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Can we speed up Elise's combo a bit?

Abyssphere··14 votes·1,883 views

As lots of you will know, Elise currently has some changes on the PBE that aim to encourage her to be a more active participant in fights, and be a stronger duelist/fighter. The main change that tries to make her better at dueling/assassinating people is a change to Rappel, where after using it she gains a large boost to her on-hit damage in spider form for 5 seconds. So that's cool, but what's the problem?

Rappel (and Elise's combo in general) is slow. Rappel has a literal one second delay on it, that's one of the slowest gapclosers in the game. Your window to assassinate someone is essentially the duration of Cocoon but that has a 1 second duration at rank 1 meaning just using Rappel means your opponent is no longer stunned by the time you actually get to her. But it gets worse:

Elise's full combo is EQWREWQ now. Compare this to Nidalee, whose assassination is QRWEQ and who has no notable delays on any of her abilities. It's worse still for Elise because her abilities all have wonky delays or ranges - Volatile Spiderling for example is a very slow travelling nuke that's unfitting of a quick burst combo, Rappel's 1 second delay is already mentioned, and Neurotoxin's range is so small that just walking in range to use it after a long range stun takes about a second on its own.

I feel like Elise is a poor assassin/fighter primarily because her kit is so slow. If it was sped up a bit she'd be much more adept to the role, so I propose a few changes:

  • Rappel untargetability duration on enemy cast: 1 second > 0.5 seconds
  • Neurotoxin range: 625 > 675 (assassins should not be wasting time walking towards their target)
  • Volatile Spiderling: rather than the spiderling walking the whole way, Elise should "throw" the spiderling to a target location, where it lands on the ground and begins searching for a target like usual. If it hits a target in mid-air it'll explode doing the standard damage. The reason for this change is so that it still has cool uses in scouting but is also a lot faster to land if Elise knows who she wants to hit and they're within a certain range. Plus this ability kinda just looks lame right now, it'll be a lot more impressive to see Elise actually throwing a venom-loaded spider at someone rather than just seeing it slowly wander towards people.

To be honest I feel like if Elise's kit was smoother in its combos then she'd be a lot better built AP, even leaving aside weaknesses such as being squishy in team fights. If she was given all those changes she'd be way less clunky at assassinating people and Rappel would be a much more attractive gapcloser to use when trying to kill someone than it currently is. A lot of people complain about the on-hit damage steroid on Rappel because it's not an attractive gapcloser to use and one of the big reasons for that is the 1 second delay, which is just unacceptable for a combo champion.

15 Comments

Tourian5 votes

Yeah as a hardcore Elise main, I feel like they need to speed up the descent with these current changes, as its incredibly hard to actually come down within AA range. The rest of the combo is quite nice, very fluid and something I can even do at this point with 500 ping or so given the circumstance. One thing I think they need to do that is more QoL than anything, is make both Q's instantaneous. I cant tell you how many times I've lost a Q because they go into a bush before it connects or into the FoW. And I cant think of any other ability aside from Kalista AA's that does this.

Meeks0111 votes

500 ping or so.

That's for another thread. I get 500-700 constant ping for 10 minutes straight several times a day. I go to task manager to check and it's not a large amount of bandwidth usage. I get these ping spikes in the middle of the night as well.

Tourian1 votes

{quoted}

That's for another thread. I get 500-700 constant ping for 10 minutes straight several times a day. I go to task manager to check and it's not a large amount of bandwidth usage. I get these ping spikes in the middle of the night as well.

Century Link? Literally the same thing man. Bullshit ping at like 4 am.

Meeks0111 votes

I think I have Time Warner Cable. Whatever it is, it's in America which means it's shit.

Zirzon2 votes

Either they need to give her power elsewhere instead of Rappel, or they need to speed up Rappel as you have suggested. Personally, I believe it was the wrong place to add power anyways. Typically when going in as Elise currently I would wait to use Rappel until they try to dash or flash away to pursue, or I would save it to use it defensively. This change tries to get you to use it instead as a temporary damage buff, which is what the whole idea of her w is. I find this use to be much less interesting than how it is currently used. Maybe they just want her to have to invest completely in a fight to get the most damage, but I hope they decide to buff elsewhere.

FistOfSharkiesha2 votes

Exactly! Everyone who argues in favor of Elise tends to say the wrong things. She is weak, she needs help, but it's not because of her abilities or anything, it's because her kit takes forever to pull off. If you want her to have similar damage output to a mage or assassin, she has to stay in combat for like 8 seconds instead of being able to burst. This makes her a weak assassin/mage and her bad CC makes her a weak tank, putting her in no man's land.

