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Recommended Items
Runes:
+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor
Spells:
Challenging Smite
Flash
Items
Ability Order ABILITY ORDER EXPLAINED
Prowl (PASSIVE)
Nidalee Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Rengar
Rengar can be beaten easily if you know how to play against him. It is very important that you do NOT path into Rengar which means that you want to path in a way where you avoid him and make sure that he is on the opposite of the map that you are. Rengar's strongest stages are in the early game because he will win every duel in the early levels and you do NOT want to facecheck him or get invaded level 3 on your second buff because if you do he will be an extreme threat for the rest of the game and take over the game. Make sure to watch his ferocity stacks and get an early Zhonya's/Seeker's Armguard to help you survive.
Twisted Fate
Very strong pick with Nidalee. Twisted Fate has a lot of gank setup for Nidalee with his gold card stun. Plus later on in the game when he gets RFC and Everfrost you will be able to hit max range spear leaving enemy with little to no counterplay. Furthermore, Twisted Fate has a lot of map pressure so he can roam or use his ult to kill sidelaners allowing you to take over the game.
Twisted Fate
Very strong pick with Nidalee. Twisted Fate has a lot of gank setup for Nidalee with his gold card stun. Plus later on in the game when he gets RFC and Everfrost you will be able to hit max range spear leaving enemy with little to no counterplay. Furthermore, Twisted Fate has a lot of map pressure so he can roam or use his ult to kill sidelaners allowing you to take over the game.
Champion Build Guide
I'll be showing some of my achievements down below:
Nidalee
What kind of champion is Nidalee?
Nidalee is an aggressive early game jungler with fast jungle clears and good ganks. She has good amount of burst in the early game, which makes it possible for her to duel the majority of junglers in the current meta. Nidalee has a lot of mobility, thanks to her pounce which allows her to pressurethe entire map and rotate around the map rapidly.
Is Nidalee a hard champion to play?
Nidalee is a champion that is very difficult to operate and pilot for regular players. In addition to that she requires a lot of hard work and effort as well as mechanics. However, when you learn the combos and which terrain you can jump over as well as the jungle clear she becomes easier. Furthermore, one of the reason that Nidalee may seem hard is that she is very unforgiving on mistakes meaning that once you get behind it is very hard for you to get back into the game.
Why would you pick Nidalee over something like Karthus/Evelynn/Skarner/Hecaim
Once you become really experienced playing League of Legends your ability to predict what certain champions are gonna do becomes better. If you are a good Nidalee and you are able to recognize and predict your opponent's next move then you can bend the game so she is a central part of it. She can cheat the map and on top of that she is very skill rewarding.
Jungle clear
Nidalee is capable of clearing the entire jungle by 3:13. However, the majority of people do not know how you are supposed to clear correctly with her, therefore I have included 2 videos that show the jungle clear. One with red start and the other with blue start.
Blue start
Red start
Jungle Pathing
As mentioned earlier Nidalee has really good jungle clears which are healthy and fast which is why I choose almost every game to full clear. However, this really depends on enemy composition as well as my jungle matchup.
Let’s say that you have a team composition that do not have a lot of crowd control you would look to play for counter ganks plus punish people on enemy team who are really overextending under the turrets of your laners. In games like these I choose to full clear.
In jungle matchups against champions that like to do cheese ganks (level 3 ganks). I like to match their path and invade them on their 2nd buff. Champions where such would apply are Elise, Lee Sin, Twitch and many more. In a situation like this I would start off by identifying which buff they started at by looking at the lane matchups and try to figure out which lane is the most likely one to get camped and based on that I choose where I wanna start according to that so I can enemy jungler on second buff or match the gank early for my team. However, I may not always be right and therefore it is a good idea to look at which laners from enemy team arrived late to their lane so you can find out at which buff enemy jungler started.
Before every game one must have a game plan, this one is automatically decided for me usually during champion selection. To identify a game plan, one must identify the team composition and lane matchups. One must look at which lanes have CC, because these lanes are more prone to help you execute a gank and be successful. Moreover, one must understand how lane matchup goes, e.g., if you have a Camile toplane and the enemy has Gangplank, it is very likely that your Camile will be under her tower in the early stages of the game because Gangplank is a stronger lane in the early game and will bully your Camile, this will cause Camile to most likely be low HP or chunked to around 50%. In this matchup Camile is unable to contest the wave without getting taken to really low HP, therefore Gangplank will most likely have a really big minion wave to crash under her turret which is really good for him because this will give a golden opportunity for Gangplank’s jungler to dive Camile, but if one is smart one can figure this out and do a preventative gank for Camile or hover around the topside of the map to prevent a dive from happening.
Pros of Nidalee
+ A lot of range (can play with auto attacks and kite or spears)
+ Extremely mobile (can jump almost every wall in the game, and dodge a lot of wards)
+ Fast clears, Nidalee can clear the jungle in around 3 minutes and 20 seconds
+ A lot of damage (max range spears + burst from cougar form)
Cons of Nidalee:
- Underwhelming if you fall behind.
