Greetings, I am koyomilikesbloods, and I am making this guide on my first and favorite champion out of all of them. This guide is basically me calling out all of the people who say that Elise is an early/mid-game champion that isn't that relevant in the late game and destroying all of their preconceived notions about Elise. This champion has so much potential--potential that is wasted on her building like a bruiser. Elise is most definitely a Burst Mage-like Fighter-Assassin who does insane amounts of damage at all points of the game. She is much scarier than other Burst Mage-like Assassins because Elise is also a Fighter that will win, and actually thrive, in 1v1 situations. She wins in virtually all aspects of what makes a champion strong since she has burst, CC, % current and missing health sources of damage, and some pretty crazy damage buffs. This build will show you the items, give some insight on strategy and proper dueling match-ups, and push you into the game with an optimistic smile.

Elise is a very difficult woman, and she is very particular in her fancies. I'm going to give you advice, advice coming from one that has known her very well for quite some time, that will help to guide you towards the way that she likes to run things. If you don't do things her way, you will just be wasting time and lots of damage.

---

Runes

The rune page I've built is the most beneficial for Elise since it gives her pretty much everything that she needs contains:

[*] The Marks of AD help Elise with her early jungle clears and fighting during ganks. Her abilities won't do much damage without any items, and early in the game, her abilities won't be doing much damage. It's also technically a more efficient distribution of damage since getting 9 Greater Mark of Ability Power won't provide any really significant and meaningful increase in damage. Marks of AD make clearing camps easier since Skittering Frenzy does more overall damage, and that's really the only spell that she needs at early points in the game. Volatile Spiderling will take a bit of a damage hit, but it's really not that bad since it's making Skittering Frenzy a lot stronger, Neurotoxin/ Venomous Bite scale by 3% per 100 AP, so that won't be effected at all.

[*] Greater Seal of Scaling Armor and Greater Seal of Scaling Magic Resist are very important since it allows Elise to have more runic damage without getting rid of a bunch of resistances. These mixture of seals is basically a way of helping squeeze in the mix of glyphs that sacrifice MR for more AP.

[*] Glyphs are mixed with Greater Glyph of Magic Resist and Greater Glyph of Ability Power because having more damage, especially in the early game, will make all the difference in the world. By the time Elise has Stalker's Blade - Runeglaive, she will have a little over 70 AP, and will be hitting some pretty high damage procs. This early game AP is really strong since killing people becomes a whole lot easier and snowballing off of these kills become cake.

[*] Greater Quintessence of Ability Power is really just the icing on the cake. This sweetens up the whole "Extra AP" ordeal by giving a total of 22 ability power from runes alone.

---

Masteries

These masteries help complete what this build is trying to do by increasing total possible damage.

Elise can use to help her Venomous Bite execution spell do just a bit more damage. This damage becomes quite visible later in the game. This mastery makes Elise less resistant to damage, but it's very worth it since the people that she targets will likely not survive.

[*] Sorcery is better than Fury because CDR is more important that attack speed scaling. Attack speed scaling is great when building Nashor's Tooth on Elise, but other than that, it's really not that noticeable. CDR is much better because she will mostly be using spells to do damage, and having them on as low a cooldown as possible is great. She can switch to Spider Form/ Human Form faster, she can
Venomous Bite/ Neurotoxin more often, and Volatile Spiderling/ Skittering Frenzy will be used more often.

[*] Mental Force , Arcane Mastery, and Archmage help scale Elise's Ability Power stats up as much as possible. With these runes and masteries, Elise, at the very start of the game, will start with about 30 AP. After getting Stalker's Blade - Runeglaive, Elise will have 75-84 AP. Archmage in particular is very potent since scales quite well throughout all points in the game; Rabadon's Deathcap gives Elise a total 40% bonus ability power.

[*] Executioner and Spell Weaving help to execute enemies with a large amount of health. These masteries, when paired with Venomous Bite at max rank, will be able to execute targets that have about 30-40% of their max health left. The extra damage that Executioner gives Elise works quite well with Spell Weaving and Venomous Bite since it increases her damage to a target that is below half health.

