::WORD OF WARNING - WILL BE WALL OF TEXT SINCE LACK THE PC ATM TO MAKE GUIDE ALL FANCY AND FILLED WITH COOL LOOKING SET UPS. IF STILL WANT TO RATE ON GUIDES FORMAT, THEN THAT'S FINE. BUT YOU WHERE WARNED.::

Welcome to my Guide on how to play Nidalee in Solo Que and why you should choose nidalee if your seeking a good way to raise your elo. Nidalee has been out for about 4 seasons now, so there is no build that can be create that no one has not seen already. These two builds are the builds I choose to use and have great success with a competant / decent team. This Guide is noob friendly and filled with alot of information some experienced Nidalee players might find helpful. I ranked Platinum in Season 3 Solo Que so yes I have some experience with the competitive level and hard pressuring games where the weight was on my shoulders and my champion carried through the hardships and trolls of GOLD.

If you are bronze or silver, this Guide is dedicated to you. If you are diamond, I'm sure there isn't much that this guide will offer you that you probably do not already know but would like to brush up on some nidalee play.

Thank you for reading, once your done try and use the builds and then rate and share your insight on the Guide. Please do not rate to boost or degrade, I have no desires for high scores or that sort.

Welcome to a Guide to Nidalee, and yes I'm sure your wondering whats so interesting about reading your guide when there is thousands of nidalee guides out there. Well for one, my Guide is based on giving props to Both AP and AD nid, as most other guides choose one or the other / pumps ones and downs on the other.

Honestly when we talk about AP vs AD Nidalee, we are almost talking about exactly two different champions almost. AP Nid has no aspect similar to AD Nid besides they both use Cougar / Pounce to troll face people chasing her.

When playing Nidalee you need to keep in mind the match up your up against all the while who your teammates will be during that game. The best times to choose nidalee is with a team comp that is strong on seiging towers and global objectives, comps that have Hard CC, and comps who strive on longer lasting battles.

The Bread and Butter of AP Nidalee is her Spears and Heals.
The Bread and Butter of AD Nidalee is her tanky annoyance and mobility in cougar form. Once she turns cougar and hops into the middle of a teamfight, she is a walking global teemo taunt. Even teemo can't help himself to shoot them darts at her.

As a wise man once said - "Great Success"

PROS to use AP / AD
AP NIDALEE

Monster damage with Spears when its stage 4 and your sitting over 200 AP.
Massive heals late game.
Attack Speed Buff for faster objective clearing, boosting ADC to kill towers.
Top 3 champions at sieging towers.
Excellent Roaming Ability
Excellent Wave Clearing lv 6 +
Fast Attack Animation, Much more accurate Last hitting.
Strong Map Control
Strong Backdooring
Strong Ganking behind towers
Super Awesome Sauce at KSing Kills
Super Duper Awesome Sauce at KSing Blue or Red Buff from enemy jungler.
Queen of Kiting [yes even over Vayne and Ashe, can't catch the *****]
Mini Garen Ultimate in Cougar Form
Mini Flash
Able to hop terrain, the jungle is your playground.
Superb level 1 Jungle Guardian

AD Nidalee

Global Taunt
Nearly impossible to kill 1v1
Impossible to gank top lane
Excellent Lane Bully
Excellent lane Sustain
Global Map Control
Darius Ultimate on steroids
Super Fast
Super resistance to slows and Hard CC
Mini Heal
Attack Speed Steroid
Excellent Tower Diver
Can't catch a spquishy AP Nidalee? what makes you think you will catch one that is on steroids and wearing steel armor that has booster rockets in her butt?
Takes forever to kill, usually takes 4 vs 1 to do, preventing enemy from ever getting a Penta Kill unless they kill you first which is 0% or you DC for 40 mins of the game.

