#Man-Bat is also canny enough to learn who people are by the sound of their walk

[chiropterx]

Adding to more horror thoughts concerning Man-Bat but despite his animalistic tendancies, he is absolutely intelligent enough to lay basic traps? Man-Bat can reasonably gauge threats and plan how to deal with them accordingly, focusing on the most dangerous threat first such as whether or not they're armed with a gun or why they may he pursuing him. He may leave objects of interest (or kidnap victims) in plain view situated away from where he's hiding, giving him the perfect vantage point in which to observe the situation or launch a counter attack from.

[tigerkirby215]

5e Ekko, the Boy who Shattered Time build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Riot Games)

Ekko is a character who’s way better in the lore than in-game. An orphan with a heart of gold doesn’t translate well into this immortal bastard who bursts your entire team before pressing one button to instantly get all his health back. Regardless Ekko has a simple kit that makes him easy to adapt into the meta and very fun to play! And who doesn’t want to time travel?

GOALS

Don't blink! - Shattering time means that you can zip around in the blink of an eye.

I'll help you this time: duck - Batter up! Time stuns coming your way!

If you can’t make the most out of any given moment... - Then you don’t deserve a single extra second. Thankfully we’ll have a lot of chances to make the most out of every single second.

RACE

Ekko is a human but he’s very different from all the other kids in Zaun, making him a Variant Human. As a Variant Human you get a +1 increase to two skills of your choice: choose Dexterity and Wisdom to keep on your feet with your wits about you. You also learn a language and a skill of your choice: your language doesn’t matter much but for skills pick Perception to notice exactly how you can defeat your foe without too many rewinds.

But of course the main appeal of Variant Humans is the ability to get a Feat at level 1, and when it’s time to rewind look no further than the Lucky feat. You have 3 Luck points (or as I like to call them Rewind Die) that you can spend to roll an extra d20 on an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw. You can choose which d20 result you want to use after rolling your Rewind Die.

The best part about Lucky? You can use it against enemies too! If an enemy attacks you you can also roll to potentially make them miss! Remember that you only have 3 rewinds which only come back on a Long Rest, so use them wisely!

ABILITY SCORES

15; DEXTERITY - Shattering time means you can zip around at the blink of an eye.

14; INTELLIGENCE - Ekko created a time travel machine, as well as many other inventions that would put the Pilties to shame.

13; WISDOM - Ekko stays in Zaun because he cares about the people.

12; CHARISMA - Ekko’s a good kid, as evidenced by how many skins he has.

10; CONSTITUTION - You can take a hit but you’re still primarily an assassin.

8; STRENGTH - You’re a kid who fights with nothing more than a bat. A magic clock bat, but not a heavy bat.

Feel free to swap Charisma and Constitution if you want more health but weaker RP.

BACKGROUND

Ekko is an Urchin but he doesn’t really fit the typical description (he has parents, for one), so I’m going to suggest changing it up some. Swap your proficiencies out for Acrobatics and Investigation to puzzle your way though defeating your foes, and your tools for Tinkerer’s Tools and Smith’s Tools to make your gadgets.

But your feature City Secrets still fits you perfectly, allowing you to easily make your way around the streets of Zaun without getting lost. I mean, you probably do get lost sometimes but your party doesn’t need to know that.

(Artwork by Riot Games)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - WIZARD 1

Oh boy my favorite class that I have to spend way too long explaining! Regardless Wizard is the perfectly class for smart kids who use magical time-warping devices. You get proficiency in two skills from the Wizard list and I’d opt for Arcana for knowledge of your Z-Drive and History for knowledge of what happened. Because you were there!

As a Wizard you also get access to Spellcasting. You learn 3 cantrips from the Wizard list: Ray of Frost lets you toss out a Timewinder to slow and damage your foes, Mending will let you reverse any small damage an object may have received, and Message will let you coordinate in team chat. You also learn 6 spells at level 1 with Wizard, but you can prepare a number of spells equal to your Intelligence modifier plus your Wizard level:

Absorb Elements will let you resist some incoming magic before returning it with Z-Drive Resonance.

Alarm will let you know that someone’s coming, or rather reverse time when they do arrive to give you time to prepare.

Detect Magic will help you figure out what any Hextech might do.

