Nu Wa - All there is to know S3

Nu Wa is the Goddess of Utility! This guide is big but I want you to understand every piece of the cake. I will try to explain different strategies by themselves.

A: For Beginners
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When you play Nu Wa like for the first time you may think "Where is my damage?"! Let me tell you your best way to deal damage is using combos. The most obvious and most hardest hitting combo maybe in the whole game is three of your minions sticking on a target, let them do their thing for at least one dash each (it destroys targets magical protection!) then use metal shard to damage the target while detonating all three minions on him. This is like 4 sources of damage on a target with zero protection at once! Any Questions? Advance this combo with basic attacks, Fog-DoT-Damage as much as possible, and absolutly needed Ult as a finishing blow (most of the time you still should not do your ult in such cases, more below). Set up your own kill with a basic-attack-root-proc so your minions can close the gap to the target.

Your Ult is actually a tool for escaping and global presence. Ult while in solo lane to help teammates fighting in duo lane, or killing an escaping target over there that has like 50 HP left, but your teammates can't reach. If you are invaded by enemies you can use your ult as a tool like "Nope, im out of here" and land in a different direction so you have a chance to escape. also it provides CC-Immunity so it can be used like Purification. If you have Gem Of Isolation your Ult will slow so you can use it to help teammates retreating or chasing on the other side of the map, or just get a good and fair assist in team fights you are actually not part of. Also you can use your ult to detect missing enemies. The moment you are in the air you and your teammates should have a close look on where the fire shards are coming down. They basicly reveal the enemies' position. For example: You did not ward Fire Giant but want to know if they are there? Ult!

In team fights use your minions to body-block enemies, thou stopping them, or stunning them with detonation-combo to set up a kill or just helping out a retreating teammate. If you have Gem Of Isolation you can use our fog as a huge area slow, enemies will just hate this amount of CC coming from "only" a mage.

Utility Fun Facts:
Your minions deal very tiny bits of damage but a lot of it! If you are not aiming for the detonation combo try to let them do their damage as long as possible, most times detonate at 7,8sec, for they would despawn at 8sec.
Your minions can body-block enemies, into a bad position.
Your minions can tank towers.
Your minions can do e.g. a jungle camp for you at least 50% of it. Just let them do your thing while you pass on going back to lane or else.
Your minions destroy enemys magical protection while you are in the air, with your Ult coming in on them when they have zero protection.
Your detonation combo stuns hard and can help you or your teammates to escape a fight, or set up a kill.
Your Passive roots people for 1.5s! That's huge! Practice landing those shots it is also a tool for escaping, helping, assisting, setting up kills, closing gaps yourself/for your minions or teammates...
Your Metal Shard goes through walls. Maybe you can get a killing blow on a fleeing target that turned around a wall.
Your Ult is actually a Purification.
Your Ult is a tool for detecting missing enemies.
Your Ult can give you a lot of money if you just spam it the moment you see a team fight happening on the other side of the map, thou you have assisted on this fight.
When you Ult into the air you can look another way to land in another direction. Use this as a escaping tool for better juking.
If you have Gem Of Isolation your Ult will always also slow, so will your fog. This can be a hugh thing because Ult slows every enemy globally and fog is just massive in terms of area and length if done correctly.
Your Fog is the most safe clearing tool in laning phase. It has a huge range and possible combos are "fog, hiding in fog while closing gap, metal shard to damage all enemy minions, while the fog still deals it's damage". experiment with it!
Your Fog is an escape tool, because it gives 10% movement speed for every friendly god and yourself in it. Always use fog in the direction you are escaping. Juking in it is fairly easy as long as you stay invisible!
Your Fog can be a tool of Invasion. Use it's 10% movement speed buff as a gap closer.
It helps teammates with initiating enemies, too. You and your teammates are invisible as long as you don't basic attack or else while in it. Imagine an teammate Ares hiding in your fog, invading fastly into enemy lines and the moment enemies see him they are already chained to his ultimate!
If you are fighting an enemy god and see your next basic attack will root the enemy try to not only land the basic attack to CC him but also use it as a combo starter, for you could follow up with minions+detonate or just a metal shard will help. If you use Polynomicon another combo option could be "basic attack with root proc, metal shard, basic attack with polynomicon proc (easy to land on rooted target)!
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About Penetration and Detonation Combo:
Nu Wa is often build with Penetration these days. Just No! Your ult is a rare thing, i refuse to build penetration for my ult. My fog is definitly not my highest damage source. A single metal shard here and there is not the thing you will be looking for. You are looking for your Minion-Detonation-Combo and doing so you have to do the combo correctly. Most mistake made is detonate too early. Your minions' first attack is their dash, what will reduce the targets magial protection for 2 seconds.
You will want to spawn your minions, wait for every one of them to have dashed to the target and then detonate with metal shard. Minions can reduce a targets magical protection by 75 so your combo has a super high damage potential if pull correctly. Also try to land the metal shard not only on all 3 minions while they are in explosion range to the target but also use the metal shards direct damage too, so the enemy will have 4 sources of damage on him while he has -75 magical protections!
If you really need more penetration you could use sunder beforce detonate or buying penetration shoes instead of cooldown shoes, but dont build too much penetration it can be a waste. Nu Wa is first of all a god of utility and should be built as such. Building penetration can help you deal consistent damage but as said does not help you by far most damage dealing combo, always keep that in mind when planing your build.