CONS OF PLAYING AP / AD NIDALEE

AP NIDALEE

Burns mana early levels.
Takes time and practice to get a hang of
Tower Diver House Call at low elo. Land a spear on a carry and they are 10% health and allies thinks its ok to tower dive 2 towers to attempt to kill him instead of just seiging.
Needs Blue buff to spam Spears and heals.
Squishy >__> wait Zhonyas + Guardian Angel ... yeah nevermind.
Build is a bit pricey but she has the highest gold income in the game so thats alright.

AD NIDALEE

No real Nuking potential
Spears do no damage
Heals are pretty weak.
Lee Sin

My rune set up is pretty simple and straight forward. I focus my marks for early game burst with Pen and base damage but the other runes I love focusing on late game bonus. Keep in mind that Nidalee is one of those special champions who have the potential to hit level 18 before anyone with her excellent roaming ability, wave clearing, global presence to always get kills and assists, and her ability to help take down objectives quick and easy. So my Nidalees are focused on lv 9-18 as all nidalees should.

AP Nidalee's Masteries are pretty common sense as I focus all mastery points in her ability to do the most damage with her Spears. Her early game presence with spears are super strong and should not be over looked lightly at all.

AD Nidalee's Masteries are focused purely on defense, as her build does not focus on her damage but survivability in teamfights mid to late game. She is to be that annoying kitty that chasing the enemy AP carry so that they are forced to blow their full combo on you and still not kill you.

My item selection is my personal choice and preferance when I play Nidalee. As I said above, there are many ways to play Nid and alot of people have their own personal Opinions. Of course in this section I would go into Detail on each item why a Nidalee should use it or not use it. but since I can't put pictures just yet, going to just keep it simple for now.

AP NIDALEE
SORC BOOTS / Deathcap / Void Staff / Archangels - pretty standard choices for 99% of Nidalees.
Now here are the reasons why I choose these other two items over the favored ones I usually see people go.
Zhonyas / Guardian Angel vs Morellos / Grail / Rod of Ages / Abyssal / Tear Mask thingie

ZHONYAS - Nidalee strives and does well with having a strong presence of throwing spears from the side of towers or behind towers. Having Zhonyas not only saves hers when she dives for that Cougar takedown under tower and then can pop it to remove the focus fire. But it can also be used to counter the enemy when they try and focus you down in teammates. Alot of people do not realize how awesome Zhonyas can be, ever tried using it when everyones trying to kill you. Pop it and the enemy basically freeze up for 1 second? Its like a teamfight stun because the enemy are HOPING to deal damage until your untargetable and then they have to wait 2 seconds which would mean death for them.

Guardian Angel - This is all around a strong item because it discourages the enemy on trying to focus you first, not only do they have to go through your Zhonyas but the Armor and MR from this baby is nice. Imagine a Rengar jumping on you and dishing out damage after you had already Zhonyas? ( dont know why if he is popping ulti on you ) but still. You get nuked down and basically get another 2 seconds of freedom for your team to switch focus on the Rengar. Once you come back to life from Guardian, you heal yourself back to full and troll face the rengar. SO MAD!

Rod of Ages - expensive for what little you get from it unless you get very fed early and don't mind building this. ( meh )

Abyssal - You should never be in range to use Abyssals Mag reduction bonus and if you are its to use Takedown but guess what? TAKEDOWN DOES PHYSICAL DAMAGE.

Morellas - Your chucking spears, yes this is good for CDR but you should have blue buff and if you hit a target either two things happen. They where full health and you sent them back home to heal anyway or they where 70% and you one shot them in the FACE. Don't use the reduction of healing that well.

Mask Thingie - The Dot isn't that very effective with nidalee as I said before she is either Poking or cleaning up, she doesn't do much sustain damage. Health isn't big enough to consider this item, rather use Rylais.



AD NIDALEE
items with AD Nidalee vary and really depends on who your up against honestly. My Build odviously is focused towards a Magic based team comp that has alot of CC ( which stands for crowd control btw.) Any health that utilize health is #1 Item choice for Nidalee when playing her as a Tank. Honestly this isn't even an "AD" Nidalee, its really Tank Nidalee but alot of people prefer calling it AD Nidalee top because they go for Triforce and use Auto Attacks more often then their actual abilities.

