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Why the F is Nidalee 45% overall?

Illabethe·12/13/2019, 3:43:22 AM·1 votes·1,641 views

Yup. New skins so I dug her out without playing her in about 8-9 months.

I was a little hesitant to start my snowball, but I did decent for playing her after such a long absence (yeah yeah low elo game)

But...... I was playing against people who are supposed to be Nidalee counters.

https://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/3233228259/243999882?tab=overview

And then I look at U.GG and just ..... went lmfao at peoples' rune choices.

WHY?

https://u.gg/lol/champions/nidalee/build?rank=overall No scaling. Attack speed vs CDR? No Sorcery?

Is Nidalee so forgotten that people literally don't know how to build her anymore?

I don't know about other Nidalee players, but she fits my play style overall;

When I play Nami, I build specifically to bait players into thinking I'm going to be a feeding fish when in reality, if needed, I'm an initiator with peel, who makes an entire team waste their ults on me, then I get away, and my team cleans up (This is what I do at least 25% of the time at D II)

When I play Morgana, I realize that I may need at least 3 escape routes, and that I needed to be able to be close enough to auto attack if I really want to use my full potential. I bait hard, sometimes build tank, and always try to have a wall I can use.

When I play Nidalee, I realize that I might not always get my entire skill combo off without a disruption, and that it's far harder for Nidalee to get out than in. My goal is to try for the deletion, but always have an out (Phase Rush +W is enough to escape most situations, but W alone may very well get you killed).

So why are all these Meta Nidalee builds not incorporating significant peel, but all about Penetration and pre fight mobility when she has one of the easiest wall jumps in the game? And the fact her Q literally is one of the strongest missing health abilities in the game in Cougar form?

Before I retired her, I had some 60-70k damage Nidalee games where I built PURE TANK. That's how strong her Q potentially is.

So WHY. WHY are these Nidalee "meta's" doing so poorly? She's a friggin 60% when mastered+ champ, even after her reset nerfs. The new jungle feels weak to her..... Krugs and Raptors just tickle, and even at level 1-3 I'm still outleveling Bot lane even with her early game slow camp grind.

I dunno. Maybe this is a rant. Maybe I'm missing something. But I've never just picked up a champ I shelved (even in low elo) that I thought I could instantly translate directly back to high elo....

10 Comments

Zeppelins circus12/13/2019, 4:39:24 AM1 votes

Last time Nid was meta people were dying at the raptors around 50% of games...

Beerstein12/13/2019, 4:58:45 AM1 votes

One simple reason. You can cancel ALL her animations still. Because of this, she has to be super weak to accommodate the top players that use her. Even the top players pull off maybe 50% of the cancels, but that alone is insane.

Fun fact: If you perfect cancel her auto attack animation, the spear will be invisible unless you .5x speed a replay, if you cancel it too early, it'll just not work at all.

Basically, that sums it up. Try watching a top Nidalee player play her, sometimes it's almost like she's floating with all the animation cancels. Sadly, this means <1% of the population is capable of playing her at all.

As a former Nid lover/main it sucks, but I'm happy that there is a champ that's like that for those players that can do it. If you look at top Nidalee players in Diamond 2+ you'll see some staggering win rates. Watching them play is pretty fun too.

"https://u.gg/lol/champions/nidalee/build?rank=overall No scaling. Attack speed vs CDR? No Sorcery?

Is Nidalee so forgotten that people literally don't know how to build her anymore?"

Just highlighting this part. People are in grandmaster using that build with extremely high win rates.

As much as I miss Nidalee, I'm happy with where she is. Players that can pull her off deserve a champion like this.

TBH I'm surprised she doesn't make any showings in pro play. I suspect the lack of utility is why. I doubt it's that people can dodge her spears at range because I don't think that's actually her value right now.

That said, she's super fast clear speed, probably one of the fastest at higher levels, so she may actually show up this season, fingers crossed. That'd make me watch pro play again.

BBKong12/13/2019, 5:21:03 AM1 votes

She's very strong this preseason. There are two reasons her winrates and etc on websites are so bad.

  1. She's a very difficult champ, especially early which is where she excels, so if you fuck up her difficult earlygame or even just first clear you can't do what she does best and snowball.

  2. She's been played in every role over the course of the game, so people still take her in lanes occasionally and like doing testing to see what she can do well next. I saw an Iceborn Gauntlet Nid top just last week, and that hasn't truly been her "meta" role for a while now.

Never trust the winrates for champs like Nid imo. I feel like the preseason made her really strong because the playstyle is good for her, and that's what I hear a lot of other people saying too.

Edit: I also forgot to add, those runes are actually really good on her. Attack speed stat is optional but some people like it for kiting the buff camps, but besides that you can go either sorcery and skirmish or go inspiration which is a lot safer of an option (free gold + free CDR). I never agree with Elec over DH for jungle Nidalee right now though.

Source - On my first account many seasons ago I hit low diamond onetricking her. Quit ranked until earlier this year and have been playing mostly other champs right now because I'm having fun straying from my old onetrick.

Saezio12/13/2019, 6:55:46 AM1 votes

Why are you linking u.gg ALLRANKS? xD Just go with D+ to draw conclusions

Dead Anime Dad12/13/2019, 7:01:36 AM1 votes

Honestly, for all the years she was a terror and generally unfun for everyone else to play with. This is the fate she deserves. Atleast for a season or two.