An analysis of Elise, her problems (past and present) and potential solutions
Before I start: I suggest buffs at the end, so that is the equivalent of a tl;dr here
Hi. As we've all noticed, Elise has been a popular topic of discussion lately. How to buff her, what's wrong with her kit, what was wrong with her past nerfs, etc. There's been some interesting ideas like making Neurotoxin more debilitating outside of its damage, for one. But there's also been what I would say are incorrect thoughts on her. The main one:
"Elise has an identity crisis": I do not believe this to be true. People say "Elise is an assassin/tank, that's stupid" and I don't think that is quite correct. It is correct that in the past, she could build tanky and do well. It's also true that right now she builds tank, but I don't think this is intrinsic to her kit and that is what people miss. Elise built tank in the past because her base damages (which have only ever been nerfed) were so high that her best way to contribute was to be tanky enough to use her base damages repeatedly, rather than build AP and get off much higher burst, but die much quicker. Now, she is forced to build tanky because her natural tankiness has been destroyed to the point where she dies instantly without tank items. HOWEVER, this does not make her a tank. A tank has tools to give them high survivability and disruption, but Elise does not have a single tank steroid in her kit since the removal of her free tank stats in spider form. Her disruption is also non-existent, being nothing but a single target skillshot stun.
The messiness in Elise's identity is simply a case of numbers and always has been. Her numbers were so high on everything in the past that she had no need to build damage. Now they're so low on everything that she needs to build damage but needs tankiness more, because there's no point having lots of damage if you can't use any of it. This is fixable.
"You can't buff her damage because she'll be just like she was before": Not true. You can't buff her BASE damages, because then she goes back to building tanky and still outdamaging you (and everyone hates that). But you CAN buff her scaling. As long as the extra damage you give to Elise is damage she needs to itemise for (by building AP), there's nothing wrong with it. It's giving her more damage for free while she builds tank items that causes problems of balance.
So what is her problem? In my opinion it's the fact that while Elise's maximum potential damage is exceptional, she can only effectively deliver a small fraction of it. This is for three reasons, I believe:
- She's a squishy, melee fighter who gets most of her DPS through fighting in AA range. No champion like that can effectively do it without a tool to help them survive. Elise's only tool to do that is Skittering Frenzy, but the ratio on it is very poor.
- Elise's DPS is hugely reliant on her passive, her Spiderlings. At level 16 she has 5 Spiderlings and they contribute a ton to her damage, but unfortunately they're terribly unreliable because they're gotten rid of very quickly. Her Spiderlings have had their tankiness nerfed in the past and I think that's a pity, because unless Elise can reliably expect her spiders to last through her Skittering Frenzy, I don't think she'll ever be viable without her other damage skills being overtuned (as they were in the past).
- Elise is designed to be a squishy fighter/assassin in spider form but has no real way to escape after a kill before getting blown up, nor a way to move onto a different target. Rappel has a very long cooldown, can't be used to jump to allied units, etc. This means Elise when jumping in to blow someone up basically has to decide if giving away a kill is worth getting herself a kill, which means even when Elise succeeds (getting a kill), she's punished.
These are the changes I think would solve her problems:
- Buff the AP ratio on Skittering Frenzy. C9's Meteos has said that Elise needs some way to survive while building damage to be viable and this seems the best way to do it, because it involves risk (unlike a certain Cougar lady's heal...). Elise can only access her survival tool when she actually goes in, which is risky. Problem is, right now the 4% ratio just isn't good enough to justify jumping in. Buff the ratio to, say, 6%, and I think the healing would justify a more glass cannon build, giving her more chance of successfully beating other fighters/ADCs, and greater health left over after a successful kill.
- Increase the AOE mitigation on her Spiderlings. Right now they take 25% reduced damage from AOE damage and that's nice, but nowhere near enough to stop them dying to stray spells. If their mitigation was changed to 20 / 25 / 30 / 35% (scaling with level in her ultimate) then again, she'd be much more justified in building damage, because she can jump in with a bit more faith in her Spiderlings actually surviving long enough to do some damage.
- Put an on-kill/assist reset on Rappel :D I saw someone suggest this earlier and I was astounded that I'd never thought of it before. It's the perfect way to say "Yes, she is an assassin", a perfect way to ensure she doesn't actually die instantly after she gets a kill, a perfect way to allow her to choose another target after a kill, etc. And the best part is it will only work if she jumps in, and because Rappel is a spider form ability, she won't gain any benefit from an assist that comes down to just throwing a Cocoon at someone. It rewards her from doing something in a team fight that isn't just repeatedly throwing out Volatile Spiderlings and Cocoons, and gives her some really cool plays (because let's admit it, Rappel is a really fun ability).
Note: I think buff 2 is really important, but only buff 1 OR 3 should accompany it (at first at least). You don't want to buff her too much too soon, and these would all be really nice buffs.
tl;dr: Basically I really do believe that it's possible to buff Elise without her being toxic again, I just don't think Riot has thought of it yet. Please give your thoughts on her problems, my thoughts in general, my suggested buffs (just above) and anything else you want to say about Elise. The more visibility we get on Elise discussion, the better!