Nova is one of my favorite Warframes for Disruption missions, as her Molecular Prime ability can slow down all nearby enemies including the Demolyst, which gives you more time to nuke the Demolyst before it can destroy the conduit. This ability also make her very useful for most mission types including Defence, Mobile Defence, Interception, Excavation and Rescue missions etc. However, if you mod for negative Ability Strength she can speed up enemies which allow you to do speed runs against infested.
Being able to slow down or speed up enemies are Nova's core ability but another extremely useful ability is being able to protect herself by using the Null Star ability to absorb damage. Without active Null Star particles Nova is rather fragile, but with the right mods and using the synergy between Null Star and Molecular Prime she can become more "tanky":
- Null Star creates anti-matter particles, that each give a 5% damage reduction. Mod for max Duration to maximize this damage reduction.
- Null Star particles will seek out and damage nearby enemies so you might consider using the Narrow Minded mod to reduce the range in order to save the particles for damage reduction instead of damaging enemies.
- Make sure to equip with the Molecular Fission augment, which will restore a Null Star particle when enemies primed by the Molecular Prime ability are killed.
- When encountering groups of enemies use the #4 Molecular Prime ability to prime the enemies and then kill them to restore Null Star particles.
How to get Nova
The main blueprint can be bought from the market on your Orbiter. The component blueprints drops from Raptors on Naamah @ Europe. The drop chance is good so you should be able to quickly farm the blueprints.
The relics that drops the blueprints for Nova Prime are currently removed from the drop tables and have been moved to the "Prime Vault". They will likely be unvaulted again at a later date - pay attention to news on the official Warframe site for information of which warframes gets unvaulted next time. You can however still acquire those blueprints by trading (for Platinum) with other players who already possess those blueprints.
Abilities
If Nova gets knocked down, she emits a neutron burst that knocks down and damage nearby enemies.
1: Null Star creates anti-matter particles, that orbits Nova and seek out nearby enemies. Each orbiting particle grants a 5% damage reduction to Nova. Particles hitting an enemy will deal Slash damage.
Notice that you can not recast Null Star until all particles have been used.
Mods:
- Attack radius scales with Ability Range.
- The number of particles scales with Ability Duration.
- Damage scales with Ability Strength
2: Antimatter Drop launch a slow moving antimatter orb, that will detonate on impact. While traveling the orb will absorb any incoming damage - fire at the orb to increase the damage on impact.
Mods:
- Damage scales with Ability Strength.
- Traveling range, explosion radius and duration are not affected by range or duration mods.
- Augment: Antimatter Absorb allow the antimatter orb to absorb enemy fire within 3m which then boosts the explosion on impact.
3: Worm Hole creates a rectangular wormhole directly in front of Nova - walk into the wormhole to teleport 50m forward in the direction you looked at while casting this ability. Both allies and enemies can walk into a wormhole; this can be used to teleport enemies out of the map 😉
Mods:
- The duration of the Worm Hole is affected by Ability Duration.
- The target range is affected by Ability Range.
- Augment: Escape Velocity adds a speed bonus for 7 secs. to allies traveling through the Worm Hole.
4: Molecular Prime primes all nearby enemies and either slow them down if you have more than 100% Ability Strength or speed them up if you have less than 100% strength. Primed enemies will take 100% more damage and will detonate on death and deal Blast damage to nearby enemies.
Mods:
- Explosion (blast) range scales with Ability Range.
- The range of the Molecular Prime wave is NOT affected by Ability Range!
- Instead the range of the wave scales with Ability Duration, as longer duration allows the wave to travel further.
- Slowing down enemies scales with positive Ability Strength.
- Speeding up enemies scales with negative Ability Strength.
- Augment: Molecular Fission will restore a Null Star when a primed enemy is killed. This is a must have mod for Nova!
Nova Builds
Slow Nova
This is a "Slow Nova" build that allows you to slow down all nearby enemies using the Molecular Prime ability and keep the Null Star damage reduction up by using the Molecular Fission augment. This build focus on max Duration as this will allow the Molecular Fission wave to travel as long as possible and thus prime all enemies.
