Nidalee design conflicts

I think there are a couple conflicts in the design of Nidalee's kit that need addressing. In particular, Javelin Toss and Bushwhack. The former had issues introduced in her rework a while back, and the latter has always been problematic.

Javelin Toss is the poster child for poke, boasting an obscene AP ratio and max damage at range. However, this has been offset over the years by gutting its consistency - the missile speed and hitbox are far reduced from what they once were, and damaging spears are possibly the easiest skillshot in the game to dodge. When this skill was first tweaked there wasn't any extra effect on it though - it was a straight nuke, and it was still somewhat avoidable (because it was never THAT fast, and still blocked by creeps). I have to assume Riot went with preserving the damage since at the time that was the main thing that set Nidalee apart. However, since it now is also the primary source for applying the Hunted passive in a fight (because you are never going to land Bushwhack without lots of CC... at which point why didn't you chunk them with a spear?) this is less defensible. On the one hand, the lower consistecy of being one of the hardest (if not the hardest) skillshots to connect with helps to offset the damage. However, this same reduced consistency becomes a problem when it gates the rest of her play pattern (RAWR KITTY). While the decision to reduce the accuracy of the spear was correct for the time, I feel it needs to be reconsidered now that more of her options hang on the spear connecting (that is, reduce the damage hard in the high case, but make it easier to connect).

There's a secondary issue with the spears from a game design perspective. The difficulty in landing them and how essential they are to the kit combine to create an unnecessarily high skill requirement to use Nidalee effectively. This significantly weakens her in the average case. I also feel it removes a lot of the agency from the player since the spears are so easily avoided that connecting with them feels like it's a matter of the opponent not dodging rather than anything to do with your aim. Simply from a design perspective I feel that's a bad choice, and the ability should be adjusted so that it is more dependent on the user's accuracy than the opponent's ability to dodge. (I realize this is somewhat contradictory... to some degree I'm looking at it as a high minimum bar to clear to have anything beyond luck to hit... and a low bar for the opponent to negate your aim anyways?)

Then we come to Bushwhack, which has long been a one-point wonder skill primarily useful for vision. The addition of the Hunted passive was a worthwhile replacement for its old shred (at 40% to both armor and MR it was kind of ridiculous... if it connected and someone could capitalize on it). However, none of the changes to it have really addressed what I feel is a core issue with it - the lack of use in a fight (it's basically a dead button once you're fighting someone). This is mainly due to lacking stealth and having a long arming time (to say nothing of being single-target and triggered by creeps, making it useless in the middle of lanes). In regards to being able to pick someone and get them into it it's easily the worst trap in the game. And the reward for landing it is not particularly impressive, as it has terrible scaling and lackluster base damage (especially since it's the last skill you will max). Shaco and Teemo get significant damage and strong CC from their traps. Caitlyn has a hard time landing them but gets valuable distance/threat from them. By comparison... Nidalee's traps are so unthreatening (unless you're low/squishy enough for a cougar combo to kill you outright) that people just waltz over them to disarm them. Without a particular suggestion, I mainly think that the skill needs looked at so it does something of use during a fight, since it does little beyond vision most of the time anyways (the exception being of course the usefulness in jungle clears because of the root). I think that traps should be something people at least sort of worry about stepping on, and Nidalee's traps do nothing of the sort.

And I give it about 5 minutes before this is downvoted by people screaming "no buffs for Nidalee" without reading this post at all.