@Riot, I think it's time we had a talk about Elise.

As I'm sure a lot of people have known for awhile now, Elise is borderline unplayable and her kit is possibly one of the biggest mistakes Riot has released in a game where they're trying to give champions defined strengths and weaknesses and hate "balls of stats" as champions. With her current kit Riot simply cannot just number buff Elise without her becoming the terror she was in the past. She needs a Nidalee level rework at the bare minimum to give her kit actual synergy and some good strengths and weaknesses.

The real question is how do we do that. The main problem, I find, with Elise's kit is it just simply does not fulfill her thematic fantasies. She's the Spider Queen and yet the only spidery thing about her is her non-human form. She doesn't command an army of spiders, she doesn't weave webs to lure targets into areas where she's is at a home field advantage, she's just a wandering girl in a costume spitting venom at people like a knock-off Cassi.

Honestly I'd like to see her be more like broodmother from DotA2 but I have a feeling Riot would prefer to keep her as a transform champ which means her kit should probably be worked into a utility mage/Bruiser combo to put her squarely into the jungle. Increase her interactions with spiderlings in both forms to give her a better feel for being a real spider queen. I've drafted up a proto-kit to give an idea of how to make her thematically more satisfying while not being terribly difficult to overhaul.

Passive spiderlings are visible in both forms, number available scales with ult rank and act as an ammo system for her human abilities. In human form they are non-interactable and do not block skillshots or attack targets.

Human form Q - Deals flat, targeted damage to an enemy. If she has a spiderling it launches with the attack to deal bonus damage. W - Sends out a path of web in a line, giving Elise a movement speed bonus while traveling along it and snaring enemies that touch it briefly, (Probably just a mini-snare at best, like .5 seconds) If she has a spiderling it will travel along the webbing and chase any nearby targets. Contacting an enemy will cause it to explode and spread the web area to its explosion radius. E - Fires out a skillshot that slows the target on hit. If she has a spiderling it will enhance the ability to stun instead for the duration and deal minor damage.

Spider Form Q - Same as current, although the execute mechanic is tied to how many spiderlings she has currently with 0 dealing no % missing health and max dealing slightly more than live. W - Attack speed steroid that gives her spiderling's attacks on hit a %max health shred for the duration and heal Elise for an amount of the damage dealt. Elise herself only gains flat health on hit and attack speed. E - Reverted to the state where it was actually useful, as in it will send Elise after the enemy even outside of the indicator, which would also be made larger.

So gating a large portion of her damage behind her spiderlings means Elise players have to actually care about their spiderlings and maximize their use instead of just having them be a bonus. Human W is more of a thematic thing to give her a more spidery feel. Could also be changed to a Trundle W-esque ability which I think would also be very good and thematically satisfying as much like you don't want to fight a king in his kingdom, you don't fight a spider in her web.

Putting emphasis on her spiderlings also opens up a large portion of counterplay for her opponents because they can kill her spiderlings to cut out part of Elise's damage in spider form and force her to retreat back and recharge/use her human utility while waiting for more spiderlings. Since they're now a good chunk of Elise's power budget rather than an after thought they could also be reasonably buffed up in terms of survivability.

So the question for Riot and the community is... Are you thematically satisfied with Elise's kit, do you think it can buffed to a point where it's strong but not oppressively so, or is she in need of a full overhaul to get her to where she's both in a balanceable state and satisfying to play as. As she is now I don't think she's in a state where she can be properly balanced and she is far from satisfying to play.