There really are no wrong items for AD Nidalee, you can even build nashor's Tooth and still have the same concept.

AP Nidalee skills are focus towards maxing her Spear First so that her Spears and Takedowns do good amounts of damage and killing potential lv 7 and up.

AD Nidalee skills are focus towards sustaining in lane to continue poking with auto attacks and harassing the enemy to get CS advantage. So maxing heal first is the best idea and once you hit lv 6 your heal in cougar form is swipe, giving you easy lane clearing potential.

Now alright iam pretty sure you all read through my wall and text and are wondering where is the advice on how to play Nidalee Better in ranked games. I haven't covered things that you already know etc etc etc. Yes thats exactly what this chapter here is for so buckle down and read closely, and thank you again for your patients to review my Guide to Nidalee.

CHAMPION SELECT
First off and fore most, please choose what your team needs. The very easist way to loose a game before it starts is join and choose Nidalee while saying F*** all of you I dont care if mid and top are taken. Iam going Nid anyway because I called it. NO, WRONG... please first pick the roles that are available.

If Mid or Top are open for you to choose, and your able to pick Nidalee without trolling someone. Then this is where you need to consider which is better AP or AD Nidalee. Honestly AD / AP nid can go top or mid, depending on your comfortable preferance.
Here are some things to keep in mind when playing AP NIDALEE [ make sure your team is strong in a 4v5 situation as your main goal is to poke and kite. You will be directly engaging 5v5 teamfights, so if your team has a strong sustainable comp then Nidalee is a great choice. ]
Here are some things to keep in when playing AD NIDALEE [ make sure your team have strong CC since Nidalee has none at all. If your team requires CC, then choosing Nidalee as a tank won't be the best decision. ]

( from here on out this part of the guide is focused on AP Nidalee as AD Nidalee is pretty straight forward and doesn't require much skill at all. Comes down to how well they build to counter the carries on the enemy team to survive fights. )

GAME STARTED - EARLY GAME STAGE
Purchase 1st Buy - Doran's BLADE / Doran's Ring + 2 Health Potions
Purchase 2nd Buy - Boots + Begin working on your ZHONYAS Hourglass starting with the right side first.
Purchase 3rd Buy - Zhonyas + Tear of the Goddess

First you want to start by bushwacking all the bushes that are close to the entries to your jungle to give your jungler protection and sight if someone attempts to gank him or steal his camps. Once you do you can proceed to Lane and begin working on CSing with auto attacks. Now I personally start with Doran's Blade because it gives me easier CSing ability and poking ability with auto attacks. Also the healing from the item is nice along with your own healing skill. I would only recommend this item when you have gotten on a grip on how to maintain mana early level properly. But for beginners I recommend going Doran's Ring and potions for easier passive sustain.

Your main objective here is to get every last hit while tagging the enemy with auto hits here and there until your level 5 and you should then at that time begin trying to chuck your spears at them for harass. if your spears land you will have the potential to Zone them out of lane and even kill them if they foolish try to stay in lane with only 200 health. But once your out of mana you want to back to base and get your pre second buy going. Getting Lv 1 Boots and 1-2 Wards, if you Lane very well you should be able to get an Amplifying Tome or Upgrade it to work on your Sheen. Once you have boots, first item should be going for is Lich bane.

