Why Is Nidalee So Hard To Balance?

4NoxiousHours·Mar 16, 2016·2 votes·420 views

When she becomes nerf'd she's shit tier when she gets buffed she's back to being TOP ban pick of the month.

12 Comments

IcyPepperMar 16, 20161 votes

Because you can't pink ward spears.

Linna ExcelMar 16, 20162 votes

Her spears are pretty weak by themselves right now. The old nidalee is gone.

IcyPepperMar 16, 20161 votes

... I was just referencing an old joke.

Linna ExcelMar 16, 20161 votes

I forgot that joke... :(

IcyPepperMar 16, 20161 votes

It's an old one.

Although the bug occasionally pops out. You'd think they would just give her a different animation at this point, but...

Lazypeon100Mar 16, 20161 votes

It's because of her huge sadety net. She is my most hated champion simply because of just how safe she is.

Her spears have to do strong damage since her poke is crucial to her human form, and cougar form has to do strong damage as well to execute enemies properly.

Her spear has a long range to it though, which it needs otherwise why pick her over anothee poke champion? And cougar form has high mobility to get in and out of fights.

What all of that means is either she is going to be out of range for you to fight back, or can escape you with a leap every few seconds. Throw in good damage woth that, and you have a strong and reliable champion. If you nerf her damage values, all she has is safety and she does nothing. If you nerf her safety nets, then she dies too easily.

Linna ExcelMar 16, 20161 votes

Her spear has a long range to it

There's no reason to try and hit her max range spear right now unless someone is TPing to base at 10% health. It just doesn't scale well enough like it used to and it leaves you too far away to easily R-W-Q someone to death.

Lazypeon100Mar 16, 20161 votes

I never mentioned ttying to hit it at max range. It does have a long range though which is definitely something to be considered. Max range spears aren't even bad though as they serve their purpose for poking the enemy down. You can't always follow up on them nor should you always try to. It's a decision to try to hit one slightly closer to follow up or stay at a range where no one is going to ever catch you.

Really though the main point to bringing up the range of the spears is that it is very hard to try to punish her in return when she chucks a spear because of her range. It's fine for someone like Xerath because he has a cast time and is immobile. Nidalee doesn't have those issues.

I just want to note, I don't think she is OP. This is just my personal reasoning for the OP's question.

Linna ExcelMar 16, 20161 votes

Her spears are either OP or UP. Right now they are UP non-kitty form combo considered. Compared to her old form, her spear is useless without the ult pounce combo.
I don't think her rework intended her to be a jungle champ, she just sucked so much in lane and the change on her trap forced her there.
In her old kit her spears were strong but her cat form is pretty weak. Now her spears are weak but let her combo into her cat form with her Q having a lot of killing power. This makes her ganking better.
I think her kit is both too simple and too overloaded meaning one buff can make her too powerful and one nerf can make her useless. Right now she's got a lot of utility in her human form but clearing power and killing power in her cat form. She's got most of the things you want with few trade offs.

I don't think she's ever going to be balanced short of a rework with a major direction change.

AbyssphereMar 16, 20161 votes

My personal guess is that because her entire kit is based on this extreme paradigm of "if this works, you get a HUGE reward, otherwise nothing", once the reward is anything less than amazing she's worthless because it's not worth how impractical the whole thing is. On the other hand, if the reward is amazing then it's very much worth using such an unreliable champion.

I honestly think her spears need a wider hitbox or a faster speed or something. Nerf as appropriate.

SwiftKitten88Mar 16, 20161 votes

she actually didn't have this issue before they put her in the jungle... she could top, and mid both at a 50% win rate and she could support at around a 48% win rate. she was VERY balanced...

how many other champs out there have 3 roles all of which were viable in the current meta and had a 50% win rate.

riot screwed her up by letting her jungle. that's where this issue began