Guild Wars 2

90% of ppl i hear who run scepter main hand run dagger off hand. I mean i can understand with the burst from fire move 5 and ride the lightning being awesome. But short of that the focus seems a better option in more cases. The extra cc, way more survivability and a ranged knock down to set up phoenix fire fang combo. Heck even TWO projectile destroyers making you a nightmare for other ranged. And a 4 sec immunity to ALL DMG. Making heartseeker spam theives laughable. The list goes on. Dagger may have more dmg. But the utility the focus brings just seems way stronger in all cases of the game short of maybe 1v1

Why no focus love?

Tempotantrum.4356:

90% of ppl i hear who run scepter main hand run dagger off hand. I mean i can understand with the burst from fire move 5 and ride the lightning being awesome. But short of that the focus seems a better option in more cases. The extra cc, way more survivability and a ranged knock down to set up phoenix fire fang combo. Heck even TWO projectile destroyers making you a nightmare for other ranged.

Why no focus love?

I guess for me it’s because if I want the extra versatility the Focus brings I might as well just switch to my staff. However I might give it another go tonight; I haven’t used a focus since level 15 or so, and I’m level 41 now.

I actually really love the focus (and do use it in pvp), but I despise scepter for pve(too bursty on one side, and crippled by condition cap on the other), and dagger MH is too dangerous in explorables.. so I never use focus as I don’t have a main hand I want.

I only go focus for certain dungeons (e.g. Sorrow’s Embrace) and maybe sometimes in WvW. But the Scepter/Dagger combo is simply a lot more fun.

Where are you getting these statistics? I’m not saying it isn’t true but we can’t just make statistics up.

Personally I think the focus might see more love as the game becomes more strategic as time goes on. Right now many Elementalists are probably going full burst mode because they can get away with it.

I personally would use the focus if I had a main hand I wanted to use with it but so far I’ve been sticking with staff because I know it best.

90% is probably not the actual percentage of ppl using it ofc. But if you read other threads in this forums and others and watch some youtube videos. Almost all if not All are using dagger. And it probably is only because the damage is shinier

Focus is hands down the best weapon a condition damage Elementalist has. Despite not having hardly any condition damage relevant skills on it, the utility it provides keeps you alive long enough to get the damage out over time.

Swirling Winds is OP against projectiles, as well as Magnetic Wave (while also removing three[!!!] conditions.) Gale is a great single-target knockdown, and Obsidian Flesh is just plain outstanding for staying alive. Even Comet is fantastic in the Water tree. The fire skills are mediocre, but the rest are so extremely good, I find myself using this weapon constantly. Proper rotations of these skills as well as one or two utilities means you’re never getting hit, which is oh-so-important for the Elementalist.

It’s exactly because the fire skills are mediocre, that I don’t usually use the focus. Yes, earth is really strong (maybe too much), and water and air are conditionally strong. But I can’t stand fire. Flamewall is like an harder to use and less rewarding fire ring, and fire shield is so poor that I only use it because it’s instant cast. Even if it only had 1/4 of its recharge, I wouldn’t want to be hit for the sake of 1s burning.

Dagger is extremely fun because of the mobility and burst chains. RDL + Updraft + Fire Ring (for arcane wave’s might) + Fire Grab. It’s highly satisfying.

I know Focus is supposed to be more defensive, but I just wish its fire skills were any funnier to play with. Earth’s skills are strong, but simple and instant-cast. Air’s and Water’s rupts are interesting, but hard to time them out (well, ya, I know we’re not Mesmers). It is overall an interesting OH option, but I feel there’s something lacking, and I’m sure that’s because of what fire has (not) to offer.

I feel like ALL OH dagger skills are both useful and very interesting. I also have to bow to its earth’s earthquake + churning earth beauty. Only water’s dagger is more “focus-ish”. Even without taking fire into account, several focus skills feel a bit too conditional. At certain situations some are dead-weight. Also, sometimes what makes skills fun is their drawbacks. Earthquake + Churning Earth are strong, but require skill. Stone Skin and the Magnetic Wave are strong, but in the kind of “cast it when you need it, and then forget about it” kind of way. Not that I mind it, but a revamp to fire’s skills to make them strong and with drawbacks could come a long way to make focus more viable AND fun.

Maybe if the fire shield was truly a crazy kamikaze-ish option?

I use the dagger over focus myself for exactly the reasons Diogo posted. The fire focus skills are really not good.

You gain defensive abilities with focus, and lose a heal and some control(air/earth knockdowns)/gap closing(air)/burst(fire grab). I personally would rather have the control, burst, and the extra heal.

