User blog comment:Makbloo/Patch 3.7 thoughts/@comment-6486964-20130516010626/@comment-9048637-20130517041848

Why did they nerf Elise? Simple, because they did the same to Nidalee, and they have to be "consistent" (because Riot are never inconsistent with their game mechanics). And why did they do that to Nidalee? Because Nidalee is OP...

... but of course, not in such a way that it would be at all affected by the nerf in question.

Nidalee has two problems: one, her spears deal way too much damage for a long-range, spammable nuke that not just permits but actively encourages players not to take risks and just sit back on the sidelines. Two, it's basically impossible to pin her down and kill her without hard CC, even if you can get over to her.

The nerf of getting rid of her bonus armour and MR in cougar form very slightly helps the latter, but not significantly - Nidalee was always fairly squishy even with the bonus, it's just that she's so bloody mobile it's nigh impossible to simply land the hits on her. And of course, it does nothing for her main problem - long-range, spammable nuke that scales ludicrously well with AP and does more than a lot of ultimates. Sadly, Riot's approach to dealing with AP Nidalee's horrendous balance issues seems to be to nerf every other way of building her (first support Nidalee, then AD Nidalee...) out of viability. Hence the nerf of her bonuses, giving her even less incentive than ever to actually jump into a fight unless it's clean-up time and Master Yi's not around.

And now the malaise spreads - Riot's inability to deal with AP Nidalee means that us Elise players have to live with her suddenly being rather squishier... despite the fact that Elise is meants to be a tanky kind of AP caster. I've heard that one of the justifications for Elise losing her bonuses is that too many players have just been using her human form abilities and treating the spider form as a free defensive steroid for when things go tits up... but here's the thing: if you just play Elise like that, you're not going anywhere fast. Elise's human forms abilities are nice for harass, but when it comes to actually going in for the kill, they're rather mediocre... as of course is the entire point. Elise needs to utilise every last bit of versatility her kit has to offer, because otherwise she's just an APC with decent but not stellar AP ratios and, uh, no ult.

So punishing people for not using her spider form properly seems ridiculous when they're already being punished by their own incompetence. And, honestly, someone in Riot must have realized this. But of course, as already mentioned, that isn't the real reason this nerf is happening.

So now, competent Elise players will suddenly have to play a lot more cagily than they're used to. Because Elise needs to be able to take punishment in spider form - her basic killing combo in lane, after all, is to jump a softened-up enemy with her E, deal some damage with W, then Q them when they're low enough or try to run. This only works if she has the resistances to survive melee range with the enemy, otherwise the whole thing blows up in her face. Even if it won't wreck Elise entirely, this nerf 'will' mean she gets less kills - and for a champion whose purpose is basically to shut her laning opponent down, this is a problem. Quite a big problem.

Am I saying Elise is no longer viable? Of course not. Will this nerf hurt her, though? Yes, it rather will. Am I slightly annoyed with this fact?

... well, after seven or so paragraphs bitching about it, I think the only question is whether "slightly" covers it.

Also, gotta love how Akali became even more OP in the patch. Way to balance, Riot. Thought your CEO was Ryze, not Syndra...