Hey guys,

this is Customtm with my new guide "Trinida - Multifunctional Cats" which contains three Nidalee builds, covering Tanky AP, Tanky AD and some Hybrid builds (AP, AD or AS based). The reason is that you cannot just go into a game with the intention to play this or this Nidalee. The best point of playing Nidalee is her versatility. She can basically counter everyone if she is played in the right way on the right lane.

Nidalee is a ranged bruiser that is naturally very fast and exiles at poking from very long distance and dealing phenomenal damage in melee range while being pretty tanky in cat form.

However there is a problem: She scales very good at AD and AP at the same time. A 1 to 1 AD ratio with the option of tripled damage and a 60% attack speed buff vs. a long range spear with the option of a 1,6 AP ratio, multiple low CD abilities with ok scaling and the second strongest heal at the lowest cooldown in the entire league.

Something that is often overlooked remains: The potential to reduce the armor and magic resistance of enemies. This is so incredible strong that I wanted to mention it earlier and it's the reason why Nidalee's damage explodes once the trap hits, AP or not.

While all her abilities are uberstrong, they don't synergy with each other. Both Qs require different positions, the attack speed buff cannot be abused as AP, while all the small AP ratios and the heal would be wasted as AD and so on. But to be fair, this is not a bad thing. Nidalee is close to OP right now and if she even synergies with herself it would be too strong.

Because runes, masteries and everything in general is different, I'll split the section per build, so you can find what you want without scrolling the entire guide.

Before starting I recommend to do two things: First of all, Nidalee requires quick combos along with precision for her spears. I personally use smart cast in order to increase the cast time and more precision with spears. If you haven't used it yet give it a try.

Second is that you should bind your E Primal Surge also on a self targeting button, so you don't have to click yourself but just press the key. Helps a lot when you're in big combats and you are about to die.

Prowl:

A really strong passive. Enables you to kite the enemy very easily if you stick to brushes. No one can escape you and you can escape everyone. Use brushes to travel around the map faster.

Takedown:

Monstrous damage on long range because the base damage and the AP ratio increase up to 575 damage with 1,6 AP ratio at maximum range. The animation is hidden when thrown out of the fog of war. Walk or hop in the opposite direction to boost the damage.

This is a melee finisher that triples the damage based on the % missing health. Scales 1 to 1 with AD and resets the auto attack timer on cast. If performing a combo use this at last to maximize it's damage.

Pounce

A trap that stays up to 4 minutes which is a very long time. If something steps on them, themselves and the area around them gets revealed, showing even stealthed units. They suffer reduced armor and magic resistance meanwhile and take magic damage over two seconds. Don't let minions walk over it, it will trigger. Same goes for pets.

A mini gap closer that can be spammed, dealing AOE magic damage. Use it to go faster around the map, it also enables you to jump through smaller walls and cliffs at e.g. dragon or blue buff. Warning for smart cast user: You jump in the direction your CHARACTER faces NOT the one your MOUSE is hovering over. This can end in very nasty situations when used wrong.

Primal Surge:

A strong heal and a nice buff for you or your teammates on low cooldown and monstrous AP ratio which is 0,7.

You stand still and claw in a cone. This has range so use it to get minions in the back while in cat form. Also note it doesn't get smart casted either, she claws the area in front of her character. It deals more damage than pounce and is better for last hitting.

Aspect Of The Cougar:

Switching between her two forms is really important. In general cougar is the better form when in combat because it makes you tankier and faster while all your burst damage is applied here. Still you should always be wary when to switch as the ability has a cooldown.

a
a

Pros

• Very versatile champion that cannot get countered while countering everybody
• Very high mobility with Prowl and Pounce
• Tons of damage paired with high survivability
• Very fun to play
• Suits in almost any role
• Naturally supportive with Primal Surge and Pounce
• Pretty much unknown in solo que

Contras

• Squishy when focused
• Hard to master
• No kind of CC
• Somewhat mana reliant
• Hard to itemize :)

Let's start right off with the most fun version of Nidalee: The tanky AP build. It focuses on long range harass with a great manapool, cooldown reduction and AP but at the same time on the short range burst combo of W, E and Q with a huge health pool in combination with tons of armor and some magic resistance to survive. Spellvamp is no real requirement as your health is well protected and you got the strongest burst heal after Soraka but way more often. So why Nidalee AP?

