Elise is a burst-mage / assassin / off-tank / full-tank Jungler / top-laner / mid-laner / support who was and is probably one of the most powerful champions in this game. Despite having been hit by some nerfs she still remains one of the most viable Jungle picks in the game. What makes her such a good pick is her ability to snowball the game without having to buy more than one damage item; while going more of the tank-ish build aspect she will not fall off in lane ganks despite having build health items. This is because of her Neurotoxin / Venomous Bite wombo-combo usage. This skills are for ideal use when the opponent is at different health levels, based on which they will deal more damage. Her kit also allows her for aoe jungle damage, stun, heal, and a really good gap closer / escape mechanism. It does not matter if your opponent has 6 Warmog's Armor, you will still deal 10% of his health as damage and scale him down even further the more damage he takes. The only thing they can build against you is magic resistance; after that there is no protection against you.

Introductions aside, the guide shall begin.

Spider Queen is your passive ability. It enables you to swarm your small spiders each time a skill is used in Human Form, afterwards when switching to Spider Form the spiders appear. They have their base attack damage and speed which are amplified through Ability Power and Skittering Frenzy. They stay by your side and target the enemy you also target either by basic attacks or by ability usage. They also can be a great siege and escape tool as they provide extra damage and get prioritized by a turret when there are no minions around. They land precious bait material for the likes of Thresh, Blitzcrank, Brand and so on champions who rely on landing single-target skillshots on an escaping enemy. They provide extra damage to help you clear jungle faster or even last hit minions or champions. They are like your minions <3


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Neurotoxin can be used while in Human form and can be evolved into Venomous Bite while in spider form. This is Elise's main damage output source while making those kills happen. It deals damage the higher the target's health is, meaning that it is most optimal to use while the target is above 50% HP. Being that this skill can deal % damage, it means that it makes Elise sort of the anti-tank. It does not matter if the opponent has 1000 or 4000 health, the damage ratio will be the same, but the output higher on those with more health. This is great to punish those pesky Tanks who stand in the front line with no range waiting for a good engage; you make them regret it being there.


The perfect Baron / Dragon steal tool; for that matter the best kill-secure one also. It deals % damage based on how low the target's health is, meaning it is most ideal to use when the target is below 50% health. NOTE: this does not exclude usage of this skill after using a straing Neurotoxin + Volatile Spiderling combo, or when the target is full health, such as in jungle camps. IF you happen to have no mana this skill is ideal + Smite to clear camps. Venomous Bite is your main source of damage while in Spider form and it's range is by a bit bigger than your basic melee attack so it is good to catch up with the opponent for a last hit. When activated the Spiderlings you have behind aswell as your Volatile Spiderling will leap to the target.


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Volatile Spiderling is the ability you take at level 1 and is your main source of AoE damage. It is an ability which also grants you VISION, something that helps you at level 1 to check bushes instead of face-checking them. The cast range of Volatile Spiderling is adjustable so you can control the distance you want your spider to go or the position. Once in that position the spider will stay there and explode after a few seconds or immediately explode at enemy contact and grant you vision for a short period of time. Use this skill to check bushes and do overall monster-camp damage.


Now THIS, is what makes your Jungle sustain so good. This skill increases Elise's attack speed and healing-per-attack, making her clear faster and her health not drop at drastic levels to an extent at popping health pots over and over. Remember that the Spiderlings stats are also increased and you benefit from their damage and heal too. Use this skill on every camp to clear faster and on gank while enemy is under stuns or slows to deal an optimal amount of damage.


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Cocoon is your main ganking tool. It provides a single-target stun and it is the ideal skill to to start a gank. A successful cocoon means a successful gank, further leading to a kill or simply lane advantage. It is a great tool to use if you suspect an enemy is hiding in a bush as it will also reveal the enemy ( Teemo). You can use it to chase or when you want to gain time during an escape. It is a hard skillshot to land because it can be dodged easily.


Rappel is your gap closer. You can use it in many ways such as to initiate a lane gank or disengage from a fight, even to gap close with a fast moving low-health opponent in order to deliver the last hit. Use this skill really carefully as it has a really big cooldown. Rappel also makes Elise and her Spiderlings invulnerable to any skills while she is in mid air. It can be used to escape skills such as the Zed ultimate or Karthus's Requiem. Rappel also reveals enemies in the range who can be hiding inside a bush.


