Nidalee's engagement and disengagement patter is very weak and predictable, relying on poor reactions and element of surprise which is why jungle Nidalee works and lane Nidalee is almost non-existant.
Her heal should have never been changed from it's post rework form to the current "heals less when you're healthy" and "more when you're weak". I would have been fine with a self heal that can't be used on allies but was strong make it an AOE attackspeed buff, for a lower amount on allies of course.
Her base stats and small abilities bonuses like AA resets being reduced/removed hit even harder and have done nothing but make her engage pattern even more predictable and easier to outplay on a kit that's already easier to outplay than it is to play when you can see her coming.
auto attack resets helped immensely in close quarters combat when form swapping but now when you form swap your auto attack animation is increased in duration lowering your dps. If you swap forms mid auto attack it's even more prevalent because you cancel the attack command completely and have to restart the windup animation all over again when the reset used to prevent this.
The removal of jungle root meant you had to take hits which is totally a good change but lowering her base attackspeed prior made kiting even harder to do and no auto attack resets means that you can take more damage than intended if you misclick wrong one too many times. How many junglers out there have to kite the camps in order to not die to the jungle camps?
How about AD Nidalee? Takedown does less damage than a basic attack until you get the target below 70% hp... serious? enhanced or dehanced basic attack?
How about the scaling on takedown... how do you expect people to do the math on that ridiculous jumble of percentages... why wasn't the hunt bonus scaled with ranks in R instead of takedowns missing hp scaling???
Why is she so dang squishy? Shy didn't she get her base and scaling hp added back after the removal of the offending mastery, Strength of the ages, that led to said nerfs in the first place?
Why does her pounce even have resets on it if we don't even benefit from them till late game where she's weakest?
She did you remove all ability for a squishy diving champion to deal with tanky threats?
Why are there so many limits on her traps? Why doesn't she get a trap reservoir like cait or teemo?
Why the hell doesn't swipe have a hunted effect? Why are swipe and bushwhack so bland, generic, and almost unwieldy outside clearing minions and jungle camps? Hell it could be argued that all bushwhack is even good for anymore is jungling level 1-3 and then afterwards just becomes a near 0 impact skill.
So many little things and they are all little things that on their own are barely noticeable and you can't blame them for her problems but all together they are huge blatant hindrances. I just don't understand why they've made her so hard to play. I can make one mistake and be ruined for the rest of the game or make 0 mistakes and still be ruined. I can pick an easier champion and makes tons of mistakes and not be ruined. I can afk jungle with so many other junglers but if I don't play Nidalee perfectly I'll have to back or die.
I personally don't think Nidalee needs a bunch of huge buffs but I personally believe she's been handled by the balance team horribly ever since the rework team got done with her. Buffs, Nerfs, fixes have almost all been bad for the player base by either causing her to be utterly busted or nearly useless. I'd love to see the balance team actually truly revert changes more often when the changes they made are no longer applicable to the current champion but in Nidalee's case I personally think she should be reverted back to post rework and rebalanced from there.
We should see Lane Nidalee about as much as Jungle Nidalee and we should see AD and AP variations of both. She was a champion meant to be unchained and versatile and right now she's stale and limited. If she's not good enough to lane she's not good enough to be played. Not every champion should be able to jungle but every champion should be able to lane.
I've talked enough
