Is There Any Plans For Elise? I have some! (Warning: Long)

TL:DR -is there anything happening with elise in the future? and me talking about things i'd like to see on a more thematically cohesive elise. (if she got a rework)

With the new blood moon Elise skin coming out (everybody give props to Alex, the homie who made my new favorite splash art in this game) it reminded me how much i liked Elise thematically, but hated her jack of all trades game play. and currently she's also sporting one of the lowest win rates in the game according to lolking -a very depressing 42.7%.

So i was wondering if she's on the radar at all? currently she's in this territory where she was nerfed very hard and is now kinda floating around the game like a useless spider shaped cloud. This process has famously been dubbed "olafing" and its often very frustrating for players who love these champions despite their problematic game play. I know riot has said they're trying to avoid olafing champions moving forward in the future, so i would like to know if there's anything in mind for Elise? Anyone up to the challenge? Does the community have to create a super thread listing ideas, things we like about the spider queen, things we don't like? I would like this post to be that post, but I'm definitely gonna comment on anything regarding Elise, to see her buffs or game play update or whatever happen as soon as possible.

Mostly I'm just looking for somebody to tell me "she's on the radar" at least. so past that i think i might just talk about what i would want out of a game play update. some goals for fixes that i think old Elise players would like while also bringing in new Elise fans and fixing some of her issues.

Goals i have set in mind: -Tone down her overall versatility. -Give her a strong gameplay space that's not inhabited by another champion. -More thematic cohesion within her kit. -Meaningful weaknesses.

versatility issues: To me, Elise's biggest problem is that fact that she was once a jack of all trades, because she had literally everything in her kit: CC, %health damage, Range, Untargetability, mobility, sustain, high clear speed, high damage, and early game durability. She was incredibly versatile and was generally the best Jungler to have on your team along with Lee Sin for almost any comp. She was an incredibly safe 1st pick in champ select granting her lack of any weakness and her flexibility. To me this kinda strength is problematic from a balance standpoint, because you create a suffocating vacuum in champion diversity when you have champions like elise who are strong. Why pick any other Jungler who specializes in this specific aspect of jungling, when the spider queen can accomplish the same task at a more generalized level, but provide bounds of extra value to the team? This is the frustrating situation with Elise when she's strong, and its one of the reasons people hate lee sin so much- boundless versatility crowding out all the other jungle picks. On the flip side you create a situation of optimal efficiency with these kind of champions. Elise can still do all the things i listed, they weren't removed from her kit. the issue is that her overall power has been reduced so much from nerfs after nerfs that Kha'Zix rose up and took her spot. The problem with being a jack of all trades is that you're probably the best character in the game with no weaknesses, or you're a master of nothing who doesn't really help your team more then other champions. so while Elise was nerfed and lee sin received love taps, Elise disappeared from competitive scene and Kha'Zix/Rengar filled her slot as the "other" good Jungler.

So for me, Elise wouldn't NEED all of these things she has to be viable. She could still be a transform champion, but i think the spider theme could be portrayed better. Give her some really powerful new mechanics to work with, stuff that only Elise could do. A real reason to pick her besides her just being strong. Something that even if she was nerfed over and over she could still only do herself. The thing is though, what do we focus on? Like i said she has so much in her kit, what do you remove? What is absolutely necessary on Elise?

New Gameplay Space: Elise is the SPIDER QUEEN. She's seductive, venomous, and eerie, I absolutely love this but I feel her character is not really portrayed through her game play as well as other champions (or at all) Kha'Zix is an otherworldly predator that consumes and adapts, his character is portrayed through his evolve mechanic -consume enough prey (XP) and evolve to adapt to the game. Viktor is a self improving mechanical mage, and this is reflected through his hexcore upgrades. It doesn't have to be evolve mechanics though, Rengar is another champion i think portrays his character very well through game play, stalking and striking for the kill. His passive leap from the bushes feels like its the thrill of the hunt!

