Warframe Nova Prime Guide: Abilities, Builds, and Best Mods

How to acquire Nova and Nova Prime in Warframe

Acquiring Nova Prime involves several steps. First, you need to obtain the base Nova blueprint, which can be bought from the in-game Market using Credits. To get the components for the base Nova, you’ll need to face the Raptors at the Naamah node on Europa. The drop rates for the Neuroptics, Chassis, and Systems blueprints are fairly standard. Expect to obtain all the required parts within a reasonable number of attempts. Nova Prime, however, can be obtained through Relics, trading with other players, or by utilizing the Warframe market.

Nova Prime and Nova’s Warframe Abilities

Nova, with her anti-matter theme, boasts a unique and versatile ability set.

• Passive: A neutron burst upon being knocked down; this deals modest blast damage. It’s not highly impactful.
• Ability 1 (Null Star): This ability is crucial. It summons anti-matter particles that orbit Nova, granting damage reduction and dealing AoE damage. These particles deplete until the ability must be recast. Targeting enemies permanently removes the particles and will require recasting the ability after all particles have been used.
• Ability 2 (Antimatter Drop): A powerful nuke! Nova casts an orb that absorbs damage. Once the orb touches a surface it detonates, inflicting heavy damage on enemies within a sizable radius. This ability is especially effective in clearing large groups.
• Ability 3 (Wormhole): A practical method for quick traversal. Nova creates a portal leading to a predetermined point, facilitating rapid movement across the map, crucial for capture missions and other objectives.
• Ability 4 (Molecular Prime): Nova’s primary crowd-control ability. It releases anti-matter particles, slowing enemy movement, triggering explosions upon death, and massively increasing damage taken. This ability excels at crowd control, and with the right mods, can even speed enemies up for specific mission strategies.

Speed Build for Nova

This build emphasizes rapid mission completion, especially in Defense missions. The goal is to maximize enemy movement speed with your abilities, allowing for more efficient map navigation and clearing.

• Primed Continuity: Increases ability duration.
• Primed Flow: Boosts energy capacity.
• Streamline: Improves energy efficiency.
• Augur Message: Further extends ability duration.
• Overextended: Increases range but reduces strength. This is often necessary for speed builds.
• Narrow Minded: Increases duration while decreasing range. This counteracts overextended, but provides necessary ability duration.
• Lightning Dash (Exilus): A significant speed boost.
• Cunning Drift: Improves movement speed.

Slow Build for Nova

This build focuses on slowing enemies, excellent for mission types like Mobile Defense or Excavation, where enemy movement is a factor.

• Streamline: Improves energy efficiency.
• Primed Flow: Boosts energy capacity.
• Primed Intensify: Enhances ability strength.
• Augur Secrets: Further increases ability strength.
• Augur Reach: Extends ability range.
• Primed Continuity: Increases ability duration.
• Narrow Minded: Increases duration, but decreases range.
• Transient Fortitude: Increases strength, but decreases duration.

Consider adding Power Drift for supplementary ability strength. Having both builds (Speed and Slow) prepared on your Nova Warframe offers flexibility in various mission scenarios. This is particularly crucial in maximizing performance and versatility.

Endnote

Nova, both vanilla and Prime, is a powerful and adaptable Warframe. Her aggressive anti-matter abilities allow for successful mission completion, especially in defense and survival scenarios. Her speed and ability to apply debuffs to enemies, make her useful in many missions and she’s definitely a Warframe worth mastering, especially in the early game.