Elise is currently my jungler of choice. Her insane ability to clear hard camps quickly, awesome ganks, as well as high skill-cap make her incredibly fun to play while being one of the top picks in the game. Be warned, however - making mistakes with Elise almost always matter a lot, so this spider is not meant for the faint of heart.

SPACE

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Pros

1. % damage on Neurotoxin and Venomous Bite means you don't need AP to do insane magic damage
2. Neurotoxin and Venomous Bite also do ridiculous damage to neutral monster camps
3. Rappel offers awesome utility, giving you anything from Zhonya's Hourglass to the longest range dash in the game
4. Great potential for outplay

Cons

1. Really easy to mess up her spells
2. Mistakes can be fatal
3. Rappel can leave you stranded if your expected target is not there
4. Neurotoxin and Venomous Bite can be really ineffective if used at the wrong time

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Greater Mark of Magic Penetration Greater Seal of Armor Greater Glyph of Magic Resist Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed

Elise is a mage, and as such wants magic penetration reds. Her scaling with AP is OK, but not good enough to warrant AP quints, so we will be going with movespeed as being able to chase enemies in Spider Form to take full advantage of Skittering Frenzy and Venomous Bite is very important. Seals and glyphs are what you would expect from any jungler, no reason to stray from the efficiency of these choices.

As a mage, Elise will naturally want the full 21 points in offense to complement the AP items we will be buying. While her AP scaling is not that great, the extra points are still worth it especially because of the synergy between Executioner and Venomous Bite. 9 Points in Defense is the standard after that, taking Veteran's Scars as it is extremely OP in the early game. I am currently experimenting with putting 9 points in utility, but I don't think it's worth it for the loss in jungle speed / early tankiness.

Machete/5 is the standard jungle start. I would never do anything different.



Your first 3 core items are Crystalline Flask, Boots, and Spirit Stone upgrade. If you get a kill you can pick up all 3 on your first back, otherwise just get two of them and a ward and pick up the third on your second back. Boots and Crystalline Flask are key on Elise, as being able to constantly trade with the enemy jungler and threaten / get kills is a core part of our strategy.

Sorcerer's Shoes and Haunting Guise are core items on Elise as well. These give us insane damage against champions going into the mid-game, as Venomous Bite and Neurotoxin have high base damage since they are % based - penetration multiples this high base damage without needing massive amounts of AP. Depending on your farm, you can either pick up these or upgrade your Spirit Stone first, but do both.



You will have to decide on which Spirit Stone upgrade you need based on your team comp. Obviously Spirit of the Spectral Wraith is better for clearing camps and gives you more damage / potential for outplay, while Spirit of the Ancient Golem gives you a large chunk of HP along with tenacity. Decide what your team needs and pick one, as both items are extremely cost-efficient!



Liandry's Torment synergizes really well with your % damage from Venomous Bite and Neurotoxin, giving you so much power that you can solo baron once you've completed it and Spirit of the Spectral Wraith (if you went that route). You can also proc the double damage with Cocoon, or our next pickup.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter is the next item that I would never stray from. We need some HP so we can utilize Spider Form and Skittering Frenzy, and while we do have Rappel to prevent a lot of the damage, some extra HP never hurt anyone. On top of that, the slow works with Liandry's Torment and allows us to continue chasing to take more advantage of our Spider Form abilities.

From there, you get to pick two out of three between Zhonya's Hourglass, Frozen Heart, and Abyssal Mask. Usually you can figure it out by looking at the enemy team. All physical damage? Skip Abyssal Mask. All magic damage? Skip Frozen Heart. Not getting targeted? Skip Zhonya's Hourglass.

is a necessity for all junglers. Helps you kill buffs, secure objectives, etc etc.

is necessary on almost all mages, and Elise is no exception. Using Flash to land the finishing spell (ex: Venomous Bite) is a common play. Flash -> Cocoon is also a useful tool for catching. Long story short, always take Flash on mages and especially Elise.

Neurotoxin / Venomous Bite increase damage by the most with levels, so we will be leveling this skill first. The damage to neutral monsters from a level 5 Neurotoxin is ~5 times that of a level 1 Neurotoxin, which is better scaling than any ability in the game.

Volatile Spiderling / Skittering Frenzy we max second, providing us with more burst damage and even faster clears.

Cocoon / Rappel we will max last, as it is primarily a utility spell and only gets lower CD when maxed.

Elise has one of the best early games in the game. Her ability to take almost 0 damage from the jungle by using her spiderlings to tank neutral monsters, on top of her ranged form means she can trade effectively with any enemy jungler. On top of that, she can win any all-out engage, provided you land Cocoon, which shouldn't be too hard at melee range (and they're all melee, so they have to come at you which makes it really easy to predict).

I almost always start at blue buff with Elise since you need that mana regen so much early and chances of getting counterjungled are very low. So your standard path is:

Blue -> Red -> Wraith -> Gank

Which leads us to our next section.

Ganking with Elise is such an art that it deserves its own section. When attempting a gank, you should look for one of three opposing mistakes to exploit:

1) Overextended
This is the classical mistake - someone is pushed up in their lane and not backing. There are two ways to punish this - flanking and lane gank. If you want to flank, make sure you check their inventory to see if they bought a ward. Check with your laner to see if they know where the opposing ward is. If they do have a ward and you don't know where it is, you'll have to go from lane.

