@RiotRepertoir -- Let's talk about the direction of the much-needed Nidalee rework

It seems to me that traps have a large amount of power that's not readily appreciable right now. The 40% armor/MR shred for 8 seconds is huge. When trap finally gets maxed, it's better at crippling tanks than Trundle ult is!

Perhaps make its power a little more selfish, and a little more central to the kit? Conceivably have some of the damage of her spears only unlock when striking enemies afflicted by traps?

I'm appreciative you took the time to respond. I'm going to go ahead and disagree with you a couple times, though.

It may seem this way,* but point-blanking a skill shot for huge damage is a far worse variant of gameplay.*

If we were looking at Nidalee in a vacuum I could maybe agree, but given the number of champions whose point-blank skillshots do lots of damage, I've got to question that. Buckshot does 170% damage up close. Jayce can throw an accelerated Shock Blast at someone within autoattack range without much difficulty. Arcanopulse has a large range but isn't any less of a problem when used at close range. Ditto for Mystic Shot and Zap!. Same goes for Bouncing Bomb. These skills have long ranges, but they're much more difficult to dodge at close range, and they don't lose any damage up close.

Sure, if Nidalee's spears did 575 +1.62 AP at close range, that'd be a problem, but the idea isn't to keep the values the same and just invert the area of greatest threat. It's that, since you're reworking her anyway, you might as well change this mechanic to be more agreeable, for all the reasons already mentioned.

It seems to be a mechanic that's fundamental to the game that damage needs to have a risk/reward element. Having the spears scale up as they travel means Nidalee's damage output is highest when she's least at risk to take damage back. If the damage she's doing is at all significant, that still represents a huge problem, and if it's not significant, then you might as well dump the skill entirely.

Spears will likely continue to gain damage from range, and I can assure you the damage of the version of Javelin Toss we're playing internally is much more tolerable to the enemy.

I can't stress how strongly I disagree with that decision. I could well be proven wrong, but again, I contend that making Nidalee's damage greater when she's not at risk to take any back is a broken mechanic. It severely limits counterplay and means she can continue to do risk-free damage, while trying to deal with her represents a huge risk to the enemy team.

The conventional wisdom for dealing with Nidalee now often means finding a way to close on her -- a tall order, given she's usually at the back of her team -- because her damage output is smaller up close. Making spears do more damage close up gives the enemy reason to stay away, but gives her reason to come close. Also, it puts her more in line with other champions who also do more damage when they get closer.

The other thing I have to mention is this:

[Giving her transform at level 1] is something we've given quite a bit of thought to, but haven't come to a firm decision on yet.

Given the vast power swing that would come with giving her transform at level 1, I would think that's one of the first things you'd have to come to a firm decision on. Giving her transform at level 1 changes so many things, not the least of which is she becomes a viable jungle option, meaning so many aspects of her core gameplay need to be revisited.

If allowing Nidalee to transform at level 1 is being seriously considered, I really hope you come up with a decision about that first. Obviously, I think it's a good idea -- it seems essential, in fact. If you want her to use both forms interchangeably, you have to budget close to half her power in either form. If she can't transform at level 1, that would mean she'd have to be unbelievably weak pre-6, which is why there's so much power in her human form kit, which is why she's the mess she is now.

Seems to me that merely making the spear damage "tolerable" makes this whole rework sound like a numerical nerf that takes a lot of the damage out of Javelin Toss but leaves the core mechanical issue still very much alive, which doesn't seem like it'd make anyone happy. The Nidalee players would be upset that her damage was nerfed, and those playing against her would have the same problem that they can't get to her to stop her max-range spears -- only now, it's less of a problem unless she's fed.

so legit question that i would love to hear the reasoning for is why you have yet to decide if she should be able to transform at level one or not. the only downside I can see for it atm is her mobility in cougar form being a little to high that early on.

Her non-Javelin Toss abilities could use a look

Agreed. Though the abilities themselves are very similar in the working kit we have slated to rework, I can tell you that we've looked into the mechanics and/or numbers on all her abilities.

I´m fine with leaving cougar relatively the same as it is (but make w jump into mousedirection finally), but human form needs some fundamental changes - the combination of long-range poke and incredible sustain due to a very strong heal just shouldn´t exist in a single champion. Also - the 40%pen+vision onthe traps need a serious shift, free voidstaff+last whisper is just way to strong and disallows tanks to clean up traps for their team (or renders them unable to engage vs nidas siege for another 8sec after stepping in a trap once).

Also:

Give her transform at level 1

This is something we've given quite a bit of thought to, but haven't come to a firm decision on yet.

I think allowing her to have catform at lvl 1 would be the most important thing for a sucessful rework, as it smoothens out her powercurve bigtime. Right now there´s almost no melee that can survive an all in at lvl 6/11 vs nid, as her basedmg on cougarform is ridiculously high at those lvls, so you´re even punished for closing the gap 1v1. And as her ultimate works exactly the same as Elise or Jayce there´s no reason to make her wait till lvl 6 at all (other than some false sense of nostalgic for her outdated design).

