Hi players,

I thought I will give you a guide for Ekko in top lane to beat the low elo and move up more quickly. This will not be a fancy beautifully wishy washy guide like 99% of what most guides here are...I will also not update it with any fancy editing. The content is important not the look.
Almost all top ranked guides are just crowd pleasers but in essence very superfical. They show always nearly every item possible and give a brief description. Always making me laugh to read stuff like this in almost every f#cking guide: "Randuins will provide much health and armor so buy it when they have ad"...you don't say..."Warmogs has super high health"...blabla. We know what the items can do. A guide should not introduce every damn item. There are databanks for this. Same sh#t goes for summoner spells. I love when guides suggest 4 different summoner spells...yea we know they all have advantages over the other..You will not find any item or ability explanation in here...this has been done ad nauseam already on every other guide here for mostly no reason...
This guide will show you what you should build and in which order as well, a few tips and tricks to beat the low elo.
This is the most important part. This is for Bronze Silver and Gold. Maybe even lower Platinum.
I know we all want to be as cool as bjergson or any other challenger/pro and therfore we try to copy their builds..this is stupid. They play in a totally different meta and often enough in a highly efficently choregraphed and communicated team. Their stuff will not work for you. But lets face it, the majority of players are in the low elo region. So this is the guide for you guys & girls.
I am currently dangling between high plat and dia 5 trying to work my way up to dia 4.
On my twink I have used ekko intensivly with this strategy here and I can promise you, that if you are open for this kind of build and you are focusing on correct farming early game, you will have much success and climing up easily.
And yea I do not care wheather you like the build or not, or if you even disagree. This things works as a matter of fact, over dozens of games tested. Be open for something new and enjoy the game.

With your item build you will get very tanky and have a lot of sustain. You do not get high dmg items though, but the hybrid penetration will boost that steady damage of yours a lot. You will get 10 Magic Penetration and 13 Armor Penetration. If you are going only for either penetration type, you will only get a few points more, making it very ineffectiv compared to a hybrid build.
Also because you are buidling hybrid damage and you do a lot of magic and physical damage, those runes are superior. On top of it, it will make it harder for enemies to build tanky against you because if they build armor early on, you get still the mpen (and vice versa).

The yellow ones should be flat armor or flat mr. I prefer armor because you will more often face champions who deal more physical damage and it also helps early game a lot to reduce the creep damage, which can add up very quickly.

The blue ones are CDR per level. At the end you get 15%cdr which will result in 40% cdr after 1-2 items (5% from mastery, 20% from early game items). The 40% is a key here and are mandatory as well. I will later explain why this is more important than a bit more magic resist for example.

You go for %damage enhancing masteries. A few flat damage points will not do much, as you are not going all in early. Your goal is to poke down the enemy and concentrate on farming.
% enhancing damage such as exesutioner, devastating strikes, spell weaving, expose wekaness, blade weaving, havoc & double edge sword are far suprior in this build because they will scale with you into any stage of the game, whereas 5 more attack damage or ap won't do much here.

You will not go into defense tree, though to be hondest there is nothing wrong with it. Life and tankyness is always good so you can go 21/9 here too, however I rather use utility like slow reduction, 10% summoner spell reduction wich is a whopping half a minute at your flash and teleport and the beloved alchemist. You will always go for the flask + 3 or 4 red pots at the beginning. Getting 10% more duration on those as well as the refilled flask whenever you have been back at the shop, is A LOT.

This is the most important part of this guide, next to the strategy part.

Buying order can be picked up at the top.
Quick explanation why this unusal build (ing order).

You want to start flask first + red pots. Then you want to get homeguard merc thread boots first. This enables you with a ridiculously effective method to stay in lane and outsource the opponent. More to it in the strategy part. The boots very early do not provide much damage, but you are not in for a super all-in anyways. However it makes you quite durable, less likely to lose the turret(you are evry fast back in lane), and it makes ganks a lot harder for the opponents because you are almost always faster and on top of that you got the tenacity (combined with your E and well placed W it will be almost impossible to gank you efficiently).

Gauntlets: Super important second item. It alowes you to start trading in your favor. You get a lot of sustain and due to the mana a lot more poking opportunites. Trading will become harder for the opponent because you are now quite tanky, get less damage from the creeps and still have a burst with sheen. It is also the first 10% of the needed 20% for cdr.

Next you go for kindlegem to complete your cdr and get more "effective health" as you have armor and magic resist already.

Now you start building the gunblade (or you finish the spirit visage), starting with the bilgewater. You now got even more sustain and your FIFTH (!) slow. This will not result in a slow overkill, but rather give you the opportunity to get your victim almost perma slowed, or if you have busted a few on the opponent and a gank comes, you have some left. (Gauntlets, passive, Q, W, Cutlass)

Now you finish Spirit Visage. You are now SUPER Tanky, have max cdr, mega sustain, a lot of slows.
Zhonyas comes next, starting with the armor part to get you even more tanky and still boosting up damage. This item will provide a lot of utility during later team fights. Not only saving you in desperate times but also comboing with your ulti, because once the stasis stops, your shadow will be at your point.

