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Nidalee
Patch 16.2.1
JungleDifficulty
Very Hard
Strength
Early
Mid
Late
Win Condition
Infiltrate the enemy jungle early to steal camps and kill the enemy jungler. Use your lead to land on carries before objectives, then use the attack speed buff to melt towers with your team.
Playstyle
Hyper-aggressive tempo jungler who wins by invading, clearing faster than the opponent, and forcing mid-range skirmishes. You aren't a frontliner; you're a predator that cleans up or pokes from the fog.
Strengths & Weaknesses
Strengths
- +Unmatched jungle clear speed and map mobility using and
- +Extreme early game kill pressure if you land
- +Versatile utility with a massive heal and attack speed buff from
- +Strong objective control and vision through traps
Weaknesses
- -Entirely dependent on landing to access her damage and mobility
- -Incredibly squishy; getting CC'd in cougar form is usually a death sentence
- -Hard to play from behind as she lacks reliable crowd control
- -Fast fall-off in the late game when teams group and block spears
Abilities
Brush movement speed is your lifeline. Use it to kite or gap close. Hitting or marks targets with Hunt, giving you true sight and doubling your jump range in cougar form.
Human form is your long-range poke; damage increases with distance. Cougar form is your execute; use it only when they are low. The cougar attack is an auto-reset—always auto before pressing it.
Human form traps reveal enemies and proc —place them in brushes or choke points. Cougar form is a dash. Killing a unit or jumping to a Hunted target significantly reduces its cooldown.
In human form, this is a heal that grants a massive Attack Speed buff—use it on your ADC during sieges or yourself while clearing. Cougar form is an AOE swipe; use it mid-air during to maximize burst.
Your transform. It resets your auto-attack timer. Mastering Nidalee is 90% about knowing when to swap forms to layer your abilities correctly.
Teamfight Role
Poke/Finisher
Stay on the outskirts in human form. Fish for on priority targets. Only enter cougar form and dive in when a target is low enough to die to a single (Cougar) execute.
If your ADC is fed, stay back and exclusively use on them and throw to peel or zone. Your life is less valuable than their DPS.
Combos
Standard Assassination
(Human) → → → → (Cougar)
Land the spear from max range, swap, jump in with the empowered W range, and execute with Q. Use E while jumping to save time.
The Bush Trap All-in
(Human) → → → → (Cougar)
If someone steps on a trap, they are Hunted. You can jump to them from double range even if you haven't thrown a spear.
Clear Optimization
Auto → (Human) → → Auto → (Cougar) →
Maximizes damage per second in the jungle by using auto-attack resets in both forms.
The Long Distance Chase
(in brush) → → → → (Human)
Use the brush speed and cougar jump to close distance, then swap back to human to fish for a max-range spear.
Power Spikes
| Spike | Why |
|---|---|
| Level 3 | You have all basic abilities and can finally execute the full Human-to-Cougar burst combo. |
| Level 6 | Increases the damage of your Cougar abilities and shortens cooldown for smoother swaps. |
| Level 11 | Spear damage from becomes oppressive against squishies, and cougar form damage peaks. |
| Level 16 | Max rank Cougar abilities, but you must end the game soon as you begin to fall off compared to late-game carries. |
Tips & Tricks
- • resets your auto-attack. Always auto-attack right before you transform to maximize damage.
- •You can cast (Cougar) and (Cougar) mid-air during the (Cougar) jump.
- •Use (Human) in narrow corridors; the vision it grants is permanent for the duration, making it a mini-ward.
- •In cougar form, jumps in the direction Nidalee is FACING, not toward your cursor. Check your alignment before jumping walls.
- • (Human) heal amount increases based on the target's missing health. Use it later in a fight for a bigger clutch heal.
- • movement speed triggers on visible champions only, but it's a great way to check if a brush is warded if you gain the speed while pathing toward it.
Common Mistakes
- ✕Jumping in with without landing a Hunt first→The jump range is tiny and the cooldown won't reset, leaving you stranded and easily killed.
- ✕Using (Cougar) as an opener→You lose all execute damage. It deals significantly more damage to low HP targets.
- ✕Only healing yourself with →You waste the massive attack speed buff that could help your ADC take towers or win duels.
- ✕Ignoring human form auto-attacks→Early game, Nidalee's ranged autos are a huge part of her trade damage. Don't just wait for cooldowns.
- ✕Throwing max-range spears from vision→They are too easy to dodge. Always throw from brushes or over walls where they can't see the start of the animation.
AI-generated guide • Patch 16.2.1 • Cached