False Life can give you a Parallel Convergence shield.

Both Mage Armor and Shield will help you defend yourself and dodge attacks you wouldn’t otherwise be able to avoid.

Need a break from all that time warping? Arcane Recovery lets you recover spell slots equal to half your Wizard level, rounded up. Confused how it works? Read it yourself because I’m bad at explaining it.

LEVEL 2 - WIZARD 2

At level 2 you can choose your Arcane Tradition. Oh man if only there was a tradition dedicated specifically to time manipulation... oh wait Chronurgy Magic, which is automatically one of the better ones because it isn’t a school! Regardless Chronurgy Wizards get Temporal Awareness, letting them add their Intelligence modifier to Initiative rolls.

They can also turn back time with Chronal Shift! As a reaction you can force yourself or another creature to reroll an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw. The target must use the result of the second roll, and you can choose to use the ability after knowing the original result. You can rewind twice per Long Rest but that should be more than enough to find the perfect way around a problem! (Especially with Lucky helping you as well!)

You can also add two more spells to your spell list: Gift of Alacrity is a Chronurgy-specific spell that lets you prepare to add a d8 to a creature’s initiative check, so you can make sure your initiator is the first in the fight! If you want to slow everyone down however Earth Tremor will force enemies in an area to make a Dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone, and regardless of if they succeed or fail they’ll still be slowed by difficult terrain!

LEVEL 3 - RANGER 1

What? You didn’t think this was just a pure book nerd build, did you? Nah Ekko’s a special kid who knows Zaun like the back of his hand: sounds like a proper city Ranger! You get proficiency in one skill from the Ranger list when you multiclass, so grab Insight to know what people are going to do after they did it... before they did it!

Class Feature Variants is an Unearthed Arcana that’s soon going to be made official so I’m going to use Ranger features from that PDF instead. Deft Explorer lets you choose from one of three benefits: Roving lets you speed yourself up by 5 feet and also gives you a climbing speed to climb clock towers and a swimming speed to... swim. Favored Foe meanwhile lets you cast Hunter’s Mark a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier without using Concentration, for some more Z-Drive Resonance!

LEVEL 4 - RANGER 2

Second level Rangers get a Fighting Style and I figure now would be a good time to talk about Ekko’s weapon: he uses the clock needle of his as a bat most of the time but a club is a simple weapon that uses Strength and does very little damage. As a Ranger you have proficiency in martial weapons so I’m pretty sure that needle could be passed off as a short sword. Fight the short sword in your main hand and nothing in the other, or grab a shield just for the sake of the AC: regardless Dueling will make your sword do +2 damage.

You also get access to Spellcasting! Again! Check chapter 6 of the Player’s Handbook for information on how multiclassing between full casters and half casters works, but you get two first level Ranger spells: to dash in and strike an important target Zephyr Strike will let you avoid opportunity attacks and do an extra d8 damage on hit, letting you ride Z-Drive Resonance out with 30 more movement speed. If you want to stun a target for a beat down Ensnaring Strike will restrain them with vines. Time vines! Yeah...

LEVEL 5 - RANGER 3

Third level Rangers can choose their Ranger Conclave (or subclass as its otherwise known.) Time to up the Z-Drive with Horizon Walker! Horizon Walkers can Detect Portals within 1 mile of them but that’s not important. What’s important is that they have Planar Warrior, letting them use their Bonus Action to make their weapon do magic (Force) damage and deliver an extra d8 damage thanks to Z-Drive Resonance! (I’ve been mentioning that a lot, haven’t I?)

You also get Primal Awareness from the Class Feature Variants UA for the ability to cast Detect Magic and Speak with Animals once per Long Rest without using a spell slot. Think you’ve got enough magic? Well Horizon Walker Spells give you Protection from Evil and Good as a Ranger spell, and you can add one more spell to your list like Jump to Phase Dive across leaps and bounds... look level 1 Ranger spells suck give me a break! Take Cure Wounds if you want something more useful!

(Artwork by Riot Games)

LEVEL 6 - RANGER 4

4th level Rangers get their first Ability Score Improvement: to keep elusive and hit hard with your bat shortsword get more Dexterity.

