Guild Wars 2

Just curious that I haven’t really heard much about the other elementalist weapons like the scepter or specifically the focus. I scoured the forum but mostly it’s about Dagger and Staff.

Me personally, I’m a Dagger/Dagger but use Staff in WvW. I don’t really PvP. I’m mostly PvE and love running dungeons with random groups. That said, from 1-80 I’ve mainly used daggers and swapped to staff when ranged was needed and even then I’d lean toward using my Ice Bow when I knew I needed range.

But that kind of goes against my nature, tuning out a mode of play…but I tried using Scepter and Focus before while lvling but it just didn’t stick. I resolved to force myself to learn the nature of the combo and kept playing with it. I have to admit, it’s fun specifically the focus.

I tend to be the guy that helps bunker down his team, blinding the foes, reflecting and destroying their shots, rushing in to press the attack and keeping a constant stream of fire going. I’m still going to be a Dagger elementalist at heart but now I’ll be keeping a scepter and focus in my inventory for special occasions.

Well, I guess the point of the thread is, do people just not use Focus? Because I rarely see it in-game.

I use focus in Caudecus, because there are tons of ranged mobs that hit like trucks and I find it useful there. Otherwise not so much.

i use it in hard pve content.
havent found a use for it in pvp

The only reason to use focus is if you need Cleansing Water and ranged protection at the same time. Otherwise just go Staff+Powerful Aura.

Focus is nice for PvP.
It gives you a daze, a knockdown and invulnerability. Of course, these 3 come at the cost of fire grab, updraft, earthquake and churning earth. That’s a big cost but I can’t say that Focus is horribly worse than offhand Dagger.

Focus has a nice combo, where you start off in Lightning until you apply vulnerability (lightning 25 trait), then knock down (20% more damage to knocked down opponents), switch to fire for dragons tooth and then immediately switch to Water for 20% more damage to vulnerable foes. At least it sounds good on paper. This combo has a 50 sec cooldown (40s traited), almost same as Frenzy, so I don’t really know if it’s worth all that setup and traits.

If you spec tanky then Focus is great for interrupting stomps and getting off resses in PvP, but I felt that I didn’t contribute any damage at all and it has no big healing capability so I think it’s not the best choice.

Swirling winds + Magnetic Wave are great against rangers, also Magnetic Wave is a blast finisher and removes 3 condis, I definitely miss that skill whenever I’m not using Focus. The thing on Dagger offhand that is great against rangers is RTL and currently if you try to go for a target at 300-600 range it will bug 100% so I’ll take Focus any day.

At least it sounds good on paper.

Until you realize that the +20% to vulnerable targets trait is crap as your water spells will still do much less damage than your other attunement.

+20% to vulnerable targets is only really decent with Conjured weapons, which basically means PvE Lightning Hammer build.

The only role focus actually excels at is projectile counters. Yes it has an invuln, but as a defensive weapon it burns through its cooldown too quickly when focus fired, especially by melee in PvP.

Only the fire skills are clearly bad, but as a whole the dagger offers better damage, better mobility, and better healing even. Everything the focus adds is very niche. The lack of healing really makes the focus poorly suited to defensive play. If you run a Cleric’s or Shaman’s Amulet for a bunker build you really don’t want to run a focus and have fewer healing skills, in fact D/F has none at all. I’ve actually had better results with a Berserker’s Amulet as you have a better chance of killing or routing your opponent before you run out of cooldowns, but it has no damage or burst options to contribute.

It works okay with condition builds since you can stall while the conditions do their work.

Wildclaw.6073:

At least it sounds good on paper.

Until you realize that the +20% to vulnerable targets trait is crap as your water spells will still do much less damage than your other attunement.

The 20% will work for the Dragon Tooth as well, as long as your in Water Attunement before it lands.

theonewhoknocks.8641:

Wildclaw.6073:

At least it sounds good on paper.

Until you realize that the +20% to vulnerable targets trait is crap as your water spells will still do much less damage than your other attunement.

The 20% will work for the Dragon Tooth as well, as long as your in Water Attunement before it lands.

Nice trick.

Wildclaw.6073:

At least it sounds good on paper.

Until you realize that the +20% to vulnerable targets trait is crap as your water spells will still do much less damage than your other attunement.

+20% to vulnerable targets is only really decent with Conjured weapons, which basically means PvE Lightning Hammer build.

