I'd like to talk about the powerscaling of Zenos vs WoL

[Bright-Flower]

Also the Resonance means that Zenos likely saw and predicted all of our attacks as prey markers and orange ground marked AoE, just like we do for foes we fight.

He never seems to really 'avoid' our attacks though, I don't think he had the same ability Fordola did. Else we would have needed that device to fight him. He just sort of tanks us from what I can tell.

I don't think aoe markers are the echo either, we see them in fights where we're not controlling the WOL as well, I think it's just a game mechanic.

[Yshnal]

He never seems to really 'avoid' our attacks though, I don't think he had the same ability Fordola did. Else we would have needed that device to fight him. He just sort of tanks us from what I can tell.

I don't think aoe markers are the echo either, we see them in fights where we're not controlling the WOL as well, I think it's just a game mechanic.

I think that that's just a simplification for gameplay's sake, to not make the fights harder (or incredibly easy if they had to remove some mechanics). I take it as the controlled NPC's experience or awareness working "almost" like the Echo works for us in battle. Because from what I remember reading somewhere, we actually see all those markers due to the Echo itself (enhanced combat awareness, being able to see some seconds into the future, etc.).

In the end the Echo seems to be a perfect Resonance. That means that, while a Resonant can get specific abilities (from their limited aether manipulation skill), the Echo has the potential to allow us to use them all and maybe more (unlimited aether manipulation). The issue is that we have no damn idea about how to use it to its full strength, nor even know where it actually comes from, as the ascians themselves stated, and that makes us just being able to use it in limited ways that differ for each individual depending on their innate abilities, knowledge, and/or training.