349 replies to this topic

[Pkunk]

[offtopic]Since this topic seems to be popping up ever other day or so; can someone pleease fix the topic title?[/offtopic]

[Lily from animove]

fx8320, on 27 October 2014 - 02:34 AM, said:

The challenge shows once again it's one of the worse performing chassis, the fix is quite easy too, removing the fixed equipment, or if they really want to keep the free tonnage the same, remove the fixed JJs and get the engine rating up.

This is one of the few mechs I put my eyes on and then abandon after having basiced the first.

I wasn't even perfoming so bad, I had a decent 2.0 K/D ratio, even in a bad 0,71 win/loss ratio (this mech just can't carry any team) and matches like this :



Was just asking myself...why should I pilot this?And no aswers came to my mind...as for now I have my nova-S taking dust alone in his mechbay.

I don't think its the fixed equipment, its purely its agility.

sicne allt eh ecr'S are out now, and I have faced SCR's regluary, while I piloted SCR's, Nova's TBR's and MDD's fairly well, I can say:

the major issues is agility:

Whenever I faced Novas, I could easily land laservomits to 80% into their CT. they had no chance to torsotwist at all. The CT is huge. SCR on the other side cna easily avoid this, most of the times the damage distributes rather equally across the CT and ST.

this is caused by 2 things:
Better engine --> faster twist.
Better hitboxes

Then you come to battleagility. amongst the clanners the Nova is the only medium havign clan heavy speed. basically any medium can outrun it. And all clanheavies as well. (Soon even the gargyole). so ehen facing these mechs, you are very llimited, you can not easily flank them if they chase you, since you are slower. in a SCR, battling a TBR is quite easy if youmake use of these. retreat, seek a flankign route, you are fats enough to make this work, Place yourself in hardpoint advantage. (Torso).

Non of these cna the nova do. you can't outrun most emchs in speed, or try to chase them. This only works on some heavies+ but anythign else is faster. If you wanna shoot at something your hardpoints will always allow you to be hit as well. Adder SCR and TBR do at leats ahve some very nice high mounted CT Hardpoints. And with 116kph SCR cna at leats somehow decently hutn or scare a ligh away.

A SCR cna easily "eat" 3x the incomign adamage a nova can, which is really makign a big deal in terms of survivability. my SCR matches easily score like 600+ damage in most matches. In a Nova its rare to get to these numbers regulary, because in fats matches you cant fire often enough, and slow matches then maybe, but with all the mediums currently runnign around its kinda hard to keep up with the others. It's hard to describe at all, but SCR fells in any category more like a small Timberwolf, while the Nova feels like a small version of an Awesome.




just look at those hotoxes, slower, less armor, and sooo much bigger. All these facts have an exponential factor when you take them together.

while the tournament doesn't tells everythign about a chassis, look at it, the SCR begins where the Nova ends. the average SCR does what a Nova pilots have to hardcore for.

Edited by Lily from animove, 27 October 2014 - 05:41 AM.

[Macksheen]

I really struggled with the Nova, took a break from the game, came back and did well with them.

Then I ran my SCRs again, and did better hardly trying. If I'm at 35% health in a SCR, there's a good chance I HAVE ALL MY WEAPONS STILL.

What I'd like to see on the Nova
- Hit box update
- Add additional ballistic to S side torsos ;-)

I've not played them since the JJ update, but would love to see some twist speed in the mx.

[Tesunie]

fx8320, on 27 October 2014 - 02:34 AM, said:

The challenge shows once again it's one of the worse performing chassis, the fix is quite easy too, removing the fixed equipment, or if they really want to keep the free tonnage the same, remove the fixed JJs and get the engine rating up.

Is it my imagination, or is the Nova actually seeming to preform about middle ground in the tournament? With a top score of 2048, it's in line with the Centurion (2039), the Huchback (2104), the Dragon (2082), Kitfox (2089), Thunderbolt (2074), Vindicator (1977)... I mean, it isn't the best by far, but it appears to be running about average from what I can see.

For a competitive player, I can see many remarks about it's "average" score, as most competitive players don't go for average, but for the max (or the min/max). The Nova is not an above average mech, and I do agree it could use some assistance.

Wait for clan mech chassis quirks to get into the game. That should help this chassis out a bit. (Or course, let us also see what they do with the IS chassis quirk balancing pass first.)

