Echo Knight Fighter Build Guide – 2024 Update

For all D&D guides on Nat1gaming, they only use the main sourcebooks (Player’s Handbook, Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything) as well as Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos (mostly for Silvery Barbs) as those tend to be the most commonly used books at tables. Always be sure that if you’re following a guide that you’re adhering to your tables rules about what sourcebooks you are allowed to follow.

Any spell, class, feature, or other game item that is linkable on this website is covered by the 5th edition Open Games License and will be in the Player’s Handbook, but not everything in the Player’s Handbook will be linked to. All other materials that aren’t linked to are from other sourcebooks or aren’t allowed to be linked to per the 5th Edition Open Games License, so please refer to the appropriate sourcebooks for that information.

For the purposes of this guide, it will be assumed that you would not be multiclassing. While multiclassing can be excellent for many of these, this is for those who want to play the build all the way through in the same class. Guides that use multiclassing will be separate from these.

For spellcasters, you may notice substantial overlap between the spell lists of builds with the same base class. This is due to each guide utilizing a generically good spell list and not considering extenuating factors that will influence how you particularly sculpt your spell list. When creating your own spell list, you should take into account the campaign setting, what spells any other party members are capable of casting, potential overlap (ritual spells tend to overlap so it’s rare you need multiple people capable of casting them), or potential shortcomings in the parties total spell list. While this guide can definitely help point you in the right direction for crafting a spell list, you should use your judgement and preferences to figure out what spells make the most sense for your character.

To that end, please refer to the Spell List and Spell Tier list for any substitutions you’d want to make to the build.

If you’re picking Echo Knight, it’s likely because you want the strongest Fighter available. You have a slew of excellent abilities and a lot of options in combat making you a versatile and powerful Fighter. While there isn’t much intrigue for this class from a roleplaying perspective, if you want to feel strong, this is an excellent subclass to pick.

Manifest Echo (Level 3) – S Tier – Your main feature is very good as getting an unlimited number of clones who can let you functionally be in two places at once and teleport as you please is obviously extremely strong.

Unleash Incarnation (Level 3) – B Tier – This will be pretty impactful early as it’s just an extra attack a few times, but it won’t be that special for long. Extra damage is extra damage though.

Echo Avatar (Level 7) – B Tier – Utility skills on Fighters tend not to be great, but this is a very reasonable one! The main issue I have with this ability is that it’s clearly for scouting, but the main advantage of scouting is not alerting your target to your presence which your echo may not be able to do successfully. Still, a scouting ability is always nice.

Shadow Martyr (Level 10) – C- Tier – Potentially stopping one attack can be impactful, even against multiattacking enemies, but only being able to use this every short or long rest really limits how useful this is.

Reclaim Potential (Level 15) – C+ Tier – Free healing when your echo pops, even if it’s a small amount, is nice.

Legion of One (Level 18) – A Tier – Getting two echos to work with and a fresh Unleash Incarnation charge each combat is obviously great.

Species: Goliath (Hill Giant)

Attributes:

Class: Fighter

Class Features: Fighting Style, Second Wind, Weapon Mastery

Skill Proficiencies: Insight and Perception

Background: Farmer (Tough)

Starting Equipment: Warhammer, 10 Javelins, Chain Mail, Shield, Dungeoneer’s Pack, and 38 gp + 50 gp from background

Species: Goliath (Hill Giant)

For any martial character, it’s hard to justify not going for Goliath as the Hill Giant topple is so incredibly good to get advantage on attacks. There are other solid options for species as well like Human for an additional origin feat or Aasimar as they are just generally strong, but Goliath is generally going to be my choice.

Attributes

This is the standard stat distribution for Strength based Fighters as you have maxed out Strength and Constitution, good Wisdom for saving throws, and 10 Dexterity for no AC penalties.

Proficiencies: Insight and Perception

Just excellent skill proficiencies for any character.

Background: Farmer

The best attributes with the best feat for martial characters that care about Strength.