Venomous Bite does damage based off of how much health a target is missing, which can get pretty high once a target is missing about 60% of their health. Spell Weaving is very strong at all points in the game but is especially useful in the early and mid game, when Elise can't completely delete people, she will often use Skittering Frenzy in order to get a target low enough to execute--this is where Spell Weaving comes in.

With these two masteries, Elise's Venomous Bite has the potential to do 8% more damage than normal, and can kill people who are at half health once she gets some items.

[*] Arcane Blade , Devastating Strikes , and Havoc are all masteries that, instead of scaling numbers, scale up the damage that Elise does. Without these, how could any assassin one-shot someone? Devastating Strikes is always going to be useful since, at all points of the game, every single champion has base amounts of Armor and Magic Resist. Magic Resistance scales the same way that Ability Power does and, without the help of runes and masteries, won't increase per-level. Attack Damage scales like Armor does in that every champion, except for Thresh, gains Armor every level. Devastating Strikes seeks to shred, however much they possibly can, the Armor and MR of enemies and does extremely well in doing so since there is a noticeable increase of damage dealt to a target because of this mastery.

Arcane Blade seeks to scale Elise's basic attack damage by giving it an on-hit effect, exactly like Nashor's Tooth, that makes her do 5% of her AP as bonus magic damage. This ability does stack with Rappel and Spider Form which makes for a pretty scary amount of possible damage since Rappel, at max rank, increases the damage and healing that Spider Form gives Elise by 100% for 5 seconds. Her basic attacks, especially the ones while in Spider Form, will scale VERY well at all points of the game, and the various sources of Magic Penetration make these effects that much more potent.

Havoc , probably the strongest mastery of them all, increases all damage that Elise does by 3%. This makes her Venomous Bite execute, her Volatile Spiderling nuke, her Spider Form buffs, and her Neurotoxin health nuke 3% more effective. This mastery has a VERY noticeable effect and, when missing, will be just as noticeable. It's not necessary, but it's really just the icing on the cake that makes it so delicious.

In this section, I'm going to talk about what Elise's abilities do, what order to skill them, and why it's the best way:


Elise's passive, Spider Queen, which is the ability that accounts for most of her sustained damage. While in Human Form, Elise's abilities ready a Spiderling that are used while she is in Spider Form. The number of Spiderlings that Elise can stack depends on how many times her ultimate is skilled.

Spiderlings count as pets, like Annie's Tibbers since they get stronger every time Elise's ultimate is skilled. Their basic attacks do 10/15/20/25 (+15% AP) magic damage. The amount of Spiderlings that Elise can control depends on how many times her ultimate is skilled as she can have 2/3/4/5 of them at levels 1/6/11/16 respectively. Spiderlings have 30/50/70/90 Armor, 50/70/90/110 MR, and ignore 25% of AOE damage. They have 355 movement speed, 0.655 base attack speed, and 85-310 HP that depends on what level Elise is. Spiderlings are autonomous minions that will attack nearby enemies; they will prioritize enemies that Elise targets.

and
Elise's Q, Neurotoxin when in Human Form/ Venomous Bite when in Spider Form are spells that do damage based on how much health a target has.

Neurotoxin does 40/75/110/145/180 (+4%(+3% per 100 AP) of target's current health) magic damage. This spell costs 80/85/90/95/100 mana, has a range of 625, and a cooldown of 6 seconds at all ranks. This spell does the most damage when a target's health is at 100% capacity, and will become a very strong nuke once Elise's AP scales. This ability is a single-targeted nuke that fully applies spell effects. The damage this ability does is capped for monsters, but only the % health portion of the damage.

Venomous Bite does 60/100/140/180/220 (+8% (+3% per 100 AP) of target's missing health) magic damage. This abililty is a single targeted dash with a cast range of 475, a cooldown of 6 seconds, and costs no mana. This ability is quite unite since it forces all Spiderlings, including Volatile Spiderling, to leap to the target. Volatile Spiderling will only do this if it is nearby. Venomous Bite can be cast on targets across terrain if they are in range but even though it is a dash ability, Elise cannot dash through terrain with this ability; full damage is still apply and ] Spiderlings will cross terrain in place of Elise and will continue to attack so long as she stays within their leash range. Spell effects apply with this ability as a single targeted spell.

and
Elise's W, Volatile Spiderling while in Human Form/ Skittering Frenzy while in Spider Form, are two spells that do very different things.

