Guild Wars 2

Reduce cooldown on air 5, earth 5, change the skills on fire, and modify the water skills to function better.

Azunai.5974:

Reduce cooldown on air 5, earth 5, change the skills on fire, and modify the water skills to function better.

agree on everything but earth 5. earth 5 is incredibly strong, it is fine how it stands. however, still,
+1

The Game Slayer.7632:

Azunai.5974:

Reduce cooldown on air 5, earth 5, change the skills on fire, and modify the water skills to function better.

agree on everything but earth 5. earth 5 is incredibly strong, it is fine how it stands. however, still,
+1

Considering it’s on a 50 sec cd for only 4 seconds and that we can’t take the cd reduction trait, I’d feel better if it was at 40.

Of course, it seems a bit strong because of the number of cantrips we take to increase survivability. We also need to have utilities and traits revamped to make builds nore diverse and cantrips not an auto-include on anything that isn’t burst.

Azunai.5974:

The Game Slayer.7632:

Azunai.5974:

Reduce cooldown on air 5, earth 5, change the skills on fire, and modify the water skills to function better.

agree on everything but earth 5. earth 5 is incredibly strong, it is fine how it stands. however, still,
+1

Considering it’s on a 50 sec cd for only 4 seconds and that we can’t take the cd reduction trait, I’d feel better if it was at 40.

Of course, it seems a bit strong because of the number of cantrips we take to increase survivability. We also need to have utilities and traits revamped to make builds nore diverse and cantrips not an auto-include on anything that isn’t burst.

If Fire/Water were up-to-par I think its recharge would be fine.

Focus is fun to play.
If I had a priority list of things to look at on focus it be
1. Flame wall
2. Freezing gust
3. Fire shield
4. Gale.
Fire shield and gale to me are pretty much fine, they may need nothing to them or just a CD drop. Something is wrong with Flame wall that skill may just need to be reworked or replaced.
However for the idea of salvaging it they could increase the duration of the burn to say 1.5s base, and double the current power damage. That might bear fruit.
One thing I’ve been toying with in my head is Flame wall not doing damage but instead healing allies with a high base but low scaling.

Focus completely lacks damage..Like theres no damage in it at all.This needs to change a bit.It can still be a defencive weapon.
But that earth 5..Look at it from an outside view for a bit.
Mist form requires a utility slot,locks you from your skills,lasts 3 sec and has 75 sec cd
Obsidian flesh might not stunbreak but lasts 4 sec,doesnt klock your skills,has a 50 sec cd and is a freaking weapon skill out of your 20 skills
The exact same comparison can be done between cleansing fire and magnetic wave.
Something is really really off here.Perhaps their idea of balance is super strong skills make up for incerdibly weak almost nonexistant skills like fireshield and flamewall.
In any case the weapon is fun but currently imo you should only run it with high offencive builds and fresh air so that you get your damage output in a decent level
The difference between pre fresh air focus and now is massive in terms of viability of this weapon just cause of the damage increase

ensoriki.5789:

Focus is fun to play.
If I had a priority list of things to look at on focus it be
1. Flame wall
2. Freezing gust
3. Fire shield
4. Gale.
Fire shield and gale to me are pretty much fine, they may need nothing to them or just a CD drop. Something is wrong with Flame wall that skill may just need to be reworked or replaced.
However for the idea of salvaging it they could increase the duration of the burn to say 1.5s base, and double the current power damage. That might bear fruit.
One thing I’ve been toying with in my head is Flame wall not doing damage but instead healing allies with a high base but low scaling.

Flame Wall should do heavy damage upon crossing imo, akin to the great effects you see from Spectral Wall and the like. Because its actual area covered is small, you could give it a very high number (way more than double what it is now) and it still would pretty much serve as area denial or a single packet of damage off of Gale. I think the fact that it lasts so long (easy finishers) is enough of a team utility aspect, but perhaps you could have it apply a random boon upon crossing with an internal CD of 4-5 seconds so you can only receive that benefit two times max.

