Guild Wars 2

Topic title takes influence from early Rurouni Kenshin episodes.

So, I want to make a push on the focus to make it a better bunker weapon. Currently the offhand dagger is the main bunker weapon. Why is that?

Lets look at the skills:
Ride the Lightning: An escape, or a gap closer, when things don’t go your way you can flee
Updraft: A blowout ability, usefull for keeping your foe on the ground while you heal up, or proceed to mole station
Earthquake: A second interrupt ability, again, stick you foe in the ground and do as you wish
Cleansing Wave: No good bunker goes out without his heal.

The offhand dagger has many good options to open it as a bunker weapon. The problem here is that the skills get nerfed, making other uses (S/D damage for example) suffer as well. While Ride the Lightning makes a good escape skill, having it combined with these other bunker type skills means that glass cannons trying to get away before their imminent death can no longer do that as often (due to the 40 sec nerf). Cleansing Wave also saw a nerf in its time, I think (if I recall correctly it had its healing coefficient toned down).

The Diversity patch was a step in the right direction. Now we see S/D Fresh Air builds as well as some of the vets sticking to the D/D build. I currently run a S/F build myself. The focus however, doesn’t have all that much love, or use within our Elemenalist brethren. It lacks movement, it lacks damage, its only advantage are the defensive skills.

Skill Breakdown:
Flamewall: A nice fire field, though not as coverage as our other weapon fields.
Fire Aura: Grant a fire aura (way to long cd on this guys)
Gust: A ranged chill and some damage, short enough cd
Comet: A predictive interrupt (don’t use in an emergency), give a 2 sec aoe daze
Swirling Winds: Projectile destroy, this skill is situational, not everyone takes projectiles with them
Gale: One of our best KDs, not much of a “tell” on this skill
Magnetic Wave: Reflect, condition removal and a blast finisher. What more could you want, while the reflect is situation, the rest of the skill can be used when not fighting projectile enemies, overall, my favourite ele skill.
Obsidian Flesh: Invulnerability, situational in pvp (don’t want people to cap the points on you, do you?).

The focus has some nice defences build in (more on the anti projectile side) but to really draw the crowds as a bunker weapon it needs something more. I have mentioned several times that if you were to move Cleansing Wave from the /D and stick it on the focus you would have a good bunker weapon.

How would this change work?
Step 1: Remove Cleansing Wave from Dagger and replace it with Gust (chill 3 sec 20 cd)
Step 2: Put Cleansing Wave as focus water 5 and move Comet to water 4
Step 3: Revert changes to Ride the Lightning, remake it a 20 cd skill but 1200 range

This allows the /D to maintain its damage and movement, whilst moving bunker to the Focus (the eles defensive weapon). Originally I thought of taking cleansing wave away from the /D and replacing it with a lesser heal. Today I thought of swapping with Comet, but that would give /D 3x interrupts and leave the focus with none. So unless creating some new skill, looks like Gust is up to the challenge.

Feel free to discuss these proposed changes, or ideas of your own to push some love into the Focus.

TL;DR
How would this change work?
Step 1: Remove Cleansing Wave from Dagger and replace it with Gust (chill 3 sec 20 cd)
Step 2: Put Cleansing Wave as Focus Water 5 and move Comet to Water 4
Step 3: Revert changes to Ride the Lightning, remake it a 20 or 25 cd skill but 1200 range

This allows the /D to maintain its damage and movement, whilst moving bunker to the Focus (the eles defensive weapon).

Interesting idea however the only minor issue I see with this is a D/D ele getting access to a lot of chill in water attunement. (3 skills which can chill heh)

I will think of some other ideas as well to improve the focus (I really wish it had some minor mobility/better fire skills for pvp)

I hope you do not mind if I link your thread in my own suggestions thread lol.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Suggestions-for-improving-fixing-eles/first#post2382521

I like S/F and run it often, with Staff being my primary weapon most of the time.

The problem with both of those weapons is what kills me most of the time. Melee. I can outrange or LOS ranged attackers very easily, and Focus and Staff both have defensive skills that work great against range. Melee, however, is the thing that destroys me. Once they get on me I can’t get away. CC is of minimal value, and what lands is easily cleansed.

With D/D the thing that kills me most often is running out of cooldowns. Melee or ranged doesn’t matter because I can disengage fairly easily, even with the increased RTL cooldown. It’s even easier when I’m running Mist Form and Lightning Flash.

Focus is bad because it doesn’t help against melee, but it’s got shorter range than staff. After my Obsidian Skin wears off I’m dead, and my mobility is so bad that there’s no way I can get away while my Invuln is up. I use it anyway, though. I take the approach that Ele is just not designed to get hit, and I try to burst people that are already in combat with someone else. If I get focused I’m just gonna die unless the attackers are terrible.

