When all the new changes came to the jungle, there was one jungler who I could not stop playing: Elise. Once known as the Queen of the Jungle, Elise had fallen off the jungle meta compared to the likes of Hecarim, Vi, and Ivern who had all skyrocketed to the top of jungle pick rates and win rates and secured their spots as top tier junglers. However, Elise is one of the most impactful and fun junglers to play. If you love making enemy laners salty and causing havoc in the enemy jungle, Elise is for you.

Abilities

Passive: Spider Queen

Human Form: When Elise's abilities hit an enemy, she gains an inactive spiderling, Elise can have 2-5 spiderlings depending on level.

Spider Form: Elise's basic attacks deal 10-40 (+30% Ability Power) extra magic damage and heal her for 4-10 (+10% Ability Power) per hit.

To effectively clear the jungle, make sure you utilize your Human Form for spells to gain spiderlings in Spider Form. Spiderlings are crucial to clearing jungle. If manipulated properly, they will pull aggro from the neutral monsters and save you some health. In spider form, your passive is an amazing tool for dueling and sustaining in the jungle. Combine this with a couple of AP items and your jungle clear becomes very easy and quick. If both parts of the passive are used to their full potential, clearing the jungle will be much quicker, which grants you time for ganks and counter-jungling.

Q (Human Form): Neurotoxin

Elise shoots a poison at a targeted unit dealing magic damage.

This ability is great for finishing kills and is also essential to the basic Elise combo. While clearing, it is great for producing spiderlings. However, this ability does have capped damage versus neutral monsters.

Q (Spider Form): Venomous Bite

Elise jumps to a targeted enemy unit and bites dealing magic damage.

Another great ability for both clearing and fighting, this ability will be your most used. Keep in mind that Elise does jump a little when using this, so you do not have to be within auto attack range to use it. This ability also has capped damage versus neutral monsters.

W (Human Form): Volatile Spiderling

Elise summons a poison filled spider for 3 seconds that moves in a targeted direction.

Your Volatile Spiderling will prove to have many functions. The spiderling gives vision of bushes so it can be used to face check that one death bush you always get caught in. Late game, this can serve to be a tool for poke and popping Banshee's Veil.

W (Spider Form): Skittering Frenzy

Passive: Elise's spiderlings gain bonus attack speed.
Active: Elise and her spiderlings gain bonus attack speed for 3 seconds.

Skittering Frenzy is hands down my favorite ability. Combine this with your Spider Form passive and you can shred through whoever stumbles into you. This ability can be used to siege towers, clear the jungle, and duel an enemy champion.

E (Human Form): Cocoon

Elise shoots a web in a target direction, stunning and giving vision of any enemy hit for 1 second.

This ability will decide whether or not you succeed at Elise. If you can consistently hit this ability when ganking and team fighting, your team can turn that small 1 second stun into a chain of CC, resulting in a kill. This ability can also be used to quickly get away from pursuing enemies, a 1 second window can be enough to out run some enemies as Elise.

E (Spider Form): Rappel

Elise and her spiderlings rise into the air, becoming untargetable for up to 2 seconds, and creating a circle of vision around the area. When Elise lands on the ground again the attack speed and healing boost from her spider passive get temporary buffs for 5 seconds

Rappel is Elise's main gap closer and get away tool. If used directly on an enemy, Elise will automatically jump to the target in 1 second. If you self-cast this ability, Elise will pull into the air for the full 2 seconds or until you target an enemy. Use this ability to jump to enemies who are running away or CCed. It's also used as a getaway tool, when self-casted Elise reveals the area around her, allowing you to jump to jungle camps for a quick over the wall getaway.

R: Spider Form/Human Form

Passive: The number of spiderlings Elise can have are increased when this ability is leveled.
Active: Elise switches forms.

This ability is the only way for Elise to switch forms. When Elise is in Spider Form she is granted an extra 25 movement speed.

