Clay Soldiers are Broken

I am a level 10 Nu Wa if that means anything to you. :) xx

I keep the same build pretty consistently and only switch it up if I am needing some protections. Breastplate of Valor is always a solid pick for physical protection and of course, the cooldown reduction is great. Void Stone has kind of received a nerf, but it's still a good choice for magical protection.

Book of the Dead is not one of Nu Wa's recommended or popular items, but the extra health is great for Nu Wa and her minions (since they have a percentage of Nu Wa's max HP). The extra magical power is always great and the life steal doesn't hurt either!

Since cooldown is really important for an effective Nu Wa, I build Spear of Desolation over Obsidian Shard and Shoes of Focus over Shoes of the Magi. This is also why I build Chronos Pendant before boots.

I used to buy Vampiric Shroud as a starter item, but lately I have been going straight for Chronos Pendant.

Pros

Soldiers do so much damage & protect you in 1 v 1 situations
Stealth w/ fog helps Nu Wa and team mates
Enemies don't escape with a tiny bit of health
Good wave clear
Soldiers can attack towers -- you don't have to always wait on minions to spawn

Squishy
Mana hungry early game
Ult can easily be wasted
No dash/escape (unless you count mysterious fog)
Long cooldowns before building reduction items

Nu Wa is pretty good at clearing waves with her 1 and 3 (I prefer saving her soldiers for enemies and towers). If she is in a lane alone (clash), she can easily clear a wave and do some tower damage with her minions.

Although she doesn't have an escape to use if a melee enemy targets her, if you can hit your 2-3 combo, you can do a ton of damage and stun them for a chance to escape. If you're extra desperate, you can use her ult to hopefully buy some time to escape.

Luckily, Nu Wa can just hang around the back and avoid damage for the most part. Especially when cooldown reduction has been built, you can just spam mysterious fog to disguise minions and team mates, as well as just annoy the other team with tick damage.

Now that Nu Wa can choose a specific enemy for her soldiers to target (like Skadi and Kaldr), they are way more effective in team fights. Especially when enemies are close to each other, you can send your soldiers out and stun 2 or 3 enemies by hitting the soldiers with Shining Metal. This is obviously very beneficial to your team, and late game the combo can close to half-hit enemies.