logobossally

nova is pretty easy to run and really powerful late game but only when you know what units to build and more often than not I meet novas they build a weaker army and the other players army suffers.
1.So start off by building a few SCVs and two refinerys (after level 7 you no longer need to man them so spend your 200 and get them pumping, when making a second base BUILD REFINERYS FIRST, they will not need to be main and you will get gas faster)
2.build your barracks and two engineering bays and get your first set of marines, try to get there simpack first. use your marines and nova to fight off the first attack on your base then clear rocks (if you can) for your second base.
3.by now you should have a good amount of gas so get working on your factory and star ports along with two armorys.
In the factory tech lag get all the goliath upgrades, these will be the only units from the factory you will be using and at the star port get all the raven upgrades, this is the only star port units you will be using. with whats left get all your barracks tech lab upgrades (I normally hold off on ghosts upgrades till later)
4. now progress as normal rolling out more marines and marauders for your barracks. your goliaths and ravens call down should always be on CD.
as for your ability bar be liberal with your defensive drones, when them in combats to keep units from dying. don't bother with the bombing run till much MUCH later on. the air lift is very useful for getting your army to places fast but be careful as you can pick up your partners units and they may not want that.
now on the field nova is meh so your not going to pay too much attention to her, the units you will be microing will be your ravens, after being upgraded each can hold 3 charges of there ability, while the healing unit is auto (it will also cloak units it heals) they can deploy very strong turrets anywhere with 0 build time and send out rockets (mines? missiles? they go toward things and make them go boom) that will devastate anything they hit. if you have at least 3 ravens that is 9 turrets you can deploy anywhere and 9 rockets!
when making units put priory your goliaths and ravens as they will be the back bone of your army, the ravens for the reasons in the last paragraph as well as being detectors, goliaths for being able to stun lock most air units (as well as colossus) your marines at this point will be very durable due to self healing and the ravens healing so they make a great punching bag, keep them up front, marauders as always wreck armor units.
Only later on end game you should start making ghosts, well they have strong burst dps you make less of them at a time so over all they wont be as strong as the other units in your army, they are worth having around in the end when you can spare the 1000 minerals and 500 gas to make them. the rest of her units are way too weak and way too expensive and should not be bothered with, even if you are on temple of the past or night of the dead do not brother with tanks or liberators, novas army is highly mobile and if split up can cover several areas at once with no fear, more so due to the ravens turrets.
I hope people find this guide helpful and wreck alot of face with it. remember with nova its not about numbers but it is about what units you build, if you just build marines and ghosts the marines will die quickly, if your fighting protoss your ghosts cloak will be pointless and because they wont have very high dps your partners army will take hits and they will need to pull back to rebuild. not to mention having a smaller footprint on the field so your co-op partners army will take the brunt of the force.

My build always depends on what AI is throwing at me. Always works. Like in PvP. On some maps like lets say Oblivion Express, Miner Evacuation, Dead of Night and Temple of the Past I always go for siege mode. Ghosts are great but they are not an excellent choice at dealing with huge waves like on these maps.

the guide I made works on EVERYTHING, as nova is terrible at defense and for as expense as her tanks are they are weaker than raynors or swans when maxed. Nova best defense is offence. even on maps like dead of night and temple you should roll with the build above and let your partner to defend as most other commanders have a semi solid defense. as a matter of fact on night of the dead and temple if your using nova you should only attack. as I said before tanks and libs don't do a whole lot for her or the team if you really want to defend with her the turrets her SCV can build are alot better than her tanks and a great dead cheaper, you can build! calling down 2 tanks will cost you 600 minerals and 600 gas witch is nuts, you can build 8 turrets and it will cost you no gas and be just as effective! for oblivion express and miner that build is fine, you'll just steam roll everything on the map, one I did miner with ONLY ravens XD and in my guide I said leave ghosts for last and that is one of the reasons why, along with they cost you 1000 minerals and 500 gas witch is very VERY pricey! that why I leave them for last only if I have room for them and enough of everything else. so at the start of a mission if your nova and your making tanks, libs, banshees or hellbats your going to cost your partner alot of there units as well as be behind on your army. while nova is not about how large your army is, a bigger army is always a better one! and later on when you have 2-3 ravens your units will rarely die witch is a huge help!

as nova is terrible at defense and for as expense as her tanks are they are weaker than raynors or swans when maxed.

lol
Stopped reading there.
Cool story I'll leave it here cuz it's not worth it.

so you like being wrong and getting your partner killed?

so you like being wrong and getting your partner killed?