• Greatest spear damage
  
• Greatest heals
  
• Greatest Pounce and Primal Surge damage
  
• Traps may even finish people off
  
• Still mixed damage, thanks to Takedown and Lich Bane procs
  
• Useful in all 3 lanes
  
• Able to tank, carry and support at the same time
  

Of all Nidalee builds tanky AP has the biggest versatility and the strongest independent DPS because it cannot be stopped by Randuin's Omen like the AD Nidalee.

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration: Best runes for casters, synergies with her W because reduction is applied before penetration.

Greater Seal of Vitality: Synergies with your Aspect Of The Cougar, as it offers resistances anyways and makes you way more tanky in the early game. Also breaks the magic 3k health in combination with your Rod of Ages. Well protected later by Frozen Heart.

Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist: A real MR item is hard to find for Nidalee, so instead I'm using these baddies because they improve our durability way better than the common items.

Greater Quintessence of Ability Power: To improve the very early game when it comes to trading.

Not much to say here, I take 21 0 9 for:

• AD and damage to minions for last hitting early game
  
• Cooldown reduction
  
• Magic penetration
  
• More AP
  
• Increased damage in general
  
• Less CD on flash and faster teleporting
  
• Mana per level which will converted into AP by Archangel's Staff
  
• Mana regeneration for early game harass
  
• Longer buff durations
  

I consider my build tanky enough to not go 9 21 0 and enjoy the extra mana in the early game if you are doing bad and have to spamm your heal or just see the options to poke.

Rod of Ages: Because catform leads us into the middle of the battle, we have to get a decent health pool to make sure we don't get oneshot before we even can use our heal. Also leads to a huge mana pool early game, together with some sustain by Catalyst of Aeons.

Frozen Heart: Again to protect our health with armor in catform actions while offering mana. The most important thing is the cooldown reduction. And as if that all wasn't enough it also helps your team with a strong aura, reducing AS.

Rabadon's Deathcap: Must have because of the huge AP increase when you finish it. More damge and stronger heals.

Lich Bane: Adds 751 physical damage each 2 seconds. On most casters this is negated by enemy armor because you don't have armor penetration, but not on Nidalee: 40% magic AND armor reduction is no joke and will increase the effect of this item immense. Also offers movement speed to chase/flee and on top of that some MR for our resistances.

Archangel's Staff: I can't express how much this item synergies with Nidalee. First of all the Tear of the Goddess will solve all your mana problems while you can stack it without any costs with your catform. Takes me mostly 25 minutes. Then we got a immense mana pool by Expanded Mind (216), Rod of Ages (725), Frozen Heart (500), Lich Bane (350), Nidalee (1030) and finally the item itself with 1400 mana which leads us to a mana pool of 4221 mana while having a 44 mana / 5 secs regeneration. Even with full cooldown reduction you cannot go out of mana. At the same time it offers 231 AP in combination with Rabadon's Deathcap and Archmage . It is without any doubt the strongest AP item of all and whenever you feel you need more damage, just upgrade your Tear of the Goddess.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity: Gives us another 15% cooldown reduction to let us reach 39%.
Cooldown reduction is very important for AP Nidalee because it will...

1. increase your overall DPS, making Takedown, Pounce and Primal Surge more spammable
2. increase your amount of heals and allow you to keep the buff active nonstop
3. keep the reduction nonstop because your Pounce will be off cooldown before the old debuff wears off
4. allow you to place more traps before the old one expires, covering larger areas
5. give your spears a higher chance to hit because you can spamm them more
6. let you travel even faster because of more Pounce per second
7. let you escape more easy if you failed a Pounce because it will be faster off CD
8. give you more opportunities to switch between cat and human form, making your game play much more flexible than usual

Take elixirs whenever you are going for objectives or you got some spare money. It will be most effective when you hit level 18 as it then provides most AP.

