Switch Mode or Free Mode — which should I use?

Free Mode lets your partner roam and attack whatever they find, which clears mob camps fast but burns their Focus Gauge. Switch Mode keeps them trading blows with the same target as you: you pull aggro, they call out to switch, and one dodge hands the enemy over so you get a recovery window. Use Free Mode for field trash and Switch Mode for bosses and elites — swapping between them mid-fight is the real skill.

How do I use a Combination Skill?

Assign it to your action wheel before the quest starts — most partners have one or two — then deal damage until the combo meter fills. Fire it when the enemy is already broken or staggered rather than the moment it lights up: Combination Skills carry huge damage and heavy posture damage, so they are worth far more inside a vulnerability window than as an opener.

Do Dodge Slash, Parry Slash and Reversal Slash work with every partner?

Yes. Those three follow-ups are universal to the partner system rather than character-specific. Dodge Slash lets your partner strike after you evade, Reversal Slash triggers when you hit the input as the blue ring appears around an enemy, and Parry Slash fires after a successful parry — though the parry itself requires a shield, so it only exists on Sword, Rapier and Mace builds.

Partner Systems·Updated August 2026

Partner Skills & Combination Skills

Q: What is the difference between a Combination Skill and a Support Skill in Echoes of Aincrad?

A Support Skill is an on-demand request you make through the action wheel — healing, a barrier, a buff, a taunt or crowd control — limited by your partner's own SP and a cooldown. A Combination Skill is a cinematic team-up attack that only becomes available after you and your partner have dealt enough damage to charge the combo meter. Support Skills are what you use throughout a fight; Combination Skills are burst windows you save for a stagger or a boss phase.

Q: How does the Focus Gauge work?

The Focus Gauge is the ring around your partner's portrait and it represents their ability to defend themselves. The higher it is, the less vulnerable they are — a partner with an empty gauge stops dodging and blocking and starts eating full damage. Leaving them in Free Mode drains it quickly; pulling them back into Switch Mode lets it recover. Agil's Taunt is the one Support Skill that holds his gauge at full for a duration.

Q: Which partner has the best Support Skill?

Iori's Healing Circle is the best all-round pick: a persistent healing zone you can fight inside, available from the prologue, and it saves Healing Crystals in Death Game Mode. Klein's Bolstering Bellow is the best emergency button — it auto-triggers invincibility plus ATK and DEF when your HP drops low. Agil's Taunt is the best pressure valve, and Asuna's Lightning is the answer if you keep running out of SP.

There is no co-op in Echoes of Aincrad, so the single partner you take out of town is your entire team. This guide lists every Combination Skill and Support Skill in the game, explains the Focus Gauge, Combo SP and Partner SP meters nobody reads, and settles when to run Switch Mode instead of Free Mode.

Echoes of Aincrad player character fighting alongside an AI partner — One Partner, Four Meters
Your partner runs on their own economy — Focus, Partner SP and Combo SP all behave differently from your stamina and SP.

The Four Meters Behind Your Partner

The HUD shows several bars that all look like "SP" and are not the same resource. Knowing which one gates which action is the difference between a partner who carries a boss fight and one who dies in the second phase.

Focus Gauge

Partner survivability

The ring around your partner's portrait. High Focus means they dodge and guard competently; an empty gauge means they take attacks flush. Free Mode drains it, Switch Mode restores it. This is the meter most players never look at, and it is why partners suddenly start dying two hours into a session.

Combo SP

Fuel for Combination Skills

Builds passively as the pair of you deal damage in a fight. When it is full the assigned Combination Skill lights up on the action wheel. It does not carry between encounters, so an unspent Combination Skill at the end of a fight is wasted damage.

Partner SP

Fuel for Support Skills

A separate pool that only your partner spends. Requesting a heal, barrier, taunt or buff draws from it. Several armour mods (Good Friend on Leathercloth Anklets) raise Support SP gains, while a few weapon mods such as Isolation deliberately reduce them.

Your SP

Sword Skills only

Completely separate from the partner economy. Asuna's Spirit Shot is the one Combination Skill that reaches across and spends 50% of your SP for extra damage — which is why she pairs with her own SP-restoring Support Skill.

Support Skills vs Combination Skills

Both are assigned to the action wheel and both belong to your partner, which is exactly why players confuse them. They solve completely different problems.

Feature	Support Skill	Combination Skill
Activation	Manual request from the action wheel	Fires when Combo SP is full
Resource	Partner SP + individual cooldown	Combo meter charged by dealing damage
Purpose	Healing, barriers, buffs, taunts, ailments	Cinematic burst damage and heavy stagger
Slots	One per partner, previewed before the quest	Most partners have one or two, assignable to the wheel
Best moment	Constantly, whenever the cooldown is up	Inside a Guard Break or boss stagger window
Common mistake	Hoarding it and dying with it available	Firing it as an opener into full damage reduction

You can preview a partner's full kit on the quest preparation screen before you leave town — do it once per partner and you will never take the wrong one into a wall boss again.