That aspect of the spears has a lot of ridiculousness attached to it.

It may seem this way, but point-blanking a skill shot for huge damage is a far worse variant of gameplay. Spears will likely continue to gain damage from range, and I can assure you the damage of the version of Javelin Toss we're playing internally is much more tolerable to the enemy.

SO the last question here for me would be...why does javelintoss have to be a dmg-skill? Wouldn´t it make more sense to make her humanform kit more utility based and give her abilities to chase down a single target into close range so she can then use her cougarform to finish it off? sth. similar to vaynes e would work out very well i´d reckon - making the spears knock back a little and then apply a slow+bleed (gives vision+enhances her cougarformdmg on the target)/if the target is close to a wall it get´s rooted for x seconds.

I can't provide any of the cool discussions others are, but I do want to ask if this rework will be keeping Bruiser Nidalee a thing? From the sounds of it, more time spent in cougar form is already beneficial to this playstyle, but I just wanna check.

Any chance her autoattack projectile is getting looked at? I stopped playing her because auto attacking was awkward as the projectile will pass through the unit before it 'connects' (it won't hit until half way down the AA's spear).

i disagree that nidalee's power is tied to her human form. her damage is tied to her human form, which is the most visible. however, the main reason spears land in the first place is what occurs long before the spear is ever thrown - positioning. this is almost entirely done in cougar form. not just pounce, either. swipe and takedown are wave clear that nidalee needs to produce angles. so it's actually quite a lot of preparation to set the stage for a spear.

also, nidalee's kill potential is much lower than other assassins in a 1v1. her spear damage, even if she catches opponents unaware, is low compared to other standard assassins (leblanc or zed). most people complain about simply going back when hit by a spear, rather than other assassins which simply kill their target. in team fights, nidalee can be largely countered at any time by positioning. this is not true of many other assassins who can seize an opportunity or opening much more effectively with much higher damage output in a team fight - in fact, all assassins and ap mages can arguably optimize openings better than nidalee. both weaknesses in 1v1 and team fights are compensated in spear damage. her spear is also on a decently long cooldown compared to other ranged ap mages such as annie as far as burst damage.

her efficacy in the current meta is mostly due to the arms race in damage. Long Range Damage Compositions will counter this and damage resistance will in turn, counter LRDC. it is not particularly problematic of the champion. applying disadvantages to any champion while they are effective against the meta becomes particularly problematic when they are no longer effective in the meta they are now at a pronounced disadvantage overall.

1b) I think nid's spear is core to her identity for two reasons: because it's her bread-and-butter skill, and because it's the only super-long-range skillshot that does more damage with distance (Jinx's ult doesn't count; it's not spammable, and it is an execute). I think it is a necessity to stay true to this identity - look at the response to the skarner rework, which failed to do this. So the better question, I think, is to look at how we can keep this identity while making nid healthy. I think it should work like this (I'll put in fake numbers, because it's easier to read that way, but obviously the numbers would need to be tweaked, probably nerfed):

• Nid's spear deals 150 (+ 35% AP) damage, which increases up to 300 (+ 100% AP) at max range.
• When the spear hits, it applies a mark to its target for 5 seconds.
• When nid is in cougar form and uses takedown on a marked target, it detonates to deal an additional 500 (+ 150% AP) (- damage dealt by spear, before resistances) magic damage. This is in addition to her normal takedown damage.
• If we implement my "changed hitbox" idea, a "graze" by the spear makes the mark only deal half damage.

Essentially, hitting the spear and detonating the mark deals 500 (+ 150% AP) regardless of how close they are. This keeps nid's distance scaling mechanic, but lets us nerf the numbers for raw poke without taking power out of nid's kit. Furthermore, it lets her be useful in teamfights by hitting a q and detonating the mark, instead of just sitting back and spearing, afraid to go in, like she does now.

Finally, I'd personally like to see Nid's trap on a shorter cooldown.

To those two points -- 1) It's true that Teemo's traps do lots of stuff that Nidalee's don't. That said, Nidalee can place her traps at 900 range away, they can hit multiple champions, and they shred armor and magic resist. That means during a siege, Nidalee can throw a trap from far away to eat the enemy's armor and MR. Teemo's traps can do damage from Liandry's sure, but building MR counters that. Nidalee's traps take 40% of your MR off the top. If she has void staff, and Teemo has Liandry's and Sorc shoes, then with 250 MR, Teemo's traps will damage you as if you had 220 MR, and do 31% damage to you. Nidalee's traps will damage you as if you had 90 MR, and do 53% damage to you. And she can do that at 900 range.

