As with every patch, this one includes a couple mid-cycle skins that should release early next week. As you can see above, we’ve got Dreadknight Garen. Nidalee players can also get excited about Pharaoh Nidalee, whose cat form is a Siamese cat, as pictured below.

Personally, I would have liked to see Garen get a helmet of some kind for the whole ‘knight’ part of the skin. As it is, he kinda looks like a futuristic version of himself. The Nidalee skin looks pretty sweet, though.

Nidalee used to be at the top of my most-hated toon list. She was impossible to run down, near impossible to lane against, and devastating to anyone but the thickest of tanks. She received a string of nerfs that slowly but surely brought her down from the godlike status she once held, but she can still be very strong in the right hands. Eradicator for some advice on playing Nidalee so I thought I’d throw together a quick guide.

Nidalee Basics
Nidalee is one of the more complex toons in that she has four human form skills, one of which makes her a cat, which gives her a new set of three skills. Most players play Nidalee as AP these days in order to capitalize on her abilities in both forms. Nidalee, like many toons, was hit pretty hard by the Sheen/Trinity Force/Lichbane nerf, but she can still perform very well. Her heal scales very well with AP, her trap scales slightly with AP, and her javelin is deadly with even a little bit magic penetration. As with many casters, I like to focus on a magic pen build, and rushing Zhonya’s once you’re in position to do so.

Laning
Laning with Nidalee is pretty simple. Attack, heal, attack some more. She can kill off creep waves very quickly with the attack speed buff from Primal Surge, so use it as often as your mana allows. Primal Surge also gives you the ability to harass and take a few creep hits, heal yourself, and use the attack speed buff to get the minions down. Make sure you take one rank of each skill before six, though, or your cat form will be severely gimped.

Once you hit six you should be farming very quickly. Try to get a lane against a squishier toon if you can. It will make it that much easier for you to trap, Pounce, and Swipe the caster minions for quick gold and then finish off the melee and push. Remember, as a healer you can afford to stand and attack towers with your opponent attacking you so long as you don’t have tower aggro. Heal through their damage and keep pushing. A lot of players make the mistake of burning through mana to harass Nidalee when she can just heal right through it. Let them. When you’re on their tower they’ll have nothing left.

Ganking
Nidalee’s passive allows her to traverse the map very quickly (though not as quickly as a certain champion). Use the brush for a little speed bump to get you to the next lane for a gank. I roll Flash/Ghost in most cases to maximize my mobility. If your ganking partner has a snare, let them snare, toss a javelin from as far as you can reliably land it (you’ll want to get good at this), Cougar Form and run in, making sure to land your pounce on your target. Swipe -> Take down and your target should either be dead or very close to it. If he flashes away, Human Form -> Javelin Toss. Nidalee’s greatest weakness in a ganking situation is her lack of CC. For this reason, positioning is everything. Make sure you strafe your opponents from the side whenever possible to maximize the amount of time you can deal damage to them. Ganking with a stun/snare partner makes your life much easier.

Teamfighting
Nidalee is best suited to taking down carries/squishies. Group with teammates before a fight and focus on harassing with Javelin Toss before the fight starts. You can easily hit an enemy carry for 20-30 percent of his HP with just a little bit of magic pen. Land two of those and that carry has to go heal or risk dying very quickly in the upcoming fight.

When the fight starts, get to the carries by whatever means necessary. Seriously. Flash to them, ghost into the mix and Pounce. It is your sole responsibility to burn the carries and get out before the tanks can get on top of you. With the current CC/high-HP DPS metagame, this has become much harder. Nidalee is a good toon, but only in the right comp. She’s a poor choice as a first, second, or even third pick in my opinion. You need to see that your enemy has a shortage of CC. If they have 4-5 stuns/slows, pick a different toon. If there’s a squishy or two and one to two hard CC characters, you should be fine. Remember, your heals scale incredibly well with AP, so don’t be afraid to get a little low in order to bring down that Ashe/Ezreal. Heal up, and loop back around to support your teammates.

Make try to drop traps in the line of an impending team fight when possible. The magic resist/armor reduction can make the difference between a dead enemy tank and one that lives to fight. It’s a very strong skill, and if you have Rylai’s, it puts a slow on the trapped target, too. Speaking of traps, use them as often as possible. Most players ward in very common places – the little brush about a quarter of the way from middle to a side lane is almost always warded – giving you the chance to counter them. Trap their wards, Primal Surge and burn it down. Killing the enemy vision gives your team the chance to set up ganks deep in enemy territory.

Build
My skill build is based on the following priority with the simple exception that you take one rank of your Pounce/Trap skill before six. After that, it’s the last skill you rank.

Cougar Form -> Primal Surge -> Takedown -> Trap

As for items, I’d recommend Sorc Boots, Haunting Guise, Zhonya’s, Rylai’s, Abyssal and Lichbane as solid items. Use your discretion on Lichbane, though. The nerf really did hurt the damage it provides a lot of characters, especially someone as spammy as Nidalee. Basically, you won’t want to spend all your time in cougar like you might be used to. Get out of form, use your heals/javelins to support your team. Nidalee is still a strong support character, but she is a far cry from the carry she used to be. Don’t forget that.

Hopefully this helps you understand Nidalee’s position in a team and her strengths against enemy teams. Remember, Nidalee cannot be forced into any team comp, but when the mix is right, she can be a lot of fun.

I was pretty excited to get some games in today. It’s the first day I haven’t had much work since the patch so I was looking to get some good wins in and push Kennen toward my Top 3 list. I only need to hit 33 wins for him to take Pantheon’s spot, so I thought I could knock out 5-6 pretty easily.

