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Overview
Natalya is a pure mage that can deal massive amounts of damage very quickly. She is good at bursting down enemies due to her passive, Arcane Fire, which stackably increases her damage potential each time she casts an ability. Her first ability, Arcane Spirits, is a small area AoE ability that can melt opponents it hits. Her second ability, Arcane Nova, can be used to slow down and stun her enemies as it damages them. Natalya is very effective in team fights with the ability to destroy multiple enemies from afar.
Strengths
- Early Game Dominance – Natalya has a terrifying presence in lane early game; her Arcane Spirits alone is enough to zone out her opponent. Once she gets Arcane Nova, she can add even more pressure with the stun and slow that it provides. Alternatively, a combination of Arcana Nova and Arcane Spirits can quickly clear a minion wave, allowing Natalya to then roam to the sidelanes to gank.
- High Burst Damage – Natalya’s ultimate alone can be enough to kill an enemy hero. Comboing it with her basic abilities allows Natalya to burst down whole groups of enemies on her own.
Weakness
- Low Mobility – Natalya’s abilities are all damaging projectiles, none able to do much in helping her escape fights. Should an enemy manage to get up close, Natalya won’t have any way to get away. In addition, it will take the spellcaster longer than most to reach fights that break out a distance away from her.
- Long Cooldowns – Natalya’s abilities take awhile to cool down, so missing their skill shots or using them all at once will leave her defenseless for awhile.
- Attracts Attention – Natalya might be immune to crowd control when casting her ultimate, but her flashy, high damage skills attract a lot of attention from the enemy team. This makes her vulnerable to being ganked or focused in team fights. Talents that can help heroes out of sticky situations are good choices for Natalya.
Hero Basic Strategy
Laning Strategy
- Natalya is best suited to the mid lane. After clearing her lane of minions, she can move to the side lanes in order to gank with her high damage abilities.
- Natalya excels at harassing enemies early game. Use Arcane Spirits to harass and intimidate your opponent while damaging minions.
- Use Arcane Nova on enemy minions to farm experience and slow them down. The ability can also stun opponents, making them an easy target for Arcane Spirits.
- Casting Arcane Nova and Arcane Spirits on a minion wave in quick succession will let you clear it extremely quickly at the cost of your harassing potential.
- Use the brush when you want to go on a full offensive. Shoot Arcane Nova first, followed by Arcane Spirits to blast the opponent’s health away. Landing all of her shots will have a high chance of killing the enemy hero.
Leveling Progression
- Start with Arcane Spirits. It deals more damage than Arcane Nova and scales better throughout the game.
- As with most heroes, Natalya should take levels in her ultimate whenever it is available. Lethal Rays is a deadly ability with the power to kill multiple heroes with the proper setup.
Battle Strategy
Solo Battle
- In solo battles, Natalya can easily finish enemies off with her Arcane Nova + Arcane Spirits + Lethal Rays combo. Try your best to land Arcane Spirits so that all five spirits strike the enemy hero. Use Lethal Rays to finish your opponent off before retreating.
Team Battle
- In team fights, try to position yourself at the back of your team. Let your tank, warrior, or assassin teammates lead the clash. Stun enemies with your Arcane Nova, following with Arcane Spirits and Lethal Rays.
Escaping the Battle
- Since Natalya doesn’t have any movement abilities, her only option is to use Arcane Nova to delay her enemies as she tries to run away. Another option is to use talents like Sprint, Daze, or Flicker.
Abilities
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Arcane Fire – Passive – Abilities deal 130 (+0.15 AP) magic damage additional magic damage to enemies and can be stacked up to 10 times within a short time. |
- Arcane Fire stacks up to 10 times, so using your abilities in quick succession will lead to them dealing more damage to your enemies.
- Abilities like Arcane Nova and Lethal Rays which apply multiple instances of damage add a stack each time they deal damage.
