In my opinion, Nidalee is one of the strongest champs when played right and one of the most fun. This guide will go pretty in depth with how I play the annoying cat.

Guinsoo's, Deathcap, and Lich bane are your core items. Get Merc Treads, if they have no CC then get boots of swiftness.

Armor Pen reds
Armor yellows
Magic resist per level blues
Armor pen quints


I feel comfortable playing with these runes as they will fit well with the way i play Nidalee.

EQWEQER...

Max out E and get it at level one, you can also get W at level one if you feel you need to (to take precautions about suspicious brushes and what not). After maxing E, max Q.

Solo top is the best place for Nidalee to be, where she can take advantage of the brushes and use it as a split push lane. However she also works well in mid and a side lane also in that order. She's one of the best solo laners and that shouldn't be put to waste by sticking her in a side lane.

Your auto attacks are your main source of harass pre-level 6. Just make sure you don't take a whole lot of minion aggro as you're doing so. Using your Q during this time will prove to be useless, but of course should be used in desperate situations that call for sniping someone. Nidalee has one of the best level 6s in the game. You can force almost anyone out of their lane at level 6. Here are your basic Cougar Form combos:

For easy damage on someone standing relatively still:
Pounce-> Swipe-> Takedown

For chasing:
Pounce-> Swipe-> Pounce-> Takedown

You should also use your heal whenever it is off cooldown during trades against your enemy solo. Unless you're full HP you should use your heal before engaging.

This is Nidalee's prime, this is where you will start to be really annoying to the other team. By now you should at least have your Guinsoo's and you'll have two choices, roam around with your team or stay in your lane and split push all game, there will be a chapter after this explaining split pushing, this chapter will be about roaming with your team.

This will generally be when you start putting some points into your Q, so this will be the time that you can use your stupidly good poke to your teams advantage and your game play will start feel more like AP Nidalee. At that, you should grab blue any time you can. The only champ that would deserve it more at this point would be someone like Anivia or Oriana.

You should also buy wards any time you can, they will be very essential in every game you play. The way you will hit most of your spears is when you have vision and your enemy doesn't, that is where wards and maybe even CV will come into play.

What split pushing brings to the table:
-Brings multiple enemy champs to you while your team can do other things like dragon or push.
-If the whole enemy team fights with your team 4v5 you will get a free tower.
-It is VERY annoying to the enemy team.
-Few teams will know how to counter it.

Cons of Split Pushing:
-Your team has to be relatively good/smart.
-You have to be unusually alert at ALL times.

Pros of Going With Team:
-If your team isn't at your level you can help them out and support them while carrying skirmishes.
-You will get opportunities to hit some awesome spears. XD
-Your team will have more map control with your traps and wards.

Cons of going with your team:
-You won't be able to farm as much

Split push if...
-Your dominating your lane and your team is pretty decent.
-The lane is even and your team is decent.

Go with your team if...
-You lose the solo lane in any case.
-The lane is even and your team is bad.

Its up to you if...
-The lane is even and you team hasn't shown much (if the game is just kinda meh).
-You win the lane and your team is bad.

Nidalee is arguably the best split pusher in the game, with her high mobility and how she easily keeps 8 stacks on Guinsoo's and shreds towers. The easiest lane to split push by far is top.

When your enemy's first tower is still there, split pushing will be easy. The basic way to do it is to make you're enemy solo low on HP or go back, to a point where he/she is scared to do anything to you. If you are able to tower dive them, you can do so or auto attack the turret to death. Do this over and over until the turret is down. The second you see them gone, you should push your minis with cougar and massacre the tower.

Once you get the first turret, things get a bit more difficult. Wards will become absolutely ESSENTIAL here. The best places to ward are:

Top lane on purple team: blue, the triangle brush north of blue, and the river.

Top lane on the blue team: by red (not in the bush, in the middle where you can see if someone comes from the path northeast of red and from below red), and the triangle bush west of red

Once you have those wards set up just keep doing what you did to get the first tower and you'll get the second one down.

I guarantee that you will be ganked when you are split pushing. Do everything possible you can to escape these ganks, this is learned best by experience. You should find a couple walls that you can pounce over and do it every time that can enable to escape every gank.

After 40 minutes or so split pushing will not become an option. The enemy team will most likely be able to kill your team mates and just push FTW. So you are forced to roam with your team.

During team fights you should be healing ones who are low and chucking spears for chunks of health. You shouldn't go into cougar form until it is safe for you to jump in there. That's pretty much all there is to it.

Tl;DR Pounceswipetakedown, heal for 1k hp, hit tower, win trolololol



I will eventualy post some example game videos here. And not a full 20 minute commentary O.O those are boring.