Once you return to lane, do not go down the center, go through your jungle and head towards the enemy Blue and drop a Ward around the 6 min mark. ( Usually at this time the enemy is on their red side trying to get a Gank on you or the other lane thats on this side. Out of 100 games did I run into the enemy jungler maybe once or twice while heading to their blue.) Get back in lane, make sure to always tossing Traps down in the bushes and start CSing. Once your level 6 you should be trading with the enemy. But keep in mind though that Nidalee is a trading champion, she is NOT MENT TO ALL IN ON SOMEONE like annie. Toss a spear, throw some autos and keep your distance. Heal back up when you take damage. Sheen alone has good poking potential but the enemy mid will not be trying to kill you since they are not 6 just yet or just hit 6 and want to save mana. Once at the 7:30ish mark (considering jungler started blue ) their blue should spawn and with your Ward already there you can see their blue being tagged by their jungler. All you do is simply wait till the jungler gets it low to about 300 health and chuck a full range spear at the bloody thing and get a free blue. (Strike 1 you have Pissed off the Jungler and the Raging begins )

Once your level 6 you should keep an eye on bot lane at all times. Once the enemy bot lane pushes your team to their tower, gank them. Does not matter if they spot you with a ward, going down there gives your bot lane breathing room to Farm up some cs also it makes the enemy think twice about pushing lane. But if they don't back, come in with a spear and drop a bush wack into the enemy bush just incase they try to use it for cover. Cougar chase them down you should get a kill easily if you land the first spear. Since once you get on top of them and they get back to tower, hopping into human form you can chuck another one as their running and get a kill. If you get them really low, have your bot push the lane and start your first seige. PING YOUR JUNGLER LIKE CRAZY TO GET HIS *** TO BOT AREA. Because if bot lane backs off tower and begins to recall, leave the tower and go straight for dragon. Go back to lane, heal up with the blue and personal heal and once Bot get situated, push mid in, and head back bot to do the same thing.

Now for those moments when your Bot is WINNING and has the enemy pressed to their tower, heavens forbidden. You can go behind their tower behind the walls and begin chuck spears at them to get them low. Once they are low you can rush in and use swipe / takedown for easy kills. Whatever you do though, do not Tower dive if your jungler is playing Hanky Panky with the wolves / wraiths.


MID GAME
Mid Game you should be sitting on a Tear / Deathcap / and Lich bane. Once your at that 300 AP Mark you should be Pinging your team to group and start sieging towers. Pushing bot lane is always the best towers to seige, if you get Bot's 2 towers you have free dragon and enemy blue control for the rest of the game. Also you have baron control once that Bot Lane Inhib goes down. Do not chuck spears when sieging towers from plain sight. Go behind the walls of the towers, and chuck spears there because they can't dodge a Spear if they can't see it.

WARNING : If you land a spear on a target and get them low, MAKE SURE TO SPECIFY TO YOUR TEAM! Do not dive the enemy thinking it's a 4v5. Towers count as 3 champions essentially, make sure to poke and take the tower down. There should be no reason for your team to dive unless its a 5v3.


LATE GAME
Same as mid game, your job is to poke and siege, poke and siege. Your main source of damage comes from your spears and your ability to keep healing people back to full health. Never put yourself in harms way. Until you can start cleaning up, meaning you can pounce Takedown + Lich bane someone to death and rotate into a spear. Once you grasp the art of spear throwing, Nidalee because strong, and trust me there are moments where your spears hit those tanks and you do no damage. Trust me, them tanks don't like them spears either, just means you have to hit them with it 4x before they actually say OUCH i need to back up.

Nidalee is all around a mobile champion who does great at long distance barrage, while also supporting her allies with healing and buffs. She is the Queen of Kiting and never underestimate her ability to out run anyone besides Master Yi, but even a Good Nidalee knows that she can hop over terrain to out run the Master of Chasing. This build is based on survival and burst, not 1 shot kill yuotube montages. It has the potential if your extremely fed but understand that this build is based on Sieging and allowing her the ability to 1v1 most champions without the fear of being outclased in close combat. Again thank you for reading my Nidalee Guide I understand that it is a wall of text and needs updating with fancy pictures and all. Also do not judge the Spelling either as Iam not worried about that since Iam going to be redoing all the chapters soon with pictures for easier reading.

Like / Dislike with your opinions and look forward to your outsider view on how my future guide can be improved besides the Pictures.

Cryo Lucian - Solo Que Rank : Platinum - Clan Name Cryo Phoenix Gaming!