One thing that I really want to stress, but I don't necessary talk about in the video, is how fun the Echo Knight is to play. While Echo Knights are really powerful, the core mechanics of the subclass are a blast to pilot. It is a joy to play and honestly to DM for. Is the Echo Knight the best subclass by far? Yes, but I wouldn't change a thing about it and I think that's the most important thing.

“Where I fall, ten more shall take my place! And one hundred each of them! So strike me down! I am the harbinger!" -Ollanius Pius, Imperial Echo Knight Guardsman Suddenly, he went from speaking figuratively to speaking literally.

I believe this subclass is where martials should be at. twilight/peace/nature clerics, chronogy/divination/blade singer wizards, lore/eloquence bards, hexblade/genie warlocks. all of these are insanely strong and its long time a martial could step up. echo knight made another copy at 18th level? arcane casters using wish for a full simulacrum for double action economy. true polymorph to turn a rock into a young dragon and your friends into adult dragons. when I look at a martials late game abilities I ask "is this really stronger than wish/simulacrum/maze/meteorswarm/prismatic wall/ true polymorph/shapechange or even just basic foresight basic foresight could definitely just be a martial being "in the zone" so they do everything for advantage and everything attacking them has disadvantage, a battlemaster at 17th level should be able to achieve this high level flow state... so here's a bladesinger/hexblade doing martial stuff but better for 8 hours lol. And if we relegated it to just in combat ie 1 min durations 1x per short rest it still just matches stuff like greater invisibility/shadow of moil which can be done by those gish casters at 7th level. The game NEEDS martials like echo knight, bear totem barbarian, and gloomstalker for all the craziness that a (smart player) caster can pull off. love the video tho keep them coming!

So I'm just gonna tell him. At level 3, you can make 4 attacks with Action Surge since Unleash Incarnation can be used once PER attack action. And it only gets worse as you level up.

3:36 Correction: at 3rd level an action surging echo knight makes 4 attacks. Unleash incarnation is once per attack action, so using action surge to take an additional attack action procs unleash incarnation again. You have to use a second charge, but still.

Who’s gonna tell him about the Ghostlance multi class with the hex blade warlock? 😂

For the shadow martyr ability, its not you swapping spots with your shadow its sending your echo to take an attack for "another creature that you can see" 6:02

My concept for when my current chasacter dies its an echo knight ×gloomstalker. From a noble family the one that couldnt use magic, focuses on fighting, your twin a powerful druid, in some tragic event the twin dies protecting you and some of his essence got into you, the echo is not your clone but the spirt of your twin that latched unto you in an attempt to protect you even after death. The extra abilities you get from ranger eventually are abilities your twin had in life, and the longer his soul remains with you more of his abilities and power youll get. I also saw that the echo was just a portal you created to walk through or punch through, thats also pretty cool

When you get around to Ranger and cover Gloomstalker, remember that Gloomstalkers 3rd level ability “Dread Ambusher” will work with an Echo Knight Fighter, allowing for by far the most attacks in a single turn a player can make…till you get a Gloomstalker 3 Samurai 16; which theoretically can do as many or more attacks. If a lot of ranger players leave Gloomstalker by level 3, then assuming you start a level 5 campaign (which isn’t too uncommon), you are one level up away from the balancing disaster of a “Gloomknight/Echostalker”. I’m going to break it down just so anyone can see this madness. At 3rd level Gloomstalker Rangers get the feature “Dread Ambusher”, which will give you a bonus to initiative equal to your wisdom modifier, and states this: “At the start of your first turn of each combat, your walking speed increases by 10 feet, which lasts until the end of that turn. If you take the Attack action on that turn, you can make one additional weapon attack as part of that action. If that attack hits, the target takes an extra 1d8 damage of the weapon's damage type.” Assuming your level 5, combine it with Action Surge on the first round of combat and you get a free 2nd attack for a potential of 3 attacks with any weapon, not bad for someone without extra attack yet. Then you hit level 6, take Echo Knight, and the “Unleash Incarnation” part says the following: “You can heighten your echo's fury. Whenever you take the Attack action, you can make one additional melee attack from the echo's position. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Constitution modifier (a minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.” So now on turn one, if you action surge, you will do a minimum of 6 attacks in one turn (and that’s with me assuming you had to spend a bonus action to summon the echo, otherwise you could get a crossbow expert or Polearm Master attack in too). Then at character level 8 (Ranger 3, Fighter 5) they get extra attack so it becomes 12-13 attacks in one round.