LEVEL 7 - RANGER 5

5th level Rangers get an Extra Attack, letting them attack twice when they use the Attack action. It should be mentioned that Planar Warrior will only make your first attack forceful while your second attack will do regular damage.

You can also learn second level Ranger spells like Pass Without a Trace. You’ve got all the time in the world to sneak around, and you’ve also got all the time in the world to figure out why the Ranger spell list sucks so much where you refuse to take Healing spells. At least you get access to Beast Sense and Locate Animals or Plants thanks to Primal Awareness, and Flash (I mean Misty Step) from your Horizon Walker Spells!

LEVEL 8 - RANGER 6

At 6th level you get another ability from Deft Explorer: Canny lets you learn one skill of your choice from a given list, and get Expertise in any of those skills that you know. (That isn’t quite how it works but that’s how I make it work for convenience's sake.) Expertise in Perception will let you spot any valuable junk in the Zaun trash heaps, and Stealth proficiency will help you get away with your loot! You also learn two languages which uhhh... just pick whatever really. You’ve got plenty of time to talk to people.

LEVEL 9 - RANGER 7

7th level Horizon Walkers can phase out of time with Ethereal Step, letting them cast Eternalness for a turn once per short or long rest. Not something that Ekko can normally do but you can accomplish a lot while messing with time.

Speaking of accomplishing a lot you get another spell: Darkvision will help your regular human eyes see why kids love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch! Wait...

LEVEL 10 - RANGER 8

8th level Rangers get another Ability Score Improvement: max out your Dexterity to be as quick as you can when striking down your foes. You also get Land’s Stride to move through difficult terrain without using extra movement, avoid taking damage from nonmagical plants, and have advantage against magical plants. How does a kid from Zaun know his way around dangerous plants? Well you had plenty of time to read up on botany.

(Artwork by Jason Chan, Senior Concept Artist at Riot Games)

LEVEL 11 - RANGER 9

9th level Rangers get access to third level spells. With Primal Awareness you learn Speak with Plants (look, I can’t justify everything in this build. D&D isn’t Runeterra), and as a Horizon Walker you get access to Haste! You can also find your ways around the dark streets of Zaun more easily thanks to the spell Daylight.

LEVEL 12 - RANGER 10

10th level Rangers can get the last feature from Deft Explorer: Tireless lets you spend an action to give yourself temporary hit points equal to 1d10 + your Wisdom modifier. You can do this a number of times equal to your Wisdom modifier, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. Additionally your Exhaustion goes down by 1 every time you finish a Short or Long rest.

And while Hide in Plain Sight may make more sense for Ekko, Fade Away is just so much better. You can use your Bonus Action to turn invisible for a turn! Maybe you turned back time to the DOTA days when Shadow Blade was an item you build buy? Yeah I know DOTA.

LEVEL 13 - RANGER 11

11th level Horizon Walkers can finally Phase Dive with Distant Strike! When you take the Attack action, you can teleport up to 10 feet before each attack to an unoccupied space you can see. Additionally, if you attack at least two different creatures with the action, you can make a three hit combo against a third creature!

You can also learn another spell at this level, and while there are a lot of options to choose from I’d personally suggest some magic resistance. Protection from Energy will let you put on an Adaptive Helm to resist a certain type of elemental damage.

LEVEL 14 - RANGER 12

12th level Rangers get an Ability Score Improvement and since your Dexterity is maxed out now would be a good time to hit the books and increase your Intelligence!

(Artwork by Riot Games)

LEVEL 15 - WIZARD 3

Hey remember when we took levels in Wizard way back at levels 1 and 2? Well third level Wizards can learn 2nd level Wizard spells! Blur will make it harder for an enemy to hit you unless they can sense where you really are, and if you want even more chances to turn back time Fortune’s Favor is a spell reserved to Chronurgy Wizards (and Graviturgy Wizards) that lets them give themselves or an ally some more time with an extra d20 to roll in case they’re in danger!

LEVEL 16 - WIZARD 4

4th level Wizards get another Ability Score Improvement: more Intelligence will help with all the time manipulation.