[That Dawg]

Lily from animove, on 27 October 2014 - 05:41 AM, said:

oh god oh god oh god, please love the stormcrow above all others

really? haven't you beat that dead horse into a pulp yet?

Stormcrows have some of the weakest legs, arms in the game. I fear a kintaro more than a stormcrow, or a raven for that matter......

[Tesunie]

Lily from animove, on 27 October 2014 - 05:41 AM, said:

the major issues is agility:

I will agree more agility would be nice for the mech, but I don't feel it needs any more speed. Faster reaction times and twist speeds would be nice for the Nova.

[That Dawg]

Tesunie, on 27 October 2014 - 07:56 AM, said:

I will agree more agility would be nice for the mech, but I don't feel it needs any more speed. Faster reaction times and twist speeds would be nice for the Nova.

isn't the prime chasis "slower" than say the S? I hate seeing prime novas running 3 lasers in the arms.

as to the overall stats, I just looked, Nova chassis is in 6th place along with maddog, the stormcrow rests at 8th place with the stalker and spider...spider? Wishful thinking doesn't make the stormcrow better than the nova, all the posts, all the rants, the nova still, an average mech, slightly less average than the stormcrow.

Lilly...I just noticed, congrats you placed in the leaderboard- ........in a nova?
bwahahahaha....... how'd you place in a stormcrow?

[Lily from animove]

Tesunie, on 27 October 2014 - 07:52 AM, said:

Is it my imagination, or is the Nova actually seeming to preform about middle ground in the tournament? With a top score of 2048, it's in line with the Centurion (2039), the Huchback (2104), the Dragon (2082), Kitfox (2089), Thunderbolt (2074), Vindicator (1977)... I mean, it isn't the best by far, but it appears to be running about average from what I can see.

For a competitive player, I can see many remarks about it's "average" score, as most competitive players don't go for average, but for the max (or the min/max). The Nova is not an above average mech, and I do agree it could use some assistance.

Wait for clan mech chassis quirks to get into the game. That should help this chassis out a bit. (Or course, let us also see what they do with the IS chassis quirk balancing pass first.)

No, the end is HARD and unikely to get, the difference between 2093 and 2108 is very big and not easy to get, you need a lot luck to get there. Because at this point its very much about killing enough guys and doing enough damage.

That Dawg, on 27 October 2014 - 08:02 AM, said:

isn't the prime chasis "slower" than say the S? I hate seeing prime novas running 3 lasers in the arms.

as to the overall stats, I just looked, Nova chassis is in 6th place along with maddog, the stormcrow rests at 8th place with the stalker and spider...spider? Wishful thinking doesn't make the stormcrow better than the nova, all the posts, all the rants, the nova still, an average mech, slightly less average than the stormcrow.

Lilly...I just noticed, congrats you placed in the leaderboard- ........in a nova?
bwahahahaha....... how'd you place in a stormcrow?

this is not slightly less, you need to play the tournemant by its rules to understand that this "slightly less" is hard to get.
It requires a lot luck to get there while SCR results are quite not that hard to get.

in a stormcrow I would expect to get somewhere between 2100 and 2200 points, its realsitic and absolutely not hard to get. I would actually like to know where 15 Gerald Kerensky 1,755
as the last shown Nova scorer with 1755 would be placed in a SCR, becaue I guess 1755 in a SCR will place you quite low in the SCR ranks, maybe around 50 or such.

I would love to have a table showing the best 100 of that contest, this would give soem nice data about how the more average players do in these chassis.

anyways to pull of high score sin the tournament you need somethign like this



But those matches aren't easy at all to get, not in a Nova.
its 60 for kill
90 for assists
around 50 for the damage
20 for the win.

so nearly 220 scoreing for the tournament. by its rules yet try to make this 10x. Not every chassis can do this that easily and a SCR can do it a lot easier than a Nova. Most of my matches by tournament rules end with 160 scoring. I have so far only one 210er and 2x200er. But you see that si not even enough, you need to pull this regulary to get to the top. TBR made this easy, i went 2209 there in the last tournament, because you can cary an entire team with it granting you loads of score and kills/assists. But nova is too much of a paopermech, which SCR by its superior hitboxes equals out very easily.