Shadow martyr doesn’t teleport you away from danger, only teleports your echo to you. So you’d still be in melee range when you use it

I really like the echo knight, simple because it is so strong in every direction. Yes other subclasses are strong in there own way, but they all fall short in some regards but the echo knight has next to no flaws and that to me is exciting. Is it potentially too strong? Yes, absolutely, but I've always been in favour of scaling up rather then scaling down. To me, the echo knights where I feel all martial subclasses should be, so as to make up the potential imbalance in a martials ability to affect the world at large. Because while power imbalance might be a myth or blown out of proportion, there is simple no other martial subclass which allows you to affect the fundamentals of the universe like a caster, like the echo knight, which is to me the sticking point in the martial vs caster debate.

The biggest issue I have as a DM with the Echo Knight is that it's... really confusing. The Echo counts as an object, but if it counts as an object that means it doesn't need to make saving throws for a lot of spells, but it should have to make those saves due to the nature of its creation. Like, Catapult says it keeps going until it hits a creature, but Echoes aren't creatures, so RAW it shouldn't hit it, even though RAI it should. It's incorporeal, which means it can't interact with much of anything, but it also occupies its space which implies it has some sense of physicality to it. Spiritual Weapon is similar in many respects, except you can stay in the same space as a Spiritual Weapon, as opposed to Echoes which you can't. According to Crawford it counts as an object, but there's so much about it that doesn't act like your typical object that the only way to handle the rules calling is to just put your foot down eventually. It's a very cool subclass, but I've definitely had more headaches about it than any other subclass I've seen.

also one thing that the scouting gets is that you can swap place with your avatar when its scouting. so if you manage to get into a loot room, you can pop back into normal form, steal all the loot and literally just teleport out

i like how it can give fighters more to do then fighting with the scouting ability's and echo claiming

I'm planning to play this in a campaign already. The character is a reborn of a character I was playing in a previous campaign that died, but was revived by the god of revenge they faithfully served in their previous life. They died as a monk, but without memory of their training they're now a fighter relying on instinct and muscle memory. The echo flavor ties in with being reborn. They learn to project their true self from the body they were revived in. It seems the god of revenge truly wasn't finished with them yet and has strengthened their soul to the point it can physically manifest, which is also why they need no food or sleep as a reborn. (With a muti-class 1 level in barbarian, sometimes the main body might enter a rage and act on its own while the echo acts as the character would.)

The MOST fun I've ever had playing a character was three levels of Echo Knight on a Bladesinger Wizard build. Ping-ponging around the battlefield, melee swinging from Echo's location, while my squishy self was safe and sound at range.

Here after Kim chose this for her Nova character in high rollers. What a badass

Great synopsis for this subclass! Yes, it powerful, though I’ll say this, any DM worth a damn who plays any premade adventure by rules as written and who is expecting that adventure to be balanced to a group of 3-6 characters (about the average for most groups I’ve ever played in), well then they are highly misunderstanding the creativeness of any average group of gamers, and that they as DM’s are not themselves also taking advantage of what their greatest strength of being a DM is… simply put… understanding that all you really need to do to challenge the characters is to know what your players action economies are, predict their abilities and movements, and then capitalize on their weaknesses by preparing proper encounters to exploit their weaknesses. By knowing the weaknesses in their parties makeup’s and knowing that they as the DMs are the ones controlling the story, the pace, and the total number of action economies on the field that they can bring to properly counter the party is truly the key to challenging and half way decent group of players. “To beat the devil, you have to be the devil!”, if you want another simple golden rule, then always tell yourself this as both when your the player and also when your the DM, “What’s good for the goose is also good for the gander.” Throw echo knights back at the party sometime, and watch them go crazy! Use the parties abilities against them. Be the better monster that the party needs you to be as the DM, and good at building encounters that can infuriate your party of munchkins! Anyway bud! Great video, keep up the good work! I could go into hundreds of scenarios where the echo knight isn’t the end all to be all, as I’ve played 3 different versions of them thur far as a player myself. But yeah it’s both fun and also infuriating to fight against as a player as well. Cheers! 🍻😎🌴

I love this subclass. Such a simple machanical idea, so much room for player creativity. I dont like any other MM classes or subclasses but the Echo Knight is genius.