Elise however, while all of her abilities have spider themes, the themes are just skins over the abilities. Not within the abilities themselves. cocoon is a skill shot stun, neurotoxin is a point and click damage spell, skittering frenzy is a steroid. Nothing TRULY spidery going on there. So what should Elise be? What is something a spider does that only spiders do? What is something that i feel Elise would do in a cinematic? She should lure people into the depths of her web. THAT'S something that feels spidery. So to me Elise should be this: A Zone control oriented assassin with powerful objective control. She spins her webs where her spider-lings dwell, and in these webs is where she is most dangerous and where her enemies are most vulnerable, just as spiders strive to catch flies in their web, Elise should try to lure and trap her enemies within the confines of her lair. ** More thematic cohesion within her kit**: Elise is a transform champion and all of her abilities are strong on their own with little combo oriented game play. The closest i can think of is the interaction with her human W and her spider Q. As i touched on above, all of Elise's current abilities don't have a super spider feel besides from the visuals, the raw game play on their own doesn't feel like a spiders, so here is what i have in mind. I want to create situations where you want to be human (to lure them into your web) and situations where you want to be a spider (to feast on their bones in an advantageous position) so her new abilities will reflect and support this strategy. Not much to say on this, but i'll flesh it out more when i start talking about my in theory new kit for her.

Meaningful weaknesses: This is a pretty common problem with transform champions, as they can swap out to entirely new skill sets to fit the needs that they need most. Giving them a weakness is pretty tough, i think a good champion to look at is Gnar . Now before you stop reading because you hate not having control that's not what I'm saying, but I'm saying Gnar is a good example of how transform champions should be, sort of. I don't like Gnar personally as i don't like feeling like i can't control whats about to happen, so with Elise i figured i could do something similar. And again it revolves around this spider web trap concept.

Elise can only be in spider form while in her web. This creates a situation where Elise cannot just change at the drop of a hat when she wants to, but she must set herself up in a situation where she has the control over the fight she wants. with this it gives Elise a real strength and real weakness, a stronghold on a spot on the map that makes her incredibly powerful. while away from it she's weaker then most champions (as she's missing a chunk of her kit) i feel these are very reasonable trade off's and provide an approach to transform champions that has not been done yet. ** IN THEORY NEW KIT:**

I'll start with her ultimate as its the most important part of her kit now:

Human R (outside web): Spiders Lair- longer cool down -Elise summons webs to spread around her in a large circle (think a little smaller then trundle's frozen domain) within this web enemy units are revealed (Elise has vision over all in the lair) while Elise is inside the Lair she has access to Transform: spider. to reveal her True Form. elise has access to Spiders Lair at lvl 1.

Human R (in web): Transform Spider -4 second cool down -Elise reveals her true spider form. While in this form she gains access to her spider form basic abilities, gains increased movement speed, attack speed, and her auto attacks apply a stack of Neurotoxin. Neurotoxin slows and damages the afflicted unit based on their maximum health every .5 second over 1.5 seconds. if an enemy receives 4 stacks of Neurotoxin they are stunned and take additional damage. Neurotoxins damage over time scales with ability power (additional 1% every 50 AP?) while in Spider form Elise's ultimate becomes Transform Human. if Elise leaves her web she automatically transforms back into a human (maybe after a delay, forced transformations can be frustrating. But if its telegraphed it might be easier)

Spider R -Transform Human -4 second cool down -Elise transforms into her Human form gaining access of her 3 human basic abilities

** THOUGHTS:** this is the core of the game play for Elise. she's got incredible power and this poison just melts their insides if they can't escape, and Elise has strong sticking power with the slow, as the game goes on and if elise goes an assassin route to build dmg she becomes a pretty powerful duelist with this passive as well with her other abilities, while in her web at least. but outside of dueling this creates a nightmare scenario with objective control. imagine Baron Nashor, completely covered in this web. with elise just shredding it with her spider AA's, its an incredible amount of zone control for your objectives (but 2hot2stupid how does she get to priority targets? can't they just shoot you from outside the web?) well that leads me to the stuff in her human kit. i'll start with the Q's ** Human Q: Vile Enchanting -** -Elise fires a projectile that entices the 1st enemy hit, making them run towards Elise at reduced speed. if Elise is standing within her web, they run towards Elise at a significantly increased speed. if Elise attacks the enemy unit while enchanted they snap out of the illusion- ending the CC.

THOUGHTS: this skill shot is kinda like Ahri's charm but it acts more as "strike them with madness so they run towards their doom" as opposed to a DFG kiss of death. as this is Elise's primary fishing spell, and her spider Q is her primary damage spell i want the duration of the enchant to get longer with level. which is why i had the cc break if Elise damages the enchanted enemy. because her AA's apply a slow and a stun, i don't want people to be stun locked while Elise murders them, as much as i love the thematic strength of a unit being powerless while Elise kills them (like a spider and fly) counter play comes 1st. Riot design principles 101. Instead this is Elise's way of picking priority targets to pseudo pull them into her web without just Blitzcrank hooking them. This also has utiltiy outside of her web as it can be used to catch straddlers trying to flee a losing fight (similar to how cocoon is used now)

**Spider Q: Venomous Bite: ** -Elise lunges at a target dealing magic damage to them and applying a stack of Neurotoxin. this abilities damage is amplified based on *Elise's *missing health.

