Welcome to my first guide her on Mobafire. It's still a work in progress so please bear with me as I fix any errors that may still be left.

Unlike many other guides this one isn't meant to give you a build that you hold on for dear life. Instead my main goal is to give you a good understanding of how Elise works so that you can come up with good builds yourself and adapt to the situation at hand.

That said, for those of you who are in a hurry I've included a tl;dr section at the end.

I also don't get to play Elise nearly as much as I'd like to, because more often than not I'm forced to play support (if there is one thing the LoL community needs it's more half-decent support players). So if you think I'm wrong about something or have some other feedback feel free to leave a comment. I'm always looking for constructive critcism so I can improve the guide. And if you pulled of some crazy awesome stunts with her and have it on video, give me the link and I might include it as well.

The builds are created for Summoner's Rift, but the general principles should apply on all maps.

In the guide I use many common abreviations. If you are a new player unfamiliar with LoL terminology, you can chek out Janitsu's LoL Terminology guide.

Finally, if you found the guide to be helpful I would appreciate it if you upvote it. ;)

Dates are in day/month/year format.

Patch 3.01 - S3 (1/2/2013):
Neurotoxin - Mana cost increased to 80/85/90/95/100 from 60
Cocoon - Mana cost reduced to 50 from 65

Patch 1.0.0.153 - Preseason Balance Update (14/12/2012):
Volatile Spiderling - Fixed a bug where Volatile Spiderlings were only lasting for 2.5 seconds, rather than the intended 3 seconds
Skittering Frenzy -Now immediately starts Elise attacking at her faster attack speed, rather than waiting until her next attack starts

Patch 1.0.0.152 - S3/Nami patch (5/12/2012):
No direct buffs, but Elise benfited from changes to magic penetration calculation and from several new items ( Liandry's Torment, Banner of Command. Iceborn Gauntlet).

Patch 1.0.0.151 - Zed patch (12/11/2012):
Neurotoxin - Ability Power ratio increased to 3% per 100 Ability Power from 2%
Venomous Bite - Ability Power ratio increased to 3% per 100 Ability Power from 2%
Cocoon
- Missile speed increased to 1450 from 1300
- Now reveals the target if it hits
Spider Form - bonus magic damage per attack Ability Power ratio increased to 0.3 from 0.2


Patch 1.0.0.150 - Shadow Isles patch (26/10/2012): Elise is first released

Pros:
+ good poke
+ good bursty dps
+ probably best non-ultimate gap closer in the game
+ built-in active from Zhonya's Hourglass

Cons:
- hard to master
- weak early AP scaling
- limited CC
- weak against poke

Before we disscuss runes, masteries and items we need to first understand her skillset. By anlyzing that we'll be able to determine which stats benefit her most and build accordingly. Note that the skills of both forms have independant cooldowns. So for example you can use Venomous Bite even if Neurotoxin is on cooldown.

SPIDER SWARM & SPIDER FORM/HUMAN FORM


We'll discuss her innate ability and her ultimate together since for all practical purposes they function like a single skill.

The most obvious use of spider form is the improved damage output in melee. This will scale with your AP, but note that the scaling itself will scale with the rank of the ultimate. Each spiderling scales at 0.1 AP, so the damage from two spiderlings will scale at 0.2 AP and the damage from 5 spiderlings will scale at 0.5 AP. This indicates that getting AP in the late game is going to be more cost-effective than getting the same amount of AP in the early game.

Apart from improving your damage in melee the spiderlings have other uses as well. They can tank tower shots for you, which makes them very valuable for split pushing. And when you're in the open (not in brush) and aren't attacking anything, they'll try to position themselves behind you. This can be used to block enemy skillshots such as Morgana's Dark Binding, Ezreal's Mystic Shot or Nidalee's Javelin Toss / Takedown by simply turning around (and of course switching to spider form if necessary).

In spider form Elise gains bonus armor and magic resist, but her base resistances are those of a squishy mage. So the bonus she gets in spider form only brings her up to an equal level with other bruisers and is nothing to get excited about.

