Molecular Fission seems like a great QoL mod to have but I can’t think of anything to remove to make space for it. Anyone got any ideas on what I should change about this build, or do I just go on recasting #1 manually?
Also, bonus question - are there any weapons that are fun to use with nova, have some special synergy, complement the abilities well or sth like that?
Ok I see a couple problems with the build. For Nova, its better to go for a more balanced build, because she can use all of the stats.
First, Id recommend to go for 2 augments: Neutron star and Molecular fission. Why? These 2 augments synergize extremely well with each other. With only Stretch, thats 23m radius seeking radius when recasting with Null star, and all the enemies hit are procced with heat and primed. So the gameplay is just keep recasting 1 when you have less than 90% damage reduction, and thats enough to prime all the enemies nearby, which means you only need to cast her 4 occasionally. This is very energy efficient.
Secondly, since you dont cast 4 as often, Archon stretch is more than enough to keep your energy up. You can safely ignore energy. Zenurik can help if you still have trouble.
Thirdly, Nova is very tanky with 90% damage reduction. Add Adaptation and shes very unlikely to go down. So I recommend go for shield tanking instead, as both her damage reduction and Adaptation apply to shield. With Arcane aegis and Guardian from companion, you can tank very comfortably.
So the build would look something like this: Aura: this is flexible. Id say either Growing power or Corrosive projection, but its up to you. Definitely not Dreamers bond though. Exilus: either Primed sure footed, Preparation, or Handspring as the last resort. 2 augments: Neutron star and Molecular Fission. Adaptation for survivability. Archon Stretch for range and energy. Primed Continuity. Arcane: Arcane aegis + Molt efficiency. Focus school: either Zenurik or Madurai. Unairu is good if you dont have Primed sure footed.
Which leaves you with 3 flex slots. You only need 50% strength to max her 4, which is easy with 3 slots and archon shards. For a non archon shard build, you can go for Intensity, Augur secrets, and Natural talent. This should be a well rounded build.
Bonus: Ocucor is good, or any strong secondary. Its a strong weapon, but the reason its good is because of Secondary fortifier. Nova is already tanky, but with overguard from Fortifier, you are pretty much immortal.
Hmm, I should try shield tanking on her, another user also said it’s superior for her. However doesn’t that mean we’re losing out on archon vitality + neutron star synergy?
I use ocucor already, it’s pretty fun but I’m using a cascadia flare build, I’d have to look into other builds for fortifier. It was always difficult to get it started on higher levels without it.
Thanks for the answer, I have most of the recommendations here so I’ll give this build a try and see how it works in a real scenario. I doubt I’ll have survivability issues with adaptation and constant null star uptime (even without primed redirection) and the more balanced stats will probably lead to a more consistent performance too.
Archon vitality is usually a trap. It sounds really good on paper, but in reality, there are only a few cases where its worth. Dont get me wrong, its really good when it works, but not in this case.
In order for it to be worth, you need to be able to proc heat like a dozen times/sec or proc a very strong heat instance. Neither is the case with Neutron star. Heat only procs once on recast and its damage is not boosted by ability strength. Think of the heat proc as a free -50% armor rather than a damage dealer.
Regarding Ocucor, I see your point that it could be hard on higher level to ramp up. Luckily, this is warframe and we have many ways to boost it.
Heat is actually not good in this case. Heat is the best when it comes to single target damage, but Ocucor is an aoe weapon and as such, we should focus more on aoe. I recommend a gas build. Your goal is to kill groups of enemies not a single one; gas will outperform heat easily. (Not to mention because of heat inherit, its not a good idea to run heat, since the first proc is weak but I digress…)
The problem with gas is that it doesnt perform very well against armor, so you should add some armor strip to your build. For casual armor stripping, Id recommend Jade‘s Ophanim eyes. Long duration, minimal effort to keep up just not the fastest strip.
Then you can offload viral to your companion for more damage.
For gas, its also a good idea to run a bane mod, because gas triple dip faction damage. Might be annoying to swap around, but for endurance run, its worth it.
