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Honestly, my problem with Ekko isn't even his ridiculous kit (well, not primarily)

MrSc0tty·6/3/2015, 4:13:58 PM·17 votes·3,597 views

It's the sheer lack of clarity you get when facing him. Ekko brings absolutely LUDICROUS damage and utility to the table...and as an opponent absolutely none of it is intuitive. I've not got a chance to actually buy him, but I've read the stats, I know the ratios, I have seen the champion spotlight and a couple gameplay videos, and still when playing against him nothing makes any sense.

Examples:

-My last game against Ekko I played as Graves. I was fairly low HP, but had mana and my ultimate and there was a fight going on. I figured that I would hang around just a bit to try and throw an ult and help my team clean up. Ekko throws his little skillshot thing, and it comes up short. I juke back a little bit, staying out of the visual indicator I can see on my screen... And then when it returns to him the damage AOE for some reason extends PAST the visual indicator in a little "poof" of damage, which killed me. there is ZERO clarity in that spell, no indicator what it's going to do, him throwing out a thing that slows and chases you and then comes back with a little invisible poof of damage is just bizarre. Wasn't Zilean (the forgotten time-based champion) JUST changed and given a whole rework because his bombs (which had a timer telling you exactly when they'd explode) didn't have enough clarity? It's a BOMB, you figure that a bomb is going to have some kind of AOE with the explosion particles and all that, it's intuitive. And yet, it gets an indicator and Ekko's little thing does not, so you have no idea when it's going to explode or how long.

-And that brings us to the bugtastic clusterfuck that is his stupid ultimate indicator. Great concept, absolutely stupid implementation. For one thing, MAKE THE DAMN THING VISIBLE when ekko himself is in a bush. That's called having a trade-off. You know, like how a Rengar who's sitting in a bush completely invisible turns on his ultimate which is a STEALTH and suddenly enemies around him become more aware of where he is because of how powerful an offensive tool that ultimate is? The way the mechanic currently works is just nuts. When Ekko is juking in and out of fights and you're trying to watch for the stupid "batter up" tell for his giant 2.25s AOE stun with .8AP Shield on a basic skill his little ult passive is popping in and out of existence, glitch-dashing from bush to bush and the worst part is: IT DOESNT EVEN TELL YOU WHERE THE ULT DAMAGE AOE IS GOING TO BE. Like, at all! It's an AOE burst spell with a 1.3AP ratio and there is absolutely zero indicator of where it's going to be! This spell is like if Riot decided they were including the invisible nid spear bug as a feature for the champion! While we're at it, why don't we hide Nid/cait traps, zac blobs, and zyra seeds while those champions are not visible? Sounds like the same level of counterplay to me.

-His freaking passive. Not only does he have the enraging annie-esque ability to just insta-trigger it with a neat little button mash, quick, tell me if you have two stacks on you or one? Braum gets this HUGE indicator for the possibliity of a 1 second stun. Ekko's passive is an 80% slow, 80% speed boost for Ekko, and has a .7AP damage ratio and it's got this tiiiiiiiny teeeeeeeny indicator that looks practically the same at 1 or 2 stacks. This thing is an escape tool, a chase tool, and burst all in one, and Riot gave it a wafer-thin blue line, because clarity. Oh, and it gets triggered by all of Ekko's magical particle-less abilities :^)

-His W. Now, as we talk about his W, I want you to remember that Veigar was recently DEMOLISHED for having the following skill: .5 second cast delay creates a ring, enemies that contact the ring are stunned for 1.5/1.75/2/2.25/2.5 seconds, 80-100 mana, 18-14 second cooldown, no damage. Ekko's W has a 3-second windup, but you only get an indicator for .5 seconds of that. It creates an AOE (not a ring) exactly the same size that slows all enemies inside, and if Ekko enters the ring with, say, his instant blink, he stuns all enemies inside for 2.25 seconds (RANK ONE LOL) and gets up to a 300+.8 AP ratio shield. Oh, and take note that if he performs this combo then lands one autoattack, after the 2.25 second stun the target is slowed by 80% and he gets an 80% speed boost.

