I know you guys don't like ekko but...

Fisk·Jun 9, 2015·25 votes·1,485 views

Just keep in mind, his kit has a lot of innate counterplay and basically everything he has can be dodged. I see a lot of people say "I don't know how he works but hes op" but really if you pay attention to what he can do and are well aware of how his kit works, he isn't that bad. Probably a super unpopular opinion, but go ask a lot of the pro's etc, most agree hes slightly overtuned but not extremely overpowered and he is mostly banned because people don't understand that if you don't dodge stuff like his Q's second proc, his stun, or his ult he can be really really strong. Just something to think about.

26 Comments

LoLKiruJun 9, 201511 votes

I'll personally agree with Bjergson here, Ekko is probably slightly overtuned (notably with the passive MS boost he gets, it makes him very good at trading in lane; Q is probably slightly too high damage wise) but not overpowered.

You should never be hit by R, if it hits you its because you made a mistake.

Its important to note Ekko is an assassin (even if he's somewhat weaker than others in terms of sheer burst) they're made to capitalize on mistakes heavily.

Sir ArmaMalumJun 9, 20152 votes

Personally I'm of the mind that a tad bit of his ult's damage should be moved elsewhere to reduce the instant AoE burst it creates, but your logic is sound. Overtuned is definitely the popular opinion in my experience and the next patch is hitting him in very subtle but noticeable ways, so I'm content.

Aych PiiJun 10, 20155 votes

Haha, if the damage was actually moved elsewhere in his kit people would just cry more since the damage is actually being applied to them on occasion now.

cFlameJun 9, 20154 votes

{quoted}basically everything he has can be dodged.

Didn't know just anyone can dodge the third auto attack from his passive, or Parallel Convergences Passive, or Phase Dive's blink. You are ignoring the facts, Ekko has massive cc, mobility, magic damage, and so on. He does not have the similar risks as other champions for what he does.

FiskJun 10, 20156 votes

This is true, but also his damage output is a lot lower than most assassins (its true). Also, those things are easy to land, but none of them are OP. I personally have no issue with his blink or the passive from parallel convergence (as it only procs when you are already low) and he has to get three autos off to get his passive which is fairly avoidable. I'm not saying hes not somewhat overtuned, nor would I say he is OP. A lot of people have only been stating the strengths of his kit and ignore the fact that he has obvious weaknesses that you can easily work around.

IcyPepperJun 10, 20154 votes

Phase Dive I'll give you, but he is melee so... outside of Phase Dive (which he tumbles first, so if he's just outside of range you can make it so it goes off cooldown before he reaches you), you can out-range him. Mental game here.

NinjaToad99Jun 10, 20153 votes

{quoted}

Didn't know just anyone can dodge the third auto attack from his passive

basically everything he has can be dodged.

DISCLAIMER: I do not main, often play, or even own Ekko. So none of that "lel eko main fond!" shit.

Key word is basically. Because his Q, W, R (And if trading in lane at range, W passive + regualr passive, though to a lesser extent) are telegraphed to shit.

His Q's main damage is delayed. It shoots out, does a bit of damage, waits, then shoots back doing the main chunk of damage. If he fires it at you and you don't walk out of it and you're not A. slowed (Really slowed, as the Q's slow isn't enough to make you unable to walk away), B. stunned, or C. rooted, it's probably your fault.
His W is an AOE 2.25 second stun. Super OP right? Well it would be. If it wasn't delayed for 3 seconds. During those 3 seconds a hologram Ekko is doing back-flips, catcalling, playing dance dance revolution, and practicing his skills with a vuvuzela. Based on where the holo-Ekko is facing the direction of the stun is pretty obvious, though not the range. The last half second also shows you where it is exactly, and it only stuns if Ekko is in that AOE. So it's incredible telegraphed. And while Ekko can put his echo (huehuehuehue) in a bush, his positioning (Plus randomly walking in and out of a bush [during laning phase] in addition to the casting animation if he was just out side of the bush, though it might be visible anyways I'm not 100% sure) can give it away if you're being very observant.
His R. Do I even need to explain this? It literally shows you where he can ult as long as you can see him. 70% of the time people are hit by it is their own fault, 10% was because you just walked into a bush with low HP that Ekko was just in and he has a ward in it, and 20% was really good teamwork and positioning on the Ekko and his team's part. And being a tank dueling him for 4 seconds isn't even an excuse because you can usually afford to walk a few paces back and get out of range of it, forcing his ult to be 4 seconds later then it would have been if you just stood there hitting him.
Passive when trading in lane. Usually this will happen because you got hit by his Q twice and he E's in to hit you. But if you get 2 stacks on you, just don't be in range of his E blink.
W Passive when trading in lane. You're really low on HP, he does bonus damage when you're really low on HP. What did you really expect?