1a) Flank gank
This is the standard bread and butter. Simply walk up from the side in human form and start attacking / applying redbuff and use Neurotoxin and Volatile Spiderling. If they try to run through you to get to their tower, you should have an easy Cocoon into Spider Form -> Venomous Bite -> Skittering Frenzy, and if they're still alive then you can use Rappel to chase for the last Venomous Bite (very useful for beating their Flash). If they decide to run the long way, away from their tower, hopefully your laner can provide some CC into an easy Cocoon and the same combo. If not, give chase with Spider Form into Rappel, use your spells and keep walking with them until Human Form is up - then use Human Form for a melee range Cocoon and finish them off.

1b) Lane gank
This one is a little tougher - approach through lane in Spider Form, and wait for the enemy laner to go for a CS. Use Rappel to close the gap and Venomous Bite to get in range to apply red-buff. Once you're in melee range and they are slowed from red-buff, Human Form -> Cocoon should be easy to land. Use your other Human Form spells and walk with them (don't AA too much]] and finish them off with Venomous Bite, using Rappel as necessary (usually for the after-kill escape).

2) Being dive-able
Elise excels at tower dives, since Rappel allows her to drop tower aggro at any time. Any enemy with 50% or less HP is open for a dive. If your side has a giant creep wave approaching, so much the better - even a 1 for 1 trade will be worth it at this point, since they will miss all that EXP/gold. Approach in Human Form, use all 3 spells ( Cocoon should be easy to land since they are trying to hug tower]], then switch to Spider Form and use Venomous Bite and Skittering Frenzy. A common play will be for them to flash away from the tower at this point, if they are still alive. Simply give chase with Rappel and land the last Venomous Bite and that should be that!

3) Counter-gank
This can only really happen if you're either a wizard, or you/your team have good wards. If you see the enemy jungler going for a gank, your kit allows you to win almost any 2v2 so try and be there for the counter-gank. Always target the enemy jungler while counter-ganking, as they need to be in melee range and as such can't kite with low HP. On top of that, killing them gives you double-buffs. Wait for them to engage on your laner, then come in Human Form. Cocoon should be really easy to land since they aren't thinking about you, they just want the kill!

Elise is awesome in the mid-game as well. Her gank potential isn't lost, but this is when her awesome neutral monster killing potential really shines. Once you've completed your Spirit Stone upgrade, you can do any red/blue buff in ~4 seconds or less, and you can solo dragon easily - while taking almost no damage. After any kill at all, look to force dragon / take buffs or even go for baron to take advantage of this. If it's pinked, you can also sneak a solo dragon - this is most effective from blue side since you can also just rappel over the wall. Just make sure you move back between every attack so that the dragon/baron is attacking your spiderlings and not you, or you will take a lot of damage.

While teamfights aren't Elise's strong point, she can still contribute - especially if fed. Stay in Human Form and throw your human spells during sieges - a well-placed Cocoon can result in a lot of poke damage. Don't use Spider Form until the fight has boiled down into smaller skirmishes - melee champions usually take heavy fire and you don't want that as a mage. However, once the fight has gone into skirmishes you can take full advantage of Skittering Frenzy and use Rappel to outplay / chase enemies and finish with Venomous Bite. You do way more damage in Spider Form but it's important to not pop it too early or you will die / take heavy damage too early.

Good mechanics are the core of any Elise's gameplay. As we've mentioned, Elise has an extremely high skill cap, and proper use of these techniques is crucial.

1) Letting spiderlings tank while killing monsters
Starting with the easiest tip, this is actually extremely important, especially when soloing large buffs. In between every single attack, you should retreat behind your spiderlings so that monsters don't target you. This is the difference between being executed by dragon when attempting a solo and killing it with over half HP remaining - practice it. When you're out of spiderlings you can switch to Human Form for 3 seconds then switch again. If you get really good at this, you can make it so dragon switches targets over and over, making it not attack as much as it should.

2) Use rappel to move through jungle
Another standard play. Keep in mind that you can use Rappel to jump over walls in the jungle, allowing for some sweet escapes as well as shaving off crucial seconds from your clear time!

3) Long-range Volatile Spiderling
This is a small tip, but it helps during poking wars. When using Volatile Spiderling to poke, make sure you aim it away from the minion wave so it doesn't explode on the minions. It will almost always find a champion target if you do this, giving awesome poke damage.

4) Standard kill combo
This was discussed in earlier sections, but it's worth mentioning here. The complete full combo is Neurotoxin -> Volatile Spiderling -> Cocoon -> Spider Form -> Skittering Frenzy -> Venomous Bite -> Rappel -> Venomous Bite -> Neurotoxin -> 1 attack. Obviously it's hard to land the entire thing, so recognize at what point you can start / end the combo. Getting used to this combo and entering/breaking it at any point is the most important thing you can learn with Elise.

5) Rappel-dodge
This is where you earn your bread and show the world what a god you are. Rappel can be used to dodge almost every skill in the game. Obviously some are easier than others - if you can't dodge Depth Charge then you should probably find another game, and when you get to the point where you can start predicting Curse of the Sad Mummy you'll know you are one of the best Elise players in the game. The point is that in any 2v2 skirmish, ALWAYS watch for being able to dodge a skill with Rappel as after you dodge it, you can also conveniently jump on someone with no cooldowns and go in for the kill.

6) Smite-heal
This only applies when you have Spirit of the Spectral Wraith, but the 20% spellvamp makes your Smite heal you for a large amount - 200 health at lvl 18. Make sure you keep that in mind when moving throughout the map and especially in skirmishes.

I hope you all have enjoyed my Elise guide! Elise is considered a top 3 jungler in the game at the moment and it doesn't look like her next nerf is going to hit too hard, so she is worth it to learn and on top of that EXTREMELY fun to play, especially once you've mastered her mechanics. I hope this guide will help you in your endeavors! Here's an embed of my stream! www.twitch.tv/yodatv