Elise revamp suggestion

So I like Elise but she's got a kit that's pretty toxic (pun intended) where she can be extremely oppressive if she gets buffed to the point of viability.

Part of what makes her frustrating to learn is the insane level of complexity involved in managing her spiderlings and her cooldowns. This may (but I don't have the data, so I'm shooting from the hip really) be part of the reason that her win rate and popularity were so good in high ELO's and so terrible in low ELO's. In the hands of a novice, even an average player, she was terrible and in the hands of a pro she was oppressive. The gap between good and bad was too big, and RIOT was forced to balance her based on the extreme high end.

Instead of trying to keep her power level manageable by creating a power ceiling, I'm putting a few ideas out that change her playstyle so that her fights seem less routine and you get some interesting counterplay.

Elise, as is, is a mediocre pick that doesn't quite meet the tanky specifications to get enough out of the tanky meta and she's a subpar assassin for the assassin meta. She's essentially sitting out the current season.

So I chose to focus on something that would make her an asset to a team that needs strong early game harass in the form of CC, and strong lategame teamfight potential, without being a frontline tank and without taking anyone's throne away from them.

I suggest changing her passive so that it no longer requires spell hits. This forced Elise to get off spells before she could initiate. Spiders don't do that, what are you thinking? Have the number of Spiders ramp up to max passively over time. Preferably fast enough that she can be ready for the next camp when she's jungling. This means that Elise has to spend TIME in human form before switching to spider form, which is a window of opportunity for counterplay and adds strategic depth to when to change forms.

For her Human form q, I recommend changing it such that it deals damage, but the max hp shredding is only applied if Elise is hidden from view, if she's initiating combat with her q, or if the target is blind. (Hi there, team comp strategies!) [ gasp ] This means that Elise wants to catch someone off guard to get the most out of her q, which makes her jungle gank scary as it ever has been and adds some counterplay to fighting against it. At first it may seem like this is a pure nerf but if it forced the opponent to play more conservatively in response, you can use that to your advantage.

Spider form q remains unchanged.

Human form W, I apply the same change. The explodey spider deals regular damage all the time, but if you catch a target off guard out of stealth or initiate the fight with it, you get more damage out of the explosion. This applies whether it is Elise or the spider that attacks out of the bush. If the spider or Elise is visible for too long, it prevents Elise from getting the ambush bonuses on her spells. This means that to get the bonus damage out of it, you need to catch an enemy near the bush.

Spider form w remains unchanged.

Human form E, I apply a similar change. If Elise initiates with her cocoon, it lasts longer, is upgraded from a root to a stun, and slows the target for a second after they break out. Otherwise it is a root that lasts 1 second.

These changes mean that:

You can initiate with a superpowerful stun and followup with damaging q and W. You can initiate with max hp shredding Q and followup with a root and an explodey spider. You can initiate with a superpowerful spider explosion, then root your target and hit them with your toxin or just forego the toxin and switch straight to spider form for the leap, frenzy finish. You can initiate with a stun, then as the enemy panics and flashes away, cackle like a supervillain as you move to the next camp. You can poke with hp shred. You can poke with a stun that enables a powerful teamfight initiation. You can boobytrap bushes with extreme hard hitting spiderbombs. The enemy team has to avoid the fog of war.

I'm thinking that because there are built in limiters to her power spells here, this would allow for some sizable buffs to her kit without risking it being too oppressive.

TL;DR: Elise's human form spells each take part of their damage and utility and provide that only if that spell was used to initiate. This means that she no longer has a single best rotation and you get to make some intelligent decisions on how to play out combat with her.