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Nidalee Build Guide by

[Patch 4.10] Fear the Spear - AP Nidalee Guide w/ Asilium! ^

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Nidalee Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (5) More Nidalee Guides

Choose Champion Build:

AP Nid [Tweaked 4 post-rework]
Tanky AP Nid? [WIP]

Spells:

Heal

Flash

Items

Starting items

Early Game Must!

Against AD Mid

Mid Game Core

Late Game

Optional items

Consumables

End Build

Ability Order

Nidalee Passive Ability

Quick Summary

greater mark of hybrid penetration

Ability Sequence
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18

Introduction to the author

Hi everyone! My name is Krystal, also known as Asilium in-game. I play on NA servers and I'm currently Platinum. My main is my dear sweet and also ! The rework saddened me at first due to the nerfs, but now I'm interested in seeing how I can bring her full potential out.

Alright, let's get into an explanation of my guide. I did this last-minute so there might be slight errors in certain places. I appreciate you all going over this guide of mine.

Pros/Cons

Pros

+ Game-changing spears
+ High movement speed
+ Huge heals
+ Attack speed steroid
+ Bush revealing traps
+ Cougar form at level 1
+ High chase potential
+ High escape potential
+ Jump over walls

Cons

- Hard to master
- Spears are hard to land
- Relies heavily on spears
- No CC
- Squishy naturally
- Can't jump into teamfights
- Team dependent

is a champion who has potential to turn the game around. Her chunk for huge amounts of health and her can save a teammate in their last moments. Her also gives an attack speed steroid which makes it great for pushing down turrets or buffing an ADC. s provide vision throughout the map and will piss off the enemy, no kidding. Since patch 4.10 came out, now has her at level 1, which adds to her roaming potential as well as her chase and escape potential by jumping through walls with .

Like all champions, has her weaknesses as well. She is extremely hard to master due to constantly changing between her 2 forms and hitting since AP relies heavliy on landing . Patch 4.10 nerfed her to the ground by reducing both damage and spear width. She has no form of CC at all, and is unable to go into a teamfight initially due to her natural squishiness, unless one builds her tankier. She is team dependent as well due to power in her cleanup, not her initiation. Weaknesses can't hold down though! >:D

Summoner Spells

: Heal is an amazing spell for mid laners that have a shield, heal, or low kill potential early game. I bring this summoner almost every time on . It has saved me multiple times, getting me out of sticky situations, and baiting the enemy team.

: Ignite is an alternative to heal. Before her re-work, I would have never gotten this spell. 's Pre-6 was weak and getting rarely secured kills and often put your survivability at risk. However, after her re-work, this spell is put back into my viable list due to having a higher kill potential from the addition of at level 1. I still recommend over , but it's up to personal preference.

: Teleport is a summoner spell some people get for the map control that it provides. I don't recommend this spell since has high roaming potential from her passive and , but again, it's entirely up to personal preference and I think it's still slightly viable.

: Simple. It's the best spell in this entire game. It provides you with both escaping and chasing utility. More uses for this spell includes flashing over walls and juking in bushes. This spell takes time to master because of the uses I stated above. I don't recommend any other replacement for this spell unless you aren't level 12 yet.

Masteries

Double-Edged Sword : Melee - Deal an additional 2% damage and receive an additional 1% damage.
Ranged - Deal an additional 1.5% damage and receive an additional 1.5% damage.
This mastery is pretty good on Nidalee. It provides more damage for her spears and cougar damage, not to mention most of the times the increase in damage taken won't matter because you will be far away from threat. Unless you cougar that is...
Sorcery: +5% Cooldown Reduction. Good on AP casters. Nidalee is CDR dependent, especially after rework, so this mastery is absolutely great on her.
Mental Force : +16 Ability Power at level 18 (0.89 Ability Power per level). Self-explanatory.
Arcane Mastery: +6 Ability Power. Holy sh*t free flat AP! Self-explanatory.
Executioner : Increases damage dealt to champions below 50% Health by 5%. This mastery only needs them to be under 50% HP to proc. Extremely good.
Archmage : Increases Ability Power by 5%. Self-Explanatory.
Dangerous Game : Killing a champion restores 5% missing Health and Mana. This mastery can decide whether you live or not. This has saved my life numerous times because of the extra HP it gives you when you kill someone, denying one or two Ignite ticks.
Devastating Strikes : +6% Armor and Magic Penetration. Self-explanatory.
Arcane Blade : Basic Attacks also deal bonus magic damage equal to 5% of Ability Power. This mastery does wonders, giving an extra boost to your auto-attacks.
Havoc : +3% increased damage. Self-explanatory.
Fleet of Foot: +1% Movement Speed. This is a small boost to MS. I personally take this because I want the MS boost, and I believe it's the 2nd best out of the tier 1 utility masteries. Who knows, this might save your life...
Meditation : +3 Mana Regen per 5. This helps laning as Nidalee a lot since it gives as much mana regen as a Faerie Charm.
Summoner's Insight : Reduces the cooldown of Summoner Spells by 10%. Great summoner spell in general. Self-Explanatory.
Runic Affinity : Increases the duration of shrine, relic, quest, and neutral monster buffs by 20%. This mastery is great for Nidalee if your jungler is giving you blue buff. Increases the time blue buff is on you by 30 seconds, making it a total of 3 minutes.

