Nidalee - How to fight the Cougar.

: "I can't fight against Nidalee! I can't dodge spears and she keeps making my insides into outsides!!! She needs nurfed NAO!!!!!!!!"

Okay first off, no she doesn't, second, shut up Teemo.

Anyhoo; since there has been a massive influx of complaints against our resident huntress, I thought I'd follow in the vein of the How to VS Nasus post with one of Nidalee. I've been playing/playing against Nidalee since I started in season 3 and she is by far my most played champ. So heres a break down of what she can do and how to play against her. I expect even more complaints about her after this but eh, it's the LoL community. Can't expect too much. Also this post is going to be LOOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGGGGG.

Champion breakdown: Nidalee is a mobile assassin. Means she can deal a metric crap load of damage and is hard to catch, but easy to kill when you do. She doesn't have an Ultimate, CC, or any real team fight presence. Pretty standard assassin fair. Having no ultimate though, means her QWE skills have a bit more damage to make up for it.

Okay!, lets look at her skillz shall we?

Prowl (Passive) - *Moving through brush increases Nidalee's Movement Speed by 10% for 2 seconds, increased to 30% toward visible enemy champions within 5500 range.

Hitting champions or monsters with Javelin Toss and Bushwhack triggers a Hunt, revealing them for 4 seconds. During this time, Nidalee gains 10% Movement Speed (increased to 30% toward the Hunted target) and her first Takedown and Pounce are enhanced against them.*

First part is straight forward. Moving through a bush makes her move faster. Probably means you shouldn't chase her through the jungle, as its going to be hard to catch her without gap closers/speed boosts.

Second part is her Hunt bonus. This basically means when you get hit by a spear or face check a brush and step on a trap, she gets a free long range pounce towards you, and if yo're a squishy, you're probably not going to want to get close without some type of CC.

Javelin Toss / Takedown Cost: 50/60/70/80/90 Mana Range: 1500 In human form, Nidalee throws a spiked javelin at her target that gains damage as it flies. As a cougar, her next attack will attempt to fatally wound her target, dealing more damage the less life they have.

Human: Nidalee tosses her javelin, dealing 50/75/100/125/150 (+40% Ability Power) magic damage. If it exceeds her basic attack range, it gains damage based on distance flown, up to a potential 150/225/300/375/450 (+120% Ability Power) total damage.

Cougar: Nidalee's next basic attack gains 75-range (200 total range) and is modified to deal magic damage.

The damage is increased by 1.5% for every 1% of the target's missing health, for a maximum of 150% bonus damage (250% total damage).

HUNT BONUS: If the target is marked as Hunted, Takedown deals 33% increased damage.

Ah, the single most complained about ability in the game. In human form this is a long range, slow travelling nuke with a fairly thin hitbox. In Cougar form it's an AA steroid execute which deals MAGIC DAMAGE so MR does work against it.

I want to emphasize the LONG RANGE part of that. Anything short of 800 range and it deals crap damage. Anything short of 500 range and tankyish champions heal it back almost instantly.

Bushwhack / Pounce Cost: 40/45/50/55/60 Mana Range: 900 In human form, Nidalee lays a trap for unwary opponents that, when sprung, damages and reveals its target. As a cougar, she jumps in a direction, dealing damage in an area where she lands.

Human: Nidalee lays a trap at a target location that arms after a very brief delay. When sprung by an enemy unit, they will take 40 / 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 (+20% AP) magic damage over 4 seconds and be revealed for the duration (Champions and Monsters will be Hunted instead). Traps last for 2 minutes.

Cougar: Nidalee lunges toward a target area, dealing 50 / 100 / 150 / 200 (+ 30% AP) magic damage to nearby enemies.

Hunted Bonus: If the cursor is near an enemy marked as Hunted within 750-range, Pounce becomes a unit-targeted dash. Current cooldown resets to 1.5 seconds if Nidalee pounces to a Hunted target. This can occur once for every time the target is hunted.

A trap is a trap is a flying rabid cat? Well, sort of. In the right conditions.

In human form she puts sets a trap that when walked over, kind of sting since they removed the % health. The important part is the Hunted debuff.

In Cougar form, she has a 375 range jump. This increases 750 when a hunted target is in range.

Primal Surge / Swipe Cost: 60/75/90/105/120 Mana Range: 600 In human form, Nidalee channels the spirit of the cougar to heal her allies and imbue them with Attack Speed for a short duration. As a cougar, she claws in a direction, dealing damage to enemies in front of her.

Human: Nidalee heals a target ally champion for 45/85/125/165/205 (+50% Ability Power) and grants them 20/30/40/50/60% Attack Speed for 7 seconds.

