Guild Wars 2

I’m trying to understand why I see so much usage of the Focus as an offhand in sPvP and tPvP for Mesmer.

Temporal Curtain: Obviously the swiftness is nice, and basically the only mechanism through which a Mesmer can get between points quickly outside of using the Portal. However, I find that in actual combat it is fairly lackluster. Foes seem to simply avoid these lines when thrown in combat, I expect due to being trained to avoid the similar items from Guardians, Necro’s, etc that have somewhat more significant effects on the target when touched.

The Pull effect of the Temporal Curtain also seems fairly questionable to me, particularly if you are not with an organized 5 man team. I won’t argue its useful for pulling people off high ground, but this doesn’t seem to occur very often. Also, using it simply for the knockdown in combat can be detrimental to your allies, as yanking away their target can screw up their own fighting.

Phantasmal Warden: I really can’t get much use out of this at all. The abililty to deflect projectiles seems very lackluster because standing still in its area would just be suicidal, and your opponent(s) will likely be constantly moving as well. It can’t even really protect itself, as the deflection does no good if the entire area is a massive swarm of AE which kills it in a matter of seconds at best. Combo’ing it with the Temporal Curtain can be nice, cleansing bolts are useful though usually shortlived due to the short life of the Warden itself. Using a timed Temporal Curtain Pull -> Phantasmal Warden summon such that people are knocked down around it when it appears can be nice but it does not seem all that difficult for an enemy to interrupt you during the course of summoning and waste both abilities.

Any insight anyone could provide here as to the usefulness of these abilities?

The curtain is all around nice. The more swiftness a group has the better your response time is so stacking sources of group swiftness is a big deal.

The wardens usefulness is meta-dependant. Outside of that you can use him to take shots for you or stand on him to force melee users into his range. Typically providing retaliation damage, some dd, and procing protection/regen for yourself.

If you want to use the warden for damage the best method is sword3 followed by warden followed by port. If you take “stun on daze” and the dazing mantra that makes it a bit more reliable.

Haven’t played sPvP lately but for the people that DID use Focus previously did so for the following reasons:

- Swiftness, as you said, due to Mesmers sometimes being in the “roaming” role. Often times switching to Pistol if they are approaching an enemy from a distance if possible.
- Into The Void to interrupt a channel or stomp
- Phantasmal Warden can be utilized for damage when combined with Sword’s Illusionary Leap. You do IL, cast Warden, IL to swap for the Immobilize.
- Phantasmal Warden and Temporal Curtain, when specced for it, can Reflect projectiles. This allows you to safely kite with the Warden or the Curtain between you and a ranged foe since Warden only needs to be between you and the projectile. This can force them to close the distance….and then you can Temporal Curtain them back out.

As I said, I don’t know what the “standard” for Mesmer sPvP anymore but it was usually Greatsword or Staff and Sword/Pistol with Focus in the inventory for traveling between points. Maybe you are just seeing people who didn’t have the chance to switch out the Focus for the Pistol or OH Sword?

Temporal Curtain is a light field which can be comboed with iLeap for 15s of retaliation. The light field also persists even after Into the Void is used which allows further follow up combos which Phase Retreat after you’ve done your burst.

Like all displacement skills, there is the risk associated with screwing over your allies, but unless you are really bad at using this skill, the times your pull sets up a nuke will make it more than justifiable. It’s also important to remember conquest is about territorial control thus making displacement skills far more useful than they are in other areas of the game.

The iWarden’s main use is to summon it during Into the Void. This whole combo took a bit of a blow when the cooldown nerf was imposed, but it still works relatively well. Followed up with iLeap, iWarden does far more damage than iDuelist – and it’s AoE – but it’s also much harder to pull off (excuse the pun).

Basically, out of our 4 offhands, many people consider pistol and focus to be the only good ones (whether they are is another debate entirely), and when people learnt how to use the focus effectively they discovered it can do everything the pistol can and then some. Just take a look down the list of functionalities; single target damage, projectiles and a bouncing stun/daze/blind is trying to challenge swiftness, cripple, light field, AoE pull, AoE damage, projectile block and whirl finisher. The TC → ItV cooldown change equalised the playing field a little as it made the much faster stun off the pistol actually mean something, but the focus is still arguably our best offhand for… well… everything.

Lots of great information here!

I think one very obvious mistake I have been making here is performing a sword combo before making use of the focus skills in a fight.

