Welcome to my bruiser nidalee guide, I am a silver 1 top/mid laner. After watching RF Legendary's bruiser nid still working after cougar nerf, I have decided to start maining her. My play style is similar to RF Legendary's except my core items are Muramana and Trinity Force, whereas he prefers Iceborn Gauntlet and decides not to get Muramana unless he is fighting an easy lane.

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There is still plenty to add to this guide (Work in progress):

• my own matchups page
• indepth on runes
• indepth on when to use certain items and with which playstyles
• gauntlet vs trinity
• why to get muramana
• splitpush/teamfight guide
• bruiser nidalee mechanics with spells/items
• how to play the landing phase

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If there is something that I have missed in that list, please let me know in the comments. Don't comment about the absence of a certain element to this guide if it is on my list of 'to do' things for this guide

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• Good at split pushing
• Good at assassinating enemy carries
• No cc
• Requires good team fight positioning, you shouldn't be in the frontline unless you have hit your level 16 power spike and everyone else is 3-4 levels lower than you.

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• Good at splitpushing
• has gauntlet for cc

Good at team fighting:

• Try to split the team fights into 2 or peel for your adc.
• Splitting the fights into 2 means that you jump on one of their carries and force other people to fight you giving your team a 4v3 or a 4v2
• use your judgement of how much damage you can take and keep using your spells to proc gauntlet and kite.
• You peel for your adc when he has enemy bruisers on him that can get through your frontline. You need to heal him, body lock any skill shots you can, botrk and vaulted to peel

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• This is a season 2 thing and most people stopped playing bruiser nid because this playstyle became weak in most cases. (Before nerf she gained armour and magic resist in cougar form so building hp was strong)
• I personally hate this build because your heal gets weaker on yourself for the more hp you stack (I usually start losing trades when this happens).
• I'd consider this playstyle if their team is ap based and lack in dps, or if your team has no tank (you can soak up a lot of damage for your team).
• Can splitpush ok since they do little damage to you but you do little damage to tower.
  Good at team fighting because he has gauntlet peel and free qss for the adc ( Mikael's Blessing)
• Isn't reliant on Muramana for mana pool/build effectiveness
• can still win lane once you get to level 6 because cougar form has nice base damage.

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• Similar to an ezreal build.
• only do it if your team has a strong frontline, (eg. if your bot lane is a bruiser kill lane)
• Your Muramana+ Trinity Force does a lot of damage, but you get even more damage through an Infinity Edge or a Last Whisper.
• Guardian Angel is core as you are basically an assassin that can 1 shot their adc with Muramana on (start with human form and try baiting them into face checking a brush): aa- Javelin Toss-aa- Aspect Of The Cougar- Pounce- Takedown (if your aa-q gets them to half hp then skip the second aa)

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• This is a play style you would rarely use unless your team is all ad/poke based.
• You should still get ad bruiser nidalee runes/masteries/starting items and then get tier 2 boots, Iceborn Gauntlet, then get into the ap build.

Ap nid can peel for the adc well:

• you will be healing them for a larger amount
• you will be dealing %hp damage to the bruisers/tanks on the adc
• you will be slowing their frontline with gauntlet just like standard bruiser nidalee.

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• Can work in solo queue (only do it if someone else takes top though: bruiser nid is much better in the top lane).
• Use it if you are confident on your bruiser nid mechanics and jungle mechanics like knowing where/when to gank.
• RF Legendary compares this to nocturne jungle as you farm till level 6 and then gank lanes.
• Cougar form gives you great jungle clear and your Primal Surge stops you from dropping in health.
• Once you get Wriggle's Lantern you can solo dragon early, just make sure you clear their dragon wards with red trinket.

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Flash

Get Flash for the early game escapes from jungle ganks pre-6 and for the Flash+ Pounce+ Takedown when your enemies are low. On top of having a Pounce jump to spam in cougar form, Flash gives even more juking potential.

Ghost

I would only take Ghost if their team had little/no gap closer to chase me while I'm split pushing.

