Elise, the Spider Queen

[StNimrod]

Yes, exactly like Jayce, both are hard, but with so many spells, they're very strong if mastered.

[Deleted]

I just picked her up for my jungle, I like her a lot, very strong. Fun to play aswell!

Currently working on a build, goes something like: FH, Rylais, A Scepter, Liandry's, Sorc/Merc, Sunfire Cape.

Tanky, excellent damage. Very, very fun champion. Problaly gonna have her as one of my main go-to junglers, fallen completely in love with her!

[Axethor]

I just picked her up for my jungle, I like her a lot, very strong. Fun to play aswell!

Currently working on a build, goes something like: FH, Rylais, A Scepter, Liandry's, Sorc/Merc, Sunfire Cape.

Tanky, excellent damage. Very, very fun champion. Problaly gonna have her as one of my main go-to junglers, fallen completely in love with her!

I'll have try try this. I already built Elise pretty tanky with a focus on MPen. I'll just swap out the AP items for more defense and see how it goes. Elise was always fun to play.

[Deleted]

I'll have try try this. I already built Elise pretty tanky with a focus on MPen. I'll just swap out the AP items for more defense and see how it goes. Elise was always fun to play.

MPen reds, MS Quints. 9/21/0 getting CDR, AP, MPen and then standard defensive jungle tree.

[Alarinth]

Very epic necro, but I found no more suitable thread. Is there no updated guides for Elise available? The ones I've seen on Mobafire etc reference items that aren't in game anymore, and generally disagree on the items you buy. I'm by no means a good LoL player (just L19 on my main acc), but I absolutely dig this jungler. Any tips?

[Duronos]

Very epic necro, but I found no more suitable thread. Is there no updated guides for Elise available? The ones I've seen on Mobafire etc reference items that aren't in game anymore, and generally disagree on the items you buy. I'm by no means a good LoL player (just L19 on my main acc), but I absolutely dig this jungler. Any tips?

Itemization changes made her quite strong. Going to link my profile, http://euw.op.gg/summoner/userName=tizzlefix

Just scroll through it to find Elise games and look at my runes and masteries.

[Duilliath]

That's a bold statement when a lot of top junglers find her weak.

Jungle changes mean it's much harder to have her spiderlings tank up the jungle or Dragon.

Additionally, he's not even lvl 20 yet, which means he has no access to t3 runes.

[Alarinth]

That's a bold statement when a lot of top junglers find her weak.

Could it be though that for the very best, she may be weak, but for the lower-end player she should still be fine? I find her really tricky to play, but definitely see some potential.

Itemization changes made her quite strong. Going to link my profile, http://euw.op.gg/summoner/userName=tizzlefix

Just scroll through it to find Elise games and look at my runes and masteries.

Thanks, will have a look. You had Frozen Heart, Spirit Visage, Haunting Guise, Void Staff and two other items - I've always started with the jungling items, then gone Frozen Heart for the defensiveness, but at that point I've spent so much time getting defensive, I'm left behind on the offense. Tips?

[Duilliath]

Thing is, she's not the weakest of junglers. But there's quite a few junglers who clear faster, have higher sustain, deadlier ganks or scale better.

If you want AP, someone like Diana or Fiddlesticks just do better. As does Amumu.

It's largely a case of better junglers being available.

[Alarinth]

Thing is, she's not the weakest of junglers. But there's quite a few junglers who clear faster, have higher sustain, deadlier ganks or scale better.

If you want AP, someone like Diana or Fiddlesticks just do better. As does Amumu.

It's largely a case of better junglers being available.

Probably - but I don't play competitively, I play because I find her fun and enjoyable. But would you say the difference is so big, you'd advise me to not play her?

[Duilliath]

No. She's a viable jungler and as such a perfectly fine choice. Most of the times, champion viability is overstated tremendously, when in actuality, it's mostly player skill determining how well you do with a champion. As long as you're not trying to jungle something that can't even clear a camp + buff, you'll be fine.

However, I would be careful - for now -, simply on account of missing runes and masteries. This will hamper her clear a lot.

[Duronos]

Probably - but I don't play competitively, I play because I find her fun and enjoyable. But would you say the difference is so big, you'd advise me to not play her?

Honestly, I have no idea what Duilliath is talking about. With the new items I'm able to clear jungle effectively and I shit you not do some insane amounts of damage, more than I thought Elise was capable with itemization changes.

[Duilliath]

Try a Diana instead then. And see how she does. That just might chance your opinion.

[Duronos]

Try a Diana instead then. And see how she does. That just might chance your opinion.

I've played a lot of Diana, it just depends on what you want in a comp currently. Elise provides more early pressure than Diana ever will, especially if you can hit E which is absurdly hard. Diana is a bruiser/assassin but struggles when behind much like Elise, in terms of power spikes or power drops etc. etc. etc. they are quite similar. Both if they get ahead can do insane amounts of damage with Elise doing a bit more but Diana is a bit tankier but if they get behind it's pretty much a deadweight champion on the team.

[Yvaelle]

I jungle main this season, and Elise is my preferred AP jungler now that Evelynn is too squishy (the only jungler I use more than her is Vi).

