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Ekko, Respect and Balance

GanksLikeGast0n·6/4/2015, 4:18:37 PM·18 votes·3,323 views

So last night I played Ekko for the second time, and went 18-4-13, securing my first pentakill on summoner's rift. If you look at just the numbers, this seems extremely busted, and appears to back up all of the threads on how OP busted Ekko is. But here is the deal:

My score was not do to Ekko being OP, or any particularly high skill on my part.

The thing about Ekko is that he demands respect, and is amazing at capitalizing on the mistakes of the enemy team.

The enemy mid laner was a Zed, he both farmed better than me, and had more consistent (and safer) harass than me. I won lane because of HIS mistakes, not my play. I would throw out my stun zone, a skill with a THREE SECOND windup. Instead of walking away from it to the side, avoiding the zone and any retaliation from me, he would walk towards me allowing me to close the gap with my E and force him into the stun, saving my Q for the chase. You cannot outplay someone if you are stunned, and they have a shield. Don't even try. This happened in several team fights as well. The stun is CLEARLY TELEGRAPHED, and yet I achieved several 3-5 man stuns, allowing our rumble to secure perfect ults and myself to mop up. These individuals made a conscious decision to put themselves in a ridiculous risk. Did I outplay them? No. They grouped up in an obvious death trap and I punished them for it. Respecting the stun zone is the easiest way to prevent an Ekko from getting off the chain. This ability has a three second windup, and is clearly telegraphed. Watch for it, avoid it, survive.

The other part of his kit I want to talk about is his ult. YES IT NEEDS A MANA COST. However It is the easiest ult in the game to track, since it clearly tells BOTH teams whenever it is up. I consistently avoided death by zed because he would ult me instead of one of the three other squishy targets on my team. One button later, and I was safe, unhurt, and both our ults were down. This should not be a surprise, and is not outplaying their team. The other part of his ult I noticed was their team would stand next to the shadow as I ran away. This gives me an opportunity to completely turn a fight with the push of a button. Again, this is not a mystery, and I was not making amazing offensive plays. I was merely taking advantage of the mistakes made by the enemy.

Ekko is mostly balanced, his ult needs a mana cost, and possibly lower scaling, but mostly he is fine. What he is though, is a champion that demands the attention and respect of the opposing team. If you watch his easily tracked abilities, and play accordingly, you will be fine and keep him in check. If you fuck up, he will end you.

Don't stand in circles, don't hug shadows. This is how you survive.

55 Comments

AikidoLawnNinja6/4/2015, 5:09:22 PM7 votes

Eh, I'd say he's certainly high-risk enough. Ekko can't 100-0 anyone and still be safe. He has to get up in their face, land both hits of his Q, trigger his passive, and even with the extra damage from his E, that's usually not enough to score a kill in the laning phase. It's true that he has plenty of options to stay safe. He can always save his E or R to escape, but at the cost of doing damage. If he blows all his cooldowns on an all-in, the only hope he has to escape is proccing his passive on a champion, which again requires him to get up in their face, which is not always a great idea.

Contrast this with point-and-click assassins like Katarina who don't have to worry about aiming skillshots (or in Kat's case, budgeting mana). Their burst combos are less risky and more damaging. What Ekko lacks in this regard, he makes up for with added utility that can be used offensively or defensively.

LegitBacon666/4/2015, 6:26:16 PM6 votes

+1 For days bro. This is something I have been wanting to explain the community. This is well said well and well thought out. I completely agree. He is all about punishing your mistakes for being in the wrong position. This should be said worldwide.

The Whamboozler6/4/2015, 5:50:27 PM6 votes

"You have to respect Ekko, and he's great at abusing his teammates mistakes." Ok. Sounds like how people have described Zed too. It's a dumb phrase too, because "needing respect" doesn't say anything about his power relative to the other champs in the game. And isn't 90% of the game about abusing the enemy's mistakes? You may as well have said "Ekko is crazy strong but just play perfectly and you'll be fine."

So why doesn't Ekko have to respect us? Why is he so good at avoiding being punished for HIS mistakes? Should he be? A character who ruthlessly punishes mistakes while also avoiding any ones he makes himself IS broken... since that's not how things are supposed to work. There's very little risk to what he does, but a HUGE potential for reward if he tries and YOU mess up. So you don't end up with a champ who has to carefully plan out his attacks, you end up with a champ who can rely on his safety to save him as he takes every single opportunity to try crap. It's the nid spear issue. Sure, she misses them plenty, but there's nothing stopping her from just throwing more so she just does until she scores that hit that ruins you because you misclicked to dodge or something.

