Why NO ONE Plays: Elise | League of Legends

Elise used to be one of the most ubiquitous and threatening junglers in the game roughly a decade ago for having just about everything a jungler could ask for. But over the years her presence has declined significantly to the point where she's one of the least played junglers in the game. For today's episode of Why NO ONE Plays, we'll be discussing why.
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#Elise #LoL #LeagueofLegends #WhyNoOnePlays

[@BIAKaboose]

That sad moment when "The Spider Queen" has 4 spiders, meanwhile Broodmother in DotA 2 pulls up to the party with 80 of the things and eats your base

[@evo3481]

broodmother have counters that doesn't exist in league, if elise was ever given that ability. Earthshaker can oneshot her everytime his ult is up

[@BIAKaboose]

@@evo3481 I wasn't saying to give Elise any of Broodmother's abilities, I was commenting on the disparity in character fantasy between two spider characters. But if we're on the topic, we have the MR version of Sunfire Cape that can do the Earthshaker thing passively, albeit not instantly. We also have three champions off the top of my head that would directly benefit from her having more spiders (Aurelion Sol, Senna, Thresh) and we even have Smolder that with his Q splash could farm stacks at ridiculous speeds mid-late game. Broodmother's swarm ability specifically is countered much more easily in League without having one dude that deletes you instantly for daring to not ban him lmao

[@Crusader3454]

@@BIAKaboose nasus just invading elise for 3 stacks off 1 spider early game would go hard

[@wesker8814]

I was an Elise one trick for 2 years. I love her This video sums up exactly what her problems are. She feels outdated, one dimensional, and other champs do her job better. A midscope update would be enough to make her good again. Sadly, I think Riot lowkey forgot about her ever since Evelynn rework came out. She replaced Elise entirely: lore wise, being the sexy femme fatale, AP female assasin jungler, and for God sake they're names are even similar. The only difference is early game Elise beats Evelynn, but then mid/late Evelynn does her job 10x times better.

[@lillyie]

evelynn is also easier and safer to use. her stealth makes it easy to move around the map and put pressure on your opponents to use control wards to prevent your ganks. evelynn is also non commital, as in if the one you're ganking suddenly gets backup or fights back, you can simply run away and not engage, whereas elise, if she dives in, she has to burst the target down or die trying

[@turkishgrandmaexplode]

@@lillyie all of your claims are true, but rn evelynn cant even one shot an adc

[@adambecker2136]

I dont really think its even fair to compare them as champs they're both AP Assasains but playstyle is completely different Eve is passive for early game and only engages when she can clean up kills. Elise forces plays and is very aggressive and can dive towers, looks for invades etc. they have completely different power spikes and different playstyles really.

[@Sylvainjose-satoyumiyato]

Yeah, but Elise can at least play from farther away in specific cases *cough cough NASUS cough cough*

[@icebird2325]

giving elise the naafiri thing with more summons= more damage thing a lot of sense since you are losing that damage everytime you swap and it also puts a lot more importance to your ability rotation in human form in order to get the max amount of spiders

[@Arethusa01]

For a very long time, I always wondered why Elise is classified as a Diver instead of an Assassin personally speaking

[@gigagaming960]

Its possible a rioter saw her diving at lv3 so easily and thought the class was right for her

[@sophiaascart484]

Unlike most assassins, Elise does not have both effective target selection and escape tools. While rappel offers a lot of flexibility, it's very high CD, and she will need to either walk her way in or walk her way out. Which means her combat pattern is more straightforward than most assassins, and she will need to take more damage compared to most of them during a fight. Divers are classified as champions that go in, take someone out, and then fight to the death. This is not too far from what Elise does, except she's squishier than most AD divers because of the AP bruiser item issue. Similar to lee sin and rek'sai (both divers), it's difficult for elise to assassinate anyone late game unless they face-check her or run at her or one of her teammates. From season 2 up until seasons 8-9 or so she has always built offtank (magic pen and health were her most important stats) and sometimes every supportive items, until the meta shifted and the need to force an early game win through sheer damage eclipsed the need to be useful in mid-to-late game fights.

[@ignacioperez5479]

​@@sophiaascart484 i remember for a time her build was JG item into liandry rilay combo

[@arkokroeger9799]

What I noticed about some of the newer champs is that they have usually a a bit flatter curve in terms of scaling than some of the older ones. Asol and smolder have strong late games but their early game is at least somewhat save, while briar and naafiri have tons of scaling to compensate for their classes usually performing worse in late game team fights. The separation in early and late game champs isn't as strict anymore, and many champs feel probably more forgiving than her. I mean, heck, even belveth, despite her infinite scaling, does rather well in the early game, although that might be more because she is 200 years.