NEUROTOXIN/VENOMOUS BITE


Both skills have the same damage, the one difference is that Neurotoxin scales with the enemy's current health (most effective on a full health target) and Venomous bite scales with the enemy's missing health (most effective on a badly damaged target).

Neurotoxin has 650 range, which is about normal for a single target spell. If you try to use it on a mage, you'll probably be within range of their abilities. However, it does outrange the auto-attacks of everybody except Caitlyn and lategame Tristana. It's an excellent tool for harrasing beefy melee bruisers.

Venomous Bite works as a lunge. That makes it a bit of a gap closer, but the range isn't very impressive.

Like with the ultimate the AP scaling on this ability again scales itself. However, this time it scales with enemy health. You can think of it as 0.3 AP scaling for every 1000 current/missing health of the target. This makes it range from bad in the early game to average in the late game. In order for the scaling to be a reasonable 0.6 the target would have to have 2000 current/missing health. This again suggests that getting AP in the late game will be more cost-effective than getting the same amount of AP in the early game.

Now don't think that the skill itself is bad. Far from it! It's only the AP scaling that is unimpressive. Both the base damage and the base percentage damage are actually pretty darn good. And the mana cost is also very reasonable and doesn't even go up with level.

VOLATILE SPIDERLING/SKITTERING FRENZY


Volatile Spiderling is Elise's only skill that has good AP scaling throughout the entire game. It's a fun little skillshot with potentially the longest range of any non-ultimate ability as it can chase an enemy for 3 seconds.

I've seen people complain a lot how it can be blocked by minions, which is strange to me because I see no such complaints about Mystic Shot or Infected Bonesaw. Once you start thinking of it as skillshot it actually becomes a really good skill. If the enemy just manages to dodge the initial skillshot it will follow them and often still deliver the damage. It's also grants vision which makes it excellent for checking bushes.

Skittering Frenzy on the other hand is a powerful steroid and a major source of burst damage for your spider form. Just make sure you don't activate it too soon. It only gives attack speed, not movement speed, and it's best to wait for all spiderlings to be in position before you activate it.

Note also that Skittering Frenzy only heals you when you activate it and not all the time.

COCOON/RAPPEL


Cocoon is a skillshot stun whose main purpose is to make them stand still while you unload your combo. Yes, it doesn't do any damage. That would be nice, but isn't really necessary since you have plenty of damage already. You might not be able to burst people down from full health, but that's not how Elise rolls anyway.

As for Rappel, it's the longest range non-ultimate gap closer in the game and doubles as a rough equivalent to the active from Zhonya's Hourglass. Yes, it doesn't do damage either and if you're complaining about that you're just being greedy because this skill is awesome as is. I say it's a rough equivalent to Zhonya's active because it does have a brief cast time during which it can be interupted if you get crowd controled. Note also that when used, you will get vision on everything within it's range. You won't be able to see through stealth, but you will be able to see over terrain and in brush. Finally note that while it makes you untargetable, it doesn't make you invulnerable. if you get hit by Ignite or other damage over time effect, you will keep taking that damage even while in the air.

I believe that skilled use of Rapple is what is going to separate the best Elise players from the good ones. The combination of a powerfull gap closer, being untargetable, and full vision offers a lot of potential for amazing plays by pro players and I can't wait to see them.

The only problem with these skills is that leveling them up doesn't have that much effect so after you've maxed your Q and W you start to fall off somewhat.

Q: What kind of damage to the spiderlings do?
A: The spiderlings do physical damage.

Q: Do they apply on-hit effects?
A: Hell no! That would be crazy overpowered.

Q: Do they profit from attack speed or armor penetration items?
A: No, they don't.

Q: Do they benefit from aura items like Aegis of the Legion and Zeke's Herald?
A: They do not benefit from most auras. But they do benefit from the +15% minion damage from Banner of Command.