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Arcane Spirits – Natalya summons 5 arcane spirits to attack the target area. Each spirit deals 350/390/430/470/510/550 (+0.3 AP)ˀmagic damage to enemies within. When an enemy is hit by multiple spirits, each additional spirit only deals 30% damage. Spirits restore 10 mana and reduce this ability’s cooldown by 0.6 seconds when they hit an enemy hero. |
- The area targeted marks where all five spirits will cross paths. They will always travel their full distance unless they strike an enemy hero.
- Hitting an enemy with all five spirits will cause Arcane Fire to proc five times, allowing Natalya to gather stacks very quickly.
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Arcane Nova – Natalya casts an Arcane Orb in the target direction. When the orb comes into contact with an enemy or reaches its destination, it becomes an Arcane Nova and stuns enemies hit for 1 second. Then the orb grows in size and flies slowly to deal 130/145/160/175/190/205 (+0.15 AP) magic damage each time it comes into contact with an enemy, reducing their movement speed by 50% for 1.5 seconds. |
- Arcane Nova is your primary initiating ability. Try to follow up with Arcane Spirits and Lethal Rays.
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Lethal Rays – Natalya frees herself from all control effects and commands Poison Fang to release lethal rays, dealing 120/150/180 (+0.15 AP) magic damage every 0.25 seconds to enemies. While channeling, Natalya gains a shield that absorbs 500/750/1000 (+0.75 AP) damage. Natalya is immune to crowd control effects while the shield lasts. This ability must be channeled and has a maximum duration of 3.5 seconds. Channeling can be canceled after 1 second by using the ability again. Natalya removes all control effects when casting her Ultimate. |
- Lethal Rays can be aimed with the movement cursor, though this can be a bit tricky to do accurately.
How to Counter Natalya
- Natalya’s abilities require a lot of aiming so make sure to always move around when fighting against her. Being able to successfully dodge her abilities is the key to survival.
- Her ultimate grants her immunity to crowd control while the shield is up. Be sure to knock it away before trying to interrupt the ability.
Hero Item Build
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Holy of Holies |
Hero Arcana
- Natalya should focus on building up her magical damage through AP enhancing arcana. Some of the best in this regard are sets of Violate, Devour, and Hex.
Hero Counters
Tank
Tank heroes are easy targets for Natalya, especially early game. If all five of her Arcane Spirits hit directly, most tanks will be forced to retreat or return to their base to heal. Buy items that provide magic pierce if the tanks start building magic defense in an attempt to counter you. Getting hit by a tank’s control abilities will cause Natalya a lot of trouble, so do your best to keep your distance.
Warrior
Warrior heroes generally have some sort of gap closing ability, so Natalya will need to be careful about her positioning. Many can often inflict control effects like stuns or slows, so Natalya will need to be extra careful when moving around or pushing her lane. As with tanks, do your best to always keep at a safe distance from warriors.
Assassin
Since Natalya has no mobility abilities, she is very prone to assassins’ ganks. Pay careful attention to the assassin’s location, keeping distance and only attacking when the coast is thoroughly clear.
Mage
Natalya can normally fight other mages on equal footing. It’s important for her to gain an early game advantage which will, in turn, bring her damage and health to a higher level than her opponents’. When it comes to harassing, Natalya is one of the best. Dodge the opponent’s attacks before launching your own assault, aiming carefully to ensure a hit. When fighting crowd control mages, keep moving to avoid staying in a single location for too long. When dealing with mage-assassins, try to get close to the tower for supporting damage and protection.
Marksman
Marksmen can easily tear away Natalya’s health so be sure to position yourself near the brush to avoid getting focused. Release your combo to either kill the target or scare them away. As with assassins, marksmen have low health and so can quickly be killed by Natalya’s abilities. Watch for if they build magic defense later on and be prepared to counter their builds if needed. Don’t bother fighting if you miss with your abilities.
