While Jungle Elise offers no real variation in the skill order, Elise Support is a completely different story.

In principle, we always want to have Q and E from level 2. Which skill we start with, however, depends on who we are playing against. Supporters who want to engage us – e.g. Nautilus, Pyke or Leona – we want to use the E to cancel them out. We can interrupt them with the stun as well as dodge their important abilities with the spider E.

Unfortunately, it’s not quite so clear-cut against ranged supporters. If you can threaten your opponent at level 1 with an all-in, then you should actually start with E. However, this only makes sense if the opponent’s bot lane is weak in an all-in at level 1 and our ADC is strong. Against Xerath and Jinx, for example, it is advisable to play aggressively with the stun directly at level 1, as we don’t want to be pushed in and these two are not particularly strong in a direct all-in.

I’ll discuss exactly how we use the abilities in more detail later. Against Enchanter Supporters like Lulu, Karma or Nami, we should definitely start with Q, as we don’t want to win the all-ins at level 1 and only want to play short trades in human form instead.

As you can see, you can get a lot out of Elise if you know what you’re doing – but you can also do a lot wrong if you don’t. The maximization sequence is similar.

We always maximize the Q first – that’s clear. But why do so many Elise players go for E-Max afterwards?

The E reduces the cooldown of your spider E – your most important defensive tool – and increases the stun to up to 2.4 seconds. In League of Legends times, that’s half a quarter. 😆 Elise also doesn’t have much cooldown on her Cocoon, which makes it a powerful, more spammable catch tool.

However, you won’t get any extra damage in return, as points into your W will give you more burst in human form, plus more attack speed for your spider W.

Now that we understand what the individual abilities and level-ups do, we just have to put it all into practice. Fortunately, it’s a bit easier this time.

If we can snowball and oneshot people, we maximize the W second so that we have enough damage for oneshots. If we don’t snowball as much and need to carry the game via catches, we maximize our E to boost the stun and lower the cooldown of the spider E. A hybrid is also possible by putting a few points into W and then maximizing the E.

I know the explanations can be quite detailed and perhaps a little confusing, but it’s important to me that you understand why we do certain things. Elise has an extreme amount of options and is one of the most flexible Supporters in the game. Making the right decisions is one of the most important skills to be successful with Elise – and you can only do that if you understand your job and can adapt properly.

I hope I haven’t completely put you off playing Elise Support. 😆 But I also don’t want to sell you any illusions here that have nothing to do with reality.

Another important explanation about the Spider-E:
If you click on the ground near you and use the E, Elise will take to the air and wait until you select an enemy target for her to come back down to.

However, if you activate the E while you are on the ground and your mouse is over an enemy, Elise will first run into range, if necessary, then go up and land very quickly at the selected target.

You should definitely be aware of this small but subtle difference! If you want to buy time, never click directly on an enemy, otherwise you will come back down faster.

Let’s get on with it!