So I was thinking, don't know if anyone else thought this up, but Nidalee is pretty much a pain in the rear. She has 7 abilities, 4 of them deal a swag amount of damage, 1 is a buff/heal, and then 1 is simply a proc, and the last is well... Nidalee. But the thing is, Nidalee does a ton of damage, she can do so much damage in such a short amount of time for such a little cost it's insane, her Q for her Tiger form does:

ACTIVE: Nidalee's next basic attack gains 75-range (200 total range) and is modified to deal magic damage. Scales with ranks in Aspect of the Cougar The damage is increased by 1.5% for every 1% of the target's missing health, for a maximum of 150% bonus damage (250% total damage). BASE MAGIC DAMAGE: 4 / 20 / 50 / 90 (+75% AD) (+36% AP) MAXIMUM DAMAGE: 10 / 50 / 125 / 225 (+187.5% AD) (+90% AP) HUNT BONUS: If the target is marked as Hunted, Takedown deals 33% increased damage. HUNT MAXIMUM DAMAGE: 13 / 67 / 167 / 300 (+250% AD) (+120% AP)

And so you can count on every Nidalee doing a ton of damage, and not only that but making you question if you even had full health in the first place. With only a 58 AD base stat at level 3 using only her Q R E W Q Combo she can do approximately this much damage.

Spear COST 50 MANA BASE MAGIC DAMAGE: 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 (+40% AP) MAXIMUM MAGIC DAMAGE: 150 / 225 / 300 / 375 / 450 (+120% AP) + Pounce NO COST MAGIC DAMAGE: 50 / 100 / 150 / 200 (+ 30% AP) + Swipe NO COST MAGIC DAMAGE: 70 / 130 / 190 / 250 (+ 45% AP) + Takedown NO COST HUNT MAXIMUM DAMAGE: 13 / 67 / 167 / 300 (+250% AD) (+120% AP) The damage is increased by 1.5% for every 1% of the target's missing health, for a maximum of 150% bonus damage (250% total damage).

428~ DAMAGE (These calculations were based off of her base attack stat of 58 at level 3)

So yes she does do a lot of damage, especially since level three here are most of the mid champs base health (excluding items).

AHRI 754 GRAGAS 850 MALZAHAR 754 VEIGAR 738 ZYRA 701 AKALI 842 HEIMERDINGER 701 MORDEKAISER 795 VEL'KOZ 735 ANIVIA 677 JAYCE 841 MORGANA 805 VIKTOR 750 ANNIE 739 KARMA 771 NIDALEE 811 VLADIMIR 797 AZIR 764 KARTHUS 741 ORIANNA 754 XERATH 754 BRAND 735 KATARINA 799 RYZE 816 YASUO 763 CASSIOPEIA 731 KHA'ZIX 827 SWAIN 750 YORIC 818 DIANA 859 LEBLANC 741 SYNDRA 745 ZED 819 FIZZ 816 LISSANDRA 758 TALON 837 ZIGGS 764 GALIO 832 LUX 714 TWISTED FATE 767 ZILEAN 712

So after landing a spear she could then easily go in for the R E W Q combo and then chunk the easy 428~ damage. So more than half of the enemy champions health with only a cost of 50 Mana.

Thats too much damage for such a small cost. 50 mana out of a level 3, 430 mana pool. Lets compare her to Jayce who has a mana pool of 427 at level 3.

Jayce has 60 AD at level 3, and 841 health. (Again no items simply base) With the E Q W R W Q AA E Combo Jayce will do step by step:

Accelerated Gate COST 50 MANA + Shock Blast COST 55 MANA ACCELERATED PHYSICAL DAMAGE: 84 / 161 / 238 / 315 / 392 (+ 168% bonus AD) + Hyper Charge COST 40 MANA DAMAGE MULTIPLIER: 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 / 110% + Transform: Mercury Hammer NO COST BONUS MAGIC DAMAGE: 20 / 60 / 100 / 140 (+ 40% AP) + Lightning Field COST 40 MANA MAGIC DAMAGE PER SECOND: 25 / 42.5 / 60 / 77.5 / 95 (+ 25% AP) TOTAL MAGIC DAMAGE: 100 / 170 / 240 / 310 / 380 (+ 100% AP) + To The Skies COST 40 MANA PHYSICAL DAMAGE: 20(+ 100% bonus AD) + Auto attack 80 Damage NO COST + Thundering Blow COST 40 MANA TOTAL MAGIC DAMAGE: 8 / 11 / 14 / 17 / 20% of target's maximum health (+100% bonus AD)

