Elise, the Spider Queen
Its time. people may have played this champs a bit after her release, and she was solid if pretty wierd. She's cool because she can play mid top or jungle. However, now with the itemization changes and the change to how magic pen works, Elise is a fucking monster. Let me show you:
Abilities:
Passive - Spider Swarm When Elise's Human Form spells hit an enemy, she readies a Spiderling. When Elise transforms, she summons Spiderlings to attack nearby foes. The maximum number of spiderlings increases with Spider Form's level.
This is a bit of a strange passive, seems like it should be part of her R, but hey its ok. Basically you get little minions in spider form. they do solid damage, help you sustain, and very importantly block the shit out of single target skillshots.
Q - Neurotoxin/ Venomous Bite: Deals magic damage equal to a base amount plus a percentage of the target's current health. In Spider form Elise lunges to a target with a poisonous bite that deals magic damage equal to a base amount plus a percentage of the target's missing health.
Percent health damage is pretty strong.This is your bread and butter skill. In Human form its a great low CD midrange targeted harass. In spider form its a savage execution move and gap closer. The cost in human form is 60 at all levels, so its very cheap, and the cost of all her spider spells is ZERO. Many people do not realize this. spam spam spam. Remember human Q is better when they have alot of health, spider Q when they are low. Her spider Q will cause ALL spider minions to jump with you and focus your target. Despite making he jump forward, she cannot cross terrain with her bite, although you can "bite" people through walls and do damage.
W - Volatile Spiderling/Skittering Frenzy: Summons an explosive spider to chase down an enemy and then explode.In Spider form gives fatttt attack speed to you and your spiderlings, plus a bit of life on hit
The explosive spiderling is a bit wierd too, it does solid AOE damage but it explodes on the first enemy it touches, which makes it kind of hard to use. Its good for poke later in the game and has a very solid ratio. It will prioritize champions so you can shoot it past the side of creeps and it will then lock onto and chase the champion. Since it gets blocked by creeps its often beneficial to fire it away from an enemy with creeps in between you, then spider form Q them to cause it to jump onto them for guaranteed damage. The spiderling also gives vision, so you can use it to scout. The Spider form W gives you and your spiderlings the largest AS steroid in the game, that's correct, the largest in the game. It also makes your spiderlings attacks heal you for a bit. Use it when you allin, or just activate it in lane. Your spiderlings will hit creeps and give you a nice little free heal. Maxed out you and your spiderlings do about .8 AP per hit plus 300AD,not even joking, nobody can stand toe to toe with that at 140% AS.
E - Cocoon/Rappel:Elise fires a web that stuns and reveals the first enemy hit for 1.5 seconds. Elise reveals nearby enemy targets while she and her Spiderlings lift up into the air, becoming untargetable for 2 seconds. During that time she can cast Rappel again to descend upon a nearby enemy.
Cocoon is a simple skillshot stun. It reveals, so its also great for brush checking.
Rappel is not actually a very complicated spell. You use it and essentially leave the map, then you can click on any enemy in the radius to drop on them. If you just target an enemy flat out you will just immediately go to them. This is your escape and your long range gap closer and your wait for Cd's and dodge stuff spell. The CD is very long so you are only gonna get one, dont waste it. If you are going to need an escape, plan out an escape route with an enemy to rappel to. This spell is also commonly used to finish off low health targets from huge distances (EQ). Also great for if you get tower dived to make them sit around and wait for you to come down. If using Rappel to try to gap close on a fleeing enemy make sure to target them specifically, if you just activate the skill and it turns our they were a tiny bit too far you will be up in the air and ruin your chances of catching them. Whereas if you target them elise will not Rappel until she can drop on them,
R - Human/ Spider Form: Elise can change into a spider, switching her skillset, gaining magic damage on auto, summoning her spiderlings, and giving her bonus armor and MR, and bonus movespeed. She is melee in this form.
You have this at level 1. The movespeed is great, always be in spider form for long distance travel and running away. There is a CD on this, so you will need to preswitch into the form you need for a situation in order to execute your combos. Remember this skill is also free.
BASIC PLAY AND COMBOS:
Elise is all about combos, this is really important.
Your max damage full combo is this:
Start in human form with the cd off and ready to switch again.
1. E: Stun them
2. QW: percent current health and explosive spiderling while they cant run. If creeps are in between you and them, fire the spiderling away from them.
3. Switch to spider form
4. QW: jump to them and do percent missing health damage, activate AS buff to follow up. If you fired the explosive spiderling away it will jump to them when you Q.