Starting Equipment – Warhammer, 10 Javelins, Chain Mail, Shield, Dungeoneer’s Pack, and 38 gp + 50 gp from background

For the classic “sword and board” fighter, I would take the starting gold and buy this. Any of the one handed d8 weapons would work. but Warhammer has the Push property which is pretty potent and opens up the possibility to take the Crusher feat for even more pushing.

Class – Fighter

Rangers get three abilities to start off with in Fighting Style, Second Wind, and Weapon Mastery.

You get to pick your Fighting Style, and while I would normally pick Protection for those using a Shield, this build wants Defense instead! Since your level three ability, Unwavering Mark, more or less has the Protection fighting style built in, you don’t need to take multiple instances of it. To that end, Defense is the next best fighting style, but Dueling can be a great choice too for those who want to deal additional damage.

Second Wind is a cool feature where, for a bonus action, you can heal yourself a bit. This is obviously great for tough fights when you are running low on health and this not only scales with level, but also gets additional features later on.

Weapon Mastery gives you the Mastery property of three weapons, and I would recommend the Warhammer, Javelin, and any weapon of your choice. While you will get more and more weapon masteries as you level up, you will realistically only ever need a few to make your build work.

Level 2

Class Features: Action Surge, Tactical Mind

Level 2 brings two new features with Action Surge and Tactical Mind.

The Fighter is one of the most popular multiclass options in D&D, and Action Surge is a huge reason why. While you can only use this once every short or long rest (twice at 17), getting an additional action almost always means a whole new slew of attacks. Even at level 2, this is a powerful ability, but once you get multiple Extra Attacks, this becomes an extremely powerful feature that can dole out an obscene amount of damage. In a pinch, this can be used for other actions such as Dash as well which adds to the power and utility of this ability.

Tactical Mind is a neat new feature that allows you to use a Second Wind charge to reroll a failed ability check with a bit of a bonus. While this won’t come up too often, this is a nice feature to have for particularly important ability checks.

Level 3

Class: Echo Knight

Class Features: Manifest Echo, Unleash Incarnation

Manifest Echo is an ability with a lot packed into it, but here are the basics.

You can use your bonus action to manifest an “echo” within 15 feet of you which has an AC of 14+PB, 1 health, and immunity to all status conditions. It has your stats for saving throws and it has to stay within 30 feet of you or it’ll be destroyed, and as a free action, can move up to 30 feet on your turn. While not stated by the ability implicitly, this echo counts as an object rather than a creature, so spells and abilities that affect creatures do not affect this echo.

In terms of what this echo can do: you can use your bonus action and 15 feet of your movement to swap places with your echo, you can make an attack from your space or the echo’s, and you can use your echo for opportunity attacks.

This is definitely a lot to keep in mind, but the moral is you have a lot of options once you have this ability as you have strong movement options and greater versatility in combat.

The second ability you get is Unleash Incarnation which lets your echo get an attack in when you use your attack action (limited to your CON modifier). Obviously additional attacks are really powerful at this point, and this doesn’t use any additional resources, but this doesn’t scale the best as this build isn’t going to have a maxed out Constitution score for awhile, and by that point, a few extra attacks per day isn’t going to be that impactful. That being said, this is still a solid ability that you should try and save for tough fights.

Level 4

Feat: Shield Master (STR)

Class Features: None

You get your first feat, and if you are using a shield, you get to grab the excellent Shield Master! This feat is phenomenal as you can potentially knock an enemy down with your attack which is great, especially the more martial allies you have. This whole build loves knocking enemies down as, if you can restrain them with your Channel Divinity before hand, they won’t be able to get up!

Level 5

Class Features: Extra Attack, Tactical Shift

Easily the most exciting feature for martial characters, level 5 brings your Extra Attack! Being able to double your damage output is obviously really strong, but since you’re a Fighter, you’ll eventually get even more attacks on top of this!

Level 5 also brings a new feature with Tactical Shift. Now when you use Second Wind, you can move up to half your speed without provoking an opportunity attack. A heal, disengage, and extra movement? Sign me up!

