Tank Ekko literally has everything you can want from a champion.

Theorchero·Apr 13, 2016·95 votes·5,788 views

✓Burst Damage ✓Sustained Damage ✓Mixed Damage (27.2% physical, rest magic/true) ✓Extremely Tanky ✓High mobility ✓Hard CC ✓Soft CC ✓Zone Control ✓Wave clear ✓Dual purpose ultimate, for guaranteed escape or nuking.

People complain about Zed's reliability with his ultimate shadow but he does less damage than Ekko while having less escapes and being squishy.

Tell me again why it's okay for any champion to be able to build tank while still dealing very significant amounts of damage? Let alone burst squishies like an assassin? Tanks should have impact via disruption and crowd control, not damage.

Fighters can have sustained damage and tank, but not burst and they should almost always have difficulty engaging a fight by themselves. That's how these archetypes were balanced. If you want damage, you should have to build damage. The more damage you build the less tank you should have.

136 Comments

The WhamboozlerApr 13, 201651 votes

It is perfectly ok for a champion to build tanky and still do damage.

The problem is that the champions who are doing it are assassins/bruisers with a ton of mobility, utility and massively overloaded kits. Olaf, Garen and Shyvana all become massive tanky damage dealers. They also lack real mobility, have lackluster or NO crowd control, and have a host of flaws and failings that these hyper-mobile assassin-bruisers don't have. Ekko WILL get on you. Ekko can NOT be escaped. Ekko has poke, % damage, waveclear, mobility, etc. He has NO flaws. I'm shocked it took this long for people to realize that these newer champs with their overloaded "I can do anything" kits are broken. Go on... NAME an item Ekko can't build and use well. He can go AP burst, AP bruiser, AD bruiser, AD assassin, or full tank. Barring ADC, and MAYBE support, he can fill any role in the game too. Oh sure, the meta doesn't favor all of those builds right now so they're bad ideas but he can do ANYTHING. If AD bruisers become the rage again, he'll be there. If glass cannon assassins somehow come back, he'll be there. No matter what the meta is, he will be a crazy strong pick unless he is nerfed into the GROUND... because he has so much crap stuck in his kit that he'll never be a bad pick.

Compare that to a one-trick pony champ like Sion or Cho'Gath and you can see the issue. Because of his kit alone, Ekko will NEVER really be balanced. And the other champs who can even attempt to rival him need to be as overloaded as he is to try... or to be such massive piles of stats that all the fancy tricks he has can't stop them from just walking under a tower and deleting someone like a 3K stack Nasus pressing Q or something. The only counter to champions with kits like Ekko are the "unfun, zero-counterplay" champs like Annie... and with everyone being a freaking tank now, not even that works anymore. And since I KNOW they're not gonna buff Annie enough to one-shot a TANK with her combo, we've got the overloaded characters ruling supreme because nothing can stop them. Nothing without % damage, three passives, three slows, two dashes, a shield, an escape and 2000 gold in free stats, at least.

SpecterVonBarenApr 14, 201610 votes

So I hear what you're saying but I think you can condense it down to saying this.

Ekko = AP LeeSin

The WhamboozlerApr 14, 201611 votes

Kinda. Except Lee is actually somehow LESS overloaded than Ekko. So it's more like Ekko = AP LeeSin 2.0

TheI3igDaddyApr 14, 20165 votes

I know the discussion is about Ekko here, but are you really implying that Cho'Gath is a one-trick pony? He's incredibly versatile, of course not as much as everyone's ~~favorite~~ most hated time-traveling kid.

You can go full tank and be a huge brick, offtank to both absorb damage and dish out enough to threaten a squishy's life, or you could go mid, build full AP and fuck over anyone who gets hit by Rupture.

Or maybe you're just talking about kit and not item builds?

The WhamboozlerApr 14, 20164 votes

Kit. Cho really does ONE thing. Try to land a Q then waddle up and W + R. He can do it to peel or to try and catch someone out, but that is pretty much ALL Cho does. His kit is very limited (though strong) and his options in a fight are usually "land Q or land nothing" since he's so slow and easy to kite and avoid. Sure, sometimes some jerk will leap in hard and your Ult or silence will make a big difference, but for the most part, Cho is a Q bot.

