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Ok so what is Nidalee good at?

aeVoWXYKH0·8/5/2016, 6:36:30 PM·2 votes·1,331 views

Nothing, is the final answer after maining her for 3 years I think. I abused her up to Diamond (that being before her rework when she was a mid laner) and then she got a rework which was really good because it made her more interesting and made her kit less stale. But recently I hate being jungle. I only played her on mid so I only knew how to play her, no other champion, then she became a jungler so I became a mid main and learned new champions but never played her mid because she is impossible in that lane. Then came this double role bullshit so I was forced to choose another role which I chose to be jungle since I knew Nidalee. But I really hate whenever I get to play jungle, she is not good at anything. Let's look at why I hate her:

-Oh yeah she has good clear, so that means you can farm faster and get ahead in levels and gold compared to everyone else (or at least the enemy jungler) but no amount of gold and experience can save her from the fact that she cannot do shit with that advantage, you try to land a spear from afar? The enemy dodges it either because he saw it or because in lane you move randomly so you can never be sure where he will be so hitting the spear is a gamble even from brush. So you think "I can just land the spear from melee range". Well too bad, you deal 0 damage that way, not to mention you gave up any advantage you had against a melee champion so now you will get rekt. All of the gold and experience she amassed (which is not too much) is thus useless. Oh and that ability to farm all day so fast? It's gonna get your team's attention pretty soon and you know what the chat will be filled with: "Noob jungler can't gank".

-She has good roaming. Yeah, you can get faster from camp to camp, making your clear speed even faster and you can get from lane to lane fast so you can... ummm, you can, oh yeah you can leave because that brush is warded and even if it wasn't you can't land a spear because the enemy moves randomly anyway. The best thing she can do is go top lane and aa with that juicy red buff that she has, if only her ally would let her do that.

-She can poke. God bless! She can't hit her spears upfront because that hibox is really small, and throwing from out of sight is once again a gamble. Not to mention it is single target, with a slow travel speed, and can be blocked by minions. I see 0 reasons to pick her (aside from the fact that I know no other jungler, or any other champion outside of mid lane), I have no idea what exactly Nidalee is supposed to do, all of the other Nidalee's that I ever saw were being carried by their teams because the champion is useless. The games where she actually does something are so rare, and it's not even because she is a good champ or the player is good, the planets align and she gets lucky early. All of her problems are from her spear, you either miss from afar or hit from up close and fall short on damage.

As a side note, what made me realise Nidalee is shit was a fight I had with a Wukong jungle (which from what I heard, is a very bad jungler, or at least was) not too long ago (last patch). I was lvl 4 he was lvl 3 and we both had double buffs and I also had the Gromp poisong buff while he didn't. He had 60% hp and I had 50% hp so it wasn't an impossible fight considering the other advantages I had. We only had Hunter's Machete as well. To my surprise, he won that fight, and it wasn't even close, the early game champion called Nidalee was destroyed by a Wukong that had the odds against him (seemingly). I hit the spear from up close, I used aa resets both with my q and my r and he just crushed me.

P.S.: Aside from this being a rant, I do want some helpful advice, maybe there is a secret to what you are supposed to do with her (Maybe you need to play her like a control jungler that always wards the enemy jungle while avoiding any interaction with the enemy team). This means that any comments like "You are stupid, she deals a shit ton of damage nerf that shit" are counter productive and I'd rather not see that, I truly want strategy tips, like when to pick her and when not to, her goals in a game (destroying nexus Kappa) and stuff like that.

2 Comments

Guyy Fieri8/5/2016, 9:23:41 PM2 votes

Nidalees tough. She great in poke and pick comps. Poke because of spears and pick because she is good at dealing high damage to a single target. She really requires the right team comp tho. She needs winning lanes that can allow her to put more pressure on the jungle matchup (as in a bad lane matchup the enemy laner can leave lane to answer jungle more freely). Further she either needs a team with strong hard engage (as she has none) or with good peel (as she needs it). Otherwise she'll just get blown up at the start of fights. Basically it's all about the team comp with Nidalee.

If you want a jungler who fills a similar niche but it is a little more forgiving, there's always Diana. Has poke, can carry games hard, has an easy way to follow up on targets to kill. The difference is that it is very tough for Diana to gank successfully pre-6 (as that's when her mobility kicks in). She fairly good in skirmishes and duels like Nidalee but Diana brings more innate tankiness with her shield and a little bit of CC with her E.