Cougar: Nidalee claws at enemies in a 180-degree cone in the direction of the cursor, dealing 70 / 130 / 190 / 250 (+ 45% AP) magic damage to all enemies hit.

In human form, this is her sustain as she has low armor and 0 MR gain. The AS steroid is there for a reason I don't know? A leftover from her being able to support I guess.

In cougar form, its a 180 degree frontal cone AoE attack.

Ok so now that we have that covered, lets talk about ways to deal with the beasty. (I feel like I should add a picture of Jack Sparrow right there...)

Laning Nidalee: Lets talk match ups!

**: "Ok so we know what Nidalee can do, but how do we counter her?"

Well, my evil little mouse... thing, there are a couple ways. Any type of snare or stun, taunt, out bursting her, or plain getting in her face. Here's some of Nidalees worst match ups.

Way more mobile, and a landed charm is almost a guranteed kill. Pre 6 she she can invis and mitigate some of the spears damage, or dodge it. Post 6 she absolutely destroys the squishy feline femme fatale. Surprised? Her wall can block a nidalee mid pounce, she has a stun that can do the same. And she can farm better than Nid can. Not to mention her passive is a good way to deal with an errant long range spear. Tanky as crap and literally eats her when she goes in for the kill. TIBBERS! Wait, where did that smoking pile of fur come from? Tanky, has decent zoning, has a dash with a knockup, and if the nid tries to pounce away , he just ults and brings her back. Whack-a-mole LoL style! Just straight bullies Nid at most stages of the game.

I'd list more but this post is long enough, and theres still more to come.

: "So now we know a handful of the champs that can lane against her, but what do we do to win lane?"

Here's a few tips just for that:

• Early levels she has horrid farming in her human form and she has to get into melee range with her cougar form. You can punish/poke her for this quite easily.
• Stand behind minions. They can body block spears.
• Do not push lane. Due to her poor farming, its easy to push lane to her turret. This is a mistake. It gives her the ability to hit you with a spear and then combo you. Freeze the lane in the middle or let her push you to tower.
• Call your jungler to help take mid tower faster when you get her to back. Taking an early tower diminishes a lot of safety Nid has, in addition to the global gold the tower gives.
• Stay close to the minions. A point blank spear isn't going to do much, and her combo damage is rather poor if your above half health.
• Get an early MR item. Hexdrinker/Null Mantle/Chalice makes a world of difference.
• Bait her. If you take a short to medium range spear, back off a bit and try to bait her to pounce on you while under your turret. As squishy as she is, a turret shot or 2 can get you an easy kill.

: "Hmm, but what about jungle Nidalee?"

Ah. My personal favorite.

The biggest thing to note about jungle Nid is she has a stupidly weak early clear. If your jungler isn't forcing her out of the jungle/straight killing her at her second buff, hes not doing his job. She has very little armor, little damage, and she gets quite low trying to kill the 3rd/4th camp even with her heal. A good ambush can net you first blood/early advantage easily.

At level 3 is when she can start ganking. This usually entails her throwing spears from the FoW and hoping they hit. Most likely she will do this over a wall and not from a bush. Bush's are generally warded and she wants the spear undetected for as long a possible. Counter to this is ward outside the bush. You can still see her coming, and can tell when she throws a spear.

: "So we've covered laning, jungle, and early game. What about mid and late game?"

As with any other assassin, she doesn't have much teamfight presence. It's to your teams advantage to force teamfights. If you do the stalemate poke game, her team is most likely going to win due to the damage her spears can do to the back line.

Thanks to her AS steroid, shes a semi decent split pusher, but you can counter this by having any tank defend the tower. She really has no choice but to either back off or die since she can't deal with tanks all that well. It would take too many long range spears to chunk a tank down to execute range, and by that time the rest of the team can close around her and kill her.

: "Well, this was certainly a lot to take in."

And it was a lot to type. But in closing here's a few general tips that can work regardless of what position she plays.

• • Do NOT chase Nidalee Through the jungle!!! I see so many people do this. Her passive means she is going to get away. All the while chucking spears/laying traps in bushes until you get low enough to get combo'd.
• If you get hunted, and she pounces at you, walk TOWARDS her when shes about to land. Yes, that's right. Every nidalee worth their weight is going to use swipe before using Q. Walking towards her gets you out of swipes AoE since it's a frontal cone. It makes Q hurt less and might just save your life.
• If you get hunt pounced, run/flash/dash towards your team. She will land in the middle and get blown up.
• Don't face check bushes. It's a general rule and most likely it's going to be a trap.
• Remember, her hunted pounce range is only 750. That's only half of what her spears distance is. If you get hit with a max range spear, you can get away.

Okay! I think that's it. If anyone has anymore tips/tricks, feel free to post them. I'm going to let my hands rest now...