Leveling

The leveling of Elise's ability is pretty simple. It's recommended to start W, then take points in all your abilities of course, then max Q>W>E, taking points in her ult at 6, 11, and 16.

Summoner Spells

You should basically always take Flash, Ghost would be the only alternative, but Flash allows you to flash into range for a Cocoon or get you close enough to guarantee a stun. Smite is self-explanatory.

Runes

The runes I recommend are 9x Greater Mark of Magic Penetration, 9x Greater Glyph of Magic Resist, 9x Greater Seal of Armor, and 3x Greater Quintessence of Ability Power.

These runes allow for safe and healthy jungler clears, while also giving Elise early game damage. However, I've recently been experimenting with some different runes, these rune pages can be quite situational but can be used, feel free to try them yourself.

9x Mark of Attack Speed instead of 9x Mark of Magic Penetration

Feel free to test this page out in a couple of games. I've yet to see a huge benefit from it but I can see the thought process behind it, which is another attack speed boost on top of your passive and W active.

9x Glyph of Ability Power instead of 9x Glyph of Magic Resist.

This page is a very risky one, the early magic resist being gone can be a pretty big disadvantage. I'd really only recommend this if the enemy team is running a full AD comp.

Masteries

With the introduction of some new masteries, my mastery page has changed up a bit. This mastery page has been my most successful although I have experimented a bit with the extra 5% cooldown reduction.

Fresh Blood: One of the new masteries added in, I took this over Feast and Expose weakness to increase my burst potential. It's a very good mastery once peak items are reached, and with only a 6 second cooldown I'd highly recommend it.

Double Edged Sword: To me, the extra 5% damage heavily outweighs the other 2 options. While you are taking 2.5% more it shouldn't matter once you've acquired items like Zhonya's and Rylai's. While Bounty Hunter is appealing, I'd rather take the guaranteed 5% increase as well as it being present early game. You could say it gives you a slight edge early game.

Runic Affinity: Last season I ignored this mastery completely, only using Biscuits and Assassin. However, after using it once I'm hooked. A 15% time increase on your red and blue buff is amazing. Blue to clear more camps and red for that early game burn and slow. I'd highly recommend this mastery.

Dangerous Game: No reason to take the other 2, you aren't supporting and the bush stepping is kind of weird in my opinion. Mana and health regeneration on kills and assists can keep you in fights for longer and even keep you from backing before doing neutral objectives like Baron and Dragon.

Precision: Not 100% necessary, but the extra penetration on top of your runes is very beneficial early on. You can experiment with Intelligence as it allows you to pump out cocoons and other abilities faster.

Thunderlord's: This ability destroys people. Compared to all the other potential keystones, this one is by far the best on Elise. I'd 100% recommend it due to the easy proc on your ability combos.

Itemization

Along with your jungle item, these will be your main 4 items.

Sorcerer's Boots: The flat penetration and movement speed provided by this item is highly valued by Elise. The mobility granted and early magic pen can help make ganks way easier. The only potential alternatives for these would be Boots of Lucidity or Mobility. Since you should reach 30-40% CDR without Lucidity I wouldn't recommend them unless you plan on swapping them out later on. Mobility Boots are great for getting around the map, but Elise doesn't really need them due to the additional movement speed in Spider Form and Sorcerer's Boots.

Protobelt: My god, do I love this item. Need early burst? Protobelt. Need an early gap closer? Protobelt. This item does it all really. With only a 40 second cooldown, this item is 100% worth it. On top of early health, ability power, and cooldown reduction it's only 2500 gold. Protobelt is a great item to start building after your jungle item.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter: Well we all know this item will be receiving its well-deserved nerf soon, so make sure to still abuse it while you can. But honestly, a 40% slow is pretty ridiculous, especially due to the amount of single target spells Elise possesses. Rylai's basically enables you to hunt down enemies with ease, as well as slow down chasing enemies with your AoE W.