THOUGHTS: pretty straight forward, essentially the same as her old Venomous bite mechanically except it doesn't deal missing health damage, instead it applies a stack of her passive. Additionally i wanted to talk about the missing health for Elise component of this ability, and its really just to give Elise some good outplay potential. Imagine your her and someones chasing you down, you have no health, you enter your web, you now have the opportunity to deal incredibly high burst damage. Do you take the chance to kill them with your now empowered Q? Or do you just keep running with the increased movement speed. You are most deadly when you're in your web, and your prey should respect that. Even at low health i wanted enemies to be cautious following her into the depths of her lair.

Human W: Venomous intent- -Elise spews out poison at a target area that soaks into the flesh of all units hit dealing damage over time. if a unit afflicted by this poison is killed by Elise, they explode dealing AOE damage around them

THOUGHTS: This is for her ability to clear waves and jungle camps. In lane you fire this into a wave minions and as you last hit them they explode, dealing AOE damage and decimating the wave. This is Elise's only form of ranged wave clear, and is designed for her to have to risk going up with her lower attack range to push the wave as opposed to Ziggs or Xerath who Q spam the wave. Honestly I'm trying to find a more engaging way to put spider lings in her kit and it was gonna be on this ability but somebody reminded me of a Dota 2 character named Broodmother who does something very similar. (or exactly the same actually) this ability also serves to help her farm the jungle quickly (who doesn't like AOE explosions?)

Spider W: Skittering Frenzy- -PASSIVE: Elise gains increased attack speed while attacking units affected by venomous intent

THOUGHTS: Elise was a jack of all trades champion. And i remember a waaay while back before the boards there was a discussion asking Elise players what they liked about Elise. A lot of people said her versatility and clear speed. While these 2 aspects are not very engaging thematically I felt it was important to keep some of old Elise's special traits in this (theoretical) rework. You already know how i feel about versatile champions. so I'm removing a lot of things that made Elise her a jack of all trades. Potential range abuse (remember top lane Elise?) Her sustain. Her early game durability. The things i think really mattered to retain on Elise were her %health damage, and her clear speed. This form of her human and spider W is to give her that clear speed that plenty of spider fans love. ** Human E: spider ling nest** -Elise lays her eggs in an area acting as small wards, if an enemy steps in their radius the spider lings latch to them, revealing them.

THOUGHTS: I didn't want to give Elise a whole lot of damage abilities in her human form, as that is the her trade off (vulnerable) but i wanted to give her some more support-y traits as well as some tools to prevent her from getting destroyed if she thinks ahead. These spider ling nests act as wards (similar to bushwhack but with an actual vision radius) to put at jungle entrances. I wanted to keep the spider lings in her kit but i wanted to do it in a way that didn't add raw dps or durability to her kit. and i think the spider lings serving to protect the queen with their lives is pretty strong thematic effect (maybe more so for a colony ant or bee themed champion?)

**Spider E: Rappel ** -Elise ascends up onto the top of the web moving around freely off screen (her character is replace with a shadow moving across the web) for a duration, she can cast this ability to leap on top of a target within her web, dealing AOE damage. while rappelled, Elise cannot walk out the range of her web, and she cannot cast rappel to leap out of her web.

THOUGHTS: Out of all of her abilities I thought Rappel was the most iconic and was the one i wanted to keep in some form, with some adjustments. Now it acts like a mix of vlads pool and fizz's E. she can scuttle around the surface of her web being UN-targetable for a small amount of time, at the end of the duration she leaps towards her cursor (or if she casts the ability again) to deal damage to the target she lands on. now this obviously wouldn't do as much damage as a Fizz E, but this ability acts as tool to give her strong mobility -limited by its web radius boundaries. I didn't want to keep the point in click aspect of it, as it kinda felt frustrating for some people if it was not responsive enough (this has happened to friends of mine plenty) I also wanted to avoid giving her a point and click I land on anyone i want situation. Plus more damage to spread about on her kit to make her burst not feel extremely oriented on 1 ability. More spread out damage means more time for opponents to react to it.

