Elise Build Guide : The In Depth Elise: The Laning Bruiser [Season 3]

Introduction

Welcome to my guide on , The Spider Queen!

is a powerfull ranged/melee AP Bruiser/Assassin who focuses on her melee basic attack, using her ranged side to weaken her prey before going in for the kill. She has an astounding ability to take on all enemy champions regardless of their health. In Human form, she is a normal Bi-Pedal female, casting her spells like most normal ranged mages. That is until the time is right for her to pounce upon her weakened victim! For this, she transforms into her fearsome biting, blood-sucking, web-spinning spider form!

No, she is NOT a ranged AP champion. She is a mixed AP/AD melee champion with a built in ranged support. She is *kind of* like in that she has a decent poke, but has to get in close for the kill.

promises to be both the creepiest champion you will ever play as well as the most entertaining! Between the "tank nuking," biting, hunting, chasing, kill-stealing, and dancing, you will NEVER get bored of !

ATTENTION:

While I've done a lot to simplify and compress the information in this build, it is quite long. I've put most of the walls of text inside of spoiler boxes to keep the guide looking neat and clean! If you have questions or critiques, be sure to say something in the Comments!

Also, this guide is for building a bruiser . If you don't think she should be a bruiser, look elsewhere. This is not a "glass cannon" guide for an AP Carry .

Pro's and Con's

Pro's

+Amazing harass, chase and finisher abilities
+Is both a support and bruiser all in one!
+Crazy kill steal potential!
+Spider form uses ZERO mana
+Amazing 2 seconds of untargetablility

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Con's

-Complicated to learn
-Is countered by ranged harass
+/- Relies on Spiderlings for half her damage
-Everyone can see your Rappel ()
-Freaks out Arachnophobic allies ;)

How to Play Elise

requires a split personality to play. Seriously! You have two forms that behave RADICALLY different, and yet they are used together in a deadly synergy!

Human form has all of your ranged abilities. From this form you will poke with . From this form you will harrass and scout with .

But don't get too settled with your Human form. For it is but your appearance to your opponents, telling them that you are not yet ready to take their lives. Your Human form is your calm form from which you farm and poke.

But when you spot a target that is weak, low on health, and ripe for death, you turn into death itself. From your spider form, you will leap across the battlefield, onto their backs, bleed them with a thousand cuts, then triumphantly bite off their heads.

And if you are in trouble, and is casting at your face, has on you, and the turret is about to take your last 50 HP: FEAR NOT! For you are the spinner of webs! If you cannot entangle your attacker directly with your web, you will retreat up, up into the sky, untargetable by all below, cancelling all non-DOTs traveling towards you!

Your primary targets in a team fight are the carries. While you can go up against many of the heavy bruisers and tanks, you excel at finishing off squishies. Your Rappel enables you to leap over any obstacles. Make sure to take durability items so as to say alive during team fights! While is great at dealing damage, she needs to be able to take damage too.

I will explain everything in detail below, but I hope this gives you a general feel for how can be played!

Farming

A word about farming:

It's FINE to skip getting a few last hits to avoid damage! No, really! It's fine! You are earning 13 gp10, and while 15 minions might be as much gold as a kill, it's tolerable as long as you make up the creep score later when you have the space. As long as you are averaging 4 creeps each wave, you are doing just fine!

Note that the melee minions are worth 50% more gold and experience than the mage minions. The small siege minion is worth 50% more again than that. Take note of this when choosing which minions to last hit. But always last hit any that you can.

Human Form: Auto-attack minions when their health gets low. Use your Q poke to zone out the other champion. Once W is lvl 5 and you have 100+ AP, you can start nuking minion waves.

Spider Form: Get into the middle of the wave, and spam your W. Use Q to take down minions that are low. Remember, buffs ALL of your stats and gives extra damage to your basic attack. This is particularly useful to ignore harassment while farming and to take the minions down faster.

Spell Combo

Q

W

Q

W

Q

R

......Regardless of what form you are in. Usually start by spamming in Human form. Once target is at half health, switch to spider and continue spamming. If target starts to get away, Rappel to pursue, then switch back to Human form and continue spamming.