About Cooldown Reduction:
Cooldown reduction is nice but hitting hard once is better than hitting soft twice. Not all is about DPS, if your combo stops an assassin invading you and it hit him with much damage he might retreat, if it didn't deal enough he just might keep coming on you.

About Protections:
Buying protections will buy you time in fighting melees your minions might need for dashing and basic attacking before you land the turning combo blow on the opponent. But at the end of the day protections can only do that and buying magical power or utility items might be a better choice because you overall benefit more from those. if an enemy assassin knows you have protections he might still keep coming. If he knows you have huge magical power and a detonation-combo will nearly instakill him he will respect you more for considering you a dangerous target.

Build:
Cooldown Shoes, because as a beginner you want your Combo often. Go with penetration shoes if you use Chronos Pendant, 30% cooldown reduction is enough, while 10 penetration will give your Fog and occasional Metal Shard higher wave clear potential in the early game.
Chronos Pendant for Sustain and combo often. Try not to buy this item the more you advance on Nu Wa. Book Of Thooth might be better and gives you a huge mana pool too.
Pythagorems Piece for high life steal thou sustain and cooldown reduction again.
Gem Of Isolation for defensive and utility reasons. Slowing enemies with fog and Ult is huge.
Rod Of Tahuti to max your damage late game!
Spirit robe if needed as in stun-heavy enemies keep invading on you.
Polynomicon for advanced burst damage. Your minion-detonation-combo leaves a stunned target you are already aiming on, which you will hit with another burst damage source because you just used metal shard.
Spear of Desolation only if really needed, for more penetration. It's passive and big damage will help you a ton and at the end more than buying another penetration item.
Soul Reaver proc can make your Minions-Detonate-Combo an instakill at least on squishy targets!
Warlock Sash can be a swapout for Gem of Isolation if you don't need the slowing.
Obsidian Shard for 33% penetration on top of the 75 given by your minions. Can help you take down enemy tanks or objectives such as towers or gold fury. Only buy if absolutely needed.

Pick your items as you prefer and go practice, because now we are getting to the real deal in Part 2!



B: For Advanced Player
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When you have played Nu Wa for a while you might find yourself becoming more and more salty and aggressive. The following guide will give you some very good advanced strategies and a build that makes Nu Wa a completly new god experience.

This Build is completly team fight focused but works in many situations. Two reasons made me play Nu Wa like this. I hate waiting for a good Minion-Detonate-Combo-Opportunity it is just annoying if enemies are too mobile for example. Basic attacking as a big damage source makes me viable at all times and my stun-combo and passive-procs become just nice controlling tools on top. Almost every Nu Wa Veteran will tell you the same: Using her passive proc correctly is the difference between a good and a mediocre Nu Wa Player. As explained "maxing the passive" with an attack speed build is keeping in charge of every teamfight if you can pull it off by skill. 1.99-attack-speed means almost every 3s you root for 1.5s if done correctly.

Build:
WARNING: The Build as displayed will provide a very low magical power mid game. Experiment yourself with some variations, whatever you feel comfortable with! For example use my "Hybrid Build" for a balanced experience.