Lava axe is a valid PvP weapon IMHO. Its like a second longer range higher damage D/D fire atunment. rather a higher sustained damage.

it fits pretty well into a slow rotation.

I’ve been playing ele ever since BWE1, and been using D/F ever since release. I wrote up a D/F bunker guide a little while ago: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/D-F-build-and-yes-F-for-focus/first
Do note that the latest D/F bunker build I recommend is this.

The build works well for solo PvE and SPvP, though due to lack of mobility and AoE, it is lacking in dungeons and WvW. It’s also quite fun to play.

Focus has its issues though. I proposed several ability improvements here not too long ago, but due to the overall lack of popularity focus has, the thread didn’t get much traction.

The 20% will work for the Dragon Tooth as well, as long as your in Water Attunement before it lands.

Ah, stupid me. Does gale last long enough though? It is only a 2s duration and DT isn’t known for its fast animation time.

Wildclaw.6073:

The 20% will work for the Dragon Tooth as well, as long as your in Water Attunement before it lands.

Ah, stupid me. Does gale last long enough though? It is only a 2s duration and DT isn’t known for its fast animation time.

it doesnt last long enough to knock em down and then cast DT. they can get up and dodge before it lands.
although it could be combined with a signet of earth immobilize or some other immobilize or possibly chill.
Still they are likely to have a stunbreaker and nullify the whole combo. better to use it on a point with a lot of action… for me anyway.

I’m reading mixed signals. Some say it’s useless in PvP while others say it has its uses. Some say it’s bad in dungeons and others say it’s a good survival tool.

I can’t say if Focus is good for PvP since I rarely set foot in that arena, but it’s certainly good in dungeons from my experience. Eventually I’ll try it out in WvW. As a dagger/dagger, I tend to end up downed a lot and if I’m not, I tend to be kiting the hordes until they die or I do. Scepter/focus, I’m usually the guy that’s last standing and/or kiting the champion mobs until everyone waypoints back (did this several times in SE which seems crazy/impossible for my dagger/dagger).

Currently, I’m doing Honor of the Waves so I can get the armor and the times where I’ve played with other elementalist, I’ve spent picking them up after they fall down.

Yeah, you won’t do as much raw damage with a focus but you may do more DPS by purely not needing to kite or get downed as often…I think it’s a different kind of playstyle.

Just a few more specifics, as a dagger/dagger, I use mostly cantrips with water trait for lots of regen and the elemental elite, with high HP and regenerating alot, it makes kiting worthwhile. For scepter/focus, I don’t use any defensive utilities but instead use Arcane Power + Glyph of Storms + Elementals and quick glyphs trait and it does alright for overall AoE. The combo itself feels like I can use all those offensive utilities without worrying about crippling myself which is probably far from the case in PvP but it’s obvious in PvE.

I’m also curious about people’s thoughts on the scepter since that’s also something people rarely use. Every now and again I’ll see scepter/dagger though.

I tried focus in sPvP. Since lightning and fire attunement lack dependable damage you will just take longer to lose a fight. Furthermore you are missing ride the lightning and therefore a lot of mobility.

Wildclaw.6073:

The 20% will work for the Dragon Tooth as well, as long as your in Water Attunement before it lands.

Ah, stupid me. Does gale last long enough though? It is only a 2s duration and DT isn’t known for its fast animation time.

It does, just barely. So barely that you have to switch to fire mid-cast, not wait for the confirmation that the player is knocked down.

And yes, DT animation is slow, so slow in fact that you have time to cast Phoenix as well before switching to Water for the 20% boost.

When it all comes together the DT for me hit 6.4k, coupled with Arcane Wave 3.3k and Arcane Blast 3.3k. All on a Necro, probably minimum amount of Toughness possible. Followed up with the Daze (2.6s, mesmer runes) so he couldn’t heal and after that there’s complete lack of damage unless you have the rocks ready to throw in Earth + autoattack.

Focus really helps with the lack of survivability that comes with a Berserkers amulet.

It’s not bad but it’s hard to give up ride the lightning.

Focus is very situational. It’s probably only useful in WvW when you run with a Zerg.

The best thing I have heard about the Focus in PVP is that it can Nulifly Trebuchet and Balista fire with Swirling aura. Which in WVW is incredibly usefull if you need that extra second to prepare for your gate going down. That’s what I have heard. Frankly I have not tested myself. (that was according to the wiki). If someone wants to “check it out” Please come back and tell me! I am excited to know how/if it works.