Every Partner's Combination & Support Skill

Eight partners with confirmed skill data, ordered by how much they change a difficult fight rather than by raw damage. For unlock requirements and questlines see the partner unlock guide.

Iori

SSwordsConsistent healing

Combination Skill · Twin Embrace — medium damage to surrounding enemies; scales up the more HP you currently have.

Support Skill · Healing Circle — creates a zone that gradually restores HP to allies standing inside it.

The default answer for Death Game Mode. Available from the prologue and castable mid-fight, so you can bait enemies into the circle and heal while you trade.

Klein

SSwordsEmergency panic button

Combination Skill · Riot Fangs — heavy single-target damage, but temporarily lowers DEF for both of you.

Support Skill · Bolstering Bellow — grants invincibility plus ATK and DEF; auto-triggers only when your HP drops below a threshold.

A late unlock and the strongest safety net in the game on higher difficulties. The auto-trigger buys the seconds you need to heal instead of dying.

Asuna

SRapiersSP replenishment

Combination Skill · Spirit Shot — consumes 50% of your SP for bonus damage scaled to the amount spent; above a threshold it also buffs your next Sword Skill.

Support Skill · Lightning — damages everything around her and restores SP to nearby allies.

The pick for skill-spam builds. Fire Spirit Shot at full SP, then top yourself back up with Lightning — the loop only works because both halves are hers.

Agil

ATwo-Handed AxesAggro management

Combination Skill · Crowd Strike — medium AoE damage that scales with the number of enemies caught in range.

Support Skill · Taunt — pulls surrounding enemies onto him and keeps his own Focus Gauge full for a duration.

The only Support Skill that solves the Focus problem instead of ignoring it. Best partner for mob camps and for buying yourself a heal window.

Kirito

ASwordsRaw DPS

Combination Skill · Stream Edge — heavy multi-hit single-target damage that also refunds a set amount of SP.

Support Skill · Striker — rapid strikes on everything in range, executing mob enemies below an HP threshold.

The highest damage output, but almost all of it is self-contained. Great when you are already comfortable; not the pick when you need bailing out.

Zash

ATwo-Handed SwordsTank / attack scaling

Combination Skill · Twin Ignition — heavy AoE damage that costs both of you a set amount of HP per use.

Support Skill · Exhilaration — grants a Barrier and an ATK boost to both of you; the boost grows the lower the target's HP.

First unlock on Floor 2 and the natural pairing for a Vitality build. The HP cost on Twin Ignition is real, so run him with Iori-level healing or a big HP pool.

Wyzeman

BMacesStatus ailments & crowd control

Combination Skill · Tri Stampede — heavy single-target damage that increases if the target is Dazed.

Support Skill · Discordant Resonance — damages enemies in range and applies Dazed stacks.

A self-contained combo: stack Dazed with the Support Skill, then cash it in with Tri Stampede. Mace plus shield means he survives the front line while doing it.

Argo

BDaggersExploration & recon

Combination Skill · Twin Moon — medium damage that knocks the target back into whatever it collides with.

Support Skill · Analyze — reveals enemies through walls, flags trapped chests, and adds bonus damage against analyzed targets.

The utility pick. Weak in a straight fight, unbeatable when you are sweeping a new region for chests and Arks before the map is filled in.

Additional partners including Silica, Lisbeth and Saayu join later in the roster — see the full partners list for the complete lineup.

Switch Mode vs Free Mode

The tactical toggle is the most under-used button in the game. Both modes are correct — just for different fights, and switching between them mid-encounter is most of the system's skill ceiling.

Free Mode

Your partner roams and attacks whatever they find on their own initiative, choosing their own dodges, guards and skills.

Use for · Clearing mob camps, farming loops, splitting enemy attention across a wide fight.

Cost · Focus Gauge drains fast. Once it empties they stop defending themselves and start taking full damage.

Switch Mode

The pair of you alternate on the same target. You pull aggro first; when your partner calls out to switch, one dodge hands the enemy over and you get a recovery window.

Use for · Bosses, elites, anything with a Break Marker you want to strip from behind.

Cost · Slower clear speed on trash, and you have to actually respond to the switch call — ignoring it wastes the rotation.

Reading the Focus Ring

Focus is displayed as a ring around the partner portrait, not as a labelled bar, which is why so many players never notice it draining. The practical rule: run Free Mode while you are clearing field trash, then flip to Switch Mode the moment a boss barrier closes behind you. If a partner who was fine an hour ago suddenly dies in every fight, their Focus is empty — not their gear.

