Critical Role Echo Knight is Wildemount's Most Popular Subclass

D&D Beyond shared some stats about the things people are using from Explorers Guide to Wildemount. These are stats from 28 million characters.

 

[Parmandur]

It doesn't "edge out" Invoke Duplicity. It destroys it by comparison. Invoke Duplicity is something a 3rd level Trickery cleric can do once per long rest, and it lasts a minute. The echo knight's duplicate can be summoned an infinite amount of times, as a bonus action, and lasts forever until destroyed (whereupon it can be re-summoned next round, as a bonus action).

That's not the correct comparison: it should be directly compared to the Champions extended critical range, which looks right.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It is a strange beast, an online character builder that is somehow even worse than what we had a decade ago in 4e with DDI. It doesn't facilitate online play at all, so you still need a VTT, which already have built in character sheets that work better than D&D Beyond.

When did you last actually use the D&D Beyond sheets in an actual game? Because if it was like, years ago, I can understand you take. At the beginning, it was kind of dreadful and yes worse than the 4E character sheets in the DDI.

Now? No. The character sheets work superbly. It's improved a huge amount. Don't write it off because of past experienced.

To use Beyond for online play, you get the Beyond20 extension for Chrome, and the DM can then have it feed data in directly to Roll20. Like, I adjust my HP on beyond, it goes down on Roll20. This isn't theoretical. I did this yesterday. To roll something, you click on it. To have advantage/disadvantage you either click twice, or better you click on the Beyond20 icon, switch rolls to the appropriate one, then click on the other thing.

 

[Mistwell]

To use Beyond for online play, you get the Beyond20 extension for Chrome, and the DM can then have it feed data in directly to Roll20. Like, I adjust my HP on beyond, it goes down on Roll20.

OOOh I didn't know about this! Here I've been using two tabs and just updating both as I go! Thanks for the tip.

 

[Parmandur]

So you're not acknowledging the effort that goes into providing evidence that a class has issues, nor agreeing that you wouldn't just walk away or dismiss the evidence if I provided it? Ok, well it's clear that you aren't actually looking for reasoned criticism of the classes.

Also, you didn't answer any of my other questions, nor did you comment on the spells. You certainly cannot, in good faith, claim that the subclasses are "balanced" without looking at those spells. I admit you said you "bet" not that they "were" (I'm not going to put words in your mouth here), but I feel this is a bit of a silly position.

Real play examples, please, not theorycraft. After since years, I have yet to see any of these sorts of assertions about balance pan out in reality.

And no, critting on a 19/20 is not remotely as useful to an intelligent player as this is. I feel like you know this.

It's extremely powerful whether the player is intelligent or not: going from a 5% crit chance to 10% crit chance EVERY SINGLE TIME for a Fighter is simply gigantic, and honestly every other Fighter Subclass suffers compared to that power curve. That you would not acknowledge that is a large part of why I doubt your instinctual assessment of power levels.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Real play examples, please, not theorycraft. After since years, I have yet to see any of these sorts of assertions about balance pan out in reality.

Oh wow.

You literally dismissed a real-play account that they were overpowered, and now you're claiming you'll only take real-play accounts? Wow. Just wow. That is genuinely incredible and blatant hypocrisy, and really proves what I'm saying about people who "want examples" not actually wanting examples.

Otherwise you need to go back and accept that the real-play account given upthread is worth far more than your theory that they're "fine".

Wow though. Astonishing.

It's extremely powerful whether the player is intelligent or not: going from a 5% crit chance to 10% crit chance EVERY SINGLE TIME for a Fighter is simply gigantic, and honestly every other Fighter Subclass suffers compared to that power curve. That you would not acknowledge that is a large part of why I doubt your instinctual assessment of power levels.

I'm well aware of the math, but you just said "real play examples only", and I can say from my real play experience that Champions is are not as possible to leverage as, say, Battlemasters, nor will they be as possible to leverage as this. Math is irrelevant to you, apparently, given you want "real play examples" though. Also, dude, you just said half-orc dual-wield champion was the way to go, and brother, that ain't so.

Casting aspersions on others when you've just said that is pretty funny.

 

[Parmandur]

Oh wow.

You literally dismissed a real-play account that they were overpowered, and now you're claiming you'll only take real-play accounts? Wow. Just wow. That is genuinely incredible and blatant hypocrisy, and really proves what I'm saying about people who "want examples" not actually wanting examples.

Otherwise you need to go back and accept that the real-play account given upthread is worth far more than your theory that they're "fine".

Wow though. Astonishing.



I'm well aware of the math, but you just said "real play examples only", and I can say from my real play experience that Champions is are not as possible to leverage as, say, Battlemasters, nor will they be as possible to leverage as this. Math is irrelevant to you, apparently, given you want "real play examples" though. Also, dude, you just said half-orc dual-wield champion was the way to go, and brother, that ain't so.

Casting aspersions on others when you've just said that is pretty funny.

Not hypocrisy, I literally don't see the post in question...?

My real play experience is that the Champion is the most effective character I've seen.

A Two-weapon Champion gets more attacks, hence more criticals. Half-Orcs get more hit dice every time they critical. It's not necessary for an effective Champion, but it is good synergy.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Not hypocrisy, I literally don't see the post in question...?

My real play experience is that the Champion is the most effective character I've seen.

A Two-weapon Champion gets more attacks, hence more criticals. Half-Orcs get more hit dice every time they critical. It's not necessary for an effective Champion, but it is good synergy.

