Anyone else feel that Ekko's kit just doesn't feel right?
I don't know about you guys, but when I watched the Seconds video, I was expecting two things out of Ekko.
- He would be a melee dps character, kind of like Fiora or Yi.
- He would utilize a core "time-warp" mechanic that would allow him to effectively redo fights.
Now, the first point is true, and Riot delivered on that at least. The second... not so much.
To clarify, Riot delivered on the time-warp mechanic, but only partially. For those of you who haven't seen his skills, his ult is as follows:
R: Chronobreak
Ekko rewinds time, briefly turning untargetable and invulnerable before reappearing wherever he was a few seconds ago. Once he reappears, Ekko recovers a portion of the health he lost over those few seconds while dealing tons of damage to all nearby enemies.
What I have a problem with specifically are the parts about recovering his health part and dealing damage. This does not line up with what we see in the video at all. In fact, it completely contradicts it. From what the video shows us, Ekko's time-warp is a complete utility spell and that he holds over the damage from each warp.
Some people might say that would be OP. Others might say it'd be UP. I say that that way would be more interesting. As it stands, most of his kit is either boring and bland or just doesn't feel right on him.
His passive is by far the worst offender. It is essentially a direct clone of Gnar's W. The only difference is that Ekko's also slows. Any other differences will probably be superficial at best, such as the numbers or the type of damage it does.
His Q is a little bit better, but also suffers from lack of cohesion to his theme. Ekko is supposed to be a boy who fights and overcomes through repeated trial and error facilitated by his time-warp gizmo. Timewinder just doesn't have that feeling.
His W is cool, but like his Q, suffers from cohesion to his theme. Ekko has one trick and one trick only: traveling a few seconds back in time in order to unmake and correct mistakes.
His E is... well, weird. That's not going back in time. If anything, that's probably moving forward in time. And I guess I would be willing to believe that maybe Ekko's device lets him move forward as well as backwards, but that's really kinda stretching my suspension of disbelief. If anything, I feel this ability fits better on Zilean as a castable buff.
I won't say I have better ideas for how Ekko's kit should have been made, nor can I claim that what ideas I do have are well balanced, but for his ult at least, I feel that something along the lines of this would fit better.
R: Chronobreak
Passive: Ekko generates up to 1/2/3 time-warp charges periodically. When any enemy champion damages Ekko, they become marked for X amount of time. Any allied champions who damages these enemies also receive the mark.
Active: Ekko expends a charge in order to reverse time. Ekko and all champions affected by the time-warp mark are returned to whatever location they were at a few seconds ago, with all their cooldowns restored to that point in time. Health and mana are also refunded for all affected champions, except for Ekko.
Like I said, maybe that's not the most well balanced idea, but I think there are ways to deal with that. For example, reducing the number of charges Ekko can hold, maybe removing the restoring cooldowns, etc. etc. The point is, and maybe this is just my arrogance speaking, the core mechanic driving the spell is just more _interesting _ than the current Chronobreak.
Anyway, thoughts? What do you guys think? Do you think Riot delivered on the concepts and themes behind Ekko's character, or do you feel underwhelmed?
