Nidalee Guide Season 6

Short Nidalee guide for Season 6

In this short Nidalee guide written by NA Challenger Jungler and Coach, you will learn how to counter jungle when playing the cougar queen. Nidalee is one of the best junglers to invade with and we will show you how to counter jungle and you will learn how to make the enemy jungler next to useless while applying pressure to other lanes.

Nidalee is a squishy assassin that can carry 80% of games in every elo in the current meta, but for that you will need to play her well and will need to dedicate time into playing and mastering the champion. Nidalee when mastered will give you big rewards.


Nidalee Runes

-3 AP Quins (because of damage increase)

-9 AD Reds (Nidalee is a champion that requires a lot of auto-attacking and kiting in the jungle, as for this the AD reds help you in your clear).

-9 armor yellows (Will help you take less damage from jungle camps)

-9 MR blues (will help you against ganking ap mages) If not against AP champions you can also go AP Blues.


Nidalee Masteries

12/18/0 with Thunder Lords

Let me remind you that thunderlords is for more early damage and burst. Playing Nidalee correctly with thunderlords will significantly increase your damage but if the game gets to late game Nidalee's utility goes down, as if with Strength of the Ages early damage goes down but late game utility goes up. I recommend that if you don't feel comfortable with Nidalee yet and still don't know your limits with her play with SOA keystone.

12/0/18 with Strength of the Ages



nidalee season 6 guide



Nidalee Build Path

Start with Talisman on both sides and 3 pots.

-Jungle Item : Runic Echoes with Red Smite first, you may buy tier 1 boots but never finish your boots before getting Runic Echoes.

Here is where it can go 2 ways. Normally the build path would be after Runic Echoes you go Rylais but the only scenario where this can change is if they have a fed AP mid or if they have double AP composition or even triple or 4 AP's with jungler and support included (by AP support i mean like mage supports, Zyra, Brand, Vel'Koz, etc)if this is the case go Abyssal Scepter

After that if you're snowballing by then you can go deathcap and this will increase your damage a lot but will make you very squishy. If the game is loooking even then you can also go Gauntlet or even Zhonyas if they have a champion that can burst you with 1 ability example: Veigar, Zed, Talon, Syndra, etc.

By now you should have 4 items Runic Echoes, Sorcerer Shoes, Rylais/Abyssal, Rabadons Deathcap/Gauntlet/Zhonyas.

5th Item will normally be Void Staff.

6th Item will be Deathcap(if you went gauntlet) or lich bane(if you went deathcap)


ITEM CHANGES : Magic Pen boots are just for early damage, as stated with masteries, you should only build MPen boots if you feel completely confident with the champion. If you don't then I'll suggest building CDR boots as it will give you more utility.



Nidalee Match Ups            

Lee Sin - If you're going against a Lee Sin, you can invade him level 2 by doing your gromp or golems then going to his Blue/Red, You will outdamage him if hes less than 60% hp, If you see a Lee Sin with more than 60% HP Do not fight him, He will outdamage you. When you both reach level 6, It's a skill matchup favoring Lee Sin, He will R you then Q you and most likely you will be dead. If you see that he misses his Q and you hit your Q go in on him.


Amumu - If you're going against Amumu you can always invade him and kill him. You can set him really behind so he will be useless all game. You just have to invade him, when you kill him once. Killing him again will be easy. Also Amumu is another tank jungler that is sometimes built as AP, If it's late game DO NOT duel an Amumu, you will have absolutely no chance to duel an AP Amumu late game.


Kindred - Kindred is hard because she moves a lot which makes it hard for you to hit spears, in order for you to kill kindred you have to wait for her to use her Q then remind yourself it's a 2 second cooldown with her W activated, When she uses Q you can kill her. With Kindred after she's level 6 you have to be smart about how you fight her. You have to kite her around and wait for her to use her ULT if you want to kill her. What I mean by this is that if you stay in her ult she will most likely get you to low HP and probably kill you. Unless she is not fed and she is not doing damage to you, you can stay in her ult and just wait for it to run out and kill her. Try to be in cougar form to finish her off with a Q or EQ


Master Yi - Master Yi is a medium matchup. The reason is because he will outdamage you if he gets the Q on you, In that case you have to wait for him to blow his Q on a jungle camp then go in on him, Late game he will destroy you, Do not try to fight a yi late game unless your spear does ATLEAST 50% of his HP Late game do not fight Master Yi, unless you land a max range spear that hits him for 60% of his HP. If the spear does that much damage to him you will know for a fact that your cougar combo will kill him.           


Xin Zhao - Xin Zhao is another jungler with really high early damage, If he is not atleast 70% or less hp do not fight him unless you land a max range spear on him. Xin Zhao is easily kited with red buff and red smite, You just have to auto him 2, 3 times and jump away when he dashes on you and you will kill him.


Nocturne - Nocturne is Nidalee's hardest matchup. Do not try to fight a Nocturne if he has vision on you because he will spellshield your Spear and you will not outdamage nocturne, Basically do not fight nocturne if he knows where you are. (Unless hes behind)


Evelynn - Evelynn is not hard against Nidalee because she gets low clearing the jungle, You just have to be careful for her level 6 if you don't land the spear. However Evelynn is also known to be a jungler that invades you. If she gets close to you without you landing a spear on her you will die. Against Evelynn try to buy a pink ward on your 2nd or 3rd back and put it in the entrances of your jungle. Just to avoid getting invaded


Gragas - Gragas is the easiest matchup for nidalee, If you invade him. He will not outdamage you no matter what. The only problem is if he runs from you and other lanes close up on you. You have to wait for Gragas to blow his E then you kill him easily.


Graves - Graves is a hard one as well. If you land a spear there is a chance he will outdamage you, It's all about positioning with graves. When you jump on him make sure you're not close to a wall or you're in an angle where the Q won't bounce back to you If he gets Hexdrinker his chances of killing you go up by 50%, You have to know Nidalee's damage when you engage on a Graves with a Hexdrinker. If you see him waste his Q that is a perfect opportunity to go in on him.


Nunu - He will never outdamage you. Just land a spear and kill him basically. IF you don't land the spear auto-attack him to death. Beware of bushes that you have no vision of. Try to keep your jungle as warded as possible just to evade counter jungling.


Zac - Zac is not that hard. You just have to make sure you can kill the passive fast enough. What happens sometimes with Zac is that you tank the Camp and you don't have enough time to kill the blobs from his passive and you can die. That is rare so you don't really have to worry about that. Another thing with Zac, he should never be able to escape from you. You have to land a spear on him while he's charging his jump and no matter how far he jumps you will always be faster and you can catch up to him. Zac can't outdamage Nidalee. Unless he has AP build as well (WITH ABYSSAL) If he gets abyssal it is possible that you will get outdamaged.


IMPORTANT : WHEN INVADING ALWAYS LOOK AT OTHER LANES TO MAKE SURE THEY ARE NOT COMING FOR YOU! I say this because this happens a lot when I coach other Nidalee players, they go into jungle and start fighting enemy jungler and then they die because they were not looking at the map.


This is all everyone! Thank you for taking the time and reading my guide - I hope it helps all of you. My Coaching name on this website is Prowl, look me up on the coaching page if you want to improve your jungling or needs some help climbing the ladder!


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