Elise Recommended Build Q's

av0cadobaby·Dec 21, 2015·2 votes·691 views

I can't make sense of why the recommended items for Elise seem to prioritize Magic Penetration over Ability Power, and why Attack Speed isn't more popular on her?

is recommended as an offensive item but I feel like that would only be optimal if you stomp the first 5-10 mins and build it immediately after .

I wanted to try something else out so I went into a game with Ad/atk speed/armor/cdr runes, built (before game ended) and felt like a magic spider. I felt like it was very flexible and I could have built more damage or gone much tankier and been effective.

I am no itemization pro, but I have been trying to put more thought and research into my builds. As such, I am skeptical of this idea myself but it seems cool to me and was curious to get others' thoughts!

5 Comments

AspynnDec 21, 20151 votes

Well for the most part if you play ap Elise you wanna play it for her upfront cc into burst kill combo, so attack speed is less favored over magic pen or more raw AP. However with the Nashors changes it could definitely be okay. I could also see it more for jungle AP elise than for laning simply because of her clear. But Nashors would also help with Elise's INSANE mid-lategame tower taking with ap and spiderlings. Also rylais goes with spiders so chasing with nashors could also be good... Elise is technically meant to be played as like a cinderhulk tank with rylais and liandrys and then full tank. (I think) However I never build her that way, I just go full ap and 1shot people, much more fun imo. Test out nashors more on her it might actually turn out to be very good. I mainly play AP Elise mid or top I don't have a lot of experience jungle.

EndlessSorcererDec 21, 20151 votes

Elise is primarily a burst champion with relatively low AP ratios, but good bases and percent health damage. Generally, you want to kill a target quickly and then escape rather than auto-attacking them for several seconds.

Flat Magic Penetration is very efficient for Elise since it lets her burst squishies quickly and it is cheap in comparison to the AP you would require for equivalent damage.

It used to be extremely common to rush Sorceror Shoes and Haunting Guise on Elise (often before finishing your jungle item) since that would allow you to deal near true damage to targets early in the game. This is probably the main reason why Liandry's Torment is recommended since they already expect you to have Haunting Guise; personally, I would typically sell get a Void Staff late-game and sell Haunting Guise.

I've never need a fan of purchasing Runeglaive or Magus on Elise; I would typically just built Spirit of the Ancient Golem or Cinderhulk for some additional bulk so that I wouldn't feel quite so squishy (I play more bruisers than assassins, so that's probably why I liked the additional bulk).

item 3020 item 1413 item 3136 is a significant amount of damage and durability for a pretty low cost and scales rather well throughout the game. After you have those items, you can easily build offensively or defensively as necessary.

VesarixxDec 21, 20151 votes

Elise has high base damage and mediocre ratios, you get more damage with magic pen on those types of champions.

TerchioDec 21, 20151 votes

Attack Speed is overrated. She already has that. She doesn't need even more attacks, she needs her attacks to do more damage. Her base AD is pathetic, and while her melee form does get a small damage and huge AS boost... it's melee. Most melee champs get better compensation, at least on the base AD side of things.

MPen is highly popular because her base damages are pretty good, and almost all mostly magical. Even the autoattack effect that was added to offset low base AD is magical, and her Spiderlings are magical now, too.

All that said, I don't build MPen. I prefer tanky/CDR/speed build which relies on her base damages a lot. It also does have some power, but not in conventional ways ( item 3046 item 3071 ) The stickiness and damage reduction from that combo, along with CDR, are hard to pass up, even though she is a highly magical champion.

I'm also not even saying an AS build can't be done. It's just not as flavorful as it sounds, and most of its power lies in short spurts which you rarely survive past without some defense, especially as a sticky melee champion with only semi-reliable escape mechanisms.

Just Blame JennyDec 21, 20151 votes

Yep. As said above, Elise has decent base stats, but poor scalings. Thus she benefits more from magic penetration than AP.

Liandry's Torment is great because it gives a lot of things she needs: magic penetration, %health damage (i.e. better than straight AP), and a lot of health to give her survivability on the front line. Really, though, it should be one of the last items you finish. Build a Giant's Belt early and finish it into a Rylai's Crystal Scepter mid-game. Rush Haunting Guise only if you're ahead.

I could see Nashor's Tooth working if you want more damage and less tankiness (i.e. the passive would work well, and she benefits a lot from CDR), but bear in mind that most Elises already build a Runeglaive (+10% CDR) and a Frozen Heart (+20% CDR) anyway. I guess you could switch out Frozen Heart, but I'm not sure that's an actual bargain.

In short: AP isn't all that great for Elise, because her scalings suck. No builds are set in stone though. Feel free to experiment. You might just be onto something.