Well.... jungle Nidalee was fun while it lasted boys!

{quoted}

Would probably be better to just watch a stream because I doubt you're gonna get too much of an idea of the nuances of how pros jungle from watching LCS XD

The camera pretty much never focuses on a jungler just clearing his camps

They actually focused on her quite a bit in the first game and kept calling out what abilities she leveled up first and what camps she cleared because the announcers were interested in it.

But yea, both Oddone and NB3 have done it as well.

The main flaw in that thinking is that solo queue is dominated by singular powerful champions that don't need to work as a team. While this may be true for nidalee (she carries pretty hard), champions like Kalista pretty much SUCK in solo queue, because you need teamwork to succeed. Basically, seeing pro play does not equate to being immensely OP in solo queue. Maybe Duo queue, maybe ranked teams, but not solo queue. This also works in the converse, Swain is actually immensely potent in solo queue, but he is almost useless against a coordinated team that knows how to work together.

So, I'm something of a mid lane AP Nidalee main, I kind of have a strong opinion about this. Basically I think AP Nidalee jungle is going to fall off in a few weeks time even if she doesn't get nerfed. Maybe I'll eat my words, I don't know, her win rates have gone up in the past week or so. If they do "nerf" anything though, I think they'll just change her hunt reset passive so she can't reset her pounce multiple times in a jungle camp (killing units is probably fair game, but IIRC she can reset the pounce on hunted monsters multiple times, instead of just once per monster), since that's just abusive and I'm pretty sure isn't working as intended (Edit: Either I recalled incorrectly or they stealth fixed it; tested it in a custom, it doesn't work. Watching some more videos on jungle Nidalee, the root actually prevents her from taking a lot of damage in jungle because she is ranged in her human form; basically it's a Nidalee-specific work-around to the soft-leash change they made that killed all the other ranged junglers). I honestly don't think they'll take any damage off of her, because, as you saw, her damage isn't that threatening coming from a jungle Nidalee in the mid game (early game she's got a lot of burst, but that's kind of the only window she has to snowball herself), since she's behind in gold compared to a solo laner.

Sven got 4 early kills to snowball him and then what? He was basically just healing people the rest of the game. That's all AP Nidalee provides; damage, heals, and a bit of 'vision' with her traps. She's not building tanky so your team is down a traditional front liner in their jungle; even an assassin like Kha'Zix or Rengar builds tank after like two damage items, sometimes earlier. She's naturally down in gold because she's in the jungle, so her damage in the mid game isn't fantastic unless she gets insanely fed. She doesn't have any CC to set up kills for anyone other than herself. You basically have to build a team around an under-fed mid laner, because she's not going to be donating many resources (kills, farm) to her team the way other junglers can afford to, since she needs the gold for items to be relevant. Maybe you stall for late game for her to get full build, but then everyone on the enemy team has a Banshee's Veil and your spears are practically useless unless someone else on your team is bringing poke or something to pop the Banshee's.

Couple that with the fact that she's innately difficult to play from the jungle even for pro players. Yeah, she's probably the most mobile champion in jungle in the game just because of her dash and her passive through brush, but landing a spear from the jungle into lane for a gank is one of the most difficult spears to hit (jungle -> jungle isn't bad since pathways are a bit more narrow, and if you're in lane, lane -> lane isn't bad either since you can afford to wait for a good opening, as well minions form barriers that make it easier to funnel spears around); it's traveling as slow as like a Morgana binding with like 1/5th of the hitbox; player movements are much more difficult to judge when you're coming from the side rather than coming from lane, and if you miss or you have to wait around for a good spear to line up, you're wasting a ton of time as a jungler where other junglers can just force a gank much more easily.

I watch a lot of Nightblue3, and it's been annoying me lately how high he's rating Nidalee jungle because I really disagree with him; heck I've seen him play games where he gets insanely fed in the early game, and then can't do anything for the rest of the game; basically the same thing that happened to Sven in SK's game.

Again, maybe I'll eat my words, I don't know, but in my mind coming from what I understand about AP Nidalee, knowing what a mid-lane AP Nidalee is capable of and seeing what a jungle Nidalee can do, I don't see jungle Nidalee being more than a passing fad just because of how she works as a champion and how the jungle works. Sure you can probably get away with her in solo-q, but you can get away with a lot of things in solo q, lol.

She already has ridiculous scaling on all her abilities.

.8 on a point and click nuke with a 4 second cooldown .85 on her E .8 on the initial burst of her R, plus .2 per second for up to 45 seconds

I can't think of a single other champion with 3 80+% ratios.

Tibbers lasts a massive 45 seconds, and they just gave it that speed boost thing. IMO, they should reduce Tibbers burst damage, and increase his DoT. Why does he stick around for such an insane amount of time if most of the damage is loaded into an instant AoE nuke? Tibbers should be more about area denial and consistent damage over time.

Yea her damage is an issue but its her stupid ass AoE stun that really pisses me off, that and her ridiculously huge AA range. Like i can deal with getting stunned, because i trust my support or ADC to do something while i cant, but with Annie we are usually both stunned and there is nothing that can be done. She can stun you from so far away too so its not like you have much time to react while you are farming or trading.

I agree about the range, she already has to flash in to use Tibbers half the time, lol.

While a flying rocket torpedo Tibbers would be hilarious to see, I don't see that being terribly practical for our little demon child to be doing haha.

My point was more about the "no cost" jump over the wall to invade/escape enemy jungle with ease

All those kind of spell make a jungler top tier the second he gain it (lee, rek'sai, now nida), I don't know why poeple seems surprise with the nidalee case.

I hadn't until very recently, and had never seen a screenshot of them, so I honestly wasn't sure they existed. And then all the sudden I got chunked for 1/4 of my hp from a max range spear. Also, I think they only happen on the headhunter nid skin.

They're not completely invisible -- the invisible part is the shaft of the spear, so all you can see is the two slivers at the front where it widens a little.

Right, and that is what everyone expects. You always have your 2nd buff warded when you go against a jungle nidalee.

Also her clear speed is slower than that i'm used to since i jungle Diana. lol