Ekko: Jack of all trades, Master of none

Title taken from a post I saw on reddit regarding Ekko

Now I've vented about Ekko multiple times in the past. I keep leaving him & picking him up again, I truly thought I was through with him a few weeks back when I decided to pick up a capable assassin like akali but alas they dumpstered her immediately after (two nerfs in the time I picked her up, I think I might actually be cursed, it's happened with Kindred & Ekko too so I'm a lil suspicous). Anyway that aside, I have picked Ekko up yet again but he still feels like an underwhelming champion, I don't know why I was expecting that to suddenly change. As the title of this post suggests; Ekko to me feels like a champion capable of a multitude of things but falls short in excelling in any specific thing. I'm going to go pretty in depth as I do like this champion but it feels as though it has diminishing returns to play as.

Let me first say, the concept of Ekko is fantastic its awesome really, enthralling and gives meaning to the character as a whole at least lore wise. That concept I feel in the grand scheme of League as a game into Ekko's mechanics was so to speak, lost in translation. The idea of time - great. The 4 second consistency through his kit - decent. As Ekko though I wonder why I put myself through the trial & tribulation of playing him to what feels like little rewarding yield most times. I look at his kit & it says Assassin yet the competition in this class varient does exceedingly better than Ekko. I look at what everyone says about him being a late game scaling champion yet he is outscaled by a lot of the mages & even assassins that outscale him into the late game. They say he falls short as an assassin due to his ability to wave clear, CC abilities that most assassins do not have & safety with his ult, yet Zed has waveclear equal to if not better than Ekko's and a passive to help him last hit, Zed also has a reliable slow to help him land his combos or to be used in another fashion & a kit that actually provides Zed with safety that is both offensive & better than Ekko's. - Also no mana costs. On the other hand Ekko has a Q with very high mana costs that does the majority of its damage on the way back and an unreliable slow to go with it that can be easily avoided & even walked away from despite it being landed correctly. I'm very conflicted, I know he can be played well since I have been on win streaks with him & carried games but I have found that the underlying denominator is that my opponents in those scenarios just sort of let me walk over them. When I play against Ekko I am aware his ult is very easy to keep track of and even dodge, it literally tells you "hey my ultimate is up/ off cd" which goes for very little champions in the game aside from Shyvana - correct me if I'm wrong. (This is of course excluding ults that are on a low cd e.g. etc...) His W, in the state of the game it is now where everyone is one shotting everyone, feels like a waste of time & not worth using at all, the passive is really the most useful thing about it. The Stun that previously lasted longer now lasts 1.75 seconds, it takes a long time to cast & while you can cancel the animation with your E, the enemy can either hear it or see it coming knowing how Ekko works.

Now I've heard the arguement that Ekko is a Skirmisher & not an assassin hence why his damage output is weak but I cannot back that, because while you have a champion like Ekko who is listed as an assassin you have Yasuo who is considered a skirmisher & has the qualities of one, with assassin level burst & consistent damage throughout fights. I have wanted to see significant changes to Ekko ever since the assassin rework was being announced but he never recieved anything but underwhelming boring changes that have left him albiet in a balanced state but in a broken game. I honestly get sad when I do my most to outplay an opponent mechanically, with micro managing stats & even being an item or two ahead but I end up losing with what should be a clear advantage. I could pick up Yasuo or Leblanc and start flying around the map one shotting everything I come in contact with but I prefer to work for leads & not have it be something that is just an inevitable stat in my kit.

Riot I feel has been scared to touch Ekko because of how easy it would be for him to fall into the category of a broken champion due to the damage being on his passive & the fact that people were playing him tank & getting away with it so easily. I mean the last buff he recieved was a QoL buff which only made a clunky & slow kit a little less clunky & prior to that a "buff" of 3AD... I don't want statistic buffs, I would like to see changes. Give him some uniqueness which makes him a champion worth playing & viability when you land the abilities that you work hard to land. Make his laning phase so much less boring & change his Q into something that isn't just a mindless waveclear tool & a throwaway ability for just his passive. Make his kit synergise with other abilities that don't leave you solely reliant on a passive that is on a static 4 second cooldown throughout the entire game, in a game where fights can be over in under a second. Just try & do something because while his kit is so very inspired by the idea of time & all that, you'll soon find it very boring and lack lustre, even frustrating when you cannot seem to make things happen as an offensive character.

Ekko's engage is weak, very weak. you cannot engage with your ult as it simply isn't worth it & your E is quite frankly a terrible gap closer that leaves you very open to subsequent attacks & CC. He has no form of poke which I have iterated time and time again, and he is a melee champion that leaves you feeling very useless once you have expended your abilities after walking into a range that will very likely leave you dead in most cases. The previous slow on his passive worked so that it semi countered this but instead of Riot making a work around that the community had so many ideas for, they just removed it; slapping on some compensation buffs that weren't thought through very well as to how these changes could affect the dynamic of his laning phase, teamfighting & overall effectiveness as a champion. It worked with the ease of landing his W, recieving less damage as a melee character & gave incentive to engaging in fights. But they just removed it. I would like this to garner some attention from a Rioter to give their opinion at the very least, especially with the announcement of clarity to the community for 9.13 patch & if someone could point me in the direction of doing that I would be very thankful because at this point I'm just tired of trying to fake enjoying playing Ekko.