In our Campaign right now we were allowed to rework our characters a bit to compensate the loss of a player. Of course that ment we players tried to keep our core character concepts in tact... so my gloomstalker melee got a few tweeks... and now with 3 level ranger and 5 level echo knight my guy dishes out 8 attacks the first round and doing some nice bonus damage thanks to hunters mark and all attacks with advantage in the dark... my Dm loves and hates the monster I created.😅

My echo knight was also a Dhampire (looks like a tiefling) and abused the sentinel feat. the bite’s bad damage made it more balanced, but as a con focused character I just would never die…

I'm playing a Changeling Echo Knight/Wild Card Sorcerer Multiclass with Dissociative Identity Disorder and my party loves her. I flavored my Echos as the other personalities manifesting in really. So it's like I'm playing 2 characters at once in real time

I've been playing a DEX based dual rapier Sea Elf Echo Knight in Rime of the Frost Maiden for a couple years now. We hit level 9 recently. I've been enjoying every second of it. We used to have a paladin, rogue, fighter, druid, and wizard. Due to life obligations and RP elements the paladin was replaced with barbarian and rogue replaced with bard. The group comp seems better now since the changes. Either way, this subclass is a blast to play.

honestly, the only stipulation I ever feel the need to put on echo knights is limiting the uses of the bonus action spawn effect per long rest (usually tied to the proficiency bonus) - allows all the fun stuff, but keeps "power gamers" from being tempted to exploit it as much outside of battle. That said, session zeroes are important. And while you can teleport to your shadow - Shadow Martyr only brings your shadow to the creature being attacked, it doesn't move you, and it has to be a targeted attack (so breath weapons, wouldn't work)

Had a situation with a hyper-fast flying enemy like 100ft or something away and 50ft in the air in near death HP territory. Run 30ft + Dash 30ft + Summon Echo 15ft (diagonal up) + Move Echo 30ft (diagonal up) + 10ft Reach (diagonal up) = 115ft horizontal, 50ft vertical "range" Then Action Surge to make 2 attacks, Unleash Incarnation for +1 attack to confirm the kill Echo then disappears due to bring further than 30ft from player character

This my personal favorite fighter subclasses you feel like a one man army with this sub and this is why i love fantasy games

this is a fighter subclass that can make you feel not that bad compared to spellcasters IN COMBAT. But in non combat situation where you have to fix things that are without combat, it's still lacking because welp all i can do is whack things pretty much. And also it's not *that* broken, like wizards exist. Clerics exist. in a fully optimised party, the echo knight can hold their ground in combat but they arent stronger than your spell casters

I have a Archery Fighting Style Crossbow Expert + Sharpshooter Echo Knight that throws nets as the main attack action and follows up with the bonus hand crossbow attack with advantage (from net). This combo isn't as efficient as a one man army, but it does allow the rest of my team to take advantage of a netted opponent. Sharpshooter's extended range works for nets too allowing me to throw nets from 15ft away without disadvantage. Flavor points - Rather than a "shadow self" my DM allowed me to use a "shimmer" and I treat my echo as a watery reflection of my sailor themed fighter.

Think this evaluation/video could've used another once over. Theres been a bit of a misunderstanding about the 10th level feature, which doesnt in fact teleport you away. Also, the 15th level feature onky applies temp hp if you don't already have temp hp, unlike other temp hp sources, which can lead to much wasted hp. I've also found the 18th level feature to be not that great. You can threaten more spaces, but without extra reactions, thats not much. And splitting up your attacks is mechanically horrible. All in all its a STRONG subclass, but not THAT strong. Ps. Take the Sentinel feat. 😈

I love the flavor of an ancestral guardian/echo knight. Tank and spank!

How about being a Plasmoid Echo Knight? You could flavour the echo as you just splitting and becoming two, like cells do.