COST OF 265 MANA for an approximate of 630~ + 8% Target Maximum health as DAMAGE

So Jayce could almost kill you at level 3, definitely a lot of burst, more so than Nidalee, but it takes longer to burst them down, the trade is you have to do more with Jayce than you have to do with Nidalee and, you have to spend a larger amount of mana compared to Nidalee. Nidalee does about 65% of the damage Jayce can do to an enemy champion, and only has to spend a fifth of the mana Jayce would have to spend to do that damage. It's unreasonably overpowered, and broken. Nidalee definitely needs to have a cost. Her cougar form needs to have a barrier just as every champ has one, whether its cooldowns or a mana/energy pool, Nidalee's cougar form needs one.

COUGAR FORM COOLDOWNS Takedown COOLDOWN: 5 Pounce COOLDOWN: 5 Swipe COOLDOWN: 5 Aspect of the Cougar COOLDOWN: 3

She definately does not have a cooldown barriers she can cast spells extremely fast and without worry, no need to keep an eye on mana because your main damaging and farming abilities are free. Her damage isn't a problem really, If you play smart dodge the spears and avoid traps you can survive your lane but if that's what it comes to in lane when facing her then there is a big problem. Like one infamous champion that has been nerfed ** cough ** Kassadin ** cough ** there has been a lot of targeting to his mobility, and problems with his counterplay. Well here is a champion with sustain, tons of damage, and ultimately extremely mobile in cougar form. There isn't a lot of ways to deal with a Nidalee who becomes extremely low in health, heals, cougar pounces away every 3 seconds, and when she feels she's at a safe distance simply sits back and tosses spears all day. You can't really deal with that. Even gap closer would have an extremely difficult time because even then, once they close the gap Nidalee has her Swipe and Takedown as well as a Spear simply waiting for them.

I'm not saying nerf her damage, I'm saying that if your gonna say, "okay this champion has too much mobility (Kassadin)," then you have to look at the other extremely mobile champs and go, okay they fit the bill to, she needs a longer cooldown on her pounce, she needs a larger mana cost for her Spear Q, and she definitely needs to have some costs when it comes to cougar form! Free is overpowered.

Please consider what I've said, take into account where I stand, I want Nidalee BALANCED not nerfed her damage is perfect right now, but her accessibility to that damage is broken, I would like her to have more limitations but still be able to do as she has always done, (EXAMPLE) Increase the cooldown on her pounce, but if she gets a kill, she is given a restored amount of mana and her cooldown for pounce goes to 1.5 seconds (as it always has). She is still rewarded for killing and doing well hitting her mark with her skillshot, but she is also kept from being to much of a hassle for players to deal with, a pounce every 3 seconds doesn't leave much room for players when it comes to counter play and makes chasing a Nidalee impossible. A large sum of damage with only a cost of 50 mana, including short cooldowns, is broken, this should be balanced to leave room for punishing a Nidalee for making mistakes.

Another example of how to mitigate the costs for Nidalee, she can use swipe more often for farming, doing so will restore portions of mana depending on how many creeps she kills, It will allow her to still have sustain and be able to farm, but it will also leave room for counter play, players can recognize she cannot damage as much as she normally does so maybe now would be a better time to engage.

Champions need moments of Vulnerability, Nidalee at the present time is one with not much at all, it is extremely hard to to punish a Nidalee and therefore this way of balancing her would definitely make it easier for players and champions to deal with a Nidalee, as well as create a wider pool of newly viable champions for players to use during games, bring back Jayce and many more champions to be played in games. (Literally haven't seen a Jayce for a good 4 months of games in summoners rift.)

If you have read this I thank you for your time and hope you agree with this idea, I used http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Nidalee for my information on the champion as well as http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Base_champion_statistics for the statistics of all the champs. If you see any mistakes in the stats let me know I'll do my best to patch it up thank you again for reading.