I was divided on the announcement that the Echo buff would follow us into certain instances and Coil, but last night I finally unlocked Duty Roulette (Trials) and happily registered, but then thought, "Oh crap, Titan HM is in this too, right? Well...I guess there are a lot of other trials and most people are entering this with a full party, right? Good thing I'm over-geared, but I really don't think I'll get it..."

Duty pops and of course I get Titan HM.
And naturally the message "One or more members are new to this duty..."

Healer and tanks are raging to go, I say, "we should explain the fight."
"Dodge!"
I start explaining, the healer threatens to leave if we don't start right away, so we start.

Long story short: We wiped three times before killing him.

Now, the Echo Buff will not help people who are, to put it politely, "beyond saving" (though honestly for first-timers on Titan HM they did decently). What it DOES do, is allow the rest of the party to not be dragged to the depths of the seven hells along with the one or two new/bad players. In essence, your damage, heals and endurance are boosted to offset the poor performance of others in your group.

What ended up happening was that no one quit, the experienced players carried the less experienced ones thanks to the Echo Buff (only 2.5 DPS needed to break the heart) and we ended with only one healer, one tank, and one gaoled DPS left standing.*

Without the Echo Buff, I guarantee people would have quit after the first wipe (we didn't even break the heart that time). And in general I wouldn't be shocked to see others drop from the instance the minute that riff starts playing.

Without Echo, the presence of Titan HM would likely break the whole Duty Roulette for Trials, which would screw over the people attempting to pass Cape Westwind, Leviathan HM, and the previously-somewhat-now-totally-outdated King Moogle for story.

So while I'm not quite sure what to think of Echo for EX primals, I'm glad it's available for Trial Duty Roulette, and more specifically Titan HM. Now before this turns into a discussion about "bad" players being carried or handed content on a silver platter...think about it from a more selfish perspective. Do you really want to "insta-lose" by rolling Titan HM in Duty Roulette? Do you want to waste up to an hour waiting for a queue, 15 minutes wiping to no avail, then having to requeue for another hour to maybe get placed in yet another doomed Titan HM?

So yeah, Echo buff gets an A from me as far as DR Trials go.

*"But what happened to you?!" -- I died with Titan at like 0.5% health to tumults. Understandably, the healer was occupied with solo healing tank etc.