Ekko vs. other mid laners (and some simple math)

Recently there have been countless complains about Ekko with regards to his damage in particular. Many of these threads are talking about his ratios between his three basic skills, and people are beginning to acknowledge that his ultimate is used more often as an escape rather than as a nuke, so the damage there is omitted.

The threads recently have been complaining about his burst in comparison with other mid laners and talking about his strength with the damage output from his basic spells pre-6. Of course, people also complain about his highly situational, literally impossible-to-aim-only-hits-if-the-enemy-deserves-it ultimate damage as well, but we'll focus on his three basic abilities at max rank since those are at least somewhat reliable.

NOTE: I'm not talking about escapes or mobility here; this is a response to threads that are complaining about Ekko's damage. Mobility and safety I'll save for another topic.

Without further ado, in no particular order!

- 120 (+20% AP) + 160 (+60% AP) + 170 (+20% AP) + X(+70% AP) + (50% AP). I even included Lich Bane.

• 450 + X + 2.2 AP with Lich Bane.
• 450 + X + 1.7 AP without.
• 290 + X + 1.1 AP without landing both halves of Q (which is quite easy to dodge).

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- 220 (+ 80% AP) + 250 (+ 85% AP) + 425 (+ 80% AP) + 40 (+ 20% AP). Admittedly, since this uses Annie's ult, this may not be an apples to apples comparison at all. But heck, we'll include it anyway.

• 935 + 2.65 AP with Tibbers.
• 515 + 1.65 AP without.
• Result - Near identical burst; Annie's burst combo is much more safe, as it can be cast from range. Furthermore, her basic combo is MUCH more reliable.

- 280 (+ 70% AP) + 224 (+ 64% AP) + 200 (+ 50% AP).

• 704 + 1.84 AP without ult.
• Result - All skillshots, but hey, if you land Charm, you land them all, and Ahri's combo is both more reliable and more safe as well as more bursty than Ekko with a Lich Bane. (Her overall game safety can be comparable as well, but we'll leave that out of this thread)

- 200 (+ 45% AP) + 180 (+ 60% AP) + 240 (+ 75% AP).

• 620 + 1.8 AP without ult.
• Result - Comparable damage from MUCH further range, Xerath has just as much burst and about 3x the safety of Ekko without his ult at all times.

- 260 (+ 70% AP) + 240 (+ 60% AP) + 500 (+ 75% AP) + X*20% AP. I include her ultimate in this one because the cooldown is a joke late game. She does suffer high mana costs, but in return gets a ton of safety.

• 1000 + 2.25 AP total.
• Result - Her AP ratios may not be the highest, but with base damages like these, who needs ratios? Great burst, safe distance, but does indeed suffer from mana problems.

- 255 (+ 90% AP) + 240 (+ 70% AP) + 282 (+96% AP) + X * 90 (+ 20% AP). I love playing Swain. Unrelated side note.

• 867 + 2.76 AP for a single crow.
• 1047 + 3.16 AP for three crows, which is average if you land a snare.
• Result - I'm biased here, but Swain's sustain combined with two targeted spells does a lot of work.

- 240 (+ 60% AP) + 275 (+ 62.5% AP) (we'll assume you only hit one with his knockup) + 190 (+ 50% AP) + 900 (+ 60% AP). Again, like Annie, this is more apples and oranges, but a normal combo is the same, just without his ult. We can take that out to please some folks. This does not include his true damage passive.

• 1605 + 2.33 AP with R.
• 705 + 1.73 AP without.
• Result - A safer combo, for sure. And landing the knockup with him is roughly AS difficult as landing both procs of Q on Ekko. I'd say the damage is pretty fair overall, with Vel'koz having a greater lane presence with his incredibly low mana costs combined with his innate waveclear with W.

- 260 (+ 60% AP) + 320 (+ 100% AP) + 500 (+ 100% AP) + (OMGWTFBBQ 80% your AP). May as well add another 10% to everything since he'll have a ton more AP than you in the first place.

• 1080 + 2.6 AP without opponent AP.
• 580 + 1.6 AP on basic rotation
• Result - Comparable damage at a much safer range.

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Basically, what I'm trying to demonstrate here is that Ekko's damage falls right in line with other popular mid lane champions once you add in the X from his passive and the on-hit effects from a Lich Bane. His basic ability damage is nothing special, and let's be honest, if you get hit by his ult from walking on it, you probably deserved to get hit. There are notable exceptions with regards to Ekko's visibility in brush and whatnot, but generally speaking, if Ekko engages, he has to wait an entire 4 seconds before he can even consider popping you for his ult damage. So when talking damage, it's usually best to leave it out of the equation for burst. Even WITH the ultimate though, his damage would fall right along with other mages. In the end, when it comes down to strictly damage, Ekko falls right in the "average/balanced" category, and nothing more.

For random fun, let's calculate at what AP Ekko's ult would match a fully hit Vel'koz ult. 500 + 1.3x = 900 + 0.6x = 571 AP. Moral of the story is, high scaling doesn't necessarily mean higher damage, especially early to mid game, where Ekko's ult does only 200 base damage.

There are many other crowd favourite mid laners I could have also used, but I think these few serve my point. :)