Level 6

Feat: Sentinel (STR)

Class Features: None

Level 6 brings another feat and you have to pick up Sentinel. While this wouldn’t normally be good unless you are using a Polearm for the additional reach, having an echo that can make opportunity attacks for you makes this feat much stronger than it normally is.

Level 7

Class Features: Echo Avatar

Rather than a combat skill, this is a cool scouting ability that can let you see and hear through your echo and it can travel up to 1000 feet a way without getting destroyed. This isn’t bad as far as scouting abilities go as the echo can fly, but this doesn’t work well if you’re trying to be stealthy as your echo may stick out like a sore thumb. Never the less, I’m never going to be mad at having a free scouting ability.

Level 8

Feat: Mage Slayer (STR)

Class Features: None

You get yet another feat this level, and you can finally get 20 STR with Mage Slayer. Being able to really mess with casters is nice as a martial character, and getting a functional charge of Legendary Resistance? Incredible! A really strong feat that I have most of my martial characters taking.

Level 9

Class Features: Indomitable (x1), Tactical Master

Level 9 brings a base Fighter feature – Indomitable! You can reroll a saving throw that you fail and add your Fighter level on top of it which is extremely powerful. As you climb in levels, this will almost be like a player’s version of Legendary Resistance which is super cool.

Tactical Master is a new ability lets you replace a weapon mastery property when you attack with Push, Sap, or Slow. This is yet another great feature as you may not always want the mastery property on the weapon you happen to be using, so having options is always welcome.

Level 10

Class Features: Shadow Martyr

Shadow Martyr is a decent ability that lets your Echo tank an attack rather than you or an ally only at the cost of your reaction (no range on this ability is pretty strange, it simply stipulates a creature you can see). Unfortunately at this level and beyond, most enemies will be hitting you with multiattacks, but if you really need to protect an ally from a specific attack, this is a great way to do it that doesn’t consume a finite resource. If nothing else, you can yell “Get down Mr. President” every time you use it which should be pretty fun in itself.

Level 11

Class Features: Extra Attack (x2)

Level 11 brings yet another Extra Attack, which like at level 5, is incredibly good.

Level 12

Feat: Constitution to 18

Class Feature: None

You get another feat and it’s time to start buffing your Constitution! More health and better saving throws is a really good investment for your feat.

Level 13

Class Features: Indomitable (x2), Studied Attack

Level 13 brings another charge of Indomitable and a powerful new feature, Studied Attack!

Studied Attack is a super cool feature that, if you miss with one of your attacks against one enemy, you have advantage on your next attack against that same target! Anything that helps you connect with your enemy is always exciting!

Level 14

Class Features: Constitution to 20

Maximizing your Constitution score to get the highest possible health and saving throws is awesome!

Level 15

Class Features: Reclaim Potential

Since your Echo is going to be destroyed constantly, you may as well profit off of it! As long as you don’t have temporary health already, this lets you gain some every time an echo is destroyed (capped at your Con modifier like Unleash Incarnation). While the temporary health isn’t very high, you’ll likely get it over and over making it a pretty reliable source of extra health.

Level 16

Feat: Resilient (WIS)

Class Feature: None

For your final feat, you may as well grab Resilient ()WIS to make your saving throws that much better and make it less likely that you need to use your Indomitable or Mage Slayer charges.

Level 17

Class Features: Action Surge (x2), Indomitable (x3)

More charges for your best base Fighter abilities is obviously excellent.

Level 18

Class Features: Legion of One

Legion of One simply lets you create two echos, doubling how good your base ability is. Obviously, this is very strong as you have double the options now!

Level 19

Epic Boon: Boon of Combat Prowess

Class Features: None

Your Epic Boon choice, as I will pick for every martial character, is the Boon of Combat Prowess. Converting a miss into a hit is functionally getting an Extra Attack, but better, and I will take an additional attack every day of the week.

Level 20

Class Feature: Extra Attack (x3)

Level 20 brings your capstone ability – Extra Attack (x3). No frills, no fuss, just a bunch of attacks which is perfect for a Fighter.