Nidalee's traps, a History

i want to start this off by saying i am not proposing nidalee's traps do ANYTHING that hasn't already been done. Nidalee is a very high risk/ reward champion. she has very high burst damage a great escape. but a very noticeable lack of any form of cc. and proably the most counterplay of any champion i have seen in league. (although that could be becuase i know her weaknesses so well).

now if we go back in time BEFORE nidalee could jungle. BEFORE everyone hated her. BEFORE anyone thought she was "toxic" or "OP".

you would have found a very versatile champion.

nidalee was mostly found in mid and top lane. mid lane as an AP mage. and top lane as a bruiser. she coulnt get cougar from until lvl 6 and had a VERY weak early game was a extremly hard time CSing as an ap mage. this was the point in time where her traps did a flat 80 damage + a armor and magic pen debuff

now interestingly enough a lvl 1 trap did MORE damage than a lvl 1 spear so many nidalee got traps first. as it also allows you to scout the enemy jungle early before minion reached your lane

After the rework nidalee had some major changes done. she was able to access cougar form at lvl 1 and now a a VERY nice lvl 2 and lvl 3 powerspike. she also have VERY godo waveclear for FREE. but with a heavy drawback. melee range with your main clearing ability being pounce (aka your escape tool). so just to make a comparison to another champ we all know and hate who also has free wave clear , except nid had to do it in melee range USING her escape tool to clear. unlike zed who could just clear from complete saftey.

THIS was the time nidalee traps % hp damage. this was a time before cinderhulk.

and to anyone who isnt aware on how nidalee traps quite work let me explain...

nidalee traps are placed in at a location. briefly granting vision of that location, after a few seconds the trap will arm and trigger on ANY unit that walks over it. now unlike traps. ANY unit includes minions... so placing them in the middle of the lane is impossible as minions will trigger them. also unlike they do NOT root enemy champions.

at this point nidalee traps while not very useful for anything but scouting did allow nidalee ANOTHER roles in addition to top and mid. support. you see nidalee traps will actaully proc all three times provided a large amout of vision before sightstone could be aquired.

and THIS is the point where everythign went wrong with nidalee.

you see at THIS point riot (in thier infinite wisdom) decided to do what myself among nidalee players had always been asking for. for we said "hey! nidalee lore is based on her growing up in the jungle... WHY cant she jungle?" and so Riot made a SMALL almost insignificant change that made players despise nidalee to this day.

they let her traps ROOT enemy jungle camps for 2 seconds and apply hunted to them.

now this had the intended effect of letting nidalee jungle. what what is more there was ZERO negative consequences to her laning phase. she had ZERO buffs vs players.

so what could possibly go wrong?

well it could be that riot introduced two bugs at this time where made nidalee the hated kitten she now is. the first bug was fixed within a week, which had let nidalee glitch the cooldown of her human skills to zero when she went into cougar form.

the second was.. and im sure you all remember this... here spears turned INVISIBLE!!!!!! THATS RIGHT.

riot introduced a bugged nidalee that with a bugged cooldown reset coudl clear the jungle almost instently without any leash AND threw spears that are INVISIBLE.

within a week the reset bug was fixed but the damage had been done.

and so the first of nidalee's traps changes that should never have occured happened. nidalee LOST her % hp damage on traps and regain the flat damage she had before her rework. EXCEPT she did NOT regain the magic and armor pen debuff she had before her rework, AND she traps do HALF of thier pre rework value.

so if we were to look at nidalee traps from before her rework to AFTER the % hp removal you would see loss of half of the damage AND the removal of both magic and armor debuff, with the only benefit being they rooted jungle monsters.

now this change was dune becuase %10 HP on say.. blue buff or dragon with 6 traps stacked in one place is... 60% hp? INSTANTLY gone. obviously OP and no one would disagree. EXCEPT riot had the foresight during nidalee rework to capp the damage on this at 200 vs monsters and minions

so INSTEAD of LOWERING the PRE-EXISTING CAP. riot REMOVED her % hp.

this was the single most carelessly done and needless move riot has done to nidalee. they ALREADY had a CAP on the damage vs monster in minion on the skill all you had to do was change that number from 200 to say??? 40? or 50? and VIOLA your done.

but instead riot decided to remove the % hp altogether. this made her traps worthless.

becuase when a player with normal magic resist runes walked over a nidalee trap AT LEVEL 1, they take about 20 damage. and nidalee maxes traps last.

meaning when this change goes live you see a player such as myself playing support nidalee and placing 2 traps in each bush. and you would prevoiusly see an enemy leona walk over 1 of them and lose 10% of her hp. well its not much but its enough for her to avoid the bushes most of the time. and suddently.. i play a game as support nidalee and see said enemy leona walk over SIX ,count them, SIX of my traps.. and lose about 100 hp which she promptly regained in about 20 seconds without taking a potion.

now if this lenoa has dont that before the trap change she would have lost 60% of her hp. granted that lenoa would have to had walked over SIX traps. but seeing as traps are completely visible are proably yhr easiest skill in the game to avoid.

at this point i got VERY annoyed with riot.

but it wasnt until a few months later that riot really put the final nail in the coffin on nid's traps.for the decided to reduce the placement vision radius to almost nothing.

so now only do traps do no damage. they don't give vision

and this is how nida traps have been since.

so how does this compare to other similar skills?

well closest is caits traps which share nid's traps fuction in being untargetable compared to caits traps nids do HALF the damage, DONT root players and can be trigger by minions. where as cait traps do double the damage root players and can only be triggered by players

we can compare them also to teemo's shrooms and the new Jhin traps. both teemos shrooms and jhin traps ARE targetable however they are invisble and must be revealed, they can be teled to bu will also permantely provide vision of the trapped area. they also trigger on minions and do and AOE slow and AOE damage (all-be-it jhins traps have a trigger delay between the slow and the explosion).

so right now... nids traps... do only single target damage, can trigger on minions and not only on players.. have the lowest damage of almost ANY trap in the game.. hell any SKILL in the game. DON'T provide vision, dont slow, and dont root.

so what DO they do? the root monsters and proc hunted. of also if you feel its worth mentioning the 200 damage +.2 AP ratio at lvl 18, which until lvl FOURTEEN remains 40 damage +.2 AP.

yes.. lets say im level 13

lets say at lvl 13 i SOMEHOW managed to acquire 500 ap

my lvl 13 traps would deal a grand total of 40 +100 aka 140 damage MINUS magic resist

now i dont pretend to know about about champion scaling but i think 140 damage is pretty minimal.

now lets say we are at lvl 18. lats say i have 1000 AP (not thats that is even possible on nidalee but it makes for easy numbers)

my traps will now do 200+ 200 (aka 400) damage. (minus magic resist)

so lets play this out...

what is the OPTIMAL condition for nidalee traps.

1. they need to step on the trap
2. they need to be at a low enough HP for me to pounce in and get the kill
3. i need to be WITHIN pounce range WHEN they trigger the trap.

now i have played about 500 games as nidalee AFTER this rework. and you wanna know how many time i have met all three scenarios? ZERO... NOT ONCE have all 3 of these conditions been met when a enemy was dumb enough to walk on a trap.

so PLEASE tell me riot.. if traps do NOTHING else than 40 damage +.2 AP WHAT ON EARTH ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO BE FOR?

becuase rooting monsters in the jungle for 2 second DOES NOT CUT IT