Item-wise, yeah... Cho can build various degrees of AP or tank, but his playstyle is almost EXACTLY the same regardless. (Save that full AP cho needs to play much safer). I was talking about his kit tho. An old-timer like Cho is incredibly simple and basic and relatively easy to avoid since you know EXACTLY what he does. He has no tricky jukes or crazy plays he can make other than the dreaded flash ult.

Ekko meanwhile is dashing all over the map, dropping shields and stuns, juking skillshots, poking your back line, kiting you, slowing everyone, and then ulting to safety if his dive was unsuccessful. Just compare the two kits and the MASSIVE gap in utility and options during a fight is immense. I'm not saying Cho is weak. I'm saying cho is simple.

Voluug13Apr 14, 20162 votes

Thank god someone understands why Cho isnt ''broken OP'' as most assassin mains cry about.

The WhamboozlerApr 14, 20163 votes

No, Cho is a good example of good champ design. He's got obvious strengths and weaknesses, he has to land his Q to really hurt you so player skill is a factor but he's not so complicated that he requires a ten-page guide to understand him. He has multiple build paths so he can alter his stats to better suit what his team needs and he has clear counterplay (stay away from the giant monster) while still being strong enough to be picked despite that fact. His strengths have inherany counterplay to them. He's often his team's tank but he can't really initiate. He gets a ton of free HP from feast, but he loses a bunch when he dies... and as the tank he's almost always the guy who's charging into the thick of things and likely to die. He has VERY strong CC but his immobility makes it hard to land, and his ratios are very high but I've never heard someone whine that AP cho'gath was absurdly overpowered and needs to be nerfed.

Riot's old champ design was pretty goofy, but they had some clear winners from time to time. I'd rather fight a thousand Cho'Gath's than another hyper-mobile bruiser/assassin full of utility, % damage, multiple passives and a ton of free stats.

Voluug13Apr 15, 20162 votes

and his ratios are very high but I've never heard someone whine that AP cho'gath was absurdly overpowered and needs to be nerfed.

Oh boy when assassins were meta you heard Cho AP QQ all day.

The WhamboozlerApr 15, 20162 votes

Meh, he still had to build semi bruiser to hang in there. But yeah.

So in a specific situation, when everyone is a bursty glass cannon, he did well. That's like, the definition of a niche pick. Meanwhile Ekko brings so much to the table I can't think of many comps or metas that would turn him down.

Voluug13Apr 15, 20161 votes

Yeah niche picks often get shitted of because they are often counterpicks too.

Like old Zilean that was only good against Fizz/Zed and got nerfworked because of that. Or the rare Swain/Malzahar QQ from Yasuo/Zed players.

What Is SmiteApr 15, 20161 votes

Ekko Support played it, went tanky build (RoA/Gauntlet/Abyssal/Visage/Merc Treads/Sightstone relic combo item) still shitted on the enemy team

IcyPepperApr 13, 201619 votes

Tell me again why it's okay

Aren't there nerfs lined up for him specifically because RIot doesn't think it's okay either?

Tank Ekko happened before and they nerfed him for it, and they're going to do it again. It's not like they enjoy this rampaging beast of unbalance.

KING OF MASKSApr 13, 201610 votes

The problem isn't that he's strong/overpowered and thus needs to be nerfed. The problem is that he is overloaded. To solve Ekko's issues they're going to have to actually strip things out of his kit. And somehow, I doubt rito's willingness to go that far.

IcyPepperApr 14, 201610 votes

He was brought in line once before, but yes his kit is overloaded so there's always a chance this BS will rear its head up again.

Sniper 0Apr 13, 201615 votes

http://i.imgur.com/5hQ5Vou.gif Sums up every ekko post now... People are beating a dead horse at this point. We all know he's one of the most broken champs on the rift right now.