[@Theoriginalmistwalker]

well Belveth's scaling is also more of a red herring in her kit, Yes she does technically infinite scale but she's technically weak in teamfights cause her damage is single target, she's a hypercarry so she's also very weak to getting focused down, essentialy her kit Needs her to do a lot of things to reward her with infinite power and in order to even get to that late game power fantasy she needs to be able to snowball (AKA have a viable early/mid game) and the reason why the separation of early and late game champions is far less noticable is that Riot realized traditional early game champs were starting to fall behind with the game becoming way faster and finishing earlier than their powerspikes, so they had to flatten the curve to allow lategame champs to Ever hit their spikes at reasonable times, Make them spike earlier, make their spikes weaker and distribute some power to their early so they can better survive the most important part of the game (The start)

[@SangoProductions213]

Basically: A long time ago, she was broken. She had a stun, substantial assassination power, some moderate sustained dps and the ability to freely remove tower aggro. Now, everyone has that on their Q, basically. The turret aggro thing is probably still in the game, because she's so outclassed by much more cohesive and well designed kits, so she doesn't even get the Riot aggro over what they went to lengths to prevent other (especially newer reworks) from doing.

[@brotendo]

"everyone has that on their Q" lmao most pisslow take ever. Name any champ that has stun/assassination power/dps all in one single Q. Actual low IQ comment.

[@sherloom_pattx4169]

Video Release 13 Seconds ago i got it recommended as soon as it got released love your vids.

[@bepisboye3855]

"Champion that gets power/feature crept by the latest gameplay changes and champion releases, requiring an emergency rework or otherwise buff but not getting one for years after they've already been pushed out of the meta"? Many such cases. Elise has been one of my favourite designs both character and kit wise, having a clear distinction between control mage and assassin, with the satisfying fluidity of being able to control when you transform and having abilities between the forms' kits enable each other (human Q %current HP damage allowing spider Q to gain %missing HP damage faster, human E stunning for easy and free DPS in spider form with W and Q). She used to be an easy answer to late game junglers and comps and fit in well with a lot of your own comps despite her arguably very basic abilities on each form's kit. Nowadays, with how easy leads and gold are to get, and items like Serrated Dirk giving insane early stats, she just feels straight up bad, especially being an AP assassin (or bruiser if you fancy that), as AP item balance is super fragile. AD champs have the benefit of picking from AD + lethality, AD + crit, AD + health, AD + CDR, AD + armour/MR, or building tank items without losing much damage. AP champs have AP + pen, AP + haste, or AP + health, and that lack of choice feels REALLY bad on a crept-out-of-meta champ like Elise because the less her kit design contributes to her power, the more item reliant she gets, and her losing a shit load of AP or health because a Riot needed to slap down an HP stacking mage, or some other item abuser like Brand and Zyra. It shows how terrible her state is when we've been in an AP jungler meta for a split and a half and she's barely seeing a rise in pickrate (I think she gained like .3%? It's still abysmal compared to the Brand and Sejuani you'll see almost every game.) Early game champions (as in champions designed SPECIFIALLY to have a strong early game) feel like they're a dying breed because there's just so much damage and stats in the game now that even a Heimerdinger, Veigar, or Jax are strong at 1 item now. I mean, hell, the premier late game mage from the old era, Vlad, is strong in early game right now. It just makes me super sad that Riot is obsessed with the 20 minute meta and doesn't invest in champions that won't generate skin sales or make epic proplay moments (despite that being the thing Elise used to do anyways). I really wish Riot would take the easy way out and issue referendums and Q&A with champion main communities to best determine how to handle their champions balance becuase as of right now , even the really smart players who know exactly what's wrong with a champion or can list all their bugs by heart are just outright ignored by Riot while they push their own clearly out-of-touch visions (see: the latest shitshow with K'Sante, the incoming rework being very clearly toxic and the wrong direction for the champion, all clearly outlined and decried by the K'Sante mains, and Phreak or Phroxon just says there is no war in Ba Sing Se...)

[@dontpanicitsmerevan4240]

There augment gain health equal to 60% ap and armor equal to 10% ap and magic resist equal to 10% ap I suggest this effect when she is in spider form but it's start from the 2nd point of ultimate (level 6)

[@corwinek6438]

As an Elise main, I feel like this video is just exactly what I like. To make people underestimate my champion and then get oneshotted even at 30+ minutes. Who knows how to actually play the champion is almost unbeatable. She has so much skill expression and much more variety than people realize.