2. It's true that Soraka gives armor, but Nidalee gives attack speed. Soraka's heal scales off her passive, but even with that, healing a teammate with 3 health left, it does only 52% of her AP -- still much less than Nidalee's. Starcall has a 2.5 second cooldown, meaning in 10 seconds she can cast it four times. In ideal circumstances (successfully hitting enemy champions), she's reduced its cooldown by 40% (8 seconds). In other words, in ideal circumstances, she can almost heal as often as Nidalee (for as much as 52% of her AP -- about 3/4 of what Nidalee can heal). Also, sure, it gives a crazy amount of armor, but only for two seconds. That, and with Nidalee trap/Last Whisper, the armor she gives is reduced by 64%.

Even if, for some reason, I were willing to grant that Soraka's heal is better at saving someone's life (I'm not -- Soraka heals less per second than Nidalee does), Soraka's able to heal just one person in the time it takes Nidalee to heal two, meaning Nidalee's heal is more effective in saving multiple teammates, unless you bring Soraka's ultimate into the mix.

I posted this in another thread but this is the core problem with her Javelin Toss and many other skillshots

This guy on reddit said the main problem a little better than I did: http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/2448mu/the_hitbox_of_nidalees_javelin_toss_does_not/

Both angles from the screenshots actually favor the display tremendously. The thing with Nid's spears and many many more skillshots (like Lux's laser) is, that the graphical projectiles are "in the air", aka higher up on the Z axis. The hitbox on the other hand, is flat on the Z axis, it is on the ground. Just look at the first series of screenshots from the post and watch for the shadow of the spear. That's where it is hitting. As I said, this is not exclusive to Nid's spear, it's just the damage of that thing makes it stick out.

Ciderhelm is a really great theory crafter, and has a lot of in depth knowledge of the game

Yep.

The tradeoff that Ciderhelm doesn't mention is that Nidalee is worthless in teamfights. If you don't land spears ahead of time, it's essentially a 5v4, because squishy ap nid can only deal damage if she's up close and personal, where she gets popped.

Yeah but you have to think about that in teamfights, or more importantly, team sieges.

You know the drill -- the enemy team is sieging the inhibitor turret. Nidalee goes into the fog of war just to the side of the lane and throws spears. Both teams are grouped up, but now one team has to juke to the side to dodge them. Maybe the first two spears hit no one. Maybe a spear hits a tank. But at least once, the tanks will move aside while a carry doesn't, and BAM, now Jinx is at 1/4 health. She has to rush back to fountain, and now the enemy team has 20 seconds of 5v4 to maybe get a pick. During that 20 seconds, Nidalee's still throwing spears.

Doing percent health true damage just means now she's chunking tanks down ridiculous amounts, too.

Reducing the damage, slightly or otherwise, doesn't change the core issue. The problem is that Nidalee can help her team take turrets by removing enemy champions from fights with one spear, and that she can do so from complete safety.

If you reduce the damage, that just means she needs to get slightly more fed in order to do the same thing. But she's effective without getting kills, so even reducing the damage significantly might not be enough. If with one spear she can chunk a carry down to 1/5 health, is it really that much better if the spear INSTEAD chunks a carry down to 1/4 health? How about 1/3? They still have to go back, and that doesn't take any less time.

Yeah, I'm sure it's satisfying to land those spears, but the whole idea behind counterplay, as set forth by Riot, is that a mechanic has to be interesting and fun for both the person playing it and the person playing against it. Nidalee spears don't leave the opponents with meaningful choices, as they can't GET to Nidalee. You're having loads of fun, because what can the enemy really do? You're faster than them, so it's really hard for them to catch you, and obviously if you're throwing spears while being chased it's easy to turn around. In sieges, no one can get to you without first going through your team. The counterplay simply isn't there, so as satisfying as it feels to land the spears, they pretty much can't exist as currently iterated.

Disagree that Nidalee in the LCS isn't toxic, to be honest. Nidalee warps games around here even at the competitive level, and you can see this with some of the most recent matchups - everyone was either picking or banning Nidalee, and several teams relied on it both in the finals and the promotion series. She forces the entire game to play around her, and is practically the centerpiece of any siege comp. A spear that can take someone from 100-20 or so is problematic in any stage of the game, and you can see how it effects top-tier competitive play.

Yeeeaaaa, trying to thread hijack isn't going to get you any sympathy, nor can you reasonably just assume that everything is Riot's fault. It's always your fault for dropping tiers in ranked by the way, it isn't determined by one game. Please learn how the system works before just going around trying to blame everything else.

The problems with making them do percent current health damage:

1. You're making it nigh-impossible to execute with spears, meaning she'll get far fewer kills in lane, when the problem with her spears isn't really her ability to get kills. In fact, her inability to follow up with them is a problem that works against HER, rather than being overpowered.

2. You're either destroying her damage (by giving her only, say, 8% current health at max range), or you're making it more ridiculous (by giving it, say, 25% current health damage at max range). At least as it stands, tanks could try to block the spears. They can't if it's doing percent health chunks.

Dude landing a spear on someone in the fog because you've predicted their placement and movement is so damned satisfying though.

I have to disagree with your third point.