Support
Support heroes can be a pain for Natalya due to their recovery and debuff abilities. It can also be difficult to handle them at close range since they often have wa ide area of effect abilities. Take advantage of the brush to harass them or force them to use their abilities improperly and thereby give you an opening. Attack with caution and focus on bringing them down after dealing with damage dealers first.
| ▼ Hero Class Guides | ||
|---|---|---|
| List of Item Builds | ||
| Warrior |
Tank |
Assassin |
| Mage |
Marksman |
Support |
Arena of Valor (AoV) Recommended Article List
| ▼ Popular Articles | |
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 Beginner's Guide |
 Hero Tier List |
 Hero Class Guide |
 Armory (Item List) |
| ▼ Popular Articles | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Beginner's Guide |
Hero Tier List |
Hero Class Guide |
Armory (Item List) |
My email address is Ashtonamstutz@gmail.com
Hello. I’ve over 1,100 games as Natalya.
I would really love to have someone help me with a damage calculation table.
So far, from my understanding I think with more magical pen her damage is highest. Because of tick or application of her damage is applied at a higher amount with pen. This has led me to believe that building both staff of null and evil secrets (new item) with magical pen boots and 88 pen from arcana and 63 pen from enchantment – Natalya can excel.
She’s an unusual hero because many heroes like Ilumia do damage in big bursts, Natalya does a ton of damage but in tiny bursts over time.
With higher magical pen and power her passive ability will do its damage further than ap alone. This seems silly but say the enemy can ignore 10 damage every time her passive hits, 10 x 100 times is 1,000. But if she uses her abilities like ability 2, ability 1, and then ultimate in quick succession – her passive has a chance to damage up to 21 times and her abilities damage an additional 21 times.
So 100 damage not being ignored can easily become 2,400 against tanks etc. This is important because many if not most heroes get Gilded magical resistance boots early in the game and every hero has 250 magical resistance by level 15.
Would you agree? Can you help me with making a damage calculation table? I’ll comment again with my email address.
I meant to say 100 damage 10 times
So 100 x 10
Not 10 x 100
It’s really bad guide. First of all, the most important skill for Nat is Arcane Nova. Yes, Arcane Spirits are powerful, but they don’t grant much lane control, as you try to say, and you have to hit 2-3 times in a row to inflict good damage to opponents. Shooting Nova is much more important and it’s key to bring down enemies. As Nat is scaling worse than more heroes into late game, additional 200 dmg from Spirits aren’t much in comparison to additional 100 dmg and better cooldown from Nova – that’s why Nova is better choice for upgrading first.
2. Lethal Rays is deadly ability, but only when you hit another ability on opponents before. Lethal Rays alone are tickling and don’t do much damage.
3. That build is… Omg. First of all, almost nobody from top Nat mains builds Frosty’s. It is rather support item, and Nat is excelling at dealing damage. Nat main problem are mana sustain (and Virtue’s Necklace don’t work in high Elo games, same reason as Frosty’s – lack of high damage), that’s why Orb of the Magic is must-have (with good mana distribution, it can carry Nat to lvl 11-12 without any forced recall, also gives much needed cooldown reduction and damage). Hermes Select and Frost Cape are mind-boggling and I don’t know, what author thinked about that. For start, Hermes are help only in outside of battle, that’s why when junglers gank Nat they are not use. Better choices are Gilded (Resistance), Enchanted (magic pierce – help in dealing dmg) or even Flashy (cooldown reduction, I play with them, as I get my skills faster and I can surprise my opponent). Frost Cape, aside from 10% cooldown, is just useless (for slow down, you need to land normal attack, zero AP, HP aren’t important for Nat, Armor is just meh for most of mages). Of course, it depends on your playstyle, what build you need, but you should have always Orb of The Magic and Hecate Diadem as first items (more dmg than first four items from author’s build and space for two next items should be more, than enough…)
4. Arcana and items choice aren’t that obvious, as I said – it depends on playstyle. If you like to roam to other lanes and opponent jungle, just get any of three boots I mentioned as fast as you can (Nat skills are strong enough and you don’t need any dmg items in first 4-6 levels) and feel free to stole buffs or help in ganks. If you need lane pressure, make sure you have lots of armor pierce and AP in arcanas, as they gives additional damage in early game and helps in getting dominance on mid lane. If you have a reliable jungler and he gives you blue buff often enough, you can drop cooldown items and build just for pure damage (Orb, Enchanted Kicks, Hecate, any item (Best choice is Staff of Nuul, but you can pick also Berith’s Agony, Apocalypse or Tome of The Reaper), Boomstick and Holy of Hollies to get most damage). If you have cooldown arcanas, you can go for fast cooldown reduction and spamming abilities in teamfights in mid game (Orb, Flashy Boots, any other magic item with 10% cooldown – your choice, also upgrading Arcane Nova as fast as you can, it gives team a lot of crowd control, if shooted well).