Q: So what do they scale with?
A: Their damage scales with only three things that items can provide you: ability power, armor reduction, and the aura from the Banner of Command. Right now the only item that provides armor reduction is Black Cleaver, but there's plenty of items that grant AP. Additionally their movement speed scales with Elise's movement speed. They always have 50 more than her.

Q: What are their stats?
A: They have 10 damage and gain another 10 damage with each rank of your ultimate, up to 40 at maximum rank. They also gain bonus damage equal to 10% of your AP. Their base attack speed is 0.665 attacks per second. With 5 ranks of Skittering Frenzy their atatck speed is 0.831 attacks per second and when the ability is activated they'll have 1.762 attacks per second. They have 125 healt at level 1 and gain 25 additional health with each level. At level 18 they will have 550 health. They have 30 armor 50 magic resist. Their movement speed is always 50 points higher than your own and they ignore unit colision.

Q: Anything else I should know?
A: Tower shots will instantly kill them, regardless of hom much damage the tower would normally do and how much health the spiderling has.

Let's make an overview of Elise's skillset:
- strong poke in human form
- excellent gap closer
- strong dps in spiderform

Her spider form can do a lot of damage for those 3 seconds while Skittering Frenzy is active, but she can't always burts down people from full health. We could classify it as bursty dps. It's neither real burst (it takes a few seconds to do the damage), neiher true dps (she can only keep it up for a few seconds). This means she has to weaken her target first and shouldn't just jump into the fray like Jax or Xin Zhao.

To sum it up, her general gameplay is to poke with Q and W in human form until a target gets low enough to be killed by her combo.

Like I said in the introduction my goal with his guide is not to give you a good build that you then use all the time, but rather the knowledge needed to come up with your own good builds that will fit your personal playstyle. And for that it's important to analyze how useful specific stats are to her.


Ability Power

Like it was noted in the Skills section of this guide, Elise's AP scaling itself scales through the game. It scales with the health of her enemies (her Q ) and with the rank of her ultimate (spiderlings ).

In the early game Elise's AP scaling is poor, but in the late game it becomes good. As a rule of a thumb AP becomes worth buying at level 11 or higher.


Attack Damage

Everybody scales with AD to some extent so it's no surprise that Elise does as well. AD has some synergy with her spiderform W Volatile Spiderling / Skittering Frenzy and you need to get your damage out put from somewhere. However, AD is most effective when combined with Critical Chance, Armor Penetration, and Life Steal and these have poor synergy with her skillset. Additionally you spend most of the game without the high attack speed provided by your W.

Elise's AD scaling is below average.


Attack Speed

Elise scales somewhat with AS, but not too much. The main reason is that when played properly you spend very little time directly engaged with an enemy. You are either using your skills to poke them or you are jumping on them and activating Skittering Frenzy which already gives you +140% Attack Speed so whatever you get from items won't add that much dps. Nevertheless, it still helps you finish off people faster.

Elise's scaling with AS is poor.


On-hit effects (damage & debuff)

This is a very diverse category since it technically contains items that do very different things. For that reason I personally divide them into damage-on-hit ( Wit's End, Malady), spell triggered ( Trinity Force, Lich Bane), and debuff-on-hit ( Black Cleaver, Malady).

Damage-on-hit tiems synergize very well with her spidefrom W Volatile Spiderling / Skittering Frenzy and you get more damage per gold than you would if you bought AD. However, they tend to come bundled with attack speed which you don't need and that reduces the cost efficiency of such items.

Spell triggered items work best on champions with low cooldowns and Elise qualifies, especially if you have decent CDR.

Debuff-on-hit effects once again work well in combination with her spideform W Volatile Spiderling / Skittering Frenzy. However, activating the W is her major source of bursty damage and you generally want the debuff to be fully applied before activating it. For that reason debuff-on-hit effect tend to work best when you have your team nearby to take advantage of them.

Elise's scaling with on-hit effects is above average.


