Starting Items:
(400gold Doran ring very strong Patch 3.8)
or
or
or
or
These are the builds that I most commonly use. I really like the build path for all three of these. I highly recommend trying to follow them as closely as possible. They are all extremely efficient and do not rely on you getting fed for you to be strong throughout the game or to survive the lane phase. If you ever go back with enough gold to buy a deathcap in one shot do it. Otherwise try to follow these build orders.
Build 1 - CDR, Effeciency, Squishy (my favorite)
Start:
Core (buy in this order):
Next phase (in order):
Final:
Build 2 - Higher HP and MR to deny resets against against yi, katarina or survive vs kass, lb etc
Start:
Core(in order):
Next Phase (in order):
->finish 
Final:
Build 3 - High armor and Zhonya against heavy AD Team or AD casters (Riven, Zed, Wukong, Talon)
Start:
Core (in order):
Next Phase (in order):
Final:
Against cc comps
Enchantment Boots:
jaMx AP Top Brusier Build (still in development):
So, I had this idea for a top nidalee build. The goal of a top nidalees is usually a high harass, heavy AA focused, pushing champ that can bully melee champions. I know a lot of people still use AD Nidalee but in my opinion it falls out past 15 minutes. The AA range is too short so champions like Riven can be extremely stressful and the damage is very low in a lot of situations. If you've every played AD nidalee against a malphite with Warden Mail you will understand exactly what I'm talking about. I also feel like a tanky AD nidalee is out scaled by every other tank in the game. By building AD you are basically making half of your kit useless; she has less utility, sustain, no spear damage and obviously not enough cc. I'll be bold enough to say building AD Nidalee is a complete waste. Even backdoor AD Nidalee would be a lot less effective than an AD Yi or Tryndamere. After getting to late game with AD Nidalee you still won't be able to duel champions like riven or zed. You will be kited by ADCs and you will provide no AOE utility like a malphite or rumble would provide. I don't see the appeal of AD Nidalee.
Nidalee is very versatile though and I think the idea of a top nidalee is really good because her kit naturally creates mismatches in the top lane.So I came up with this idea for the lulz. I tried it in a few games and it is actually pretty good. Your starting core items are going to be:
From here you are going to build:
Nashor's Tooth now grants +15% of your total AP to your basic auto attacks. It doesn't seem like a lot but there is a huge damage increase between your spells from the auto attacks and you are still scaling toward AP so any damage you lose from AA's will be made up 10 fold with AP scaling. Furthermore, there is a surprisingly large amount of damage when you use heal before cat form and engage an adc.
This build allows you to kite with traps and spears. Chase down low hp enemies by utilyzing the slow effect from Rylai with all of your abilities. You flat out damage can so many champions with this build alone. It seems like it won't work, but the cdr from nashors and the constant potential for harass makes this build worth trying. It is definitely a situational build for top lane and maybe against some mid champs. But, I thought I'd put it in the guide to get some feedback about the build.
Now there are 2 builds final builds that I've tried:
1. jaMx Bruiser Nid VS AD top
This is the build path->final build that I use when I play against AD champions top. You will be a really strong brawler during team fights and lane phase, but still have a lot ability power so your spears late game will do a lot of damage to the carries. This is going to be that tanky, strong auto attack dps nid build that peoeple are looking for. Please nidalee players stop building AD Nid
2. jaMx Bruiser Nid vs AP top (Malphite, Cho, Shen, Singed)
This is the same concept as the AP vs AD except we are going to make sure we have more magic resist this time so we can trade damage in cat form.
(400gold Doran ring very strong Patch 3.8)or
or
or
or
These are the builds that I most commonly use. I really like the build path for all three of these. I highly recommend trying to follow them as closely as possible. They are all extremely efficient and do not rely on you getting fed for you to be strong throughout the game or to survive the lane phase. If you ever go back with enough gold to buy a deathcap in one shot do it. Otherwise try to follow these build orders.
Build 1 - CDR, Effeciency, Squishy (my favorite)
Start:
Core (buy in this order):
Next phase (in order):
Final:
Build 2 - Higher HP and MR to deny resets against against yi, katarina or survive vs kass, lb etc
Start:
Core(in order):
Next Phase (in order):
->finish Final:
Build 3 - High armor and Zhonya against heavy AD Team or AD casters (Riven, Zed, Wukong, Talon)
Start:
Core (in order):
Next Phase (in order):
Final:
Against cc comps
Enchantment Boots:
jaMx AP Top Brusier Build (still in development):
So, I had this idea for a top nidalee build. The goal of a top nidalees is usually a high harass, heavy AA focused, pushing champ that can bully melee champions. I know a lot of people still use AD Nidalee but in my opinion it falls out past 15 minutes. The AA range is too short so champions like Riven can be extremely stressful and the damage is very low in a lot of situations. If you've every played AD nidalee against a malphite with Warden Mail you will understand exactly what I'm talking about. I also feel like a tanky AD nidalee is out scaled by every other tank in the game. By building AD you are basically making half of your kit useless; she has less utility, sustain, no spear damage and obviously not enough cc. I'll be bold enough to say building AD Nidalee is a complete waste. Even backdoor AD Nidalee would be a lot less effective than an AD Yi or Tryndamere. After getting to late game with AD Nidalee you still won't be able to duel champions like riven or zed. You will be kited by ADCs and you will provide no AOE utility like a malphite or rumble would provide. I don't see the appeal of AD Nidalee.
Nidalee is very versatile though and I think the idea of a top nidalee is really good because her kit naturally creates mismatches in the top lane.So I came up with this idea for the lulz. I tried it in a few games and it is actually pretty good. Your starting core items are going to be:
From here you are going to build:
Nashor's Tooth now grants +15% of your total AP to your basic auto attacks. It doesn't seem like a lot but there is a huge damage increase between your spells from the auto attacks and you are still scaling toward AP so any damage you lose from AA's will be made up 10 fold with AP scaling. Furthermore, there is a surprisingly large amount of damage when you use heal before cat form and engage an adc.
This build allows you to kite with traps and spears. Chase down low hp enemies by utilyzing the slow effect from Rylai with all of your abilities. You flat out damage can so many champions with this build alone. It seems like it won't work, but the cdr from nashors and the constant potential for harass makes this build worth trying. It is definitely a situational build for top lane and maybe against some mid champs. But, I thought I'd put it in the guide to get some feedback about the build.
Now there are 2 builds final builds that I've tried:
1. jaMx Bruiser Nid VS AD top
This is the build path->final build that I use when I play against AD champions top. You will be a really strong brawler during team fights and lane phase, but still have a lot ability power so your spears late game will do a lot of damage to the carries. This is going to be that tanky, strong auto attack dps nid build that peoeple are looking for. Please nidalee players stop building AD Nid
2. jaMx Bruiser Nid vs AP top (Malphite, Cho, Shen, Singed)
This is the same concept as the AP vs AD except we are going to make sure we have more magic resist this time so we can trade damage in cat form.