Talon got the 1-second silence removed from his instant blink for having "no counterplay". Ekko has an instant blink that comes with a wall jump that can deal a 2.25 second AOE stun and then an 80% slow.

26 Comments

DrNova6/3/2015, 4:50:10 PM5 votes

Another one of these threads.

Dark Nephthys6/3/2015, 6:25:01 PM4 votes

Honestly, I don't know what Riot was thinking when they made him...I love the idea and concept for Ekko and was really excited to play him when I heard about him but when I actually saw him..I refused to play him due to him just doing so much.

I have 3 major problems with his kit and stats and that's his Passive, his Shield and his ult. I have no problems with his Q or his E and find those skills fair.

His passive is basically Diana's passive but like 3 times better...Honestly, Riot must be completely running out of ideas to constantly re-use these "Stacking" passives. Don't we already have Braum, Vel'Koz, (Re-worked Skarner), Gnar, (Maybe count Kalista?), Kennen, Varus, Vayne, Vi, Diana. And most of those came out recently. Anyways, Ekko's passive does about the same damage as Diana's passive while also giving Him up to an 80% movement speed increase, and slowing the enemy for 80% for 3 seconds. Basically...in lane if you actually land both proc's of his Q (I believe you can get a stack from both damaging parts of his Q) then all you go to do is use your E's dash to jump on them, doing more then half their HP, and getting a movement speed while slowing them down. So you can easily get away without much retaliation.

While the 2.25 Second Stun is really annoying, what annoys me is the Shield amount. So while fighting him you dodge his stun, he'll still get a massive shield 330 + 80% AP. I don't know why an assassin has the highest shield in the game (Not Counting the HP % shields).

As for his ultimate...I don't care for his ult being the best "get out of any situation" with additional healing, but honestly that should be the only thing about it. The fact that he does 500 + 130% AP on top of all that is insane. Yes you can avoid it easily in a 1v1 or a 2v2 and have no reason to be hit by it. However, not all the time that would be the case. It's not easy to keep track of the ghost while in the middle of a 5v5 team fight and if you and your team lose track of the ghost for just a second, your entire team will get nuked for about as much as a Veigar's Ult.

His damage wouldn't be so crazy if it was all very small aoe or single target damage but everyone one (But for his E) has a massive aoe range on it. And yet...the only change Riot's doing is lowering down Ekko's base damage of his E...the one non-aoe skill and the only skill he has that's not entirely crazy.

Normally I don't make these types of posts about complaining about a champion...but I'm just tired of doing team builder and playing with 2 Ekko's in every game and the Ekko's are always the ones that carry the game.

Mat7itan6/3/2015, 6:12:37 PM4 votes

His entire kit is extremely telegraphed and easy to deal with. Yeah he can do a lot of damage and has great utility, but all of his stuff is easy to avoid.

The Bearded Bard6/4/2015, 6:26:48 AM3 votes

I should have stopped reading after I found out you've never played him. He's honestly not even obscenely powerful, certainly not strong enough to warrant this much QQ. You should have compared his ult or W being invisible while he's not visible to Shaco's Q or W, but I understand your frustration regardless. The problem with your complaining is that it's working as intended. Rengar and Shaco are special cases because their abilities cause them to stealth. There are plenty of champions whose particles on abilities you can't see while you don't have vision of them. For example, Nunu while he's charging his ult.

The only thing I'd like to see a nerf to is his passive and base ad. That's it, everything else can stay.