I disagree with your point about Fire Shield. The elementalist has no motive to take the hits required for it to stack any substantial might and the burning is negligible. I think it should also be a punishing skill that damages attackers (like retaliation) but is like other auras in that it cannot be removed. This gives it a defense-into-offense feel and keeps the theme of the focus true. All an attacker has to do is not hit you with multi-packet attacks or simply stop attacking for a few seconds to avoid the damage. Think of how fun that would be against Hundred Blades, especially with warriors being so annoying to punish nowadays; you could deal significant damage even when stunned. I think this would justify the longer CD it has. (though it could still be reduced from a 40 second recharge)

The problem with Freezing Gust/Comet is that they have no real synergy with each other. I mentioned in another thread how I thought the damage on both could be upped very slightly. Then you make Freezing Gust affect foes adjacent to your target as well and add an effect to Comet that makes it stun chilled foes.

Gale just needs a recharge reduction. It’s otherwise a great skill but necessitating Aeromancer’s Alacrity just to make the recharge bearable is really not an ideal situation.

I disagree with freezing gust and comet not having sunergy together.
The plain obvious that comes to my mind is using comet to itnerrupt a key ability like heal and then freezing gust to slow down the cooldown of the enemy skills.
I use those skills in that order every time after i heavily burst someone when i play s/f burst

Avead.5760:

I disagree with freezing gust and comet not having sunergy together.
The plain obvious that comes to my mind is using comet to itnerrupt a key ability like heal and then freezing gust to slow down the cooldown of the enemy skills.
I use those skills in that order every time after i heavily burst someone when i play s/f burst

Really? I use gust to slow down the target to make comet easier to land and then comet to interrupt him to increase his cooldowns and set up a burst.

Azunai.5974:

Avead.5760:

I disagree with freezing gust and comet not having sunergy together.
The plain obvious that comes to my mind is using comet to itnerrupt a key ability like heal and then freezing gust to slow down the cooldown of the enemy skills.
I use those skills in that order every time after i heavily burst someone when i play s/f burst

Really? I use gust to slow down the target to make comet easier to land and then comet to interrupt him to increase his cooldowns and set up a burst.

I don’t mean they lack inherent ability to combo or stack effects, but there’s nothing really combat-changing about how they work together. They don’t help each other function in a really fluid way. Look at Updraft; it sets you up at the perfect distance to use Burning Speed, and they’re not even in the same element. You could achieve the same thing Freezing Gust does if you are in melee and use Frozen Burst, only you’ll chill up to 5 people. FG doesn’t even do more damage to compensate for its higher recharge; it’s just ranged and single target.

Leuca.5732:

ensoriki.5789:

Focus is fun to play.
If I had a priority list of things to look at on focus it be
1. Flame wall
2. Freezing gust
3. Fire shield
4. Gale.
Fire shield and gale to me are pretty much fine, they may need nothing to them or just a CD drop. Something is wrong with Flame wall that skill may just need to be reworked or replaced.
However for the idea of salvaging it they could increase the duration of the burn to say 1.5s base, and double the current power damage. That might bear fruit.
One thing I’ve been toying with in my head is Flame wall not doing damage but instead healing allies with a high base but low scaling.

Flame Wall should do heavy damage upon crossing imo, akin to the great effects you see from Spectral Wall and the like. Because its actual area covered is small, you could give it a very high number (way more than double what it is now) and it still would pretty much serve as area denial or a single packet of damage off of Gale. I think the fact that it lasts so long (easy finishers) is enough of a team utility aspect, but perhaps you could have it apply a random boon upon crossing with an internal CD of 4-5 seconds so you can only receive that benefit two times max.

I think similarly however I feel double with a burning duration increase is a “safe” bet.