Last item is situational and should be one of the following 4 items:
Guardian Angel, Abyssal Scepter, Randuins Omen or Banshees Veil.

I usually go for abyssal, because it gives you more tankyness combined with more damage, and it amplifies the damage from your team mates. This item is extremly useful.
However, if they are way too much magic damage you should go for Banshees.
If there is a lot of focus on you and they are mixed very well damage wise, you will go for GA. If they are mainly physical damage dealers you get randuins last.
But as said, usually I go for Abyssal.

Ok, now that you see what you are going to buy and how to skill and what masteries/runes, I will try to briefly explain how to use everything. This is the heart of the guide.

Homeguard mercs first item sounds very strange but will enable you to combo with your ulti a lot. You will focus on farming without pushing. This is key and one of the major skill differences between high and low elo players.

CORRECT FARMING - why it is important

Every like 17 cs or so you are ahead of your enemy is like one kill. Most players do not realise this. If you are having 57 cs and your opponent is at 40 you are basically one kill ahead. This is tremendous. (early game the caster minions give 3x 15g, the melees 3x 20 gold, cannon creep even more). One non canon creep wave is worth 105 gold and consists of 6 minions. 17-18 creeps = 3 waves = over 300 gold (thats why you need usually less than 18 creeps especially considering one or two cannon creeps among them).

I cannot stress this enough. Concentrate on last hitting. Your teleport and flask with red posts + the alchemy mastry will give you a loooot of sustain early. They cannot push you out of lane. If you have the opportunity to punish them do it as ekko can trade very effecitly.
A common example: YOu play vs Nasus to. He needs to Q the minions. You just last hit minions not using any spells. Once Nasus Qs a minion you E to him, basic attack him and throw your Q and by that also proccing your passive. He will be strongly slowed and you get a massive speed boost, resulting in a situation where the enemy cannot follow up or you can quickly run into a bush to stop the creep focus. He will not. He cannot fight back because he used his major damage skill on a creep. All he could do is basic attack you which will result in a creep focus or use his AOE damage, resulting in a lane push.
But even against non nasus players you can do this combo. Once they are out of position or even used a ability (Gangplank Q) for example to farm, you will do a lot of damage to them. This will be your entire early game.

When you are having your ult and the merc threads with homeguards you can do amazing things. You can poke more aggressivly. If they fight back you will win the trades long term because once you are low you will recall, and being fully healed using your ulti to teleport back in lane last hitting and punishing your opponent. You also will have the super speed homeguard boost in top lane. He will still be low form your last fight. This means he will either stay low, or he will have to go back too and it will take him much longer to come back to lane, resulting in more cs for you, and less for him as his creeps are being killed by your minions. You are doing this a couple of times and you will be ahead a lot of cs.
This is the major early game strategy. Now lets say you get perma ganked on top and it is hard to farm, or you get countered. It still enables you to refresh instantly and being back in lane instantly with homeguard + ulti. They cannot push you out and you will not need your teleport for this.
This again means the following: If you had to use your ulti on lane you can still be back very easily, or even better help at dragon or pick up kills on other lanes. You see, you are outtrading your opponent no matter what.

Once you go for gauntlets you start dealing serious damage. Sometimes when you having a hard time you can buy the shield before sheen. Homeguard mercs + shield = very tanky, much mana, cooldown for shorter ulti cd.

Quick strategy tips:
Spirit Visage + 20% Spellvamp + ulti into a group of enemies will result in a ridiculous amount of life, and since you are quite tanky it becomes very very hard to kill you. Throw in a Zhonyas activation to make sure your shadow arrives

Zhonyas tips: do not always you zhonyas just to get your shadow to your location. Because you are not the cr#ppy full ap squishy they cannot burst you down. Meaning you will most of the time live long enough to have your shadow return to you.

Parallel Convergence tips:
In biger tf's when you are not out for assasinating someone it is very strong to place it onto your current position if they are fighting back. They cannot bring you down into 2 or 3 seconds. This is a major advantage over the full ap build. If they stay fighting they will be in trouble. And with all of your aoe slows (gauntles from phase dive and timewinder + gunblade and your passive) you can keep multiple enemies often enough in the zone for your convergence.

If you are uncertain if an enemy sits in a bush, just throw this skill in. Super long and therefore safe range and it will reveal the area.

Try to throw the the Convergence from a bush. This way they cannot see if you activated the ability.

