Nidalee defines poke and heal. One of the best pushers in the game either split pushing or group pushing with your team. This guide will show you how to play a very mana and cooldown efficient Nidalee.

Marks: 9x Magic Penetration
Seals: 9x Flat Armor
Glyphs: 9x Flat Magic Resist
Quintessences: 3x Flat Movement Speed

All of her runes boost her early game lane dominance very well. A smart opponent will not even try to harass you with this rune set up, as it will just burn their mana.

Movement speed quints are vital because of her need to be positioned well, and they have great synergy with her passive, making early - mid game juking a breeze.

Standard 9/0/21 caster setup. 3% increased movement speed in utility once again has great synergy with her passive.

You start with a Mana Crystal and 2x HP potions. You want to rush a tear as fast as you can, thus why I prefer not to start boots.

You can stay in lane longer than just about every champion in the game, so you will be able to farm quite nicely and get your tear + lvl 1 boots on your first back.

After you have mana situated get that D-Cap at all costs. You are most scary when your items are: D-Cap, Tear, Boots.
Once you have D-Cap you can finish your CDR boots, and get your sheen for mid game damage.

Now its time to stack on the spears / heals, and upgrade that maxed out tear into an Archangels Staff. After this is finished, your sheen will be ready to be upgraded into a Lich Bane with over 400 AP.

Your final items may vary, but a Void Staff is very recommended.

You start with your trap, it is best in all case scenarios early game.

If no invading is going on at all (occurs a lot in solo queue and normals), start trapping up the red buff side of their jungle.

You will hit level 2 extremely fast, so no need to worry about your sustain. From here on out you max your heal every chance you can get, picking up a point in spear at lvl 4 for cougar form.

Your epic poke does not start until you get a needlessly large rod and ~2-3 ranks in spear, which will be at lvl 8-10. Once you get to this point in the game, start snipin'.

And of course always get your ultimate at lvl 6 11 and 16, finishing your traps at lvl 14-18.

Flash

Taking flash gives you amazing potential for offensive and defensive plays.

When being used offensively, you can flash + takedown very quickly into a low hp target in a team fight and pounce your merry way out. Or in a chase scenario, use flash to get into range of pounce, and no using pounce to get in range for flash. Getting the pounce not only adds damage because of pounce itself, but it multiplies the effect of your takedown.

When being used defensively, be sure to never waste it. Most of the time situations can be easily escaped with pounce alone. If you are ganked by any champion who revolves around skill shots, wait for them to commit to a direction first before pouncing. However, if a champion with a targeted stun or instant stun like annie ganks you, and you are positive pounce will not save you, flash. Here is a map showing all possible pounce-over-wall locations (so you won't have to burn flash), taken from Reddit.

Ghost

Ghost is very straight forward. When in doubt, ghost into the jungle, proc your passive, and get out of there. Synergizes well with your MS quints, utility tree, and passive.

Early game (1-8), focus on last hits. If your lane opponent has a very high sustain do not attempt to harass early on. If not, however, use your boosted auto attack to your advantage and slowly push them out of the lane. You take almost no punishment with your runes and healing constantly.

Mid game (9-14), you want to be sniping every enemy that gets in range. Your spear will be putting squishies out of team fights before they even happen. Use your map control (always carry a ward) and poking to control dragon and push towers with your team. If its best to split push without your team at the time, make sure you keep traps and wards down in the jungle to make sure no ganks are made. Using this can also net you some kills with unexpected spears to the face, followed up by some cougar damage.

Late game (15-18), stay with your team all the time. Use your spear whenever theres an enemy champion nearby, keep your heal on cooldown when nearby allies are damaged, because it heals for ~1000 late game. When pushing with your team, chuck spears from the jungle behind their tower and slowly wither them down until they are forced to give up the tower.

Your traps early in the game can screw over the enemy jungler depending on the strength of said jungler. 3 well placed traps can prevent him from ganking due to, 1. Low HP, and 2. Vision of jungler. And if you're lucky, the jungler could be extremely bad and die to the neutrals, granting you first blood! d=(^_^)>

Heres the location of the 3 traps



Another good way to mess with the enemy jungler later on is by chucking spears at their wraith camp when you push the wave to their tower. Only attempt this if you have the damage and mana to kill them.