Hello! My name is Monarchii and I'm no one special, just your average for fun league player. I'm a midlaner and an Ahri main, and I really enjoy playing burst mages. I started playing league on a laptop with no mouse, just a trackpad, and my 3rd highest level of mastery, at the moment, is in Yuumi (due to my aforementioned lack of mouse). I've got a mouse now, and I've improved a lot, I just hit Mastery 7 on Ahri. I am no pro, not even close, in fact I'm just like you, probably. I play this game with my friends, to have fun, and I love trying out off meta picks and fun builds!

I love playing junglers, such as Lillia and Nidalee, but I hate playing jungle, so I just decided to bring them to the midlane. If you are a lover of burst mages and skillshot slinging champs, or if you've always wanted to use that sweet sweet Nidalee skin from your Amazon Prime Capsules but hate playing jungle, then stick around because this is the guide for you!

Like I mentioned earlier, if you enjoy doing big damage and love skillshot based champions, then you might want to try Nidalee. She is strong with great range and has a mix of melee and ranged fighting styles. I personally enjoy just chucking spears, but it feels great to leap onto an enemy in cougar form and delete them. If you enjoy champions like Zoe, LeBlanc, Vex, or Ahri, then I reccomend taking the time to learn Midalee, as she does amazing damage from far away. Yes this is off meta but I do not think that it falls into the category of a troll pick because once you get the hang of her then you can perform fairly well on a regular basis. It's not as volatile of a pick as say, Yasuo jungle or Yuumi top.

Pros

-Challenging but rewarding
-High Damage
-Starts with ult, lots of potential with her many abilities
-harder to get behind in mid
-high roaming potential
-amazing seige
-no scary jungle monsters to get killed by at level 1
-a more niche champion, so your opponents might not know what you do
-cougar form does not use mana
-great at getting picks, can poke enemy team off of objectives

Cons

-so squishy
-you only have one ranged ability and you will be facing ranged champions for the most part
-cannot use your melee form in laning phase because you will get poked down
-awful waveclear at first, comperable to a yuumi
-have to hit skillshots to do damage
-hard to hit spears through minions in laning phase
-no cc
-bad teamfighter
-hard to carry

I first learned Nidalee in the jungle because I got her dawnbringer skin from a chest, and I loved her design (and I really love that skin). However, much to my chagrin, Nidalee was difficult and squishy, just like every other jungler I usually gravitate towards (Kindred, Evelyn). Even though I was hard carried by my team and died numerous times to my blue buff, I had fun with her. However, I couldn't help but feeling that there were far better champs to jungle with, due to how in the jungle you have to optimize your actions per minute (Nidalee's six abilities become a curse here) and it's frustrating to hit all those buttons perfectly and secure your buffs, only to get killed by the enemy jungler at scuttle. A lot of things have to go right in jungle, and there are just a lot of things to control for. If you like jungling, then by all means, take Nidalee into the jungle. But this guide is for my mid laners.

When I played Nidalee in the midlane, I was pleasantly surprised that all the franticness of the jungle was gone. Usually in midlane, your ranged opponents want to conserve their mana, so you'll mostly just be farming at first and trying to land the occasional spear. At level 3, you are going to hit a huge powerspike because you will have access to all your abilities. Land a spear, switch to cougar form, and do your combo, and you should be able to take a chunk out of the enemy midlaner or even kill them in like 2-3 rotations, depending on how far you hit your spears from. If you're a midlaner, you will already be familiar with the lane and that will take some of the stress out of learning this champion. Also, your cougar form does not use mana so when your opponent inevitably runs out of mana, you can farm as a cat to your heart's content. You have great roam potential, so if you're finding that the other midlaner is dodging all of your abilities, then feel free to leave and help your jungler, harass the enemy jungler, or gank another lane. Remember, you are a jungler character who is strongest in the jungle, so don't forget to roam and contest objectives! Your jungler will thank you.

Nidalee has many abilities, and I will go into detail about each one here

Passive, Prowl
I'm just going to copy and paste the official description here since there are a few parts to it:

"Moving through brush increases Nidalee's movement speed by 10% for 2 seconds, increased to 30% toward visible enemy champions within a range of 1400.
Damaging champions or neutral monsters 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 1400) and enhancing her next Takedown, Pounce, and Swipe against them. Also grants 10% movement speed to other directions."

Bascially this is just telling you to apply your marks before you go in, and you're faster in the jungle brush.

Human Form

Q, Javelin Toss
Your bread and butter. The longer these travel, the more damage they do, so try to get as much distance between you and your target as possible. With dark harvest, you should be able to oneshot squishies late game. If your intial spear gets your target down to half health or lower, you should be able to RWEQ them and kill them. There is more info on combos down below.

W, Bushwhack
You want to weave this into your combo, kind of like Caitlyn, however it's not make or break if you can't get the traps under the feet of your opponent in time and get that extra mark off. If you can, great! The best use I have found for these traps is putting them in the side bushes in midlane and getting vision. You can put your wards elsewhere if you would like. You can also block off objectives with them, or hide them in bushes and lie in wait. However, if you're waiting in bushes and see someone walk by, it's always better to try and land a spear. This is the most underwhelming part of Nidalee's kit in my opinion.

E, Primal Surge
Heal and attack speed boost. This abilitiy is great for sieging. You can scare opponents away from their tower with your Q, and then just E yourself and chuck autoattacks at the turret until it goes down. I feel like usually sieging is a pain, but with Nidalee it is incredibly fun! This makes up for her bad teamfighting. You can also heal your teammates to make them love you and look over the fact that you're playing Nidalee in the midlane.

