How should I be playing Ekko?

Don't just downvote because you simply hate to play against him for whatever reason please.

I chose him mainly cuz he was cool, I love most assassins and Ekko was to be the one that would become one of my two mains. I don't know what it is but, I feel he's fallen from grace from an assassin into this med-high burst melee mage. When I get ahead I feel weak, i think If i were 8 & 0 with any other assassin I could OS like they could, but I don't or rarely do. It felt like the tweaks after the update pushed him into this state, where because he is considered a safer champion he is automatically supposed to feel weak, I've honestly never really liked the W ability, nor the Q to be honest but I stuck with it while he was still considered an assassin in my opinion. Since that point where he was somewhat reworked, his passive got a higher cooldown and a higher ap ratio with its slow removed which till now just feels wrong given his kit is really telegrahed. I want to use my ult agressively and it is situational, but the trade off is wack. It does less damage early than it did previously did, yes it has a higher ap ratio which makes virtually no difference early, where by the way, assassins are supposed to be the most efficient. You tend to find that using it for the damage you have no follow up damage, since your passive is on a 5 second CD and your Q is a two step ability that does most of its damage on the way back which rarely hits and seems to take forever to wind back to you. I'm definately ranting but it's because I'm passionate about playing Ekko.

I look at high Elo games and Ekko one tricks online, they don't seem to get much done compared to me apart from making smarter decisions game-wise. Everyone keeps going on about how he is an assassin that dips in and out to assassinate which honestly does not correlate with any of his abilities aside from his ult and otherwise nerfed passive. If they had said this prior to the mini-rework I would understand because his passive allowed for the ability to do this and maybe if his W stun duration wasn't nerfed either, but that isn't the case. I don't want tank Ekko back, however I don't want this watered down assassin version of Ekko either because while he is suited for a variety of scenarios, he doesn't excel in any areas either. Sometimes I look at something like ap gragas and it dawns on me that he can assassinate better than Ekko can with less items and less trouble. I've written about him in the past trying to get my understandings about him across but I guess I'm doing this for the last time as a final plea for help.

Do you think he deserves a buff or rework of any sort?