Hello there I am Ekko Rush B!
I wanted to create this Guide to show you how I play Ekko, the boy who shattered time and help the people who'd like to quickly learn him.
I usually finish every season in diamond elo with a ~60% Winrate on Ekko, both midlane and jungle.
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What does this Guide feature?
> A modern and different Nashor's Tooth Build
> Basic Mechanics and
> Frequent Updates on every Patch
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Also I'd like to mention that English is not my native language so please excuse me for mistakes.

Pros

+Massive damage +Outplay Potential +Lockdown +Teamfighting +Great Mobility +Assasin Potential +Survivability

Ekko is one of the best allround champions there is and is a really good pick for solo queue. He is a very mobile and safe assasin through Phase Dive and Chronobreak and his passive. Ekko's massive damage output shines the brightest when combining all of his abilities and allows him to assasinate targets and survive teamfights.

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Cons

-Hard late game -Squishy -Extremly hard against shields -Vulnerable to Crowd-Control -Easy to mess up -Very short burst range

Ekko has great damage, but he is still squishy, which really does not come in handy with his short burst range. You are also forced to dive in the enemy team to kill priority targets, which makes him really susceptible to cc, as your only way out with Chronobreak can be interrupted easily with stuns, roots etc. His late game is the hardest point of the game, as this is where ADCs deal the most damage and where supports shield for a huge amount.

Flash - Flash is basically the standard Summoner Spell on nearly every champion in League of Legends. What's especially good on it is that you are able to use Flash in two different ways on Ekko. The first of it being your super safe escape, combining Phase Dive and Flash. This simple combination will get you out of nearly every tricky situation. The second one is your Engage. Mixing Parallel Convergence+ Phase Dive+ Flash let's you initiate a teamfight from a safe distance very quickly.

Teleport - Probably the best Summoner Spell on Ekko. Teleport is a very useful summoner spell for melee champions, because ranged matchups or playing against poke-heavy champions (such as Lux) will make laning hard for you. Teleport also applys global pressure on the map because you can teleport anywhere on the map to help, or teleport back to lane after roaming, without loosing any Experience.

Other Options:

Ignite: Not bad when you want kill pressure in Lane and a way to secure kills. It's also a good summoner spell to deal with big healing in the mid- to late game.

Cleanse: Underrated, but a really good choice sometimes. It not only allows you to use your ultimate (excluding scenarios where you are suppressed or airborne) when being stunned, rooted etc. but it also grants you the big burst of tenacity for a short amount of time to deal with follow up crowd-crontrol.

DOMINATION:

Electrocute is your go-to Keystone rune as it adds burst and damage to trades and fights!

Sudden Impact offers you more magic Penetration after you use your Phase Dive on a enemy champion. Very good rune on squishy targets.

Eyeball Collection gives you more ability power for each takedown you get. Since Zombie Ward got changed, it is simply a better option, since you need a Control Ward to make us of its effect and you are more quick at getting the AP from champion kills rather than wards.

I choose Ultimate Hunter, because this rune gives you extra cooldown reduction on your ultimate which allows you to play more risky more often.

SORCERY:

Manaflow Band gives you mana and mana regeneration. This is vital since Ekko's abilities are mana hungry and this build gives you no mana. The extra man also really helps in early game to trade more often.

The second Rune you should use is Transcendence because not only does this give you free ability haste which is really important, but also reduces remaining basic ability cooldown by 20% after scoring a takedown which is really useful in teamfights.

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Other Options:

Gathering Storm: Gives you extra AP based on the games length. I choose this rune if im going for a little tankier build (like Abyssal Mask) and want to make up for the AP im giving up.

Dark Harvest: This rune needs its time to be noticable, but once you have enough stacks, it adds a lot of instant burst to your kit. Weaker laning phase, stronger assasination potential in late game.
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SHARDS:

Generally, you should pick the first two adaptive force shards for more ability power, which helps in the early stages in the game. As for defense, pick up either a magic resist or armor shard, depending on what you play against.

If you did not pick up the Transcendence rune, the ability haste shard can also make up for that, as it also gives 8 ability haste in total.

You can also choose the 10% attack speed shard for bigger synergy with Nashor's Tooth.

Additionally, if you feel like you will have a hard time laning against a certain champion, you may wanna choose two armor/magic resist shards.

Starting Items:
Normal Starters on Ekko are Doran's Ring and two Health Potions.
The extra healths gives you more survivability for all-in's and the mana-regen helps for early mana problems for the huge Timewinder mana costs.

Alternative Starters are Corrupting Potion and Dark Seal.
Corrupting Potion is the way to go when you lane against range poke champions (like Ziggs). Not only you have 3 charges, each restoring 125 health and 75 mana, but you also have the passive that's dealing a little bit of magic damage when damaging your laner. The only downside is that you won't have much AP for the first few levels.

Your second alternative is the Dark Seal+ Refillable Potion start. You should choose this when you have a good matchup that you know you will most likely dominate, like Aurelion Sol, because when fully stacked, this item will give you 40 AP in total. This has two downsides though, first of it being that you can run out of mana really fast, because this item will not give mana back in any way and the second one is, of course, that you can lose these stacks.
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On your First Back you'd like to pick up an early Hextech Alternator. This item gives you a nice amount of AP + the passive which makes your trades even better and it's also the first part for Hextech Rocketbelt.
If you want and have enough Gold you can pick up another Amplifying Tome and/or Boots to move a little faster.
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The Core Items we want to get are Hextech Rocketbelt and Nashor's Tooth. These Items give you an insane powerspike and allow you to deal a crazy amount of damage early on.
Followed by that you want to pick up a Void Staff, so you deal nearly true damage on squishy targets and to handle enemies who already start building magic resist.
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With this Build you have a great damage output with your Core Items, magic penetration with Void Staff, defensive tools through the Zhonya's Hourglass and a high amount of AP with Deathcap.
If you want you can switch the Zhonya's Hourglass with Banshee's Veil, depending if the enemy team is rather AP-heavy.
You can also swap out the Sorcerer's Shoes with Plated Steelcaps or Mercury's Treads if you need some extra defenses or make use of it's passives.

LICH BANE

VS

NASHOR'S TOOTH

Lich Bane gives you more instant damage compared to Nashor's Tooth as it has better base damage and scaling on the passive. This means that in a single quick combo, Lich Bane has a higher chance to one-shot squishys. In addition it offers you 15 ability haste and 8% movement speed which are really useful.

Nashor's Tooth gives 25 more ability power and 50% attack speed which should not be underestimated, as you proc your passive faster after using your E. The big difference here is that you deal on-hit damage on every auto-attack including on Phase Dive. This means that in prolonged trades or fights, Nashors will deal more damage than Lich Bane. The attack speed also makes more use of the missing% health damage from Parallel Convergence.

I usually suggest to go for Nashor's Tooth because it feels smoother to play with, but in the end in comes down to personal preferance.

When playing Ekko in the lane, you have to adapt your playstyle a little depending who you are facing and what kind of champion they are. These are the usual matchups:

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Ekko is an Assasin himself, so most matchups are pretty skill-based. The only problem is that you need to be careful not messing up. Yes, Ekko has his ultimate ability which can be able to basically "revert" what just happened, but that isn't really useful if you get blown away in a second. I suggest building Seeker's Armguard against AD Assasins, or when facing AP Assasins like Fizz a simple Verdant Barrier does fine too. If you really need to play safe, focus more on other lanes and roam or ask for a gank, otherwise you are free to trade and fight them.

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Matchups against these kind of champions are probably by far the hardest for Ekko. You shouldn't trade with most of these post-6 and proceed roaming. These Champions beat you either with massive Crowd-Control (e.g. Nether Grasp), Mobility (e.g. Riftwalk), or their natural tankyness (e.g. Shield of Durand). Don't try trading and farm up. Roam to one of the side lanes to get fed.

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Annoying, but managable and most of the time quite easy matchups. These champions lack the mobility, which means easy W's for you, and they often heavily depend on their skillshots, that you can deal with through your high mobility. And even if they hit you with their skillshots, you will quite likely be able to re-do-button out of every tight situation. If you want the control of the lane, fight and back to base. When you teleport to lane your laner is now forced to back aswell or at least play passively, which lets you push in the wave and get a free roam.

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One important thing you have to learn is the the very fast E+Q Combo. The trick for this is to Phase Dive and while you're in the E Animation, you use Timewinder to cancel the Q Animation. With this neat trick it is harder for your enemy to dodge your Timewinder and it increases your chances to proc your passive in a trade.


With Animation Cancel:

Play Video -
Without Animation Cancel:

Play Video -
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Another trick, not only for laning but also extremely useful for teamfighting.
When you cast your Parallel Convergence, a sound effect plays and a clone will appear, throwing out the sphere. This alone is enough for the enemy to know that you've just placed a W on their head.
But if you cast it somewhere where they don't have vision, there will be no cast sound and the clone is not visible for them.
After you pushed in the minion wave, hide in a bush or behind a wall and cast your Parallel Convergence. The enemy will simply walk towards you to farm, but then suddenly you Phase Dive on him, while the
Parallel Convergence is right on top of them to stun them.
This lets you get a free passive proc plus a full spell rotation on your enemy, leaving them with roughly 2/5 HP on their Lane. This is an easy way to get rid of the enemies lane pressure and if they back you can just push the wave in and look for a roam!

In a teamfight as Ekko, you should always look for the right time to go in.
Mainly, you would like to wait until the enemies wasted their CC spells, or shields/heals on their carry
Look for opportunities to land a great W (Example "Initiator" Playstyle) and to catch the carrys off guard.
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Depending on the situation, there are about 3 ways to play a teamfight.
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As I said, you should always wait a bit and look for the perfect opportunity to dive in.
to get on the enemy ADC, either try and predict the movement with your W, or you flank them (Coming from behind, Phase Dive over a Wall).
Once your Setup is complete, jump on the Carry with your E and follow up with your Q (Ideally E+Q Cancel), use Hextech Rocketbelt and AA for the passive proc.
Now you simply run away or use your ultimate back to safety.

Here is a video made by me to demonstrate:
- Play Video *Video contains old Gunblade item
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Your Parallel Convergence is the perfect tool to initiate a fight.
This ability is everything you want: An AoE 2.25 second Stun.
If you succesfully land a 3,4 or even 5 Man W, the fight is definitely on your Side.
- Play Video -
Your W can be a really good Ability when used at the right location at the right time and can single-handedly carry a fight.
If you don't have someone on your team that could engage like Amumu or Malphite, don't be scared to start a fight all by yourself.
Try and wait a few seconds before you throw out your Parallel Convergence. Firstly, you should look and see how the enemy team positions themselfs.
One of the main questions you should ask yourself before going in:
╔Where is the ADC most of the time?
╠Is their Support in the Backline/Frontline?
╚Do they have a big disengage?
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With your abilities you are able to peel your carry pretty good all by yourself. You have a 60% Slow on your Timewinder and a 40% Slow or 2.25 Sec. stun on your Parallel Convergence. So sticking to your ADC will give him an easier time killing and out-kiting tanks like Cho'Gath or Darius who don't have any gap-closer at all.
Your Parallel Convergence also helps taking down tanks, as your auto attacks deal more damage to enemies below 30% HP, scaling with their missing life.

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You can also switch around these Playstyles. For example, once you succesfully killed the enemy ADC, maybe you should look and try to help your Teammates instead of jumping on another target.

Also keep in mind that Ekko is a skirmisher, you can theoratically deal with anyone if played smart.

Early Game: 6/10 Ekko's early is. simply put, not the worst but also not the best.
Mid Game: 10/10 This is Ekko's best time to shine. Great damage, while the enemies are still quite squishy, perfect!
Late Game: 7/10 Ekko is still a strong champion in late game, though it can be quite challenging when it comes to eliminating priority targets.
Laning Phase: 6/10 Well... Ekko is melee, but his trade are quite good and farming is made easier with your passive.
Items: 9/10 Many Items in Season 12 synergyse well with Ekko.
Runes: 9/10 Ekko has many great Keystone options for runes which allows for different playstyles and more adaptation to the enemy team.

August 8th 2017:
Creation of this Guide

October 25th 2017:
Changes on Item Build.
Adjusted Masterys.

November 8th 2017:
Changes on Runes. (New Runes System)
Added Chapter "Masterys"
Added Chapter "Ekko Currently"

November 11th 2017:
Updated Lane Phase Videos to Season 8

March 14th 2018:
Changes on "Ekko Currently"
Changed Chapter "Teamfighting with Ekko"
Changes on "Runes"
Small Changes on "Pros/Cons"

March 26th 2018:
Added Banners
Rewrote "Laning Phase"
Rewrote "Summoner Spells"
Rewrote "Pros/Cons"

April 4th 2018:
Recoded "Pros/Cons"
Recoded "Summoner Spells"

April 5th 2018:
Rewrote "Runes
Rewrote "Items"

June 28th 2018:
Added "Other Options" under "Summoner Spells"
Added "Other Options" under "Runes"

July 6th 2018:
Added video "Teamfight - Assasination"

July 9th 2018:
Added champions in "Vs. Champion"

August 5th 2018:
Added Chapter "Protobelt VS. Gunblade"

August 15th 2018:
Changes in "Ekko Currently"

September 30th 2018:
Added Chapter "Tips and Tricks"

November 17th 2018:
Added Champions in "Threats"
Added Champions to new Category "Synergies"

November 17th 2018:
Changes on "Runes" (preseason 9)

March 12th 2019:
Changes in "Ekko Currently"
Recoded "Tips and Tricks"

April 17th 2019:
Added Champions in "Threats"
Changes on "Runes"

April 28th 2022:
Reworked Guide to Season 12
Added "Lich Bane vs Nashor's Tooth" Section

August 1th 2022:
General Changes

October 27th 2022:
Changed "Ekko Currently"

This is the first ever Mobafire Guide i did.
I don't have the time to complete everything of this Guide, but i will keep updating it and fill the missing parts.
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Thank you for reading until the end, i hope you liked this Guide and learned somewhat.
Voting this Guide would really mean a lot to me and help me to improve the Quality of it.
Please leave a comment and give me feedback on where i can improve!
Thanks! :)
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©Ekko Rush B