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

[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.

[SannaR]

Aoes are both a game mechanic and a thing we see because of the echo according to Koji from a lore panel.

[Ryphen]

Aoes are both a game mechanic and a thing we see because of the echo according to Koji from a lore panel.

NPCs in solo duties always standing in AoEs makes so much more sense now.

[gumas]

NPCs in solo duties always standing in AoEs makes so much more sense now.

yup, when i first saw it i though "cant they at least make the npc a bit smarter?" then i saw the lore description and "oh.. ooh i see"

[Anonymoose]

If I may, I would like to request a specification of which lore panel Koji said that in and wherein.

I see people make the claim (that AoE indicators are the Echo) all the time, but that's the closest I've seen anyone come to a citation. I know some RP groups like to act as though it's true, but preference of assumption isn't canon. I'm a little worried someone just took his joke about Leviathan too literally, lol.

Koji
The Company of Heroes didn't have the Echo, so, basically, what they did was try to overwhelm with numbers. They would go into these battles with sometimes hundreds of soldiers. And you'd have the different waves, and the first wave would go in, Leviathan would be like [sweeping arm motion] BSHHHHHH, they would all be tempered, turn around, fight the second wave, these guys would kill each other, and the third wave would come in... and they would... see the... [making a triangle shape with his fingertips] On the ground? The shining cone? That shows like, "I'm gonna temper?" And they would run out of the way. [Koji grins at Matt, crowd laughs] and then temper would come down [Matt rubs his head in feigned frustration] and those guys would fight and it would be over! So basically, I don't know if you could see the cone...

Matt
I don't...know if that's... [shaking his head]

Koji
But! That's the thing. They knew about the tempering, they knew they'd lose a lot of people, so they'd go, overwhelm with numbers, the remaining few that made it through those first three waves would fight, and there'd be like two or three people. I think there's even some text quest that mentions it. They'd go in with massive numbers, they'd get wiped out, two or three guys would come back, take all the credit for it, take all the money, and drink it away. [laughter]

And the worst part is that even in that joke, it was people he just confirmed didn't have the Echo that were seeing cone.

Are there any other citations? Like, this feels kinda like the Fantasia joke, right?

Even on Earth, people have the opportunity to change who they are – cut their hair, get a facelift, find a new career or a different spouse – but we often aren’t willing to make those drastic life changes. Fantasia gives you the courage to make the changes you’ve always wanted to make. Maybe you are Lalafell trapped in a Roegadyn’s body, it’s time to break out! And all you needed was that courage in a phial!

Could we say that, canonically, Koji Fox has confirmed that race and gender changes are a direct result of one's current level of courage?

Edited the quote into the OP; thank Sounsyy for saving that one, lol.

[SannaR]

I want to say he was asked about the echo and our ability to see aoe markers sometime after the whole Foredola dodges Alisiae's attacks scene was known of by the player base. Since in game we come to the conclusion that she has to have the echo somehow in order to dodge the semi new attacks and attack style of a red mage and pull off the counter attack that injured Alisiae.

[Anonymoose]

I want to say he was asked about the echo and our ability to see aoe markers sometime after the whole Foredola dodges Alisiae's attacks scene

The Fordola scene definitely hasn't made this situation any better, lol.

Urianger
I surmised that Fordola may be possessed of a preternatural ability to divine meaning from the fluctuations of an individual’s aether, and to instinctively react. To employ a metaphor, one might say that she was attuned to the whispers of my lady Alisaie’s soul.

I had read this as him catching onto that Krile's ability to see aetherial traces with the Echo was copied onto her.
Aetherial Trace Reading + Intention Reading = Limited Foresight of Next Incoming Attack.

[Yshnal]

The Fordola scene definitely hasn't made this situation any better, lol.

I had read this as him catching onto that Krile's ability to see aetherial traces with the Echo was copied onto her.
Aetherial Trace Reading + Intention Reading = Limited Foresight of Next Incoming Attack.

But didn't Zenos also get his Resonance from Krile's Echo? Yet his skills were different from Fordola's. That's why I think that due to the Resonance being "copied" from another user's Echo, it passes on only one or a couple of (but not all) it's potential benefits, not just the actual skill that the Echo user can "control" -or has awakened, so to speak- at the moment. Or maybe due to the new user not being a natural Echo user, they can just receive a limited version, probably depending on the capabilities of their physical body or soul. Either way, and unless I'm missing something, what we know seems to fit what I wrote earlier in my previous post. However, we really know nothing about the true nature of the Echo, after all.

[ObsidianFire]

We don't know when Zenos got his Resonance or who he got it from. If he got it after Fordola did, then I'd say it's very probable his Resonance is a copy of Krile's Echo. If he got his Resonance before Fordolad did, then I'd say it's very probably his Resonance isn't a copy of Krile's which begs the question of whose Echo he copied.

Personally, I think it's the latter scenario. Fordola's Resonance is like Krile's Echo if it was in overdrive and it goes off randomly. We don't see Zenos having any kind of back-story flashes or random attacks of empathy. We do see him unknowingly using the Resonance to posses bodies which from what we've so far seen isn't a normal use of the Echo either.

[Anonymoose]

Zenos's Resonance is complicated because there's evidence both ways.

On the one hand, it looked like he was using magicks as far back as Rhalgr's Reach. On the other, the instant he gets the call that Shinryu has been found, he leaves Doma and orders the capture of Krile, which looked like he was acquiring the final key to the primal merge.

When Aulus first introduces Fordola to the Resonance apparatus, he describes it not as a way for Garleans to obtain the Echo specifically, but magicks in general.

For all we know, Zenos had it done twice, once before the story started and once right before Fordola (or right after if Aulus convinced Zenos to do a test run). Thus we can't be sure what the combined effects would be. What is Zenos + Magicks + Krile Echo in tandem? We don't know. For all we know, that's why both of his eyes are Resonate-y but only one of Fordola's is.