ChargeItDownMidJun 9, 20153 votes

[deleted]

Lao Fu the TigerJun 9, 20154 votes

Counterplay doesn't just mean whether or not they can hit you. Builds, strategies, and plenty of other elements are also counterplay. Building Thornmail against Fiora is huge counterplay.

As for strictly numbers, Ekko really isn't that much stronger than other champions, if at all. ALL of his abilities can be either dodged or easily dealt with. Every one of them.

His Q takes a full two seconds to return to Ekko. Two whole seconds. Walk away. It doesn't do hardly any damage unless both halves proc.

His W has a 3 second delay. "But hold on Lao Fu! Enemies can only see it for half a second! So it's really only like a 0.5 second delay!" Wrong. It still has a 3 second cast time from Ekko's perspective. PLUS, you can SEE and HEAR when he says "Step right up!" which tells you flat out, "Hey, I'm casting a stun zone, so you better move."

His E puts him in melee range, and for some champions who love close fights, like Annie, Swain, and Diana, this is great.

His R he LITERALLY CANNOT AIM. He cannot use it to damage you unless you foolishly walk on top of it (or if he's in brush). 85% of the time he's using his R as an escape tool, not an engage tool. He only ever has a chance to use it as an engage if you are chasing him. Plus, if he doesn't hit R immediately when he realises he's in danger, it'll just place him close to the fight and he could still die.

People can ask for hard nerfs all day and circlejerk their way to the top of boards, but the fact of the matter is that while he's good, he's not OP or broken or whatever word you want to use. He's good. He is, in my opinion, in a decent place, and I've never once felt like he was "too strong." If he beat me, it was because he played better than me, and that's it.

FiskJun 9, 20154 votes

I honestly am not sure he is S tier. I think some one like ryze is S tier, but aside from him I don't think that their are champions that are significantly better than others (there are still bad and better champs but I don't think to many really stand far above the pack as of now personally). I think ekko is slightly strong, as I said, but the thing is counter play breeds weakness in a champ. Taking advantage of a champions counter play can make them useless so you can take a numerically overtuned champion, give them strong counterplay, and they will be reasonably balanced. Look at gnar for example, extremely numerically powerful in both forms, great scaling, great stats etc but has weaknesses around his passive that make him balanced.

Sire HippingtonJun 9, 20153 votes

it's not that hard to land that stuff if you play smart as ekko(which most ekkos don't). If he positions smartly, you won't be able to easily dodge the Q due it'S heavy slow, especially if he goes all in and procs the passive aswell. with Q+passive he can also keep targets in place for his W rather easy. only mobile champs with a defensive mobillity tool can avoid q and w rather easy.

But the main problem is the nidalee problem. Old nida wasn't really op, you could esily dodge her spears, but once one landed it did insane damage. Poeple cryed about her op spears along time, and they were nerfed hard on her rework, cause no matter how easy you can dodge it, it will eventually land and feel opressing. Same with ekkos W+ult. It might not be easy to land it, but if you do, the impact is so imense that all the times it didn't work don't matter for that game. If you ever have that aoe stun+burst landing vs your team, you feel like he's just the most overpowered brick ever. His Ekko's best case is simply to powerfull.

Besides that, he works quite well without landing the aoe stun or Ult, as most ekkos suck and never manage to do so, but still have good games. So if he isn't really dependend on W-stun + R-damage, why do they have such an insane impact once he lands them?

