There was a time when Riot Games didn’t know what to do with a role in League of Legends that wandered the Rift alone: that of toplaning. During all these years, he has always been linked to tanks or fightersand we rarely saw high damage champions or assassins as that role was best filled by other characters in the game.
It’s usually the community itself that starts coming up with new and surprising picks, like Janna, Karma, Kayn, or even Lee Sin, but this time we’re going to talk about one of the picks that confused everyone. a generation of gamers, a magic damage assassin who turned to the dark side and was hated by everyone because he was broken. Indeed, we are talking about Ekko and his tank build in season 6.
Ekko tank, the main monster to beat in season 6
We go back to Season 6, a year when the Herald of the Rift came into the game and the dragons started to look different in each game., making objectives much more important throughout the game. At the same time, a new series of champions have changed and characters that have become classics today, such as Taliyah or Jhin, have landed for the first time in Riot’s MOBA.
But there was one role that was particularly neglected, and that was mainly due to the poor level of the tanks: the top lane. In the absence of a decent champion, it was the community itself that decided to play with different champions which would have decent damage, but would also be able to hold out as much as possible to end a fight with a good amount of HP. That’s when Ekko arrived, and thanks to his passive and his W, the champion became a real headache for opposing top laners.
The Time Shatterer had it all: a decent lane phase, a slew of damage boosts Riot gave it, a pretty good skill set, and CC, since its passive, pre-patch 6.22, also slowed enemies. Add to that the fact that he was a die-hard tank with such powerful items as Suncloak and Freezing Gauntlet, and you got a beast that could take anything that came its way, and even more, since thanks to its ultimate, it could last much longer in teamfights.
This left Riot between a rock and a hard place for several months, wondering if he could leave it in place or if it was better to make changes. Eventually, the developer decided to tweak his damage and scaling to make him disappear from the Toplane. It was nice while it lasted, but Ekko Tank caused an uproar among the most nimble toplaners on the competitive circuit.