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Spider Form is the Elise ultimate-R. It is one of this game's ultimate's who is avaible at level 1. When activated it gives Elise 5 more movement speed, giving her race advantage to her buff and to check the bush. When activated, she becomes a melee champion and all her abilities are changed into the alter- ones. When activated, her abilities cease to cost any mana, which makes it a great tool to farm the jungle when low on mana.

What are you supposed to do and what not:

Elise is a jungler and while the idea of jungling is most clear to you readers out there or not, you came here obviously to share insight with me on how the job is done. As for this being said, let's get on the idea behind it.
As a Jungler, contrary to common missconception, you are not there to win losing lanes. A Jungler's priority is to secure global and personal objectives such as Baron, dragon and Turret's. If your top laner decided to trollpick and feed that top Renekton, Shyvana, Ryze or even Trundle or Jax 5-0 in 5 minutes, than there is nothing in lord buddha's name you can do to save that lane anymore. What you can do however is try to focus lanes and objectives which can help the team way more than giving your top laner 1 kill after he scored 5 deaths.
Elise is designed to secure kills. Your Venomous Bite is there for this job after it's cooldown is off. You cast it on a low health enemy who probably got away with Flash and you used Rappel on him. When your laner says he needed that kill tell him he would have not gotten it anyway. Besides there is something Riot invented in such case, and it is called Assist-Gold. That's right, if they landed some sort of basic attack than they will also get gold (duh) ...
Elise is also a snowball type of Jungler. Once you get early 1 or 2 kills than you exponantially become stronger through the mid-game. A successful gank means successful lane pressure.
Although this may be good sometimes, lane pressure is not always a solution. Sometimes freezing a lane will contribute more to a good game; case in point the article below.

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JUNGLE ROUTES AND GANK ROUTES:

A standart start would be BLUE BUFF first, later moving on to the Wolves camp. Afterwards you have 2 options. If you have vision on the Enemy Jungler, than you can go for Wraiths, Double Golems and take RED BUFF afterwards in order to stall it's respawn time so an invade would not be possible in time. If you do not have vision than i would suggest taking RED BUFF immediately after wolves and than take the other camps. Remember to kill the Buff inside the bush so you have vision of the outside area and make sure nobody is coming for you. In such case you can always use your trinklet on the outside bush to see if anybody will be camping. Remember you can always cast Smite before using your Venomous Bite so you can deal more damage.

Farm Route 1:

Farm Route 2:

As a Rule of Thumb, after you clear your second Buff you will hit level 3 (not in all cases, will explain below) and you can look around for ganking opportunities.

Advanced Play:

There will be cases (not in low elo of course) where it will be most advantegeous to make a lane switch happen. In such case, the support and ad-carry move into the counter lane to deal with the enemy top laner and the same with your team's top laner. In such case, a lane freeze is most optimal to deny lane farm to the opposite side. Fast turret push against really skilled teamplay is almost never recommanded as the opponent can easily freeze the lane at the second turret and deny you a lot of farm.
When a lane switch happens, your Top Laner will have to deal with the fact that his attack damage MIGHT be too low to last hit under turret without gettin poked, and he might need to get level 2 before going in the lane, In such case it is advised to let him jungle around with you, and take 1 of the smaller creeps in the camps until he hits level 2. At level 2 he can either go in the respective lane to farm under the turret OR farm your jungle on opposite routes. A third option would be to attempt a 3-man gank in the middle lane and relieve pressure IF your middle lane is getting camped / pushed.


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GANKING:

This is an objective that is mandatory to complete properly in order to get a proper game running. To gank you need to consider at least 2 factors in your logic system before you do hasty moves

1- Map Awerness:
Half of the time your eyes need to be on the map. Why would you watch yourself kill a jungle camp when you know it is going to die? Why not better watch the map and see if an objective siege is going down and see if you can help. This mistake is done by many
For Example, the opponent is 5-man siegeing the middle tower, and you are farming the wraiths at 30 minutes? Why ... Map Awarness is what defines a good player. VISION is also included here. Buy a ward, put it in the right place, it might save your life eventually.

2- Siege and Objective Control
As mentioned above, winning a lane is NOT your job. you need to keep AT LEAST your own buff timers, aside with dragon and baron. Failure to do this might lead to invades if your territory is properly warded. Remember that team gold is a bit more important than feeding your tanky top laner while the rest is starving, and so is general power boosts, therefore dragon and baron are REALLY important siege objectives.

GANK ROUTES :

THIS ROUTE, is also Viable Vice-Versa

The Blue routes are general ganking routes. The Green ones apply for tower dives and multiple-man ganks.