Once you finished your build, your damage is nowhere near normal and you are absolutely independent from the blue buff or team auras. You are going to heal for 715 every 6 seconds and spears gonna hit for 1800 magic damage.

First of all a very important note: Nidalee's catform abilities DON'T level with their RANK! It only depends on the rank that your ULTIMATE has. So maxing Primal Surge as AP doesn't provide more damage on Swipe! Now that said, it is a MUST to put at lest one point in every ability to reach max use of the catform.

Javelin Toss: While the cooldown stays the same, the damage scales even without any AP pretty strong. It almost doubles the mana costs but the damage increases not only by rank but by distance. So even if the skill damage goes up just like the others, it scales much better and almost triples the gain damage. Q is maxed by level 9.

Bushwhack: An early point leads to 3 traps in lane before match starts. You can cover a river side or just block the enemies path, so we take an early point but max it last because the additional reduction works better at higher levels when people bought resistances.

Primal Surge: At level 4 we need some sustain and as the game goes on we need more healing power, so we max this second.

Aspect Of The Cougar: We take a point whenever possible because it provides resistances, movement speed and additional ranks of our catform abilities. Before reaching level 6 you have to make sure you got a point in each of your abilities, so you can abuse the power of no requirement to level them any further.

Note: You have a lot of freedom here, do not stack to this guide but adapt. If the enemy is good at dodging, maxing Takedown is not recommended. If you lane versus a Galio your Pounce becomes incredible powerful, so max it here. I could go on with the list but just note that you have to adapt to the enemy in order to reach your maximum counter potential.

I take Teleport and Flash as summoners for following reasons:

Teleport:

• You run out of mana. Teleport back and problem solved
  
• You run out of health. Teleport back and problem solved
  
• You need to hit level 6 as fast as possible. Teleport to miss no XP or gold
  
• You need a lane advantage. Teleport back and get the item advantage
  
• You want to gank. Tell your support to ward a brush, teleport and kill someone
  
• Your tower is under attack. Teleport and defend it
  
• Your teammate asks you to hold the lane. You can walk there and teleport back loosing nothing but gaining additional XP and gold
  
• You got caught and must escape quick. Use teleport and let them guess where u went
  
• Another lane gets ganked. Teleport to countergank
  
• Your team wants to do dragon or baron and needs you really fast. Teleport to a nearby ward
  
• You need to splitpush which is easy with Lich Bane. Teleport to join teamfights or escape
  
• Teleport CAN be canceled by yourself. If you see it would be wasted press the button again and it goes on a 180 minutes cooldown instead of 300 minutes.

As you can see there are so many reasons to use teleport that I barely can list all of them. The spell has the most impact on the game if used correctly. In combination with your high mobility, there is noting that can stop you from having a global lane presence like Twisted Fate. But note you can not teleport to your traps.


Flash:

• Pounce doesn't work at all walls because there is not enough room to land. Flash instead and escape 100%. Also allows you to bait their Flashes easily
  
• Everyone has Flash and the best thing to counter Flash is Teleport or Flash
  
• Need to finish someone? Nidalee got no long range gap closer, flash to him and Q or flash backwards after throwing a spear which will result in additional damage
  
• Dodge skill shot based abilities. If you failed or can't dodge them, Flash to make it alright

a Play Video a
a
Flash is a very useful but also dangerous skill because the behavior of most people doesn't change when their flash is on cooldown which leads to rather bad situations. However Nidalee players know that they can escape much better than others and it suits you very well.

One last thing: We need only one mastery point for both of them!

