League of Legends Elise Builds Guide

League of Legends Elise Builds Guide by soada0226

Hey all! I’m Just Roy, a Diamond 4 (working on 3 today) jungle/support main. I wanted to spend some time discussing probably my favorite jungler and all around versatile champion, Elise. She is by far one of the highest skill cap champions due to the situational use of all 8 of her abilities, and due to the sheer strength of her kit has managed to stay competitively viable despite getting hit by the nerf hammer more often than Rihanna gets hit by Chris Brown.

The many jungle builds: Elise has been probably one of the most competitively viable junglers for the longest period of time. The reason for this is fairly simple: she is one of the few junglers that is ranged (this makes her amazing in poke/siege comps). Elise also takes almost no damage in the jungle due to her spiderlings early, which allows her to put huge pressure on the map early. This leads to her last strength: she is one of if not the best level 3 ganker in the game. She has everything: cc, an aggro reset, 3 damage spells, and an attack speed steroid. So it only makes sense that for such a versatile champion, many different builds would exist. Let’s look at the 3 most popular ones.

Full blown ap Elise:

Spectral Wraith -> Sorc Shoes -> Haunting Guise -> Void Staff -> Deathfire Grasp -> Zhonyas-> Liandries

This build is really the solo queue build to go once you get enough of experience on the champion. In the lcs these past few weeks, this build has seen play by Crumbz and Meteos. With the rise of top AP Gragas, the competitive scene is valuing high AP builds on low ap scaling champions simply because they are strong lane bullies that can snowball their team with enough early ap; Elise fits this mold. DFG is a hilarious item for her, as it allows her to amplify her already crazy percent damage and 3 shot targets.

Bruiser Elise:

Spirit Stone ->Spectral Wraith -> Sorc Shoes -> Haunting Guise -> Rylai’s -> Liandries Torment -> Locket of the Iron Salami -> Frozen Heart

This is by far the best skirmishing Elise build. Generally, by the mid game, you will have a solid amount of AP between the Spectral Wraith/Liandry’s/Rylai’s combo, along with a flat 30 magic pen. In the mid game you will hit like a bus, and by the late game you will be tanky enough to duel most champions.

This build also reaches 40% CDR in the late game, which makes you a veritable slowing and cocoon machine. If you’re a newcomer to Elise, this is the build I would recommend most, as it’s the most forgiving. Liandries/Rylais is an extremely high damage combination, and will keep you relevant and able to duel/kite/chase down targets at every stage of the game.

Tank Elise:

Ancient Golem -> Ninja Tabi/Merc’s -> KindleGem -> Frozen Heart -> Locket of the Iron Salami -> Warmog’s -> Thornmail

This is my modified version of the “Meteos Build”. When Elise’s jungle clear speed got nerfed a few patches ago, her cocoon got buffed at later levels to scale to 2 seconds of CC from the flat 1.5 it used to be at all levels. At 40% CDR, Elise’s cocoon is a 2 second stun on a 6 second CD, making it one of the most spammable CC’s in the game along with Thresh’s hook and Morgana’s dark binding.

Tank Elise excels at one thing above all else; being a huge pain in the balls in team fights for the enemy team. Be sure to toss cocoons out off cool down, and on the highest priority targets possible. If played correctly, Elise should stand in front of her backline, cocooning anyone trying to dive, or cocooning any targets that can be caught for a pick.

Just remember, you do buns damage, so try to err on the side of keeping your carries alive with your Locket and your cocoons. This is the only Elise build where you should max your cocoon second after your Q (Neurotoxin/ Venomous Bite).

Welp that about sums it up. Hope you enjoyed my guide to jungle Elise!

But wait, what about support/mid/top Elise?

Glad you asked! Well, support Elise is probably in the best state she’s ever been, but I still think she does best against the tankier supports like Thresh/Leona/Braum/Blitzcrank. I think Relic Shield is actually an amazing item for Elise, and she can provide nearly the same catch potential as Morgana with more mobility and an extra bush check. My recommended build for solo queue:

Relic Shield-> Targon -> Sorc Shoes -> Sightstone -> Haunting Guise -> Face of the Mountain -> Rylais -> Liandries -> Frozen Heart

You can go the CDR items earlier and max E second if you so choose, but I feel for solo queue it’s more important to hit hard early, since people will skirmish even when it’s advantageous and hitting hard is important.

As for top and mid Elise, I haven’t played much of either in a long time. I feel Lulu has cornered the lane bully matchup that Elise once did top lane, and the mid lane meta just doesn’t really have a place for her at the moment. It’s still playable, I just personally feel there are better picks in these roles. Elise doesn’t have anything to offer in a solo lane that the niche picks at the moment can’t do better.

EDIT: Runes and Masteries

Almost every game I jungle elise I run:

hybrid pen reds

armor yellows

magic resist blues

attack speed quints

To me this is the best setup for her early clears and dueling early on, as her base attack speed is actually pretty slow. I know meteos runs attack speed reds, scaling ap blues and ap quints, but I’ve never been a fan of this setup. It just feels too squishy for very little extra damage.

Masteries are 21/9/0 every game. My masteries are more or less the same as Meteos’s in this build:http://www.probuilds.net/guide/NA/1460037104/390600

For support Elise I would recommend going either 0/16/14 or 9/7/14. It really depends on whether or not you’re going to need the extra tankiness or are comfortable enough to play aggressive with the extra ap.

EDIT 2:

I realized I don’t actually build ancient golem anymore unless I’m going full tank. Elise’s clear speeds suck with Ancient Golem in comparison, so I changed the bruiser build.

There was another great build posted by a high diamond player Porcovich:

Spectral Wraith – Merc Treads – Sunfire – Abyssal – FH – Banshees/GA/Void Staff/Mogs/Rylais/Zhonyas/Randiuns/Thornmail

I would call this build another flavor of the Bruiser build, but with more dynamic itemization. Abyssal Scepter is an amazing item on Elise. Since most of Elise’s spells are short range, the aura gives essentially 20 magic pen. This build foregoes the Sorc Shoes/Haunting Guise power spike for a different kind of power spike: tankiness paired with damage. This build focuses on the semi offensive early buys (remember the haunting guise/sorc shoes provides 30 magic pen, but less AP). Also, the Merc Treads/Sunfire just allows Elise to burn out people by being very good at chasing through CC and applying the Sunfire passive on top of autoing. Elise turns in to something of a Shyvana in spider form with this build because you apply so much single target damage (Spiderlings+Elise+Faster Autos with Frenzy+Sunfire). It’s a good build for sure if you are a little more of an in your face player.