Volatile Spiderling is a spider that Elise that acts like a suicide bomber as it chases down enemies and explodes for massive amounts of damage. Volatile Spiderling does 75/125/175/225/275 (+80% AP) magic damage in about a small AOE. This ability costs 60/70/80/90/100 mana, has a 12 second cooldown, and a range of 950 that can increase if it's chasing an enemy. This ability is a skill shot that will explode immediately when coming into contact with enemies. It will target enemy minions but highly prioritizes champions. This Spiderling has a 3 second lifespan, and will explode if it doesn't come into contact with a target before then. Spell vamp has 1/3 effectiveness since it's an AOE ability but will still apply the full 40% slow of Rylai's Crystal Scepter. The Volatile Spiderling will gain movement speed as it closes in on a target and will jump to a target, just like a regular Spiderling, when Elise uses Venomous Bite.

Skittering Frenzy is an ability that passively increases the attack speed of spiderling Spiderlings by 5/10/15/20/25% and actively increases the attack speed of Elise and her spider swarm size 15 Spiderlings by 60/80/100/120/140% for the next 3 seconds. Skittering Frenzy resets Elise attack timer and has no cast time so it won't interrupt any commands. When Elise changes back into her Human Form she immediately looses the Skittering Frenzy buff, but if she is able to change back in under 3 seconds, she will still have the buff.

and
Elise's E, Cocoon when in Human Form/ Rappel when in Spider Form, are both abilities that can be used aggressively or defensively and provide her with some utility.

Cocoon is a collision linear skill shot ability that stuns what it comes into contact with. This ability has a stun duration of 1.6/1.7/1.8/1.9/2 seconds, a range of 1075, a missile speed of 1600/s, and a missile width of 55. It costs 50 mana at all ranks and has a cooldown of 14/13/12/11/10 seconds. Cocoon grants sight Sight of enemies that it hits, allowing Elise to pounce on enemies hit in the Fog of War, or enemies that are in Brushes.

Rappel is a buffing ability that lifts Elise into the air, for up to two seconds, making her untargetable and sight revealing everything within a 750 unit radius. Upon landing, the on-hit bonus damage and healing that Elise gets while in Spider Form increase by 40/50/70/85/100% for the next 5 seconds. Rappel can be cast on any targetable unit such as enemy minions, enemy champions, enemy pets, and even Stealth and Vision wards. This ability is a single targeted blink ability so she won't collide with any terrain or abilities like Veigar's Event Horizon or Anivia's Crystallize. Elise cannot target ally champions, pets, or minions with rappel] but can still target friendly wards. [color=#ff8000][[elise's[/color] Spiderlings, of course, follow her up and wherever she lands, also becoming untargetable, since they can't leave her leash range.

and
Elise's ultimate is a transformation ability that, like Nidalee, she has at level 1. Each form gives Elise a different set of abilities, and changing her basic attacks from ranged in Human Form to melee in Spider Form.

Human Form is Elise's base form where she has a basic attack range of 550 and base movement speed of 330. This ability has a 4 second cooldown at all levels. Human Form has a passive ability that stacks Spiderlings, that can only be used while she is in Spider Form, after she hits an enemy with an ability. She can only stacks Spiderlings while in Human Form and can have 2/3/4/5 of them at levels 1/6/11/16 respectively.

Spider Form is Elise's empowered form where all of her stats, except for defensive ones are buffed as she will now have a base 355 movement speed, melee basic attacks that deal 10/20/30/40 (+30% AP) bonus magic damage on-hit and that also heal her for 4/6/8/10 (+10% AP) at levels 1/6/11/16 respectively. Elise's basic attack range, in this form, becomes 125. Spider Form also has a cooldown of 4 seconds at all levels.