As for all you people complaining, please give a champion a little more time, maybe take a little time yourself to figure out how to counter said champion before complaining about him. I'll give ya a few hints: 1. If you see him wind up his baseball thing, leave the area. It's that simple, you don't even have to go very far. 2. If you have two or even one charge of his passive on you early game, don't engage on him and try to stay out of his relatively small engagement range. 3. Extended fights with him are a bad idea. If you can't kill him quickly, don't try to fight him alone. 4. Speaking of ways to kill him, disables are your friends, use them. Silences and snares are much more potent against a champ like Ekko compared to most. While silenced or snared he can't use his ult or his E, on top of that his passive is limited to melee range while silenced, and while snared if you can dodge the Q. 5. Speaking of the Q, obviously by now you should know the hit box is quite large on the slowed down part, stay away from it. Also if it hits you the first time around, that does not mean you have to get hit by the second part. MOVE OUT OF THE WAY. 6. Don't chase him. He's pretty mobile and his ult is almost always going to be behind him. He can easily pop it and appear on top of you, complete with more health than you now that you just ate his ult's damage and it healed him. 7. Speaking of his ult, he does us the kindness of telling us when he has it, so when he has it, focus your disables on him and kill him quickly. As a rule of thumb, if you can't kill him within 4 seconds you're probably going to die. To be fair, that's more time than most assassins give you. 8. Ekko also does us the kindness of showing us exactly where he's going to appear when he ults. If you're a squishy, stay away from this spot wherever it is. If you're a tank, hover on the outside of it and lock him down when he uses it.

EDIT: Oh man I completely forgot you mentioned Zilean and were completely wrong about why they changed his Q. They changed it because it was stupidly frustrating to play against an AP Zilean mid, and this is coming from someone that played AP Zilean mid quite often. Basically every time his cooldowns were down you just ate 400-800 damage and there was nothing you could do about it. Nothing to do with clarity, everything to do with lacking counterplay, which Ekko has a ton of btw. The dude is like the posterboy for counterplay.

NemeBro6/3/2015, 8:43:36 PM3 votes

My biggest problem with Ekko (besides his huge numbers for a champion with so much utility) is the passive on his W.

Why is it there? Why does he have a low health %HP damage execute? How does it fit with Ekko's time theme? How does it relate to the active on his W?

It doesn't. It seems like it was put there, just to be put there. Can anyone justify his W passive's existence? Can anyone defend its thematic relevance? It, more than any other ability, doesn't gel with the rest of his kit at all. His passive has a similar problem, but to a lesser extent.

jDVL20eCYs6/3/2015, 4:27:49 PM2 votes

compare ekko to talon? ekko cant point click q w r insta gi squssiy in under 0.5 sec while dong massive damage on the whole enemy and then go invis. ekko is much harder to play, so when you use ekko to the fullest he is stronger then talon, but most of the times talon will outclass him

Llanite6/4/2015, 5:01:19 AM2 votes

1/ I can only tell you to see an eye doctor.

2/ Braum/Annie passive will stun you, whilst Echo's only does some dmg which is a lot weaker. Kayle, GP and Cass have no indicator either.

3/For the record, Echo's passive is not 'Free' dmg, his E has negligible dmg and ratio to compensate (every charge in this game has at least 0.7 ratio).

4/ While it's true that you can only see his W 0.5s before it explodes, Echo DOES need to time his W so that you will be in the circle 3s LATER. Veigar's new E has 0.5s delay and people complain how laughably easy it is to dodge but Echo's stun which has exact delay is 'tard hard to dodge'?

Last but not least, Echo R hits like a truck, because it can only be triggered under special conditions, Kat/ Teemo/ Morg/ Fidd/ are prime example, if something is harder to land, it hits harder, risk/reward basic tradeoff?

Sojuorn6/3/2015, 8:34:14 PM2 votes

Again... even the pros are calling Ekko OP. but the freelo boys on the boards will disagree. No use in arguing with them here. Too much Kit and too high ratios atm in my simple opinion.

Swollwonder6/4/2015, 1:43:32 AM1 votes

Sorry but I just dont see it Gnar and vayne both have the same indicators. Regardless, this could easily be fixed if it was a problem If youre standing so close to his q on the return that the hitbox length really matters youre probably too close anyway. His shield is so painfully obviously broadcasted. Theres several audio cues and usually its predictable. If you dont think you can survive the stun you just back off until you see where it is then avoid getting in it. His E is a dash. On an assassin. I mean I think assassins are allowed to have dashes. Yeah the glowing person absolutely doesn't tell you where the AOE damage is going to be at all. Ekko isn't that bad kit wise. I think his numbers are off but not by too much.

Yenn6/4/2015, 6:04:05 AM1 votes

The struggles of a Gold V player.