Try to throw it from maximum range when they are about to last hit. They usually will not notice the animation and because you are so far away, running towards them is not automatically a sign you are about to ambush. For the enemiy it should look like as if you are running towards the creeps. This will work very often. The key is to somehow hide the animation, by either doing it off screen or in a bush or when your ulti shadow is at your points: run around and use the convergence. It will be difficult to catch wheather you created your convergence shadow or if it is just the ulti shadow.


Cooldown Reduction:
40% cdr is very essential. it allows you to use timewinder alone to procc your passive. The cd is short enough to throw out a second timewinder while they still have two passive stacks from your first time winder. This does not sound spectacular in theory but once you will try it out you will realise how often you procc your passive. It also makes it almost impossible for the enemies to hunt you down.
Also your Phase Dive will be on a very short cd which is very important to stick to your enemies and even after using it being able to get out of a fight again.
Early game cdr also helps you with your homeguard/ulti combo.

gunblade:
do not underestimate the range of its active. It also synergises with itself. Meaning you will be healed from the active too!


Your ultimate:
You do not alwaqys need to use it if you are very low. It is also very good if you are certain you can hit mutiple enemies at once even if you are NOT low on health. You will most likely have lost life to that point anyways so the heal is never wasted. But being able to dish out a lot of aoe damage is always good for a tf. It also is like a very short zhonyas. Players will lose the focus on you for a brief moment.

- better safe than sorry. In case of doubt, jump out. You have a very low cooldown on your ulti. So if you get caught in stupid situation by missjudging a situation and getting caught: just jump back.
- you can start at raptors or wolfes to get level 2 and then teleort back to lane after recalling. Grab a pink ward and stock up 5 red potions.
- if you are not cheating for level 2 start you can still get flask + 4 potions by simply recalling after lane securing, wait for 10g and then run straight to your lane. You will not miss cs and have 1 more pot then usual. This will give you a a edge over most oppontents
- if your opponents starts without a flask, try to trade with him once you reach level 2, by using a timewinder and phase dive + 1 basic attck combo and run out of combat with your passive. He will run out of health pots before you do and you can zone him out by concentrate on last hitting without pushing and whenever he comes to close punishing him. He will have to go back to base which will boost your position or he stays away from creeps and cannot earn gold. Its a win/win situation in those cases very often
- once your build is complete stop farming. I could have gotten way more cs in every game but this is wasted money and it should go to your carry instead. Just keep always 400g open for your ap-exlixir
- upgrade your trinket!

One more time the important thing:

!!!!!!!!!!DO NOT PUSH and concentrate on last hitting!!!!!!!!!!
This way you will NOT push you lane and your jungle can gank. Also because you are on your side of the map and you do not overextent you cannot ganked easily!

Pros:

- VERY Tanky and yet a lot of damage
- tons of cc (slow) making it very hard for enemies to either catch up with you, or to escape from you
- you do not get insta killed if in a bad sport as with pure ap Ekko
- Your ulti will do damage more often and constantly:
because you are not squishy your ulti will very often actually do damage besides healing you. With full ap ekko, you often use it to jump back out because you will not last long enough in a team fight. Unless full ap ekko uses zhonyas, but this will reduce the amount of health gained dramatically, because you did not get any damage within the last 2,5 seconds, leaving you in the mid of a tf with no health left
- increadible sustain
- ulti + gunblade spellvamp + spirit visage = very very strong synergy. Zhonas adds in another possible combo part
- very high constant mixed damage even though you are tanky:
it is very difficult to build against you. Not only do you have hybrid penetration, you also deal a lot of physical damage (aoe gauntlets + basic attacks + phase dive combines with maximum cdr to procc gauntlets as often as possible) but also very high magic damage with your passive, timewinder and your ulti.
- your build is extremly gold efficient
- Homeguard + ulti is quite a stupid combo early game
- you do not need to be super adaptive with your items as you are extremly well balanced. You have tons of hybrid damage and you are tanky in terms of mr and armor. This is very good for low elo players to focus on playing instead of trying to figure out what to buy next! You still have an open last slot which can be used to adapt to the current situation.
- Increadibly fun to play: This is true but not for all ekkos. You can actually participate quite long in fights, you can chase and do tricks and whatnot. With glass cannons this is usually just a quicky. And I promise this is very fun and exciting to play.

Contra:

None

I did a lot of Ekko games in the lower Bronze Elo region right now and here are some of the results done in a very short amount of time inbetween. As you can see those were not some lucky 2 or 3 games but I easily get a very very good kda stats ratio every game even if a game is lost sometimes. As you can see on the date: they are done is succession!
The cut out parts are other champions which do not matter. This is my current history on my account.
I hope you enjoyed the guide and I wish you much fun and success with ekko. There will be 2 or 3 more guides coming for low elo ranked players in the future. One for Jax and one for Nasus and maybe a morgana one too. Stay tuned.