Remember to always basic attack whenever you can for the proc!!!
Only use as needed.
Only and Volatile Spiderling can proc &

Top Lane Build

How to play Top Lane Elise

Elise is an anti-melee champion and is countered by range. As long as your opponent can't constantly harass you, you will zone them out. Examples of Champs Elise counters are: , , and . Basically, keep your distance from them and spam Q at them. Watch your mana, but keep them at bay. While in lane, once they are below 30% HP and zoned, either ignore them or kill them.

If the jungler comes to gank you, remember to use rappel in spider form to escape. Look for an enemy minion at the back of a wave to use for an anchor to escape to. +10 "Style Points" if you use the ganking jungler as your escape anchor! The only way to trap you is to gank you when the minion waves have either been cleared, or are all clumped together fighting. If they are spread out at all, you can use the farthest one back as your escape anchor. If the jungler is slow enough, use him as your escape anchor. Especially if he comes at you via your tower. If all else fails, use cocoon on the one closest to you and run. You take and race for a reason!

After taking a point in each ability, Max Q First. Because it doesn't scale well with AP, it gives early damage prior to getting big AP items. Max W second since by this time, you should have a large enough mana pool to spam Volatile Spiderling and enough AP to make it hurt. Max E last for faster cooldown. And as always, take R whenever you can to energize with W. Make sure to get as much Spell Penetration as early as you can to maximize your damage! Your early spells are % based, so making them hit harder is the main way you will do damage.

Once you have pushed down their tower, start roaming and ganking the other lanes. During Team fights, your target should be the enemy AD Carry. They are squishy and should be easy targets for you. This build should give you the durability to dive during team fights to eliminate any squishies.

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Spoiler: Click to view

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Summoner Spells

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Teleport helps with strategic relocation. Exhaust helps catch prey.

Flash helps with tactical relocation. Ignite counters regen/lifesteal.

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Top Lane Items

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Item Sequence

Spoiler: Click to view

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Build Items Explained

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Offensive Substitute Items

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Item Sequence

Spoiler: Click to view

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Defensive Substitute Items

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Item Sequence

Spoiler: Click to view

Warding

This is how I ward regardless of position.
RED locations are the wards that need to be maintained throughout the first 10 minutes of the game to prevent ganks or to set them up.
BLUE locations are used to keep an eye on enemy champion movements and their jungler.
GREY locations are good alternative warding locations to keep in mind. They have their uses.

*All locations are great for monitoring key locations and avenues*

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If you really want to know more about warding, I suggest reading this MOBAFIRE Guide on the subject:
Warding helper - More than your eyes can see

Here is another Warding guide by Astrolia

How Elise works: Facts, Figures, and a Graph!

With all the negative stuff going around, I thought I'd put a summary of it all here in one place. I'm excited about Elise and LOVE playing her, and the more I play her, the more I want to make her better! Hopefully this section will give you a better picture of how she works.

These are for reference to help or to spark ideas:
- Here's the Wiki page for 's stats.
- A great post on what's commonly viewed as wrong with Elise. A good read:
- Another thread on Elise.
- Here's a video of Xspecial from TSM playing .
- Here is the wiki on how Spell Pen works in season 3.
- Not that I agree with him, but here's a 2600 ELO's build and take on Elise for Top lane.

Maybe this graph will explain better than words. I ran 's numbers thru Excel, and made a graph based on different amounts of AP: 100, 200, 300, & 400. Then tested them in burst order against a 3000HP target: Q>W>R>auto>W>Q. I think the results speak for themselves.

Hopefully this gives you a clear picture of what to focus on when building . As you can see, only with Frenzy and Spider Basic attacks, does your AP scaling really kick in.

Her Q is just a poke and a death-dealing gap closer. That's it. There's a reason it only gets such a small amount of AP scaling with it. It's not the main show. Her basic attacks have very high damage. Frenzy compounds this and allows you to burst like an AP damage version of . Your AP goes ENTIRELY into your spider form's basic attacks. See the Skills Explained section for more details.