Abyssal Scepter: An all-around great item for Elise, the magic resist allows you to soak up more damage in fights while still getting your damage output out, the passive helps every AP champion on your team basically, and it still gives AP and CDR.

Final Item: Up to you really, this item may be built before some of the other items due to a fed enemy or specific team comp. I've been experimenting with Zhonya's, Guardian Angel, Dead Man's Plate, and even Void Staff.

Jungle Item

You may have realized I didn't mention the jungle item at all in the past section. That's because I wanted to dedicate a full section to comparing and contrasting them.

 or 

The enchantment for both is pretty obvious. While Cinderhulk is an option for teams that are in desperate need for a tank, Runic Echoes is my preferred enchantment.

Challenging Smite: Challenging Smite can be cast on enemy champions and neutral monsters. When smiting a champion, it reveals them for 4 seconds, reduces their damage towards you by 20%, and makes them take 60-162 true damage from your basic attacks over time.

Pros: Gives vision of enemies, damage reduction, true damage.

Cons: Can accidentally smite champion instead of neutral objective, slightly less true damage than Chilling Smite later in the game.

Chilling Smite: Chilling Smite can be cast on enemy champions and neutral monsters. When smiting a champion, it steals 20% of their movement speed while instantly dealing 28-166 true damage.

Pros: Good for chasing enemies and setting up ganks, true damage, pretty funny when you kill an enemy with smite.

Cons: Less true damage early, can accidentally smite champion instead of neutral objective.

Which one?: Well this is entirely up to you, if you prefer the guaranteed true damage and slow of Chilling, then take Chilling. If you like to duel enemies and burn them slowly, take Challenging. Both these Smites are good at their respective job and can both work when used correctly, don't just go around smiting people because you can.

Early Game

Your early game is most likely going to be the most impactful part of the game. Elise is very good at level 3 ganks due to her already having access to 6 abilities. With the new jungle this can be accomplished very easily, simply start red buff, then do krugs. This will grant you level 3 after only 2 camps. Your next move is up to you. When playing blue side, I like to gank bot or mid depending on how the waves have been pushed. Keep in mind if you're ganking bot that your bot lane might still only be level 1 which is actually a risky gank due to the early game squishiness of Elise. When playing red side, I almost always gank top. A simple Cocoon can lead to at least a Flash and even a kill before 5 minutes. After your initial gank, clear your jungle. While you were ganking, the enemy may have taken your blue buff due to him spotting you on the other side of the map. Once you've full cleared I'd recommend you back. While it's possible to farm all the way to buying your entire jungle item, it's very dangerous due to you being at a severe item disadvantage if the enemy jungler decided to back.

Teamfighting

Your main goal in a teamfight is to burst down a squishy. One Cocoon on a priority target can lead to a kill. If you stun the enemy mid laner or AD Carry while they're out of position, attempt to burst them by comboing your human form W and Q then quickly finishing them by switching to spider and using Q and W again. If you remove one of the carries early on during a fight, it's almost assured that your team can come out on top as long as your entire team didn't die when you killed the squishy.

Late Game

Late game will most likely be the hardest part of your game. Elise will fall off once enemies have built the magic resist to stop her burst and have the damage to melt through your few defensive stats. However, you still are a very important factor. Even if the enemies have QSS for your Cocoon, as long as they aren't Cpt Jack they will be stopped for at least .25 seconds, which is enough time for your team to string some more CC on to them. If you find yourself being less and less effective in teamfights, consider selling some AP items and getting an extra tank item to help peel for your carries.

Summary

If you're looking for a fun and impactful jungler, I'd advise you to try out Elise. You many not instantly hit all your Cocoons and be maximizing your damage every fight, but the only thing that will help is practice. Make sure to remember that the main point of this game is to have fun. As long as that's happening, you're winning. I hope you all test out my favorite champion and I wish you luck on the Rift!

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