Guild Wars 2

So, the focus has some amazing skins. The best in the game, imo. I’m really trying to find a reason to use one, but I’m having a hard time. After having a discussion on reddit about this weapon I decided to look further into it’s practicality. This is specifically for WvW, where I either run D/D for roaming with my guild (which is mostly what we do) or staff if I’m assaulting/defending a tower.

One huge issue that I’m having is the choice to make some skills single target on this weapon compared to /D which is all AoE. Also some odd cooldowns on top of the fact that the base dmg is more than 100 points less.

Let’s compare each element:

Fire- Dagger:

• Ring of Fire is almost instant, does great immediate and overtime dmg, and can block people in to a ring all with a 15 second cooldown.
• Fire Grab does huge AoE dmg. It’s in a cone, which sometimes misses for no reason, but is generally a grade A skill.

Fire- Focus:

• Flame Wall has a higher cooldown, casting time that is 4 times longer, easily avoidable shape, and does WAY less dmg in exchange for only 2 more seconds of duration (8 instead of 6). Extremely inferior to Ring of Fire.
• Fire Shield is a 3 second flame aura on a 40 second cooldown. It does much less dmg, but is an aura that can be shared. It’s a wash really, because according to the situation each has their use. However, the duration should be increased.

Water- Dagger:

• Frost Aura has a 7 second duration for it’s 40 second cooldown, which is much more reasonable. Good skill for aura sharing.
• Cleansing Wave removes a condition and heals allies. The 40 second cooldown is a little steep for what it provides, but overall a nice skill.

Water- Focus:

• Freezing Gust is single target chill. Why in the world is this not AoE? This should affect multiple foes for it to be worth 25 seconds for 3 second duration. It really really hurts the whole weapon set in this form.
• Comet dazes multiple foes. This skill is amazing. AoE daze and a blast finisher. Love it.

Air- Dagger:

• Ride the Lighting is straight up one of the best skills in the game. On a 15 second cooldown you get 1200 range to do whatever you need to AND does dmg.
• Updraft is like Robin to RTL’s Batman. Gives swiftness and does AoE launch. Worth every second of it’s 40 second cooldown. It’s even instant!

Air- Focus:

• Swirling Winds is the only reason the weapon isn’t currently shunned by most players in WvW all together. It blocks siege attacks. Generally it’s a pretty good skill in it’s own right as well.
• Gale…. wtf. Why? The cooldown is 10 seconds longer than Updraft, does single target knockdown (which is like knockback but less cool), and has a 3/4 cast time. I don’t even.

Earth- Dagger:

• Earthquake is an AoE knockdowning, blast finishing monster. This skill is pretty awesome even with 45 seconds of cooldown.
• Churning Earth can change the tide of battle… if you can get it off with the enemy still in range. It’s one of the only skills that requires the help of a utility to be consistent, but either way when it hits, they know it.

Earth- Focus:

• Magnetic Wave does all kinds of things. Removes 3 conditions, is a blast finisher, does some dmg, and reflects projectiles. Looking at the other cooldowns of the focus skills I really don’t know how this one got away with only requiring 25 seconds. But this weapon needs all the help it can get. So yeah, this skill completely rocks.
• Obsidian Flesh makes you invulnerable for 4 seconds on a 50 second cooldown and it’s instant cast. A pretty great skill. The cooldown is a little stretched out, but that’s understandable for the effect.

For Focus, really the only element that both skills work well on is Earth. It, and swirling aura affecting siege, are the saving graces of the weapon. For all it’s downsides, you’d think at least the base dmg would be the same (or higher?). But it’s not. In fact, it’s 10% weaker.

What do you guys think?