Since we're talking about damage, let's address how much of 's damage is AP vs AD. Well......in my example above, about half. 50% of your damage output is AP. The rest comes from your basic attack and frenzy and spiderlings. Don't get these numbers confused with it being a competition between going AD over AP. Each 100 AP give 10% more AD. So at 300 AP, you have 30% of your AD supplied by your AP ratio. So, it might be good to get a in addition to a . (Reminder, only AP will buff your spiderling's AD damage.)

One more note on the subject: Elise and her spiderlings are 42% shy of hitting the Attack Speed cap of 2.5 all by her self. No runes, no masteries, no items. That's all from her Spider W () passive and active. She doesn't need more than 1 or 2 sources of AS to get her to cap. What she needs is CDR so she can spam faster. See below for the math.

Here's how 's Attack Speed scales:

Spoiler: Click to view

Here are some numbers to show the effectiveness of with example HP's and spell strengths for mid and end game. Remember, this works for both sides of the spell. HP stands for both remaining and missing. Resistances are not taken into account.

Spoiler: Click to view

- Personally, I don't have a problem with E not doing damage. Lot's of champions have an ability that does no damage. or for instance. In that same breath, those same champions also get to compensate.

Skills Explained [In Depth]

Here, I will explain how 's abilities work, what they do, don't do, and quirks to be aware of.

Click the spoiler's to see the full text for each ability.

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Spider Swarm

Passive

Spoiler: Click to view

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Neurotoxin / Venomous Bite

Q

Spoiler: Click to view

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Volatile Spiderling / Skittering Frenzy

W

Spoiler: Click to view

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Cocoon / Rappel

E

Spoiler: Click to view

What it does in human form - Now we get to the fun part of ! Cocoon is a 1.5 second stun with a 975 range. The cooldown is medium length, 14/13/12/11/10 seconds. Meaning you can use it to initiate a fight, then use it again to tie down the champion getting away at the end. The target area is slightly larger than the image, so you have a little more margin for error when casting. However, the web travels farther than it's effective range. So it will appear as if the game cheated you when you are chasing.

What to know about it - This spell, in neither Human nor Spider form does no actual damage. This is very useful! When under a tower, and the enemy champion is advancing at you, you can tie them down while under the tower without attracting it's fire.

What it does in Spider form - This is your situational escape and your chase ability. Situational meaning "advance in a different direction." This one move is probably her most OP and redeeming ability for her package. Leveling will reduce the cooldown only. It goes from 26 down to 18 seconds with a crazy 975 range! In short, a very long time. You are only casting this once every engagement.

Note that you cannot come down outside the circle. If your target moves outside, you will automatically come down facing him about 25 units outside the circle, but that's it.

When cast on the GROUND, will near-instanly suspend herself above the game as untargetable, but not invulderable for 2 seconds. While suspended, she has REVEAL. She can't see wards, can't see while Camouflaged, nor can she see while d, but she can see in that bush over there! The down side is that everyone can see your circle of ability. So no hiding in a bush, rappelling up, and waiting for the enemy to pass you by, sadly. No, in fact, you will give your position away because they will see a bright green circle, like 's red circle from . But at least you can see them clearly!

The other half of this ability when cast on the ground is that you can descend either back down where you went up at the end of the 2 seconds, or you can descend upon a enemy of your choice. This has many uses. You can use it to escape over a wall to a minion camp (will not aggro). You can engage over a wall. Or you can follow an escaping enemy. This will NOT trigger on them. Sorry.

When cast on an ENEMY, you will Ascend, and then instantly descend upon your target. Perfect for chasing a weak champion who has a good sized head start.

What to know about it - If the enemy champion is paying attention, they can watch you descend down to them and will have .3 seconds to respond before you can cast your next spell. This almost never happens, but once people get the hang of fighting , expect to be countered when you descend. Everyone can see your circle when you are suspended in the air. You will not be unnoticed up there, sorry. When escaping from damage and the jaws of death, be careful when and where you use . If you are running away and rappel, the enemy has but to wait at the center of your circle for you to come back down. It's kinda funny to be up there, looking down at who's just standing there, waiting to kill you, knowing you can't run. Unless you have friends coming to help, your best bet is to just keep running. :\

Fun fact: you can chase over his with this ability.