Grouping is another way to take advantage of the gas cloud. For passive grouping run Nautilus.
About Redirection, I gave you 3 flex spots for that exact reason. Just put w/e mods you like. You might want to put on a couple strength shards to reach 50% strength though. Power drift can also be slotted if needed.
What’s the goal of the build? I typically dump range on nova, it doesn’t effect her 4 and it means less recasting of her 1 as the lowered range means you’ll lose less particles. If this is an antimatter drop nuking build or you love her portals that doesn’t fly ofc, just food for thought. You might want to consider dropping blind rage, overextended, streamline, precision intensify, and lightning dash for cunning drift, augur reach, and umbral intensify. Should give you similar levels of strength and range on two less mod slots. As a bonus you can swap regular vitality for umbral vitality and get even more strength.
It’s just a general purpose build, I want the 90% DR and the ability to slow/fast enemies and explode them at higher levels, I mostly play SP fissures or cavia nowadays. I dont use antimatter drop nuking that much but I guess it’s nice to have sometimes, it kinda takes long to setup and then the range/damage aren’t that impressive, maybe I’m using the wrong weapon to boost it.
I didn’t actually realize that range doesn’t increase the range of her #4, only duration does… I imagine it’s nice to increase the blast radius of abilities but that’s not that important overall, seems like a waste to force max range, so good tip there, thanks. I’ll try the combination you sent when I get a chance
Range% does increase the range of the initial cast and the final max range of the #4, but the growth mechanic makes duration far more efficient. 200+ range is only useful for, #1 spam DPS, #2 nuking, or #3 moving NPCs.
Agreed that Overextended doesn’t belong on the build. She also doesn’t need Streamline. On my Firey Nullstar build, I fit both Molecular Fission and the new NullStar augment.
I would NOT go with Precision Intensify, because you want Nullstar to have some power strength.
And put some orange shards on her if you have access to them.
My build: Growing Power, Power Drift
Primed Continuity, Neutron Star, Umbral Intensify, Molecular Fission
Blind Rage, Archon Vitality, Primed Flow, Energy Conversion.
Definitely seems like I underestimated nullstar damage, fire and blast damage stacks up fast and can do some crazy stuff once hounds start to spread it with the bond mods. Now the only debate is whether to go for archon vitality or just shield tank with arcane aegis.
I also really like the orange shard idea although I have no idea how efficient it ends up being since crit chance stacks additively and secondaries already have the pretty powerful p. pistol gambit
The Hek is my preference for her. Fills up Antimatter drop with a single alt-fire, typically for a few million damage.
I would honestly drop Overextended. Your stretch should supply enough range.
If I may, why are you using Vitality? Nova is a lot stronger with Primed Redirection + Arcane Aegis to handle survivability.
Are there any major benefits to Shields+Arcane Aegis over HP+Arcane Grace? At least HP tanking also benefits from armor for additional damage reduction (even the mere base 135 is a 31% reduction) , and you aren’t vulnerable to a stray toxic proc. I also use magus repair so hp tanking is more convenient since i can easily heal up if needed. I guess you also run Brief Respite then, or an augur mod?
Shields have a base DR of 50%, so it’s better to go shield-based on low armor frames, and Nova P has very high base shields to scale off Primed Redirection compared to her pretty low base HP. You still aren’t really that vulnerable to toxin, because 90% dr will typically prevent you from getting one-tapped up to like level 500, but I helminthed Pillage to clear debuffs anyway. I’m actually on Growing Power and no augurs, since between Pillage and Aegis I never run out of shields anyway.
I’ve been trying the build someone else posted above, he’s using just adaptation and arcane aegis on base shields and it seems decent enough. I put in augur secrets too since I didn’t know what else to slot and it all worked well enough with <200 lvl enemies. Feels a bit naked with such low base numbers but I’ll get used to it for sure :D
This is my current general purpose nova build, i would say that if you don’t care for the heat procs from nullstar augment, to replace for streamline/flow or more range, archon vit for redirection, and arcane guardian for aegis.
