So, a lot of youtubers and such that I've watched have chosen Nova for their ultimate in PVP, and I did so as well, but I've now begun to question its viability and value for its ult price.
It all really started from a fight I got into. I found myself in a 1 on 1 battle with a DK in a small town in cyrodiil, and the fight lasted for at least 30 minutes. Both of us were going back and forth, vying for an edge in the fight. My main goal became retaining enough health so I didn't have to swap and use my healing ultimate, until I had enough for my nova, so that damage burst would help me gain the edge. This didn't happen all too often, due to its high cost, and whenever it finally did, there was a huge problem. When I dropped it, it took him literally two seconds to just run out of range. The morphed version does add a 66% movement reduction, but players can also just roll out of range. This took a lot of viability away from it for me. At first I accepted that I would only get one or two ticks of damage out of it, taking it as a compromise. Then I thought about it and realized, however, the ability's ultimate cost is WAY too high to be taking any such "compromise".
The story would be much different if the ability maybe stunned players for a couple of seconds, but presently that's not the case. I can see how this is sometimes more viable in a big group fight when enemies are more bunched up and also not paying as much attention to or caring about moving out of its range. In small or even some medium fights, however, there's a big problem in my opinion. During the fight I did try to use my shield charge to stun him for a bit and then drop it on him, but that's just too much going out of your way and maneuvering out of your current position and rotation in the middle of a fight just for a two second stun that often doesn't even work.
For these reasons, I have now decided to go with the Radial Sweep instead, as it still does decent damage, and the very low ultimate cost actually basically makes it an extra active ability on your bar, and one that doesn't cost any Magicka!
A lot of people have been saying nova is superior in PVP, but I have decided Radial Sweep actually has the slight edge and is viable a bit more often. Nova is very viable in huge group fights when your allies can use the synergy and enemies aren't paying as much attention to moving out of its range, but otherwise the cost is just too high for the output (or lack thereof) that you get in return. I thought back and decided that in the fight, I would have been A LOT better off if I had Radial Sweep on my bar.

Thoughts? Comments?

Thanks for your contributions

P.S
I did end up winning the fight, in case you were wondering