I also prefer scepter/dagger over scepter/focus, primarily because the focus offhand doesn’t have a heal, and dagger does. I know, staff is best for healing but when soloing that extra heal in water is just too handy not to have and I generally dislike staff for soloing.

I’m personally running a Scepter/Focus spec which centers around bleeds, and I find that while Dagger OH would give extra bleed with Churning Earth, I absolutely adore the extra survivability provided by Magnetic Wave and Obsidian Flesh.

Given that combat is designed in a way to prevent permanent health upkeep, the dagger off-hand is simply the better choice. Not being able to stay alive forever in combat means you need to take out your opponent before they take you out. The dagger has more control, which is better in combat than survival skills. It also has a better “oh-crap” button than obsidian flesh in ride the lightning, which can not only be used to save yourself from combat but also to be very mobile on a map. Dagger outshines Focus in more frequently encountered scenarios, plain and simple. Compared to the dagger, the focus’ usefulness seems very niche. I’d rather take a staff than a main-hand with a focus.

Shockwave.1230:

Given that combat is designed in a way to prevent permanent health upkeep, the dagger off-hand is simply the better choice. Not being able to stay alive forever in combat means you need to take out your opponent before they take you out. The dagger has more control, which is better in combat than survival skills. It also has a better “oh-crap” button than obsidian flesh in ride the lightning, which can not only be used to save yourself from combat but also to be very mobile on a map. Dagger outshines Focus in more frequently encountered scenarios, plain and simple. Compared to the dagger, the focus’ usefulness seems very niche. I’d rather take a staff than a main-hand with a focus.

The dagger has more control than the focus? Laughable, absolutely laughable. Comet and Gale have the same lock-out time as Earthquake and Updraft. Magnetic Wave and Swirling Winds provide an entire 9 seconds of projectile immunity for yourself and 6 for your entire party.

Comparing Ride the Lightning to Obsidian Flesh is even more ludicrous, as Ride the Lightning will terminate in no time if your target is anywhere near you, nor does it make you immune to damage, though I will say it makes for a better escape. But being able to stay in a fight for 4 seconds of invulnerability is amazing. Freezing Gust is probably 5 times better than Frost Aura since you don’t have to get hit for it to be useful. Obviously, the primary downside of the focus is the Fire skills, which everyone agrees on, but I would argue that Flame Wall is better in some regards (such as Might stacking with combos) than Ring of Fire due to it’s longer duration.

With proper use of evasive rolls, focus skills, and utility skills, I have no trouble maintaining high health in almost any fight. The condition removal from Magentic Wave is 3 times better than Cleansing Wave for personal use, though you do lose the extremely weak heal on an extremely long cooldown. I will say that the Dagger is obviously better for offensively oriented builds due to Fire Grab and Churning Earth, but in terms of keeping the Elementalist alive, not even the staff can compare to the focus.

Honestly, the fast casting of Earthquake and Updraft are far more useful at disrupting opponents than Gale and Comet, but the later two skills are still good enough, for sure. Water dagger is decent and something you’d expect from Focus skills.

Yes, Focus has better condition removal, a strong invulnerability, and great anti-projectile, to off-set the great damage and mobility from OH daggers. But ultimately, all attunements from daggers are great at something, while fire focus can’t kill nor defend you at all. This is bigger than it seems, because it also affects the fun factor to many people.

I do suspect, though, that if someday fire focus gets stronger, it will need to get one or two small nerfs elsewhere (maybe in earth). I feel that earth focus is so strong, that it compensates for the lacking fire skills.

I love the focus – even in fire attunement. It has a fire field for stacking might and an aura which grants fury, swiftness and protection (with air and earth 10 traits). What else do you want?

pmnt.4067:

I love the focus – even in fire attunement. It has a fire field for stacking might and an aura which grants fury, swiftness and protection (with air and earth 10 traits). What else do you want?

That the aura was good by itself, and that the firefield was stronger.

Suggestions:

Flame Wall – Make it work similarly to Mesmer’s focus wall skill: crossing it gives a negative effect to enemies and positive effect to allies. This effect is strong by itself, and can’t be stacked, so the players/ foes do not need to spend the whole time in it to fully capitalize on the effect.
- Crossing it gives 6-8 seconds of burning to opponents and removes 1-2 conditions to allies.
(Nerf Magnetic Wave, so it only removes 1-2 conditions as well, or even none. Magnetic Wave already does three things at the same time, and elementalists’ skills usually work better by being simpler anyway, due to attunements.)