Typically I would lead into a fight with Greatsword, then switch to Sword/Focus and immediately do a 3 – 3 – 2 – F1 combo for burst on someone. It sounds like I could get some significant benefit from getting the light field and warden out prior to making use of that combo so as to benefit from the retaliation and to use sword 3 as an additional mechanism to trap someone near the warden.

If you’re feeling really slick you can cast warden then drop the curtain on it for aoe cond removal. Takes practice to be good at it though.

Personally, I think the 1 second cooldown on the curtain last patch screwed over focus. I’m a top ranked mesmer and have forfeited focus in favor of pistol and centaur runes… Focus does allow you to go something besides centaur, so it gives you options on runes, but overall that 1 second cd on the curtain makes dodging the pull very easy for top level players.

Yeah when you spec for reflect focus becomes amazing in focused pvp, the reflect alone can give a guaranteed stomp 1v1 against engineer/warrior and you can also use the combo to cleanse the fear from a downed necro. That alone saves you using up either distortion or decoy to get off a stomp.

But focus is also the most versatile weapon, there’s a million ways to use it; running from point to point/defensive/offensive/utility, it’s awesome

but it also has a 25 second cd, which makes it’s versatility somewhat limited.

Some other focus tricks

-Cast warden, cast curtain on top of warden, enemy runs away, you activate pull, pulling him into warden, then illusionary leap→swap to immob him (usually have time for this given short knockdown on the pull) and blurred frenzy → mind wrack

-When getting trained by a foe, cast curtain, run through it, wait for enemy to pursue you through curtain, then pull them backward (works quite well at choke points).

-cast curtain on top of enemy, wait for him to dodge which they generally do, freaked out they are about to get pulled. Start warden cast and activate pull in middle of warden cast – enemy will end up knocked down with a warden on top of them. Can chain this into leap→swap →blurred frenzy→mind wrack

-focus pull is really handy on Skyhammer, Temple, Khylo, Spirit Watch due to ability to pull enemies off catwalks / into holes, etc.

The key to using it post-nerf is to mind game your opponent into blowing dodges by casting it very close to them. Before you could use it more like a gap closer to pull in fleeing enemies but it is more difficult to do that now. If you want to use it on someone running away, cast it in front of them so they get crippled, and you can try pulling them after you see them dodge.

Do many of you run Signet of Illusions for the added HP? I find that without this the Warden tends to die before he even finishes his first attack rotation.

djtool.8372:

If you’re feeling really slick you can cast warden then drop the curtain on it for aoe cond removal. Takes practice to be good at it though.

this is exactly what i am doing, i also have the reflection trait and still people dont seem to expect it, so i whip a curtain + iwarden normally using a rangers or necros pet, or even an engi’s turret to 100% get the aoe removal, necro’s panic when i fight them as i run like this and bide my time before i kill them, null field too for me personally.

besides that it is a VERY good terrain control skill you can pull people off of walls, ledges, off the sides or down the holes in skyhammer, we have a lot of uses for focus.

as i have said as well i run with the Reflection trait so i reflect a lot of stuff via this as well.

everyone else has mention the light field and such with chaos armor so i wont go into that.

the focus is a fantastic weapon the more you use it the more you will love it.

I have never gone into Inspiration for sPvP/tPvP, I usually just use a shatter build. I will have to look at getting reflection into the build for some test runs.

Lots of good explanation on focus use already here. True that the 1s delay hurt its effect, but it can still be used to save team mates from getting stomped as well as preventing opponents from rezzing one of their downed teammates.

One thing that still bothers me is the fragility of the Warden. With the prevalence of AE and cleave the fact that it must get dropped right into the middle of the fight to do damage usually leads to its quick death.

Using offhand sword or pistol, your phantasm seems to have a better chance of at least completing one attack cycle. (albeit at a single target only).

To give the Warden any time you are almost forced to use the Temporal Curtain pull into the last second of the warden summon, requiring the use of both abilities to accomplish anything at all with the Warden.

I frequently find myself just holding it until someone goes down and dropping it on the crowd when someone attempts to rez them, giving it some actual time to do damage. While nice, typically this doesn’t really stop the rez however.

Still not having a good time of this. Everyone is so mobile that it really seems like you need a “perfect opportunity” to use the Warden, and even then it really doesn’t do any more damage than any other combination you can do and it provides no defense at all unless you have a perfect scenario.