Ekko IS hella fun, I will admit. That doesn't make him balanced. He has no real windows of vulnerability. If his schtick is to be the guy who gets into a seemingly bad spot and then turns the fight around, fine. But right now the only thing the kid lacks is sustain and he's pretty untouchable unless he WANTS to fight. So the only way to "outplay" Ekko is for Ekko to overestimate his ability to pull that "Hur hur, I pressed R, full health" comeback. Given the scaling on it, that's not easy. Cutting his ult's heal, damage or both would make his margin or error larger and fix SOME of this. That or toss away his poke so he has to actually commit a little to do damage like most assassins. At least make it mana intensive. In a world where some champs go OOM in four spells Ekko should NOT be able to throw his Q all day without buying a single mana regen item.

Perhaps stop giving him training wheels to help him if he messes up his flashy combos. Why does he get his shield for entering his slow field, even if he missed the enemy with it? It's already a slow with a huge area and possibly a stun, it doesn't need to ALSO be a shield. And no, it's NOT that telegraphed. The enemy can't see where it's gonna land until .5 seconds before it does. So every time he starts that animation I guess the only way to avoid death is to just leave? The POSSIBILITY that he might land that one ability is enough to stop a fight? That doesn't seem right at all.

Ekko is intended to be an assassin. That label doesn't seem right, seeing what assassins normally do. I don't think they really HAVE a tag for what he does, because it doesn't fit into one of the defined roles. He does high damage, yes. But he also locks down a team with stuns and slows (why does he have 3 slows? They threw that god-awful rework on Skarner for having ONE that he could only keep on you if he stayed within melee range). He kites in ways Ashe wishes she could. He can be remarkably tanky with his shield and heal. He's a powerful 1v1 duelist, but also strong at avoiding fights and bad situations. He has good poke and kiting, strong all-in power, strong DEFENSIVE power, strong mobility and strong teamfighting. How is this not too much? The only thing he lacks is sustain!

If I was going to fix Ekko, I would take off at LEAST one of his slows... and the heal on his ult. He's supposed to be an assassin so damage is fine. I'm even ok with him being kinda safe. But taking away his heal gives him a LOT more risk if he uses it aggressively, rather than just getting jumped on, lingering too long and then pressing R to heal to full while crippling the enemy. If Ekko gets jumped on and he presses R to back out... fine. But it shouldn't auto-win him a fight that he over-stayed at. If he wants to risk sticking around hoping the R nuke will kill the enemy, fine. But if he misjudges his damage HE SHOULD DIE FOR IT. Give him some risk to go with that insane kit.

Visurreal6/4/2015, 4:23:40 PM4 votes

Pantheon can completely block tower shots. Where's the beef with that?

Singing Lark6/4/2015, 11:36:10 PM4 votes

Well, the thing with Ekko's stun is that the enemy only get's .5 seconds to see where the zone actually is. They know you've casted it 3 seconds ago, but the location remains unknown until .5 seconds before it activates. Not saying that it's undodgeable - the Zed you were playing against obviously was not respecting you - but it's not really a 3 second telegraph.

I'm OK with Ekko's kit. I do think his many different skills need to be more visibly obvious. Ekko's ghost is so hard to keep track of in a teamfight even with the little dot over his head, and his passive looks practically the same at a glance at 1 and 2 stacks. This isn't me being unskilled at watching Ekko's spell effects, these spell effects are just plain unclear. The only thing I would say is that his ult is an awesome concept, but it really shouldn't be a blowup and a heal.

rtbf2216514126/4/2015, 4:21:42 PM3 votes

He can tower dive and come back. Yup, nothing wrong with that.

Pæan6/5/2015, 2:29:36 AM3 votes

"If you f*** up, he will end you". That explains most assassins, however in ekko's case, what am I to do if he screws up? He overextended? Unless I have crazy long range He will just Q me to slow and run away, Cast W behind him then run away into it to either just get a shield or will slow/stun me, or he will just E over a wall or just away and I cant follow that unless i have low-cost mobility also. He just missed everything and I've bursted him down to 5% hp? Nah he just ulted and is half a screen away, but unlike zed, he just healed a big chunk of that damage and can still lane safely or even kill me because I used everything to try to kill him.

Ethereal Sun6/5/2015, 6:48:41 AM2 votes

"The stun is CLEARLY TELEGRAPHED" Have you played against Ekko? If you have then you prob didn't notice that the stun radius isn't made clear until the very last seconds for the enemy team (right before the stun actually becomes active). he can start his stun at the distance of about a Kog ultimate I do however agree that people should be more cautious around Ekko. Let's talk more about his W shall we?

