The Ekko design disconnect.

TL/DR: Ekko's current kit is better suited for a skirmisher than an assassin. He has much less burst and much less consistency than almost any other assassin, but his disruption is almost tank level in potential. I think this is why he's always played as a tank, because it's much more consistent and reliable. If built assassin his kit is too unreliable to function very well. He's literally the body of an assassin with the kit of a bruiser.

It's well known Ekko doesn't do all of his damage upfront like most assassins. As one who has been on the receiving end of assassins before, I've no problem with that. However, from all my time playing him, I feel like there is a drastic disconnect between what ekko wants to do, and what generally works on him, or what his kit is designed to do.

As an assassin, Ekko wants to use his w, get in, stun at least 1 priority target and lay some damage into them, but then he's already spent his 3 main moves and he can't actually properly assassinate anyone unless he is stupidly ahead and they are very behind. Many assassins, like akali, leblanc and zed, have more options for mobility, to get onto a target, do some damage (normally LOTS of damage, even when they aren't nearly as fed), then continue dealing more damage/chasing when the target tries to escape. Ekko has, in my opinion, some of the lowest initial damage of any assassin, and yet has no way to keep chasing someone down. His passive slow is nice, but with more and more champs having dashes/blinks, I often find it inconsistent to even land the third hit of his passive to get that slow, especially since the slow on his q is so weak that many champs can simply out walk it before it returns. As it currently stands, it's generally 'land w' or be useless until it comes off cooldown, and it has a very long cooldown.

And then there's his ult, which is one of my favorite abilities in the whole game, but as a very squishy assassin, it's almost impossible to use his ult offensively, as he's very unlikely to survive in a fight long enough to use it. for clarification, i realize assassin's aren't supposed to be tanky/survive long, but with his q inconsistently landing the second half and his e being his only other damage ability. His damage output is rather low and inconsistent without his ult, and it doesn't feel very good to play if you can't kill someone even if you're ahead.

The way ekko seems the most effective, is when he's out in front, enemies try to agress on him, then he baits backwards into his w/ult. In my experience this is a much more reliable way to actually get to pull off any plays with ekko, as just throwing out his w and jumping on someone is inconsistant at best, but yet, for ekko to be in the front where he can pull any of these plays off, he's obviously going to be focused/come under fire. Which logically means that he needs to build more defensively in order to survive the heat he'll be taking. But, since he can survive longer, he can actually set up for his own w/r instead of praying his team does it for him, which (especially in soloq) is inconsistant at best.

I understand that ekko's kit has a lot of potential power, few ults can both heal a chunk of your hp and almost 1 shot half the enemy team. And few non ultimate abilities have the potential to stun the entire enemy team at once, but because of how long the delays on the abilities are. As an ekko fan, i feel almost REQUIRED to build defensively/bruiser just to attempt to pull any of these abilities off. The delay in his burst is understandable, but when he can literally die before his burst finishes, he can't do his job, and then he has to build more defensive. I really really love playing ekko, i think he's a very interesting character and i love the time dynamic of his kit, but, unlike the real ekko. People playing him can't see into the future and test out every single timeline to find out the right result, If his abilities retain such long delays, i feel like he almost has to be built more as a bruiser than an assassin.

Meddler has said they are thinking of 'pushing ekko towards more squishy targets", but as he currently stands, that doesn't feel like it will help much, when, at the moment, unless he's stupidly ahead, ekko can't even kill a squishy target. I know this is kind of why assassin's as a whole are getting reworked, and i'm happy for that, but almost any other assassin can do ekko's assassin job better. Zed is melee and has much more potential mobility, plus he's ad and runs on energy instead of mana, which means his damage uptime is much more consistant. Leblanc is ranged and doesn't suffer as much to poke early, plus, even if she's behind, she can still do > 2/3 of someone's hp and blink out before anyone can respond. Even Diana, whom i believe is officially classified as a skirmisher, not only has an much more consistent shield to survive harass, she is also has higher base defenses and even more upfront burst. Meanwhile ekko is a melee ap, which generally suffers heavily from poke in midlane to other mages or AD champs, and then his burst is both so slow he can die before it finishes, and too weak that if he's not dominating he feels completely useless. Besides his ability to soak up damage and get out (ult) or his aoe cc potential (w) i can't see a reason to pick him over another assassin, and those are traits that you pick bruisers/tanks for, not assassins.

I honestly don't have a good solution for 'how it could be fixed' but i feel like the primary reason ekko is always being played as a tank/bruiser isn't quite the same as fizz or yasuo where 'he has such high base damage that he can get away with it" it's more that, 95% of players don't feel satisfied playing him because of how much more reliable and valuable he can be built more tanky.

Is the objective from the assassin update to push him harder at being an assassin? Or is he going to be more of a skirmisher like diana? As his kit currently stands, i feel like he would make a better ap bruiser than a flat assassin like leblanc or talon.