You can also add another 2 spells to your spellbook, and you learn another cantrip! Sapping Sting is a Dunamancy-specific cantrip and it can make your opponent trip! If you want to be even harder to hit Mirror Image will let your time doubles do some distracting for you, and if you want to shake off the time police Nystul’s Magic Aura will make it easy to fool the Pilties.

LEVEL 17 - WIZARD 5

5th level Wizards can learn third level spells: you can already speed up time with Haste but Slow will let you do the opposite to your foes! But if you want to Phase Dive around the battle field some more at risk of glitching out time Blink is the spell for you! "The timeline was already this broken when I found it. I swear."

LEVEL 18 - WIZARD 6

Isn’t it funny how it took this long to get Parallel Convergence’s stun? Momentary Stasis takes an action to force a large or smaller creature to make a Constitution save or be unable to move. The effect ends if they take damage or at the end of your next turn, but that should be plenty of time to either set up or run. You can do this a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier and regain all uses at the end of a Long Rest.

Speaking of stuns: Hold Person from second level will let you stun an enemy for quite awhile, and you can still hit them! But if you want to turn back your opponent’s spells? Good ol’ Counterspell.

LEVEL 19 - WIZARD 7

7th level Wizards can learn 4th level spells: to travel far and get out of danger Dimension Door will let you warp out of the way. If you want some protection from time warping around you Intellect Fortress is an Unearthed Arcana spell that gives resistance to psychic damage, as well as advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws.

LEVEL 20 - WIZARD 8

Our capstone is the 8th level of Wizard for your last Ability Score Improvement: if you want to maximize the effectiveness of your time manipulation increase your Intelligence, but if you want more combat features from Ranger Wisdom will give you more charges for those abilities.

And you can grab your last two free Wizard spells. After this you’ll have to (gasp!) read! For some retributive damage Fire Shield will make you foes think twice about hitting you. But if you want to bring your foes back to the future look no further than Polymorph, to turn people into dinosaurs!

WHAT I DIDN’T USE

Just a quick mention of some of the options I didn’t use for this build, since I think that a lot of questions will be asked about them:

Echo Knight - Sort of the first thing you think of because... you know... Ekko Knight? But truth is that while Ekko gets a time clone for some of his abilities he doesn’t really use the clone to fight? If you want a time fighter that uses clones however I would suggest my Isaac build (Skullgirls)

Divination Wizard - Some people (especially those without Wildemount) might ask why I picked Chronurgy Wizard over Divination. I mean other than the fact that Chronurgy is literally the time Wizard? Well other than that it’s because while you can reverse time you don’t know the outcome of all fights. Adding intelligence to your Initiative also works to simulate Ekko’s speed.

Artificer - Ekko builds his own stuff but put bluntly none of the Artificers really fit his abilities. He doesn’t make potions, doesn’t have a robot dog, definitely doesn’t have a gun, and certainly doesn’t have an Iron Man suit. (That’s on Viktor!)

FINAL BUILD

PROS

This is how we say “hello” in Zaun - You aren’t exactly the most damaging combatant, but you have tons of tricks to up your DPS, all while keeping safe yourself.

Show me something new! - Investing in both mental stats means you’ve got some really good skills. 24 passive perception, anyone?

One more time! - Who would’ve guessed the ability to rewind time would be a lifesaver? Five rerolls per day, three of which you can pick the result from means that you should never be rolling bad. And you aren’t even a Halfling!

CONS

Good a time as any to act reckless - Double the spellcasters means that you can’t get the best of both stats. While it isn’t a big deal since most of your spells are buffs your low Wisdom score means that you won’t be able to use your Ranger features very often.

That worked in another timeline - Wizard levels and a neutral Constitution score means that your health is subpar to say the least. Rewinding won’t save you from Power Word Kill.

I need to rethink a couple things - In order to get Momentary Stasis we had to skip over Spectral Defense from Horizon Walker level 15. Truthfully while Momentary Stasis is nice for a stun you would’ve been far better off further honing your combat skills: the extra Rewinds from Chronurgy 2 was already more than enough of a boost.

But Zaunites know how to work with what they’ve got. Make the best out of a bad situation and use your wit to outsmart any foe! And maybe chat with the Rogues and the Fighters to see if they’d like some time to be Bards? If you move too fast it’ll be like moving in slow-mo.

(Artwork by Riot Games)