5. E Rappel to chase or escape.
EQWRQWE
This combo should take like a second once you have it down and do absurd damage. they have no choice but to run like a little bitch, because its not like you are on Cd either and they can retaliate, you are whaling on them at 140% AS. sustained damage champs who would normally stick around and try to trade back after a combo will get destroyed. YOU MUST KNOW THIS COMBO WELL IF YOU PLAN ON SUCCEEDING WITH ELISE.
Your finish off a low enemy combo:
Start in spider form
optional: Flash
1. E Rappel, target them specifically
2. QW
3. if they are escaping, switch to human and toss an EQW after them.
EQWREQW
Human form Q will do alot less damage if they are really low but it will still do a nice hit of damage, dont forget to use it.
Your disable/hold a target down so a gank can come in or your team can catch up.
Start in spider
1. E Rappel
2. Q
3. Switch human
4. immediately stun E them from point blank where you cant miss
5. QW
EQREQW
ITEMIZATION:
OK, so since Elise has all this low CD percent health damage, magic pen is extremely strong on her. With the new items she has a core item base I would stick to 95% of the time:
boots3>haunting guise>Sorcs>rylais>Liandrys (later)
Since pen is so good on Elise, she built Guise even before Liandry's existed. Rylais is also a completely core item on her, you absolutely need it in order to be able to stick on people and use the absurd damage from your AS boost and spiderlings, and you need the health from both of those items in order to not get blown up when you are in melee range executing your combos. So if both of those items are already there then Liandry's is the obvious choice. After this there are several great items that I honestly wouldn't fault anyone for buying. Lately I have changed my mind, Liandrys is actually pretty crap, guise is still a must buy, but if getting liandrys can wait until realllly late if you choose to use it at all.
Dcap: Great, more damage if you have a nice tanky team and can just build more damage. I don't build this as much because you do plenty without it and defense is good.
Abyssal: Really strong, basically adds more pen and great MR if you are dealing with magic damage threats.
Void Staff: Magic pen, more damage and neccesary lategame.
Guardian Angel: If you are getting focused.
DFG: Yeah, you can play her like Evelynn, you do absurd burst, just hide in bushes and destroy people.
Hourglass Very strong teamfighting item, this plus Rappel makes you very hard to focus down.
Malady and Rageblade These are more jungle/top Elise items, but quite good for the midgame especially, and if you are investing more into W over Q.
For Jungle Elise I open machete 5pot, You want to get Spirit of the Spectral Wraith over wriggles unless you are very behind.
SKILL ORDER:
For Mid and Top:
R>Q>W>E
I get a point in E at lvl 2, as its incredibly important utility, and you cant use W properly until a bit later.
For Jungle you are going to use the same general idea, but get W at level 1 for the AOE spider and AS. For jungle you must choose between leveling more W for faster clears, or more Q for more ganking and fighting power. Unless the game is absurdly passive I highly recommend leveling Q over W, as you clears will still be stupidly fast with this priority and the killing power increase is VERY significant.
I would go Ignite Flash on Elise nearly all the time, she needs the escape from flash, and ignite is always good on bursty champs. I wouldn't be too averse to running Ghost instead of ignite though, as being able to chase better will result in more damage just like ignite, as well as helping you escape. People don't often escape from Elise with low health with her execution Q and ability to Rappel at the end of her combo to catch anyone.
RUNES & MASTERIES
I run standard 21/0/9 for the buff duration, but you could run 21/9/0 if you were a bit more conservative with mana or weren't planning on holding blue. Elises mana cost are incredibly low.
For jungle you will want 21/9/0 with all the minion damage reduction you can get. I also go for the AD (brute force) over the AP (mental force). First clear will be a bit ouchy but with a decent leash you should be smooth sailing after that.
For Mid I run Mpen Reds/MR Yellows/MR Blues/ AP quints (I don't have Mpen)
For Top and jungle I run Mpen Reds/Armor Yellows/MR Blues/AP Quints.
TIPS
1. Plan your escape route. Engage near their or your wraiths or with a minion wave in the correct position to escape to with a Rappel. You can combo someone under their tower without taking a shot if you time it well.
2. Never ever walk into a bush blind. Both explosive spiderling and your stun give vision, use them.
3. Rappel does no damage, you can use it to escape over the wall into baron or dragon pit without aggroing them.
4. Switch to Spider form if you see or predict incoming single target skillshots. spiderlings have a good chance of blocking them.
5. If you are ahead in lane but they are ranged and keep backing up when you try to Neurotoxin harass, try CSing in spider form, then rapidly switching to human form and firing it. The MS will help you get into range and people dont expect ranged spells out of the spider.
6. If you get jumped and are going to die, its always worth switching to spider and popping Rappel. Maybe some minion will wander in and allow you to escape, at the worse it takes them 2 more seconds to kill you.