In relation to spellcasting, I see this as perfectly balanced.

For anyone familiar with Dark Souls 2, I've always wanted to play Lucatiel as a Githyanki, whose brother is lost somewhere on the Astral Sea. But he keeps showing up when Lucatiel is in-trouble a la, a summoned phantom in Dark Souls and in this case as the Echo Knight's Manifest Echo.

Honestly its about time martilas got some good stuff. Matt mercer has created both the echo knight which is much closer to being on par with spellcasters and the bloodhunter, which is quite strong. It's about time we got strong martials.

There is a multiclass warlock / echo knight called a Ghostlance that is so different from any other class. Pack Tactics did a really good video on it.

so many save effects trigger when a creature is in that area or touches that item - just an echo grabbing it and disappearing bc damage destroys it and suddenly the players are always completely safe

My idea of a echo would be that the pc is shadow can take a physical form, or that a ghost or spirit/soul is the echo.

I love this class, but I feel the later abilities pale in comparison to Manifest Echo. 7th level Echo Avatar sounds useful on paper and it can be, but remember anytime you're using it for scouting and don't want to be noticed, you have a medium sized shadow that looks like a human flying around that will be noticed. So while it can go much farther than a familiar, people will notice a shadow humanoid much more than they'd notice an owl or a rat. So not the best at being stealthy or inconspicuous. 10th level Shadow Martyr is also pretty weak, by 10th level it can protect against 1 attack per short rest and that attack isn't even a guaranteed hit. This means you can use your reaction to protect a Wizard but then if the creature rolls a nat 1, you protected nothing, and if the creature has multi attack then it can still keep going at the Wizard since the Echo only prevents 1 attack whether it hits or misses. It should have at least allowed you to send it against a guaranteed hit, or if not, allowed you to use it Constitution modifier amount of times per short or long rest. 15th level ability is decent, 2d6 plus Con Temp hit points at that level isn't amazing, anyone with Inspiring Leader will give better but at least you can keep replenishing every time your echo dies so pretty decent. 18th level is great but not many are going to get that far. Of course comparing it with some abilities like 7th level Battle Master then I suppose all of them are great lol

To be honest you can make 4 attcaks at level 3. As unleash incarnation says when you take an attack action. So take attack action do 1 attack, do unleash incarnation and then do action surge take another attack action and then unleash incarnation again flr total of 4 attacks

I wish this class could work with Ranged attacks, because then I could play Lucky Luke and literally shoot faster than my own shadow. Mostly because I think that would be very funny.

I had an Echo Knight on my table once... He made encounters trivial -Tried to wall in the party behind a wall of force and he just created the echo outside of it, switched places and killed the wizard thus ending the wall -Lower intelligence monsters would attack the echo, miss most of the time, but when they actually hit it was all for nothing, just a wasted action and the action economy was broken -He would teleport into the air to attack flying monsters -He would Action Surge and have his echo attack too making 7 attacks and killing my tougher baddies -It was impossible to pin him down with effects like web and such, he would just switch with the echo -And the scouting... he didnt use it that much, but man, when he did it was super frustrating Well to be honest everyone in that party was OP af, except for the cleric

It's my mane in a video 😊😊😊😊🎉🎉🎉🎉

If you multiclass your Echo Knight to be a subclass with a companion, then when you summon your Echo does your Echo have an Echo companion? Like a Ranger Beast Master with animal companion. Casters with a familiar inherently tied to them? Or in my case, I'm building a potential Echo Knight/Artificer Battle Smith that has a Steel Defender. The companion is an integral part of the class. In my case, the concept in this - Warforged, so my character appears as a construct. His steel defender is a construct humanoid and same size/build, and it looks like him (except less gear of course). It looks at first glance like there are 2 of me. Then I summon an Echo. Now with my echo there, it looks like there seems to be 3 of me. Or... does my Echo have its inseparable companion Steel Defender also, in which case it now looks at first glance like there are 4 of me? The real me, my Steel Defender, my Echo, and my Echo's Steel Defender? I have searched online and cannot seem to find ANY place that even begins to address this. A pleasure to meet you; I am Buzzby "the Several."

