User blog comment:Willbachbakal/(Champion Rework) Elise, the Spider Queen/@comment-6061249-20141218171026/@comment-1330314-20141219012650

The above Spiderlings aren't as good at providing DPS or tankiness in the jungle as Elise's current minions, but that's a deliberate decision, and I'm otherwise giving her much better burst that works even for her clear. My Elise's main weakness is unreliability, a weakness that disappears completely when fighting jungle monsters, so whereas Elise would have to work very hard to implant three eggs into an an enemy champion, she'd be able to do so effortlessly against a monster. She also deals way more current-health damage in one go (so she can easily shave off a large part of a monster's health from the start), along with stronger base damage on her Q, Spider autoattacks and Spiderlings. Overall, she should be taking more damage during her clear (particularly because she no longer has sustain), but would have much faster clear times.

The reason I buffed Elise's on-hit damage (as well as her Spiderling DPS), despite removing the bruiser aspects to her kit, is because I'm giving Elise otherwise far less reliable damage (as well as less DPS due to the removal of her AS steroid). Elise is vulnerable when attacking in Spider Form, yet needs to stick to her target in order to benefit from her Spiderling explosion, so she should be able to have some damage in-between. The end result, however, is still lower DPS, and the emphasis is on the scaling and not the base damage, so a bruiser Elise would have a much harder time dealing damage purely with autoattacks. Shifting some damage onto Elise's autoattacks also gives her a fallback pattern if she can't produce too much burst, as well as a source of damage that opens her up to counterattacks, so it's basically a healthy way of giving an assassin more damage without making them excessively bursty.

While the Cocoon nerf may seem harsh, I feel it's justified, since currently Elise can pretty much guarantee kills if she lands an E while ganking. Here, an E stun would still be powerful early game (not that many junglers have instant hard CC pre-6), but not to the point where it immediately wins ganks. I'm also giving her more burst at all stages in the game, along with a lot more CC, so she can bring much more overall to her ganks. In general, the nerf to her E is more of a shift in power, where Elise gets much better returns if she uses all of her abilities, and can still fall back to other skills if she misses her E or any individual spell.