Spider Form and Human Form are toggle shape-shift abilities that each provide Elise with a completely different array of skills and damage damage scaling; Human Form is stronger against targets that have full/high levels of health left, and Spider Form is stronger against targets that are missing quite a bit of their health and are around 50% current health. Spider Form/ Human Form have no cast time and have abilities that don't share cooldowns. This means that she can use Neurotoxin, switch to Spider Form, and then use Venomous Bite before Neurotoxin is off of it's cooldown.

---

Skilling Order

This is the most effective skilling sequence for Elise because it successfully maximizes her DPS. Neurotoxin/ Venomous Bite is the her most powerful spell and, at rank 3, is able to shave off considerable amounts of a target's health. These abilities scale VERY well with items and will do silly amount of damage in the late game. At full build, Elise will be able to delete any champion off of the map in a matter of seconds--even the really tanky ones--because Neurotoxin/ Venomous Bite scale with AP and the amount of health an enemy has. Tanks tend to have over 3,000 HP, so Elise will be able to nuke them just as hard as she would any other target.

Getting Skittering Frenzy at level 1 is the most advantageous thing to do since it greatly speeds up Elise's clearing speeds, especially the first one. She will have a very short leash time, and will be able to get to level faster than any other champion in the game. The attack speed buff she gets from Skittering Frenzy also helps with her sustain in the jungle and will keep her a high levels of health pretty much at all times. She is able to start Krugs as well because of her ability to sustain in the jungle and her lack of reliance on mana to clear camps. Volatile Spiderling/ Skittering Frenzy are the spells that are to be maxed second because it scales extremely well with items and won't do much damage otherwise. By the time Elise has a few points into it, she should have an two or more items built already, and this ability will start doing some damage.

Cocoon/ Rappel are to be grabbed at level 3 since it's what Elise uses to gank lanes. Cocoon is a strong spell since it's stun duration and range is long while the missile is of moderate speed. It is a narrow spell to land and can be quite difficult to hit, but is very strong if landed. Although Rappel is a strong ability, it's not a necessary one since most targets will die without Elise having to use it. The Spider Form buff if gives her is very strong but often takes too long to be effective and is not an ability that is included in her burst combo. This ability is used for chasing, running, avoiding abilities, crossing terrain, or just as a damage boost that will help her win a duel.

In this section I am going to talk about each item in this build, items that work well on Elise, and items that work well tegether when on Elise.
The building order of items is quite important. The only exception is Sorcerer's Shoes, which can be built after Liandry's Torment. Boots are necessary though. Sorcerer's Shoes, depending on how hard Elise is snowballing, can be completed after Liandry's Torment is built.



Stats: +50 AP, 10% CDR, 200 Mana, Chilling smite deals 28-164 True Damage to a target and stealing 20% of their movement speed for 2 seconds (unique passive: after using an ability next basic attack deals 100% of base AD (+30% of AP) as bonus on-hit magic damage and restored 8% of missing mana)

Stalker's Blade is the best too for Elise to use because of it's passive, Chilling Smite, that deals a small amount of true damage and slowing the champion that it was used on. Stalker's Blade is definitely more useful than Ranger's Trailblazer since it allows Elise to do more. Her jungle clears are amazing, so getting Ranger's Trailblazer won't really do much for her since all it does is help with jungle clears. Stalker's Blade. The runeglaive enchantment is really the only one that Elise benefits from and it very convincingly replaces Lich Bane, which was the item that she would get before runeglaive existed. It certainly doesn't scale as well as a Lich Bane does, but it serves pretty much the same purpose, allowing Elise to get more Mage AP items.


Stats: +80 AP, +300 HP, +15 Magic Pen. (unique passive: deals 6% of target's health as magic damage over 3 seconds--double that to CC'd enemies)

Liandry's Torment is a very essential item on Elise since it gives her 80 AP, 300 HP, and 15 Magic Penetration. These are all very solid stats, but the reason for getting this item is to scale Elise's sources of $ health damage. Liandry's Torment's passive makes any spell that Elise casts on a target deal 6% of their current health as bonus magic damage over a 3 second period. This effect is doubled to targets whose movement is impaired; if Elise stuns an enemy with Cocoon, abilities during this time will do 12% of a target's current health over 3 seconds. Liandry's Torment's burning passive doesn't stack, but it does re-apply as long as a target is being hit with spells.


