Welcome to the League of Legends Champion Spotlight, featuring Ekko, the Boy Who Shattered Time.
Ekko's a rebellious street kid with smarts - a daredevil genius who uses his inventions
to survive and thrive on the corrupted streets of Zaun. In game, Ekko plays the role of a
solo lane skirmishing assassin who uses his guile and crowd control gadgets to outsmart
and outmaneuver his targets before blinking in to bludgeon them down.
Ekko's passive is Z-Drive Resonance. Whenever Ekko hits an enemy with a basic attack or
damaging ability, he applies a stack of Resonance. The stacks drop off after a few seconds, but
if Ekko's able to thunk the same target three times in quick succession, the stacks trigger,
dealing extra damage and slowing the target briefly. That's against minions and monsters
- triggering Resonance on an enemy champion applies the same extra damage and slow, but
also gives Ekko a brief speed boost.
Finally, Ekko can apply Resonance to multiple targets
at the same time, and after triggering his stacks on a target, they briefly turn immune
to his passive for a few seconds.
Ekko's Q is Timewinder, a medium range skillshot that serves as his primary damage and harass
ability. Ekko tosses out a chronogizmo that damages all units in its path - once the device
reaches its max distance or strikes an enemy champion, it expands, creating a large but
short-lasting slowing field. After it collapses back down, Timewinder shoots back to Ekko,
dealing extra damage to whatever the ability strikes on its way home.
With good aiming, you should be able to hit your lane opponent twice, so get super aggressive
with Timewinder. After you land it, all you have to do is walk up - which should be easy
enough thanks to the ability's slow - and smack ‘em in the face to trigger your passive.
Ekko's W is Parallel Convergence, which has a passive and an active. Passively, Ekko's
basic attacks deal extra magic damage to all low health enemies, including minions, monsters,
and yes, champions. When he activates his W, he bats a... time thing... to a target
location, which, after a brief pause, creates a pretty big slowing sphere. It'll fade away
after a few seconds, but if Ekko manages to enter the sphere before then, it'll detonate
and grant him a quick shield. Even better though, enemies caught inside the sphere when
Ekko detonates it end up stunned for a few seconds. Ekko's enemies see him cast Parallel
Convergence, but won't be able to spot where he aims it until a few moments before the
zone kicks in.
Cast Parallel Convergence on your escape route whenever you're running for safety. The shield
usually helps you survive incoming damage, and the slow zone will leave most enemies
in the past.
Ekko's E is Phase Dive. On cast, Ekko dashes a fixed distance to a target location before
gaining a bunch of range on his next basic attack. Once Ekko begins his next attack,
he blinks to his target dealing extra damage and applying all the on-hit and spell effects
he has hidden up his sleeve. Remember that Ekko can pass through terrain with both parts
of Phase Dive, meaning he can get pretty damn slippery when he wants to.
Yo Phase Dive has a ton of uses - dive across walls, dodge enemy skillshots before blowing
up a squishy, or, if you like living, just use it to make your way to safety.
Hella. Uses.
Ekko's ult is Chronobreak. Whenever it's available, Ekko leaves behind an image of himself that
indicates wherever he was exactly four seconds ago - when he hits his giga Chronobreak button,
that's where he'll reappear, dealing massive damage to all nearby enemies and recovering
a portion of his lost health.
The trail is a super useful way for Ekko to keep track of where he's going to Chronobreak back
to, but remember that it's not just him that can see it - allies and enemies can, too,
although they will need vision of Ekko. Note that Ekko briefly turns untargetable and invulnerable
whenever he uses Chronobreak, and that when he reappears, he'll heal up based on the amount
of punishment he's taken over the last four seconds.
Use Chronobreak to dive a little bit deeper, or abandon your teammates when the fight goes
wrong. It's not your fault they can't time travel.
Ekko's one of them new fangled skirmishing assassins, so while he lacks some of the raw
punching power that other assassins boast, he's got a ton of crowd control and other
tools to use alongside his more standard attacks. Here are just a few pointers that'll help
you wrangle the most out of your Ekko.
Ekko's too squishy to start fights, but his kit makes him incredible at setting up areas
for your initiators to go in. Here's whatcha wanna do. Start by aiming Parallel Convergence
over wherever you want the fight to happen. Once your frontline goes in, their knock-up,
stun, snare, bolas, bears you know… whatever should last long enough for the slowing sphere
to appear. As soon as it does, quickly Phase Dive in to trigger the stun and pick up your
shield before pressing all of your buttons on the enemy team.
Sometimes you'll be merrily playing a game of League when, out of the corner of your
eye, you spot a wounded squishy positioned away from their team. Here's how to get in,
kill 'em, and get out before the enemy team can react. Phase Dive in before using the
ability's second attack to close range. Ekko makes short work of low health enemies thanks
to his W passive. Once they're dead, Chronobreak back to safety! Just make sure your timeclone
is where you want to go - ulting to the same spot is hella embarrassing.
Finally, this last combo's a perfect way to engage on an enemy team while you're running
away. Cast W roughly where your trail's going to be in four seconds, then, as the enemy
team heads through the slowing zone, Chronobreak to put yourself back into it. You'll trigger
the stun and deal...sigh... tons of damage.
Keep an eye out for opportunities where you can abuse your opponent's cooldowns. Even
from level 2, you'll have enough threat to punish mistakes, so while it's okay to poke
and farm from range with Timewinder, don't be afraid to get aggressive when the time is right.
Chronobreak gives Ekko all of the tools he needs to go in and turn around seemingly lost
fights. Here he times the ability perfectly, dodging Lux's ult and styling for the triple.
As you start grouping, try using Parallel Convergence to set up traps for the enemy
team. Without vision, they'll walk right into your stun and pretty much hand you a free kill.
Also, while we're on this clip, check this out. Dodging abilities with your E's
blink requires some predictive play, but when you pull it off, it looks super sick.
Alright, so this is how to not play Ekko. With poor positioning, you'll quickly end
up giving huge chunks of your life to super avoidable poke, sometimes so much that you're
forced to ult just to try and survive otherwise lethal damage. No matter how cool you think
you are, you're still pretty squishy, so try to save your ult for the enemy team and not
to cover your mistakes.
By using Chronobreak just to reposition, Ekko totally catches Lux off guard and immediately
puts her team on the back foot. Speed boosts from his passive, along with Phase Dive's
two gap closers, mean that your enemies are going to have a pretty hard time getting away
from you. Even if they're flying a biplane. That's cheating.
Alright, final clip time. Ekko nearly dies like... four times or something stupid. He
survives Shockwave by Chronbreaking through it before dancing on the brink of the fight
time and time again. Check out his positioning here. Because he never commits and positions
at the edge of the fight, he can use Timewinder to whittle his enemies down and go in when it matters.
Thanks to Maokai, he's able to dive back in with a shield and pick apart the enemy team.
Oh and he also totally outplays Zac with some fancy Phase Dive footwork.
I guess Zac's "Ekko location" wasn't quite good enough. Oh man. We almost made it without a pun.
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