This may probably show you what you need to score big for the tournament. Not easy when others are good too dealing lots of damage killing poeple.
One point in here is mobility, when the opponents are spread trying to "reach" everyone is already hard, the SCR's additional speed does help a lot here. and when you come to an opponent close to death you can't make much damage anymore at all.

Yes S is "faster" actually its what it is standard, Prime arms remove movement rate for the arms. Thats why its better to not use prime arms when you go less than 4 lasers/arm. But its arm movement, not torso twisting speed. and with that giant torso, twist doesn't helps much at all.

[That Dawg]

Lily from animove, on 27 October 2014 - 08:39 AM, said:

I would love to have a table showing the best 100 of that contest, this would give soem nice data about how the more average players do in these chassis.

and therein lies the crux, you want to judge this one mech not on stats, but on your own experiences.

You should posts your thoughts as such, not as statistical, analytically correct
Stats indicate the nova is a better mech than your beloved stormcrow- the leaderboard says so.
Your own game results support this.

a thread about novas, about half the posts in this thing are you bashing the nova, and continually providing "proof" why we all should never play it..........yet...........YOU are in the top 10 on the current contest......in a flipping NOVA....
You teamed up with another player and did, in your own words, rather amazingly in ...a nova...
And a page later, here you are, back with charts and graphs and photo graphic evidence saying the nova is crap?
If you dont see the irony, the near absurdity of it.....

[Lily from animove]

That Dawg, on 27 October 2014 - 09:08 AM, said:

and therein lies the crux, you want to judge this one mech not on stats, but on your own experiences.

You should posts your thoughts as such, not as statistical, analytically correct
Stats indicate the nova is a better mech than your beloved stormcrow- the leaderboard says so.
Your own game results support this.

a thread about novas, about half the posts in this thing are you bashing the nova, and continually providing "proof" why we all should never play it..........yet...........YOU are in the top 10 on the current contest......in a flipping NOVA....
You teamed up with another player and did, in your own words, rather amazingly in ...a nova...
And a page later, here you are, back with charts and graphs and photo graphic evidence saying the nova is crap?
If you dont see the irony, the near absurdity of it.....

No 1. where are the stats showing the nova is better? they are not in the leaderbords, SCR exceeds the Nova easily. They are very much statistics here in the board. And you see the nova rarely better performs than the nuhcback, which is considered a low tier mech receiving buffs soon because of being crap in comparison to other mechs.

No 2. In high competitive environment there is no place for the Nova

No 3. The thread is about how usefull the nova is, or how others think its uselss, yet you have to work your butt off to reach matches, while you can go with half my brain in the SCR and get the same. Isn't even ajoke at this point. I't just how the mechs differ. No one who is sane and plays for competition or wins would ever went into a Nova.

No 4. yes we did well in the matches with Shar, yet this was not because the Nova is amazing, We still need soon to make this same test with SCR's and see how taht works out.

And me placing good in the mech says nothing about the mech itself, if we would have a "medium clan" leaderbord we probably would not even see any Nova's on that baord, or maybe one, if even. Now in the board its about the top Nova pilots, but not n comparison about the other mechs. Whcih would probably be outruled by SCR's and some other mediums of the IS.
youc an if you aren't lazy, after the tournament put ALL mediums in a list and see at which place the fist Nova appears.

So the things I state are based of facts, not on thoughts, be nearly 20% slower and 30% wider, there isn't much to "think" about how this just gimps a mech to a horrible degree.

And this is what many people realise. Often too late. because then you get something like this:

NUJRSYDEVIL, on 23 October 2014 - 10:11 AM, said:

Very happy with my Nova, a modified prime with 5 ERML & 5 ERSL.

The stock prime is deadly but overheats easily as you can imagine.

Extremely mobile mech, love it.

A quote of a fresh Nova pilot, happyness in his "Nova virginity"
Yet already saying stats wise nonsense: "EXTREMELY MOBILE" by facts Nova is the least mobile mech across the medium field and below, and with Summoner, Loki, TBR and Gargoyle even on same speed as higher tonnage mechs. That are stats, undenyable facts as truth. Sure some HBK builds are slower, but I woud rate them as rather bad builds if mediums are too slow.

Now funnily in this thread

NUJRSYDEVIL, on 27 October 2014 - 07:27 AM, said:

I am becoming increasingly frustrated by the Nova as it used to be my favorite before the nerfs.