Not only does it grant him a field that slow/stuns enemies, It also gives him a shield... AND it allows him passively to do increased damage to lower health enemies. 5% of missing health when the target is below 30% of their health. All right so you have Damage in the form of Ekko's W in passive, You have Defense in the form of Ekko's Shield that he gets, AND you have Utility in the STUN that lasts 2 and 1/4 seconds. That is 3 different effects in one ability... And he has 3 more abilities. What about his ult?

His Ult Heals Him (Defense) does damage (Offense) and can travel a distance for engage/disengage (Utility).

Want me to talk about his passive? All right I think I've made my point, I agree that people should play smart around Ekko, the fact that he has an incredibly overloaded Kit stacks the deck in his favor. I've said my peace so now I leave

doiminat0r36006/5/2015, 12:31:59 AM2 votes

You shouldnt be winning lane just because of a few mistakes. Especially if they are out farming and trading you. The fact you were able to kill him without you dying, says something. Either this Zed makes ALOT of mistakes, or you were teleporting around to where he couldnt target you.

Lucian Shot 2pac6/4/2015, 11:59:06 PM2 votes

I just see an egotistical Ekko fan.

76Summers6/4/2015, 9:52:14 PM2 votes

If you cant make the most of the time you have...you dont deserve a single extra second...Ekko

AutoreactiveCD46/5/2015, 1:23:52 AM1 votes

My main problem with Ekko is just how much is in his freaking ult. I really don't feel like the damage is necessary even if it is conditional. I'm also scared with the fact that hes a "utility assassin" because of how a lot of others assassins work in the game. Get behind and you're useless, not so much with Ekko. Just got out of a game where I had half my teams death, 12. Between zhonyas, my ult, and shields I was able to last long enough and be enough of a threat to their fed sivir to get a lot of ults and other cooldowns which let my team destroy the rest of the fights.

That wasn't me being smart or the enemy being stupid. I did stupid things and got punished but won the game because of them... Still fun to play though, tweaks are probably necessary.

CIumsy Self6/5/2015, 3:45:54 AM1 votes

Ah actually the stun is not clearly telegraphed until it's about to pop to the enemy team. It's not a surprise you landed good stuns while the enemy team was also probably trying to avoid abilities from the other 4 members of your team as well.

I think the reason no one cares when people bring up another assassin in comparison to Ekko is that none of them refund health after an ulti. He has pretty respectable burst even without hitting his ult. And people are upset because if someone like Zed tries to all in you under tower, you can maybe punish/kill him fairly well by dodging his skillshots or just slapping the shit out of him. But when he reactivates his ult he gets nothing back. No health, no energy, nothing. Ekko gets a pretty decent amount back, all while having no mana cost on it. So if he was successful in killing you, all he lost was his ult for a little bit and maybe his ignite.

To be honest, I have not laned against one. But from what I can tell from having one on the enemy team nine out of ten games that's how he is. And of course some of the Ekko players are laughably pathetic in their attempts to play the champion, but some are actually pretty good and know how to exploit his semi-ridiculous strengths.

Kadavik6/5/2015, 4:17:41 AM1 votes

He has clear weaknesses and windups. Unlike someone I knowLeblanc .

Tarzach6/4/2015, 8:10:19 PM1 votes

they need to make his W more visible, nerf his damage and increase his mana costs. its almost like hes manaless.

Ser Garland6/4/2015, 7:39:07 PM1 votes

It looks telegraphed to the ekko player, but the stun circle is only visible to the enemy in the last .5 seconds

Visurreal6/4/2015, 4:31:40 PM1 votes

You never made that point in your last comment. If you wanted to talk damage ratios, you should have said so!

TurquoiseYoshi6/5/2015, 12:17:14 AM1 votes

My main concern/weird thing about Ekko is that his ult heals. Why the hell does it heal? Now this isn't from a gameplay standpoint, this is from a lore standpoint, specifically the Ekko reveal video. Wasn't there a huge thing there about going back in time, but still being as weak/hurt as when he went back. So what the hell Rito?

Reginscythe6/5/2015, 12:34:49 AM1 votes

Anyone who says Ekko's W is extremely telegraphed has a point, but is missing all the fax. While enemies can indeed see the Ekko clone winding up to hit the device for 3 seconds, enemies do not see the big red circle of where it is going to hit until .5 seconds before it hits. My guess is that the enemy team saw your clone, noticed it, but went crazy and panicked not knowing where it was landing and then they got unlucky. Here is a video explaining what I mean (skip to 3:17) http://www.surrenderat20.net/2015/05/ekko-champion-spotlight.html