Echo Knight is probably the only Fighter Subclass that can truly match up to full casters. They can attack more, they have insane utility (at 7th level, when the Echo is 1000ft away from you, you can teleport to it using 15ft of movement. Crazy as hell.), you can stay away from melee combat, you can gain great temporary health consistently, and at 18th level, you can do it all twice as well. Sure, a caster will beat this in terms of AOE, Utility (bunches of spells), but this gives more uses of its utility features (infinite), and makes the fighter better at what it is doing (hitting stuff for good damage and being a frontliner).

the number of uses of the echo should've really been limited to maybe the proficiency bonus. This would still make this class pretty powerful in most fights, but not as absurd as whatever this is.

I have a campaign currently on hiatus that has a Wildfire Druid, a Moon Druid, an Echo Knight Fighter, a Life Cleric, and a Berserker Barbarian with stupid high rolled stats. They've steamrolled most stuff so far (although that is by design since the campaign involves the subtle manipulations by Devils).

Playing my echo fighter was fun even multiclassing my dm felt I was playing malenia blade of mickla

May i just say... STANDO POWAAAA!!!!

so if you just limited the number of times you can manifest echo and teleport to your echo then this becomes balanced? just do like a number of times equal to your con or prof bonus per short or long rest?

Echo Knight plus Sentinel made my DM cry blood.

My Echo Knight hunys Demon, Djinns, Genies etc, and is possesed by a Ronnin Oni that's slowly taking over her mind without her knowing. The Oni posses the mind of anyone who takes pride in destroying him until he finaly takes over their consciousness. Stole it from 40k 😄

What nerfs would you suggest to make it not quite OP? I wonder if unleash incarnation should be changed to prod bonus times per day, or maybe moved to a higher level, like the same level as the scouting feature.

I love the concept of multiclassing an Astral Self Monk with an Echo Knight Fighter to effectively give yourself a Jojo Stand. 😂 Also, technically speaking, I think an Astral Self Monk lvl.17 + Echo Knight Fighter lvl.3 Is capable of making the most melee weapon attacks possible in a single turn. At maximum, a Samurai Fighter can make 9 attacks in one turn using Rapid Strike and Action Surge. Meanwhile an Echo Knight's Unleash Incarnation can be used when you make an attack action, not limiting it to once per turn. So if you're an Astral Self Monk lvl.17 + Echo Knight Fighter lvl.3, you can attack 3 times for your attack action thanks to Astral Barrage, then Unleash Incarnation for another attack. Then, you Action Surge for 3 more attacks, and Unleash Incarnation once again. That brings us up to 8 attacks in one turn. Then, we use our bonus action to Flurry of Blows for an additional 2 attacks. Making for a total of *10 attacks* in one turn (11 if you're hasted). Make all of those attacks from your Echo while you stand back with your arms crossed, and you're really living that Stand user fantasy. Equip this build with the legendary Gloves of Soul Catching, and you're ready to kill gods. (Edit: Quick correction. A level 20 Echo Knight can actually make more attacks in one turn. With 4 attacks from the attack action, 4 attacks from Action Surge, 2 attacks from Unleash Incarnation, and 1 bonus action attack from two weapon fighting. Totalling at 11 attacks.)

Technically at 3rd level you’re making 4 attacks with action surge it’s not limited to once per turn it’s ANY time you take the attack action.

"It's broken!" Now give them a bow and Lucky Feet

Now you say that it's a nightmare for a DM, I say it's perfect BBEG material. BBEG has a party of Echo Kights. All of whom are mini bosses who are slightly stronger than the last one. BBEG is 20th level.

I'm actually in a campaign with an echo night. Yes it is quite powerful but it could still be taken down if you know what you're doing as our echo night has almost died several times

In my humble opinion, we should remove the limited charges of unlwash incarnation to better balance echo knight to full casters

With echo avatar you can also teleport on the position of your echo, so you can walk an entire dungeon, teleport, your echo dies and then you can resummon it next turn, you gain flanking against the BBEG then you manage to pummel it to the ground with an action surge and unleash incarnation, congrats you're probably doing 5d12+25 damage. Congrats! Your DM hates you now. Congrats you need no party anymore. I just love it for the flavor, power, utility and everything else, you're magnificent in almost everything you do all alone. As a DM I have learnt to love to hate it. An enemy kills the echo, happiness.jpeg, realises the Fighter is 30ft away and you already used your attack action, then it realises the fighter can also summon them infinitely while staying 30ft away.