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Flash+Teleport

This is the spell I use the most by far with Flash. It allows for me to have:

• Global map pressure with the chance to teleport to a ward at bot lane to counter gank their jungler or if they are overextending.
• A chance to recover from losing lane by teleporting to tower after they shove their minion wave to your tower to deny minion gold/xp
• Splitpush mid/late game forcing them to lose objectives and baits them into committing to a fight which they will now lose because you teleport in to save the day after pushing towers while they aren't there.
• xPeke nexus

Flash+Ignite

Rf legendary uses Ignite a lot because he likes having the kill potential. I prefer to use Teleport because Ignite is a tool to snowball your lane, but Teleport allows me to snowball other lanes as well as create an annoying splitpushing scenario for the enemy team late game.

Flash+Barrier

Barrier works on adc nid since you will be lacking in defenses.

Ghost+Teleport

This is the only combo I would recommend if you do plan to take Ghost.

The play style of ad/bruiser and ap carry nidalee are quite different, instead of maxing Javelin Toss, max Primal Surge instead for the attackspeed steroid for fights and pushing towers, but also for the heal sustain over the small trades vs your opponenent.

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All playstyles should rank spells from levels 1-5 as follows: Bushwhack- Primal Surge- Primal Surge- Javelin Toss- Primal Surge, then max Aspect Of The Cougar> Primal Surge> Javelin Toss> Bushwhack.

With ap bruiser nid, after level 6, you max Aspect Of The Cougar> Javelin Toss> Primal Surge> Bushwhack

A good thing about bruiser nid is that she is very versatile in the way she can build to benefit her team, as well as easily counter building the enemy team. As you can see from the item options, there are many you can choose from.
Gives you the vision you need to avoid ganks since bruiser nid an aggressive lane bully when not fighting a hard lane. Be cautious of the jungle if he is MIA and your trinket is on cooldown, play like he is in the bush, about to gank you, and he will either not gank your lane because you are playing safe, or he will gank and fail because you were prepared.
The armour is really useful for lowering minion-agro damage for when you are attacking your opponent early game. The fact that this start has no health in it, makes your Primal Surge heal for a higher % of your health while your ad opponents still do the same %damage. 5 health potions ensures that you won't get zone, especially with 9 points in utility mastery.
Builds into: Ninja Tabi, Warden's Mail
Good against: Riven, Pantheon, Gangplank, Renekton, Lee Sin, Jax, Tryndamere, Xin Zhao, Fiora, jarvin IV, Wukong, Zed, Garen

This gives you high base health to help you survive getting all-in'd. Good vs auto attack based champions and Gives nice hp regen to bounce back into lane after losing a trade.
Good against: Gangplank, Renekton, Lee Sin, Jax, Tryndamere, Fiora, jarvin IV, Zed, Udyr, Irelia, Kennen, Teemo, Darius, Jayce, Rengar, Aatrox, Yorick, Shen, Garen, Olaf, any adc that decides to go top lane

'Why go 9/12/9 blueymaddog?????? OMG NUB GUIDE SUX >.>'
Chill, the utility tree is basically the defence tree for bruiser nid. The mana/mana regen means that you can have more heals. Bruiser nidalee essentially converts her mana into health. The movement speed is also useful for bruiser nid as she can kite targets easier in leaning phase, also to juke 5 man ganks when split pushing.

Get 9 in offense for more auto attack damage and get the cooldown reduction instead of the attack speed because the minuscule attackspeed means nothing. More cdr means more Pounce for juking/chasing and Primal Surge for better lane trades.

Prioritize the 12 remaining points in defense because you don't get much from the other mastery trees compared to the defenses that bruiser nidalee top needs. Get either Hardiness or Resistance depending on if you are fighting an ad or ap champ.

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Ad carry nid is an exception, I would run 21/9/0 or 21/0/9 because you will need all the damage you can get.

Tank nid can also 9/21/0, it's your preference

100% credit to RF, if you want to see bruiser nidalee's match ups then click here

I will create my own matchup page when I finish everything else.

Shhhh it's a secret.