Ingame stats with finished build, including elixirs and potential damage:

3031 Health

15,8 Health / 5 secs

4221 Mana

44 Mana / 5 secs

203 Armor

128 Magic resistance

427 Movement speed

751 Ability power

40% Cooldown reduction
a

---

a
Takedown:

718 - 1795 magic damage / 3,6 secs
200 - 600 physical damage / 3 secs

Pounce:

560 magic damage / 10,8 secs
525 magic damage / 2,1 secs

Primal Surge:

715 heal / 6 secs
600 magic damage / 3,6 secs

Lich Bane: 751 physical damage / 2 secs

This is the most safest and easiest way to play Nidalee. The build stacks health and resistances together with a good amount of AD and AS at 100% crit chance because we will be mainly in catform at the front line, receiving and dealing maximum damage. Our potential DPS is at 2 000 in human form and the same value + a 1200 potential bonus damage from Takedown, leading to monstrous DPS in teamfights. Sustain is regardless the lower heal amount no problem, as our health / second is huge. So why AD Nidalee?

• Almost mana independent
• Ranged poke still impressive while in human form
• AS steroid used properly
• Strong scaling finisher move with Takedown on 1 to 1 AD ratio
• Giant health pool and regeneration to abuse your catform resistances
• Almost ignoring armor, thanks to Pounce and massive flat armor penetration
• While having no boots, the fastest cat with 431 movement speed
• Still dealing magic damage with Pounce and Primal Surge, hard to counter early
• Can be tank and carry in the same person

AD Nidalee is the strongest form to build on top lane and has the biggest DPS potential in melee range while being, with great lead, the tankiest of all cats.

Greater Mark of Desolation: To counter the tanky top laners. Synergies with Pounce because reduction > penetration.

Greater Seal of Armor: Makes us more durable

Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist: Durability for mid game

Greater Quintessence of Desolation: Same as above

I go 21 9 0 for:

• Improved Ghost and Exhaust
• More attack damage and improved damage versus minions for easier last hitting
• Attack speed
• Armorpenetration %
• Attack damage per level
• Higher crits
• Lifesteal
• Even more armor penetration
• Stronger finishers
• Armor
• Health per level
• Instant health

When your match up seems really squishy and you expect to be the main tank you can also go 9 21 0 if that fits the game better. But usually you should be tanky enough.

Trinity Force: Has all you want. You're going to hit harder, faster, going faster, having more mana etc. Simply an item that boosts your overall performance.

Warmog's Armor: Large health pool to abuse your Aspect Of The Cougar even more and some nice health / 5. Also great synergy with Force of Nature and Atma's Impaler

Force of Nature: Offers all magic resistance you need, while boosting your health / 5 and some sweet movement speed. Synergies with Warmog's Armor which will add even more regeneration to it's passive.

Atma's Impaler: Offers armor but also increased attack damage and critical strike chance. Synergies with Warmog's Armor, Trinity Force, Infinity Edge and Phantom Dancer.

Infinity Edge: More AD for our Takedown while offering higher crit damage. Synergies with Trinity Force, Phantom Dancer and Atma's Impaler

Phantom Dancer: Bringing our attack speed to the maximum while offering advanced movement speed. If you don't like selling boots, just keep the old ones you purchased. Great synergy with Infinity Edge, Trinity Force and Atma's Impaler

First of all a very important note: Nidalee's catform abilities DON'T level with their RANK! It only depends on the rank that your ULTIMATE has. So maxing Q as AD doesn't result in a stronger Takedown! Now that said, it is a MUST to put at lest one point in every ability to reach max use of the catform.

Javelin Toss: Even though Javelin Toss is our primary damage source, it requires only one point before level 6. Spears are just to scout brushes and the damage increase is in no relation to the mana costs when you don't build AP. We max this last.

Bushwhack: An early point leads to 3 traps in lane before match starts. You can cover a river side or just block the enemies path, so we take an early point but max it second because the additional reduction works better at higher levels when people bought resistances and those people are usually on top lane, means we can counter them.

Primal Surge: As our heal will be significantly weaker, we can make up for that by maxing it first in lane. Provides also an increased attack speed bonus which is very welcome early game

Aspect Of The Cougar: We take a point whenever possible because it provides resistances, movement speed and additional ranks of our catform abilities. Before reaching level 6 you have to make sure you got a point in each of your abilities, so you can abuse the power of no requirement to level them any further.