Tier1 Shoes (300g, +6% Movement Speed) are just a "bridge" till you have Winged Blade and Hastened Fatalis. Once you finished Winged Blade and have Tier1 shoes you will have +16% Movement Speed (compared to 18% with usual shoes). Tier1 shoes just help you through the early game but basicly this item combination is a huge thing!
16% Movement, 300 HP, 20% CC Reduction, 10% Attack Speed, and the Winged Blades passive for an overall price of 2150g which is not so far away from 1700g that penetration shoes would cost. It is just a defensive alternative to usual shoes, but will as said just be a bridge till you have 20% Movement speed from Winged Blade and Fatalis. You can decide yourself when to buy what from the point once you have Winged Blade and Tier1 Shoes.
Maybe buy Winged Blade, Tier1 Shoes and then any magical power item you like as third item to have the mid game of your choice if you prefer to hold back fatalis.

Spear of Desolation with its 20 Pen and high power will help dealing sustained basic attacked damage. You might switch this item or Telkinese Ring with another item of your choice as explained above in "A".

The Concept is keeping in control in every team fight. The burst damage might fall behind with his build but still is dangerous to your foes. Teammates will use your detonation-combo's stun to deal the rest of the needed damage at stunned targets and if they can not be killed the high attack speed will almost definitly provide a root on top of your stun so the CC-Chain gets rediculously long. Playing ADC-NuWa has advantages of it's own: more Objective damage for example. More sustained damage instead of waiting for the perfect minion-detonation, way more roots to setup kills or stop incoming opponents, and so on...


Some Advanced Strategies:

In Late Game place a ward at the very jungle border behind enemy lines next to their phoenix. Use Teleport relic to teleport to the ward and backdoor a phoenix when the enemies are busy elsewhere. Your minions can tank the phoenix while they and you take the phoenix down pretty safely and completly on your own! On Top: Having 40% Cooldown reduction means having more minions, means them tanking the phoenix more, means you taking it down faster! Buying Obsidian Shard would give you a higher objective damage if needed.

Start in Conquest with Meditation. it will give you a ton of sustain if used every time possible correctly (When Mana Pool is at least like 50% or lower)!


SKILL ORDER:
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No matter what experience you have with Nu Wa it is always different for every Player how to skill. Most Players go with 1 Point in everything and max Metal shards first. I think that is just stupid. Putting 2 points into Clay Minions with Level 3 will give you two minions which is not only double the amount of targets your Jungle Creeps or lane opponent have to kill, it also more then double the amount of damage summoning minions will provide. Still some might argue "but I want the burst as fast as possible", well then you are even more stupid, because one minion lowers an enemy's protection by 10, two minions will reduce it by 30 because of 15x2 and when you do your detonation-combo you will on the one hand have two damage sources (1 minion exploding, 1 metal shard), on the other have three (two minions exploding, 1 metal shard).

So we have a very obvious Level 1-5. What next? Personally I Max Minions first and max Ult often as very last. The difference is especially when you have a "single target damage" lane opponent, he will have a harder time killing 9 minions then 6. Harder hitting, tankier minions can help your minions doing a wave of enemy minions pretty much all by themselves, so you can rotate while your minions do their thing in your lane. Early game Max-Minions will also do a jungle camp nearly all by themselves again while you have time to do something else. More Minions means more body blocking the enemy. In solo lane your opponent often a warrior might buy magical protection as second item. Max-Minions will still reduce it to near zero. The list goes on and on...

Maxing Minions first is a choice of sustained fights and utility. Definitly the second thing you should max is metal shard for obvious burst damage detonation-combo reasons. this happens from about lvl 10-16 the big mid game where most matches are won or lost due to team fight rotations.

Most reasonable Choice is: Once you have 2 points in Clay Minions, 1 in Fog, 1 in Ult, just max your Metal shards and then put the last 3 points into Clay minions from there.

Third priority can either be Ult for global presence and damage or Fog for clearing a minion wave faster etc.

Pretty much nobody would max Fog first but even this is not a very wrong thing to do, because max Fog can clear a wave extremely fast and easy and most important extremely safe because of the distance the Fog can be casted from.

So when it comes to skills nothing really is wrong but you should try to have the hard hitting detonation-combo when you need it.