i am going to start this off with, yes.. nidalee does need a serious buff to be made viable.
however i disagree that she is more of a "fighter" now.
nidalee is a burst assassin, if she lands a spear she has 2 choices:
1: go in
2: don't go in
if you choose not to you in... you do so knowing that you will not be able to engage anyone for 6 more seconds
if you choose to go in, you are committing to either get the kill and get out, or deal damage and get out, or that you choose to go in when you shouldn't have and you died.
the issue with nidalee right now is.. becuase of the removal of strength of the ages.. she has 300 less hp than she normally would during that past 2 years
so if you DO go in you are MUCH more likely to die.
this means if you make wrong decision and go in and keep dieing, your nidalee winrate is going to drop.
but the issue is.. BECAUSE nidalee CAN'T choose to go in again until she lands ANOTHER spear.
and even then.. the same choice arises.. is it safe to go in?
the issue is frankly.. it is almost NEVER safe to go in anymore... which pretty much means all nidalee can do is throw spears all day. the amount of targets you can kill by going in decreases dramatically with that hp you used to have.
ok so lets say you DO know how to properly play nidalee and EVERY time you go in you get a kill. well the fact is even if yo make the correct choice to go in every time and every time you go in you get a kill. it still means that kills you would have been able to get in 6.21 and above you can no longer get because you died if you tried instead of surviving with a sliver of hp.
so if you go in you die... and if you don't go in.. your pretty much only useful for one single target linear skillshot ability every 6 seconds..
and since this isn't season 3 nidalee.. if you DON'T have the AP.. your spears wont do shit for damage.. when then means you cant get kills, so you don't snowball, which means your useless...
so no matter what happens... you aren't really useful anymore
you make bad decisions, you die.. and you get behind
you make good decisions.. you don't die.. but you don't get enough kills and thus gold to stay relevant so you're still pretty much useless to your team.
so either way... you're pretty much useless