This approach causes me to die a lot more, but it also lets me have a greater impact on fights if I can stay alive long enough.

Demon.5082:

Interesting idea however the only minor issue I see with this is a D/D ele getting access to a lot of chill in water attunement. (3 skills which can chill heh)

I will think of some other ideas as well to improve the focus (I really wish it had some minor mobility/better fire skills for pvp)

I hope you do not mind if I link your thread in my own suggestions thread lol.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Suggestions-for-improving-fixing-eles/first#post2382521

No probs. I was talking to someone in one of my linked threads yesterday about giving comet to the /D instead of Gust.

@PinCushion,
Your name dictates your role :p. On a serious note, I run S/F in sPvP and have for quite some time. It defensive skills v projectile range (and even dps gaurdians) is brilliant. My build revolves a lot around toughness and blinds. If a warrior gets in range of me I basically summon dragons tooth on him to push him away, the save my blinds for his return. I did try to run full glass cannon with S/F (30 30 0 0 10 and 10 30 0 10 20) though it is not as good as the /D.

Last night I was polishing my build, running against a few other eles. The first was a S/D glass cannon with more defences then glass :/. That battle did not go good for me at all and after several tweeks to my build (mainly amulet changes) I had to submit to the better player. The second ele I versed was usually D/D but had changed to a fresh air build. I could tell he was new to the build and I rolled him the first few times. As he started to get better, the battles became harder, eventually we were basically on par. The difference in the builds was obvious though. The former ele used 30 arcane with /D giving him a metric crap tonne of heals. The second only had 10 arcane making his attacks hit harder, but without the heals of arcane he was easier to take down.

My personal experience with the focus is to not let your opponent get the upper hand. The build I run was designed to outlast D/Ds and eventually drop them. My build has been severely butcher since the diversity patch (too much cds on my signets now, cant get close to my old 100% protection, not to mention the bugs). To outlast my foes I play smart and I play with conditions (rabids or carrion, usually rabid for toughness, bleeds on crit). To kill eles I play smart, hard and fast (zerkers amulet, poison on swap). My basic tactic is to waist the enemies stun breaks / invuns.

Step 1, earth signet into dragons tooth (they will waist condition removal or teleport or invun)
Step 2 normal skills waiting for fire to come back (not waist air)
Step 3 KD into dragons tooth (that will never hit but hey, midas well make them think about it).
Finally sig of earth into dragons tooth going for a hit, then a swap for poision then force their heals out of them.

As to invulnerability, I only ever use invun when in a duelling situation or a very bad situation when on point, as it makes you not count towards cap. I never run mistform.

Focus lacks movement skills, but has defences build in. I believe that the focus should be build towards bunker even further then it is now. Your only escape with the focus is to kd your foe and run away and the only aid built in is chill and invun against melee (some better options against ranged, for a short period) as the focus has no built in movement (physical or swiftness).

OH Dagger gives too much compared to OH Focus. OH Dagger has mobility (RTL + Swiftness from 5), CC (Air 5 and Earth 4), Burst Damage (fire 5 and earth 5), defense (auras), and support/sustain (water 5) all tied into 1.

OH Focus Fire skills are weak and the aura isn’t as strong as the other auras that Eles have access to. Water and Earth have nice abilities and the CD seems about right. Air 5 isn’t AoE like Dagger OH and it has a higher CD. Plus it doesn’t have mobility on top of that. As an offensive weapon the Focus lacks burst damage that you get from Dagger OH which is important for dps after using CCs which the Focus does have. As a defensive weapon the Focus lacks AoE and sustain. Focus doesn’t allow you to survive longer by constantly healing you up and against a group of enemies it is hard for you to control and bunker down (you have to focus targets for most of your skills). As a support weapon you lack fields and AoE control. Why take Focus OH when you can take the more powerful staff and support your team better.

Things that they can do is to improve the fire and air abilities on the focus. For example combine #4 and #5 into one skill. Like activate the skill you gain a field shield but add something interesting like you are also now a moving fire field for x amount of time. Then with that extra slot you can add a skill with a high CD that improves other skills. For example, it makes Dragon’s Tooth land faster (this solves the problem that focus lacks a good way to burst). Or you can make it so that when this skill is used certain skills on MH dagger or MH scepter changes.

For Air you can do something simple like for Air 4 let it give swiftness when allies enter or exit the field. This makes it useful for a solo player and for groups with an Ele running x/F . Things like this ArenaNet should do instead of just increase damage or change cooldowns.