I disagree with your point about Fire Shield. The elementalist has no motive to take the hits required for it to stack any substantial might and the burning is negligible. I think it should also be a punishing skill that damages attackers (like retaliation) but is like other auras in that it cannot be removed. This gives it a defense-into-offense feel and keeps the theme of the focus true. All an attacker has to do is not hit you with multi-packet attacks or simply stop attacking for a few seconds to avoid the damage. Think of how fun that would be against Hundred Blades, especially with warriors being so annoying to punish nowadays; you could deal significant damage even when stunned. I think this would justify the longer CD it has. (though it could still be reduced from a 40 second recharge)

The reason I support Fire shield is Elemental Shielding. With it Fire shield is an easy source of Protection and becomes a nice defensive buff but the CD can be fairly tough for that purpose. Untraited yeah Fire shield isn’t all that but I like that Protection play.

The problem with Freezing Gust/Comet is that they have no real synergy with each other. I mentioned in another thread how I thought the damage on both could be upped very slightly. Then you make Freezing Gust affect foes adjacent to your target as well and add an effect to Comet that makes it stun chilled foes.

Mmmm don’t see their connection to each other as a problem atm. It’s more that I land comet im wailing on them with dagger 1 or scepter 1, hit freezing gust and it’s just underwhelming of it’s own accord, nothing with Comet. Even then Freezing gust to some extent makes comet/Dragon’s tooth/burning speed easier to land. It’s like you tap into water land your comet and then boom got no damage. Tbh I think it should be almost a water attunement version of Fire grab. Does extra damage to (already) chilled enemies . Which helps D/F get in some extra damage naturallyand lets S/F capitalize on that through speccing.

Gale just needs a recharge reduction. It’s otherwise a great skill but necessitating Aeromancer’s Alacrity just to make the recharge bearable is really not an ideal situation.

See the thing is to me between Flame wall (primarily) and freezing gust it may not. Those two skills being improved may boost the performance enough that it’s no biggie for it to stay as it is.

ensoriki.5789:

The reason I support Fire shield is Elemental Shielding. With it Fire shield is an easy source of Protection and becomes a nice defensive buff but the CD can be fairly tough for that purpose. Untraited yeah Fire shield isn’t all that but I like that Protection play.

You could say the same thing about Shocking Aura/Frost aura, and they both have superior effects, with one having a much lower cd. Fire Shield just doesn’t cut it. I think it needs to be considerably stronger, and it also needs to be unique to the ele’s weapon. The leap finisher version needs to be weaker if it’s going to be so much more accessible.

Mmmm don’t see their connection to each other as a problem atm. It’s more that I land comet im wailing on them with dagger 1 or scepter 1, hit freezing gust and it’s just underwhelming of it’s own accord, nothing with Comet. Even then Freezing gust to some extent makes comet/Dragon’s tooth/burning speed easier to land. It’s like you tap into water land your comet and then boom got no damage. Tbh I think it should be almost a water attunement version of Fire grab. Does extra damage to (already) chilled enemies . Which helps D/F get in some extra damage naturallyand lets S/F capitalize on that through speccing.

Buffing them to make them have amazing synergy would make Water much more worthwhile to attune into than for just heals; you wouldn’t feel like you were wasting the attunement if you went into it for the FG/Comet combo.

See the thing is to me between Flame wall (primarily) and freezing gust it may not. Those two skills being improved may boost the performance enough that it’s no biggie for it to stay as it is.