Terchio1 votes
  • Rappel untargetability duration on enemy cast: 1 second > 0.5 seconds
  • Neurotoxin range: 625 > 675 (assassins should not be wasting time walking towards their target)
  • Volatile Spiderling: rather than the spiderling walking the whole way, Elise should "throw" the spiderling to a target location, where it lands on the ground and begins searching for a target like usual. If it hits a target in mid-air it'll explode doing the standard damage. The reason for this change is so that it still has cool uses in scouting but is also a lot faster to land if Elise knows who she wants to hit and they're within a certain range. Plus this ability kinda just looks lame right now, it'll be a lot more impressive to see Elise actually throwing a venom-loaded spider at someone rather than just seeing it slowly wander towards people.
  • Helpful, but not enough to fix her problems. She will always be too weak or too strong when half her kit is as unreliable as it is. Instead, I would propose something like:
    • Cocoon slows target for .5/.75/1/1.25/1.5 seconds before enacting a 1 second stun.
  • She needs to not rely on her Q to assassinate, at all stages of the game. She can't rely on those like old Nida spears, and unlike those spears, Elise's Q can't miss.
  • Sounds like a Maokai Sapling. Elise is fine with the Volatile Spiderling, but it could use a QoL buff on speed, at least stacking (even) higher with Elise's base move speed, or maybe make it more reliable by not hitting minions in the way when locked on a target with Spider Q. Overall, though, its power is high enough that it's a perfectly viable 1/8th of her kit to me (2 Q's, 2 W's, 2 E's, Ult and Passive) with no changes.

Edit: Maybe instead channel 1 second slow into .5/.75/1/1.25/1.5 second stun, but have it tether with a web-spinning animation? I dunno, just spitballing here. Main point is that 2 second CC duration, no matter Rappel's duration, as a bit weak on its own for a single-target skillshot with no damage, especially on an assassin that must stick to her enemy, as that's a late-game only duration, anyways.

Abyssphere1 votes

{quoted}

  • Helpful, but not enough to fix her problems. She will always be too weak or too strong when half her kit is as unreliable as it is. Instead, I would propose something like:
    • Cocoon slows target for .5/.75/1/1.25/1.5 seconds before enacting a 1 second stun.
  • She needs to not rely on her Q to assassinate, at all stages of the game. She can't rely on those like old Nida spears, and unlike those spears, Elise's Q can't miss.
  • Sounds like a Maokai Sapling. Elise is fine with the Volatile Spiderling, but it could use a QoL buff on speed, at least stacking (even) higher with Elise's base move speed, or maybe make it more reliable by not hitting minions in the way when locked on a target with Spider Q. Overall, though, its power is high enough that it's a perfectly viable 1/8th of her kit to me (2 Q's, 2 W's, 2 E's, Ult and Passive) with no changes.

Edit: Maybe instead channel 1 second slow into .5/.75/1/1.25/1.5 second stun, but have it tether with a web-spinning animation? I dunno, just spitballing here. Main point is that 2 second CC duration, no matter Rappel's duration, as a bit weak on its own for a single-target skillshot with no damage, especially on an assassin that must stick to her enemy, as that's a late-game only duration, anyways.

I'm kinda confused by your point. What parts of her kit would you consider unreliable? I'd say Volatile Spiderling and Rappel are the most "unreliable" abilities in her kit, and the changes I've made to both are aimed at making them more practical abilities to use, thanks to both of them happening quite a bit quicker. So kinda confused.

The Cocoon change is clever but the slow shouldn't last more than 1 second. The reason I find the change nice is so that the slow will only kick in when you're Rappeling/after Rappeling, but if the duration increases to 1.5 seconds then your target has a bit too much reaction time IMO. However, the other problem here is that Cocoon now sucks for anything except comboing people. Terrible for peel, poor for picking people off with teammates, etc. If you're just trying to extend the CC duration on Cocoon then I would propose putting the slow after the stun.

Maokai saplings are cool :D Largely I do think Volatile Spiderling is an OK move, I just think the really slow nature of it is one of the things making her kit feel very laggy in assassinations.

One more thing: why can't she rely on her Qs? I'm confused by what you mean here.

p.s. I don't think these changes would solve all her problems, she would surely still have many. But I feel like these are kind of essential changes if her other problems are to be addressed. There's a variety of stuff in her kit but there's not much worse than "this part actively feels clunky".

Terchio1 votes

Volatile Spiderling and Rappel, while unreliable in their own ways, have methods of reliability to them (Volatile + Bite = point-and-click, Rappel is technically point-and-click). The unreliablility in her kit would be her melee DPS, like Spiderling damage and Spider Auto on-hit on Ulti (especially during Skittering Frenzy). Even her sustain is involved in that, and yet she has no movement boost to keep up, she has a very limited CC, and she has no defense against CC being thrown her way in a game where 90% of the champions will have some method of breaking melee range. That is her problem.

