Are you looking for a champion to play in the jungle and just not sure which one to pick? Well, have I got a suggestion for you! Elise, The Spider Queen, has been a popular jungler since her release (despite going through a rough patch after some nerfs) and remains a powerful pick today. She’s a great early-mid game jungler, with excellent clear and ganking potential. If you’re looking to wrap up your games quickly and effectively, I’d urge you to check her out.

Before we dive into her kit, let’s talk about some pros and cons of this champion.

Pros

• Fast clear speed: Elise can tear through camps quickly even at the beginning of the game
• Healthy clears: She clears camps at high HP by aggro juggling with her spiderlings (can also solo neutral objectives easily because of this)
• Kit is designed to do two things: deal massive burst to squishies and tear through larger HP bars (such as tanks and neutral objectives) over time
• One of the best early game gankers

Cons

• Falls off after mid game
• Heavily skillshot reliant ganking, your Cocoon is a must land ability
• Switches between ranged and melee, can put you into awkward situations because you’ll be squishy yourself
• Not super beginner friendly, it will take some time to really feel comfortable with everything her kit can do

Her Kit

Elise’s passive is Spider Queen:

• Human Form: when Elise’s abilities hit an enemy (including monsters), she gains a dormant Spiderling.
• Spider Form: Elise’s basic attacks deal bonus magic damage and restore health to Elise.

Elise’s Q is Neurotoxin / Venomous Bite

• Human Form: Deals damage based upon how high the target’s health is.
• Spider Form: Lunges at an enemy and deals damage based upon how low their health is.

Elise’s W is Volatile Spiderling / Skittering Frenzy

• Human Form: Releases a venom-gorged spiderling in a target direction that explodes when it nears a target (or after a delay).
• Spider Form: Elise and her Spiderlings gain attack speed.

Elise’s E is Cocoon / Rappel

• Human Form: Elise launches a projectile that stuns the first enemy unit hit and reveals them if they are not stealthed.
• Spider Form: Elise and her Spiderlings ascend into the air and then descend (upon reactivation or a delay) upon a target enemy (if selected). After descending on an enemy target, Elise’s bonus damage and healing from Spider Queen are increased.

Elise’s R is Spider Form

Elise transforms into a menacing spider (or back into Human Form if activated in Spider Form), reducing her attack range in exchange for movement speed, Spider Form abilities and a Spiderling swarm that will attack her foes.

Abilties further explained:

Elise’s ‘Q’ is her primary damage ability in both forms. Neurotoxin is what you should attempt to lead your damage with, as it will do the most damage to a full health target. This ability is also great at attacking higher health/tank players due to the health-based damage scaling. On the flipside, Venomous Bite is how Elise will finish her damage rotation as this ability serves as an execution. Because the damage scales based on how low an enemy is, you should save this until you have gone through all your spell rotations. Her ‘Q’ also is what makes Elise such a good jungler, as the damage bonuses will work on jungle camps and neutral objectives. You can combo your smite and Venomous Bite to make securing objectives even easier. The burst damage between your spell and smite will usually be too much for anyone to steal (if done correctly).

Elise’s ‘W’ is a great tool for clearing waves and jungle camps once you’ve bought some ability power. Volatile Spider will explode and do area of effect damage, helping kill smaller jungle camps and waves quickly and without having to go into melee range of waves in the mid-to-late game. Violate Spider is also a great poke tool for sieging or when teams are waiting to find a teamfight. The attack speed increase Skittering Frenzy is a surprisingly useful tool in terms of chewing through large monsters and champion health bars, because Elise is already doing bonus magic damage on her auto attacks in Spider Form (the Spiderlings also do a considerable amount of damage when attacking rapidly).

Elise’s ‘E’ is what makes her such a scary gank presence. Cocoon is a ranged ability that stuns for 1.6 seconds at the first rank. She doesn’t need to put any points or buy any items to make this ability useful. If a champion is hit with a Cocoon early game they must flash or they will almost always die. Rappel is another ability that is a surprisingly useful tool. When Elise uses Rappel she ascends into the sky and becomes untargetable. This means that she cannot be hit with abilities and things like towers, minions and monsters will switch targets. Elise can tower dive much safer than other junglers because of her ability to instantly drop aggro and avoid a fatal tower shot. Not to mention the chasedown potential of the ability.

Elise’s ‘R’ is very straight forward. She changes forms and is given access to her other set of abilities. You also gain passive movement speed, making this the form to travel the map in.

How To Use Your Spell Rotations:

You’ll generally want to start in Human Form and use all your damaging abilities before switching. Use ‘Q’, ‘W’, ‘R’ (as Cocoon does not damage and has a high cooldown). In Spider Form use your ‘W’ first to grant you spiderlings the attack speed bonus and then hold your ‘Q’ to execute the camp. Rappel is useful for hopping over walls to get to camps faster, but is not necessarily used in the jungle often.

You’ll also want to tank jungle camps early on, as a lot of your damage comes from your Spiderlings. It may be tempting to save your health and let them take a few hits, but it will be less efficient in the long run. Early game Spiderlings only take about one hit each from jungle camps and therefore get so much less value out of tanking (after you’ve gotten some ability power, such as the jungle item, it is more than fine to do so).

