Wild Rift Guides
Nidalee Jungle Wild Rift Guide
Nidalee jungle counters include Rengar, Vi, and Diana. See the best build, runes, matchups, and game plan for Wild Rift Patch 7.3.
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.
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.
Build Snapshot
Rune Setup
Summoner Spells
Nidalee Jungle Counters
Who counters Nidalee Jungle in Wild Rift (WR)? These champions beat Nidalee in the jungle matchup, with how each one wins. Learn to play around them or ban them in ranked.
- 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.
Champions Nidalee Is Strong Against
Nidalee's best matchups in Wild Rift. Nidalee holds an edge against these picks in the jungle role, so look to press the advantage and contest objectives.
- 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.
Early Game
Rotate all three Cougar Form abilities through camps, reset an attack with Takedown (1st), and use Primal Surge's (3rd) attack-speed buff and missing-health heal between form swaps. The resulting clear speed gives Nidalee choices: reach river first, invade a tracked slow starter with lane priority, or gank a lane whose crowd control can guarantee Javelin Toss (1st). Do not spend that tempo throwing low-percentage spears at a neutral lane. At scuttle, hold space with a maximum-distance spear rather than standing on top of the crab, because its damage comes from travel distance and cannot be charged. A spear or Bushwhack (2nd) mark extends Pounce's (2nd) reach, so enter Cougar Form only after the mark lands and the enemy's return control is accounted for. Nidalee's early lead comes from making the map respond to her faster clear, not from forcing every encounter into melee range.
Mid Game
Nidalee pressures the first objectives from outside the pit before deciding whether Cougar Form can enter safely. Contest with spears from across it and force the enemy jungler to fight on your terms or give the objective up. If your team cannot contest safely, trade for the other objective or convert your tempo into camps and a tower instead of forcing a bad pit dive. Between objectives, farm only as much as you need and visit every lane with a gankable angle: a heal keeps your laner topped up while a marked pounce ends an overextended enemy. Counter-jungling works well too, because your clear speed lets you steal a camp and leave before anyone arrives.
Late Game
The longer the game goes, the harder you have to work, because the spear that once deleted a carry now only chunks a full-build team. Stop forcing fights and play the picker: hunt sidelaners and stragglers with traps and spears from fog, and snipe anyone who walks through river without vision. Around Baron you are the threat that makes the enemy afraid to start it, throwing spears over the wall and pouncing on anyone who strays from the group. Keep your heal for yourself and your most fragile teammate, and never commit your pounce into a five-man group with no way out, because a cat caught in the open with cooldowns down does not walk back out.
Teamfights
Work from the edge of the fight and use Javelin Toss (1st) or Bushwhack (2nd) to mark a reachable target before entering Cougar Form. Pounce (2nd) only after the enemy's immediate control is accounted for, then use Takedown (1st) on the wounded target and leave through a route your team controls. Place traps in chokes and flank routes, and use Primal Surge (3rd) on the ally who can keep dealing damage. If no marked target separates from peel, remain at range instead of diving through the frontline.