User blog comment:FluffyPonies/Nidalee Support Discussion/@comment-15244341-20140831113119

The way bot lane works makes Nid a poor choice, IMO. Nid heal is good enough for her not to die 1v1 against many champions, but she definitely can't outheal two champions focusing her or poking her. She also has good spear to poke at range, but outside of that one spell, she is a squishy melee champion. I don't think I need to explain why this is bad against most bot lanes (tough melee+ranged or double ranged). She also can't engage or disengage for her carry, which against Leona, Thresh or Blitz is probably a death sentence for non jump/dash marksmen. Not to mention that botlane is full of deadly linear skillshot blocked by minions (Bind, Braum's Q thingy, Jinx's Zap!...) that are already harder to dodge than random Nidalee spears. Most supports know to bodyblock for ADCs and most ADCs know how to position against that kind of stuff.

Trap vision is cute, but you have to buy wards. That's 800g plus 100g to keep a pink on you or on the field at all times for vision. This coupled with the fact that her spears are an extremely unreliable poke tool means that she gets a pretty poor gold->damage ratio early game (assuming spellthief's edge line, since it seems the best for her taking into account her zero CC kit). Since she has zero CC, if she doesn't get fed (to buy AP) she offers a meagre heal and a decent attack speed buff and that's literally it. If the enemy team has deadly CC (Veigar, Sejuani, Amumu, Malzahar, Ahri...) you also have to buy Mikhael's, delaying any AP you could get even more and making Nid even less of a threat.

AD Nid is made by the expensive (for support) items she can get when farming, so playing that botlane seems like a bit of throwing the game.

TBH, you can play her with ADCs that are already somewhat independant of their support peeling for them and go for a weird kill lane in which you both jump on whom you spear. But, honestly, that is something that Leona or Thresh are better at doing already.

What people whant to pick Nid for (Poke+Heal) is something the new Sona does much much better. You will probably poke more reliably, heal better (she is good at keeping peoples health up against poke which Nid's heal is awful at), have more utility in teamfights if behind and still do a load of damage if fed (not as much as Nid, but still nice with just Sheen).

So I guess... play her. Just know it is a selfish pick (I want to play Nidalee) and people will probably not like it if you don't do well.