How to Build Elise

Elise will generally start with a Hunter’s Machete, Refillable Potion and a Yellow Ward. You generally won’t need the extra mana regeneration at the start of the game, because of blue buff and the good damage from your Spiderlings.

On your first back you’ll be looking to pick up boots and upgrade your jungle item. You can go either Challenging or Chilling smite depending on the situation. Although, Chilling smite is usually the safer option due to the added utility the targeted slow provides. Challenging smite is a good pick up if the enemy team has some tanks or bruisers as it’ll help you in longer fights. You’ll also want to switch your trinket to a Sweeper Ward (time to start clearing out and controlling vision) and pick up a Red Ward (if you happen to have enough gold).

From there, you’ll want to finish your jungle item to Runic Echoes and Sorcerer boots. You can also consider building Ninja Tabi or Mercury Treads if you think you need the early armor or tenacity. Keep buying Red Wards to maintain vision control around objectives.

The last item of your core item build will be one of either a Morellonomicon or Liandry’s Torment. You’ll want to pick up a Morellonomicon if the enemy team has a lot of healing built in or has champions that like to buy healing items. Liandry’s is for situations where the enemy team’s healing is not great enough to warrant the Morellonomicon buy. There are situations where you can build both, for example - if the enemy team has a healing support and tanky front line or a Mundo or just a general mix of heavy healing and tankier champions.

From this point, you have five items that you can build based on your preference and game state.

- Zhonya's Hourglass is good if the enemy team has a lot of Attack Damage and/or you’re diving into fights and need something to keep you alive.

- Banshee’s Veil is good if the enemy team has good pick or long ranged crowd control abilities that you’d like to avoid or tank for your teammates.

- Void Staff is good if the enemy team is stacking magic resistance or a tank is getting a bit too hard to kill (see also the Morellonomicon AND Liandry’s Torment situation)

- Rylai's Crystal Scepter is just an overall good item. It gives you some Ability Power, health and utility with a slow. This item makes it very easy to land your Cocoon after hitting any other ability and will make it near impossible for an enemy to get away from you. The Spiderlings also activate the slow.

- Rabadon’s Deathcap is an amazing 5th or 6th item. It will boost your overall Ability Power and make you hit hard. It can help make up for the fact that Elise falls off in the late game.

Playstyle

Elise is a gank heavy jungler. She has amazing early game presence and can abuse any blown summoner spells or misplays easily. Once you reach level three, you’ll want to try and blow as many Flashes on your early routes as possible. From there you’ll want to focus on clearing toward the lane(s) that don’t have Flash and/or are less mobile. Repeat ganking will ensure that both you and that lane get ahead, as well as, you’ll have control of that side of the map for an early Rift Herald or Dragon.

Teamfighting is where things start to feel a bit tricky with Elise. You want to try and help poke or pick with your Human Form ‘W’ and ‘E’, but don’t run through your whole mana pool (it’s not as big as you think it is). You’ll be entering fights at melee range as a squishy AP champion, so remember to use your Spider Form ‘E’ effectively to keep yourself alive. Your damage will start to fall off toward the late game (unless you’ve gotten insanely ahead), but don’t worry. Your objective taking ability and pick potential with Cocoon remain extremely strong.

Overall, you want to try and get yourself and your lanes ahead early. That way you can invade and punish the enemy jungler. This will continue to net your team kills and objectives. Teamfighting can be difficult, but not impossible (especially after you’re more comfortable with the champion) and you’ll always be useful at late game objectives or getting picks from fog of war.

Final Tips and Tricks

- You can fake opponents out by tossing out your Volatile Spiderling (W) before your Cocoon (E). The animations are similar, and you may cause the opponent to use their movement spell or Flash - which you can then punish with the CC you held onto. Also remember to get in closer before using Cocoon to maximize the odds of landing it

- Your Rappel can be used on enemies and neutral monsters/objects. If you find yourself in some trouble, you can rappel to minions, camps, jungle plants and wards (even if you don’t have vision before you go up). Elise has access to weird ganking paths because of Rappel. For example, she can Flash over walls to gank enemies from behind, while they’re under their own tower, and be relatively safe because of her CC and ability to quickly drop aggro (be sure to inform your team first, so they can follow up).

- Tower diving with Elise is much safer than most champions. If you’re going to dive, be sure to take the tower aggro first and you can rappel to drop it instantly.

- Your Volatile Spiderling (W) gives you a brief moment of vision, you can use it to check fog of war and bushes.

- Elise can do Dragons and Rift Heralds easily by herself. She can use her Spiderlings to juggle the aggro and chew through these large objectives even early on.

- While it feels less than ideal, if you’re confident in your team’s ability to deal enough damage, you can build tankier. After getting your jungle item and a second AP item, you can build things like Dead Man’s Plate, Locket of the Iron Solari or Iceborn Gauntlet. This will be less effective overall, but allows you to soak damage in the mid - late game.