Minor Nova Improvements

[CrownOfShadows]

So I've been playing enough plague star to have finally picked up Nova again and gotten pretty decent with a very niche build: the max range wormhole build, with escape velocity and power donation.

Nova's very unique in the way she builds and what she does.

A few things irritated me consistently as I returned to her, TWIMC:

1. The wormhole should be a hole, not a door. This has always bothered me. The door portal feels cheap, like the VFX department was on vacation that week (it was a long time ago when WF was young I know. It's fine, but it could be way better). It should be a sucking vortex as the name implies
2. The wormhole could probably be tweaked in the way it targets. It's deliciously fast and responsive, but the targeting feels like it should maybe have some forgiveness. You know how the Tenet Envoy targets? Sort of like that but with terrain. Like if you target terrain too close it tracks over the surface to it's max distance, or perhaps a % of that distance based on how you target the ground... same for floors and walls. I also would investigate whether it's possible to make the exit a little blurry - geographically and visually. Exiting tends to be extremely disorienting and softening it slightly would probably be good.
3. Her null star doesn't actually work very good as health protection, even with the fission augment. I'd recommend adding a UI HP DR indicator and also have a lingering effect added so that when you lose stars the DR slowly decreases over time rather than insta-erasing. This is something I've also noticed when I've tried to use it as a helminth (notably on Inaros). It feels like wet tissue paper instead of protection and the stars evaporate almost instantly. Visual side note: the stars don't look cool. They should be stars, not ping-pong balls. Alternatively this would be a fine candidate ability to rework in the form of overguard.
4. Antimatter is of course not a great ability and should be completely overhauled or replaced - it's helminth fodder 100% of the time.
5. Her base armor value is just a little embarrassingly low. This is probably because of the null star DR, but still you'd have to seriously buff that ability beyond what I suggested above to get it to where it would justify this value. The reason I raise this concern is because she struggles to engage well with shields. Nothing in her kit interacts with shields and she needs so many ability mods to operate that there's no real case to justify investing in them - even with redirection shields only go to 720 - which is not good in modern WF. Basically, figure out how you want her to survive. Is it shields, is it DR with hp tank? Buff accordingly.

Thanks for listening, peace.

[xXDragonGodXx]

... Ok, so for the first part of the "door", there is a saying: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

For the part about Antimatter not being good, you haven't played around with it at that point. It is clunky to get going but with the right build, you can almost spam it or at least use it as a trigger for a substantial nuke. It also does not need a visual improvement or a targeting improvement. Players need to start taking things a bit slower and try to learn how some things work before starting to complain about it.

Her base armour can be negated with a proper build and/or playstyle, and I have no issues taking her to SP, as I also am slowing my enemies down a lot with my 4th ability.

And lastly... Here is a GIF of our sun, that is also a STAR

Now tell me how "Null Star" needs to look like a star... When it already does.

[chaotea]

3 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

The wormhole should be a hole, not a door.

Agree, change the name to 'Wormdoor'!

3 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Like if you target terrain too close it tracks over the surface to it's max distance,

Na, i often target the floor next to me, as im not after distance but the augment speed boost.

3 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Her null star doesn't actually work very good as health protection, even with the fission augment

Its really good if you have low range. It would be nice though if your damage resistance was based on Max number of orbs not current.

3 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Antimatter is of course not a great ability and should be completely overhauled or replaced - it's helminth fodder 100% of the time.

True its often replaced, though i'd say 70% (i often swap out wormdoor). Its very strong for low - mid level. It could do with better visual indicators for absorbed damage.

3 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

Her base armor value is just a little embarrassingly low.

Yep, do agree on this one. Shes tough to keep going, though much easier with a good slow-va.

Edited November 16, 2023 by chaotea

[BroDutt]

24 minutes ago, chaotea said:

Its really good if you have low range. It would be nice though if your damage resistance was based on Max number of orbs not current.

DE only allow max DR 90% per ability, I think it's better if we got 0.3 s invulnerability when all of them consume just like mesmer shield.

For the low range part we should be able to get max 1m (not 4m) radius on nullstar and twice the range on wormhole (around 30 m) at 34% range (narrow minded with no range mod), so we can keep the nullstar without making the wormhole useless.

[--Leyenda-yight6]

For me, the null star has 2 problems: it is lost very quickly with the range and it doesn't even do good damage, I would change it so that attacking was a manual function or so that we can refresh the ability. You need 300% duration to have maximum stars (which would be all duration mods), you would need to increase the default stars to 9 to max out at 200% duration.