Even at 1.5 second slow, 1 second stun, that's 2.5 seconds CC. compared to 2 seconds hard CC. I don't see the OP. Also, slow after stun is a bad idea because a well-timed Rappel can hop right on your target for the 1 second stun with my plan. On yours, the stun is wasted for Rappel duration. I don't see the point. Also, Cocoon is definitely not an amazing ability, but it's also just half the ability. I am confused because you seem to be arguing both sides in the same paragraph, too. Maybe you're arguing more stun duration on the change? Well, I don't think you can tie on stun above say 1.5 seconds when there's a slow additionally. I'm still trying to keep balance over here.

Maokai saplings are cool. And taken. We don't need a skill that advanced to be carbon-copied. Volatile Spiderling may not be an iconic move on Elise, but then again, her Q's iconic tendencies is probably draining from that. It already has all the power it can be given, in my opinion, especially for half a skill.

And as for the Q's... well, we should know what happens when a champion has easy assassination options tied with hard CC (Vik, Xerath, Veigar especially, plus Annie). They get reworked, or tanked in Elise's case. Point-and-click assassination is only viable at melee range; you give it to a range champ and they have literally no options for counterplay. Q is supposed to be a whittle skill, not a full-blown assassination skill. Otherwise, you get S3 Elise.

And lastly, the fact you think those 3 skills (Rappel, Neurotoxin, Volatile Spiderling) feel clunky generally shows you are trying to really pull off this ranged mage technique, whereas that's not her actual build. You don't play Diana by throwing Q's all day, and that's not how Elise works, either. She's plenty bursty when you simply cast a Volatile Spiderling to the side and then QRQ quickly, tossing all 3 at the enemy. You get a li'l messy while doing so, but that's heavy point-and-click damage, all of it, and only Volatile Spiderling can miss at all if something is in the way... Something you can work around. Get caught? Rappel on out of there. Even Mage Elise has a high chance, but you can't just spam Human Q all day and cross your fingers... others whittle better, and by design. Otherwise, her burst would be impossible to 1v1 against, as it's all next-to-impossible to actually dodge.

Elise is bad because she's plenty good, she just isn't played to her potential because of the confusing kit (particularly the Q's perceived synergy. Everyone overlooks the rest of the kit). If she needed some help, it would be in making that rest of her kit more viable, not increase the power on her already iconic skills.

Kuroi861 votes

What about speeding up the speed of the spiderling to it's target should the target be stunned by cocoon?

I Main Swain1 votes

ignoring everything else, I disagree on the spiderling. it's already pretty difficult to avoid once it sees you, if you could throw it and have it land way faster, it would be pretty dang impossible to dodge if you're near the original casting point. also, I don't think it would really make sense for her to throw a spider

TheUltimateSpear1 votes

Hm... I've played Elise a few times but now that you mention it, yeah, I can see speeding up her animations/reliability being a good place to start. Hell, it worked for Diana, so why not Elise?

Unfortunately I don't have much to contribute since I'm not very knowledgeable about Elise, but you have my upvote.

Meeks0111 votes

Yeah, I almost never hit her W because people easily outrun it or they hide behind any other enemy unit. It would be nice if it prioritized champions as well.

Also her Rappel has a 26-14 second cooldown while Nidalee's has a 5 second cooldown at all ranks and doesn't require an enemy to cast on.

Also, Elise's damage is kind of pathetic. Her Q deals 8% current health damage. Blade of the Ruin King deals this on every attack. Her spider Q deals 8% missing health. Ekko deals this on every attack (reasonably, Elise's missing health damage isn't going to do much until it gets to about 30% health.)

Elise's E is also very boring. It's just a 1-2 second stun on a 14-10 seconds cooldown. It isn't an AOE (Riven), it's a skillshot (Twisted Fate), it deals no damage (Ryze), it doesn't have a slow and shield built in while also being AOE and having a missing health passive (Ekko), it doesn't instantly cause death (Nidalee spear), she doesn't pull them towards her or pull herself to them (Amumu, Blitzcrank, Thresh), etc. It's just so insignificant and boring. I think it should be replaced.

What someone suggested is Elise be able to place strands of web in the same way you use Rumble's ult and when an enemy walks through it they are slowed and revealed while granting Elise movement speed. If they walk through two-three in quick succession they are stunned for a few seconds instead. This gives her a more thematic sense of catching prey in her web then running towards it quickly in hunger.

If it's too complicated or too hard to code then just give her current stun some damage while speeding up Elise while she's facing them.

JustCallMeBug1 votes

Dead post, I know, but what if they made her E spew a web on the ground, or a skillshot as is, and once someone steps on it/is hit by it, they're slowed and a status affect is applied for a few seconds. If they try to use a movement ability (speed up, blink, dash, etc.) then they become entangled in the web and are stunned for one second.

If it were a ground-targeted spell, it would function as a way to prevent the opponent from escaping while you rappel to them.

Or perhaps a tether, and if the opponent exits a certain range while affected by the cocoon, it either stuns or pulls them in. Or she pulls on the web, making her faster when walking towards them?

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