The Issues with Elise

So as most people know, Elise is a pretty strong champ. She's got a ton of range on her human form as well as a decent % health damage skill in both forms and a low cost zhongyas she can use to jump on people. So what's the issue? The issue is her build is BOOOOOOORING and I feel doesn't synergize with her kit at all. What do I mean? Lemme explain:

On Elise in the jungle, one rushes a Stalkers with a Runeglaive or Cinderhulk enchant, they then get rylais, sorcerer's shoes, liandries, and some armor or more damage. Example: This would be a working build for her, but do you see the problem? She's being built like a bulky mage. To Be Honest, I feel her kit doesn't fully benefit from this build style, but her stats and scalings make it by far the best way to build her. So what do I mean? Well, I feel there are items that synergize with her far more. For example: Givers her 20% CDR, 80 ap, 50% attack speed, and applies 15% of her ap as on-hit magic damage when she auto attacks. This gives her damage and works well with her spider forms' W, which increases her attack speed, and the passive, which heals her for a pretty measly amount every auto attack she lands. The problem is her on-hit healing and magic damage from her ult's passive are very low, healing her on hit for 4/6/8/10, gaining a scaling of 10% of her ap. This does mean a full damage Elise could get decent healing and damage from her ult passive (as she deals 10/20/30/40 (+30% ap) on-hit magic damage in spider form). But she sacrifices the hp and tank from her current build for attack speed and other issues. Her mana costs aren't even that staggering, either. Runeglaive, imo, doesn't support her nearly as well as something like a Devourer, Nashor's, or Wit's End, which give her more attack speed, essentially double her passive, and in the case of Wit's End give her magic resist. The issue is that she doesn't have the base bulk to make use of this increased attack speed and healing. And you trade that for the bonus effects on the items you're normally building, which support her human form very well.

However, her spider form is the notably stronger form. She doesn't have the super amazing range of her human form, but she's fast and her Q does almost double the damage in her spider form compared to the human form, but it has no cost and the same short cooldown. Given her percent health damages, however, magic pen is necessary, but that can be easily accomidated with a void staff and sorcerer's shoes. Yes Rylai and Liandrys are a great combo but the liandry slot could be swapped with another damage item that further supports her massive amount of on-hit effects. It really feels like there are a few alternative builds that could really push her full kit to great effectiveness, but they just aren't. For Example: Or Possibly: Not necessarily in the orders shown above, but these still give you health from Rylai, but also a good chunk of attack speed from Nashor's/Guinsoo's/Devourer, and the heal from Hextech Gunblade is great on her, since most of her attacks are single target or single hit.

Maybe I'm just making a fuss over nothing, but I really wish Elise wasn't quite so reliant on tank or bulk as she is now. The magic pen makes sense, but you have more options than just Liandries, and Stalkers gives you a smite-based slow that can theoretically replace Rylais to free that slot up. Here's a list of items I feel synergizes with Elise well but aren't necessarily used very often: Why Manamune? Single Target spells and attacks, which includes autos, consume 3% of mana to deal bonus physical damage equal to twice the mana consumed. So her Q in both forms uses more mana, but hits for % health damage AND bonus physical damage. It goes fantastic with runeglaive.

Anyway Rant over, what yall think?