Hi again Summoners, it's me MadMike96, and here I go again breaking the meta in the support lane. Nidalee is not strictly a Meta Support, however she is viable due to an amazing heal (with enough AP), and phenomenal kill pressure in lane and across the map. She has amazing poke with her Human Q and Heal with her Human E. She has a very reliable escape with her Cougar W and her Human W lets her check bushes and provide vision of her foes. She doesn't build conventional Support due to her amazing scaling with AP on her Spear and her Heal.

Of course you are all asking the same question at this point, Why should I play Nidalee Support, well Summoner, I'm glad you asked.

PROS

• Javelin Toss deals so much damage at full range
• Primal Surge heals significantly more once you have a single AP item.
• Bushwhack deals a fair chunk of damage and reveals information about your enemy. Do not underestimate how important knowledge is.
• Nidalee's Cougar form abilities cost no mana and have quite short cooldowns, making for a good assassination kit.

However there are a number of things to consider when playing Nidalee:

CONS

• Nidalee's Skill Cap is very high, it is difficult to know when is the best time to switch between human and cougar form.
• Javelin Toss is not particularly fast and can be difficult to hit
• Primal Surge is not particularly powerful early on due to a lack of AP

Prowl: Moving through brush increases Nidalee's movement speed by 10% for 2 seconds, which increases to 30% if she is moving toward a visible enemy champion within 5500-range.
Hunt: Hitting enemy champions and neutral monsters with Javelin Toss or Bushwhack will mark them as Hunted for 4 seconds, revealing them. Neutral monsters are also rooted for 2 seconds. While moving toward Hunted, Nidalee gains Prowl's bonus movement speed and ignores unit collision. Additionally, Nidalee's first use of Takedown and Pounce against Hunted will have an empowered effect.

Javelin Toss: Nidalee hurls her javelin forward in a line, dealing magic damage to the first enemy it hits. After having traveled 525 units, the javelin's damage will be increased by 2% per 7.75 units traveled, capping at 200% bonus damage (300% total damage) after traveling 1300 units.
Takedown: Nidalee's next basic attack gains 75-range (200 total range) and is modified to deal magic damage.The damage is increased by 1.5% for every 1% of the target's missing health, for a maximum of 150% bonus damage (250% total damage).

Bushwhack: Nidalee lays a trap at a target location that arms after a very brief delay. When sprung by an enemy unit, they will take magic damage plus a percentage of their current health over 4 seconds (max. damage 150 vs. monsters). Traps last for 2 minutes.
Pounce: Nidalee lunges a fixed 375 units in the direction of the cursor, dealing magic damage to enemies within a 75-radius area around her landing point. Killing a unit will reduce Pounce's cooldown to 1.5 second if it's currently higher than that.

Primal Surge: Nidalee evokes the spirit of the cougar, healing a target allied champion or herself and granting them bonus attack speed for 7 seconds.
Swipe: Nidalee claws at enemies in a 180-degree cone in the direction of the cursor, dealing magic damage to all enemies hit.

Aspect Of The Cougar (Human Form): Nidalee transforms herself into a cougar, gaining a new set of abilities and melee attacks (125 range).
Aspect Of The Cougar (Cougar Form): Nidalee transforms back into her human form.

Max Q first as it is Nidalee's only source of ranged damage, E Seconds as the reliable sustain will keep your carry alive. We leave W to last as it doesn't scale as well as Q or E and Pounce is already reliable. at level 1

The thing with Support Nidalee is that you need to build her the same way as you would build her in the Mid lane, you need AP items to scale Javelin Toss and Primal Surge. We also build a small amount of movement speed to increase the amount of map pressure, Luden's Echo and Boots of Mobility help immensely, providing a small buff on top of Prowl. You start with Spellthief's Edge to gain gold from your poke as you won't be last hitting in lane.

Because Nidalee scales well with AP, we take Magic Penetration Marks for more early damage with Javelin Toss, Gold Seals as we wont be last hitting, Magic Resist Glyphs for a bit of tankiness as Nidalee doesn't build any tank stats and AP quints for the overall scaling on all of her abilities.

As a magic damage support we take conventional 21 support masteries and 9 points in the offense tree, points in CDR, AP and Spell Weaving to aid your ADCs in damaging enemy champions when you land your spears or traps. If you want to go 21/0/9 instead however, tkae points in Executioner , Dangerous Game , Archmage , Arcane Blade , Devastating Strikes and of course Havoc . While taking the necessary support masteries up to Culinary Master

I will be updating this section as I play more of Nidalee Support, people are beginning to open up about letting me Metamance, hopefully this section should grow fairly quickly, message me if you need a specific matchup and I will work hard to get you that information.

Thanks again guys for reading my guide on Breaking the Meta as Nidalee support. See you on the Rift.



Have fun Cougars ;)
(Oh come on I didn't make the joke throughout the whole guide, I get to make it here)