Guild Wars 2

The focus has potential – it brings a lot of defensive skills and utilities. The nerf to Ride the Lightning has greatly reduced the effectiveness of the off-hand dagger as a mobility weapon, allowing the focus some room to catch up. The off-hand still feels as if it is in beta, however. While some of the skills feel strong and satisfying, the weapon suffers from the following problems:

Punishingly high cooldowns on skills that don’t really warrant them (Fire Shield, Gale, Freezing Gust).

Possibly the worst Fire Attunement skill selection available. Fire Shield is on a ridiculous cooldown for a self-only fire aura and Flame Wall is just not a very good skill in general – it’s okay for creating a fire field, and nothing more.

Offers the weakest aura of any Elementalist weapon.

An Elementalist wielding this off-hand over dagger has little, if any, burst damage.

Suggestions for Improvement

Through The Fire and The Flames (Fire Slot 5)
Place a fire wall at the target location that deals a large amount of initial damage + burning when a foe crosses it. Allies who cross the Fire Wall will gain a Fire Shield.
Combo field – Fire
Cooldown – 50 seconds

By combining Fire Wall and Fire Shield, a new skill is created that actually earns its long cooldown by providing a Fire Shield that can be shared without traits, a fire combo field, and a potential source of area denial and burst damage.

This also frees up room for………

Stop, Drop, and Roll (Fire Slot 4)
Places a debuff on the target foe that deals significant damage over time to them while applying brief Torment with each pulse. The foe can remove the debuff early by dodge rolling.
Cooldown – 20 seconds

With this new skill, the Elementalist gains a tool that equates to either a powerful free damage tool (PvE) or a skill that forces the target to choose between taking significant damage or blowing a dodge at an inopportune time. This can also help you finish fights against low endurance foes by discouraging fleeing or punishing it if they make that decision.

Freezing Gust
Pick 2:
Reduced cooldown to 20 seconds
Significantly increased damage.
Small area of effect.

Gale
Now pushes the target back and then knocks them down for 2 seconds (900 range).
Addition of a small cone push (but no knockdown) directly in front of the Elementalist (think Fire Grab).

With this change, Gale will synergize with the new Fire 5 skill and help the Ele (especially an S/F ele) keep foes away.

You want to change Gale to be point blank? or would this retain its range?

TGSlasher.1458:

You want to change Gale to be point blank? or would this retain its range?

It retains the 900 range 2s knockdown (with a push added) on your target while gaining a very small point blank aoe cone that pushes foes away.

Gale doesn’t need to be AoE. A recharge reduction would more than suffice. It’s pretty sad that it has a longer base recharge than Updraft but is mechanically subpar in every regard but range. You could also add some secondary effect, providing a boon to the ele or a condition to the target e.g. aegis (the force of wind temporary guards the ele) or vulnerability (the blasted target has its defense weakened by the force of wind).

Most of the focus’ needs are obviously in the Fire/Water lines. Fire 4 will continue to be worthless as long as it is either a) a line and b) an inferior source of damage. D/F has no need for Fire 4 because of Fire 3, and it’s too awkward for S/F to use reliably in a fight due to the necessity to precisely aim your blast finishers. Fire 5 needs to have the recharge reduced and a secondary effect added that is unique to the elementalist and unrelated to the aura itself. The only use it has right now is to keep fury up.

Water 4 needs a slight damage increase and a secondary effect to the chill. A single target chill is only marginally useful in a team fight when the skill essentially does nothing else. Water 5 needs a larger area of effect and should reward the player for properly chilling the foe with some secondary effect.

There’s so many repeating focus rework threads, they usually end in silence because Anet hasn’t responded to the subject.

I made the same suggestion for Flamewall a few months ago, albeit without that joke of a skill name you chose. People have suggested a pass through mechanic or a detonation mechanic for it (ala Mesmer’s Temporal Curtain which has both).

Personally I’d rather Ring of Fire is switched to focus instead. Dagger is a slashing or stabbing weapon, rings are neither slashed nor stabbed. Give offhand fire dagger a new combo field, preferably some sort of smoldering smoke field

Become a true elementalist with the element of surprise!

My other issue with your rework is Stop, Drop, and Roll. Come on man they already used that oh so creative name on a water trait that removes burn/chill on dodge roll.
The remove on dodge roll mechanic is kind of strange for your torment addition.

Freezing gust = same plus 3 stacks 5s torment
Comet = changed to instant cast aoe (can be cast when stunned)

Air and earth are good enough for me at this point.

The focus fire/water skills are terrible shame that the air and earth skills suffer because of fire/water skills exsistance.

Any buff to the fire/water is welcome.