Three Follow-Ups Every Partner Shares

Independent of who you bring, the partner system layers three free follow-up attacks on top of your defensive play. They cost nothing and most players never trigger them deliberately.

Follow-Up	Trigger	Effect
Dodge Slash	Evade an incoming attack	Your partner immediately follows up with a strike of their own, turning a clean dodge into damage rather than just survival.
Reversal Slash	Hit the input as the blue ring flashes around an enemy	Your partner repels the attack outright and staggers the enemy. The highest-value read in the game and available to every partner.
Parry Slash	Land a parry with a shield equipped	A shield-carrying partner adds a follow-up hit and staggers the target. Restricted to Sword, Rapier and Mace builds, since only they can equip a shield.

Timing details for each of these live in the parry & dodge guide.

Which Partner Skill for Which Fight

Pick for the way you are currently losing, not for the biggest damage number. Almost every wall in this game is an attrition problem or an interrupt problem.

Situation	Bring	Why
First boss of a floor	Iori or Klein	Sustained healing or a guaranteed invincibility window beats extra DPS when you do not know the moveset yet.
Death Game Mode run	Iori	Healing Circle conserves Healing Crystals across a whole session; a permadeath run is decided by resource attrition, not damage.
Mob camp / farming loop	Agil or Kirito	Crowd Strike scales with enemy count and Striker executes low-HP trash outright — both shorten farm loops noticeably.
Skill-spam Rapier or Dagger build	Asuna	Lightning refunds SP so your Sword Skill rotation never stalls between cooldowns.
Two-handed / slow weapon build	Zash or Agil	You need aggro pulled off you to finish long wind-ups without being interrupted mid-swing.
Exploring an unmapped region	Argo	Analyze surfaces chests, traps and enemies through walls, which saves far more time than any combat skill.
Enemy with a heavy Break Marker	Wyzeman	Dazed stacks plus a mace on the front line accelerate the Guard Break more than a pure DPS partner does.

Six Partner Mistakes Worth Fixing

Mistake	Why It Fails	Fix
Leaving the partner in Free Mode all session	Focus drains and never recovers	Swap to Switch Mode between packs, or bring Agil and use Taunt to refill his gauge.
Firing the Combination Skill the instant it charges	Full damage reduction is still up	Hold it until the Break Marker drops — the same skill can do several times the damage inside a stagger.
Never touching the action wheel	Support Skills do nothing while unrequested	Preview the partner's kit on the quest prep screen and assign the Support Skill before you leave town.
Bringing the highest-damage partner to a wall boss	Damage is rarely what kills a boss attempt	Pick for the failure mode — healing for attrition, taunt for interrupts, invincibility for burst deaths.
Ignoring partner gear	Their damage and survivability scale with their equipment	Keep every rotation partner equipped, and remember Cardinal Rank increases also improve partner abilities.
Running Zash's Twin Ignition at low HP	It costs you HP on every use	Treat it as a full-health finisher, or pair the Vitality build with a healing source before you lean on it.

Build Around Your Partner

Unlock order, gear and the combat systems your partner plugs into — line all three up before the next floor boss.

Partner Unlock Guide →All Partners →Guard Break Guide →

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a Combination Skill and a Support Skill?

A Support Skill is an on-demand request from the action wheel — healing, a barrier, a buff, a taunt — limited by Partner SP and a cooldown. A Combination Skill is a team-up attack that only unlocks once you have dealt enough damage to charge the combo meter. Support Skills run all fight; Combination Skills are burst windows.

How does the Focus Gauge work?

It is the ring around your partner's portrait and it represents how well they can defend themselves. High Focus means they dodge and block; an empty gauge means they eat everything. Free Mode drains it, Switch Mode restores it, and Agil's Taunt holds his own at full for a duration.

Switch Mode or Free Mode?

Free Mode for field trash and farming — they roam and clear fast. Switch Mode for bosses and elites — you pull aggro, they call the switch, one dodge hands the enemy over and you get a recovery window. Swapping mid-fight is the intended play.

Which partner has the best Support Skill?

Iori's Healing Circle for all-round value and Death Game Mode, Klein's Bolstering Bellow as an emergency invincibility trigger, Agil's Taunt for aggro control, and Asuna's Lightning if your SP keeps running dry.

When should I fire a Combination Skill?

After the enemy is broken or staggered, not the moment the meter fills. Damage reduction is still active before the break, so the same skill is worth several times more inside a vulnerability window. Combo SP does not carry between fights, so never finish an encounter with it unspent.

Do partners get stronger as I progress?

Yes — keep them equipped, and note that raising your Cardinal Rank through main quests also improves partner abilities alongside merchant and Smithy stock. A partner left in starter gear will underperform their skill list badly.

← All Partners Combat System →Parry & Dodge →Cardinal Rank →