The DeckownerApr 14, 20169 votes

Azir has everything u want from a champion Burst dmg Sustain dmg Waveclear Long range poke Hard cc Soft cc Low mana cost Mobility Structure creation Tower killing power Early game dmg Mid game dmg Late game dmg Spammable cc Zoning AOE buff AOE cc AOE dmg

U can list these for 90% of the high skillcap champions, and they will look similar.

DorkunedAurasApr 14, 20168 votes

squishy

LordGeovanniApr 14, 20164 votes

item 3027 item 3116

VentusDragoonApr 14, 20164 votes

You forgot to add--

-Squishy as ALL HECK. -You need to be VERY good to escape an assassin, where with Ekko you can just press "R." -Above average mana costs in the early game. -His slow is actually pretty mediocre without Rylai's.

McKeifusApr 14, 20161 votes

Try building Tank Azir. See if any of that shit is effective, or if you're just a wimpy golden man with sand buddies. You would become irrelevant so fast your sand bros would cry themselves into shiny sand statues right quick.

JediMindFlipperApr 14, 20163 votes

I haven't tried full tank Azir but tonight i just might. However If i want to go tanky with Azir I use an AP off-tank build. Using tanky items that offer AP such as item 3027 ---> item 3116 ---> item 3151 usually these 3 items alone give me enough tankiness to play Azir more aggressively and bring shurima to greatness on top of my enemies, then go full on Donald Trump and build a "very nice wall" that will keep those kids in their place

The DeckownerApr 14, 20162 votes

U have 0 idea about what Azir does.

JediMindFlipperApr 14, 20163 votes

Try it

The DeckownerApr 14, 20162 votes

but bro I wasnt replying to u I was replying to the guy u replied to

JediMindFlipperApr 14, 20163 votes

Oh, LOL, sorry bro but if you play Azir this could be interesting. Tonight i am going to try building a item 3068 on Azir and blame the new Tank meta. Try it as well?

Vistha KaiApr 14, 20167 votes

Back when Ekko was released, I described him to a friend like, "It's a champion with a kit so overloaded, it'd be enough for another 5 new champions."

Maximum MordeApr 14, 20165 votes

He doesn't have nice tits.

junglerboy16Apr 14, 20164 votes

The issue here (and this has and always will be an issue) is that Riot keeps giving assassins % Health damage. Most people forget it, but Ekko actually has execute damage as a passive on his W, which is largely to blame for how high his damage is without building real damage items.

% HP damage is what broke Elise (she was designed as an assassin, people built her tank instead), makes Zed anti-fun to lane against (free minion last hits), allowed Fiora to build tank (and still melt other tanks), etc. % HP damage has two purposes: either helping kill tanks, or keeping a tank's damage relevant with little investment into damage items. The idea behind this is fine, but Riot has gone way overboard by stuffing it onto assassin kits. Assassins should NEVER be able to burst a tank, so they don't need a tank buster damage stat. If they aren't using it for that, then all it does is allow abuse cases like this where assassins can get away with building tank and still kill squishies.

Great OzymandiusApr 14, 20162 votes

This is exactly right. Putting %hp damage into ekko's kit is saying that ekko should be able to build tank and should be good at killing tanks.

%hp damage can be reasonable on squishies designed to kill tanks, like vayne, and it can be reasonable on fighters if they need to build damage to scale up the %hp damage, like fiora. But an assassin should never ever have %hp damage.

SlaktarTaskenApr 14, 20164 votes

I find it it hilarous that all "counterplay" that Ekko supporters keep spewing is centered around Ekko fucking up, as they always do when a champion is incredibly scewered.

Don't worry guys, if you get him to fuck up this, this, this and this, maybe you can get to punish him a little, wow, you made him fuck up so now since his low CD dash, his Q, his shield, his stun, his this, his that, his the other etcetc is down you can make a decent trade, now you only have to make him fuck up 2-3 more times, IN A ROW and maybe, just maybe, after you make him fuck up REALLY big just one last time after that, you might be able to kill him. :,D

[zombie-brand-mindblown]

If your whole team times their CC chain on him perfectly and focus fires him, HE WILL PROBABLY DIE! 8)

Okay guys, fuck all the other members on the opposing team, focus everything on EKKO and I MEAN EVERYTHING; I BELIEVE! IT SHALL NOT FAIL!

