Guild Wars 2

Here’s my suggestions for focus.. The Air and Earth Focus skills are fine the way they are imo, but there’s just a couple of things to change for Fire and Water to make it more useful.

Fire 4: Increase the damage coefficient to 0.25, increase burning to 2s and have it tick every 2s instead to 1s. (also maybe increase the range of which blast finishers can be activated?)

Fire 5: Make it 2 parts. First part is the same aura skill (maybe make duration 6s), 2nd part will make it detonate early (losing the shield) damaging enemies (w/ 0.6 to 0.8 coefficient) within 180 radius and make it a blast finisher. (1/2 to 3/4s cast time)
You can’t detonate right away, have like a 2s delay before you can activate second part.

Water 4: Make it 2 parts, cooldown becomes 30s.
(Torrent) Range: 600. 3/4s to 1s cast time. 120 radius.
Dash forward in a surge of water damaging foes (w/ 0.2 to 0.3 coefficient) and creating a Water field for 2s granting 2s of regeneration every second.
(Frozen Trail) Roll backwards leaving a frozen trail (Ice field) for 3s that chills foes for 1s every second.
1/2s to 3/4s delay before you can activate the Frozen Trail
This will increase the versatility of the focus and give it a little bit more utility (through fields).

Water 5: It’s fine; maybe add 40% chance to stun for 1s instead of daze.

That’s all I think there is to make the focus a little better (in all 3 game types). Water 4 may be a little excessive (coding and animation, etc.) but yeah just ideas :P Also, Fire 4’s damage range is actually wide (it’s more like a box) 360 range from middle of the line outwards.

I think people need to stop putting blast finishers into everything and come up with more original forms of utility for unique skills. This isn’t directed at you persay, as you only suggested one, but I’ve seen soooo many suggestions that involve blast finishers and to be frank it’s not what the ele (or game in general) needs.

The focus is a defense/control weapon. This doesn’t mean it can’t do damage; the damage just needs to be applied through defensive measures. Flame Wall could have a very high coefficient and still not be overpowered because it is still just a line, and serves more as a deterrent than an actual dps source like Ring of Fire. I’ve stated my wishes for Flame Shield in multiple threads, but I guess anywhere I can put this out there I will: I think eles should have a unique Flame Shield that is different from the leap finisher in that it applies a retaliation-like effect while it is active with a moderate damage coefficient. It’s not an inherently offensive effect, nor is it spammable, but it allows the focus user to punish people who commit to burst damage by switching to Fire rather than Earth. The animation is clear enough that anybody paying attention would know to either halt their attack for a few seconds or not start to begin with.

Without completely changing the Water skills, you could vastly improve its utility/crowd control by increasing the damage on Freezing Gust, while allowing Comet to stun chilled foes. Comet should also do a bit more damage. I think Anet’s gotten into a habit of thinking that Water Magic skills shouldn’t do significant damage, but I think that it should be weapon appropriate; and the focus doesn’t have any healing properties like the dagger.

Interesting ideas, but I think the idea behind the focus is to be a ‘shield’ kind of skill with no mobility. As you can already see / know there is no mobility, not even swiftness and /d owns this field.

The only changes I think would be really good would be to swap dagger water 5 and focus water 4 or 5, revert the RTL cool down and reduce the cd on Fire Shield (fire 5) or greatly extend its duration. Daggers ability to be mobile, tank and do damage is a bit over the top, moving the tank/bunker across to the focus would be a good change in my opinion.

Adding on to your stun suggestion for Comet (water 5), would be cool to stun on interrupt, since this skill is rarely used to interrupt (note the non instant [though much better then release] fall of the comet). I also like Leuca’s suggestion to stun chilled foes.

TGSlasher.1458:

Interesting ideas, but I think the idea behind the focus is to be a ‘shield’ kind of skill with no mobility. As you can already see / know there is no mobility, not even swiftness and /d owns this field.