I take Ghost and Exhaust as summoner spells for the following reasons:

Ghost:

• Great for roaming the map as you should do
• Helps you escaping on routes that don't have brushes or after you went to deep
• Great at improving your Javelin Toss's damage by walking faster
• Amazing for chasing enemies with your Takedown
• Enables you to follow ther carries forever in team fights

Ghost makes up for the missing ranged finisher. Your takedown is superstrong but you have to be in catform and so be in melee range to use it. There are no brushes under their towers or anything, so we need something more reliable. Same is the case in teamfights. Also Flash is not enough on toplane if the enemy jungler is ganking correctly because the lane is a wide open area and the brushes are the longest way. Ghost brings you out of the stickiest situations because you don't need to time it and prevent CC before it's thrown at you.

Exhaust:

• Reduces armor and magic resistance by 10
• Let's you win 1 vs 1 confrontations early
• Your only source of CC
• Significantly decreased damage on the enemy carry
• Can be used defensive to slow down enemies

Exhaust provides the advantage you need to have before Takedown kicks in and they start running or right afterwards to prevent them from getting away. In either way a strong way to shut down their main damage source and a free CC for our Nidalee.

Ingame stats with finished build, including elixirs, and potential damage:

3884 Health

32,8 Health / 5 secs

1280 Mana

3,2 Mana / 5 secs

168 Armor

176 Magic resistance

431 Movement speed

302 Attack damage

1,781 / 2,183 Attack speed

96% Crit chance

70 Ability power

10% Cooldown reduction
a

---

a
Takedown:

275,5 - 688,75 magic damage / 5,4 secs
402 - 1206 physical damage / 4,5 secs

Pounce:

288 magic damage / 16,2 secs
253 magic damage / 3,15 secs

Primal Surge:

239 heal / 9 secs
328 magic damage / 5,4 secs

Trinity Force: 168 physical damage / 2 secs

The way of the Hybrid and the way of misunderstanding. To be fair I have looked at other Nidalee guides but their hybrid ideas were just sad. So the hard point here is to get not only tanky with health and resistances but also stack both AD and AP. This leads us to very weird builds but nevertheless, they do actually work. Included here is a AP sided build with different damage options, a more AD based build with decent AP and finally, to make use of our Primal Surge, an attack speed based build. Still those builds are less tanky than the rest while they deal more damage at the same time. So why Hybrid Nidalee?

• Greatest burst potential of all builds
• Every single ability is enhanced
• Can't be countered
• Can adapt easily in the game
• Both long range poke and devastating melee actions
• AD and AP carry at the same time

Hybrid Nidalee is the hardest to play because to be efficient, you have to hit all your skillshots but if you do, this kind is the burstiest way to play.

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration
Greater Mark of Desolation: Based on which damage you deal more you, need the fitting pen.

Greater Seal of Vitality: While we lack both armor and health, I prefer health because it synergies with our Atma's Impaler and our catform offers armor still.

Greater Seal of Scaling Mana Regeneration: The AD based build got enough health, so it's better to support the mana regeneration

Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist: A must have because Lich Bane doesn't offer enough magic resistance to hit the sweet spot.

Greater Quintessence of Ability Power: For some early game power.

Greater Quintessence of Desolation: Same thing here, more penetration

I go 21 0 9 here that provide me:

• More attack damage and improved damage versus minions for easier last hitting
• Attack speed
• Armorpenetration %
• Cooldown reduction
• Magic penetration
• More AP
• Increased damage in general
• Less CD on flash
• Mana per level
• Mana regeneration for early game harass
• Longer buff durations

9 21 0 would be better for tanking but I feel that both penetrations are just to yummy for a hybrid to skip them. It also helps out with the AP part.

Rod of Ages: Still your best choice when it comes to health because of the AP and mana it provides while it still synergies with Atma's Impaler to add more AD to the build.

Warmog's Armor: Offers more health, converted in more AD. I use this on the AD based build for further tanking in close combat and more AD from Atma's Impaler

Atma's Impaler: Not really a hybrid item but converts health to AD while offering armor which suits hybrids pretty well

Madred's Bloodrazor: Offers armor, AD and magic damage at the same time. Synergies perfectly with Primal Surge (AS) and Pounce (MR reduction).

