Nidalee Build Guide by Darkkor

Introduction

Hey there! In this guide you will learn some of the following:
-Ap Nid


I play Nidalee a lot so I thought I might share some of builds, masteries, and runes to show you how to play Nid to her full potential!

Pros / Cons

Pros

Spells

Summoner spells are very important, and need to be chosen to fit your needs and your teams. I will list the ones that are good to use and not list the ones that shouldn't be used.

Flash Is one of the best spells, so when choosing, keep this in
mind! It can go over almost any wall, or can be used to catch up with a
fleeing enemy.

This spell is very useful against foes that can heal, it can kill a
fleeing enemy, or can be used to win a 1v1.

This spell is used mostly by top and bot lane Nidalee. It can be used
top for easier 1v1'ing, or bot to Exhaust the enemy adc.

This can be used to get to a fleeing enemy quicker, to gank easier, to
get away from an enemy, and many other ways. It's good to pick up for
mobility purposes.

Clarity is very useful for lane, you almost never run oom, and you
basically never go back! It's also very useful in ARAM, since you cant go
back until you die it's good to pick up. But is not very commonly used, and is sometimes frowned upon.


Now, Teleport can be good for a quick gank somewhere or turn a 1v2
into a 2v2, but overall Nidalee can get to places very quickly with
her W (jump), so it's not that great of a pick.

Barrier can change a fight for Nidalee. But if you are wanting to go more offense go with Ignite.

Heal is also a great sustain spell, and life saver.

Masteries

You can also go Meditation over Merciless if you prefer mana regen. You can also split them as 2 - 3 or 1 - 4.
Another thing you can do is go into the cunning tree and Thunderlord's Decree and then go as far into ferocity as possible. This works well with Nidalee's cougar form burst.

Skill Sequence

I take Javelin Toss first as Nidalee so that I can play more Aggressive, so if you want to play defensively then go for Primal Surge or Bushwhack.

The main reason for going Javelin Toss first is to ensure your top damage potential.

Primal Surge can be used first in case you think your lane will poke you immediately and effectively so that you can heal the damage back up, or if your bruiser Nidalee and want to use fast autos for poke.

Going Bushwhack first is better if you think vision will help, such as guarding blue/red for your jungler, or for invading.

Skill Sequence (Continued)

Keep spamming your Javelin Toss as much as possible, it drops their health quickly, keep using your Bushwhack to make sure you don't get ganked, use your Primal Surge when you take major damage or when you want to take down a tower.

Cougar Form:
Use your Pounce after you land a spear, or after an enemy hits a trap (for the Prowl proc). It can also be used to run away, and jump over walls. Use Swipe on large crowds to do maximum damage or use it in a skrimish to do a little more damage. Use Takedown to do a hard single-target attack, or with Prowl to do more damage. It can also be used to get last hits.

Runes

The reason for going for the magic pen when going AP is because your spears do a lot more damage when you get more AP. I like to go for the scaling health and scaling AP for late game power.

When I go bruiser Nidalee I don't go for the armor pen marks because as Nid a lot of your damage is still AP, so the armor pen isn't good when stacked up a lot like on Zed. Which may make you wonder why ad Nid is good at all, it's because with her Primal Surge you are given a huge amount of attack speed, this combined with her cougar form's Q you can put out a significant amount of damage, and added with all of your AoE, it makes ad Nidalee really good.

Nidalee's Burst (Runes too)

When playing as Nidalee you may notice that her damage is low at first, and as she levels it jumps to huge amounts. This means she is a bursty champ and needs to be built with plenty of ap and magic penetration! If not she falls off quiet significantly, but you can also go tanky and be more of a front-liner if your team needs it.

Farming

Farming as Nidalee starts off like Lux. Which can be hard if you don't pay attention to the minions health enough. But as Nid gains levels it gets A LOT easier. Overall her farming is quiet easy.

When To Go In, When To Stay Out

As Nidalee you may notice you are quiet squishy, which means if your going ap your set, because you need to stay back and just throw your spears like the crazy cat lady you are! Lets not forget about your team though, make sure you are constantly setting traps in places people travel the most, and healing low teammates over yourself. When your AP Nidalee you need to be very cautionary as to when you jump in as cougar form, because if you don't you will be basically insta-killed. The right moment to go in is when they are low enough to burst and jump back out, or you are chasing someone. So always keep in mind that you should be in the back throwing out your spears, but you also need to go Aspect Of The Cougar for the Prowl procs which make you so great.

When going ad you need to mostly stay in your cougar form, since this where most of your damage will be at. When your ad you are already tanky because of what you have to build, so most of the time you can jump freely, in and out, when you choose to. But keep in mind you need to land spears for the Prowl procs as well.

Items

Ap Nidalee
As your items your main goal is to get Seraph's Embrace, Void Staff, and Rabadon's Deathcap first. These items will help you the most, the reason why is because Rabadon's Deathcap gives a large amount of the ap, needed for your spears to do more damage, not only this but it will increase ap by 30%! Seraph's Embrace is good because as Nidalee you need the large amount of mana and mana regen, this really helps you throw out more spears and heals to your needy teammates. Not to mention the large amount of AP you get from the passive. Void Staff will really help diminish your enemies magic resist so that you can do a lot more damage.

Going for boots-
Sorcerers Boots > Everything Else
The reason why is so that you can eat right through your enemies magic resistance. It may not look like much, but it really helps!
However, if you need cool down reduction the you can get lucidity's boots.

Defense-
I think the best defensive item for Nidalee is Zhonya's Hourglass or Abyssal Mask they both give great stats, defensive and offensive. Another option is to go for Athene's Unholy Grail but is more for going against heavy magic champions, and mostly for the mana regen.

Pouncing Over Walls

Learn to find spots where Nidalee can jump over walls, and practice doing them over, and over again. Once you have done this you will be able to run through the map like it's no big deal!

Also learn how to reset your pounce by killing minions, or landing it on a Prowl marked champion.

The Twisted Treeline

On this map the builds are basically the same except I usually start with Tear of the Goddess or two Doran's Rings. She does extremely well here and can shoot her spears over the wall between top and the health relic, which is really helpful! She can't jump over any walls other than some corners, but this doesn't change how well she preforms here. Her traps are really useful here too, you can put them in really sneaky spots to catch just about any enemy.

UPDATES

20/1/14: Fixed masteries and spells. Wording in masteries and spells. I also added more info.

18/6/14: (ARCHIVED)

23/1/15: Redone the entirety of guide for the new Nidalee. (UN-ARCHIVED)

25/1/15: Fixed error in item order. ;3

17/2/15: Some clean up.

23/11/15: Major revamp; New masteries.