[BiancaRoughfin]

7 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

1. The wormhole should be a hole, not a door. This has always bothered me. The door portal feels cheap, like the VFX department was on vacation that week (it was a long time ago when WF was young I know. It's fine, but it could be way better). It should be a sucking vortex as the name implies

2 The wormhole could probably be tweaked in the way it targets. It's deliciously fast and responsive, but the targeting feels like it should maybe have some forgiveness. You know how the Tenet Envoy targets? Sort of like that but with terrain. Like if you target terrain too close it tracks over the surface to it's max distance, or perhaps a % of that distance based on how you target the ground... same for floors and walls. I also would investigate whether it's possible to make the exit a little blurry - geographically and visually. Exiting tends to be extremely disorienting and softening it slightly would probably be good.

1. If you can manage to manipulate WormHoles, then you can shape it in whatever form you want. The easier it is to enter, the better and therefore the shape of a Door works best.

2. I rather they didnt touch its targeting, im pretty sure it would open way for many exploits and bugs with players phasing through or getting stuck in terrain.

Only change i would make to Wormholes would be giving it a Minimal Range, so players who build Nova to be a Tank with her Molecular Drop dont have a completely useless ability in the kit.

7 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

3. Her null star doesn't actually work very good as health protection, even with the fission augment. I'd recommend adding a UI HP DR indicator and also have a lingering effect added so that when you lose stars the DR slowly decreases over time rather than insta-erasing. This is something I've also noticed when I've tried to use it as a helminth (notably on Inaros). It feels like wet tissue paper instead of protection and the stars evaporate almost instantly. Visual side note: the stars don't look cool. They should be stars, not ping-pong balls. Alternatively this would be a fine candidate ability to rework in the form of overguard.

When NullStar is active, the ability on the bottom right displays a number of charges. You dont need to be some mathematical genius to figure out how much Damage Reduction you have " Charges x 5% == DR " and it caps at 18 Charges for a total of 90% DR.

Fission helps keep your charges up for longer, of course you might wanna avoid going Melee with enemies to keep your DR up but it is mostly helpful when not fighting bosses as most of them dont spawn mobs for you to recharge your Nullstar with.

7 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

4. Antimatter is of course not a great ability and should be completely overhauled or replaced - it's helminth fodder 100% of the time.

You either dont know how to use it or dont know how it works, this is Nova's Nuke, it can wipe out groups of enemies even in SteelPath and since the Blast Radious isnt affected by Power Range, even a Tank Nova can still make use of this in missions.

If i made any changes would make the Augment Antimatter Absorb be part of the ability as it helps her accumulate damage faster. As for Augment i would make it so the First cast causes the Antimatter Drop to orbit around the player for some time, absorbing any damage from projectiles it comes across, if the timer runs out it would detonate causing the damage in an area around Nova, if the ability is cast again she would launch the Drop straight instead of guiding it.

7 hours ago, CrownOfShadows said:

5. Her base armor value is just a little embarrassingly low. This is probably because of the null star DR, but still you'd have to seriously buff that ability beyond what I suggested above to get it to where it would justify this value. The reason I raise this concern is because she struggles to engage well with shields. Nothing in her kit interacts with shields and she needs so many ability mods to operate that there's no real case to justify investing in them - even with redirection shields only go to 720 - which is not good in modern WF. Basically, figure out how you want her to survive. Is it shields, is it DR with hp tank? Buff accordingly.

For obvious reasons, shes originally a Caster and not a Tank, later with her Rework that DE made way for her to fit a Tank role with her NullDrops and players just built on it to make her stronger.

I my self use her as a Tank and she usually takes 1~2 damage from enemy shots even in Steel Path when all her damage reductions are active.

Also, you can throw in Archon Shards to boost her armor and get +150~1125 armor on her.

[chaotea]

5 hours ago, BroDutt said:

DE only allow max DR 90% per ability, I think it's better if we got 0.3 s invulnerability when all of them consume just like mesmer shield.

Not what I meant. I said it would be good if it was based on max not current. Caps still apply, but if you could get to 9 charges or higher, it would always be at 90%, even if all but 3 charges were used to attack. ATM that drops you down to 30%.

5 hours ago, BroDutt said:

so we can keep the nullstar without making the wormhole useless.

Sort of my point that if the damage reduction was based on max possible charges you could build for range without your only DR disappearing.

[Fred_Avant_2019]

To be fair, I wish I could keep my max stacks of orbs damage reduction without my screen being bloated by a million things floating about. Sadly there's nothing in accessibility options to tone it down.

 

Having a VFX update on older frames wouldn't hurt, the wormhole being closer to a circle would be great, but having it be like duviri's mirror thing where it shows a different camera angle in real time would be nice.