Since the Elise PBE changes went forward, here's my opinion about it. Feel free to discuss :)

Hi there. 1st of all, I'm just discussing the issue. I don't have acess to the PBE so I can't assure if the changes are good or bad. However, Elise is a champion that I really like to play and I have decent knowledge about her, since she was one of my most played champions on last season. Even though, she's with problems and she really fell out of favour as many people know.

Now, let's talk about her theme. Imo, she's has one of the best concepts in terms of gameplay and design, specially if you take in count that she was made in October 2012 (yep, 2,5 years guys). She also (again, my opinion, several opinions may differ) it's one of the healthiest assassins in the game. She isn't obnoxious to play against, she's unique, she doesn't faceroll an enemy team, has utility, and most importantly, relies on her full combo to kill someone.

Even though, which such utility, mobility she isn't played that much and has one of the worst winrates in games, allied to her highskill cap (not as much as others but she does have quite an hard skillcap, specially to learn). So what's her problem?

Remember her release? And remember what roles she was made to be played? Yes, she was broken as hell, but she added something unique to the game. The meta wasn't the same as it is now, and in my opinion, while she was without a question strong, the pros and cons of that playstyle at that moment made her pros outstand much more as they do now.

Now, of course she needed to be nerfed but, her damage output was put down so much that she doesn't have any scalings. At last time she was seen in competitive play, she didn't fit on her assassin role. She was made a CC bot with tankyness late game. And with the meta shifting towards tank junglers with actually scaling, why pick Elise over them?

So, just to mention:

• Her damage output is strong, other champions have more damage than her;

• She basicly doesn't have scaling on her abilites, which means her damage will fall even more;

• Her theme was to be made an assassin, and she's played as a CC bot because her damage was put down so much;

• While she definitely has mobility, others have more than her (hi Lee Sin);

• While she provides utility, others provide way more than her (Sejuani, Amumu, Nautilus, Lee Sin, just to name a few);

• She has high manacosts for what she provides in human-form, even if spider form is manaless (I will somewhat explain this below);

• She relies on her full-combo to kill someone;

Why do I believe these changes won't fix her problem and maybe will hurt her more? Well 1st, like I said above, she lacks pros to be picked over other champions. 2nd, this will just hurt the last bit she's doing good which is being a CC bot on late game. Her current state atm forces her to be in human form more, in order to catch other players with cacoon. Yes the missel speed is stronger but her MS may hurt her positioning. Also, she's squishier in human form because she doesn't have the spiderlings to soak damage and skillshots. In order ways, this can hurt her more than help her.

What could be done to help her? Increasing her damage and scallings. Sincerly, it's what she needs. However, she can't be recklessly buffed. While she falls on late game, she's still one of the champions with best clears in jungle, thanks to spiderlings and her inbuilt sustain. Why doesn't her Q scale more with AP rather than missing hp for example? Why not increasing her W speed over cacoon for example? Why not increase her mana pool? Why not increase the AP ratio on the on-hit damage on her ultimate? Why not add tenacity on her spider form? Just examples.

I love Elise. She's an extremely fun champion to play. But she lacks reasons to be picked. It isn't a matter of straight buffing her, it's a matter of giving her reasons to picked. Other champions already are (way) better at what she does atm, give her more options then. You don't want an assassin at jungle? Put her on lane then, put some scalling on her! Specially when the meta is already with mages at top lane, let her be in some lane. These buffs won't help her in my opinion, at least when just reading the numbers.

Don't just buff her Riot, give her reasons to be picked instead. Because other champions do the same job better than her.

Keep in mind that I love the fact that you acknowledge she needs help, but as I said I don't believe this is what she needs. But as everything, it will be needed to be tested when it's live :)