Fun fact #2: 's can be avoided with rappel. just make sure to not cast too fast as is a 3 second channel and yours is only 2 seconds.

Fun fact #3: When being ganked, rappel TO the ganker for your escape!

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Spider Form / Human Form

R

Spoiler: Click to view

The VS table. Who you laning against?

This is a match up against different Top Lane champions. Keep in mind, this focus' on the laning phase. Once that's done, all bets are off!

As a general rule, you will dominate short ranged, or melee champions. will die against ranged pokes, or if she can't land her Neurotoxin or Cocoon when the other champion charges her. Usually she can escape with Rappel. But if she's getting ranged harassed constantly, rappel isn't enough.

I recommend checking out Championselect.net for some comparisons.

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Elise is great against these champions:

Spoiler: Click to view

Don't trade damage in spider form unless he is 1/3 HP and you have 2/3 HP. Keep your distance, never get below 1/2 HP, don't let him you. Stack LOTS of HP as fast as you can. As in s. He does true damage with ult noxian guilliotine and will bleed you out with passive hemorrage, so Armor is near worthless.

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Avoid his , and eat him alive. Note he does more attack damage the lower his health is. Take if you're fighting him, he regenerates a TON of health. Your will want to actually kill him when in spider form.

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Shrug off his , and zone him out. Take if you're fighting him; he stacks lifesteal. Late game, however, you are going to need to actually kill him when in spider form.

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I dunno what he'd be doing in lane, but if he is, poke him to death and don't let him sit on the minions. He likes to spam . Good luck trying to kill him if your is down.

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She is also an assassin, so she has a nice damage kit too. However, she is vulnerable to poking. / is her "poke." Cocoon her, or Rappel away from it because she is doing true damage for 6 seconds. After that, just go back to zoning her.

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Evade him when he does his . Do NOT let him string attacks on you. See: passive and ult . Make sure to ward the upper bushes. He likes to go in them, get positioned, then use on you.

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Malphite has some OP abilities, but nothing deadly and they are all mana intensive. So, make him burn his mana, then zone him out. Keep your distance, and get an early .

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Dodge his , be cautious of his passive , and note his . He's designed to be a melee beast, so keep your distance until you can kill him.

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Likes to stack HP and spam his abilities and , which cost lots of mana. Dodge the abilities, and poke hard. Call out when he is channeling .

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Is based on charging a stat called "rage." All you have to do is zone him away from minions and he won't get many. He has a lunge: . Make sure to build health as he will cut through most of your armor.

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He is more or less a walking suit of armor with next to no real abilities. But good luck trying to actually kill him. Don't dive him, don't push your luck, just deny him last hits. Make sure to call out when he uses his ult: .

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Keep your distance and don't chase. The key is patience. Just consistently poke him down. He will usually be rushing a so he will be easy pickings. If he goes Magic resist and armor, then his poison won't be too much of an issue.

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Aside from his stun, he won't pose too much of a threat until he pops his ultimate and starts melee-ing you. Just keep poking him. He likes to stack HP. You'll want to take to counter his ult , and . is a must as well.

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is vulnerable to your poking early. His ult can be avoided with rappel. His CC and farming ability is . It's important to reduce CC as his passive mercy gives him more damage to CC'd targets. Depending on how the lane goes, consider getting if he is taking advantage of his CC. If the laning phase goes long, get s to spot his ult .

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Remember his ult . So don't expect him to actually die when his health reaches zero. Also note, he likes to crit....a lot with his passive ! Be careful about running away as he has .

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Note that his health regenerates near death with . Try to proc it for it's 120 second cooldown, then go for the kill again. He will probably be killing off your spiderlings fairly regularly, so keep that in mind. Other than that, zone him. He likes to stack HP, so use that to your advantage! Get or to minimize .