@CuRtoKy
I agree that a lot of the focus skills need work. The fire aura for 50 sec cd is just ridiculous. If it lasted 3 times longer, or if it conferred an extra bonus.
E.G.:
Gain a Fire Aura for 3 seconds and burn foes within 300-600 range. This punishes ranged foes for shooting you and double punishes foes for getting too close (something the focus lacks).

The air 4 skill is one of my favorites, however it doesn’t have a use outside of vs projectile range. Your suggestion for this one is interesting.

Personally I think of the focus as a weapon used to control a small area, as it does lack any movement skills.
As to air 5, I had an argument thakittens cd is worse then both the staff and /D. However, it is ranged (like staff, not like dagger) and its tell animation is harder to notice then the other 2. I think giving it the same treatment as the stakitten knockback would be a good start. Something like:
Summon a gust of wind between you and your foe. All foes in the way are knocked down.

What you do say is true though. The offhand dagger is a much better weapon and it is why it has much more mileage then the offhand focus. With so much defence potential built in, I would like to see bunker moved to the focus. Then Anet can stop nerfing /D for all other applications.

To addon to my focus topic. I would like to add this idea:
Focus Trait:
Focus and Meditation:
All focus skills have increased duration of 1 seconds

Just an idea.

TGSlasher.1458:

To addon to my focus topic. I would like to add this idea:
Focus Trait:
Focus and Meditation:
All focus skills have increased duration of 1 seconds

Just an idea.

This reminded me to add suggestions for them to improve our weapon specific skills as well. Blasting staff is good (probably too good heh) but the scepter/dagger traits are bad. Focus needs a trait as well.

focus skills just need to actually do damage.
in pve bossfights half your focus skills are rendered useless.

An interesting thing about this is, it makes /D synergize more with the Scepter, as you now get an on-demand chill to lock your opponents in place.

Focus really does need a heal.

Avatara.1042:

Focus really does need a heal.

Yes, it lacks damage, heal and speed. Which the /D has all 3 + arguably similar control (focus is ranged and only 1 AoE that is slow, dagger is point blank but both aoe)

As it is, it would be hard to add damage to the focus (the skills are of a defensive nature), adding movement would make it another QQ /D weapon but adding a heal makes it a, you cant run but you can stand and fight.

Taking away the heal from /D would remove the QQ, allow it to have its shorter CD on RTL (required for non bunker builds to even think about surviving) and still be a strong weapon. Adding a chill defiantly makes it synergies more with the Scepter (@naphack). Scepter being ranged, and allowing you to keep foes at range is a definite plus. This also opens more dodge pressure, as a chill makes you walk almost slow enough to get Dragon Toothed.

I’m sure worst case they could make the chill shorter ranged (300-600) and AoE to fit with the /D current skill set.

At any rate, with the focus and off dagger where they stand now, no one will take a focus (unless mad like me) outside of certain parts of PvE or certain situations in PvP (which is even less likely due to weapon locking in Tourney play).

i love the focus skills on air and water (visually speaking), loathe them on fire and earth (not particularly fun skills to use either), and think the devs forgot that eles could use them sometime before the first betas rolled out. 50s cooldown on a 2s knockdown. 25s cooldown on a 3s chill that does far less damage than the autoattack. it’s just silly.

ONe thing for focus that would be a simple, should-have-already-been-implemented buff would be to make magnetic wave an aura.

Wulf.5431:

ONe thing for focus that would be a simple, should-have-already-been-implemented buff would be to make magnetic wave an aura.

I don’t think so. Magnetic Aura just isn’t as good as magnetic wave. If they make Magnetic Wave into Magnetic Aura + damage + cure 3 conditions then sure, that would be a great buff.

E.G. Gain Magnetic Aura for 3 sec, deal damage and cure 3 conditions.

BrunoBRS.5178:

i love the focus skills on air and water (visually speaking), loathe them on fire and earth (not particularly fun skills to use either), and think the devs forgot that eles could use them sometime before the first betas rolled out. 50s cooldown on a 2s knockdown. 25s cooldown on a 3s chill that does far less damage than the autoattack. it’s just silly.

50 sec cd on a 2sec stun is fine if its AOE. But since its single target, it should be around 30sec.
The chill should be boosted to 5sec or the cd should be brought down to around 15 sec.

Wulf.5431:

ONe thing for focus that would be a simple, should-have-already-been-implemented buff would be to make magnetic wave an aura.

Yea I just made another thread suggesting more auras on all our wepons except D/D.
Traits that proc auras on signet use/glyphs would also be really good defense outside of our terribly long cd cantrips.