Playing Nidalee

Zed Zed nd Zeddy·Jan 7, 2019·2 votes·5,358 views

So I picked up Nidalee recently due to the fact that shes one of the few champions I haven't played yet, and I have to say she's by far the hardest champion I have tried. I enjoy mechanically intensive champs and I really want to learn her. I got into a norm and just pretty much straight up inted and lost my team the game.

I messed up early game pretty badly, and at the moment I just use bots as training dummies to just get the mechanics down.

Any early jungle paths, tips on when and how to gank with her, builds or just general suggestions and info on her would be much appriciated.

16 Comments

MissMikasaJan 7, 20191 votes

It took me a long time to get to know her as well and now she's one of my favorite champions.

Before this snowball shit fest of a game, you could go full AP and get away with it but now, the more popular build with her is to go a bit tanky.

item 1402 item 3027 item 3025 or item 3110 item 3135 (if enemy team is tanky) or item 3089 if enemy team is squishy. item 3151 item 3116 and along those lines. Boots are game by game basis depending on what you need. I have the actual build I use in my item sets on my client but I'm on a different computer right now so I just pulled that from what I remember lol.

Max R, then Q, E, W. Depending on what side I'm on, I go for the buff that has the bot lane with me to leash. Ever since I started playing jungle years ago, I read the tip that it's best to start on the buff with your bot lane so you have extra help in case of invasion.

I do that, then go for wolves and scuttle which will hopefully get me to level 3. If enemy takes scuttle, I heal and try to gank with just a Q since I don't have cougar jump yet, I get it level 3. Then when I'm healed enough, go for gromp, etc.

Her combo is pretty simple when you get the hang of it. The tricky part is first hitting the Q, then switching to cougar (R), getting in range, jumping on with W, claw swipe with E, and if they are low enough, your cougar Q will usually take a kill the lower health they are.

I always had trouble with the cougar combo after I hit my poke Q lol but now it's easy as pie.

Nid is fun and can be snowball easy but with this meta, she can get shit on easy if she gets CC'd so watch out.

Zed Zed nd ZeddyJan 7, 20191 votes

Thank you, I appreciate the quick reply :).

I've never even heard or seen a bruiser type Nidalee before so going for the armor on her is new to me. I didn't realize she can be so versatile in terms of itemization. I thought glass cannon was pretty much the only way to go but to be fair season 8 was my first season in League so yeah I don't know much lol. Also you rarely see Nidalee around Silver 3 and 4 (where I'm at right now because I'm scared of ranked xD)

I'll be sure to try these items on her and try the 1st clears you and the other people suggested.

Thanks again.

Zero Skill TankJan 7, 20191 votes

Any early jungle paths,

I can't give you a specific advice, but from what I seen about Nid this is what you should lookup first. Lots of her power comes from first clear, which then allows her to freely reign over enemy jungler and the whole map.

Zed Zed nd ZeddyJan 7, 20191 votes

I'll be sure to do some homework on this. Thank you :)

MorticianjohnJan 7, 20191 votes

I even had trouble just clearing the jg first clear. Sometimes I'll buy that hunter potion

Zed Zed nd ZeddyJan 7, 20191 votes

You should've seen me in the 1st game I played her. It was such a failure.

First off, ran to bot side buff and got my leash, except I didn't get the buff, it regenerated after the sup and adc left because I was trying to kite the thing and moved too far, so after that I tried to kill it alone without smite (because it was down) and ran away because the damn buff would've executed me.

Then I wondered why the machete's passive wasn't working, a few seconds after, Morgana laughed at me in chat saying I didn't get my starting items. And well, I was recalling due to low health anyways.

Off I went with my starting items to red once again this time with my smite off cooldown and items in my inventory which allowed me to kill it thankfully. Went to topside jungle to get wolves and blue but it turns out the Yi already took my blue for himself.

He shows up in midlane a minute or so later with thirty something farm and me only around 16 if I remember correctly. I was in the river at the time, not knowing what to do - Yi took scuttle already, so not much else to do other than countergank. I showed up and Yi killed me and my laner (with his laner's help of course), and from there the early jungle phase was pretty much over for me, he had 2 kills more than me, as well as a 20cs lead so contesting objectives without the help of my laners in the early game was suicide.

And from there I got a kill or two top to make up some gold and help my laner get an advantage but Yi snowballed his advantage over the other players and just kept getting kills. Along with that he took objectives, and just plainly put - dominated the map.

At the time I was so tilted because of what happened earlier that I couldn't get my mind straight. I tried to catch up and become relevant again which ended in me feeding the enemy team and losing us the game.

So yeah, it went horrible.

HopeStartsWithUJan 7, 20191 votes

Honestly, I do think she is hard but I also find her easier than say Riven for whatever reason. The only problem I have with her is that her carry potential isn't really good. You really have to snowball from the very beginning of the game, meaning you either have to counter jungle hard or try a lot of early ganks.

For her clear on blue side, I usually go red, then skill w and do raptors and look out for the enemy jungler to either take the scuttler or gank mid, or both. Depending the circumstances (like can you actually gank or nah) I just clear jng and gank top 90% of the time. Also try to kite the buff if you can and try to have as much health as possible, if you are considerable low after the buff just pop a pot.

The best thing you can do if you cant gank is just hit a single spear and go back into your jungle. Giving your laner advantage is more than enough and it never has to result in a kill. You can also dive easily with her thanks to Q+ cougar w and her heals!

I like to go red smite on her since you can actually use her AA's in combo with E but its up to you, blue smite is also nice.

