James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
The Echo Knight seems to only exist so people can say "What do you mean Fighter's are subpar? You can be an Echo Knight which is busted powerful!", lol.
D&D 5E The Fighter/Martial Problem (In Depth Ponderings)
- Thread starter Zardnaar
- Start date
As much as it can be fixed while being backward compatible and not invalidate old books.
That's the core problem. The 5e fanbase bought books designed with the preferences of the not5e fanbase. They want new design but not to have their purchased books turned obsolete.
The fanbase want a whole new fighter core class but have the notcore and 3PP fighter subclasses to be unaltered.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
It is by a fair shot the most "extra" of the WotC fighters. Unsurprisingly not made by a WotC staffer.
Echo knights are good if you want to play a 100% melee combat fighter, but they are not busted, nor the most powerful subclass overall. I think that would go to Eldritch Knight or Rune Knight.
The other thing with Echo Knight is they really lean towards a fighter heavily optimized for a melee playstyle and they are good at it, but if you are going to specialize in one type of combat it is better to specialize in ranged combat and because of this you can play an Arcane Archer or Rune Knight and be better both in and out of combat because the subclass abilities synergize with ranged combat better and ranged combat is better than melee combat.
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James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
I mean, I haven't seen one played, just heard people go on about how potent teleport, an additional 2 attacks per turn, and the ability to scout ahead with little real cost is for a Fighter. If you've seen it in play and didn't come away with the impression that it's perfectly fine, I won't argue with you.
But it seems a lot better than most of the other Fighter subclasses. As for Arcane Archer, that's a subclass I have seen, and I feel they get too few uses of Arcane Shot- but to be fair, that was in a public play game where you got few chances to take a short rest, so you'd have to space out 2 uses of Arcane Shot for 3-4 battles often.
fluffybunbunkittens
Hero
I think this is the biggest feature to keep in mind. They have unlimited uses of Misty Step. That's a strong class feature (even if pretty much everyone is given Misty Step in some form these days).
I don't think Echo free attacks should be in a class that already gets Action Surge, just because it looks messy... but getting a few free basic attacks per day aren't that likely to rock the boat. A nova Battle Master would do more in that first turn, every encounter.
To be fair, anyone with a familiar can also do that (it's a ritual). The game just doesn't seem to care about scouting ahead being its own thing.
Which is more of an indictment of the other subclasses. After 10 years, we still have just Battle Master and Rune Knight? Echo is differently able, but it's about on the same level with them.
Unleash Incarnation gives you 1 extra attack per turn a number of times equal to Constitution. You really need to drive Constitution high to make this work, which really puts you into a very combat focused build.
At 18th level you get additional uses if you are out when you roll initiative.
AFAIK it is never 2 extra attacks per turn. Often people combine it with PAM or sentinel and get more attacks that way, but that is really from the feat.
Grasping Arrow is extremely powerful and so is Curving Shot assuming you get Sharpshooter.
It is 2 Arcane Shots per short rest, so that can be very few or it can be a decent amount depending on the table and number of short rests, but Grasping Arrow is powerful enough in play that 2 per day is still going to be a big deal.
If you compare to Echo - with a 18 con Echo is getting 4 extra attacks a day, which might hit or might miss. Grasping Arrow has no save and you only use it on a hit. It is going to give you an average 7 poison, (which isn't great), but it lowers speed by 10 feet, does 2d6 piercing every time they move 1 foot and they need to burn a whole action to attempt to break free of it, the second part of it is huge especially when combined with forced movement. Being able to do that twice a day, even if you never get a short rest, is better than getting 4 or so extra attacks a day IME.
Curving Shot really ups your sharpshooter damage and because it triggers with a miss it "stacks" with advantage.
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Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
I had one in a game. It was quite powerful (though not OP) and annoying to DM for.
fluffybunbunkittens
Hero
It activates when you take the Attack action, so Action Surge activates it a second time, and Haste lets you take the Attack action (for one attack), so that's a third time.
James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
Oh ok, I thought you would get 2 attacks when you have 2 clones going.
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