Guild Wars 2

Am I doing something wrong or is this just so weak?

It is weak. Very weak.

Right! Is there some hidden buff / heal master combos?

Nope, switch to S/D or D/D or Staff.

S/D or D/D is the way to go.
Staff is just as weak as having a focus.

Micro Hard.3601:

S/D or D/D is the way to go.
Staff is just as weak as having a focus.

Exactly. Arena net has been so focused on making elements list a jack of all trades.. Aka diversified, they need to make focus more relevant… Personally I wouldn’t be made if this combination was strong support role.

Flamewall, Fire Shield, Freezing Gust and Gale are the skills that make Focus weak, which is half of the skills it gives. Anyone disagree?

Never been a fan of Scepter here. I find all their spells too slow. If only Dragon Tooth is faster. Zzzz…

Matter of personal preference? Dragon tooth is more of a shield against melee by standing under it rather than actually trying to land it(or forcing them off point), just like any of the other slow cast time spells. Lightning 2,3 are instant and can be casted during any channel, knockdown, or stun(as well as water#4, but you don’t need a scepter to do that). If you prefer chasing down players go D/D.

S/F is fine, and it’s perfect vs anti missile or also good as a bunker build. Plus why are people givng gust a hard time lol, it means you 100% hit a phoenix and if they are chilled a dragons tooth as well.

Feel free to check my stream for s/f play, build also.

@Hsulf
What happens if my opponent knows he can roll? or remove conditions? or walks to the left? Phoenix is already simple enough to land. But I will humor you and play along. Lets compare F vs D. I’ll compare the 4 and 5 skill with both offhands.

Fire: Flame Wall; 4x longer cast time, harder to land, does significantly less damage, (~2k less) much harder to evade, if at all, while preforming combo finishers in that tiny rectangle, longer cd. On the plus side, it has a 2s longer duration…

Fire Shield; Once again, incredibly less damage(~800 less), have to be in range for the entire duration to connect the damage. On the plus, it’s an instant cast, may be helpful with trait combos, slightly lower cd.

Gust: A ranged chill. Good for chasing, which you wont be doing much of with a focus. Much weaker than frost aura since the entire point of pvp is to hit the player. (If it does somehow scare them from attacking you? o.O then 7s shield? you can tell how dumb that sounds which means they’re going to be chilled for a longer duration than gust would do.)

Comet: 2s daze is decent. vs a heal that removes a condition, something you and your allies would need too.

Swirling winds: I personally find it useless since the ranged class would switch to melee weap. vs RTL, gap closer and helpful to connect updraft/earthquake.

Gale: Ranged updraft? Longer cast time, longer cd, single target. (updraft is aoe)

Magnetic Wave: Pretty good survivability spell, nothing a cantrip can’t deal with. vs Earthquake, aoe 2s knockdown.

Obsidian Flesh: another survivability spell. I would say the best focus spell, being able to still cast and atk while invul. While churning earth is difficult to land it’s aoe is huge and is bound to hit one, if not, a couple targets combined with lightning flash (unless they all simply roll at the same time [sadface.jpg]). I can get it to hit for over 10k with my bunker ele if they aren’t smart enough to remove the condition, or wasted their removals from the other kd/stun.

I think it is fair to say offhand dagger is superior to focus in burst, cc, and as support in teams. Focus being a little more well rounded along survivability (which can go either way btwn dagger vs focus if toughness/healing was accounted for) and single target things? I find the lack of aoe cc terrible if a team fight ever occurs, as well as not being able to chase. I think some people don’t recognize that aoe kd is pretty much the same as a survivability spell (how are they supposed to nuke if they’re on the ground unless they waste a break stun).

With the right build/skill level S/F can be a hell of a tough bunker to kill. If I was to rate the best bunker classes it would be #1 ENG, #2 ELE, #3 Guard . ENG and ELE take a lot of skill to pull off but they outperform Guardians hands down

@micro I’d agree with o/h dagger being superior in burst, but cc? Arguable, team support no.

Why?

Just focusing on air, earth and water as the fire is the bad part of the focus.

Water Focus an aoe daze and a chill.
Water Dagger, you get a chill shield and a heal/cure.

So a targetable chill vs defence chill, I’d argue I prefer the dagger. But still both are decent and one you can control over. The daze means you have an aoe interupt (yes I know you can get this in earth o/h dagger) and the other is a heal/cure for allies. Once again, both have their support/cc so neither is really better than the other. Although if I had to choose, I’d pick the dagger set on water, and dagger on fire also.

Earth and wind is where it comes into it’s element.

Earth you get obsidian Flesh, pure invuln, great for bating, pays for itself and is better than most utility spells. Magnetic wave is a condition cleaner and missile reflect. Nice for any class to blow themself up with especially quickness.

Earth on dagger you have an aoe knock back and a dps channel.

I’d take the earth focus set over dagger simple for one of the best invulns in the game and another condition cleanse/reflect. Both of the earth spells are stupidly good on the focus especially as you will likely be the focus in team fights.

Wind, you have an aoe missile destroyer for your team in Swirling Winds, and a single target knock down in Gale.

The dagger set is an initiator and an aoe knock back. Arguably I’d take the Focus set quite happily over the dagger for the support role.

It summary, it comes down to what you prefer. I would quite happy say I prefer the water/fire sets of the dagger and prefer the air/earth of the focus, and if I could combine the two then I’d have a super weapon.

Saying the dagger is clearly better at all 3 roles simply is not true. It is a much more offensive weapon, utility both are kind of even (2x aoe knockdowns + chill shield vs single target chill, single target knock down, aoe daze and aoe missile invuln) , but defensive wise the focus winds hands down.

I try focus in WvW from time to time. Gale is great for knocking down players who are trying to flee. Rangers are often our biggest ranged threats and with Swirling Wind, Magnetic Wave, and Obsidian Flesh they are nulified. Daze is good too.

Alot of my mid Pve leveling was done with focus for the defense until I got a better grip on closer melee range combat. In the upper level areas with multiple mobs and fast and instantaneous respawns in melee range, the long cooldowns on focus and lack of dps are troublesome. I find it more effective to go with dagger offhand for high dps, aoe and healing.

So, yes, OP. Focus is weak but effective in the right circumstances. Five of the eight skills are very effective and can be used proactively to deal at range with ranged attackers and/or their projectiles. The focus is primarily a defensive weapon.

focus has a 4 second invulnerability… which is pretty golden for the skillless.
Which all ele initiates are.
i used focus in spvp for a long while and it was my favorite for running dungeons with.
the anti projectile stuff stops some attacks like kohlers pull.

I have come to the conclusion, with help from some others, that playing the ele in spvp wihthout already having some other character that you have ranked to 10-20 in spvp is asking for a lot of frustration. doesnt really matter what you choose. I kind of like that uphill grind myself…

a good ele runner can make most of the stuff work. its just a matter of how you want to play it.

dagger off hand is a much more exciting build. in spvp.