Now generally it becomes REALLY hard to gank a lane if for example your support is something like Nidalee or Soraka or anything that lacks crowd control or utility because the opponent might aswell just freeze lane and you will have a hard time pulling off a good gank. Of course bait + Rappel + Cocoon can help but against a good opponent, utility is mandatory. Champions like Thresh can setup ganks so easily because he can use lantern to drag you into a lane, you can land a Cocoon, he can land a Death Sentence and you will most likely pick up a kill.

Tower dives and Green routes are to be done either when a tower is done, or when you have at least some items to back up the damage. Remember you can land your full combo and than rapell so the turret will not target you.


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Counter-Jungling:

Yes, Elise can do proper counter-jungling and even maybe take some kills. I will keep it short and just say that counter jungling should be done ONLY in presence of VISION, Idea of sel-damage, constant map awareness and sometimes why not help from the teammate closest to you.
Something most do not do is get vision of the enemy jungler early to see where he starts. If you do that, and you know the enemy jungler is slow at clear and has no escape routes ( hence Annie, Fiddlesticks, and many others i have seen lately ) than you can successfully go alone at level 2 and wait for them to start their buff clear, smite it, and than you might even be able to pick up a kill. It takes practice and time to visualise esacpe routes so be very prudent.

THE START:

You do want to start Hunter's Machete and 5x Health Potion as it is by now a standart start, further evolving into other jungle items and possibilities. Health Potion also helps you regenrate health early game fast and survive in-between camps ( you are Elise you can easily do without all 5 but it is ok )
The other start i covered was Vision Ward and 2x Health Potion. Now i personally have tried it only once so cannot give much insight on it as i myself saw it for the first time being played in high elo and liked it as a start. It gives very early vision against junglers such as Evelynn and general map control.
Choose whichever start you think you will benefit most from.


THE MID-GAME:


This Item receives many critics if it is viable or not on Elise. In my opinion, it has a really good active effect and it is a viable mid-game item against the champions who do general AoE damage and need to be engaged upon.

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I consider Giant's Belt to be a REALLY good item on Elise. It gives overall good health stats which make you ready for a tower dive and can be further build into Randuin's Omen Warmog's Armor or Sunfire Aegis

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Sunfire Aegis is an overall nice item on Elise, it works if you need a fast armor+health+dps Item. I consider Randuin's Omen overall better as a pick instead of Sunfire Aegis, but then again it depends on the enemy team aswell

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lyandrie's torment
Gives good AP+Magic penetration combo and also 200 health. The burn ability is also really nice overall and this item works on Elise reall well but i would not suggest making this item and other ap items in a serious game. You need protection and sometimes you have room for only one damamge item. Of course you can go out of the rules and experiment as your decission is yours :)



THE LATE GAME:



I consider this a must have on Elise in transition mid-late game. You are a champion who CAN engage on the enemy team and they will of course try to disengage. In given case, Banshee's Veil helps a lot not only as a skill block tool but also as a protection tool. It gives good overall health and really good Magic resistance.

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Normally i would consider Randuin's Omen more of a mid game item because of it's protection ability and huge health. This item's active effect is really good to land slows' on the enemy and make skillshot hitting way easier. I consider this a must have

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This is one of my favorite items on Elise. It gives good amount of health and it enables you even more crowd control thanks to it's passive slow ability.

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Does not convince me. It gives good AP and it's active is too good. But i believe this item should be made if you are really ahead of the opponent.

Are you going to jungle? Yes? You need Smite. Smite to steal baron, to steal dragon, to steal buffs. Smite is your main tool. It does a lot of damage to help you clear faster and smoother.

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Flash to kill, Flash to escape, Flash is love, Flash is life. It is a good spell, as it will help you escape sticky situations or dive into one. It helps you get closer for a kill or get far away to not be killed.

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Ghost is not a bad option. Not as good as Flash but it will give you extra speed which you might need to catch up or any situation like that. Than again, you can experiment with it and see if you like it more

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I do not consider it viable unless you and your temmates have good synergy and are against a generally bad team. Elise with no escape potential can be outplayed easily

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I do not consider it viable at all. You have no speed, no escape and way to move fast from one side of the map to another as you WANT to be using Smite along with another spell, and i do not see Ignite fitting in here.

As a conclusion i would like to say that i will be updating this guide the more i test further and will add in the near future, if i see it as reasonable or if this guide gets popular, a section about Runes and Masteries and different possibilities.
I would like to thank anybody who has read this guide up to now and have fun in the fields of Justice

~deathcoder