Crowd Control

Crowd control items such as Iceborn Gauntlet, Rylai's Crystal Scepter and Randuin's Omen work well on Elise because her own CC is limited to one stun on a fairly long cooldown and she requires CC in order to maximize her damage. This is largely because her spiderlings deal inconsistent damage to running enemies. So a good slow is just what the doctor ordered. It's especially beneficial that most CC items also provide other useful stats.

Elise's Scaling with crowd control is good.


Cooldown Reduction

Consider that Elise's skills have bad AP scaling, good base damage, and cooldowns which are just a little too long for fluid stance-dancing and it quickly becomes obvious just how powerful CDR is on her.

Elise's Scaling with CDR is good.


Defense

Any champion that gets close and personal with enemies will benefit from defense. You don't need it as much in the laning phase because you'll be poking or murdering a single opponent, but once teamfights start it's essential to have survivability.

Elise's scaling with defense is good.


Lifesteal and Spellvamp

While sustain is always welcome, Elise doesn't profit from it quite as uch as many other champions. This is largely caused by the fact that much of her damage comes from her spiderlings or on-hit item effects so it uses neither Lifesteal nor Spellvamp. Stiill, her spells do nice damage so Spellvamp is reasonably good.

Elise's scaling with Lifesteal is poor and her scaling with Spellvamp is moderate.


Penetration

Neurotoxin / Venomous Bite has good base damage so reducing enemy Magic Resist is very effective. Armor penetration is less effective without a lot of AD and we've already mentioned that AD scaling is only moderate.

Elise scaling with Magic Penetration is good. Her scaling with Armor Penetration is poor.


Summary

Elise scales best with CDR, on-hit, Magic Penetration, and defense so the best builds will focus on these stats. Her AP scaling starts out poor, but becomes decent by lategame so it will be a secondary priority when chosing her items. She also has moderate scaling with AD and Spellvamp, but not enough to buy items just to get them. Other stats are less useful and will largely be ignored.

Top lane is where Elise truly belongs at this moment. While she can also be played in mid or jungle and I've even heard of support Elise, other champions will outperform her in those roles. But in top lane she serves a specific role as a lane counter to many bruisers, especially ones without any ranged skills or jumps (like Garen and Udyr). Top lane also gives her the best opportunity to take advantage of her split-pushing capabilities.

Abilities

Prioritize Neurotoxin / Venomous Bite at early levels. Leveling it up doesn't increase mana cost, so with a bit of mana regeneration you generally shouldn't have mana problems. However, you don't want to neglect Volatile Spiderling / Skittering Frenzy entirely, because you do need it in order to burst down your victims.

For that reason I like to get 3 ranks of Neurotoxin / Venomous Bite quickly. That gives decent poke, so I can start upgraing Volatile Spiderling / Skittering Frenzy and get 3 ranks of that. After that I finish maxing Neurotoxin / Venomous Bite.


Summoner spells

Flash is mandatory. Period. You should always take it on all champions, end of discussion. The only exception is when you have a very specific startegy that somehow requires you to take two specific summoner spells. But I can't think of any right now, so just take Flash. This spell is extremely versatile and can be used as an escape tool, to dodge CC, or even aggresively to get in range of using an ability that secures the kill.

For your second summoner spell you have some more choice though. Teleport is generally useful for solo top because it allows you to quickly get from your lane to wherever the teamfight is going on. Usually it's going on near the Dragon . It's also very useful if you want to split-push.

Ignite and Exhaust are both good as well. Ignite is for securing kills. If the enemy just survived your combo and is running away with a sliver of health, just use it and watch them die. Exhaust on the other hand can be used both offensively and defensively. The slow makes your jungler's ganks that much deadlier and it also allows your spiderlings to do their damage more reliably. And the reduced damage can help you get the upper hand in an fight to the death or simply save you from a gank.

I wouldn't use any of the other summoner spells.

Masteries

I use 11/12/7. In Offense I want CDR, Magic Penetration and extra damage to minions for easier farming. In Utility I want Mana Regeneration and reduced summoner spell cooldowns. The rest I put in defense.

