I Suggest Reworking Ekko's Innate Passive to Strengthen his Identity
To begin, I will clarify that the passive I'd like to rework would be the Gypsylord special:
Ekko's Zero-Drive charges his spells and attacks with temporal energy. The third hit deals bonus damage and saps the target's movement speed. If the target is a champion, Ekko gains accelerated movement speed.
Now, I realize that everyone and their grandma has some opinion of where Ekko's power should be, or shouldn't be, but really, I think this is distracting from his identity fairly harshly. To begin, he's an opportunist who makes the most of his kit with his positioning. While a good idea to make Ekko powerful while skirmishing with a highly melee kit, he is meant to make the most out of catching an enemy off-guard with his kit, and meant to be reliable when landing his skills. If he misses his eccentric skills, he should simply seek the nearest exit and regroup, but up until now, he's never had to.
I do like the utility they give his kit, including his innate passive. However, I feel the passive is rewarding no matter how well you land abilities. He only has to land 3 autoattacks on any champion to give him a strong movement speed boost which puts his slippery behavior into high gear, amping up his positioning possibilities, and all regardless of whether he whiffed all his skills previously. This type of reward, instead, should be placed on landing his highly unique skillshots, as happens with his Q out and W. Now, the problem is that his Timewinder is generally ignored as a combo maker, despite having a perfect combo right in Ekko's kit, which is the following:
Timewinder out, hit target, slow target, one stack of Innate. Phase Dive, hit target, two stacks of Innate. Predict enemy's movement, have Timewinder boomerang back, three stacks of Innate.
In theory, the Innate makes Timewinder a rewarding skill because of this. However, it doesn't work out that way, because Timewinder is the least reliable way to proc his damage. There are several possibilities that are obscenely easy to land in most situations, most of which in his currently familiar spot, toplane.
Auto - Q out - E (obscenely easy toplane, usually) Q out - E - Auto (Somewhat easy everywhere else, and utilizing Q slow) Q out - delayed E to melee - Q out again (mostly possible with loads of CDR) Q out - whiff - W behind to lure an enemy when "you're weak", land a lucky stun while enemy attempts to out-mobile you in a trade 3 Autos with MS and help from Phase Dive
It's a lot of options, and not one of them relies on the Q in, making Ekko all the more depressing to face when you actually dodge his skillshot. Instead, his Q should be what gives him his mobility boost, reading like this:
Active: Ekko throws a device in the target direction, dealing magic damage to enemies along its path. At maximum range or upon hitting an enemy champion, the device slows to a stop and expands, creating a field that slows nearby enemies.
After a short delay, the device contracts and rushes back to Ekko, dealing additional magic damage to enemies along its path, stealing movement speed from any champions hit.
This, in my opinion, integrates Timewinder into Ekko's kit in a way that makes it far more interactive when using it. On top of that, it removes some of the excess DPS he's able to do, which is honestly one of the few reasons Tank Ekko has been working in the first place. If he was actually a burst mage/assassin as intended, you'd be able to dodge his skills and actually be able to fight back. However, his tank is effective because he doesn't need to land a thing in order to be effective.
TL;DR: Please remove Ekko's Innate Passive, while keeping some of its utility in fully landing Timewinder, and give him something else fresh (or possibly shift the W passive and balance, he might be powerful enough as is).
