Why Critplank is the replacement to old Nidalee

You might be thinking, bullshit gp is a worthless piece of shit champ that hasn't been played since season 2. Well I'm making this post to show why Critplank is secretly strong.

Just a little background on myself

1. Im currently gold 5 and climbing. Not the highest elo, but enough to give me some credibility.
2. I only play Critplank MID LANE. Not top. People build too much armor up there.
3. I have played 46 games of Critplank mid since the new match history and have a 63.043% win rate on him.
4. Accorging to lol skill, I perform 46.1% better than the average gp.

Now I wanna talk about what made Pre-Rework Nidalee so strong. Nidalee was usually considered the best ap champion for a siege or poke comp. Her strengths were:

1. Long range 1000+ dmg spears
2. High mobility/roaming capability
3. Really good lane sustain
4. Good cleanup potential with cougar form.

I believe Critplank is the ad version of pre-rework Nidalee. Especially with the rise of ap top laners like Rumble, Ryze, and Maokai, Critplank mid is more viable than ever. Here is why Critplank is secretly so strong:

1. Long range 1000+ dmg Parrrleys (my personal highest is 1,241)
2. High mobility due to the ms in his build. I can break 560 ms a game fairly easily. Most of the time I'm zooming around with around 480ish without Raise Moral active. Not to mention you have a global ultimate for even more presence.
3. Remove Scurvy, although on a long cd, is a mini cleanse+360 base heal. Since I commonly start flask, sustain is not a problem in lane.
4. Un-dodge able 1000+ dmg crits are your permaslow + insane ms allows you to easily catch anyone you need. Get caught by morg binding? Just eat some oranges and it'll be k.
5. Bank. Lots and lots of money makin with Parrrley passive. A friend created a ghetto, money themed playlist playing for me when I play gp. You can find it here: https://play.spotify.com/user/1270969810/playlist/1cnIJOe1q0QRzAv9jFhgrq

So as you can see, Critplank's strengths are the EXACT SAME as old Nidalee's, not including his natural gold gen. If you miss her, I highly recommend giving Critplank mid a try. If you are interested, my mini guide is below.

You can find my runes and masteries here: http://www.lolking.net/summoner/na/36717559#profile. Pretty obvious which ones I run on GP, and these have enough cdr that you can get 85% of cs with Parrrley. Always start flask, 2 hp pots, and 1 mana pot and take q first. Your second ability is situational. If you are getting shoved into turret or want to cheese, take e for the extra dmg. If not, take w. I might get some hate from other gp players, but I max q instead of w. I find that with flask, I have enough sustain to farm with q and stay far back enough to be out of range of skillshots. The extra q dmg allows you to 2 shot opponents on your first item.

Now for my build. I usually build in the same order every game since there aren't that many crit items: Shiv>t2 boots>ie>pd>tri>6th item. For boots, tabi, merc treads, and lucidity are all situational. I usually get lucidity though since I try to avoid taking damage as much as possible in fights. My 6th item is usually frozen mallet for the tankiness and slow late game. I prefer it over iceborn since I have almost 0 other defenses and health can take both physical and magic damage. However instead I sometimes build hydra, bork, ga, and zephyr but VERY rarely. All are extremely situational. For my enchantment, its usually alacrity, furor, or home guard. Again, all situational.

The final part is Critplank's play style. You can cheese most ap mids, but don't try it against ad mids unless you get a Parrley crit. Personally though I recommend playing ultra passive; just using q to farm and not harassing your opponent until you buy Shiv. It just doesn't do enough early damage to be worth the mana cost, especially since I max it. Speaking of shiv, outside of lvl1/2 and your global ult, you are useless until you buy shiv. Tell your jungler to not gank for you pre 6 since your gank receives are like a 1/10 until 6. But once you get shiv, from that point on, you will be 2 shooting people. Now is the time when you wanna cs with melee autos and almost always poke with q instead of farming with it. No matter how many kills you get, you always seem to 2 hit the squishies for the rest of the game, so you never feel fed. On the upside however, your non fed state still feels incredibly powerful. In teamfights, you wanna first place down your ult to slow as many people as possible. Then hit e and rush in to get a q on a squishy target, and then immediately rush back out. Once your q is back up, repeat. DO NOT GO INTO MELEE RANGE EXCEPT TO CLEAN UP. YOU WILL DIE. If you get caught by some cc when running to/away from someone, just use w and it'll be k. Also remember, if you lost the fight, you are really good at kiting. I am sometimes able to get a kill on a chaser or at least force them away from me by using q every time it is up. When sieging turrets, I don't usually hit them since Critplank is squishy and melee. I focus on landing hitting q as much as possible and buff my team with e to make up for you lack of autos. With this play style, I deal the most damage in the game 90% of the time, even if I only do damage every 4 seconds. That's how strong q crits are.

TL;DR Critplank mid's strengths are the exact same as Pre-rework Nidalee and I believe he is sleeper OP for that reason. If you are interested in trying him, my guide is included in the post. If you have any questions, feel free to comment below and I will do my best to answer them.