Runes



We've covered that the most useful stats for Elise that runes can provide are Magic Penetration, defense, and CDR so that's what we get from runes.

Itemization



The solo top build has been copied from Xspecial's video, with a few tweaks to better suit my playstyle and updated to include the new items.

Start with Boots + 3x Health Potion for mobility and sustain. Then you need some sustain along with some AD for last hitting and health so you can better survive ganks. That's why I get Doran's Blade and Philosopher's Stone. You could also go for double Doran's and leave out the Philosopher's Stone. Or you could leave out the Doran's Blade and just get the Philosopher's Stone. Finally we have the new Crystalline Flask which is a superior sustain item. Compared to potions, you get your money's worth roughly after 7 charges used.

Afterwards the main focus becomes magic penetration. Get Sorcerer's Shoes and Haunted Guise. They will provide you with 30 magic penetration which together with MPen runes yields 44 magic penetration. This will essentially let you do true damage to the enemy, until they buy additional magic resist.

After you have your core, you will need to use your own judgement to determine the ideal order in which to buy the remaining items.

Liandry's Torment is the upgrade of Haunted Guise and it significantly improves your poke. With it Q will scale at 13% of enemy health. Useful to build early in games with a long laning phase.

Thanks to it's slow Rylai's Crystal Scepter has very strong synergy with Liandry's Torment. The way the double burn damage works is that the burn from Liandry's Torment ticks 3 times and every time it checks whether the target has impaired movement and if it does, the damage is doubled. This means that any spell that slows will automatically casue double burn damage.

Iceborn Gauntlet is an all-in-one wonder for Elise. Every single stat this item provides is very useful to her.

Randuin's Omen, Sunfire Aegis, and Warmog's Armor are your best tank items. Get one of them early if you are getting focused a lot and/or if during teamfigths you are often surrounded by multiple enemies. I suggest Warmog's Armor as default because if the enemy has the new Black Cleaver combined with a Last Whisper you won't have much armor left anyway so might as well go for maximum health.

Abyssal Mask or Void Staff is what you get if the enemy starts building magic resist. Abysall Scepter provides less penetration, but it helps the entire team and provides protection against enemy magic damage.

Elise does not really belong in midlane, but if you insist on playing her there or if for some reason you are forced to do it, then this is how it's done. The main difference between this build and the first one is that this one is less tanky, but has superior spiderling damage.

Abilities

The one skill that actually scales well with AP is the human form of your W Volatile Spiderling / Skittering Frenzy. This is also your longest range skill and the only one that can be used to poke ranged enemy champions. However, it costs a lot of mana so we don't max it right away. Instead I generally prefer to get 3 ranks in Q Neurotoxin / Venomous Bite and only then start maxing the W.

Which is better also depends on the enemy champion. Basically you need to figure out at what range the enemy is stronger than you and then fight at a different range. For example there is no way you can outpoke Karthus' Lay Waste with your W, so you need to get to a shorter range and poke him with Q. On the other hand, if you try to use your Q to poke LeBlanc, you'll just get bursted down. So instead you need to go for more long range poke with W.


Summoner spells

Mostly the same as the solo top hybrid build, except this time you don't need Teleport. My personal choice would be Flash and Ignite.

Masteries

You'll want to go 21 in Offense because that's where all the juicy magic damage is. Note though that you don't benefit much from AP in the early game so instead of flat AP you'll want to take Butcher for easier farming. You'll need mana regeneration from utility and reduced summoner spell cooldowns are incredibly powerful. Finally you'll want increased buff duration to get more out of any blue buffs you pick up. Those Volatile Spiderling are mana hungry.

Runes

or

The Magic Penetration should be obvious. Our lane opponent is going to be doing magic damage so we want flat MR to give us an edge in exchanges. Whoever forces the opponent to retreat to base first, gets the opportunity to help the jungler gank a sidelane. However, we will need mana regeneration as well so that's a viable alternative to flat MR for our seals.