[@jureambroz9557]

Good video. The question really comes down to: why pick her ? Almost everything she does another champion does better. There are better divers, assassins, stun bots. Elise in 2024 simply has nothing which is ironic since she is a shapeshifter.

[@shacolin6546]

Because League became so full of rubberband mechanics there's basically no point in playing early game champions. Reworking Elise to make her scale will just kill her identity and is just pulling a Riot move. Make early game focused strategies unplayable, early game champions become weak as a result and that is used to justify a rework that moves the champion away from its early game identity. Happened with Taliyah, with Syndra, with Olaf and with Aurelion Sol now. And that's just the ones I can remember right away. First and foremost: remove the sustain from the jungle itens and nerf gold and exp from jungle camps. You can have a 100% success rate on your ganks and still be behind in exp with the 0/0 enemy jungler that's been power farming all game. Ganking has a risk, farming is non-existent risk. You won't fail at killing wolves. Two camps shouldn't be as rewarding as a kill. Walking to the enemy jungle and catching the enemy jungler became nearly impossible when everyone is full health all the time. Take away the sustain from the jungle item. Perhaps give it to the jungle buffs instead to compensate, and make a buff steal more impactful as, without it, certain junglers may not have enough health or mana to farm. Increase the value of scuttle crab and make it spawn earlier, because these days even Elise don't show up in the map until level 4 sometimes.

[@Mysticalwisetree327]

50 secs ago is vile

[@matilo1331]

5:08 "tower diving has never been easier" old reworked pantheon empowered e: let me introduce myself

[@Koko-Katori]

Pray for more shapeshifters. One of my favorite archetypes. ADC Shapeshifter please and ty!

[@Diamondstar1ify]

Agreed. I really miss old Quinn when you could swap with Valor on R, basically doing the shapeshift things.

[@aldroydf35]

I love Elise for definitely not weird and completely normal reasons, and honestly, having Mastery 7 on her, she just feels EXTREMELY clunky, her E feels weird to use, her human W doesn't feel like it should be the burst it is and also her spooder W feels also not that good to use. That said I still love permadiving top from lvl 3 all the way to 14 minutes

[@twilightflux6287]

in their pursuit for diversity in the jungle, they ended up forgetting the older champions that excelled specifically in the jungle and simplified it so more champs could join. by simplifying the jungle, Elise's niche with her early dives, amazing sustain and scary early deteriorated in popularity because most will outscale her by the 20 minute mark

[@JustaChomik]

Simply said, elise got outscaled, in game and in terms of features

[@Tdragyion]

I have a lot of success playing her bruiser top lane. Her lane bullying pressure is pretty substantial. I would say a weakness of hers is fighting un-interactive top laners such as a kayle or nasus, but if you capitalize on the early game weakness of those types of champions easy snowball lane and swap the build path to assassin mage. The most successful way of play for me has been go in with the mindset of bruiser and make changes based on game state and other factors.

[@AvalenFrost]

I used to play her top when she first came out, but stopped after the changes. What build do you use top?

[@Tdragyion]

@AvalenFrost I've been testing a lot of different builds over the changing seasons atm the strongest still is her usual assassin roots with electrocute lichbane rush. Bruiser I either go grasp or comet. Grasp I play the early game like ad nidalee top transforming for max stack advantage. Comet allows you to play the early game more aggressive your spiders refresh comet quickly. Items om bruiser build are a mix of whatever you need build similar to rumble. I notice I haven't said any actual items because I change the build up so frequently 😅 I recommend looking up my account and picking a build that I've done in the recent past that suites your style best.

[@AshBlossomWorshiper]

11:15 That's so real. That's why elise is so good in Arena. Everyone grows at the same time so that disparity is no longer there

[@FeiFongWang]

I miss the years when jungle camps were more than just different skinned minions and actually posed a threat, and they didn't allow literal squishy mages with no survivability like Brand to be one of the fastest jungle clearers.

[@ricardoguillen3898]

Why?

[@KeylowRowC]

It isn't camp weakness that makes brand fast, it's the fact his abilities have 200%+ damage modifiers to camps. Mages like Brand and Zyra are being brute forced into the role by the balance team with jungle modifiers. If it was only the fact that camps are weaker, you'd see a much more diverse cast of mages than that the few that are being forced in.

[@gergelyritter4412]

Brand has one of the slowest clears before fated Ashes.

[@aabeeek]

Nowadays it feels like there's no point of dedicated junglers when even marksmen like Jhin can perform full clear without leash in 3:30.

[@ricardoguillen3898]

@@aabeeek Junglers start going to other lanes, if anything it gives more variety

[@AvalenFrost]

I used to main Elise when she first came out. I played her top lane because of the % HP damage, she was a tank eater. After they refocused her for jungle, she never felt the same.

