At the day of writing, Starr Nova has just been released into early access, and we are here to provide our first thoughts on the newest brawler in the game.
Best Loadout
Starting off, we've got to tackle the best loadout: despite what it may seem like, considering Nova's "assassin" class, her more supportive star power - Mystical Starr Technique - is, in our opinion, the better one. While the extra damage provided by her other star power sure is nice, it isn't very impactful in actual gameplay compared to this one, and her attack in the sword form isn't all that great to begin with. Mystical Starr Technique, on the other hand, lets Starr Nova provide decent healing to her teammates, as well as charge her own super without risking damage from the enemy.
Gadget
On the gadget front, while both of them are playable, Floaty Time stands out as the more useful one - when utilised carefully, so as to quickly hop over a wall or dodge some projectiles, instead of infuriating teammates, it is by far providing better value than the teleport on the other gadget, even accounting for the healing potential it has.
Gears
When it comes to gears, we've found that the standard combination of Shield and Damage works best - there is definitely an angle for equipping the Health gear, as Starr Nova often ends up low HP after interactions, but it is not necessary. Speed and Vision gears are also useable, but with how Nova's main attack functions, they aren't exactly must haves.
Main Attack
Speaking of which, the main attack is by far the strongest feature of Starr Nova. "Nova Hair, Go!", as that is its name, launches two projectiles, each dealing 1080 damage... at the width of 2 and ⅓ tiles - more than Fang - and triple the projectile speed of Glowy... at the range of 5 and ⅔ tiles. Needless to say, if there's an enemy in range, they are guaranteed to get hit by autoaim; In our 2 hours of testing, as long as the enemy was in range, we have not missed a single attack...
Super
Which directly leads to our next point, the super. Starr Nova's sword is far weaker than her main attack, simply due to how ridiculously easy to hit her normal projectiles are - equipping the sword and limiting your range simply isn't very useful in most scenarios, as - due to how slow the dash on the super is - it doesn't actually help chase down enemies, even with the speed boost. The best use case for the super is if the kill is already guaranteed, so that there's some extra healing out of it, or if you're on the heist safe; The doubled reload speed of the sword finally becomes useful in that scenario. This is, most likely, the only mode where the other star power is better, too.
Modes And Maps
From our testing, we'd like to say Starr Nova's is useable on all modes (although her best most likely is Gem Grab), the limiting factor is actually the map design - she shines in maps where Floaty Time gets a lot of mileage on wall hops, and struggles on maps where she can't easily get into range with her main attack. It should be noted too that Knockout is by far her worst mode and primarily requires her to play the role of Poco or Byron, up until she charges up her super from all the healing.
Early Verdict
Overall, the impression we get on Starr Nova is that she isn't exactly the strongest brawler. While, yes, her main attack is unmissable and she can exert great pressure with it, she really lacks the means to properly utilize half of her kit, leading to a very weird gameplay pattern where you actively want to avoid using your super... but even then, she still ranks around low to mid B tier. If we were to recommend balance changes, the best way to go about it would be doubling the dash speed on her super, allowing her to actually make use of it without becoming temporary deadweight.