For the quintessences gp10 is actually the most beneficial in the long term. In 17 minutes you'll get enough extra gold to buy the AP you'd get from flat AP quintessences. And it takes about 25 minutes to earn enough gold to buy the AP you'd get from AP per level quints at level 18 (and you won't be level 18 by 25 minutes either). Afterwards it's just more and more.

Yes, they become useless when you reach your full build. But how often do you reach your full build?

Itemization



Start with Boots + 3x Health Potion for mobility and sustain. Next you have a few options. You can get a Doran's Ring or two for general usability. A Kage's Lucky Pick will improve your cash flow. And finally, if you'll be maxing W first you'll need plenty of mana so a Chalice of Harmony will be a big help.

The obvious choice for boots are Sorcerer's Shoes. Aftert that it's time to get Liandry's Torment and Rylai's Crystal Scepter.

By the time you have all these items, the game will already be in the teamfight phase so a bit of defense might be in order. Banner of Command will provide you with a bit of armor and AP and it's aura does affect your spiderlings. At that point you'll probably already have maximum spiderlings and thus decent AP scaling so you can grab a Rabadon's Deathcap next to maximize damage.

For the final item you have several choices. I picked Athene's Unholy Grail as the default because it provides you with CDR and builds out of a Chalice of Harmony. However, Iceborn Gauntlet would also work for CDR if you need survivability more than damage. If you need MR you can get Abyssal Mask, which will also improve your damage by further reducing enemy MR. And if you have several enemies with high MR you can get a Void Staff. Note however, that half your damage comes from spiderlings and they do physical damage. Finally, if the enemy has a number of healers you'll probably want to go for a Morellonomicon.

Jungle Elise is very different from lane Elise, because you have to switch from a carrying role to a supporting role. That's right, supporting. The jungler isn't there to get fed on kills. His job is to help his lane carries (AD, AP and solo top) to get fed on kills. For that reason you should build more for utility and tanking than for straight up damage.

I won't get into details of how to jungle in the first place. Xenasis has made an excellent guide on the basics of jungling, which you can read by clicking this link.

Abilities

As a jungler you don't get to poke your enemy as much as you would in lane so we should focus on whatever helps us most in the jungle and that happens to be Volatile Spiderling / Skittering Frenzy. However, don't neglect Neurotoxin / Venomous Bite entirely.

Summoner spells

Flash and Smite. You're jungling, you have no other choice.

Masteries

I jungle Elise with 0/21/9 masteries. I want the standard extended buff duration and improved Mana Regeneration from Utility so there go 9 points. I then favor Defense over Offense, because I don't want to get kills myself, I want my carry to pick them up instead. I'll also have less gold than a lane carry so that gives me less gold to buy tank items.

Runes



Attack Speed is valuable to junglers in general and to Elise in particular. It works well with the bonus damage from spider form. For Seals we want Armor because we'll get hit by monsters a lot and for Glyphs we want some long term MR. Finally movement is valuable for ganks before you manage to get your CC items.

Itemization



Depending on whether you'll go for an early gank or farm the jungle until level 4 you could start with either Boots and 3x Health Potion or with Hunter's Machete and 5x Health Potion. If you are going to for the level 2 gank, you shold get the boots and ask for help with the red. Early gank often works best if you're playing as purple team, start at red, and gank top lane.

Either way, the core items are Spirit Stone, Sightstone, and Mobility Boots.

The Boots of Mobility are so you can move around the jungle faster and quickly get to wherever you are needed. Spirit Stone is for sustain and easier jungling. Sightstone allows you to ward the **** out of the map and provide vision for your team.

The next item I recommend is Iceborn Gauntlet. It provides you with a crucial slow as well as some added burst damage, CDR, and armor. All in all it's a superb item for Elise that provides a number of highly useful stats.