Fire Shield – It’s the weakest elementalist aura for an extremely high recharge, why?
- Half the recharge (40s -> 20s), double the burning duration (1s -> 2s).
(This skill is inherently stronger in PvP, where opponents can attack fast, than in PvE, where they hit hard and slow. 2s burning two times more frequently would be slightly better for PvE, but I wouldn’t still want to be hit at all. If anything, this skill should be completely revamped into a non-aura, and the aura effect would only exist in traits.)
- No longer an aura. For 3 seconds, block all/ 3 attacks. The attacker gets 2s-3s burning for each attack blocked. Keep the 40s recharge.
(Not too strong: Guardians get better than this for smaller recharges, afterall).
Or for a more kamikaze, exciting playstyle:
- For 5+ seconds, your attackers get burning. The lower your health, the higher the burning duration (50-100% – 2s, 25%-50% – 3s, < 25% – 5s).

Proximity.5186:

Shockwave.1230:

Given that combat is designed in a way to prevent permanent health upkeep, the dagger off-hand is simply the better choice. Not being able to stay alive forever in combat means you need to take out your opponent before they take you out. The dagger has more control, which is better in combat than survival skills. It also has a better “oh-crap” button than obsidian flesh in ride the lightning, which can not only be used to save yourself from combat but also to be very mobile on a map. Dagger outshines Focus in more frequently encountered scenarios, plain and simple. Compared to the dagger, the focus’ usefulness seems very niche. I’d rather take a staff than a main-hand with a focus.

The dagger has more control than the focus? Laughable, absolutely laughable. Comet and Gale have the same lock-out time as Earthquake and Updraft. Magnetic Wave and Swirling Winds provide an entire 9 seconds of projectile immunity for yourself and 6 for your entire party.

Comparing Ride the Lightning to Obsidian Flesh is even more ludicrous, as Ride the Lightning will terminate in no time if your target is anywhere near you, nor does it make you immune to damage, though I will say it makes for a better escape. But being able to stay in a fight for 4 seconds of invulnerability is amazing. Freezing Gust is probably 5 times better than Frost Aura since you don’t have to get hit for it to be useful. Obviously, the primary downside of the focus is the Fire skills, which everyone agrees on, but I would argue that Flame Wall is better in some regards (such as Might stacking with combos) than Ring of Fire due to it’s longer duration.

With proper use of evasive rolls, focus skills, and utility skills, I have no trouble maintaining high health in almost any fight. The condition removal from Magentic Wave is 3 times better than Cleansing Wave for personal use, though you do lose the extremely weak heal on an extremely long cooldown. I will say that the Dagger is obviously better for offensively oriented builds due to Fire Grab and Churning Earth, but in terms of keeping the Elementalist alive, not even the staff can compare to the focus.

Comet is decent, it’s a ranged daze with mid ranged recharge. Gale is decent, it’s a ranged KD but has a long recharge. Earthquake and Updraft are better. They’re both AoE, and even though they’re not ranged RtL overcomes that as do main hand dagger skills.

Projectiles are only 1 of multiple forms of damage. Magnetic wave is absolutely good for condition removal and it’s good for reflecting projectiles, and it is a better skill than cleansing wave. It’s a good skill, but that doesn’t make up for everything the focus lacks. Swirling winds definitely does grant projectile Immunity, but that’s all it does and that’s niche. While the offhand dagger doesn’t have anything comparable to projectile immunities the offhand dagger skills are just plain useful in more situations. Projectile immunity is great in some situations, but it’s not always useful.

Ride the Lightning is a better skill than Obsidian flesh, because of it’s recharge and mobility. Those are why it’s a better “Oh crap” button, but Obsidian Flesh is certainly better in “Oh crap” situations while you’re cc’ed. One of RtL’s uses happens to be survivability, but it’s mobility is useful for more than just that. Obsidian Flesh can nearly be replicated with Mist Form, RtL’s level of mobility and it’s usefulness is a tier of it’s own.

It’s great that you can stay alive for a long time in combat, but any challenging encounter in PvE or any 2 good PvPers going at each other will result in unsustainable combat as long as damage focus stays on the same player. After a short while a player has to retreat from drawn out combat in order to sustain health otherwise they’ll go down. Granted some builds can be specced without a focus on damage, and in those situations even glass cannons can stay alive against those opponents, but when I do comparisons and call one thing better than another it’s not situationally unless I designate so. I measure how good something is based on it’s overall usefulness, and the dagger offhand is definitely all around better than the focus.