5. Flicker is must-have talent (and if you have problem with Flicker, then use Endure or Heal). If you try to escape, then first shoot Nova, if you can, then use Flicker and ruuuun. If you perform that combo well, you should run from opponents.
6. In late game, when you hoarding too much gold, just sell boots (Nat movement speed is still slow) and get another item. (For example, Frosty’s now is much better item, than in early game, because it helps in getting crowd control in any teamfight, and gives some movement speed, as compensation for selling boots).
8. Nat is really good choice, when you have to face any mage on mid that haven’t good mobility (Tulen, Lauriel, Raz and Zill are bad match-ups for Nat). Don’t play Nat, when you see Zill or Murad in opponents team (it’s impossible to escape from them), also it’s not recommended to play against Airi. Ryoma and Superman also aren’t good information for Nat mains (as they sustain lots of damage and have good mobility). Against any other champions Nat, if played well, should get enough advantage to help team or carry game.
Also, author of this guide clearly isn’t playing Nat, or used one of the guides from AoV forum that are outdated (some time ago Frost Cape gave AP…) – no matter what, this guide should be removed from site and reworked (like Toro should be :D)
I’m sorry you didn’t agree with our guide. However I only see two points – your first and third – that are actually criticisms. The rest of your comment is simply additional information that we feel would be overwhelming for players who are just starting out.
1) We highly disagree that Arcane Nova should be prioritized over Arcane Spirits. The cooldown reduction of .4 seconds in no way negates the massive damage difference (12*4+40 = +88 vs +15. We suspect you didn’t read the ability correctly, as each additional spirit does an additional 12 damage per upgrade. So it’s not +200 vs +100, it’s +440 vs +75). In addition, each spirit has a .3 AP multiplier in contrast to Nova’s singular .15 AP multiplier https://samurai-gamers.com/arena-of-valor/aov-natalya/, so the scaling for Spirits is even greater than is indicated by looking at each level. The entire reason for casting Nova is to hold your opponent in place so that the Spirits can hit; hitting an opponent with Nova and having no damage follow-up completely defeats the purpose. Give Spirits a try, and maybe you’ll have a bit more success.
2) We mentioned exactly what you wrote in the guide
3) Here’s where you do actually have a point, and we will fix the build ASAP. We were in the process of moving away from various regions’ pro builds and inserting our own, and apparently the wrong person was put in charge of coming up with Natalya’s build.
1) Thanks for additional info about scaling with Spirits and Nova – never looked that. But still from my experience it’s not really a big difference about that two, and I prioritize Nova just because of lowering her cooldown and stacking up her passive before launching Spirits or Rays, depending on situation. Still, with that I can stay as main Nat (+1050 games on her) easily in Platinum I / Diamond V (which is hard, as you should know she is easy to learn, but hard to really master her).
Also, change in upgrading skills (in older days I upgraded Spirits first, now I upgrading Nova) helped me bolstering middle game (especially 9-15 level mark).
About criticism: I pointed out things mostly around bad build, that’s why maybe only points 1) and 3) from my post have that feeling now.
2) Thanks, you didn’t needed to wrote that, but it’s nice 🙂
3) That build looks really nice, and I appreciate it. If you want, I can provide some other builds for Nat, (or other tips) if needed. Even, if I played lots of games on her, I still think that I can get her builds better.
After all, now Nat guide is looking much better than earlier. It’s nice to see some changes. Good luck on Antaris Battlefield!