I've only tried Nidalee once, that being today, now that she's finally free (I think it's been about 7 months since she was last free, and I wasn't playing back then) and I'm a bit thrown on how to handle her.

Biggest issue I'm having is that it seems a bit counterproductive to have your strongest ability require you to be at an insane distance from your enemy when all of your other half-decent damaging moves require melee range. I don't really have any other champions who work like that, so it's throwing me off.

you afk farm until 6. Once you hit 6 you whack your lane enemy in cat form and run back. Rinse and repeat until they die, get frustrated, chase and die, or play cautiously and you win your lane. Very few heroes counter nidalee top, especially after you hit 6. Nidalee is essentially a very powerful poke champion but doesn't have the pure power of many of the top bruisers. She makes up for it by having crazy mobility and huge range. Always funny to see a nidalee jav chunk someone for 2/3 their hp.

General Nid Tips

Decide if you want to play AD or AP Nid and choose your runes and masteries accordingly. Stay away from hybrid Nid for now if you're a beginner to her mechanics.

Use traps often. The damage seems small but it's a mana effective way of dwindling down enemy health. Also make sure to poke and attack after trap damage whenever possible, the armor/mr reduc adds up.

Maintain bush control. With traps, wards, spears, auto attacks, ganks, I don't care. Bushes protect you from ganks and give you the speeds. Get it.

Last hit with auto attacks. Clear mobs with cougar.

Learn to use abilities while moving. Nid is all about mobility.

AD Nid

Size up who you're up against. Some enemies can be damaged with hard harass. Others need to be kited and poked. You won't do much killing till level 6 so focus on last hitting. Any time an enemy champ is >40% hp you can go for the kill in cougar form with W, E, Q in that order. Also, don't bother maxing out your spear first, it's a waste of mana. Heal and traps are much better.

Tank Nid is also an option, just make sure you get a sheen with it.

AP Nid

Max out dat spear first for teh damages but don't fire it unless you have a clear shot. It costs alot more mana than you'd think.

Deathcap before Lich Bane. Rushing Lich Bane forces you into close range combat too much for insignificant damage boosts. Bad for AP Nids who need to kite with spears.

After chucking a spear, R into cougar and hop away for additional distance damage boosts.

Spear, cougar and hop, while running. When they are low you can turn around for the kill.

Wouldn't suggest playing AP nidalee as it requires a lot of experience with nidalee, and loses lane in mid to about everybody.

AD nid is basically kite and splitpush, or destroy people if you're really farmed. Max E for sustain and then Q(level 5 Q at 11 hurts more than you'd think).

I've been toying with Nidalee a lot lately. What do your AP item builds look like in S3?

Also, I know you can hop the dragon wall (I've done it), but is there any way to do it reliably? If you're even one pixel off, you just faceplant on the wall. Or would you only try that in an emergency if you could afford to flash over if you failed the jump?

I'm disappointed in you Le Petit Minou. No tear of goddess on nidalee? what are you thinking son? Start with mana regen => crystal flask => 1 hp and 1 mana or 2 hp or 2 mana. personal preferance on the pots, but you have a flask so it doesn't matter what you get at that point. Spam spears like it's your last day on earth and throwing spears is so fun that you want to do it as many times as possible before you take your last breath. With mana regen and flasks, you won't run out of mana before you can B for tear of goddess. With tear of goddess, it procs of W in cougar form, so you build it while moving anywhere on the map. You will have it built in less than 5 minutes, follow up with ROA for survivability then deathcap, then lichbane, then archangel


OR => AD route => tear of goddess => Infinity edge => triforce => manuramune => warmogs => atmas

BOTH BUILDS => last item situational.. build what ever you want.. GA to be annoying => banshee to be even more annoying => blackcleaver on AD route to make enemies cry out your name with curses about gorlogs beard. => another warmogs on AD route to be a WTF HP NIDALEE ect ect ect