The only changes I think would be really good would be to swap dagger water 5 and focus water 4 or 5, revert the RTL cool down and reduce the cd on Fire Shield (fire 5) or greatly extend its duration. Daggers ability to be mobile, tank and do damage is a bit over the top, moving the tank/bunker across to the focus would be a good change in my opinion.

Adding on to your stun suggestion for Comet (water 5), would be cool to stun on interrupt, since this skill is rarely used to interrupt (note the non instant [though much better then release] fall of the comet). I also like Leuca’s suggestion to stun chilled foes.

Swapping the water skills between /d and /f puts the majority of auras on the d/f set, leaving s/d without any defensive aura options and giving d/f a huge boost that could borderline OP. Focus is defensive enough to not need the extra heal, which is why it’s on the dagger. The problem is that some of its skills just don’t have any oomph to them i.e. Fire Shield and Freezing Gust. These skills simply need to have their effects improved. You could make Water Magic extremely viable by making Freezing Gust hit up to 2 additional foes near your target (about the aoe size of Comet) and allowing my aforementioned change to Comet to be imlemented. Because this combo would be telegraphed before it even starts by attuning to water, your opponents would have ample time to either get ready to stun break or be ready to dodge Freezing Gust/Comet. Even if they don’t dodge it, you must properly hit both skills to get maximum effect, so it’s not a one-hit wonder.

I think it’s mind-boggling that some of the skills in this game are so dull when others have myriad uses.

Leuca.5732:

TGSlasher.1458:

Interesting ideas, but I think the idea behind the focus is to be a ‘shield’ kind of skill with no mobility. As you can already see / know there is no mobility, not even swiftness and /d owns this field.

The only changes I think would be really good would be to swap dagger water 5 and focus water 4 or 5, revert the RTL cool down and reduce the cd on Fire Shield (fire 5) or greatly extend its duration. Daggers ability to be mobile, tank and do damage is a bit over the top, moving the tank/bunker across to the focus would be a good change in my opinion.

Adding on to your stun suggestion for Comet (water 5), would be cool to stun on interrupt, since this skill is rarely used to interrupt (note the non instant [though much better then release] fall of the comet). I also like Leuca’s suggestion to stun chilled foes.

Swapping the water skills between /d and /f puts the majority of auras on the d/f set, leaving s/d without any defensive aura options and giving d/f a huge boost that could borderline OP. Focus is defensive enough to not need the extra heal, which is why it’s on the dagger. The problem is that some of its skills just don’t have any oomph to them i.e. Fire Shield and Freezing Gust. These skills simply need to have their effects improved. You could make Water Magic extremely viable by making Freezing Gust hit up to 2 additional foes near your target (about the aoe size of Comet) and allowing my aforementioned change to Comet to be imlemented. Because this combo would be telegraphed before it even starts by attuning to water, your opponents would have ample time to either get ready to stun break or be ready to dodge Freezing Gust/Comet. Even if they don’t dodge it, you must properly hit both skills to get maximum effect, so it’s not a one-hit wonder.

I think it’s mind-boggling that some of the skills in this game are so dull when others have myriad uses.

I did say Dagger 5 and focus 4 or 5, as in put dagger 5 on focus 4 or 5 and put the respective skill on dagger 5. Dagger getting a ranged interrupt (comet) or a ranged chill (gale) would be interesting.

I think it’s mind-boggling that some weapon can do everything whereas others have such a funnel niche. Just look at focus and off dagger here on the elementalist.

TGSlasher.1458:

I did say Dagger 5 and focus 4 or 5, as in put dagger 5 on focus 4 or 5 and put the respective skill on dagger 5. Dagger getting a ranged interrupt (comet) or a ranged chill (gale) would be interesting.

I think it’s mind-boggling that some weapon can do everything whereas others have such a funnel niche. Just look at focus and off dagger here on the elementalist.

My apologies, I misread that part. However, I don’t think adding more ranged skills to a set that’s supposed to be melee is doing well with keeping weapon themes, especially with the variety of gap closers we have. It also has no need for an additional chill with Frozen Burst and Frost Aura available. The focus skills only need to be buffed to really be on par with /d imo; they aren’t inherently useless and have potential.