Guild Wars 2

I’m a focus enthusiast. I created a Dagger/Focus build during a stress test right before the game launched, and have been using it ever since. The more I use the focus, the more I love it.

But it has its issues. The biggest one being that the damage output is all but nil.
This makes some sense on paper – after all, it’s a defensive weapon – but it is just too much of an issue to make it viable in most scenarios.

Below is a list of all focus abilities and my proposed changes to them. My changes revolve around fixing up some meh abilities on focus as well as providing a bit more combo finishers/fields to make the focus a bit more synergetic with both itself and the scepter/dagger, as well as improving the damage output a little bit in a way that also supports your allies – focus is a support weapon, after all.

Fire #4 – Flamewall
This is a simple but useful fire combo field.
Proposal: No major changes necessary, though a slightly larger combo field would be very nice.

Fire #5 – Fire Shield
Fire Shield is an aura with a 3 second duration that, when activated, will burn foes (…that touch the fire shield?).
Proposal: Either make this a blast finisher or make it a (small) fire combo field; preferably the former. Duration should be increased to 4-5 seconds and burning should be increased to 2-3s (per second standing in fire shield).

Water #4 – Freezing Gust
Ranged minimal DPS and 3s chilling.
Proposal: Damage should be raised a little bit. Either CD should be lowered to 15-20s or chilling should be increased to 5-6s.

Water #5 – Comet
Appears above enemy similar to Dragon’s Tooth, but drops on enemy much faster than Dragon’s Tooth. Drop area is a 120 feet radius. If enemy is hit on drop, deals moderate damage and dazes for 2s.
Proposal: No change.

Air #4 – Swirling Winds
Creates a PBAoE (400 radius) around you that destroys(not reflects) all projectiles.
Proposal: Also make it a lightning combo field.

Air #5 – Gale
2 second knockdown w/ 50s cooldown.
Proposal: Lower CD to 40-45s.

Earth #4 – Magnetic Wave
Moderate damage, PBAoE, 3s projectile reflection, and cures up to three conditions. Did I mention it’s a blast finisher?
Proposal: No change. This and earth #5 are easily the two best abilities in the weapon. This ability has a lot of excellent effects in one. I’d argue too many. Remove the condition curing effect and put it on another ability in focus.

Earth #5 – Obsidian Flesh
4 second invulnerability w/ 50s cooldown. Can move and use abilities while invulnerable.
Proposal: No change. This ability is, in my opinion, the largest reason why focus is worth using. Once the rest of the focus is improved to a reasonable level, this ability may be slightly overpowered. Lowering the time of invulnerability to 2-3 seconds and/or increasing CD to 60s would help balance this ability out.

Fire Shield actually burns enemies for 1 sec. each time they attack you. Doesn’t matter if they touch it. It’s sort of like the Retaliation boon in a sense.

Swirling Winds actually reflects projectiles (unless a recent patch changed it). But as far as I remember (from a couple weeks back) it has always reflected projectiles even though the description doesn’t say so. (Even if it didn’t I think swirling winds is strong enough as is though; unless you want to increase the duration a tad bit and increase its cool-down correspondingly).

Btw, I think your suggestions sounds fair.

While I don’t agree with your suggestion for Fire Shield (we can trigger one whenever we use signets so if it was changed to a blast finisher it would be even more ridiculously easy to stack might!). Not to mention that it’s an Aura and all the other auras are essentially the same [X effect when hit] I do agree that this skill needs a rethink.

Fire shield should be considered as being more than just an isolated skill, it needs to be looked at along with the traits.

Firstly it (much like the huge amount of pointless overlap in non-stacking speed increasing traits – such as Zephyr’s speed, One with Air e.t.c.) is yet another example of poorly thought through trait design, since both Flame Barrier and Fire Shield have pretty much the same effect… causing burning when hit.

This may not seem like much of a problem as one offers a chance of inflicting burning when hit while attuned to fire, while the other makes this a certainty for a short duration and when traited can be coupled with protection.
However given the many, many ways that Burning can be inflicted and the fact that Burning only stacks in duration it’s already trivially easy to get perma burning without either Flame Barrier or Flame Shield… Sure they have some use when attacked by multiple weak opponents, but that’s about it.
In groups or against single opponents you will be working hard not to be hit, not to mention using other means to inflict burning (fields), making these abilities doubly redundant.

Also the 3s duration on Fire Shield is very low when compared to the other Auras (5s Shocking, 7s Frost, 5s Magnetic), many of which have far greater effect, not to mention shorter cooldowns.

My guess is that Fire shield was balanced around the fact that it can be triggered from Signets and that Burning is considered strong, and it is – on paper at any rate. However kittening a weapon skill based on traits and making a slot 5 (loooong cooldown) skill markedly weaker than lower slot skills is a poor design decision.

If I had the choice I’d make Frost Aura the Traited aura triggered by Signets as chill is far less of a balance worry then burning and increase the duration of Fire shield to 5s and allow it to burn on proximity not on hit (Flame Barrier already does this).

PS Swirling winds does not and has never had the effect of reflecting projectiles. It destroys them. Magnetic wave reflects them.

Focus Fire #5 skill is definitely in need of attention. I used it maybe twice, then never bothered with it again, no point wasting valuable time on something that barely does anything.

Focus is an interesting choice, but I think it has some key problems:
- fire magic is extremely underwhelming. IMO, the main reason to not many pick this off-hand.
- earth magic is stronger than it should. The main reason to pick a focus.
- no speed boost, which makes OH dagger or staff more convenient to have.

My suggestions:
- Magnetic wave – damage, projectile reflection, combo finisher and condition removal. Oh my god. Take condition removal out of it, to put in some other skill. This should make earth more balanced.
- Flamewall – no one is going to stay so long in the field to take meaningful damage from it, and unless you cast it where you are, your dragon’s tooth is not going to combo finish with it. First suggestion is to have it work like mesmer’s focus wall: you only need to get pass through it once to get the full duration of the condition (6s burning seems fine to me), and that won’t be stacked. Second suggestion is also inspired by mesmer’s wall: have it give a positive effect to allies who cross it. What effect? Best example would be the condition removal taken out of magnetic wave. With all those chances, Flamewall would probably need a higher recharge (25?) and, IMO, swapped with fire shield for the ultimate 5th, considering OH dagger’s frost aura is also on the 4th slot. For more consistency.
- Fire Shield – this skill is just bad. For a generic buff, have the burning last 2s or more per hit, the duration to last 7s or so, and the recharge down to 25-20s. Alternatively, or in addition to this, put condition removal in this skill instead on the above, one condition per second, and keep the 3s duration.
- Swirling Winds – Have it apply swiftness to five allies within it.

This seems enough to me, without making the focus overpowered, imo.