The first game I had another player pick my favorite midget. No problem. We also had a Taric, Jax, and I think an Ezreal. I figured Ezreal could solo mid and I’d let our Kennen 1v2 so I picked Warwick. Big mistake. My team couldn’t manage their lanes at all. Jax and Taric were dying repeatedly to a solo Ryze (the other team had a WW as well), Kennen was getting dominated by a mirror match middle, and Ezreal was getting pushed hard up top. I tried to roam and help out as much as possible, but it just ended in death after death for most of our team. Our Taric was 0-9 by the end of the game with only 2 assists. He was stacking Hearts of Gold.

The next two games went really well. I was quick enough to grab Kennen and I played well with him at middle. I was quickly up a few kills and by the end of both games I was on some sort of spree (legendary in one) and had zero deaths. All around good stuff. Unfortunately the servers went down and neither of those games were recorded on my profile.

Once the servers were back up I grabbed a quick game with two friends. I knew we were sunk as soon as I saw the loading screen. We were running Kennen/Ashe/Malph and our pugs were Zilean and Mordekaiser. The other team went Taric, Jax, Nidalee, TF, Rammus. Let me tell you, Nidalee is infuriating to lane against middle. I was outplaying her by all standards. I was harassing better than she was, I had a better farm, I nearly killed her 3 times, but between Flash, Pounce, and Primal Surge there was nothing I could do. She would pounce into terrible situations, I would lay down a combo, get her to 20 percent or lower and she would pounce away and heal. For her really bad choices she would have to Flash out as well. The game ended swiftly – our Zilean wasn’t great and really, we didn’t stand much chance against four of the most OP toons in the game.

Of course after that game the servers went down for the second time and haven’t come back up. Hopefully I’ll get some good games in tonight. Send me a friend request or an invite if you’d like to join.

Patch notes are up on the Test Realm forum for the Ezreal rollout and I’ll say it, I’m scared. I was mostly excited for the last patch, but the XP system blew chunks and that queue dodge penalty is the worst thing to happen to the game since Nidalee. There are a few diamonds in the rough, though, and I’m hoping they will be enough to carry me through.

First, Shaco is getting a massive nerf. Deceive damage is down 10% at all levels, Jack in the Box damage scales more slowly and has its AP ratio decreased, and, the whopper, throwing Two-Shiv while stealthed breaks you out. It’s not clear whether that removes your crit damage bonus – my hope is that it doesn’t – but it’s possible. You might notice that none of this makes him any more viable for the late game, which is most players’ complaint.

Then there’s Nidalee. I’m personally of the opinion that she needs the kind of nerf Shaco received. Unfortunately, Riot didn’t contact me regarding the matter, so she’s getting a tiny nerf and a little buff. Primal Surge now has its mana cost increased by 5 per level instead of the flat 50. Can I just say that this is in no way a nerf. By the time you reach the max rank, most players have more than enough mana to cover the difference, particularly if they’re going AP build. Which reminds me, AP Nidalee just got a fat buff. Javelin Toss AP ratio is up to 55% from 40%. The other change is reducing her passive to 15% move speed from 25%. Really, though, that’s not the issue with Nidalee’s escapability. It’s the fact that you can spam Pounce, which, when coupled with the brush bonus, makes her extremely difficult to kill. They could take it down to 8% and she would still probably get out of most situations.

Twisted Fate got enough changes to make him a lot less frustrating to play against and probably more overall fun. His new passive, Loaded Dice, grants TF’s team an extra 2 gold per kill. It’s actually worse than Second Sight in my mind, but not such a problem. Gate is gone. In its place is Stacked Deck, which is basically a built in Sword of the Divine. Every fourth attack deals magic damage that scales by level, affected by ability power. It also increases his attack speed and reduces cooldowns. He’s another in the latest string of toons that will benefit in big ways from Guinsoo’s. The new skill is obviously severely overpowered, but a slight nerf should bring it in line. Gate is now built into Destiny, allowing you to teleport anywhere on the map though it no longer slows. Overall, I think it’s a good change, and will actually make him a lot more fun.

There are some other minor changes, including a slight buff to the XP system (50% of a level’s XP for same level champion kills instead of 40%) , but most of them shouldn’t change the game much. The XP system will still likely too heavily prioritize farming, but it just might be enough to discourage a lot of 5-man while encouraging some push. Honestly, though, ganking is what makes the game fun. Almost no amount of XP nerfing will make me want to stop.

Phreak dropped by the forums today to ask for a little feedback on Nidalee. I was pretty interested in the topic, mostly because I think Nidalee occupies a very weird spot in the LoL spread of champions. She’s definitely a support toon, but she’s capable of carrying a team to victory and utterly terrifying in any 1v1 situation. The most surprising part of the discussion? People think she’s balanced.

I don’t have huge gripes about Nidalee, just minor issues that I think could be tweaked. The real problem I see is that Nidalee can fill every gap a team may have. She heals (one of the most mana efficient in the game), has map awareness, provides a great pushing buff, has incredible escapability and, as such, is one of the best chasers in the game. Add to it all that cat form is excellent for farming with virtually zero consequence and you have a champion that feels far from balanced. It’s not that any of these in and of itself is OP, but that giving them all to a single character results in a team slot that heavily tips the scales. Consider a well played Nidalee versus a well played Nasus (support DPS) or Morgana (support DPS/CC) and I think you’ll find she offers most of the other’s benefits, with the exception of snare/slow, plus a whole lot more.

You can find the full contents of the post in the general discussion forums.