[zombie-brand-facepalm] [zombie-brand-mindblown] [zombie-brand-facepalm]

DJ KatarinaApr 13, 20163 votes

Tank Ekko literally has everything

FTFY

MISTAFUNKTASTICApr 13, 20163 votes

Ekko is instant ban for all my games.

OmiwomApr 14, 20163 votes

Ekko's problem is just that he slows way too much.

FlameHalbrdOkidoApr 13, 20162 votes

The more damage you build the less tank you should have: right

also am I the only one who tilts their head to the side and goes "HUH, why?" when I remember that when Ekko enters his time sphere from W he stuns AND gets a shield? Why does he need both? Also the heal on his R is too much

charcharmunroApr 14, 20165 votes

It's more of a four-way thing between mobility, damage, tankiness and utility/CC. Generally speaking, most people will be great at two, mediocre at one and crap at another. Some are more all-rounders, or... Sion, for example, is very tanky, lot of a CC, decent damage, absolutely horrendous mobility. Garen is very tanky, lots of damage, minimal mobility and some decent CC. Tank Ekko... Doesn't really give up anything.

FlameHalbrdOkidoApr 15, 20161 votes

{quoted}

It's more of a four-way thing between mobility, damage, tankiness and utility/CC. Generally speaking, most people will be great at two, mediocre at one and crap at another. Some are more all-rounders, or... Sion, for example, is very tanky, lot of a CC, decent damage, absolutely horrendous mobility. Garen is very tanky, lots of damage, minimal mobility and some decent CC. Tank Ekko... Doesn't really give up anything.

agreed.

The DeckownerApr 14, 20166 votes

The shied and stun coexisting because ap ekko can use it defensively to gain a huge shied, the shied and stun also has the same duration so it is balanced.

FlameHalbrdOkidoApr 15, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Deckowner,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=UKjiGTAh,comment-id=000c0001,timestamp=2016-04-14T01:39:39.219+0000)

The shied and stun coexisting because ap ekko can use it defensively to gain a huge shied, the shied and stun also has the same duration so it is balanced.

but as an assassin is having a shield ok?

The DeckownerApr 15, 20162 votes

that shied has 3 second delay and require ekko to stand in a specific area he chose 3 seconds ago

SearnoApr 14, 20162 votes

easiest thing is to reduce the slow amounts, as well as his base passive damage and w base damage. I think his q and r are fine the way they are, maybe reduce the healing per damage taken aspect and increase the ap ratio instead?

Hexelement Apr 14, 20162 votes

Wouldn't the answer be to treat him like Fiora and MasterYi ?

reduce base damage and increase AP scaling? Less base healing on R and more AP scaled healing?

I main AP Ekko mid and played my first tank Ekko game a few days ago. I agree that it's unhealthy...and honestly made me feel bad.

KouheyApr 14, 20162 votes

you can't blame Riot for being unable to balance Ekko The champion's basic idea is just busted, "AP skirmisher"? How is that even supposed to be balanced? The other champion that falls in this category is Gragas, who also has pretty good CC, base damage, waveclear and movement speed But Gragas doesn't have a out-of-jail card for dummy, which makes him a little challenging to make the right play.

Sett up 4my gankApr 14, 20162 votes

*Parallel Convergence (W) Passive base damage lowered to 3% missing HP from 5% missing HP Passive AP ratio increased to 1% per 33 AP from 1% per 50 AP [NEW] Passive does minimum 15 damage to minions.

**Phase Drive (E) Base damage lowered to 40/65/90/115/140 from 50/80/110/140/170 AP ratio increased to .4 from .2

Iceborn Gauntlet Unique Passive - Spellblade lowered to 100% of base AD from 125%

Grasp of the Undying (Resolve, Tier 6) Life stolen lowered to 2.5% of your max health from 3%

It is not okay hence why they are doing 4 nerfs to ekko, and 2 to every other tanky damage dealer.

