Blood Moon Wraithblade, Elise, AP on-hit skirmishers

I've picked up Elise recently and have had some mixed results. I have been struggling to find an ideal build for her that works well and fits her playstyle and theme, and so far nothing feels quite right. According to champion.gg, her most popular and highest winrate build is but the winrate listed for that build is listed around 33-38% on average which is terrible even when considering factors like game length at full build (and her declining winrate lategame may actually be a symptom of a lack of lategame build options)... It also doesn't even look good on paper, since the slow on enhanced smite and exploding spiderling seems to make a bit redundant. also seems iffy since rappel can already be used for a similar effect and using Zhonyas to wait out cooldowns seems less beneficial on Elise than other champions since she can change forms to access her other set of cooldowns instead after making a full rotation. So it seems like Elise probably builds these items primarily just because the stats on them let her avoid being instantly burst rather than for the unique effects of the items, which seems like a boring reason to be forced into this build path.

A short while back, I saw on the boards that some people build on Elise, and I personally like the idea of it, with the fitting thematics of a spider's fighting tool being a fang, and I like the way it plays with spider form's on-hit and W attack speed buff but it seems to have some issues in general. Going into melee range to DPS skirmish as spider form without building some early tank stats feels extremely risky unless extremely ahead. Also the component seems a bit weak since it offers no on-hit damage unlike the AD equivalent so it doesn't feel like much of a powerspike while waiting to afford the complete 3,000g Nashor's Tooth. The weak powerspike on Stinger would be alright as a trade-off for a strong lategame build if Elise had great options to synergize with it lategame, but that doesn't appear to be the case. It seems like most users are actually performing below average, and if you can't make great use of both with it then it doesn't feel particularly worthwhile. The only exception seems to be who seems to have had his whole kit designed around and who also has a low winrate. has a good winrate with because she's a new champion and her kit was balanced around the current weak Nashor's Tooth and she can take advantage of both and which seems to be the current requirement for really effectively using Nashor's Tooth.

So these are just my observations. To summarize, I think is weak, I think Nashor's Tooth is weak in most cases unless you can use both well, and I think Elise would be a lot more interesting if she could flexibly choose to build either as a regular burst build or as an AP on-hit DPS skirmisher. I think Elise could specifically get kit changes to support an on-hit DPS playstyle. I think that it would be cool if a new AP on-hit item were added that would provide an alternative to for champions like .

Here are my suggestions:

(Spider Form Q) Venemous Bite: Lunges at an enemy and deals damage based upon how low their Health is and applies on-hit effects twice. [The double on-hit is similar to Evelynn's old Rend ability.]

(Spider Form W) Skittering Frenzy: Elise and her Spiderlings gain Attack Speed. While frenzied, Spiderlings apply on-hit effects on every-other basic attack.

These might seem like big buffs to Elise, but there are important factors to consider:

1. Elise is currently weak. Correct me if I am mistaken, but that is my impression from both personal experience and researching her public match statistics.
2. These buffs change absolutely nothing for Elise with her current meta build and meta playstyle.
3. Even with these big buffs to AP on-hit skirmisher Elise, there is a good chance that the new playstyle still wouldn't catch on, since it may be a lot riskier to play as due to power being shifted into her melee form. In a best case scenario, she'd end up with the flexibility to build either way depending on the match and personal preference, but I do hope that the skirmisher build would end up being fairly reliably good.

[I also think voidlings could get this spiderling on-hit treatment while frenzied, which would allow Malzahar to make use of and other on-hit items; however, he would require compensation nerfs if it was overly viable.]

New Item: https://i.imgur.com/0Elw2Y0.png [ Guinsoo's Rage effect would be renamed Wrath to make it clear that these effects cannot stack.] This is a new item based on tweaked for Summoner's Rift and intended for use by AP on-hit skirmishers. This item would provide a good alternative to for champions who don't highly value the AD, don't/can't plan to build , and can't risk skipping defensive stats in their build. It would also provide a new armor AP item, a second use for , and a (albeit rather niche) tenacity alternative to versus AD-heavy teams, which are all things that have all been requested for a long time. The low active cooldown is intended to allow the effect to be used very frequently for activities such as clearing jungle camps and its uptime should be comparable but not identical to . I can also imagine this item being popular for AP on-hit pseudo-marksmen in bot lane versus regular marksmen, and supposedly bot lane class diversity is something Riot is looking at for the near future. I can imagine this item being used as a niche AP on-hit/skirmisher option for at least some of the following, though it would obviously be more meta on some than others.
(see voidling frenzy on-hit suggestion) Others such as {{champion:38} would have decent options when building AP on-hit to either invest in the combo or build Blood Moon Wraithblade depending on their needs.

Hopefully with this new item, would then have the option to replace + with Blood Moon Wraithblade (I just realized the acronym would be BMW lol) + , and the new build/playstyle could also likely open up the option of rarely counter-building instead of against highly tanky teams. I really think this new flexibility would do a lot for Elise and others.

Let me know what you think. As with any new item addition, it's possible that certain champions would need to be rebalanced around it if they became overpowered with it in their standard build. If the item were too niche or underpowered, it could be buffed until it begins to be sufficiently utilized.

By the way, if there is a Rioter reading this, I give you full permission to use/implement these concepts/suggestions including the new item name and thumbnail as you see fit with no expectation of any compensation or recognition. I withhold no legal rights or license to these suggestions/materials. I just want to see these added to the game. Thanks!

-Sam