Nu Wa Arena Guide

Welcome to the Nu Wa Arena guide! Nu Wa is one of my favorite heroes in the game, and if built right, can be an absolute wrecker in Arena. Here, you will find my favorite build for her, how and why I like to build her abilities, and some general strategies for using her! Let's get started!

First off, relics. I almost always start off with Sanctuary, unless the enemy team has one or more of the following Gods:


Ares--


Hades--


Fenrir--


Xing Tian--


Anubis--


Ymir--

If these Gods are on the other team, I will take Purification. For my second relic, it will typically be Sanctuary or Sprint Shoes.

While the recommended build is usually Shoes of the Magi , I prefer Shoes of Focus for the increased cooldown. Nu Wa is very ability dependent, and every bit of cooldown helps.

I will typically start by purchasing Lost Artifact and Magic Shoes , and attempt to stay in the field until I have 1300 gold, so I can purchase Chronos's Pendent chronos' pendent. However, if I am forced back to base early, I will go ahead and finish my shoes before heading out, then finish the pendent when I can.

Next comes the Book of Thoth . Nu Wa can be very mana hungry, and this takes care of that while helping you build stacks early. Book of Thoth gives you the ability to give yourself more mana and power bu killing minions and gods, so we want this relatively quickly.

Next is Soul Reaver . This synergizes well with the Book of Thoth, and gives Fire Shards a little extra kick to help finish off faraway enemies. The extra power and mana are nice as well.

Next, I like to rush Rod of Tahuti , as once you have it you are truly "online". However, if you are behind or feel like you need a quick burst of power, it is fine to take Obsidian Shard now, and try to finish the Rod before the match ends. Due to the short match length in Arena, this is not always possible, so that is why I prefer to rush the Rod.

Pros

Has awesome burst damage
Has numerous stuns and slows
Stun is easy to hit with
Basic attack can root
Ult can kill anyone from anywhere
Can hide self, allies and minions
Can easily secure kills for fleeing, low-health enemies
Has good wave clear

Very ability dependent
Long cooldowns
Need good timing to secure kills
Has no true escape
Mana hungry until items are built

Strength of Wood: Nu Wa's passive ability, which synergizes well with her main damage combo of 2+3+1. With this ability, every five hits with your basic attack grants your next basic attack a 1.5 second root. This allows you to easily set your enemy up with another stun from your Clay Soldiers + Shining Metal combo, and can help burst down foes with ease. [/columns]





Mysterious Fog: While this can be used as a nuke, and does provide some additional Damage over Time, the best function of this ability is that it can hide your allies, yourself and, most importantly, your Clay Soldiers. Launch your fog from behind a pillar, immediately drop your Clay Soldiers, and watch as the enemy gets stunned from an invisible enemy. You should also be using this to help you and your allies return to base, as it will hide them and increase the movement speed of all. Has a huge radius, so don't be afraid to send it out into the middle of a teamfight. It can be especially useful for finishing off fleeing foes [/columns]






Clay Soldiers: An ability that lets you summon minions to do your dirty work! While they aren't hyper efficient at killing by themselves, they can do some neat things to help you set up other things, and synergize with Shining Metal to REALLY do some damage. As you level the skill up, it adds more soldiers to your summon, up to 3. You can use the soldiers to help secure kill on a fleeing enemy, to help tank the buff creatures, or absorb an incoming skillshot. They can also help escort your ogre to the opposing portal! An early skill point goes here to up your soldier count from 1-2, but we will max this after Shining Metal.






Shining Metal: Your bread-and-butter skill, and the one you will want to level first. Your main combo is using this ability on your Clay Soldiers to make them explode, causing damage and stunning. The damage they do is based on Shining Metal's level, so that is why we level this first. You want to try to use this on your soldiers for the extra damage and stun if possible, but it will work in a pinch as a standalone ranged attack to finish off a dying enemy.






Fire Shards: Finally, Nu Wa's ultimate ability, one that can either make you a master of shooting from the hip (killing an enemy while they are out of your line of sight), or enrage your teammates by stealing their kills. What this does is, after a second or so delay, Nu Wa will rise into the air and unleash unavoidable shards sown on the entire enemy team, damaging them and showing them on your minimap. This is great for finishing off fleeing enemies who think they are safe, but you need to know when and how to use it. It is not an extremely damaging abilty, but when used right, can secure you a ton of kills.

Nu Wa has a very simple main combo you will use the majority of the time:


Clay Soldiers > Mysterious Fog > Shining Metal



You will summon your soldiers, immediately summon your fog to shroud them and send them forward, then hit them with Shining Metal at the right time to cause an explosion that will damage and stun the enemies. That's the key, you want to aim at your soldiers, NOT the actual enemies.

If you are relatively close to your enemies, you may want to hold off on using Mysterious Fog. Summon your soldiers, hit them with Shining Metal, then use your fog while they are stunned. It will hit them at least once, and since they need to escape away from you, you may catch them with some damage over time.

Don't forget that you can use your fog for more than just damage and hiding your soldiers. You can use it to help your team initiate, or even as an escape for you or your team if you need to make a quick getaway. It can also hide you from global ults such as Thanatos's Hovering Death. He can't kill what he can't see!

Fire Shards have a delay of a few seconds, so you need to have a good feel for when to use it. Too late, and you are raining shards on enemies who aren't there anymore. If you see your teammates in a team fight, and one or more enemies are starting to get low on health, go ahead and fire up your shards right then, you may have an effect on the fight then! Remember, until very late game, your shards do not do much damage, so don't use them on a fleeing enemy who has more than a sliver of health left, you don't want to waste them!

That's it! I hope you all enjoy Nu Wa as much as I do, and I hope this guide can help you play her! This is my first guide, so apologies for the amateur formatting, and I would love to hear any feedback anyone may have. Thanks for reading!