Absorption is a core mastery for Sniping and synergizing with Killer Instinct mastery, by providing extra total energy for each stack of absorption.
3. Compartmentalization allows Nova to pick Lightweight Equipment perk without spending a mastery point.
4. Toxic Waste replaces Weaponsmith, because an expert level Nova can still kill spore crawlers and spore cannons without dying.

### Nova's Mastery Order for Pure Snipe Build

Nova goes Pure Snipe:

1. Level 0 = Ricochet
2. Level 10 = Killer Instinct
3. Level 20 = Ghost Academy Training + Free Lightweight Equipment
4. Level 30 = Marksman
5. Level 40 = Executioner
6. 2K Streak = Energy or Global Nuke
7. Level 50 = Global Nuke or Energy
8. Level 60 = Armageddon
9. Hourly Bonus = Weapons Research

By the very beginning, Ricochet must be picked. Use Nova's Displace talent freely just for the sake of improving the ricochet step-wise upgrades, most importantly being the Toxic Waste damage. (and other step-wise upgrades as well). Ricochet will also accelerate your 2000 killstreak, which would happen imminently after level 50.

The reason why we do not pick the free Lightweight Equipment at level 0 is to have enough minerals to pick Ghost Academy Training first at level 20.

Ghost Academy Training increases Nova's energy maximum (Remember that killer instinct procreates energy based on Nova's energy maximum) and reduced snipe cooldowns (combined with lightweight equipment and the first basic talents) means instant snipes.

With a Pure Snipe Build, Nova becomes a full fledged sniping force by Level 50 or even earlier if she picks Energy with her 2K streak mastery, which inevitably happens before level 50.

## Leadership-Drone Build

Leadership-Drone Nova is a specialist build. For OS and HW, Nova should target the Upper and Middle Hives as fast as possible for maximum score, and the fastest killstreak.

Perks:

1. Onslaught
2. Weaponsmith
3. Absorption
4. Leadership

For quick entry of Perks at the beginning of the match, type (without quotes) "-perk owel".

### Perks Explanation:

1. Nova will still definitely need Weaponsmith perk for auto-attack damage, drone damage and snipe damage.
2. Absorption will be needed when Nova converges into the inevitable snipe build later on in the game.
3. Leadership is absolutely essential to add +50% damage to all drones.

### Nova's Mastery Order for Leadership-Drone Build

1. Level 0 = Combat Drones
2. Level 10 = Killer Instinct
3. Level 20 = Lightweight Equipment
4. Level 30 = Executioner or Ricochet
5. Level 40 = Ricochet or Executioner
6. Level 50 = Ghost Academy Training
7. 2K = Energy
8. Level 60 = Nuke or Marksman
9. Free Hourly Mastery = Marksman or Nuke
10. Level 70 = Armageddon

## Comments on Nova's other Masteries

### Weakspot Mastery

Marginal increase in snipe damage against armored targets. Armored targets include ultralisks and heavy flyers, which are slaughtered by a level 50 Nova with Executioner anyways. Marksman is always a better pick for Nova.

However, Leadership-Drone Nova benefits non negligibly from Weakspot, since her Drones and Auto-attacks ignore armor.

### Emergency Kit Mastery

The very last mastery Nova should pick. There is no reason to get placed in the line of fire. This mastery adds very little to Nova's capabilities.