At 50 second base cd it’s completely inferior to pretty much every stun/kd in the game. I think 40 seconds would be fine; it still wouldn’t be spammed and traited would bring it down to 32. I wouldn’t propose something like 30 seconds, because if you trait for reduction that would get ridiculous, but it needs to be less than Updraft, which has every advantage in the book but range right now. It’s aoe, applies a boon, and has a built in evade.

the type of skills present on the Focus weapon are mostly ok: what’s horribad is their cooldown and in most cases their damage.
- Earth skills are ok, just halve the cooldown
- Air skills are ok, halve the cooldown of 4 and 5
- Fire skills critically sux, need a complete rework as they are both useless and have insane high cooldown
- Water they are mildly tolerable, both casting times are too slow and their cooldown is way too high

1) freezing gust needs to do damage, around 400-500 base dmg or 1000 base dmg with CD increased by 5s-10s
2) flame wall needs to appy 3s burning each time an enemy touch it during those 8s, meaning if the target remain the full 8s on it he’ll receive 24s burning
3)flame shield send back 10% of the enemy dmg on every hit, remove the might buff
4) gale reduce CD by 10s

Leuca.5732:

You could say the same thing about Shocking Aura/Frost aura, and they both have superior effects, with one having a much lower cd. Fire Shield just doesn’t cut it. I think it needs to be considerably stronger, and it also needs to be unique to the ele’s weapon. The leap finisher version needs to be weaker if it’s going to be so much more accessible.

Definitely but with D/F you only have two auras and S/F Fire shield is all you have. Like I said I think at a base level its pretty mediocre if you throw some traits on it however it’s just somewhat under par.

Buffing them to make them have amazing synergy would make Water much more worthwhile to attune into than for just heals; you wouldn’t feel like you were wasting the attunement if you went into it for the FG/Comet combo.

Well I dont feel like Water attunement is a waste when I use comet because I find comet useful. I do feel that Freezing gust is mediocre but Comet is a useful skill not for damage really but the utility works fine. It doing more damage to chilled foes would be an interesting ploy to give it a nostalgic one at that. Since for D/F that would mean Frozen burst into FG would work nicely.

At 50 second base cd it’s completely inferior to pretty much every stun/kd in the game. I think 40 seconds would be fine; it still wouldn’t be spammed and traited would bring it down to 32. I wouldn’t propose something like 30 seconds, because if you trait for reduction that would get ridiculous, but it needs to be less than Updraft, which has every advantage in the book but range right now. It’s aoe, applies a boon, and has a built in evade.

Im not going to look at things like that. I mean as a thief, Signet of Air > Signet of Shadows but it’s not a biggie. Gale does have a long CD, but it’s not really a precedent and it probably backfire in Eles face if they made changes all at once and then started nerfing random unrelated kitten afterwards. Fire attunement and FG need something.

Only problems with focus (imo) are..

Flamewall (Everything about it. Absolutely horrible and it destroys any kind of flow the focus might have).

Fire Shield (CD and its mechanic that doesn’t do anything unless you purposely choose to get hit – which would be stupid).

Freezing Gust (It does very little. Barely any damage and has a very short chill duration for a 25 sec skill. Not entirely pointless though).

Comet (Could use a damage buff, but otherwise fine).

Gale (The CD seems a bit long for a short duration, single target knockdown).

That is what bothers me about it. If they could at the very least address the two fire attunement skills, things would look a lot brighter.

Replace all the crappy skills on the focus with the skills that were in Aspect Arena. Problem solved. And if there’s not enough space to fit them all, let us dual wield focus.

Focus is good as is. Its my favourite weapon, except for its fire attunement and the high gale CD.

Replace fire skills and – this might be crazy -

Make gale a small aoe, a little larger then comet. Or make it strike in a line. The only way a gust of wind can snipeKD someone in a teamfight is if it comes from above, which seems rather unnatural. Keep the CD but make the thing AoE (im looking at you grounded+ gale → phoenix!).
Fire barrier needs either some more damage or an larger aoe. Like double or triple the width, so it isn´t such a pain to combo into it with blasts.
Aura is just crappy.

Reducing CDs on earth is insane. The earth 4 CD is in my opinion actually too low and earth 5 already wins me most of my duels.

My 2 cents.