Elise is extremely effective in the early jungle - I can basically farm and never back if I wanted to from level 1. Start golems if you aren't getting a leash and smite them for the heavy hands buff, put your L1 skill into W for spiderbomb->steroid camp initiate - and with the right mastery and runes you can clear the entire jungle faster than Warwick with comparable sustain.

I use that mastery page for both Elise and Vi because I'm lazy - but Elise would benefit more from AP in offense rather than AD now that I'm looking at it.

I like Elise because she's incredibly capable - massive jungle sustain lets me either outfarm just about any other jungler, or gank sooner than them based on what the enemy junglers strengh is. So if I'm up against a Warwick I know he won't be ganking until level 6, and that means I can press that advantage by being a lane menace and converting his strength (farm/sustain) into a weakness (lack of early lane presence). Alternately if I'm up against a Vi I expect her to gank early - and I can exploit that by outfarming her and/or if she tries a gank on the opposite side of the map from me - I know I can drop everything and go steal her camps - because early gank champions don't usually have the sustain to full clear and gank - so you know she likely left the far camps up in the hopes of a champion kill.

Elise also has a massive kit, which generally I think is overpowered on every champion that has it - Elise, Lee Sin, Lulu, etc - damage based on max health and on missing health, an AS steroid for dueling, spiderbomb for bush checks / vision / poke, ascend/descend for wall leaps / initiates / chase / disengages, and a stun for peels / catches. Elise has a tool for every situation, she can mage when she's too low to dive, or she can dive to peel (compare to Vi who either has to dive or back). She's also amazing at turret kills / map control - with spiders+frozen heart she can dive turrets very effectively, steroid, and disassemble them like a team of tiny eight-legged construction workers - if she gets in trouble she simply ascends away to instantly drop turret aggro / deny the next turret shot / escape ganks.

The biggest flaw I always find with Elise is that her power trails off in late game. She's dominant in the early game and she can convert that to a lead either in lane or in jungle at her choosing, but she either needs to commit to full mage for late game with a very specific / squishy build, or she needs to go full tank - and it can be hard to anticipate which is needed.

Generally I always go Ranger ( I think it is?) for jungle item ASAP, for the Smite cooldown reduction + heal + aoe damage, it takes her already fast jungle clear and makes it crazy - but it also means she can walk up to a huge lane wave if say, top is falling behind - smite a center creep, and clear the entire wave in seconds (wave clear is her weakness without it). After that it really depends on her opponent - but personally I almost always rush Rylai's because it makes her ganks much stronger, since her Q's are now 35% snares, and 100 AP helps her sustain and poke, and 500 hp is always welcome. After that it's usually a full tank item - either Frozen Heart if the enemy team has AD damage, or Spirit Visage if I plan to gank a lot of AP.

Oh that's something to mention too - while it's generally true for all junglers - Elise in particular (because of the full mage or full tank dilemma) needs to know which lane she plans to harass all game from about level 6. So if you know you can score kills very easily in bot lane - because the enemy ADC/support lack the mobility to escape your ganks and keep overextending - you should build specifically to counter that lane (ie, Frozen Heart vs ADC). Or, if the enemy AP mid seems vulnerable - build an MR item like Spirit Visage or Abyssal Scepter to acutely counter that AP mid.

On the one hand any jungler can do this - specialize versus a specific lane they think is weak - but as Vi or Evelynn my advantage is that I can lane swap hard and fast - gank top, swap bottom, gank bottom - etc. Evelynn in particular specializes in creating that looming dread that a gank could occur anywhere at any time - she puts every enemy lane on high alert: and that's exhausting (and that's Evelynn's true power). Vi is similar - she can gank any lane because her ganks begin with a fist flying at you out of a bush and follow quickly with high burst/disruption. Elise is different.

While Elise can bully any lane - especially if she's snowballing - she works best by constantly harassing the same lane over and over until that enemy player is all but eliminated from the late-game. Enemy Nasus top lane? Gank him over and over and over - he's not mobile enough to escape you if he's pushed out, and he's not good enough at farming under turret to counter 2v1 turret pressure. Either he can farm and trade poke and back - at which point double push to take the turret - or he can play defensive and fall way behind on farm/Q stacks. A Nasus who falls behind on Q stacks is mostly only good late game as a tank - which will also force him to shift his build to less damaging items. Once you get top sufficiently pushed - start double roaming into mid, and cascade that early top pressure into 3v1 mid, into 5v2's bot etc.

You can do the same thing to mids, or to botlanes

Edit: One last thing, as opposed to Vi or Evelynn where I always run Flash+Smite, once you get good with Ascend you don't really need Flash on Elise - which means you can run Teleport to teleport in during enemy ganks or tower pushes, or to simply to reduce your run back. Also, if I know I'm going to land an L2 or L3 kill in top lane, I sometimes take Smite+Ghost just to secure that kill - since I won't have boots at that point and that runspeed on an overextended toplane is a guarenteed kill. I have experimented with Smite+Exhaust, but I don't really like it - while it does help her duel better, Elise is already such an effective duelist that it isn't needed.