Oh. It's first post in the chain you responded to, the second post in the thread

Yes it's a lovely synergy, but don't be dissing my ability to know optimization stuff when you're literally describing a fairly middle-of-the-pack optimization as your example, is what I'm saying. You can a lot better than that with Champion.

Thing is, with "real play", I agree Champions reliably do good damage, but they can't leverage it. They can't create or manipulate situations to take advantage of that. They just have to keep trying to hit things and not get prevented from hitting things. My experience is that any class which has abilities that can be leveraged like the Echo Knight's very clearly can be (I can see so many times they would have been insanely killer in the adventure I'm playing most weekends), where smart play and good tactics can make them distinctly more powerful, is going to be extremely powerful, potentially dominating. I don't think Echo Knights are "broken OP", again to be clear, but I do think that they are really at the very top for Fighter subclasses (not in pure DPR, no Fighter subclass except maybe Brute has ever beaten 2H Champions at that AFAIK), but in terms of overall effectiveness, pulling enemy attacks off other targets to attempt to hit their ghost(s), getting enemies to blow AEs to try and deal with them, and so on, as well as doing solid DPR (likely with more opportunity for OAs, and more lockdown on the enemy back line), they're going to be ahead.

 

[Parmandur]

Oh. It's first post in the chain you responded to, the second post in the thread

Yes it's a lovely synergy, but don't be dissing my ability to know optimization stuff when you're literally describing a fairly middle-of-the-pack optimization as your example, is what I'm saying. You can a lot better than that with Champion.

Thing is, with "real play", I agree Champions reliably do good damage, but they can't leverage it. They can't create or manipulate situations to take advantage of that. They just have to keep trying to hit things and not get prevented from hitting things. My experience is that any class which has abilities that can be leveraged like the Echo Knight's very clearly can be (I can see so many times they would have been insanely killer in the adventure I'm playing most weekends), where smart play and good tactics can make them distinctly more powerful, is going to be extremely powerful, potentially dominating. I don't think Echo Knights are "broken OP", again to be clear, but I do think that they are really at the very top for Fighter subclasses (not in pure DPR, no Fighter subclass except maybe Brute has ever beaten 2H Champions at that AFAIK), but in terms of overall effectiveness, pulling enemy attacks off other targets to attempt to hit their ghost(s), getting enemies to blow AEs to try and deal with them, and so on, as well as doing solid DPR (likely with more opportunity for OAs, and more lockdown on the enemy back line), they're going to be ahead.

Yeah, I'm sorry, had totally missed that.

I'm sure better optimization is possible, but it's one option.

The relentless attack is definitely the approach of the Champion, but boy that really works.

I'm not saying the Echo Knight isn't effective, it looks it, but my impression is that it is not more effective as such.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm not saying the Echo Knight isn't effective, it looks it, but my impression is that it is not more effective as such.

I really feel like it's top of the pile for a tactical Fighter. Champion is ahead for pure DPR, though getting your OA more often as Echo Knight seems likely to give you may make it very close or even ahead in real play.

I'm still telling you take a gander at those spells. Magnify Gravity for example, is just outright better than any other first-level AE damage spell. It's 60' range, 2d8 damage (CON save for half) in 10' radius centered on a point you choose (thus making it vastly easier to position than other low-level AE spells), aaaaand it halves the movement (halves, not -10' as you might expect, not even -15', halves) of creatures who fail the save, aaaaand all non-worn objects within the radius require a STR save (spell save DC) to pick up at all.

It wildly outclasses Ice Knife, in that it hits way more squares, doesn't require a creature as a target, and does more damage to boot (you might do 2d6+1d10 on the main target with Ice Knife, but there's no way you're nailing the same number of creatures reliably when they all need to be within 5' of the target, rather than within a 10' radius of a point. And the only other ranged AE spell at 1st level is the Ranger's Hail of Thorns (which is very similar to Ice Knife, except it only does 1d10 damage, not 2d6).

To me it looks very much like the sort of spells that came in, in late 2E, that were just better than older spells of the same level, and tended to have the same "too many effects" deal going on. If you maybe removed the movement reduction entirely and dropped it to 2d6 damage, you might have something. But a massive scaling movement reduction as well as more damage in a bigger area and the rarely-applicable but clearly useful item lockdown thing? Pfffffff. The only mark against it is a CON save, but that's not much worse than DEX at lower levels. Certainly not enough to justify increased radius, damage, ease of positioning, and a really powerful snare.

 

[CleverNickName]

Some people will always claim that "Well in my game it's fine!", no matter how unbalanced or badly-designed something is. That's a fact, and it's something anyone who has discussed RPGs significantly will have seen. The interesting thing is that it's often true - but the reason it's typically is that the player is either restraining themselves voluntarily, or isn't capable of understanding how to leverage what the ability in question is.

Flip that around and say "balanced" and "well-designed", and your statement is still true. People tend to think that the way something works for their table, is the way it works for everyone else's tables (or worse, the way it should work for everyone). Balanced or unbalanced, fun or not fun, etc. It's kind of pointless to argue about feelings and judgment calls like this. (And I'd try to avoid implying that my fellow readers aren't capable of understanding something.)

The way I look at it: the author feels the Echo Knight was balanced. The playtesters felt it was balanced. The editors and publishers felt it was balanced. So it's probably balanced. It sure doesn't feel that way to me, but my feelings are pretty unreliable.