When someone dodges your gale or it misses because its range is extremely short…. its like “welp there goes my only way of holding someone still for 2 seconds.”

and on top of this, fire shield is so useless, u can’t get more then 3 stacks of might off of it because if you’re an ele and someone hits you 4-6 times in a row in under 5 seconds, you’re likely a dead ele.

Make gale AoE → One dude dodges, rest gets laid → phoenix → yay, I busted two people, number 3 who was my target is gone, but with 10%20%20%+10% damage I just successfully gibbed two people.
Also, for some odd reason noone has EVER dodged my gale. Not even random dodges. Even S/D thiefs. Its like they stop dodging for me to land it.
Gale is basically undisplayed (most of the animation is post knockdown, and its transparent while lines) so it definitely needs a high CD. 10 sec redux is too much. Anet has proven what happens when CDs get reduces too much.

Flame shield is really a joke… gimme unremoveable retaliation but really reflecting some damage (make it dps based on inc damage and not with some odd fixed value).
Nice suggestion there.
by the guy with the 10% thingy, tho 10% might be too much. In fact… Imagine a bunker ele with fixed 10% damage reflection… lol.

That’s the problem with flame shield, it’s so easy to apply with the right build. With only 20 points in fire a x/f signet build would be unbalanced if you buffed flame shield the wrong way. And that’s not counting leap finisher combos

Make a difference between flame shield and flame aura. Fixed it!

Avead.5760:

Focus completely lacks damage..Like theres no damage in it at all.This needs to change a bit.It can still be a defencive weapon.
But that earth 5..Look at it from an outside view for a bit.
Mist form requires a utility slot,locks you from your skills,lasts 3 sec and has 75 sec cd
Obsidian flesh might not stunbreak but lasts 4 sec,doesnt klock your skills,has a 50 sec cd and is a freaking weapon skill out of your 20 skills
The exact same comparison can be done between cleansing fire and magnetic wave.
Something is really really off here.Perhaps their idea of balance is super strong skills make up for incerdibly weak almost nonexistant skills like fireshield and flamewall.
In any case the weapon is fun but currently imo you should only run it with high offencive builds and fresh air so that you get your damage output in a decent level
The difference between pre fresh air focus and now is massive in terms of viability of this weapon just cause of the damage increase

Yep, damage scaling on focus is terrible. Most of the abilities need their cooldowns halved to make up for what they do and flamewall’s burn should be increased by at least 400%.

Keep Obsidian Flesh and Swirling Winds, every other skill could probably be changed without most players even noticing.

So, do any of you actually use the focus? Gale (air 5) is one of our stronger kds, it has a long kd duration, you can use it back wards (hitting a foe behind you) and it is a channel / cast so you can use it on a thief as he is about to stealth to prevent him spamming 2 into smoke field. It is quite a powerful single target interrupt.

Fire 4 needs work. Fire 5, they must have run out of ideas because this aura is sub par for the short duration and long cool down not to mention that we are eles so we don’t want to be hit.

Fire Aura:
Inflict burning and gain might when attacked, might can only be gained once per second per attacker.

The above change would allow fire aura to affect foes with multi attacks and allow burning to stack longer then 1 second. If a foe is using -condition duration then unless you have +condition duration they will not be affected by the burn.

Air 4, grant swiftness similar to staff air 4

TGSlasher.1458:

So, do any of you actually use the focus? Gale (air 5) is one of our stronger kds, it has a long kd duration, you can use it back wards (hitting a foe behind you) and it is a channel / cast so you can use it on a thief as he is about to stealth to prevent him spamming 2 into smoke field. It is quite a powerful single target interrupt.

The problem with that ability is that it has a ridiculous cooldown for what it does. Updraft has a lower cooldown, is AoE, makes you dodge, gives you swiftness and the only – compared to Gale is the range.

It also takes you out of the fight for a small duration of its knockdown and is point blank.

