Warframe Nova Guide - How to Obtain, Craft, and Best Builds

The deadly Nova features powerful offensive abilities and versatile crowd control and mobility skills, capable of destroying entire groups of enemies in many ways. Her name and abilities were chosen by the community Design Council, and she’s a great addition to your arsenal.

Her Prime version also displays a higher shield, armor, and energy capacity, as well as an additional polarity.

How to Craft Nova?

Nova's main blueprint can be purchased from the Market. Nova's component blueprints can be obtained from defeating the Raptors on Naamah, Europa.

Building Requirements
Nova Blueprint Price - 35,000 Credits
Nova Neuroptics - Drop Chance 38.72% (Naamah, Europa)
Nova Chassis - Drop Chance 38.72% (Naamah, Europa)
Nova Systems - Drop Chance 22.56% (Naamah, Europa)

Building Time
Warframe- 72 Hours
Components - 12 Hours

Nova Overview and Best Weapon Options

Nova's Abilities are offensive ones, but also offer mobility and crowd control resources. We can either focus on slowing down enemies or speeding them up depending on the mission we’re in, while we also teleport through the map using Worm Hole and defend ourselves with the Null Stars.

Abilities

Passive
Whenever Nova is knocked down, she emits a neutron burst which knocks down and damages enemies in a 6-meter radius and 250 Blast damage. Knockdown radius and damage are not affected by Mods, and self-stagger knockdown will also trigger this passive.

Null Star
Creates anti-matter particles that orbit Nova and seek nearby targets.
Strength: 80 / 100 / 120 / 150 Slash damage
Duration: 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 Particles
Range: 7 / 8 / 10 / 12 Meters of attack radius
Misc:
1 Second of attack interval
Endless Particle duration
5 % Damage reduction per Particle

Antimatter Drop
Launches a contained particle of antimatter that will detonate upon collision.
Strength:
100 / 125 / 150 / 200 Base Radiation damage
10 Contact damage
Misc:
2x / 4x / 6x / 8x Absorb multiplier
5 / 8 / 10 / 15 Meters of explosion range

Worm Hole
Creates a wormhole allowing instantaneous travel.
Duration: 10 / 12 / 14 / 16 Seconds
Range: 50 Meters
Misc:
1 / 2 / 3 / 4 Max portals active
1 / 2 / 3 / 4 Number of uses
Infinite projectile travels

Molecular Prime
Primes all enemies in a radius with anti-matter.
Strength:
150 / 300 / 500 / 800 Explosion Blast damage
10% / 20% / 25% / 30% Slow
Duration:
2 / 3 / 4 / 6 Seconds of wave duration
10 / 15 / 20 / 30 Seconds of prime duration
Range: 6 / 7 / 8 / 10 Meters of Explosion radius
Misc:
5 Meters of wave speed per second
2x damage multiplier
15 / 20 / 25 / 35 Meters of default wave radius

Recommended Weapons

Nova will need high-damage output while the enemies deal with either slowing down or speeding up, so you need hard-hitting weapons with slow reload times to not be open for too long. Ignis, Epitaph, and Ninkondi will serve that purpose, and of course, if you can afford the Prime or Wraith versions, the better. Use as many Forma on them as you see fit to achieve the desired build, and you'll be good to go!

Primary Weapon - Ignis

Secondary Weapon - Epitaph

Melee Weapon - Ninkondi

Nova Best Builds

Nova - SlowVa Build

Mods List
Aura Mod - Energy Siphon
Exilus Mod - Cunning Drift
Loadout

• Molecular Fission
• Augur Reach
• Narrow Minded
• Stretch
• Intensify
• Constitution
• Flow
• Continuity

Nova’s Molecular Prime is a great crowd control tool that we can take advantage of to take down large groups of enemies. For that, we need to mod Duration first, and then Strength and Range so we can use the rest of Nova’s abilities without any detriment, accompanying with Molecular Fission for extra Null Stars every time we kill enemies with Molecular Prime. For dramatically better results, replace the mods in the setup with their Prime or Umbral versions.

Nova - SpeedVa Build

Mods List
Aura Mod - Power Donation
Exilus Mod - Preparation
Loadout

• Molecular Fission
• Overextended
• Narrow Minded
• Augur Message
• Streamline
• Constitution
• Flow
• Continuity

Ok so, the idea here is to grab the last build’s concept and just reverse it. The idea is to generate as much negative Power Strength as you can and empower the rest, thus creating the opposite effect in Molecular Prime, spending up your enemies instead of slowing them down. This is useful in missions like defense or mobile defense since speeding enemies up makes them go closer to you to be killed and cutting up unnecessary wave time. For dramatically better results, replace the mods in the setup with their Prime or Umbral versions.