I run a PRIME with 6 ERML and 5 ERSML so my weapon load is only 8.5 tons. Unfortunately you need to have quite a few heat sinks on the Nova for it to even function. It's very impractical and I'm thinking about dumping it unless we can get a setup that doesn't suck.

+Jump Jets
+People don't tend to target a Nova

-About everything else

To the poster above, if you fire 12 lasers (6+6) you are done for the next 15 seconds. You cannot compete in the game and need to stand still and cool down to even get back in the fight.

I've run the Nova with ERMLs ERSMLs and even dual LPLs. They all suck after the more recent patches, the Nova was fun a month ago, it's almost unplayable now.

The same poster, totally different opinion now.

Nova isn't cheap and a lot poeple figured out very painfull what they really bought. And honestly the laser heat nerf was not even that much of an issue, that is maybe for player on mid elo level the case, the true issue that I state, is its mobility. Its just a warm big brown pile of recently aten stuff for a mech as wide as an atlas. Firepower is ok, if you aren't too triggerhappy, heat isnot an issue. But mobility sucks, and those JJ's rarely help you that much, because time of exposure is what matters in a fight.

Have you yet played a SCR? have you tried pushing it to its limits? How can a Hunchback form which many people said its worse than a Nova suddenly be close to te nova? They probably didn't just knew what they really talked about. I told you HBk is not worse than a Nova. Now look at the stats.
The experiences of many out there (ask ingame) and the leaderbords already show you that I am right, I don't state things easily withouth trying to make proof backups to them.
I told you a Circada can without trouble do the same, which some denied, yet look at the boards, you have the numbers there.

I am not doing all this because they are my opinion or thoughts, All the stuff is based of stats and characteristics which every good pilot can put together on his own.

[RasBane]

I enjoy using the nova with 8 erml 4 in each arm and 4 mg's with 1 ton of ammo. you cannot effectively use 12 erml without overheating but with this you can alpha at about 80% heat with perks and space to fire off 4 more erml using override. you don't take any damage as it only goes over for a second or two. this is an assault killer.

[That Dawg]

I settled into a 2 ERLPulse, 4 sl's and 4mg's. with a pair of modules for the erlp's......its a hoot.
not its old glory face melt fun, but its earning good cbills, xp, love the feel of the mech, plenty mobile, places like mining, or canyon.
you can vomit small lasers and mg's at anything and manage heat nail 'em with the large pulse.
Its definitely a go to mech friday night at the fights
NVA-S

and dont forget to try the joke mech, somewhere I posted screens of 500 damage and kills and my entire mech is glowing red missing an arm and a leg
NVA-S
Inspired by the "head shaking face palm build" thread, just stay as far back, but keep up to, the pack as possible.

[The Wakelord]

I think for me, the issue is that the nova is supposed to slowish, very wide but short. Having it both super wide and quite tall makes it have much too much volume - thus catching extra bullets.

Quirks would be nice for some combination of:
- Heat
- Torso twist speed
- Critted weapon destruction


On a side note, I've found a nice Nova-S build that is working ok. It is a purely chest-mounted nova, so you can zombie to some degree too. It is:
2LBX2 (chainfire) + LL, or 2UAC5 (sync fire) + ML. Run 16 armour on the arms, and on the former you play more of a scare game/sniper game, and on the other you play like smaller catapult K2.

[Arc Viper]

I found that the only viable buld (at least for me) with the nova is to pack the thing full of small lasers, a 4-slot targeting comp, and the rest double heat sinks. I can at least regularly pull of 300dmg games with that load out. If you get targeted run away unless you are going in for the kill. People think the nova is so weak they don't generally focus it if there are meta mechs around.

The reason I don't bother with the machine guns because all that does is draw people's attention to me. I dunno. It may work better for other people. MGs would be nice with a targeting comp of that caliber.

Edited by Arc Viper, 29 March 2015 - 05:19 PM.

