Nidalee is a great champion to learn, but a hard champion to master early on. Timings and usage of your ability swaps are the key to this champ, as well as being able to properly lead spears and guess where people are going to flash to, dodging.

Q is your bread and butter. That spear is your primary engage, your main source of damage and your only ranged option longer than autoattack in human form. Your Q also does great damage in cougar form, hurting them more, the lower their HP are.

Your W is a filler ability in bear traps, used to trigger your passive and let you know when people are roaming in bushes or waiting. The pounce form in cougar mode is important in ganks, as it lets you travel far distances and lets you hit your E and Q back to back.

Your E is a heal in human form, useful for sustain, and a good mob wipe in cougar form swiping. Its usually what you trigger right before Q to ensure the maximum damage possible in a combo.

Your R is your form swap, available level 1, but doesnt do much for you. You still want to upgrade it immediately when you can, as it gives you a damage spike while in cougar form, necessary for the burst shots.

First things first. Red Buff. You dont have great jungle clear until you have your Jungle item, so the extra healing is necessary until you hit level 3, when you get your own self heal, which isn't a great one to start but scales well enough later to be worth it. Clear order should be RED BUFF, RAPTOR, WOLVES, GROMP, BLUE BUFF, SCUTTLE, then back. Save the rocky bois until you get back and get your first items.

Knowing what to buy first is important, and usually the key to getting a fed and winnable game. If your lanes are holding equally, and no ones made any progress, or has gank potential, go to upgrade your jungle item, and go for a dragon clear, pulling your bott lane up to help when they have time. If you die, and you know the enemy jungler is going for drake, go for the AP item to help fight when you return if it looks like they wont clear the drake by your arrival.

By this time, youre ganking relatively frequently, you're one or two full built items in, and youre at your peak. Nid curves off at 6th level and doesnt powerspike until Lich Bane when she gets the extra on hit damage which can proc multiple times in a fight if lucky. This, combined with your spears doing obscene long range damage, helps you out considerably, and can usually clean up a quarter health champ in one clean hit through jungle walls.

Catching someone off guard is nearly impossible for you here. Everyones normally grouped up, and you cant find 1v1s to pick apart with spear throws. The exception is someone splitting to push a lane, or when you and your team consistently keep one to two of them dead. Use your spears as a poke, and use your heals on your tankier teammates to keep them going and turn teamfights in your favor.