- Doesn’t have any CC ability.
- Relies on team’s CC to land spears and proc the hunt.
- Bad scaling (becomes useless in mid-late game which makes her reliant on getting leads in the early game).
- High skill floor (Nidalee requires a lot of investment into learning her mechanics as well learning jungle clears)
- Little room for mistakes (if you mess up it can cost you the game)
Personally, I mostly go with Electrocute but lately I’ve been liking Dark Harvest when playing in lower ranks because it is easy to stack since you get a lot of kills. Electrocute is easy to proc on Nidalee and it deals more damage than Dark Harvest in the earlier stages of the game and it is therefore more reliable. Dark Harvest is a good keystone for the more experienced Nidalee players, if you are confident in your ability to get fed I recommend going with Dark Harvest since it can be a lot more snowbally. It is also possible to take Ingenious Hunter for reduced cool downs on your active items or ravenous hunter for omnivamp. However, I always take relentless hunter since I believe that movement speed is the best stat in the game and it is very good with Nidalee.
In addition to that, I recommend taking sorcery tree second mostly because of transcendence. Transcendence gives you free ability haste on level 5+8 and when you reach level 11 every time you kill an enemy it will reduce the remaining cooldown of you basic abilities by 20% which is very good because when running Hextech Rocketbelt paired up with Sorcerer's Shoes you don't have much ability haste. Furthermore, waterwalking is generally good to have for bonus movement speed as well as some bonus AP in the early game, it helps with dueling and kiting in the earlier stages of the game.
An alternative option if you don't feel the need for bonus ability haste and waterwalking. Then I recommend taking Inspiration tree second and taking either stopwatch/magical footwear + cosmic insight (cdr). Stopwatch is my personal preference since it can save you from a lot of sticky situations, plus it is 650g value + it can prevent you from dropping a huge shutdown since you are most likely going to be fed.
Lastly, the 10% attack speed allows you to weave more auto attacks in during your clears and kite more efficiently in skirmishes. You should always take adaptive in the second row and the last row can be swapped between armor and magic resist depending on which jungler you face.
Nidalee itemization
Starter items
Do NOT buy Hailblade since you do not need the 20% slow & increased movement speed from blue smite. This is because if you manage to proc Nidalee's passive and mark people as hunted you will be able to catch up regardless of having blue smite or not.
First base
The best option would be to base on 1450g and buy Sorcerer's Shoes and Dark Seal. It is very important to get boots in the early game since you increase your movement speed thus reducing the time it takes for you to move around the map and by doing this you increase your pressure on the map and enable yourself to be proactive in the game. Furthermore, if you have 75g extra, make sure to get a control ward to get get vision on the map and possibly preventing your teammates from dying to enemy jungler ganks. If you have below 1450g but above 1100g then get Sorcerer's Shoes. And if you base with less than 1100 gold get tier 1 boots + dark seal.
Mythic item
There has been a lot of confusion on which Mythic item that you want to build on Nidalee, personally I like to go for Hextech Rocketbelt because I believe it is the better item looking at the stats it provides only. The active on Rocketbelt has always felt "clunky" especially with Nidalee because you can't queue any abilities while in the rocketbelt animation.
Moreover, if we look at the mythic bonuses (haste vs. flat magic penetration) then magic penetration is definitely the better option. This is because it simply offers more damage, especially with Nidalee because your first 3 items will probably be Hextech Rocketbelt, Sorcerer's Shoes, Mejai's Soulstealer which all 3 give you magic penetration enabling you to oneshot everyone and anyone in the earlier stages of the game.
Hextech Rocketbelt is the mythic item which you want to go for, this is because of the flat magic penetration it provides and the bonus magic penetration from every legendary item.
In addition to this you don't really need ability haste on Nidalee because it only takes one spear and one rotation to oneshot most targets in the game.
There has been a lot of confusion
Core items
Hextech Rocketbelt, Zhonya's Hourglass, Sorcerer's Shoes are your core items every game meaning that these items enable you to become a menace in the game being unkillable whilst playing aggressively making picks for your team so you can get objectives on the map. Hextech Rocketbelt, Zhonya's Hourglass and Void Staff will be your strongest spike during the entire game. These items will enable you to duel anyone regardless of them having bought magic resist.
4th item
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Rabadon's Deathcap (in case there are no threats to you on enemy team and no excessive shielding)
Shadowflame (in case enemy team has got a lot of shielding, usually enchanters, shieldbows etc., and you wish to reduce that shielding). Moreover, you can also choose to get Shadowflame earlier if you need it, instead of Void Staff or maybe even as 2nd item instead of Zhonya's Hourglass.
Lichbane (In case you want more damage)
Mejai's Soulstealer (in case you haven't upgraded your Dark Seal yet and you are sitting on 10 stacks, you can upgrade it, this gives you 10% bonus movement speed as well as more AP and since Mejai's counts as a legendary item you will get another 5 magic penetration really cheap.
Banshee's Veil (in case enemy team has a lot of AP champions or if they have got a lot of skillshots with extreme threat, such as Zoe's E)
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