I wonder how does your ghost tactic work in this week mutation since Nova is one of the best choices. Good luck with that one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSFHrdIJzG0&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBnmOxM6PB8&feature=youtu.be
Really weak tanks... lol you are a joke.
Also - 'partner killed?' I saw so many Nova tactics like yours not working at all cuz people were stupid enough to choose it and being demolished by huge waves + I carried bunch of other potatoes with no sense for RTS.
By the way never failed with Nova.
Are you lacking at micromanagement? So that's why you choose ghosts even though you gonna get your 'partner killed'?

due to low amount of units, nova needs to keep units alive even if that means going solo in some battles. siege tanks is good for base defense.

Hi. I played on US Region, and need to choose Europe region to log in and create a new character to reply here. So my portrait looks like those new players.
I play with my best friend in Co-op. My friend likes and plays only Karax. So I tend to play commander with mechanical units. So I go with Terran commanders. - I'm still learning to play Zerg/Protoss anyway.
I play Jim Raynor first, then I play Swann. Until I find Nova's units that are all super Elite, even stronger than mercenaries in WoL Campaigns.
Before I buy Nova commander, I search for how to play Nova and stumbled on this Post. And Sir Lancelot's idea helps some newbies like me.
At first, I play on Casual, so it's not a big challenge. Any unit is fine. Then Normal is still okay. And When I'm at level 10 I try on Hard. And all is well with Sir Lancelot's formation.
In resource gathering, I'm impressed with Nova, comparing with Raynor and Swann. That she doesn't have much problem with Minerals/Gas.
Swann - A lot of Gas from Vespene Drone but lacks minerals to build turrets.
Raynor - A lot of Mineral from M.U.L.E. but lacks Gas to build Battle Cruisers.
In Nova case, after level 7 she doesn't need additional SCV to collect Gas. So she can focus on collect Minerals. At around 23 minutes in the game, after I reach supply capped at 100, I have around 8,000 minerals. Enough for 7-8 Griffin Airstrike.
Not to mention - My friend, Karax, didn't use much Gas so he gives me 2 more Gas on 2nd base. And Nova didn't need multiple SCVs to gather it.
I also, by Sir Lancelot's idea, apply F1-F4 for Nova's Top power tab. This makes me able to use 1-2 defensive drones in time before I lost a unit, Griffin Airstrike to bombard enemies on attacking or defending and teleport units instantly.
So yeah. In most cases, I go with Sir Lancelot's army formation.
Though I like Covert banshees because they can be upgraded to be permanently cloaked and can focus attacking enemy unit
My Nova's army in Most cases as Sir Lancelot's formation:
Nova
Marines 4+4
Strike Goliaths 2+2
Covert banshees 2+2
Raven Type-II 1
Marauder commando 2
Strike Goliaths 2+2
Covert banshees 2+2
Raven Type-II 1
Marines 4 (If any supply available or sacrifice some SCVs)
Total 68 supply needed for the army.

