Nova

Creates an expanding ring of lightning to shock nearby enemies.

Nova is a Sorceress Lightning skill (level 12, requires Static Field) and the prerequisite of Thunder Storm (Thunder Storm). It is a ring of lightning missiles that expands from the Sorceress and hits everything it passes through. The numbers that decide it are the damage, 131–188 at level 20 before synergies, and the mana, which rises 1 a level to 32 at level 20.

The numbers

The damage comes from the EMin/EMax columns with HitShift 8, so the table's numbers are the damage. The minimum starts at 1 and grows +6 a level to level 8, +7 to 16, +8 to 22, +9 to 28 and +10 a level past that; the maximum starts at 20 and grows +8, +9, +10, +11 and +12 in the same brackets. That is 57–94 at level 10, 131–188 at level 20 and 221–298 at level 30. The line reads lvl, so +skills count.

Mana is 13 at level 1 and 1 more a level (mana 13, lvlmana 1, manashift 8): 32 at level 20. The Basin's page notes the LoD cost was 2 higher at every level (14 + level) and prints the D2R column the table now holds.

How it works

Nova fires a ring of "nova" missiles outward from the caster; the Basin's page classes it as a medium-range piercing multi-missile cast and measured the ring to damage a target if any part of it is within about 8 yards of the caster (or of the target, when cast on Striking from an item). It is lightning damage, reduced by the target's lightning resistance, see Dealing Elemental Damage and Resistances and Immunities; as a spell it needs no attack rating. It is cast at casting speed and the Sorceress's Faster Cast Rate breakpoints.

The Basin's page gives Nova a next-hit delay of 4 frames: a target the ring has just damaged cannot be damaged by the same skill again for 4 frames, which is what stops one ring from hitting a target twice as its missiles pass through.

Synergies and +skills

• Static Field: +5% lightning damage per level (skills.txt Param8 = 5; the calc reads skill('Static Field'.blvl), hard points only). The Basin's page marks this synergy as D2R-only; the LoD skill had none.
• Nova in turn feeds Lightning (+8% a hard point) and Chain Lightning (Chain Lightning).
• The damage line reads lvl, so +skills raise it; the synergy percentage does not move with +skills.

Against players

A player's hit on another player is cut to 17% of its value (difficultylevels.txt PlayerDamagePercentVSPlayer) before anything else, see Player versus Player. The Basin's page gives no other rule for Nova against players.

Build notes

• Mana grows faster than the brackets do in the midgame: level 10 to 20 adds 10 mana and 74 minimum damage, so the cost per point of damage is roughly flat; past 20 the +9 and +10 brackets pull ahead of the +1 mana.
• Nova's only synergy is the Static Field points a Lightning Sorceress already has a reason to hold; 20 of them are +100%.
• A point in Nova is +8% to Lightning, so points here are not wasted on a build that leads with Lightning or Chain Lightning.