Understanding Ekko

I've seen a lot of threads lately complaining about Ekko and his overbearing shield/stun/damage/whatever. From my time the past few weeks fighting with/against/as Ekko and writing an early analysis about his playstyle, I'm going to throw my voice out there again. I know I'm not an LCS champion or Challenger 1 or a Twitch streamer; stop trying to stifle discourse.

Now... when I first fought against Ekko in-lane, it was as Azir. I tried him out previously so I knew what to expect. He made a lot of attempts on my life, diving in at what he saw as opportune moments, but it wasn't until the lanes started opening up and other enemy champions started entering our lane did he finally succeed, and only after the second or third attempt, and that was after the rest of the game was starting to spiral out of control.

Ekko's biggest weakness is his preparation. It requires careful timing and foresight of where the enemy is going to go, what they're going to do, and where and when his shots will land. Ironically, he ends up being a very good anti-assassin because for most of them, the only option available is to go all-in, where he expects and wants them to be. If they come to him, his ult is going to be in the perfect spot for a second wind, right on top of his shield and stun if he lands it right. This was no more evident than in my fight with Azir. The reason for the eventual intervention by the rest of the team was due to my conservative playstyle. When he fired his W, it was due to one of two things: either he anticipated an attack from me, or he was planning to go on the offensive, himself. Rarely did he ever actually catch me in his field, and it was always on the edge and never could he step in the bubble with me in it.

Allied Fizz's tactic was by contrast an extremely aggressive and blind assault. After I recalled from another botched attempt, Fizz charged in from the jungle and tried to eliminate Ekko, who retreated back under his tower. Fizz followed, even through the stuns and the missed ult. Ekko's ult returned under the tower, they engaged in melee, and Fizz was instantly obliterated by the ult, shield and focused turret fire. Ekko knew what he was going to do and planned accordingly. Fizz never learned from that mistake and continued to get killed by Ekko time and again throughout the whole game without gaining anything from it.

When is it too late to fight Ekko? This is a tricky issue because of how Ekko's ult/heal works. That second wind is dynamite, and without hard crowd control to lock him down or a powerful enough nuke that he won't get it off in time, you're going to have to force him to force his hand before he's ready, ideally after he uses his W. Of course, every YOLOqueue assassin is going to think they can kill Ekko fast enough (read: that damndable Fizz), and if it takes too long, Ekko will usually be standing right on top of his ult, and without hard crowd control or silences, he's going to get off the second wind and nuke down everyone around him. Someone has to figure out where he's running to and either get AHEAD of him to force him away from his ult or at least get out of its splash range, or disengage entirely and not hang around too long, lest Ekko gets some backup, in which case the tide is going to turn even more tremendously in his favor. Better yet, pretend to disengage by falling back a few paces and hope he disengages for good, or get him to pursue you, away from his ult. Be mindful about where he'll lay down that W, and make a chaotic movement pattern to throw him off. Without his W and ult to play in his favor, he's just another super squishy melee assassin.