After that you'll want to improve your survivability by upgrading to Ruby Sightstone and Spirit of the Ancient Golem. With the Ruby Sigtstone you can put down more wards and you can take a bit more punishment as well. The Spirit of the Ancient Golem provides you with some needed aditional tankyness. I used to recommend Spirit of the Spectral Wraith, but truth be told Elise doesn't scale well enough with spellvamp to make it worth it. That's more of an item for Fiddlesticks.

For the fianl touch get Warmog's Armor and Abyssal Mask. With all the armor shreddign available these days Warmog's Armor makes for a great tank item. And Abyssal Scepter provides you with MR and reduces enemy MR, helping your entire team.

If the enemy doesn't have too much dmage, but is instead rather tanky you could repalce the Warmog's Armor with a Liandry's Torment. The burn combines nicely with the % damage from your Q.

Finallly, here is a link to a full game of jungle Elise done mostly right. He makes several mistakes (underestimating her ultimate, build could be better, some wrong moves), but it demonstartes the general idea of what you should be trying to do as a jungler (giving kills to carries, warding) as well as a beautiful example of predicting enemy movement.

I believe Elise would fit best in two kinds of team compositions. The first of these is a poke composition. This is especially true for AP Elise who can poke herself with Volatile Spiderling. But more generally Elise excels at executing low health enemies and the whole point of a poke composition is to wear the enemy down before you engage them in a teamfight. Her stun will also be beneficial against teams who try to engage your team before you manage to poke them down properly.

The other is a split-pushing composition. While Elise isn't nearly as mobile as Nidalee, her spiderlings are very effective in taking down turrets and they can tank tower shots.

Skills

In early game AP scaling on Q is bad, but base damage is good. Max first when top.

W is only skill with good AP scaling whole game so max it when playing AP.

In midlane fight at long range with W if enemy has short range burst and fight at short range with Q if enemy has long range poke.

E has very good utility, but doesn't improve much when you level it up. Always max last.

AP scaling on your ultimate scales with the number of spiderlings. In early game it's bad. In late game it's good, but only if you can make sure the spiderling will do their damage (CC is essential).

Spiderlings only scale with AP and Banner of Command (only the +15% minion damage, they don't get health regen). Other aura items don't do anything.

Playstyle

Poke them until they are low, then transform into spider and kill. In top lane you poke with Q, in midlane you poke with Q or W. If jungling you focus on supporting your teammates and warding the map.

Most Useful Stats

Elise scales best with CDR, crow control effects, Magic Penetration, and defense so the best builds will focus on these stats. Her AP scaling starts out poor, but becomes decent by lategame so it will be a secondary priority when chosing her items. She also has moderate scaling with AD and Spellvamp, but not enough to buy items just to get them. Other stats are less useful and shold largely be ignored.

Builds

Solo top:


Midlane:


Jungle:

Elise is fun champion to play with a lot of potential, but it's very easy to fail with her if you don't udnerstand what you're doing. Hopefully my guide has helped you in that regard.

The builds provided are far from being the only viable ones. Instead they are meant more as examples of how to transfer the thoughts from the first half of the guide into something specific.

The guide itself isn't finished yet. There are probably still plenty of typos to fix and I could implement more editing. I also hope to include more images and videos.

I would also welcome any constructive criticism you have to offer.

Dates are in day/month/year format.

11/01/2013 - Revised stat analysis and split on-hit effects into damage & debuff and crowd control. Removed Wit's End from recommended items and replaced it with Warmog's Armor.
14/12/2012 - Added Randuin's Omen to brusier build.
11/12/2012 - Revised jungle build. Minor revisions of solotop and mid builds.
10/12/2012 - Minor build revisions, added images.
7/12/2012 - Added Iceborn Gauntlet to solo top build. Improved editing.
6/12/2012 - Updated item builds. Screenshots should be coming soon.
7/11/2012 - Added chapters "Patch Notes", "Team Composition", and "Changelog". Added a link to LoL terminology to the Introduction.
6/11/2012 - Added chapter "Too Long: Didn't Read". Fixed some typos and other errors.
5/11/2012 - First published.