Gale is -f-u-l-l- 900 range, only hits 1 foe but puts them down for a decent time (2 seconds) with no recovery on your part (a few after frame). Has a good tell (hard to see compared to a lot of our other skills). The focus defiantly goes best with the sceptre, gale is just long enough to land DT if you don’t lag and the skill ranges match.

I’m not saying its better, but it is much better then people give it credit for.

Focus is good, but could use a little help.

Flame Wall: Up it’s damage, doing something like half of fiery rush would be fitting. Would also like a bigger Fire Field area to make doing Dragon’s Tooth/Phoenix Might stacking combo alot easier.

Comet: It’s a good skill, an AoE daze on a short cool down. Does ok damage if I remember right. Maybe could cause Vulnerability too

Gale: This skill is probably the worst, it’s a single target knockdown, on a 50 second cool down that does no damge. Compared to Comet’s 2 second AoE Daze on a 25 second cool down

Change to Shock. 1.5 second cast time, high single target damage, and causes knockdown.

Earth Magic on Focus is in a good place. You get Magnetic Wave, a 25 second cool down skill that reflects projectiles for 3 seconds, causes cripple, and is a blast finisher. Does some damage as well

Then you have Obsidian Flesh. It gives 5 seconds of invulnerability (think Guardian’s Renewed Focus without the cast time and almost half the cool down). Only takes 50 seconds to come around. It’s better than all other invulnerable skills because you can attack while it’s active. By invulnerable skills I mean Mistform/Elixir S. It’s better than Signet of Stone and Endure Pain because you’re immune to conditions while it’s active to. It doesn’t need a cool down reduction because of how strong it is

Edit: Double post

Ele focus has been crappy since beta and remains one of the worst weapons in game.

Specifics:

• no mobility. I can’t see the weapon as decent without the addition of at least 1 mobility skill, eg: water #4 (freezing gust) could be a 600 leap like dagger #3 (burning speed) that chills.
• both the fire skills are really, really crappy. fire #4 could e.g. grant might to allies crossing, and destroy enemy projectiles.
• air #4 (swirling winds) is a good candidate for a rework e.g. PBAE dmg + blind. It should probably also grant swiftness.
• the damage coefficients across the board are too low.

Wow, everyone crying for focus buffs… And I can mash face with the current state of the focus 1o1 and even up to 1v3…
I will be so op if the devs come by and read this… oh wait.

Also don´t DARE change gale in any negative way, like that 1.5 second cast. We don´t need another dragonstooth!

If u guys don’t believe ele focus is a (in comparison) viable offhand choice WS me if you are on an EU server and we can beat each other up!

Focus is good besides fire. Offhand dagger is what sucks these days.

Blimm.5028:

Wow, everyone crying for focus buffs… And I can mash face with the current state of the focus 1o1 and even up to 1v3…
I will be so op if the devs come by and read this… oh wait.

Also don´t DARE change gale in any negative way, like that 1.5 second cast. We don´t need another dragonstooth!

If u guys don’t believe ele focus is a (in comparison) viable offhand choice WS me if you are on an EU server and we can beat each other up!

Nobody is saying ele focus doesn’t have its uses, but some of its skills are seriously lacking, and it doesn’t have any significant team play once you’ve burned Swirling Winds, aside from using Obsidian Flesh to get a clutch res on a downed party member.

Blast finishers. Also mashing the enemy necros face while being invulnerable helps the team a lot.
But I see your point. But dagger offhand is either too squishy and has no support or is unable to melt someone.
Only reasonable support on ele comes from staff (rofl, REASONABLE)

signed

Blimm.5028:

Blast finishers. Also mashing the enemy necros face while being invulnerable helps the team a lot.
But I see your point. But dagger offhand is either too squishy and has no support or is unable to melt someone.
Only reasonable support on ele comes from staff (rofl, REASONABLE)

Focus is a good weapon as it is. I should know, been using it as my main setup since Christmas. The fire line is lacking though, either fire shield needs a buff (easiest without throwing balance out) or fire aura needs a buff (that would effect all fire auras available in the game). Adding a small duration of retaliation to Fire Shield or even shortening its cd / increasing its duration would be fair enough.

