Ekko: A look back

Ekko, the boy who shattered time, has been out for about a year now, and boy this champion has had more than his fair share of changes, including recently being dethroned from his spot as, arguably, the best tank in the game. I thought that with these recent changes in mind it may be interesting to take a look back and see what Ekko has been through.

Released on patch 5.10 (May of 2015, if my memory is correct), Ekko was designed with the intention of being a skirmishing AP assassin/ fighter who thrived in drawn out engagements. For those of you who played with Ekko upon release, you may remember him being, well, busted. His W would give him vision upon immediately being cast and his R required no mana. While this was was a great time for fans of Ekko, it simply wasn't too healthy for the game. So, in the patches following the release, Ekko received some nerfs/fixes that brought him to a more fair state. A lot of these nerfs were focused at reducing Ekko's damage output, like giving him increased mana costs and lower AP ratios. It was around this time that tank Ekko also became mainstream, and honestly, it was a good idea. With high defensive stats, tank Ekko could run at the enemy team, forcing them to waste their cooldowns, and then simply Chronobreak out, ready to go back in again. But, as Riot had said, this was not how they had intended Ekko to be played, so in patches 5.14 and 5.15 they reduced his base damages and reduced his crowd control, but also buffed his AP ratios and lowered mana costs. (Sound familiar?)

With the start of season 6, Ekko was seeing play as both a tank and an assassin, but wasn't exactly a top-tier pick in each role. He was seeing a somewhat lower rate of play, so he was given a wave of steady buffs. In 5.24, a very annoying bug for those who enjoyed playing on-hit Ekko was fixed, and in 6.3 his Q cooldown was lowered. Now, I may be going off on a personal tangent here, but I feel this is important. At around this time, (6.3) myself and a few other avid Ekko players I had talked to were very happy. Even though he may have been a bit under the radar, after his changes in season 5 Ekko still felt like a fine pick, and the buffs/fixes just felt like a reward to those who had decided to stick with him. They weren't overwhelming, but they were certainly nice.

Then, in 6.6 his E cooldown was lowered and his passive game him way more movement speed at early levels. This was really when tank Ekko made his return to the rift. Not only did Ekko naturally have a ton of CC in his kit, along with a nice shield and a reset button, but now it was even easier for him to run rampant through the enemy team. He was slippery and speedy, yet extremely durable. In 6.8, Riot decided to address the problem by reducing the base damages on his E and W, but increased there AP ratios, as if trying to nudge players back to his intended assassin play style. The changes didn't impact the meta too much though, and Ekko kept his crown as king of the tanks. For the next few patches Ekko saw an incredibly high percentage of bans/picks as a top lane tank in pro play in basically every region. However, with some of the next few patches items tank Ekko depended on, like Sunfire cape and Frozen Gauntlet, were changed. Other tanks, including Maoki, Trundle, and even Gragas saw a surge in play rate. Finally, in 6.11 Ekko himself received a slew of changes. There were nerfs to stats that tank Ekkos valued, like an increase on his passive's cooldown, a reduction on his W's stun time, and a lowering of the base damages on Q and R, while AP Ekko got some nice buffs, like increased AP ratios on Q and R.

As of 6.12, (released today) Ekko received no changes. Maybe this means Riot has finally decided Ekko is in his intended state as a damage dealer rather than a tank, or maybe they want time to observe these changes in action, your guess is as good as mine. I will say however, I do not think tank Ekko will be done, not now or ever, it just may see less play. I just felt like writing this for a couple of reasons. I think it is interesting to see that he has undergone the same cycle of changes a few times, and I think the whole "tank assassin" conundrum Ekko experienced is very relevant to the meta now (cough Fizz cough). I hope you found this interesting, thanks for reading! Feel free to start a discussion in the comment section below :)