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Avoid his ult , run away when he does his , then rush him right back when they time out. Get a few s to keep him from escaping with .

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Will Require Extra Skill to Win:

Spoiler: Click to view

Likes to eat with his ultimate . It does a lot of true damage! His help him clear minions, and your spiderlings! So make sure you can kill him quickly before engaging in spider form. Take to counter his silence and stun.

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In a word: distance! Keep him at a distance. Don't let him near you. sight Ward the top bushes to keep him from surprising you. Definitely get a very early and ! Make sure to never let him proc passive . Constantly chase and harass him every few seconds to chew away his health. His only limitation is cooldowns, so don't expect to "drain him dry" of anything except his health.

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This is the God of the Top lane. His only hard counter is a counter-pick of a solo-top lane . However, you are a soft-counter. Avoid his , and step away when he changes his hammer with . He's fast, stacks lifesteal, poke hard with acceleration gate and shock blast, and loves to chain his melee abilities. Respond by constantly poking him with neurotoxin in between his ranged spells. Play safe, stay light on your feet, and ward the river.

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Good news is she's a class cannon. Bad news is she can constantly activate to poke you and clear minions. However, this will drain her mana quickly! So, force her to use , then back away till it ends, then come back and push her away. Don't chase her when ult is up. She likes Attack Speed and Lifesteal, so take .

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Likes to chain with itself. make him a beast and will make killing him near impossible. is a direct counter to your spider form. Beware of his ult . Stay in human form as much as possible to cast cocoon evertime he gets close. Keep him away from you, and spam neurotoxin, and get an early .

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Must zone him constantly to prevent . He has a lot of crazy abilities, but nothing your rappel can't save you from. Note he gains lifesteal at 6, 11, 16 through ult . Take against him.

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A good is rare, but if you do come across a good one, be careful of timely ult shield. is a melee version of your . is her W and will make melee fights tougher.

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Keep your distance to avoid . She shouldn't be leveling this, but it does a lot of disruption and movement. Once she is next to you, she'll cast . This is what she'll be leveling. Since she doesn't use an energy source, you'll want to keep poking her with neurotoxin.

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is vulnerable to early ranged harass. Use 's to counter his ult . His special item is bonetooth necklace. His passive has two separate abilities. Warding the bushes will help prevent surprises. has a heal on it at 5 charges of his passive. is his CC. Take and .

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Is a tough little Yordle to beat despite not having much health. He will probably be going AP. Meaning s are everywhere. His is his main ability. With season 3, he will probably be rushing . To counter Teemo, remember two things: 1) Don't chase him if you don't know where the shrooms are. 2) either completely avoid him, or burst him down fast. There is no middle ground. You have the tools to burst him faster than he can burst you. It's just a matter of slowing him and getting off all of your abilities. Get , and/or in addition to to stay alive.

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Run the other way against these champions:

Spoiler: Click to view

Credits

]jhoijhoi for her Making a Guide guide.

Teyso for his amazing Maokai guide layout that I modeled this guide after.

All my charts were made using Open Office.

Originally Posted by Killrazor [View Post]
"sorc boots, haunting guise, abyssal, rylais (or rylais abyssal), rabadons.
Magic pen is just too good on her.
Q>E>W>R>Q 50% or more hp gone in less then a second... Hmm"

The countless people on the forums who put up their two cents and shared their experiences and thoughts.

Conclusion

I hope you have learned something about from reading this!. I expect to continue updating and changing it as my understanding of Elise improves.This guide took a lot of effort to make and is still updated.

If you like my effort, consider hitting that UPvote button! Be sure to leave some constructive criticism in the comments regardless of which way you vote!

Till next time, keep on creeping!