[@jususi71]

Every1 plays elise when its a 0 farming spamganking meta, when its not there is no point to play her.

[@NikDaStik]

You either one shot or get one shot with this champ. She is such a snowbally champ but being ahead as elise is soooo fun.

[@LastFrostman]

Maybe give her a more significant heal on her 'Q', and make her 'W' reset it's duration and give even more attack speed when she kills anything. That'll make her essentially have more damage, simulate being a bruiser basically. And the attack speed thing will increase her clear speed in an interesting way.

[@chillchinchillahumans9953]

Perfect wording choice at 4:46

[@galopus2707]

I'm not sure how Riot would "inspire" of this, but I always thought that Riot got a bit inspired off broodmother from dota2. So here are few of the things she can do. This is in no way me saying that introducing some of these would help. 1. The main mechanic of broodmother is her spinning webs. She can make basically lane wide areas of web and can have whole lot of them across the map (the duration isn't limited but the amount). She runs like on crack over them, kind of similar how skarner could with his spires. It does not increase damage, just speed making her a menace at rotating to different lanes out of combat. 2. The way she summons spiders is actually through kills. In a way stacking infinitely them with every single kill with an ultimate because she lays eggs in her opponents. Albeit in dota2 because of its RTS nature the summons are very often used for scouting and/or discount warding tools here they could probably still work as something more similar to naafiri packmates or yorick ghouls if they weren't braindead and wouldn't push lane after yorick doesn't micromanage every single one of their movements. I'm not a game designer but if her defining core gameplay is focusing on killing rather than objectives, then shifting her power budget into essentially being able to play river elise through increased movement speed on her selected areas, and also making her able to build up an absurd amount of spider army with each kill would allow her to be the modern snowballing champion. I am spitballing though, I am not an Elise player so said players would probably hate it.

[@anthonylulham3473]

She was a menace in S4 to S7 but that was good. She needs a buff, maybe more spiders. She shouldn't get a web like zyra ult, because she's the huntress who feeds the spider queen. Solo damage seems appropriate, but having up to 10 spiders would be scary. Maybe have it scale off large monsters killed with a cacoon

[@John-wt2xq]

finally an elise videooooo i tried playing her and she’s fiine but feels weird unless you main her.. she’s harder to get into than others

[@fliaem]

honestly i think elise would be good if she would clear faster, because she falls of either way and currently she falls of because she is getting outscaled and heavily outfarmed by meta jglers

[@grayguy69]

Sice when is kindred scary in the early game😂😂😂 3:36

[@kendokarl9621]

I personally think that just making her clear less painful would do a lot. Alternatively making her abilities gain bonus effects later on through "evolve" type mechanics?

[@teekien98]

I will drop it here: Q: Increase mouse pointer detection range, and prioritize enemy target. Also, Elise should move towards the location of Q when pressed. Add AP% scaling normally instead of uga bunga petty current/missing health % bullshit, those mechanisms shouldn't be on assassin kits. W: Human form, spider bomb navigatable similar to Neeko W. Spider form should grant movement speed when attacking a target, and grant longer attack speed buff, cooldown reduced when spider summon hits a champion. E: Spider form, increase range by 150 range, and fasten animation of landing when selecting a target. Human form, when the cocoon hits, reset the R cooldown. If Nidalee can have the mechanism on Q, Elise should have too. R: Spider form, spiderling should keep attacking the enemy for up to 3 seconds even if Elise is running away or left the combat range.

[@eduardosilva-lr9tp]

I actually play her as support and it's pretty nice and fun, she has decent cc, damage and untargetable ability, plus spider form has a bit of sustain not to mention you don't have to use mana.

[@theRobson0908]

Oh i remember the good ol rylais,liandry,deadmans core 😍

[@tzyuduan3496]

My day is made Vars. Thank you 🥰🥰

[@tyago1949]

I knew he'd make a video on Elise. Long time ago during a youtube stream i asked him and he said he'd never do one about Elise and here it is 😂

[@juniorrios6428]

This champion is f*cking amazing, and then comes the late game

[@0Mayvii]

I just finished a game playing Elise scored 8/1/4 cant wait to watch ur vid

[@Herio7]

Riot has been streaming all peaks and troughs for years in order to make everyone feel good but forgotten that so live and die by them. Elise is a victim of that philosophy.

[@Ratty524]

I didn’t know she was that unpopular, I just thought she was played in high elo and literally nowhere else.