SzunrayApr 14, 20162 votes

When they made Ekko they wanted to make this skirmisher assassin who didn't just Le-Blink you out of existance. I think that was a unique idea, and I think they should nerf Ekko's base damages to basically zero, and crank up his scalings to match.

But you realize this is a problem with assassins in general yes? Once tank Ekko is gone, Tank Fizz will take his place. Or Tank Akali. Or tank elise, which the community has more or less accepted by this point. You might even remember when tank Katarina was a thing (though I never had to deal with that personally), or Bruiser Nidalee....

Many assassins have high enough base damages that you can build full tank and still assassinate a carry, and it's extremely annoying since most of these assassins are borderline inescapable. You might say "Oh it's not as bad, those assassins kits arent as overloaded" (which I'd argue he is only SLIGHTLY worse than Tank Elise) But that's not going to be any real consolation when Tank Yi ruins your game.

It's not JUST Ekko.

Spaceman5pffApr 14, 20162 votes

Let us just be thankful he doesnt have %HP True damage, or a kit that naturally provides ample mixed damage.

LICENSED HOOKERApr 13, 20161 votes

I still dont understand why riot wont nerf item 3068 item 3025 Cause lets be real, those two items are making almost every champion viable top.

Dragonlord7137Apr 14, 20161 votes

part of Ekko 's stickiness is due to his passive having no cooldown whatsoever unlike JarvanIV or Nautilus so getting one Q and a E means that they are permanently slowed by 60% so champs without dashes have no way to escape at all. If only even a 5 second cd was added to it.

LSmaster16Apr 14, 20165 votes

It has a 3 second on target cooldown.

Trias000Apr 14, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Fighters can have sustained damage and tank, but not burst

Some do have burst: Garen Irelia Jax LeeSin Pantheon Mordekaiser Renekton {{champion:92 Volibear

BIAKabooseApr 14, 20162 votes

Executes are not strictly burst damage since they require more damage beforehand to do their own damage. Pantheon I also consider more of an assassin, not a fighter because to one-combo people you really need all the AD you can get.

For Garen, sure, DMP and his Q empowered auto is a decent chunk of damage, and his ult can drop you from around 1/3 HP if you're squishy/the villain, but overall his damage isn't really bursty, his E is a huge portion of his damage, and only if he can spin on you the entire duration, and only if he's hitting only you does it do really good damage.

Irelia, I have never actually seen her burst anybody without building glass cannon, her trades are fast sure, but they aren't just a ton of damage in a split second, it's decent damage over like 2 seconds for trading, her all-ins give her good sustain and extra damage over the duration of Hiten Style, and her ult can do OK damage across a group.

Jax is uh... You've got a point there as much as I like Jax, but he gets free tank stats for just building damage items, all you need is some extra HP and maybe a QSS.

Lee Sin has burst early, but his damage drops like a rock later on if he builds tanky, he become more for the utility of his ult than actual damage.

Morde is weird, and I don't know him well enough after his rework to really have an opinion.

Renekton is the same as Lee, crazy early damage, and then drops of later on.

Volibear, now there's a fun one. Volibear actually doesn't do a ton of damage in bursts. Yes, his bite can do a lot of damage, his ult can let him soften up up to 4 targets at a time, and he can toss people around like they're paper bags full of balloons, but he has to be horrendously fed and ahead to 100-0 somebody on his own without building extra damage. The bite scales on HP, and executes, a lot of people say that it is too strong, but when you look at the rest of his kit he lacks so much damage to make the execute mean anything in a non trading situation. He needs somebody else dealing damage to make it scary, he can finish a job quickly, but only if someone is already low on HP. I don't know of a time where Voli can walk up, slap somebody who was full HP 3 times and bite them for a kill, it just doesn't happen, you have to do something wrong to get trashed by Volibear, if you're on 1/3 HP and he's slapping the minion wave, don't stand close enough for him to flash onto you and bite your head off, you're doing the one thing you should never do near Voli, which is be on low HP and within range. To sum things up I will quote Voli himself, "A fool and his head are easily parted". Just don't play into his hands, er, paws, and he's not a huge threat if you're on even ground.