NIDALEE BUILD GUIDE

 

Introduction

Pros:

• Very strong laning phase vs most melee champions

• Highly mobile, can apply insane pressure top lane and still get away

• Very hard to flat out counterpick

• Very strong mid game if you're not behind. Wins pretty much every matchup by level 11.

• Even if you're behind, you can still always splitpush

Cons:

• Can be vulnerable pre 6 to strong ganks and/or tough lane matchups

• She gets outscaled by a lot of top laners making her vulnerable to the classic "win lane, lose game"

• Her sustain is very mana hungry

• One of the only champions that completely lacks cc, other tops have better teamfight presence (somewhat fixed by Iceborn Gauntlet)

 

Summoner Spells

Flash is great for being able to stay safe in early lane because of the relatively short distance to tower and instant reaction time to avoid skillshots/cc's. It will always be standard because of the ability to go through impassable terrain that's even longer than the actual range of the spell.

Unless you severely outplay your opponent, you need ignite for kill potential in lane. Not much else to be said. Take it if you want to kill your lane. Leave it if you don't.

Exhaust & Flash

Flash is great for being able to stay safe in early lane because of the relatively short distance to tower and instant reaction time to avoid skillshots/cc's. It will always be standard because of the ability to go through impassable terrain that's even longer than the actual range of the spell.


In lane, exhaust can help you survive all-ins but flash is far better for offensive potential. exhaust mostly shines in teamfights where you can exhaust a high damage target diving your backline like Rengar, Tryndamere.

Flash & Barrier

Flash  is great for being able to stay safe in early lane because of the relatively short distance to tower and instant reaction time to avoid skillshots/cc's. It will always be standard because of the ability to go through impassable terrain that's even longer than the actual range of the spell.

Barrier can be great in any build to survive hard lanes. This is especially effective vs executes like Darius. Pantheon.

By taking barier you give up pretty much all kill potential and are expecting to not lose lane the best you can and make it to midgame. This is basically the definition of top lane AP nid.

However when playing AD nid it's more of taking the secure win without the snowball potential. This means more passively pushing people out of lane over time and taking towers, not snowballing off of kills.

 

Skills

Prowl

This is by far my favorite passive in the game. I LOVE MOVESPEED. This really allows you to escape a lot of ganks and kite around a lot of top lanes early in the game. This combined with your traps gives you insane bush control in lane. This is a huge reason why Nidalee is so incredibly mobile and can't be chased as well as having really nice auto harass when ducking in and out of brush.

Spears are nidalee's highest damage spell in the midgame unless executing a low hp target with takedown. Either way, this skill will be the majority of your damage in fights. Even as a bruiser, don't neglect your spears. Spear-sheen proc autos are very potent trades and add up quickly.

Takedown scales with missing hp and does almost 0 damage to high hp targets. Make sure to poke your opponent down with autos first.

Bushwhack / Pounce

This is one of the most underrated and op abilities in all of league of legends. The reveal duration was JUST nerfed this patch and it's still 8 seconds. The craziest part about this spell is the 40% armor/mr shred. Not only is this more penetration than a last whisper and a void staff, it's actually not penetration, it's shred. This means that this benefits your entire team, not just you. If a tank steps on this, they just melt. Most players don't realize how incredibly powerful traps are.

This should be the ability you select at level 1 in pretty much all of your games. Make sure to try to get 4ish traps out at the beginning of the game in places to guard against invades/ganks.

Primal Surge / Swipe

Human form E is nidalee's ability to sustain in the lane, as well as a very potent attack speed steroid. Putting this on your adc in the lategame is absolutely massive.

In cougar form, this is your main waveclear ability and a decent chunk of damage. If building ap, this ability actually scales quite decently.

Aspect Of The Cougar

This is obviously, what makes nidalee... nidalee. The only thing I would say is be careful against good players who can punish you the second you transition into human form. Champions like Irelia / Jax come to mind where they can instantly jump on you if you have a few seconds cooldown on your ult and really ruin your day.

 

Early Game

Nidalee's early game is quite awful. Anything that is able to get in range or poke Nidalee is stronger than Nidalee before level 6. Even after level 6 you won't inherently be stronger than most champions. Nidalee is a crafty champion that requires good positioning. I like to stand very close to my tower for the early parts of the game to prevent the other person from poking too much and because I don't like getting ganked pre 6. Nidalee pre6 is like a cat without 9 lives :(

Most games you will not be invading, so get your [W] skill at level 1 and set up traps in places that you think the jungler will walk through. There is no correct place to place traps, get creative go nuts~

Your biggest goal for early game is to farm as much as you can and hit level 6 before having to recall. I don't recommend ganking before level 6 because a failed gank will ensure that you lose the lane. The only time I would recommend fighting before level 6 is a possible invade on the enemy red gank with your jungler. A good spear will usually be first blood on the enemy jungler.

 

Mid Game

I'm going to say that mid game starts the second you hit level 6. Hopefully you haven't had to opt for an early recall and you are 10 cs or less behind your laning opponent. You should be trying to push your lane out as much as you can and either ganking or farming wraiths between waves. If you have the early Tear of Goddess make sure you spam your abilities at will so that you will have mana for a gank or early dragon contest/fight. Mid game is when Nidalee is by far the strongest, you want to try to force team fights because when spear is maxed it does a ridiculous amount of damage against squishy under leveled jungle/support/adc. Don't worry if your lane opponent still feels much stronger because if you land one spear on their adc it can allow you to force dragon or an easy dive bottom lane.