[Coralld]

That Dawg, on 05 December 2014 - 05:03 AM, said:

I settled into a 2 ERLPulse, 4 sl's and 4mg's. with a pair of modules for the erlp's......its a hoot.
not its old glory face melt fun, but its earning good cbills, xp, love the feel of the mech, plenty mobile, places like mining, or canyon.
you can vomit small lasers and mg's at anything and manage heat nail 'em with the large pulse.
Its definitely a go to mech friday night at the fights
NVA-S

That's how I run my Nova S, just with out the MGs and use the 2 extra tons for heat sinks. Works very well for the most part.
I really want to get the omny pods so I can have at least 1 energy slot in each ST so I can put the 2 LPL in there instead of the arms.

[Lily from animove]

Arc Viper, on 29 March 2015 - 05:13 PM, said:

I found that the only viable buld (at least for me) with the nova is to pack the thing full of small lasers, a 4-slot targeting comp, and the rest double heat sinks. I can at least regularly pull of 300dmg games with that load out. If you get targeted run away unless you are going in for the kill. People think the nova is so weak they don't generally focus it if there are meta mechs around.

The reason I don't bother with the machine guns because all that does is draw people's attention to me. I dunno. It may work better for other people. MGs would be nice with a targeting comp of that caliber.

300damage matches this is honestly just "not bad" but its still not Ok, or even good,not speaking about amazing or awesome.

[Anunknownlurker]

@Lily from animove - 300 damage isn't bad for a beginner like me...but, obviously, I am aiming to improve with every battle.

The OP was about the Nova being "useless". I'd say, even as a new player, it is far from useless. Of course there are far better mediums available (Stormcrow anyone?) but, in the right hands, with a build that suits your playstyle, the Nova is pretty good. I have 6 mpls on mine and in a knife fight can hassle and strip bigger, nastier mechs whilst they focus on the TimberWolf beside me; got to keep on my toes and be ready to hide my great big Schwazenegger arms of course but that's what your lance mates are for!

Is it a "great" mech? No. Is it the "Metamech"? No. But is it useless? Not at all, it's just unforgiving, vulnerable and hard to master. All I can say is, I have fun in mine.

[Alienized]

whenever i see a Nova close by me and i didnt recognize it im definetly closer to a OH SNAP! call than when a Stormcrow comes by.
why? the nova is such a brutal close range mech... it pulverizes many mechs when caught unprepared.

[Tarogato]

Almost a year later and I still have to read the grammatical error in the title of this thread every time somebody posts in it...

[Lily from animove]

Alienized, on 01 April 2015 - 05:13 AM, said:

whenever i see a Nova close by me and i didnt recognize it im definetly closer to a OH SNAP! call than when a Stormcrow comes by.
why? the nova is such a brutal close range mech... it pulverizes many mechs when caught unprepared.

honestly its only more puloverising when using 10 SPL's anything else below, the SCR can do the same or better. The reaosn why many novas appear more pulverising is that SCR is so meta many people use it and so the chance of a lesser skilled pilot screwing it up in a SCR is possible. While the last remainign NVA Pilots mostly know what they do. Becaue newbies and sane pilots already dropped that mech.

Jimmy DiGriz, on 01 April 2015 - 05:02 AM, said:

@Lily from animove - 300 damage isn't bad for a beginner like me...but, obviously, I am aiming to improve with every battle.

The OP was about the Nova being "useless". I'd say, even as a new player, it is far from useless. Of course there are far better mediums available (Stormcrow anyone?) but, in the right hands, with a build that suits your playstyle, the Nova is pretty good. I have 6 mpls on mine and in a knife fight can hassle and strip bigger, nastier mechs whilst they focus on the TimberWolf beside me; got to keep on my toes and be ready to hide my great big Schwazenegger arms of course but that's what your lance mates are for!

Is it a "great" mech? No. Is it the "Metamech"? No. But is it useless? Not at all, it's just unforgiving, vulnerable and hard to master. All I can say is, I have fun in mine.

in comparison to other mechs it is rather useless, and once you hit some higher elos where people have aim and know what mech can be a threat they won't shoot that TBR next to you, they simply obliterate you in a few seconds.
6SPL? what do you think do they do in a SCR? better hitboxes, faster speed, better cooling. Ok, lack of JJ's but honestly If I could change my JJ's for SCR speed on a Nova, BYE JJ'S not gonna miss you.

If you like the Nova, never step in a SCR EVER. it will make you sad once you go back into a Nova knowing how bad this mech in comparison is.

Edited by Lily from animove, 01 April 2015 - 05:32 AM.