Runes

Precision

Fleet Footwork

Phase Rush

Greater Quintessence of Ability Power: This is the standard quints to get on any AP mage mid lane. It provides a decent amount of ability power for early game. Paired up with Doran's Ring, you get about 40 AP at level 1.
greater mark of hybrid penetration: I use these marks simply because Nidalee is auto-attack dependent early game, and graphs show that it's more viable to use these marks compared to other marks in general since it gives more damage, combining AA and spells.
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration: If you can't afford hybrid pen marks, then I suggest you use these. These are the most viable after hypbrid pen marks since all of Nidalee's damaging skills are magic damage based.
Greater Seal of Armor: Simple, these are to reduce the damage you get from auto-attacks mid lane. Get these most of the time, especially against AD mids.
Greater Seal of Mana Regeneration: This is an alternative to armor seals. You will be able to stay in lane longer, since 9 of these equates to a little bit more than an extra Faerie Charm. However, you will also be squishier by a huge amount. I don't recommend these unless you have mana issues.
Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: Like armor seals, these are used to provide more resistance in lane, but against spells. These are mandatory for survival since mid lane is mostly AP mages.
Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power: These glyphs are for those who seek high risk and high reward. However, personally I wouldn't get these even if I was up against an AD mid.

Skill Order

Ability Sequence Order

Ability Sequence
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18

> > >

Levels 1-3 Skill Explanation

After getting one point in each skill, is what we need to max out first because it is what we will be poking with 24/7. After that, we max as it provides us with insane healing and attack speed steroids. is maxed last as it simply provides utility and you don't need to level it until late game. Her abilities in her form doesn't scale off of normal skill sequence, but scales off of her ult instead, so it's mandatory to put a skill point in whenever you can.

Ability Description

Prowl
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Moving through brush increases Nidalee's movement speed by 10% for 2 seconds, increased to 30% toward visible enemy champions within a range of 5500.

Damaging champions with Javelin Toss or Bushwhack marks them as 'Hunted' for 4 seconds, granting Nidalee vision of them, 30% increased movement speed toward them (within a range of 5500) and enhancing her next Takedown, Pounce, and Swipe against them.
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Javelin Toss / Takedown
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Human: Nidalee tosses her javelin, dealing 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 (+40% of ability power) magic damage on impact (deals up to 300% damage the further away the target is) and marking her target as Hunted.

Cougar: Nidalee's next attack deals 4 / 20 / 50 / 90 (+0.24 ability power) (+1.0 attack damage) magic damage and she gains +75 range when using this attack. Takedown deals bonus damage to enemies with low health scaling all the way up to 250% damage. If the enemy is Hunted Takedown deals 0.33% increased damage.
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Bushwhack / Pounce
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Human: Nidalee lays a trap that deals 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 + 12% / 14% / 16% / 18% / 20% current health (+1% per 50 ability power) over the duration of 4 seconds and marks the target as Hunted. The traps last 2 minutes.

Cougar: Nidalee lunges forward dealing 50 / 100 / 150 / 200 (+30% of ability power) magic damage. If the enemy Nidalee directly jumps towards to, Pounce will have 700 range. Killing a minion with Pounce will reduce its cooldown by 1 second.
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Primal Surge / Swipe
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Human: Nidalee heals an ally champion for 45 / 85 / 125 / 165 / 205 (+50% of ability power) and grants them 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 % bonus attack speed for 6 seconds.

Cougar: Nidalee claws at enemies in a cone in the direction of mouse, dealing 70 / 130 / 190 / 250 (+45% of ability power) magic damage to the enemies. If the enemy is Hunted Pounce's cooldown will be reduced by 1 second.
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Aspect Of The Cougar
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Passive: Each additional rank increases the effectiveness of Nidalee's cougar abilities.

Nidalee transforms into a vicious cougar, gaining a new set of abilities.
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Items

Item Sequence

Core Items

This item is Nidalee's best friend. It provides so much utility, giving a ton of mana sustain and cooldown reduction with ability power as well. Mana regen and CDR works wonders on Nidalee since now she can use her and much more frequently. CDR also decreases all of her skill's cooldowns, benefitting by reducing it's cooldown by 1 second. Also gives a decent amount of AP, increasing damage and heal amount.

Huge core for many AP casters mid lane. Provides an insane increase in AP, increasing our damage and heal amount significantly. Another best friend of as it makes our much scarier.

Again, another core for AP casters mid lane. This makes it so we can get through that nasty magic resistance the enemy has. Combined with , we bring the pain to them almost completely. Unless you are having a difficult time surviving, I would stick with these boots.

Say good-bye to magic resistance. This sucker penetrates a good 35% of their magic resistance, all while giving us some nice ability power. Get this around mid-late game when they are starting to stack some defensive stats. This way our does all the damage it can do!

I love this item. Having debatably the best active in-game, this gives you a solid 2.5 seconds of invulnerability, saving your life so many times. This can be easily used to bait people into diving you, while also giving a huge amount of 50 armor, perfect against those nasty ADCs and AD mids. Wait, it also gives 120 AP?!?!? Jesus this item is good.

Lich bane isn't something I really love, so that's why I delay it for last. This item requires you to go into the enemy team to proc it's passive, so you risk dying. However, this does wonders in small fights, but since it's late game, the chances of those happening are slim. You can trade this out for numerous items, especially defensive items such as to increase your survivability.

Wall Jumps using Pounce

Wall Jumps on Both Team's Blue Buff Side of the Map

Wall Jumps In The River and Pits

Wall Jumps on Both Team's Red Buff Side of the Map

Summary- I'm barely done!

I'm barely done with this guide, but I decided to publish this since the general idea of it is finished. I'll include more sections to this as time goes on, such as a more detailed item guide, tips and tricks, and match-ups. This took me roughly about 6 hours to make, so I hope you guys appreciate this and find it useful! :) I should be able to finish it soon!

-Krystal

My stream!

Pianorabbit's stream!

Update Notes

6/18/2014 - Guide Published!
6/19/2014 - Added WIP Tanky AP Nid build
6/19/2014 - Added Wall Jump Screenshots
6/19/2014 - Added Ability Description; Working on Tips&Tricks