Items is a tough topic for me because I actually love to go glass canon on her but I also know that glass canon is expensive af. I like athenes on her (I love healing my mates since they have to carry if I fuck up). But I also love going RoA on her for the tankiness and when I do I usually rush RoA first completing just skirmishers without fully finishing it. Otherwise jungle item-->boots-->lich bane-->rabadons/void staff

That's about it tho

Zed Zed nd ZeddyJan 7, 20191 votes

Thank you for the reply.

Honestly I'm currently learning jungle so I don't know quite as much as I'd like about jungling which probably adds more difficulty to an already difficult champion, which might be why I find her so difficult.

But then again, she's not the first difficult champ I tried in the jungle.

See Elise , LeeSin and Shaco .

So I don't really know why I find her so difficult. I struggled with Elise too so it might be the 7 skills that makes it hard.

But anyways, thank you for the tips :) I'll be sure to put them into practice.

HopeStartsWithUJan 8, 20191 votes

Once you have a feeling for the forms you will naturally use them as you should. I struggled a lot with Elise too until I realised how "simple" she actually is. You got this bro.

ChaoticKnight191Jan 8, 20191 votes

Sometimes I wish I played with some of the people on the forums. Words like these are encouraging if they're in game.

Thanks man :D

HopeStartsWithUJan 8, 20191 votes

Well, you can add me and we can play a round or two, after all we both are on EUW ;D I don't care if people are learning new champs. I remember playing Riven (and now maining) for the first time. Man did I feel stupid for a few months hahaha

Carrie PigeonJan 7, 20191 votes

So I can't tell you jungle routes but I enjoy a top lane bruiser varient of Nidalee. Iceborn Gauntlet or Abyssal Mask rush is typically my goto with a Lost Chapter if you want mana/are ahead. E Q W Max. Taking Grasp of the undying and absuing the procs from it. If you auto in Human but ult into Cougar you will gain the full bonus as opposed to the half.

Due to base damage a tank Nidalee build is pretty fun, in lane you have decentish escapes (W) (Passive) and should you get poked you can easily sustain off of Grasp procs and your E.

Zed Zed nd ZeddyJan 7, 20191 votes

This actually sounds quite fun to be honest. I might try it xD

SwiftKitten88Jan 8, 20191 votes

as a Nidalee main with well over 1000 games in her

the normal build is item 1414

after that u normally go for item 3100 then item 3020 although in some rarer cases u may need to rush item 3157 before it if you need to

then u can go item 3116 (or item 3165 if they have lots of healing) item 3089 or void, and toss in item 3102 when necessary ( its actually really good on her becuase of the spellshield.

if that shield is still up when u pounce in. it makes a MASSIVE difference

bruiser nidalee build sadly does not work anymore.

although it was REALLY fun when it worked in season 4 nid donest have the base state for bruiser, and since armor is now worth jack shit. she really cant ever be remotely tanky anymore.

right now nid is actaully in a pretty shitty spot...

she is fine if u can reach lvl 4 at 5 min without incident

but her lvl 2 is extremely prone to invades, and her ability to contest scuttle actually horrifically bad. until her first back at lvl 4 jungler as nidalee is hell

the loss of celerity pretty much was the nail in the coffin for her. as nidalee only ever used it for the 8 extra AP on her first clear. ( her passive gives her 30% bonus movement speed when facing a hunted jungle camp) now with only 20 ap and not 28.. your damage is lower.. so camps take longer you taking longer to try to kill scuttle with leaves u in danger longer.. and your heal now heals for less because u have less ap.

i don't recommend nidalee right now. like i said.. if u can hit lvl 4 without incident.. she is fine... the issue is... outside of nexus blitz where you are gifted free gold a free lvl 3 and they really cant invade u.

but if anything remotely bad happens before u hit 4... you're pretty much going to be worthless all game if the enemy jungler even remotely uses that advantage on you

as for a clear route. i normally go blue, gromp then blue-side scuttle.. gank for lvl 3 ( it takes 2 minions or 1 cannon minions worth of exp.

even if you dont get a kill you will hit lvl 3, and this will make your reaming clear tremendously easier

item 3100 is nidalee most important item after item 1414 and is nidalee's core item.

as for some neat tricks on nid... there really isnt much she can do.

you can cancel takedown's animation with pounce and u can pounce and press R mid pounce and land in human form... for a last needed auto from an enemy u cant reach who is at a sliver of health. ( this is especially useful after you get item 3100

outside of that there is in absurdly rare situation where u can land a spear on a once champion pounce to them and then flash to the low target to try to kill them with takedown..

but the situation where you use that almost never happens because takedown does a LOT less damage if they're not hunted.

there really arn't many flashy plays as nidalee.. just get good at landing the spear

ChaoticKnight191Jan 8, 20191 votes

I think I saw you on another Nidalee thread. The one where the guy just ranted about how true damage champions wrecked him whereas only one of the champions he mentioned had true damage, around 2 years ago.

Did he ever add you? xD

Also thank you very much, you gave me a lot of insightful advice which I will put to good use. So seems that glass cannon is the only way to go. I realize she's not in the best place right now, but to be honest that intrigues me. Finding a way to get off-meta champions to work is fun.

I'll take a more in depth look at her skillset, because I honestly had no clue that the takedown did less damage to lower health targets. So I pretty much just spammed whichever key was off cooldown

x_x

HopeStartsWithUJan 9, 20191 votes

Takedown doesnt deal less damage to lower health targets, in fact it does even more! What he means is that you have to hit your spear to deal significant damage and yeah he is kinda right without the spear you barely deal any damage unless insanely fed.