Flamewall is one of the worse fields, good for using earth 1 through but the damage and burning that you get off the skill (not finisher) doesn’t force anyone to think twice about walking into it and makes it harder to land DT / Phoenix in for some nice blast finishers, not that I usually bother with might stacking, waist a good DT on a field … pffft.

Most of the other focus skills are fine. The focus is geared toward single target foes, which makes it a good match up for the sceptre (esp gale + dragons tooth or phoenix, both if you don’t lag as much as I do).

The reason I gave away daggers was because both main hand and off hand cannot handle lag very well. Many of the skills fail and when you have 30+% of you weapon skills failing you can understand why I moved to focus. Personally I would like to see the bunker part of off dagger moved to focus (water 5) but weather that will ever happen or not is a different story

Blimm.5028:

Blast finishers. Also mashing the enemy necros face while being invulnerable helps the team a lot.
But I see your point. But dagger offhand is either too squishy and has no support or is unable to melt someone.
Only reasonable support on ele comes from staff (rofl, REASONABLE)

Blast finishers aren’t really something that sets it apart. Swirling Winds is a total game-changer. If Fire/Water were brought up to par, focus would probably start actually seeing competitive play with area denial and great defense-into-offense abilities. Assuming of course conditions are brought in line.

I’ve been using focus for some time now and I really enjoy it, but I when I’m fighting a stupid healing signet warrior and I know my offhand is what’s keeping me from killing him because the skills aren’t doing anything, it’s annoying as hell.

Leuca.5732:

Blimm.5028:

Blast finishers. Also mashing the enemy necros face while being invulnerable helps the team a lot.
But I see your point. But dagger offhand is either too squishy and has no support or is unable to melt someone.
Only reasonable support on ele comes from staff (rofl, REASONABLE)

Blast finishers aren’t really something that sets it apart. Swirling Winds is a total game-changer. If Fire/Water were brought up to par, focus would probably start actually seeing competitive play with area denial and great defense-into-offense abilities. Assuming of course conditions are brought in line.

I’ve been using focus for some time now and I really enjoy it, but I when I’m fighting a stupid healing signet warrior and I know my offhand is what’s keeping me from killing him because the skills aren’t doing anything, it’s annoying as hell.

Yeah, fire and water are extremely lack luster.

fire #4, fire #5, water #4, and air #4 are all very lacklustre.

I’ve always thought water #4 should be a 600 leap with a chill.

Focus needs a mobility skill.

mjharrison.3209:

fire #4, fire #5, water #4, and air #4 are all very lacklustre.

I’ve always thought water #4 should be a 600 leap with a chill.

Focus needs a mobility skill.

Air 4 is absolutely amazing. 6 seconds of huge aoe projectile nullification is just really good for its recharge. Honestly Air 5 is in a worse state just because of recharge.

I don’t think focus needs mobility if it actually gets to a point where it can area control efficiently like it should. However, it needs a lot of work to get there.

Leuca.5732:

mjharrison.3209:

fire #4, fire #5, water #4, and air #4 are all very lacklustre.

I’ve always thought water #4 should be a 600 leap with a chill.

Focus needs a mobility skill.

Air 4 is absolutely amazing. 6 seconds of huge aoe projectile nullification is just really good for its recharge. Honestly Air 5 is in a worse state just because of recharge.

I don’t think focus needs mobility if it actually gets to a point where it can area control efficiently like it should. However, it needs a lot of work to get there.

I’d love for a true area denial/control spec for ele’s. ): Mobility is all good and that but I’d love to just bunker down and be ready for the apocalypse.

Reduce Fire #5 Air#5 cooldowns.

Totally rework flamewall or increase direct damage and burning duration from Fire#4.