R, Aspect of the Cougar
Another unique part of Nidalee's kit. You have this unlocked at level one, which is a huge advantage already. Don't forget to switch into cougar form and use your W if you need to reposition. Once you hit a spear, you will fight in cougar form, just don't farm in cougar form next to the full mana enemy Ahri.

Cougar Form

Q, Takedown
This ability is your execute. Remember to use it after E, always, because it does more damage to low health champions.

W, Pounce
I love this abiltiy. You can use it to engage, to peel, and you can jump over walls. You can also just jump right into minions (think LeBlanc W) and do damage. It's not a very far jump, but it has a short cooldown and uses no mana, like all the other cougar abilities. When you hit your mark, this ability has extended range towards your marked target.

E, Swipe
This ability can hit multiple targets, I don't have much to say about it except make sure to use it before your Q. Always. Good for clearing waves.

Nidalee has a lot of abilities and it takes a while to get the hang of. You will find yourself swiping in cougar form when you thought you were healing in human form. You will find yourself throwing a spear when you thought you were hitting your execute. It's okay, because you will get the hang of it. Your full combo, utiltizing all your abilties, is (and I will use H for human and C for cougar here)

HQ > R > CW > CE > CQ > CW (to run away if it's up)> R > HE > HW > HQ, repeat

This is the foundation of your combo that should be enough to kill anyone mid and late game. The one above includes what you will do in a prolonged fight, or after you make a kill. However this one is just the bare minimum abilities you need to hit to make a kill.

HQ (spear) > R > CW > CE > CQ

You can weave in autoattacks to all of these, but you don't necessarily have to in the later game if you hit a good spear and you're making a pick.

This is honestly one of the trickiest parts of Nidalee, to just remember when to hit what and which ability does what, but once you feel comforable with all 7 abilties this will feel very natural and you will not have to think about it.

You have to have good Nidalee mechanics but it's not that difficult other than your skillshot Q. She's not like Qiyana or Zoe, where you have to hit abilities at certain times and aim them. When you're in cougar form you just have to get close and press the buttons.

The synergies and threats pages of this guide are quite lacking, I am definitely not a Midalee one trick so I have certainly not exhaused all her matchups. The matchups I have played, I feel like it's hard to tell whether it's a bad matchup, or the person I'm playing against is just really good/really bad. However, I do have some general advice about this.

You synergize well with the jungle role in general, and you should be able to apply a lot of pressure to the enemy jungler by working as a team. Remember, you are strongest in the jungle, and by playing midlane instead of jungle, you should be able to get a few levels ahead of the enemy jungler and dominate.

You synergize well with laners that can provide the team with CC. Usually midlaners have a lot of CC, or at least some form of it, and Nidalee lacks that.

You are very squishy and you will be fighting a lot of burst mages, so try not to get locked down by CC and burst down. However, if you can dodge skillshots (your W pounce is your best friend here), then you should be able to easily take down most mages.

Beware of tanks like Galio, becuase they will be very hard to stack dark harvest off of and kill.

Nidalee is a pretty bad teamfighter, compared to other midlaners like Ahri, Akali, Zoe, or Vex. This is what makes it hard to carry with her. In my experience, you can usually get a pick or two like an assassin, but you cannot 1v5. This is not a problem if your teammates are strong, but if you're the only one who has won lane and all the other lanes are fed, you're going to have trouble. It is near impossible to hit five perfect spears and follow through in one teamfight, and what happens if you need to fight a tank? Also, the enemy team is not just going to sit still and let you wait for your spear cooldowns. If your team dies, run. You can still throw spears from a distance if the enemy team is trying to take drag or something.

Now, if your team has another strong member, another carry, or the game is more even, then you can really shine. You can pick off squishies, you can throw spears and get your opponents to half health for your teammates to finish off, you can chase runaways. In this situation, you're good to go.

Like I said before, the only problem I've found if if your team is losing but you're fed. In this situation, probably try to feed kills to the person with the most carry potential, and camp their lane or fight alongside them. You are strong in the jungle so consider trying to help your jungler invade or contest objectives so you can catch up.

Take a deep breath! It's okay. Remember: "you miss all of the spears you do not throw." Your spears are incredibly skinny and they are hard to hit at times, but that is what makes them so rewarding to land. Make sure to use bushes to your advantage, an enemy cannot dodge a spear they do not see coming. The greatest tip I have to landing more spears is: throw more spears. You will get the hang of it eventually. And it will feel great when you one shot the fed enemy Vayne at baron pit at 25 minutes. If you just hate landing skillshots in general, then why are you even here? Go play Annie. Remember, practice makes perfect! I believe in you even when your team doesn't, go be the Midalee I know you can be.

The whole reason I went on my Nidalee kick was because I was playing support and got crushed by a Nidalee support and like a Caitlyn or something. While this inspired me to start working on my Midalee, support Nidalee is really fun if you need some extra damage on your team. However, I would not advise on playing this with people other than your friends becuase I feel like this pick is even more troll than Midalee. I also do not reccomend this if you are not familiar with the support role. However, I feel like a lot of burst mage mains dabble in support, so maybe give it a try one day! Also, botlane is always a few levels behind for the most part and that is exaclty what I wanted to avoid with Nidalee mid. Nidalee top is also a thing, but I have not tried it out.

You could always play Nidalee in her intended role of jungle, but no one wants to do that.

If you are having trouble managing CSing with learning Nidalee, I actually would reccomend playing her as support a few times so you can learn her moves without having to worry about CS. However, once again, please try this with friends so your ADC does not hate you.

You've made it to the end of the guide! I hope I helped! Good luck with your midalee and remember to HAVE FUN!!!