The reasons I interested in Nova are:
1. I'd like to train my micro skills.
2. Nova's units are to my liking.
And then I found problems on Hard on some mission. Especially one with a lot of flying units. There'll be a lot of flying units on Brutal, more than Strike Goliaths alone can handle.
Part of the problem because my friend Karax is not good with attacking, but he's great with defense with photon cannons+Shield batteries+Energizers. So I'm the one attacking with my friend supporting me with powers+Energizers (and his Chrono wave&Chrono field also support me passively by accelerating my units' creation/upgrade). And you see, Karax defense structure attack single target at a time too.
After Playing Nova for a while, I feel that to bring the full power of Nova I need to learn more units and improve my micromanagement skills.
Strike Goliaths are good with air units but the downside is they can attack one enemy at a time. (In Brutal, I see Protoss 10+ Void rays & 4 carriers at the same time.)
This is where Raid Liberators come into play.
Raid Liberators can:
1. attack multiple units (small area explosives)
2. with far range (9 instead of 5 in Skirmish/multiplayer mode)
3. with high damage (13 instead of 5).
4. It also, need upgrade, able to transform 4 times faster between defensive&fighter modes.
5. Its ground attack damage (defensive) is also great (125 instead of 75).
Nova:
She can us Nuke. - 600 damage to every enemy in the area.
Note: This nuke won't attack friends. - I love this.
She can use Holo Decoy. - Invincible, cannot be controlled, 100 damage and can even use after nuking them by switching to assault mode.
Sabotage Drone: is good too, 200 damage (+200 vs structure)
I tend to use Nova's Shotgun (Q) in her assault mode when fighting zerglings/banelings/infected because of multiple small units.
And use her sniping (Q) in her stealth mode to get rid of siege tanks and other far units.
Heavy siege tanks:
1. After an upgrade, deploying in siege mode grant its range to increase by 5 in 15 seconds. When attacking, this makes Heavy siege tanks doesn't need to relocate much but can still reach enemies that other units are fighting.
2. Its damage is improved (siege mode: 55 instead of 40)
3. It can deploy spider mines (Cost 50 minerals per 1 deploy of 3 spider mines) I use this to weaken enemies in defending and also to mark places on the map that I want to tactical airlift units to (teleport).
Hellbat rangers:
They love to fight close (Hellbat mode) with no Gas required. So I use Hellbats and Marines to soak up damage, with help from defensive drones of course. (I consider this 2 unit as cheap&expendable because no Gas required)
Railgun turret:
I just use it to slow down enemies attacking my base so that my units at frontlines can finish their jobs and airlifted back to defend.
So in some cases, like Brutal. I made some adjusting:
My Nova's army in Brutal:
Nova
Marines 4+4
Strike Goliaths 2+2
Hellbat rangers 2
Raid liberators 2
Raven Type-II 1
Covert banshees 2
Heavy siege tank 2
Marauder commando 2
Strike Goliaths 2
Raid liberators 2
Raven Type-II 1
Marines 4
Total 66 supply needed for the army.
And other units to max supply capacity.

And when I watch videos from Mr. AlQaholic
I understand now that in some 'even more special' cases the units can be a nightmare.
In those 2 videos, Mutation mode, there is a special enemy called Propagators. Any unit it touches, yes just by touching, will be turned into another Propagator (!@#$ed!) (Not sure if buildings/turrets will be turned or not.)
And this is where Heavy siege tanks come to shine. Its spider mines save the day because 1 spider mine deal 125 damage, 1 deploy (50 minerals) is 3 spider mines = 375 damage. Thus 3 deploys can kill 2 Propagators (around 500 HP each).

OP's approach is surely not bad. I'll actually try and focus more on Ravens, they seem to be a Unit underappreciated especially by mediocre Nova players.
I disagree with the Tanks though, as many do. 2 Tankdrops can literally wipe out most of a wave with spidermines and their insane upgraded range.
Also, Hellbats can have uses as tanks. If you're better at microing than i am, you could probably use them to tank waves and make ravens heal them after taking damage, they're not super expensive, so even if you lose them, tactical loss ;)
Liberators just obliterate Trains for instance, and with great range.
Banshee's cooldowns are nice for priority targets.
All in all: Nova has, as intended, elite Units. If you want an approach that doesnt put too much pressure on you as a player, OP's guide is surely useful. But it doesn't tap her full potential. You could put every Air, Tanks, Hellbats on separate control groups and micro them, switch Novas stances, use her calldowns. That is a complexity that (imho) no other Commander has.
So if you're on a map with an Enemy that gives you an advantage by microing some of those units, you're stronger than with OP's guide, you also have the benefit of available Unit drops, since your not exhausting a select few drops.

Yeah, I find Nova's Heavy Siege tank very strong.

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