Nidalee is a very viable champion she can be played top, adc, support, and MID.
this build is aimed at the mid laners out there.

as nidalee can be played in many situations and lanes if you're on draft pick or ranked 5v5 you can swap lanes or go for a completely different build that would counter them e.g if Galileo counter picked you, you can simply go ad and win.

AP (mid)

Nidalee has a long range poke/nuke that will obliterate the enemy team from a range.
Nidalee also has a insane amount of sustain that will allow you to out lane, out push and out farm the average mid laner.

With allot of ap and magic pen she will drop a adc with TWO long range spears. This means that if you have a good aim late game that one spear will cause the adc to lose to much health and be forced to drop back.

i would not advise to play her in the top lane with this build as tankyness from a bruiser destroy her more than a squishy with allot of damage.

AD carry (recommend bot but is viable top)

AD carry nidalee can be played on the top lane or bot lane. She has a good late game and mid game as the cougar form allows her to have good farm and escape mechanisms away from ganks.

The heal dose not heal AD nidalee much late game but gives her a 60% attack speed increase that will drop allot of people.

AD bruiser (top)

AD bruiser is very good against allot of champions as she has good movement, poke, farming, range, sustain, tankyness and escapes.

Nidalee is my favorite pick against good top laners like Darius and riven as they have no range and she can farm and poke from the distance while they recall.

AP support

The support lane is not very good with nidalee as she needs farm and kills to be a use to the team but never the less she is very fun to play and offers more support than other champions like ahri.

Nidalee has a heal that can be used on your teams ad carry. This is good for two reasons
1. the adc gets a fairly large heal depending on ap and time in game
2. the adc gets a very good attack speed boost that will be great in a team fight. the amount of the attack speed buff depends on the amount of points taken into the skill not the amount of ap that you will have.

Support nidalee can use her bush traps to ward bush at a lower cost than other supports.

AP midlane

Ap nidalee should be maxing R (as every champion except udyr etc) then Q for damage, e for sustain, w for utility. If you are being out laned in lane then you should go for adding a few points in your E as this will allow better sustain.

AP nidalee support

She should keep on putting points in q and e then w. This is because your q offers damage and poke that can be very hard to compete against by the opposite team

AD

this apply for any ad build

take a point in all starting with q,e,w then max r and then max in this order e,w,q. You should only take a point in q because you need it for the q in cougar form to work.

AP Nidalee will counter

brand heavy long range poke (further than the range of his stun)
anivia ( Spearing is easy due to her big model. spearing is easy due to anivia's low mobility.)
katarina high burst and farming potential
twisted fate higher sustain
orianna higher poke and farming
xerath same range but more powerfull poke and can poop on him in a 1v1 at close. He has no moblity
karthus
lux

Dont lane against .... they counter you.

Akali She can stick to you like poo on a shoe
fizz dodge and high d
diana tanky and gap closer
kassadin silence i kill you
katarina (i think that she is easy because you can jump away from her engage. others hate her because she is easy to play and can doge your spears and farm at a distance. )
talon silence and burst
mordekaiser sheild blocks your q and he can out farm you

PROs

high movement due to W and passive
high poke
high sustain
high damage
allot of build
very viable

CONs

squishy with bad build
Useless if played incorrectly
easily countered AP
Ap drops of late game

I have seen allot of bad nidalee builds that contain

tear of the goddess (this item dose not work with nidalee as the w dose not stack with the tear of the goddess)
banshees shied (this item gives you no ap and is simpler to a rod of ages)
Mejai's Soulstealer (this item is good but you can lose your stacks very quickly and become a less reliable champion)
Morellonomic (this item has a useless passive and the cool down is not needed)

One great tip for playing nidalee is that her spear damage depends on the distance you and the target. Therefore the greater the distance the greater the damage. This means that you should throw a spear and mid range (not long as mid range is easier to hit) then cougar jump BACKWARDS. This will increase the damage and the amount of shots that you land in the game.

Nidalee can farm very very well.

AP

The early pre level 6 you should play passive and farm by last hitting and let the enemy push. Throw allot of spears and focus on poking with early game spears.

After 6

they should have pushed so now you can push like a boss with your cougar form.

there is no mana on cougar and is a very effective farming tool so i would use it allot more than human form. I would go out of human for to heal up and poke.

AD

last hit last hit and last hit

Ap

A good nidalee dose not need to 1 v 1 she will drop chunks of your health from a range and then farm. She can be very hard to lane against and can give you some insane plays. The worst thing about her though... she is very hard to get multi-kills higher than a triple due to her only having one piece of damage.

Ad

Insane farm and poke.

Support

dont do this in ranked she is nothing compared to a taric, thresh, blitz-crank etc. Outside of ranked she is one of the funnest supports out there as she can be playing very offensiveness at range.

please rate this build up or down and give me a comment on what you think.

NIDALEE