Aych PiiJun 10, 20155 votes

Nidalee's spears aren't on a 60ish second cooldown and she can actually choose where to throw them, you don't have to actively fuck up to be hit by one.

Ekko also is kinda dependent on those two skills, you shouldn't really be losing skirmishes against him when he doesn't at least get the W shield or use the ult for Disengage+heal unless he's already significantly ahead. If he hits those abilities in their more affective forms, his skirmishing is just that much enhanced.

Sire HippingtonJun 10, 20151 votes

i talked about W stun and R damage, if ekko can't get the shield from W and is to incompetent to press R for disengage, then he deserves to loose as he's probably the worst ekkoplayer out there.

And ekko can choose where his ult goes cause he can choose where he goes, and if he does it smart, enemies can't predict it that much. His E allows for 2 quick moves, which means the ult clone will instant reposition aswell, which is the time to use ult, as your enemies will loose track of the clone for that time.

Ekko needs to plan what he does, he doesn't work as a face-first mash all the buttons assasin like akali. Therefore, the average ekko-players isn't realy dangerous, but those who really know what they do are.

You can't just balance around average cases, you also need to consider the best cases, just as you can't just balance around the average player, but also have to considere the best players. Ekkos Stun and R-damage need to be tuned down, as the best case for ekko just is to massive.

Celeste BenalJun 10, 20152 votes

The biggest difference between Nidalee and Ekko is Nid can spam spears until she hits one. Ekko cannot. His cooldowns prevent that.

I don't care at all if they nerf his ult damage. It won't make much difference to me. But the additional nerf on his Q scaling will hurt his laning and his assassinations.

Sire HippingtonJun 10, 20151 votes

I'm also not a fan off the Q nerf, atleast not without compensation on E

For me, all that needs to get tuned down are his stun and ult damage, they are not really a core part of his kit and don't get used that often, but if they get used, there impact is simply to high And while he can't spam his ult like a nida can spam spears, the impact upon landing a good ult is by far more devastating. It's not a question of how likely it is to land, it's more a question how impactfull it is if it does. A 200ms 20width 2 sec castime global skillshot that deals 5000 true damage wouldn't really be op, it's very unlikely to laned, but it would still feel incredible shitty to get instakilled by it....and not really statisfyinf for the user most of the time aswell.

LittleBlastJun 10, 20151 votes

And with the mana regen nerfs nid can no longer q for days as she will go oom so quickly.

Demonsolder21Jun 10, 20153 votes

I dont care.. What bothers me the most is the fact that he has a ult that says FUCK YOU GUY.

FiskJun 10, 20151 votes

Yeah but just because you don't like his ult doesn't mean other people don't like it or that its broken.

Demonsolder21Jun 10, 20151 votes

I dont care what other people think. I was simply stating my opinion and what I thought of it as a individual.

grLKQ9ma0oJun 10, 20152 votes

I don't care about his damage. I care about his safety. He has an "I fucked up" button that allows him to escape anything he wants to as long as he's not perma-cc-ed. Other champions that had that feature: Zed, Leblanc, Fizz, also known as the other far too safe champions that snowball out of control and can completely dominate most matchups with their stupid mobility and safety.

Celeste BenalJun 10, 20154 votes

Again, and I don't understand why people aren't getting this, Ekko's get out of jail free card is an ult with a huge cooldown, unlike Fizz, who can say Fuck You every 15 seconds.

DanofDemaciaJun 10, 20152 votes

Stop talking pls and thanjyou

Ryuku CruxisJun 10, 20151 votes

I don't think his E needs to be quite so powerful, it could use losing the spells effects and keep on hit effects. Ludens and lichbane in one proc is disgusting.

Akali is SO HOTJun 10, 20151 votes

How are you supposed to dodge Q when he presses E and goes right on top of you and presses Q right after and then gets an auto attack off to slow you making it almost impossible to dodge the return Q

JustMyBassCannonJun 10, 20151 votes

Walk perpendicular to the line between you and Ekko.

You saw him use his E to start the dash, he still has the attack delay before he'll land on you, that's enough time to click to one side or the other, making it entirely possible that he'll miss at least half of his Q, if not the whole thing.