Lich Bane: Another hybrid item: Offers AP and mana but converts it into physical damage. Also a source of magic resistance which is very welcome.

Athene's Unholy Grail: Strong magic resistance and AP buff while solving mana problems.

Wit's End: Another AS item that buffs our magic resistance while dealing magic damage and synergies with Madred's Bloodrazor, Primal Surge and Pounce.


Now comes the tricky part: The selection of the AD item. Basically there are 4 options:

Manamune: Cheap and solving all mana problems you got, while converting into flat attack damage. Synergies with Rod of Ages and Lich Bane.

Hextech Gunblade: Sustain with sweet CC, AD and AP. Everything we want.

Bloodthirster: Sustain paired with the biggest AD item when stacked.

Infinity Edge: While flat attack damage synergies with your Takedown it scales less good with Primal Surge. This item converts the damage in powerful crits and synergies with Atma's Impaler and all flat AD that you build.

Depending on what you need, you should choose one of the four items for increased mana, sustained AP, sustained AD or crits. It all comes down to the game what to get.

First of all a very important note: Nidalee's catform abilities DON'T level with their RANK! It only depends on the rank that your ULTIMATE has. So maxing Q as Hybrid doesn't result in more mixed damage! Now that said, it is a MUST to put at lest one point in every ability to reach max use of the catform.

Javelin Toss: Maxed on AP based builds, on AD and AS last.

Bushwhack: An early point leads to 3 traps in lane before the minions have spawned. You can cover a river side or just block the enemies path, so we take an early point but max it second on both builds because the additional reduction works better at higher levels when people bought resistances.

Primal Surge: Maxed first as AD or AS for increased damage output + sustain and last for AP based builds for further sustain.

Aspect Of The Cougar: We take a point whenever possible because it provides resistances, movement speed and additional ranks of our catform abilities. Before reaching level 6 you have to make sure you got a point in each of your abilities, so you can abuse the power of no requirement to level them any further.

There is not much to say here. You can use all the summoners listed before, it all depends what you want to do in team fights. However the Hybrid builds offer two new options:

Surge: While this doesn't work that well with the other builds, it increases the damage output of the AS build immense. More AP and more AS for both physical and magic damage

Ignite: Long range finisher and a way to counter healing champions.

Ingame stats with finished build, including elixirs, and potential damage at full AS build:

3106 Health

16 Health / 5 secs

2221 Mana

30 Mana / 5 secs

128 Armor

129 + 20 Magic resistance

443 Movement speed

235 Attack damage

1,948 / 2,203 / 2,5 Attack speed

270 + 90Ability power

10% Cooldown reduction
a

---

a
Takedown:

405 / 464 - 1013,75 / 1160 magic damage / 5,4 secs
335 - 1005 physical damage / 4,5 secs

Pounce:

368 / 404 magic damage / 16,2 secs
333 / 369 magic damage / 3,15 secs

Primal Surge:

379 / 442 heal / 9 secs
408 / 444 magic damage / 5,4 secs

Trinity Force: 168 physical damage / 2 secs

Wit's End: 225 magic damage / 2 secs

Madred's Bloodrazor: 20% of the targets maximum health magic damage / 2 secs

Nidalee is a great farmer, even without any items. A combination of Pounce and Primal Surge should take out the caster minions while you finish the canon minion with your Takedown.

Always use Takedown to finish them off and secure the last hit. Because your abilities got no costs you can abuse them to loose not a single CS.

The harder part is before you reach level 6. Here good Nidalees are split from bad ones. Go into a custom game and train until you don't miss any CS until you are level 6.

You can also use your spear to finish minions that you wouldn't reach.

However, make sure you don't push your lane too hard by spamming your abilities on minions. This gives the jungler the opportunity to gank you way easier and denies this option to your jungler.

Early game:

Purchase your boots as fast as possible and run into the lane. Place up to three traps either in mid or in the brushes at the side to either force the enemy to take the traps or avoid them and prevent junglers from ganking. Then base, refill your entire mana, buy your pots and pull blue or whatever you want. If you have done the second stick to the covered side early.

