The Echo Arena is player-versus-player without the waiting. Every player has an echo — a stored snapshot of their fighting build, base stats and equipped gear folded together exactly as a live duel would fold them — and you climb a rating ladder by fighting other players’ echoes, any time, whether or not they are online. Open it from the Combat menu.

How a bout works

• Pick an opponent from the list of echoes near your rating and fight it as you would any enemy. Your full hotbar works here — spells, Artes, abilities and Fusions.
• The echo brings the gear its owner was wearing when it was last refreshed; echoes rebuild themselves when they go stale, so you are never fighting last month’s build.
• Your real Tactical Points and cooldowns are spent as normal. Your real HP, MP and gold are never touched — the arena’s health bars are its own.

Rating and seasons

Nothing is staked but rating. No gold, no Valor, no death. Everyone starts a season at 1200 and moves by standard Elo: beat a higher-rated echo and you gain more, lose to a lower one and you lose more. Seasons run quarterly, with wins, losses and defensive wins (bouts your echo won on your behalf) tracked separately, and the season’s top ladder shown on the Arena panel.

Echo Allies

The same echoes can stand beside you. From the Echo Arena, call a friend or a guildmate to your side: for the next 60 minutes their echo joins your dungeon fights, whether or not they are awake. You may call 3 times a day.

• An ally acts once a round, after you (and after a Tamer’s pet). Most classes strike; the arcane classes hex, throwing the same blow with Intelligence against Spirit; a Minstrel or a Paladin mends you for 3% of your maximum life instead.
• An ally is never stronger than you. It attacks with the lower of its own stat and yours, and its blow is about a third of one of your own swings. A high-level friend is company, not a carry — and a Tamer’s pet remains far stronger than any ally.
• When a dungeon boss falls with an ally called, its owner is thanked: a little gold sized to their level, up to 5 times a day, and a note telling them where their echo fought.
• A call costs gold. At your own level the price is about one quest’s gold at that level; because an echo at or above you answers at your full strength and one below you answers at its own, the price follows the echo — up to 3× as much for the strongest, and as little as 0.5× for one well below you. Each name in the panel carries its own price before you call, and if a call cannot be made the gold is returned.