PASSIVE: WEB SPINNER: -killing units as elise in human form lower the cool down of Spiders Lair. killing units in spider form lowers it more.

THOUGHTS: yeah not a very interesting passive. but i basically wanted to make it meaningful when you put down the web, but i didn't want to punish players who are trying to jungle her. so it has a long natural cool down but if you're farming in it the cool down goes down pretty fast.

GAMEPLAY: Elise is a magic damage based jungle Assassin who excels at strong objective control and creates a powerful zone of threat with her Spiders Lair. As a transform champion you have 1 goal to unlock both forms effectively in game play. Either create a situation where your opponent has to fight you in your web. Or lure them into a trap. Elise in both of her forms have separate but very punishing weaknesses that must be overcome for her to succeed. In her ranged mage human form, You have low damage and low mobility making you incredibly vulnerable to high aggro duelists who want to step on you with their big bruiser boots. Spider elise is a different beast all together with incredibly strong dueling power and stickiness, once she's sunk her fangs in you your chances for escape are low. In this form she also has pretty crazy mobility. What makes this high magic dps face melting spider assassin form fair? Her range of influence reaches only as far as her web. As none of her mobility spells allow her to jump out of her web and she transforms back into human form upon leaving the web. In her spider form she has no utility to aid her allies and no ranged combat abilities. While her human form has very limited combat abilities. Elise players will have to learn to manipulate the battle and place their long cool down web in strategically advantageous positions to utilize her most effectively.

EARLY GAME: Elise is best used as a Jungler where she can utilize her strengths for objective control the most. But if you wanna try taking her into lane I ain't gonna try and stop you. In the early game you're gonna wanna place your web in a position where you can clear multiple camps within its range so that its off cool down when you need it to clear the next part of your jungle route or you can set it up during a premeditated gank. You can only have 1 web on the map at a time so position it wisely to get the most benefit for you and your team.

MID GAME: As Elise gets some items going she becomes a real threat to the enemy team. Her web offers her a lot of power with her spider form and the best way to utilize it at this point is to place it at objectives to make your opponents weary of challenging your team for that dragon or that tower. Make carries fear for their lives (especially if you're fed) if they choose to challenge your team when you're most powerful.

LATE GAME: Elise in spider form when building AP is a monster to 1v1, with her passive dealing really high %max health damage. she can shred through enemies in seconds. provided you can force their hands and make them fight you within your lair.

ADDITIONAL GAME PLAY THOUGHTS: What does SPIDER QUEEN mean to you? This whole giant thing is an idea of what i think Elise should be. I wanted to tackle a large number of design points that I've read about from various dev blogs about champion balance and design, and apply it to a rework for a champion who i think thematically is one of the best character archetypes in the game, but the game play does not reflect it. While attempting to solve some problems with her game play (either being too good at everything, or not good enough at anything all of which are determined by numbers). I wanted to give her something new, a new mechanic that no other champion in the game had. A role in this game that she would be absolute queen of -aggressive objective control, and i wanted to tackle the problem a lot of champions in this game still have: meaningful weaknesses. I like when champions have meaningful weaknesses and incredible strengths. And i think this Elise reflects that aspect very well. Another thing i wanted to do was address the problem a lot of transform champions have. The ability to flip their form to whatever situation that most suited it (looking at you Jayce). While I'm not a big fan of Gnars random transformations (although well telegraphed) i wanted to create a situation where Elise could unlock her 2nd form through game play, and be vulnerable without it.

additional levers and mechanics i wanted some input on but didn't feel were necessary:

-stealth while in the web for outsiders (think akali shroud. but if you walked in you could see her) -the web is destroyed if she leaves it for too long

• Elise gets some sort of buff when moving towards someone whose stepped on her spiderlings (makes sense for someone who has her babies. damage? movement speed? i dunno)

Elise mains tell me why you HATE it. tell me every reason you hate it. as i get this form of Elise is very different from current Elise. but honestly i feel this model (or at least the core of it, I'm no designer so I'm not saying there's no problems with this kit) is definitely more spider queen then her current kit. So maybe this could've just been a new spider champion all together. But you know how riot is. Occupying game play space and all that.

Also anyone who likes game design tell me whats wrong with this kit?

And any Dev's or Reds who wanna take a look at my nights work please do so it would mean the world to me. As an aspiring MOBA game designer this is something i enjoy doing and i don't get discouraged from criticism (constructive or not) so say whatever thoughts you have on this vision of Elise.