I carry a Focus with me solely for the purpose of blocking siege shots when my Commanders asks for it. There are some nice skills in Focus, as you listed, but not worth it over the more general utility and ‘goodness’ of the Dagger in offhand.

comet is not as good as u picture it… it’s area is quite small… and it still have a good delay (not on the level of DT.. but still enough to give the enemy enough time to dodge out of it…)

in the comparison between fire ring and flame wall u missed one thing… fire ring deal direct dmg when casted to all (well the usual 5 target limit is applied) those inside the ring area… and it is not a little dmg

that said… as the rest of your analisys explain… focus is almos worth for a couple of skill only… and the earth skill while really good on paper soffer the fact that we already spend most of our utility slot for defensive CD so we need our weapon skill to be effective in the DMG department… or we will not be able to kill a thing… (the obvious counter to this problem will be to use offensive utility skill… but unfortunately our offensive utility are really plain and at most decent compared to excellent defensive utility like armor of earth, arcane shield, mist form and so on…)

so… focus really need to be revised… if the intention is for it to be the single target offhand (to pair with scepter for a single target build or with dagger for a bit of range against fleeng enemies…) its dmg sould really be improved by a good margin (it’s actually really below the aoe dmg of dagger) and if it’s meant to be a controlling weapon (wall, daze, chill, KD, reflect) than some of those effect need to be improved in duration/target/effect… flame wall will not hinder nor it will work as a scarecrow… comet area as said is too little that combined with its delay make it usefull only in choke point, chill and KD as explained by the OP are on too long CD for being single target… they need the CD to be halved or the numerf of target increased (the second option wil probably help much more in the control department).. the reflect is probably the only shining part (altrought a bit wider area should help a lot… but is nothing that I actually will ask for without increasing the CD of the skill by at least 5 or 10 second…)… as said by the OP too magnetic wave is one of those skill that should be able to make a balanced weapon OP… unfortunately the Focus condition is that bad that not even this skill is enough to make it feel good… :/

Wanted to post to say I totally agree with you OP.
It feels like the focus could be really amazing, but when compared a dagger (you’re only other offhand choice as an ele) the dagger is just better. I kind of wish flame wall could be replaced with something else entirely. Same for air focus, Swirling winds is such an odd skill it’s generally entirely useless in all situations where you need your other skills, and when it is useful all your other skills are useless. It’s just so out of place.

You said it all really well, and I couldn’t agree with you more. I really want to use D/F rather than D/D, but it just plain is far from viable in WvW. I have put together a pretty viable build in sPvP, but it’s mostly single target and the lack of oh so many things – damage, mobility, aoe, etc – just make it frustratingly non-viable for WvW.

I totally agree, you said it all ^^
Dagger is simply MUCH MUCH better than focus in PvE, WvW and sPvP.

You forgot to mention that churning earth is also a blast finisher. When you chain ring of fire- dagger(earth-4-5) you get 6 might right before hitting aoe with your highest hitting attack. That’s amazing synergy that you completely miss out on when you equip a useless though very shiny focus.
I think the focus was meant to be combined with the scepter but even then….

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

You forgot to mention that churning earth is also a blast finisher. When you chain ring of fire- dagger(earth-4-5) you get 6 might right before hitting aoe with your highest hitting attack. That’s amazing synergy that you completely miss out on when you equip a useless though very shiny focus.
I think the focus was meant to be combined with the scepter but even then….

Yeah, you’re right.

It makes you wonder, do they think this is properly balanced?

the real issue for me is that focus leaves you with you main hand to deal damage. focus feels very (reange) defensive which is great BUT…. scepter or mainhand dagger as only source of “damage skills” feels like you are missing out on a lot of damage.

if you use it with scepter it really becomes a 1on1 setup that screams for a condition damage centered build with high surviveability. The short range and the fact that it is mostly single target because the aoe effects are so easy to dodge makes them kind of unfullfilling in wvwvw.

with dagger it draw you in melee range but you lack the high damage and escape tools that would make the setup work really well.

dagger offhand is just so well balanced that it is really hard not to choose it. it got everything and on top of that it has the coolest animations that are really fun to play with…

stompong the ground… chruning earth … rtl ..fire garb … i just love them… they reek of power.