Test your enemy: Does he know how to dodge your spear? Does he take all your traps or does he avoid them? Once you figured that you either harass him with spears and traps or you stay extra safe. Throw you spears out of the fog of war or the side brushes to prevent the enemy from dodging them. But NEVER give up farm to harass. Farming pays of 100%, harass doesn't.

Nidalee is known for being ungankable after level 6, so it's most likely their jungler will gank you early. If you have to base before 6 you must buy at least one ward if not two to cover yourself from at least one angle. Cover the sideways also with traps, so they can't sneak around you.

Once you got your cat form, always look for opportunities to give them your Pounce, Primal Surge, auto attack, Takedown and Takedown combo. You should win trading pretty hard because you can heal up with Primal Surge or your pots. Also poke with your auto attacks to maximize the use of your lost mana.

Always look around on the map. Map awareness is the key to win your lane. If you can't kill your opponent gank other lanes or defend them to get an advantage. Use Teleport like the description told you and carry your team. Best option is to do this from mid lane. If there is no way you can gank someone and your opponent hugs tower you have to do something drastic: Buy an Oracle's Elixir and clear the wards that prevent you from ganking and wipe out their vision. It should be a cake for you to keep it and it pays off really well.

If your jungler is busy and his Wraiths are up, take them with your catform. It will costs you no time nor mana and they will be up once he returns. A win win situation. Also throw blind spears at the enemy Wraiths to kill the big blue one and steal some money.


Mid game:

Your job now is push, push and push! Keep your enemy locked at the tower and force dragon as often as you can. Trap the area around it and take it. Take the tower if you feel like you need more jungle presence and join every mini team fight you can. Trap their blue to see when it's up or put a sight ward for a spear steal.

On top, the situation is different. Here you need a large ward coverage and great map awareness because your job is to split push until you are in their base. Ward their red so you can steal it and take Double Golems whenever you can. If something happens, just Teleport to the action and join the fights anyways.

As support, you need to take care of your teams vision. Buy tons of wards and if you get a kill invest it in an oracle. NEVER die, that's your biggest job as support. Try to soak up all the XP and gold you can, otherwise you will be useless later on. Always keep baron and drake trapped and warded. Keep the guy that deals most damage buffed with your Primal Surge and place traps under their tanky champions. No one really cares about them and not many know what they do besides providing vision.


Late game

Your main goal is to poke them to death. While a siege, trap the area around first and then their ***es until they cannot dodge a spear without getting hit by a trap. Your traps are as strong as Teemo's shrooms, just less known. DO NOT engage team fights! You character is not made for this and jumping into them, just like in mid lane, is absolutely nonsense. I have seen lots of Nidalees getting impatient or greedy and just try to finish someone in cat form. Do not do it, it's suicide.

Go in after your tank and try to knock down their AD or AP carry. Your preferred target is the AP carry because he can wreck you apart easy. However if no one is going for their AD you have to take him out. Your traps should hit their offtank or tank because reduction means a lot to them when they try to tank damage.

Always look for fleeing enemies that you can finish with your spear. Whenever you can save teammates with your heal or buff them up if you got the mana.

If the game is struck or you are loosing try to splitpush and get some tower advantage.

Play Video a
a
Pretty huge video about advanced gameplay, examples and item explanations.

Hope you enjoyed it :)

Nidalee is one of the most versatile champions you can play in League of Legends. It's so much fun to watch them trying to dodge the spears and their sad faces when you kill them instant in cat form. The most dangerous part about her is that people know nothing about her besides the spears and the fact that you can't catch her. She is just to underplayed, even in ranked games. Use this advantage for some funny games which you should be able to carry if you are doing good.

There is one problem though: All your abilities are skillshots and to deal damage you have to hit them. You need to train her very much to unleash her full potential but if you have mastered her, she's one of the most rewarding champions in the game.

I hope I could help you with this guide and give you an idea how to play Nidalee or just a new idea how to build her yourself. If you like this guide, leave a comment and vote a +1. If you didn't like it, please tell me why and give me the chance to improve before you down vote, be fair.