Nidalee Jungle Wild Rift overview and best build snapshot
Best Build
Quick snapshot of the default setup for this guide.
Items
Summoner Spells
Spell 1
Flash
Spell 2
Smite
How to play
Land a spear or trap before jumping in In human form, hit your 1st ability or catch an enemy with your 2nd ability to mark them. Switch forms with your ultimate, then use your 2nd ability for a longer jump.
Keep clearing between ganks Use your ultimate to switch between human and cougar abilities while clearing. Your human-form 3rd ability heals you before the next camp or fight.
Poke before committing to a teamfight Use your human-form 1st ability to throw spears from a safe distance. Wait for a weakened enemy before switching forms to jump in.
Guide author
Royal
Royal has reached Rank 1 in EU and NA, and Legend and Sovereign on the Chinese server. Created by Royal with input from high elo and professional players and the WildRiftGuides Discord community.
Rank 1 on this champion? Help improve this guide and receive credit. Contact us on Discord.
Strengths
- Brutal early tempo: her cougar clear is among the fastest in the class, so she hits gank and invade timings first.
- Long-range spears from fog and over walls zone enemies off scuttle, objectives, and their own jungle without trading evenly.
- Snowballs hard once she gets a lead, with the mobility and burst to show up in lanes before anyone can answer.
Weaknesses
- No hard crowd control, so disciplined teams can walk through her spears and collapse on a squishy melee target.
- Falls off in long games, since her burst stops keeping up with enemy health bars while tanks and carries outgrow her.
- Spear-dependent: miss the poke and she is a fragile cat with cooldowns down, easy to lock and kill.
Nidalee Jungle Wild Rift best build, items, runes, summoner spells, and skill order
ITEM BUILD
Best Wild Rift build for Nidalee Jungle, including items, runes, summoner spells, and skill order.
STARTING ITEM
Early ability power for her spear, which is her only real threat before she can dive.
BOOTS
Magic penetration sharpens both her spear and her cougar burst, keeping her relevant in both forms.
CORE BUILD
Nidalee casts constantly while rotating through two forms, creating frequent Spellblade windows. In Cougar Form, weave the empowered attack from Takedown (1st) between casts so Lich Bane lands inside the same burst.
Multiplies her ability power, raising both long-range Javelin Toss (1st) poke and Cougar Form Takedown's (1st) missing-health finisher damage.
Crits against low health targets, and her cougar Q (1st) already scales with missing health, so both pay on the same enemies.
Cuts the magic resist that turns a landed spear from a kill setup into a chunk. Choose it over Cryptbloom when enemies are stacking magic resist and maximum personal damage matters more than ability haste and team healing.
Build this for when she lands in cougar form with her pounce spent. Buy Seeker's Armguard early for the armor and ability power.
SITUATIONAL ITEMS
A gap closer that does not cost her a pounce, so she arrives with her mobility still available to leave.
The alternative to Void Staff. Less penetration, but the ability haste means faster form swaps and the healing on takedown helps her team. Choose it when enemies have not built much magic resist, so trading Void Staff's extra damage for more ability haste and an area heal after takedowns is worthwhile.
Build this when the enemy has shields that keep absorbing the burst her spear set up.
Build this when the enemy has crowd control that catches her mid-dive.
RUNES
KEYSTONE
Her cougar Q (1st) hunts low health targets, so the souls come from kills she was already set up to take.
PRIMARY
Her pounce is a dash, so it triggers the bonus true damage as she reaches her target in cougar form.
Her picks convert into kills, and stacking power off takedowns builds the snowball her spears are meant to start.
Takedowns are the point of her ganks, so the stacks build faster than on a farming jungler.
SECONDARY
Ability haste means more spears and faster form swaps, which is her poke and her dive frequency.
SITUATIONAL RUNES
Take this over Transcendence for a poke-and-skirmish plan around objectives. More frequent Javelin Toss (1st) and Primal Surge (3rd) casts help Nidalee create another opening and sustain teammates between engagements.
SUMMONER SPELLS
MAIN SPELLS
Flash
Must take. Pounce (2nd) is short unless Nidalee is jumping to a Hunted target, so Flash supplies an unconditional escape over terrain when her mark or Pounce (2nd) reset is unavailable.
Smite
You are playing Jungle, you always take Smite. In a close objective secure, Smite first and follow with Cougar Form Takedown (1st) so its missing-health scaling benefits from the lower health bar. Monster damage upgrades from 600 to 1000 after 8 consumed Eco-system Protection stacks and to 1400 after 20 total.
SKILL ORDER
Skill Priority Order
- 11st Ability
Q - 23rd Ability
E - 32nd Ability
W
Nidalee Jungle Wild Rift matchups and counters
Wild Rift matchup guide for Nidalee Jungle, covering favorable lanes and difficult counters to prepare for in ranked.
Good Matchups
These champions are favorable matchups for this pick in Wild Rift. You have advantages against them and can play more aggressively.
Amumu
Javelin Toss (1st) outranges Bandage Toss (1st), and Pounce (2nd) lets Nidalee sidestep the only engage Amumu has before Curse of the Sad Mummy (Ult). Once the bandage misses, Takedown (1st) punishes the immobile tank before Despair (2nd) can win a long fight.
Shyvana
Javelin Toss (1st) punishes Shyvana's predictable Burnout (2nd) path between camps, and Pounce (2nd) avoids the landing zone of Dragon's Descent (Ult). Nidalee can mark, invade, and leave before Twin Bite (1st) turns the encounter into Shyvana's preferred extended brawl.
Graves
Graves only hurts you up close where his shells hit hardest, and his short range has no answer to max-range spears, so he arrives at every fight already chunked.
Nidalee Counters
These champions counter this pick in Wild Rift and can be difficult matchups. Learn how to play against them or consider banning them.
Rengar
Rengar erases the spacing your whole game depends on, leaping from a brush to burst your fragile cat before a single spear matters. Poke is worthless against an assassin you never see coming.
Vi
Vi punches straight through your spears and sticks to you with her slow, and your fragile frame has no way to peel a point-and-click gap-closer once she commits.
Diana
Diana's shield shrugs off your poke, and once she reaches you Moonfall (Ult) drags the cougar back in before you can leap away, so one gap-close flips the whole fight.
Nidalee Jungle Wild Rift game strategy and teamfighting guide
Wild Rift game strategy for Nidalee Jungle, from early lane control through mid and late game map play to final teamfights.