Stats: +80 AP (unique passive: ignores 35% of an enemy's MR)

Void Staff is really strong--Magic Penetration is very strong. Some amount of Magic Pen. is necessary on AP champions just like some amount of Armor Pen. is on AD champs, except AP champions tend to do more damage at one time. Magic Pen. gives AP champs more value for their abilities since, due to the way that MR scales (less of it is more effective), Magic Pen. is very potent. [[void staff], in particular, is very strong since it ignores 35% of a target's MR, gives 80 AP, while also being quite an affordable item selling at 2,500 gold.

Elise benefits greatly from this item since, instead of getting the most amount of AP possible, attempting to skip ability scaling and going straight for an enemy's vitality proves to be very effective. Elise's abilities do 35% more damage with this very affordable item.


Stats: +100 AP, 10% Movement Speed (unique passive: gains charges by moving or casting spells; at 100 charges next spell deals 100 (+10% AP) as bonus magic damage up to 4 targets)

Elise relies on burst damage to defeat her targets quickly, and Luden's Tempest being the item with a unique passive, much like Statikk Shiv's, that expends a huge amount of burst after the usage of a damage ability, makes for one scary spider. Luden's Tempest doesn't make Neurotoxin/ Venomous Bite much stronger, apart from it's AP scaling ratio, but it will make Volatile Spiderling chunk off large portions of health off of an enemy. This high amount of damage applies to all enemies, even tanks, but is especially strong against squishy champions as just Volatile Spiderling will take at least half of their health instantly.

This is the point when Elise will truly begin to on-shot enemies. If they get hit with a nicely placed Cocoon, they will most likely die right after that. The goal of this combo is to try and get Volatile Spiderling to hit first, and it must be done very quickly. The combo is Cocoon ==> Volatile Spiderling ==> Neurotoxin ==> Venomous Bite; Neurotoxin is supposed to hit at about the same time that Volatile Spiderling does, and Venomous Bite is the gap closer/fast execute that will kill the enemy instantly (this applies to bruiser champions as well). If the target is a full on tank with like 4-5k health and at least 200 Armor and MR, then save Venomous Bite for until they get to about 35% health as they will die from there.


Stats: +120 AP (unique passive: grants 35% more AP)

This item is really just the icing on the cake. At this point, there shouldn't be anyone that Elise can't delete. Rabadon's Deathcap is just a scaling tool--and a tool that does it's job flawlessly and giving her that last little push that she needs to completely destroy everyone. Nobody will be too tank for her to kill. She will not be out-damage'd by anyone in the game since they won't have numbers high enough to burst her down completely in one shot. She cannot be out-dueled either since her passive bonus on-hit magic damage and heal will be very high, and her Rappel buff will scale to an insane extent, she just can't be beaten in a 1v1 at all.

To put things into perspective, I'm going to give some of the numbers of her scaling just to show how ridiculous this might get:

Elise's AP: 660-700+
Neurotoxin: 180 (+4% (+20%) of target's current health as bonus magic damage) at least
Venomous Bite: 220 (+8% (+20%) of target's missing health as bonus magic damage) at least
Volatile Spiderling: 275 (+ 531) at least
Spider Form buffs: 40 (+ 133) on-hit magic damage / 16 (+ 66) on-hit heal
Spiderling on-hit scaling: 25 (+ 100) per unit bonus on-hit magic damage

There's not much else to say about Rabadon's Deathcap other than make sure that it's the last thing that Elise gets since that's the only time when it's truly effective. The other items take precedence over this one because of the very strong passives that they have that give Elise's spells a more potent punch. Scaling numbers is great, but they get negated heavily by damage resistances and health then those items will have been a waste.

Sure, and early Rabadon's Deathcap might make her do more damage to squishy targets, but the tanky and bruiser ones will walk all over Elise. This early Magic Pen. and sustained damage into high burst makes for a universally strong build. She won't be able to one-shot squishies with just a Liandry's Torment and a Void Staff, but she will be able to do an equal, and very large, amount of damage to all targets. Things get pointless when she reaches full build since everything just dies so fast.