Update Log

2012.10.30 - Still working out the rest of the guide. Enjoy and comment on what's been done so far!
2012.10.31 - Pretty much remade the entire guide.
2012.11.01 - Got some feedback from the Forums on AP + Att Spd build, and got a Spell Pen build. That, and rewrote most of the guide. Enjoy the changes!!!
2012.11.02 - Added Jungle guide. Might need to revise items, but we'll see.
2012.11.02 - And i removed the jungle guide because I've decided to focus my energy on making lane elise viable. One thing at a time. Deleted all the full AP builds too. And made the guide reflect all the changes.
2012.11.03 - Added issues with Elise section. Added first picture! Worked the MPen build some. Added more details about Magic Pen. Changed Title of page to "oh yeah? what magic resist?" Took down Hybrid build. Maybe later. First Vote received!!!! 3k views!!!
2012.11.04 - More proof reading and tweaking. Added spell pen section.
2012.11.06 - Finished Rewriting guide and builds.
2012.11.06 - Added comparison for Destruction Runes.
2012.11.12 - Added section for jungling; plan to finish when new SR is released.
2012.12.06 - Massive Update for Season 3. Great Top Lane Build with Season 3 items!
2012.12.10 - Added a "Laning VS" section.
2012.12.12 - Updated Main Build with better situational items and descriptions.
2012.12.12 - Adjusted build items and added an experiment section to show what changes I'm thinking about.
2013.03.30 - Incorporated experimental build into main build.

The In Depth Elise: The Laning Bruiser [Season 3]

The In Depth Elise: The Laning Bruiser [Season 3]

Recommended Items

Spells:

Ignite

Flash

Items

Ability Order

Spider Queen (PASSIVE)

Neurotoxin / Venomous Bite (Q)

Volatile Spiderling / Skittering Frenzy (W)

Cocoon / Rappel (E)

Spider Form / Human Form (R)

Introduction

ATTENTION:

Pro's and Con's

How to Play Elise

Farming

Spell Combo

Top Lane Build

How to play Top Lane Elise

Summoner Spells

Teleport helps with strategic relocation. Exhaust helps catch prey.

Flash helps with tactical relocation. Ignite counters regen/lifesteal.

Top Lane Items

Item Sequence

1. Standard Start:

2a. First Back with at least 825gold will get you:

sight ward

2b. On Second Back with at least 1560gold:

sight ward

3. Snag an early if you are against an AP champion.

Or an early if you need the HP.

4. From here, work on getting these items:

5. After the 20:00 minute mark, get ready to build your main items:

plus or

Build Items Explained

vs : Depends on how much CC or AP the other team has. Against frequent CC, get Merc treads, but the Spell Pen from the Sorcs will help with you with your damage. Prioritize sorcerser's shoes!

is taken for the passive. This is Elise's main damage item. Should be acquired as soon as possible.

the second main item on Elise if you don't buy into Iceborn Gauntlet. The Giant's Belt and Blasting Wand are both great early items on Elise, so this makes a great early damage and surviveability item.

builds from Negatron Cloak and will give Elise her magic resist plus more AP. Delay this item if Negatron Cloak is not urgently needed.

An alternative to Iceborn Gauntlet if you want to go off-tanky. Has synergy with Randuin's Omen.

is her "meaty" item. This will take advantage of any AD damage that Elise draws and will encourage her targets to run from her rather than fight her. It's active will synergize with Elise's tendency to dive into team fights once they've started.

Offensive Substitute Items

Item Sequence

gives % based Spell Pen as well as AP. Take if you are having trouble biting through 100+ Magic Resist on more than 2 champions.

Lot's of AP and an active! A proactive Guardian Angel if you want to look at it that way.

Defensive Substitute Items

Item Sequence

See above comments on Sorcerer's Shoes.

HP and armor with a passive that works with APen. A classic Bruiser Item. Useful for surviving Darius and other big hitters.

Gives Elise her HP if Randuin's Omen isn't to be taken.

If you take a second Negatron Cloak, build it into this. The synergy is pretty neat.

A timely second life. Helpful if you tend to die a lot.

Warding

How Elise works: Facts, Figures, and a Graph!

Skills Explained [In Depth]

Passive

Q

W

E

R

The VS table. Who you laning against?

Credits

Conclusion

Update Log

League of Legends Champions: