Red Post Collection: Ekko Q&A

• Gameplay
• Art
• Story/Lore
• Voiceover
• Development

Gameplay

To start us off,  Gypsylord  stepped up to bat with a few questions on Ekko as AP over AD, another time based champion vs Zilean, Ekko's affiliation with Zaun, and more.

"Quote:

1) What made you decided to make him AP over AD?
2) What does Vel'koz think about Ekko power over time?
3) For that matter, what does Zilean think?
4) Why make him from Zaun?
5) What do you think about the players reactions to him so far?

1) Two reasons: Thematically Ekko is a pretty skinny kid who uses wits and time magic to win fights over raw physical prowess. Mechanically, making an assassin AP locks him out from certain benefits AD grants (such as powerful basic attacks, lifesteal, and crazy tower taking). This allowed us to make his spells and utility stronger. 

2) VK prolly just wants to disintegrate him to "get dat knowledge" 

3) Ekko is pretty reckless in the use of his Z-Drive, I'm guessing Zilean (or Bard) might be somewhat concerned over the rippling affects of twiddling with the time stream. 

4) So he had this hextech time device so it was Zaun or Piltover for sure. We liked Zaun because we've got a lot of villians from there but not many very appealing heroes (Vi moved to Piltover), felt we could strengthen the faction as well as tell better stories with Ekko being from Zaun. There was also a degree of Ezreal overlap with a Piltovian Ekko. Put "time kid" in a city of privledge and you get a very different type of person. 

5)I'm happy with them :) People seem really excited and they're picking up on a lot of major notes we wanted to hit on his character and gameplay. He's gonna be fun."

Riot ShadowStorm  also commented on the Ekko vs Zilean discussion, noting:

"Quote:

Was there an issue about having another time-based champion when Ekko was being created?
Also, do Ekko and Zilean know eachother?

There wasn't too much of an issue there. As gypsylord mentioned in another reply:

We felt the Time magic space wasn't fully taken up with Zilean and were like, "What if we made a Time Assassin with Rewind?!?!?!?" 

We were definitely conscious not to step on Zilean's toes though. I think Ekko does some cool, different things with time (both in gameplay, and as a character overall), so there isn't much of an issue there." 

When asked about Ekko's intended role and position as well as builds,  Riot Velocity  shared:

"Quote:

1 - What are Ekko's ideal roles?He seems intented for mid with jg & top being reliable options.
2 - Would it work to build him more as a bruiser?Building a & the new seems to work well with him.

1) Ekko primarily is played mid, however we've had a fair amount of Rioters playing him top and even jungle. We highly recommend you give him a try in a few different lanes and find what feels best for you! 

2) Way back when we were flushing out Ekko's early gameplay patterns we were tending to build him as more of a bruiser like you suggested, however as time went on and his kit evolved more and more we started to itemize him with these bursty assassin items. We think we've found a happy medium where a bruiser build would work, as well as a glass cannon build. 

Hope you enjoy him!"

When asked if enemies can see Ekko's "time clone", Riot Velocity noted:

"Yeah!

If Ekko's ultimate is available all players on the map (including enemies) should be able to see the trail that it leaves. 

It isn't visible through Fog of War, however."

Iniquitee also commented:

"Yes they are - it's an important part of his counter-play, similar to being aware of where Orianna's ball is at any moment (since it can be potentially dangerous!)."

As for if anything will interrupt Ekko from using his R to go back in time, Riot Velocity  explained:

"Quote:

How does Ekko's ult interact with Azir's (does Ekko's "dash" back to his spot 4 seconds ago get interrupted if it goes through Azir's ult)? 

What's his "sword"/bat made out of? It doesn't seem to be normal iron or steel, and I saw a rioter mention it was stolen from a clock tower, but what it's actually made out of seems like a mystery.

Hey there Guiotine! 

When Ekko activates his ult he is both untargetable and invulnerable during the cast, which means that passing through any terrain (even Azir ult) won't stop him!"

Gypsylord  continued, talking about Ekko as a high utility champion and how his R trail interacts with summoner spells:

"Quote:

Enough about lore, what has been done to make sure Ekko is not another OP champion coming out of PBE that people will just gain free-lo with? What possible changes could we see in the future for this champion? 

How does Ekko's Ult passive (the glow of him that follows) how does that interact with Flash, Teleport, Mark, Exhaust (does it glow go slow), or even Urgot's ult?

Hopefully he's making meaningful tradeoffs for the power we're giving him. High utility, but has to work harder than Zed or LB for his burst (and generally has less of it). In the future (if too strong) I could seeing us hitting his base damages or AP ratios in a first patch to ensure that weakness exists 

It tries to track EXACTLY where he was 4 seconds ago. So yeah, flashing, TP'ing, etc. He'll account for those when he goes back"

From the technical side of things, Riot Szymba added:

"Quote:

was it particularly difficult to set up the mechanics for his ult, with regard to tracking where he was a few seconds ago?

So, actually tracking where he was 4 seconds earlier was fairly simple. Actually creating a representation that moves smoothly from point to point with that data proved to be very difficult."

As for why the Seconds video shows Ekko injured after going back in time but in-game he is healed, Gypsylord   explained:

"Quote:

Why does Ekko gain health back when he uses his Ult, but in the lore he takes his injuries with him?

Oh funny story, the lore was intended to SUPPORT the fact that he only gains a PORTION of the health he lost back on the ultimate (as opposed to it being a full heal of whatever damage he took). The idea being that he can rewind, he can mend a broken bone, but he's going to FEEL every hit. Every mistake has consequences."

Gypsylord   continued, elaborating on the choice for Ekko's R and the concept of time travel abilities in a multiplayer game:

"Quote: 

Hey Riot!
Uhh u know in the 'Seconds' Youtube video.
You know how he turned back time, why couldn't you do the exact same in the LoL game.
Because if you look at his ult in game, it's not turning back time, it's a burst of dmg (which is awesome).
Please answer asap!!!

When we were testing out Ekko's kit we kinda ran into the harsh reality that many time based abilities simply aren't okay for a multiplayer game. Ekko's R used to rewind the ENTIRE MAP 8 seconds. It was super cool and incredibly thematic, but it also was disruptive and questionably beneficial for Ekko's team when it was used. Example of a great thematic execution that fell flat on gameplay. The current ult is less thematic but I feel it still captures a good deal of the what a rewind would FEEL like (Undoes some of the bad things that happened, goes back to where you were and makes you think about the past, gives you a second chances at a fights.) 

Jinx's minigun's development was similar. Initially it didn't have individual attacks and instead fired a constant stream of bullets (like a real minigun), but that mechanic had major last hitting and clarity problems, so we moved to the current model (fast as hell with a rampup time). Pow-pow isn't a perfect minigun, but within the context of league if FEELS like one."

When asked if it is intended to allow Ekko to recall, buy, then use R to pop back into lane, Gypsylord   noted

"Quote:

Are you going to patch that fun thing you can do with ekko's ult, when you ult back into lane after recalling? Plz no.

Probably not. I think the cooldown keeps it in check. He's not all that good at fighting people when it's down so if he wants to use it to get back to lane I don't see a problem with it."

As for using Ekko's R offensively when the enemy can see where you will lane, Gypsylord   noted:

"Quote:

First, the Sandstorm Ekko skin was genius. I love the Prince of Persia connection and what makes it better is how well the characters fit together on top of his kit. Great work on the particle effects for the sand. Thanks for making the abilities have sand particles instead of just a different outfit for the champ. 

My question is how can he use his ult offensively versus defensively if it is always behind him? (I have my own ideas but interested design-wise how you built him to be able to do this)

Gotta find a way to get people to be where you were 4 seconds ago. Easy way is to get someone to chase you and create enough distance that they fall 4 seconds behind. Could try to combo it off a Gnar ult (since Gnar can hold people in place for an eternity while the image catches up). Could also try grabbing zhonya's, using the active in a fight gives you 2 seconds of safety for the image to move where you want it to."

When asked what sort of "balance levers" the team was expecting to tune after his release, Riot Velocity  commented:

"Quote:

What tuning levers do you suspect you'll inevitably be pulling the patch after his release? What direction do you think you'll need to pull them?

Hey there Virotoxic, great question! 

We currently have a pretty good idea of what we'll do if Ekko is either too weak/strong on release.
Some potentia 

l tuning levers might be: 

Looking at the AP ratio on his ult. 

Our thoughts on this change is that Ekko has some fantastic burst tied into his ultimate, but while it is high it's also unreliable in a lot of scenarios. If his burst in all situations proves to be too much be on the lookout for a hit there. 

Reducing his base movement speed. 

He's currently sitting at a 345 base MS which is definitely on the higher end of starting movement speeds. If it turns out that he's zipping around between lanes a little too quickly we'll look at hitting his base MS. 

Buffing his Q1 AP ratio. 

Ekko is a character that scales incredibly well with item purchases, really coming online with his first two items. Giving him a bit more AP ratio on the first portion of his Q will help him survive in those difficult mid lanes. 

I'm sure there are a few I'm missing, but those are the big 3! 

Thanks for the question. :)"

Riot Velocity  also commented on Ekko's R rewind time and Ekko's W "bubble":

"Quote:

The few questions I have is: 

1) Will Ekko's rewind time window increase as he levels it up? If it doesn't I suggest it should, just by maybe .5 seconds per level for a total of +1 seconds at level 3 

2) I think his bubble's animation is really cool and I love this idea of a utility assassin, what brought you guys to the idea of doing a champion like this and what inspired the bubble's cast animation?

Hey Magee101, thanks for the question! 

1) We currently don't have any plans to increase the window for his rewind time. We think that it's very important players get a feel for playing around Ekko's ultimate, and increasing the window in that can make it confusing for both the Ekko player and his enemies. :) 

2) As for his W cast animation, we wanted to capture the idea that Ekko is splitting off into an alternate timeline and using Bizarro-Ekko to help him in his current timeline. We could have accomplished the same effect by having Bizarro-Ekko walk over and place something on the ground, but playing off of the idea that his weapon (which by the way is an Hour hand that he stole from a clock tower in Piltover) looks and behaves like a bat sounded like a lot of fun and we decided to go in that direction. 

Thanks for the question!"

When asked how about Ekko's three hit passive in-game and how it tied into the Seconds video, Riot ShadowStorm  commented:

"Quote:

Do you ever think about changing Ekko's passive slightly more toward Ekko's video "Ekko: Seconds" where he disassembled the enemy Zaunite Thug. Basically, I'm saying was it an option to lower the enemies magic resist by a flat amount on the third hit of his passive? Such as an alternative as Vi's Denting Blows but in magic resist.

The disassembling of the Zaunite thug was actually based on his passive - that's why he ultimately takes 3 passes to defeat the thug! I think at the time, the exact effect of Ekko's passive wasn't locked down, but we knew it was a 3-hit effect, so that was intentionally worked into the video."

Last up for the gameplay section we have Gypsylord answering several multiple part questions:

Gypsylord  collection #1:

"Quote:

A lot has been said about his W passive, but I feel his natural passive is very strong as well. Has this been a concern or area of importance when balancing his power? 

His W has quite the spot light for it's active too. I understand it's a prediction ability and love that about him, but isn't it's rank 1 a tad bit over packed? A long ranged slow field, potential stun, and a large shield for just one point. Also, the shield almost doesn't feel worth when getting the stun due to the durations being so similar. Is this on purpose? Protection from everything outside while you wail on what you stunned? Sometimes it feels like I'm hoping for just the stun just the shield. 

Why did you decide to make the second part of his E a blink? I think it's an interesting concept and will have many creative uses. 

Why the symbol over his hologram? Does it actually mean anything? Do you think it may lead to be more of a distraction after things like texture rebalances to clean up skins and hide eye candy options to remove unnecessary movement? 

Why do I get baseball feel from Ekko? Was he based on a particular theme in history? I don't want to be offensive with this question, so if it doesn't fully make sense, feel free to skip it. 

Will there be a distinction in color similar to the blue/red auras on Syndra's spheres for friendly/enemy Ekko's? I see how the symbols over his head could be that, but with them being random I don't think they will help too much. 

Are the kids orphans? 

Is this the final link to why Jinx loves to mess with Vi? 

Do you think a bruiser build might be viable? The survival stats along with his ult and cc would make for nasty comb imo. 

I've tried going AD Ekko and had much success just using my ability for the cc. Is this a concern? 

What do you personally think about Ekko in the jungle? What about someone taking his support? It may not be to his full potential, but his cc and survivability could work well with an ADC. 

Gypsylord, do you have something with the number 3? all your champions seem the revolve around that number, but I guess a lot of them do when you look at the whole.

1) Ekko's natural passive is very important to his kit because of the utility it brings, both in allowing him to move through a fight and lockdown enemies for himself and allies to cleanup. Important to have that utility if he's going to be worse at one-shotting people as per his design goals. 

2) Level 1 W may indeed be too strong, we'll track that as he goes live. It's intended to be pretty powerful though, as it's quite hard to land on your own without team coordination. Is also ideally one of the big reasons you want to bring Ekko to a team, for that AoE CC wombo. Shield is intended to last shorter than the stun. He doesn't need that extra power vs. guys he's locked down. it's more there to protect him from people outside the zone as well as reward him going into the zone, even if no one is inside. 

3)Thematically I felt like there was this cool time distortion thing he'd be able to do, teleport made sense for that. Mechanically it allows him to dodge projectiles and whatnot if used correctly while engaging and gives a really crisp feel to the actual impact of the spell. Minor optimizations go a long way for making a spell feel unique and different. 

4)The symbol isn't there for thematics, it's there for clarity, want it to be very easy to pick out in a hectic team fight CAUSE THAT THING IS DANGEROUS 

5)Well he's got a bat like thing and those baggy pants :D He reminds me a lot of the Scout from TF2 who has similar baseball themes 

6)They're intended to be team differentiated. If they aren't pushed enough we'll iterate and make it more clear 

8) Ekko has parents, he's not an orphan. 

9) Jinx does seem to have some weird fixation with Vi. Wonder why that is... 

10) The bruiser build, similar to stuff like PURE AD ASSASSIN VI may be good as an offbuild if you want to train and CC people more but burst them less. I'd be worried if it's good as a primary build because I think Ekko being tanky removes a lot of the counterplay you have against him and a lot of the decisions he has to make about staying alive. 

11) Similar to bruiser Ekko, it's cool if AD Ekko is an offbuild but less cool if it's the best way to build him. I'd rather he be moving in and out of fights to burst people than just training on them with AD basic attacks. 

12)Support, probably not that good, he's major CC and laning isn't reliable enough and he needs items to scale. Jungle may be okay, depends on how good he can clear, right now look like it beats him up pretty hard until he reaches item breakpoints 

13) I LOVE 3 HIT PASSIVES. Design wise they allow big moments of buildup and payoff playing as while allowing the opponents opportuinites to back off at the right time and avoid some damage. Think I've exhausted most of the ways to make a new one that feels different however, probably won't do another."

Gypsylord  collection #2:

"Quote:

Alternative Build Paths 

Ekko seems like he would be such a good bruiser champion, but just doesn't have the right numbers attached to him to do so. Everything in his kit scales on his AP. No diversity at all. So I guess my questions relate to giving him some diversity in his kit to allow for other builds that won't benefit him if building straight AP. 

Why not give him something like: 

Bonus AD scaling on his E and W passive? 

Bonus Health scaling on his W shield? 

Have his ult reflect percentage of damage taken in last 4 seconds? Having the percentage scale with defensive stats. Even starting it at 0% and scale only if they have defensive stats would be fine. 

He really feels pigeon-holed into a static AP build. I spent 4-5 hours last night in customs trying about 10 different builds on him to prep for this Q&A ranging from AD, AD bruiser, AP bruiser, full tank, on-hit, etc and none of them compare to his AP path regardless of how much fun the other paths were to play on. 

General Questions / Feedback 

Outside of that though, here are a few questions I do have about the champion: 

How is his ult calculating damage taken over the last 4 seconds? 

Is it BaseHeal + ((PrevHealth - CurrentHealth) * Ratio) = HealAmount? 

Or does it actually track damage taken over the last 4 seconds. If it's the former, then things like spellvamp, lifesteal, health regen would negatively impact. I know the health wouldn't be taken away, but it would reduce the amount that gets returned. 

Why does his Chronoshift ghost appear blue/golden when you're playing him, but when the enemy place him, the ghost is fully colored with some transparency? (Maybe already fixed) I feel this is confusing as hell. I often see his ghost on the enemy team and think it's him and this could easily lead to people panicking. Or similarly reacting like they did when the bug that caused champions to randomly appear for a split second in the jungle did; causing burnt flashes and CD's. 

Is his Chronoshift ghost visible when Ekko is not? I wasn't really able to tell, but it seemed like you could see his ghost without seeing him, which I find alarming. This means his ult is a liability when it comes to juking, warding, retreating, roaming, and even jungle objectives. I feel if it is the case, then people will simple not level up there ult until they absolutely need it because the ghost actually does more harm than good. 

Perhaps it would be a good idea to give his visuals a bit more color diversity. When you have his passive indicators, ult passive, W aoe, and his Q all in the same color spectrum, it makes it very hard to focus them individually. The passive indicators being the hardest and his ghost is also hard sometimes to figure out where it ends. (Even more prominent on Sandstorm Ekko because yellow is more influenced by green terrain than blue) 

More prominent in Sandstorm Ekko, but it might also be good to look at the ghost trail of his ult and adjust the Alpha Blending of the particle effect itself so it's not so additive. That way, you would still be able to follow it, but being in a small area won't cause it to make a massive blob.

So I too have thought about alternate build paths for Ekko and it's somewhat intentional that straight AP is by far the best on him. This is mainly due to the sheer power of his ultimate and passive. Ekko has access to permaslow, pemahaste, and a fight reset on his R should his opponents ever manage to get him low. An Ekko who's squishy, afraid of death, and forced to move in and out of fights between burst windows, can likely still be dealt with even with these strengths. An Ekko that's building tanky and training people down with basic attacks is likely going to be much harder to deal with, and not feel all that clever to boot.

THAT SAID, I like off builds, and my ideal world is one where AD Ekko and Bruiser Ekko are decent off-builds that can work in soloqueue under specific circumstance but are by no means the primary or most obviously successful way to play him. I'll keep an eye on it when he releases

1) It actively tracks damage taken. So if you take 200 damage over 5 seconds the ult heals you for Base + X% of 200.

2)The enemy team ghost is a bug we're trying to fix. Is not intended to be confused for the real Ekko.

3)Ghost is not visible when the enemy can't see Ekko. :D

4)Agree with you here and it's something we're watching. Some particles may need further interation should they proove too hard to read."

Art

On the art side of things, FauxSchizzle  shared a piece of concept art for Ekko:

"Hey guys, here's an awesome piece of concept art that really inspired the team! We hope you love this piece as much as we do:

Riot ShadowStorm also shared a "concept art timeline" showing off how Ekko evolved visually over the course of design:

"We also wanted to share this concept art timeline. This starts from the earliest ideas of making a "time assassin", and reflects a lot of growth and refinement in the character. While this is only the art side, the evolution you see here reflects constant iteration between art, narrative, and design, which ultimately resulted in the Ekko you now know. 

Hope you enjoy this behind-the-scenes look at Ekko!  

EDIT: Direct image link here.

(Heads up - it's a pretty large image!)"

As for who was the main artist behind Ekko, Iniquitee noted:

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