So, this class is just Dante's Doppelganger style from Devil May Cry 3 made into a class.

“Echo knight the shit out of everything”

Add boots of speed and a potion of speed...

Imagine you play Samuro from Heroes of the Storm. There, i gave you a player character idea. Have fun (not you DMs 😂)

Rangers next? Gloom Stalker OP? Really love these by the way.

1 aoe

Ban the subclass?!? I have to respectfully disagree. The echo knight IS very powerful as a fighter, but in no way unbeatable. It still outgunned by full casters, and it can get completely dropped if it fails a save at the wrong moment. Additionally, all of it's features need the echo to be manifested to be used. A bad initiative roll and it's getting rocked real fast. Also, if you want to use all of it's features with full synergy, you have to build your character for melee combat. So closing the gap against archers/ranged attackers can be a problem at any level. If anything, all martial classes, including the monk, need to be this powerful in their own unique way.

I would say bladesinger wizard beats out echo knight point for point You will NEVER feel weak as a blade singer, you get 9th level spells which no amount of attacks or echos are gonna compete with, huge ac and if you make it to level 18 the game is won, there is NO more game to play when wizards hit lvl 18 and up

My only thought about this awesome, yet Overpowered character class, is to power it down to this; you can summon an Echo Knight as many times per long (Or short rest) rest as your character has proficiency bonus. Duration you can have it up to 1 minute each. But that is my humble opinion.

RAW ...it would be stronger...You can teleport 1,000 feet. I don't play that way... but....

Honestly this is why I don't include CR stuff in my game. Besides not watching or listening to any of it I think CR stuff creates such a wild imbalance it's almost stupid not to take it and it just getting boring always seeing it. Like new setting backgrounds that give away free magic, which I always have a player take and it's always "I was there for year but then I ran away but I get these things."

15 level and the fighter only took maybe 40 damage? how? is the dm new and doesnt know how to balance encounters? is he still throwing you goblins? did the fighter was just lucky and barely got hit with weak attack? is the fighter a range fighter? at 15 lvl 30 to 40 damage is what you can expect if you succeded an aoe saving throw without resistance of that damage. or maybe im wrong and i have a dm that constantly throws us tougher enemies, he does tell us to have a backup character.

Echo knight is literally just Talion from Shadow of War

As a DM, I hate it.

two barbarians doesnt sound like a bad idea lmao

Just like to point out that there's a difference between "good" and "powerful" This subclass is absurdly powerful, which I don't think is good. It may be fun to play, but it's not fun for your DM to play around and it's also not fun for all your allies to do all they can just to see you do more.

Broken combo.. warforged gunslinger multi subed into echo knight... devastating

am i the only dm that looks at this subclass and thinks " easy to deal with" so it isnt a problem? just me? ok.

I think I'm not a huge fan of this class... Sounds too OP, even as a player. If you had one in your party and they are just smashing every foe you come across that wouldn't be much fun for the rest of us would it. However... A Monk with a dash of Echo Knight, that could be interesting.

I played an Echo Knight/Gloomstalker once. Worst DnD decision of my life as a player. Do not give Echo Knights more attacks, omg! I had a blowgun that literally did 1 damage and I felt absolutely broken! That's not fun for me. I'm gonna try to play my next Echo Knight very differently. I feel like the subclass has the potential to not be busted if you just don't be a dink with it. Just because you can do some insanely busted combos, doesn't mean you should. Discretion is definitely advised.

Bit of missinfo here. You can't martyr yourself, only others, so that whole wall echo thing he talked about several times doesn’t exist. The scouting isn't that good. The echo can't open doors or even stealth.

Two levels of Barb...18 Echo...

hexblade multiclasses are still worse... i think

Great Class, could use A LOT more limitations. It’s just another broken home brew. I’m guilty of this.

ABSOLUTELY Ban this subclass! Why the heck is this not a Monk? then it may be ballanced.