Guild Wars 2

Ever since I made my necromancer 2 years ago, my favourite combo was Spectral Grasp -> Reaper’s Touch -> Weakening Shroud (enter death shroud) -> Life Blast. That was my original power build, but it didn’t take me too long to change from that until I eventually settled on the build that I have today.

Here’s the issue that I have with focus:
It’s a damage weapon that does very little damage.

Focus#4 (Reaper’s Touch) is purely a damage skill. Sure, it gives you some life force if you land it, but it’s still a pure damage skill unlike the other off-hands that are available. Warhorn#4 is a daze (utility), warhorn #5 grants a self/mobile area attack that gives life force and swiftness (utility). The reason that I use dagger off-hand is because it is good against both power and condition builds; dagger#4 bounces like focus#4 but it transfers conditions and blinds and does damage while dagger#5 is AOE weakness – arguably better than a single target chill with a 1.25s cast time.

Focus just doesn’t cut it. I want so badly to switch up my build once in a while because it really does get old running the same thing all the time, but focus just has no purpose or role – none. You aren’t going to burst someone down with it, you aren’t going to ‘wombo-combo’ someone with it from full health to dead and focus#5 has a very long cast time that does miniscule (compared to other classes capabilities) damage. You also aren’t going to run full berserker like thieves, mesmers, elementalists or any other class can because you will be focused to death and you won’t do enough damage to take the risk with what the necromancer offers.

TL;DR
If focus is going to be our off-hand power weapon, then it needs to do more damage. This skill is very similar to Mirror Blade from mesmers, but the damage isn’t. I would like to see either: a damage increase, a different boon granted rather than regeneration or healing allowed in death shroud so that regeneration actually matters.

I think focus main problem is the long casttime of spinal shivers. In my opinion it should be 3/4 seconds instead of the 1 1/4 seconds.

But that said more damage on focus would also be good.

Focus 4 could use some improvements and yeah, focus 5 is so easy to dodge.

Although I like the focus skills on itself. That invulnerability from focus #4 ain’t worthless at all, and the boonstrip of focus #5 is decent, but indeed the cast time is too long. Still it seems more useful than warhorn to me. It depends on ur build ofc, but I nearly always use spectral walk, so warhorn #5 seems not so useful.

warhorn 5 is mostly to keep people that want to get away from you from doing so easily =\ cough rangers cough other then that meh…

I do use focus mainly because of the boon rip just need to use it once their dodges are gone or there is almost 0 chance to hit against wise people and to chill eles =p nothing more fun then when you proc spinal shivers then proc the one traited almost after lolz

Pathing on reapers touch needs looking at, other than that no complaints.

Vex.7486:

Pathing on reapers touch needs looking at, other than that no complaints.

Yup the thing is a projectile but it misses over any pebble/ledge (ex. kyhlo ledge to mid point, it magicaly dissapears).

0.5s cast time decrease (i mean look at mf pin down..) and maybe the skills will be worth using mid combot, currently theyre opening filler from range.

Any buff is welcome in the necro world!
But yea I only use focus because of #4.
12% LF, 12 stacks vuln, at LEAST 3k damage with zerker. Great spike of damage. But or the rest meh. The only use I found for 5 was when an ele pops that earth can trip thingy. The animation is still there but no boons :P

Focus is pretty strong as is, the only changes I’d make would be to make the boon on focus 4 more relevant (regen is very mediocre imo, especially on a profession with easy access to 100% uptime on single sources), and making focus 5 a 1s cast time.

For example, focus 4 giving might instead of regen would be awesome.

Bhawb.7408:

Focus is pretty strong as is, the only changes I’d make would be to make the boon on focus 4 more relevant (regen is very mediocre imo, especially on a profession with easy access to 100% uptime on single sources), and making focus 5 a 1s cast time.

For example, focus 4 giving might instead of regen would be awesome.

Back at launch, focus 4 gave swiftness.

Agreed on focus 5, it is a long cast.

It did so pre-launch, I don’t believe it actually made it to launch. I think the 4 skill just needs a more relevant boon.

Maybe it could be or source of vigor! But really I dislike regen as well for necro so maybe it could bounce vigor to us and our allies. Or possible might or protection…

On #4 the best choice would be might, but then this skill would be a exact copy of the Mesmer GS bounce skill.
I would suggest this:

1. Reapers touch no longer applies Regen.
2. Reapers touch now applies 3s of Fury and 1s of quickness.

We have no means of getting fury untraited. The quickness actually gives you a choice, if you stand next to your target you get quicker burst, but you wont get benefit of the 3 seconds of quickness due to quickness gets overwritten with each bounce. If you stand at around 600 – 400 range you get slower burst but the full benefit of the 3s quickness.

1. Spinal Shivers:

- now unblockable
- reduce cast time by 0,5 sec
- increase basedamage by 17%, increase basedamage when removing boons gradually up to 33% when removing 3 boons-

Muchacho.2390:

I think focus main problem is the long casttime of spinal shivers. In my opinion it should be 3/4 seconds instead of the 1 1/4 seconds.

But that said more damage on focus would also be good.

Should be 1/4.