User blog comment:Willbachbakal/(Champion Rework) Elise, the Spider Queen/@comment-8506165-20141218093938/@comment-1330314-20141218234406

My main goal here is to make glass cannon Elise viable by increasing her scaling and rewards, not necessarily kill her bruiser build completely (though building like a bruiser with the above kit would likely have lesser returns). Yes, this version of Elise is a lot riskier, and a lot of her power is dependent on her sticking to her target for extended periods of time, but I don't think she needs to build tanky in order to achieve her full burst.

An important feature to consider here is that Elise just needs one egg on her target to proc her full passive damage, so while that in itself isn't the easiest thing to achieve (all of her Human Form abilities are unreliable, and deliberately so), one successful Human Form cast can already unlock a massive amount of burst. Additionally, Elise can combo her Human Form abilities together, with proper planning: a successful E cast will hold your target in place for a good part of your Q channel, for example, and both abilities are easier to land on targets caught in your web. Nothing in her kit is meant to guarantee burst of CC, but that's intended, since she effectively has better CC than most mages on top of assassin-level burst, mobility and slipperiness. Rappel also gives her a good recovery pattern, so even if she fails her rotation she can still return to a safe range, go back to human form and start again.

While building like a bruiser would allow you to sort of work like a CC bot with a bit of burst, building damage has much higher returns, even if it also carries higher risk. I think 5 seconds is more than acceptable for an assassin's burst: assassins as a class have moved away from near instant 100-0 burst and more towards spaced-out, more counterable damage with far greater returns. I want risk and planning ahead to be critical to Elise's playstyle, and in exchange for top-tier burst and CC (she'd have the most CC, especially hard CC, out of any assassin) she should offer plenty of opportunities for her victims to react to her.