[@sortilien2099]

Elise just need a little pull as a mage bruiser. to be great. liandry + riftmaker makes you deal enough to kill in early game and be an annoying fighter in late. Or we can go the rek'sai route... W change you into a spider & you get an ultimate.

[@poom323]

Elise always have enough damage even in late game but it's a lot harder to pull out because how late game is played.

[@Ekaidseaky]

Elise really just neees her mana costs and damage buffed

[@michealman264]

Would

[@McFatson]

Been trying to make Botlane Elise work and this video feels like a hard reality check 😢

[@pokefriend123]

They should make every auto attack in league a Jhin 4th shot

[@spuddyuwu2650]

Been playing league for a year now and ive seen this champ twice lole

[@SkiGlovesie]

"One has to wonder what happened to her to be barely seen now-a-days." Uh... Yeah. Since I've not looked at League's meta for a long time this Why no one plays is a surprise. Especially if the reason isn't "she was nerfed into the ground and Riot forgot to buff her ever again".

[@mangasaint]

She needs a full rework. Too many characters have been released that have her play-style but better thanks to power creep or reliable or often obscene damage. I think they should remove the exploding spider from her kit for a better ability. It’s meh. As for her stun would act the same on hit but it should have a tossing animation that leave behind webs if they miss and hit the ground. They would briefly slow enemies in the zone and snare if they can’t make it out in a set time, like Soraka’s. At higher levels it should release 1 or 2 spiderlings for some added damage. Her spider form bite should also have an extra effect that isn’t just damage, it’s a neurotoxin- like preventing dashes for 1 second that starts after her stun/snare ends. Gives her alittle more time to auto attack with being crazy or preventing the opponent from fighting back.

[@darkumineru1681]

i think the reason we dont see her is due to imo her being better has a sup then jng :D has for updates and stuff for me the meta is the problem not her kit has a hole maybe slight buffs to passive or spiderlings are the way to go or make the CD of her E and W lower has to maybe speed her up in clear speed and make her have slightly better damage vs tanks even if we dont see changes i will still play her sup and sometime in solo lanes (hate jng) and she is still in my top 3 of most fun champs (zoe and cassio being the other 2)

[@doktormozg]

Most junglers CANT full clear in less than 2.5 minutes 😯😯😯

[@delta9990]

1 minute ago is arousing

[@aqwxxaizxx]

name 3 junglers that can full clear in 2:30s...

[@sorbbae620]

Elise is cool cus shes a shapeshifter, but half her abilites are useless so she might as well just be a normal champ.

[@Underscore_The]

She's still a really good jungler like really good but she's just not as flashy or as simple as like a viego or briar.

[@spiderbubble]

Elise was never all that enticing to me. From release I felt her kit was... off. Her human form abilities are very boring and generic with a light spider-y flair. Meanwhile her spider form is not much better, with her W being the worst offender as a generic steroid. Human/Spider form Qs are cool in that they synergize, and I think her E in both forms is also fine. It's really her W and passive that need help. Her passive might as well be on her R, and we can give her a new one. I think her Human form should go all-in on the "control mage" that Cocoon offers. Make her W a large slowing web trap, and her Q a skillshot to hammer in proper play with W+E to land Qs. Her Spider form should be the "battle" portion of her kit, with her Q staying largely the same, and W reworked to.. well literally anything else.

[@Mexican00b]

spiders EVERYWHERE!!!!!!

[@snogs90]

9 minutes 🗣🔥

[@Blaze-kf3ds]

is aph considered a shapeshifter?

[@adamevaskevich5528]

He's closer to Udyr, being a Stance Swapper

[@kirinyoshikage3871]

please make a video about Gwen

[@davidni3281]

I only play elise 🕷🕸

[@doomkingraye7692]

hard and weak at the same time, why poick elise when you can pick something both easier and stronger?

[@sharkguy666]

I really wish riot would push Elise more into the top lane. I’ve always loved her design and gameplay, I just can’t play jungle.

[@underlinehd16]

why no one plays Elise? she's hard mechanically and requires good decision making early game... video reduced Edit: 5:10 MY MANNNNNNNN

[@doomkingraye7692]

so if they keep her weak as she is nobody has any reason to pick her

[@underlinehd16]

@@doomkingraye7692 thats exactly why she is getting reworked, and with all the items getting nerfed i think she will be a lot better than she is now

[@doomkingraye7692]

@@underlinehd16 I genuinely hope the rework is like the syndra one, where they keep the basics of the champion

[@skyler1469]

lets nerf jng :D

[@martwica.]

because her clear is awful, thats all

[@highdo2244]

First

[@petricaleksa]

league is such an a$$ of a game