Ekko is one of League of Legends’ most versatile champions. He can be played to good effect in more than one lane. Over the years, he has also been played with a multitude of different builds and play styles. There is a downside as this can prove to be confusing for people wishing to learn Ekko.
Ekko has been played with a lot of success as a tank in the top lane. There have also been times when people have tried making some attack damage bruiser-oriented builds. However, these builds did not last. Only one build path has stood the test of time and that is going for ability power on Ekko.
Although, it is not that simple since even in the ability power build, there are many different ways to go about it. AP items offer a lot of diversity and you should use this to your advantage. Rather than going for the same build every time, try to make items that are better suited for the situation.
Having said that, before we can dive into the different build paths, it is important to understand why AP is better suited for Ekko. This knowledge will also come in handy when you are looking to learn a new champ.
Why is Ekko an Ability Power Champ?
In League of Legends, there are generally two forms of damage; physical and magic damage. Attack damage enhances your physical damage while ability power increases the magic damage. The type of damage that the champion benefits from is ultimately the deciding factor in this matter.
It is quite straightforward to understand what type of damage a champion is suited for. You just have to go through their abilities and see what type of damage they do as well as the type of damage ratios that increases the damage of their abilities.
Taking Ekko as an example, it is quite obvious that this is an ability power champion. Not only does he do magic damage in nearly every single one of his abilities, but the damage of the abilities is also increased by a proportion of his ability power.
Ability power champions generally do the majority of their damage through abilities. Although Ekko is no exception to this rule, he also has the additional capability to do a lot of damage in auto attacks. This ends up giving him making him more versatile as compared to the average mage champion.
Runes
Before we dive into the best rune page for Ekko, we need to be aware of the fact that he is played in more than one lane. As such, there are different rune pages that work for him for each lane.
For Mid Lane
For the mid lane, Ekko primarily goes for the Domination page. “Electrocute” is your go-to keystone. After Electrocute, you take the “Sudden Impact” rune and follow it up with the “Eyeball Collection”. To round off the rune page you have a choice between “Treasure Hunter” and “Relentless Hunter”.
For the secondary page, you can go for either the Inspiration page or the Sorcery page. In the Inspiration page, “Magical Footwear” and “Biscuits Delivery” are your best options.
If you go for the Sorcery page, “Absolute Focus” coupled with “Gathering Storm” is ideal. The difference between the two rune pages depends on your lane opponent and what you want from your runes going into the lane.
The Inspiration page gives a bonus for your laning phase via free Biscuits and free tier one boots. While Sorcery is a much more scaling-focused rune page. The longer the game goes the more effective Gathering Storm becomes. Absolute Focus is also intended for after-lane skirmishes.
For Jungle
If you are playing jungle Ekko then you have a choice to make in terms of which rune page to take. You can take the Domination page with “Dark Harvest”, Sudden Impact, Eyeball Collection, and either Treasure Hunter or Relentless Hunter.
You round it off by taking Inspiration as the secondary page. Magical Footwear and “Cosmic Insight” are your go-to options in this case. Dark Harvest gives you added ability to finish off the enemy once you have gotten them to low health.
The other option is the Inspiration page. In this rune page, you go for the “First Strike” keystone followed by Magical Footwear and “Future’s Market”. Cosmic Insight is the last rune from this page. For the secondary page, you take Sudden Impact and Treasure Hunter from the Domination page.
First Strike gives a healthy amount of additional burst damage to you. Furthermore, this damage scales really well into the late game as well since it increases with the amount of damage you yourself are able to do. The difference in keystones is essentially the deciding factor between these rune pages.
Build for Mid Lane
The build generally followed by Ekko players includes “Hextech Rocketbelt” as the mythic item. While the item is primarily made for the gap close ability it provides, the extra burst damage is also nice. The second item is most often the “Lich Bane” since it synchronizes really well with Ekko’s kit.
There is rising popularity for “Nashor’s Tooth” as the second item. It gives a lot more dueling potential than Lich Bane, This is situational, however, and in a lot of cases, Lich Bane is still preferred. The third item point is from where you normally start to make items to deal with the game situation.
The best choices are “Zhonya’s Hourglass” and “Rabadon’s Deathcap”. The Hourglass is excellent for survival and against physical damage dealing enemies. The Deathcap is for a massive boost in ability power and therefore your overall damage.
In any case, your third and fourth items will most likely be the Hourglass and the Deathcap. For the fifth item, it is almost always Void Staff. Unless you needed to make Void staff earlier due to the enemy team stacking magic resistance, and will finish the build with one of the two aforementioned items.
Build for Jungle
For jungle Ekko, you have a choice to make for the very first item. Hextech Rocketbelt is the standard first item that is for quick burst damage and gap close. However, Nashor’s Tooth is gaining recognition as a good first item for Ekko.
This is because Nashor’s is much more effective for clearing jungle camps. It is also significantly better for dealing with bruisers, which is often what you have to face from your counterpart in the enemy team. In this case you go for the Rocketbelt as your second item.
When there are no real bruisers in the enemy team it is best to just go for the Rocketbelt followed up with Lich Bane. The third item is most often either the Hourglass or Rabadon’s Deathcap. From the third item onwards the build is more or less similar to that of mid lane Ekko.
Hourglass, Deathcap, and Void staff make up your last three items. You can change the order of buying these items as to what fits the game situation better. You might need to buy “Shadowflame” or a “Banshee’s Veil” if needed but those are rare situations.
Uses and Playstyle
To identify and understand the playstyle of any champion, you first need to understand the strengths of the champion. One of Ekko’s biggest plus points is that he is both a jungler and a mid laner. Since the champion is played in more than one lane with a good amount of success, he makes for a great flex pick.
This is an effective strategy for confusing the enemy team so they cannot just counter-pick you. Furthermore, this also makes Ekko a great blind pick since you are not giving anything away about your draft.
As far as the playstyle is concerned Ekko is an assassin. He has extremely high burst damage. Furthermore, the champion also has high mobility and the ability to go in and out of fights and play according to his cooldowns.
Ekko is also very proficient at early game skirmishes. This is one of the reasons why he is such a good jungler. An AOE stun combined with high burst damage in the early game can win you any sort of 2v2 or 3v3 fight.
Final Thoughts
We now know how and why Ekko is an AP champion as well as the best build paths for him. While his playstyle has been discussed briefly, there is one point that you need to be wary of. Ekko is a melee champion and he needs to get up close and personal with the enemy to deal damage.
This can prove to be a tricky thing as the enemies will not just let you do as you please. You need to find your opportunities and make the most of them. With that final tidbit of information, this Ekko guide reaches its conclusion.
As always, the execution of the champion is solely up to the player. However, thanks to this guide you no longer have to spend games trying to figure out the build paths and uses of the champion.
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