Make Water#4 a small AOE or some sort of leap like mentioned above.

You mean there are eles that use focus in WvW? Shocked!

Fuzzion.2504:

You mean there are eles that use focus in WvW? Shocked!

Focus is still nice for fights. I mainly use it when facing a ranged guy to control his damage output while bursting him down.

There’s still plenty of elementalists, including myself, that enjoys using the focus, even though it definitely could use some work.

Flame Wall (fire 4): Increase damage or burn duration

Fire Shield (fire 5): Increase duration of aura or reduce cooldown or add retaliation for a short duration currently outclassed by frosty aura (same cooldown, longer duration, better effect)

Freezing Gust (Water 4): Aoe at targets location or increase the chill duration

Comet (Water 5): Fine, bug fix to prevent going through obstruction

Swirling Winds (Air 4): This skill is fine in my opinon, however, adding an aoe swiftness (1 second per second standing in the field, so swiftness within the field) or vulnerability (to foes standing in the field) would be nice for when not fighting a projectile class (keeping the skill still usefull). However, swiftness and vulnerability do not really match the focus as it seems to be a stationary defensive weapon. Perhaps damage reduction for melee enemies in the field (something like 5-10%) but that would make the skill harder to counter.

Gale (Air 5): This skill has potential, everyone says its bad, but is a long cd with not much loss during the skill (see updraft), it has a not so obvious tell/animation and it goes backwards. It is also a cast so it hits stealthed foes (even if the teleport). A small cooldown reduction could help boost the power of this skill, but I wouldn’t like for its fire backwards to be removed (one of the only ways to get away from foes with the focus)

Earth: fine, powerful, possibly why the other skills are lacking. It has a better mistform and a better cleansing fire built into the set.

With earth in its current state (strong) I don’t see Anet adding movement skills to the weapon and I think that would take away from the theme of the focus. It is a defensive weapon with a couple of area denial skills, but mostly focused on fighting 1 foe or bunkering (no support skills, only a couple area denial, strong 1v1 abilities, no escape abilities). Moving bunker to the focus would be a good change I believe. We have a damage / roaming weapon already (dagger) lets not make the focus into a clone of that weapon.

Fuzzion.2504:

You mean there are eles that use focus in WvW? Shocked!

And fractals and certain dungeons. It’s useful in certain situations but these situations are still pretty much doable with the other weapon sets. So compared to other weapon sets that feels well rounded overall, it feels lackluster regardless of some of its niche uses. It needs some more tweaking.

I like it the way it is actually, only thing I would want is Focus Water #5 to not have a delay like Dragons tooth, or make it a targetable AoE. Focus can be pretty strong, particularly against ranged.

Parktou.4263:

I like it the way it is actually, only thing I would want is Focus Water #5 to not have a delay like Dragons tooth, or make it a targetable AoE. Focus can be pretty strong, particularly against ranged.

What significant use do you get out of Fire/Water?

I would love to see some changes to focus. Earth/Air mostly acceptable, though some could use some minor changes, but Fire and Water on Focus are horrible. Here are my ideas:

Firewall: Explodes and deals damage and causes burning the first time a foe passes through it. For the rest of its duration it will continue to apply burning and deal less damage each time a foe walks over it.

Focus Fire 5: Should be a new skill. Please not Fire Shield. QQ Fire is the damage element, so this skill should have some damage potential while still being somewhat defensive in nature.

Freezing Gust/Comet: Should be combined into Focus Water 5 and radius and damage should be increased. Also, it should be ground targeting.

Focus Water 4 should be a new skill. Perhaps something involving a water field to give focus some healing?

Swirling Winds should give you 2-3 seconds of swiftness each second you are in it. So by staying in it for it’s full duration you could build up a decent amount of swiftness that would allow you to kite your foe.

Gale should possibly have a reduced cooldown and maybe even be AoE. Currently gale does have synergy with DT/Phoenix so it does have it’s uses.