Guild Wars 2

focus 4 is very hard to hit, let alone bounce.

both sides have to be running in a straight line towards or away from one another.
neither side must be moving side ways or the focus 4 will miss or not bounce.

best bet is to chain it with a fear then focus 4 for it to hit and bounce reliably at close range.

not suitable at all to cast it at the 1200 range that it has been given.

focus 5 is great if you time it well. usually used to strip stability. which means you can’t chain it with fear. so the cast time does feel a little too long.

Focus 4 hits like a truck and applies a great deal of Vulnerability very quickly… though the 1200 range is indeed a curious decision.

Focus 5 is great but the cast time is indeed a bit nutty. I’d prefer an even 1 second, or maybe 3/4 seconds.

Focus is gud ! Dagger need love
Dagger 3rd skill is most dull and crappy skill in da game

does anyone actually use focus?

if yes, wvw roaming or pvp or pve?

EremiteAngel.9765:

does anyone actually use focus?

if yes, wvw roaming or pvp or pve?

I stopped a long time ago but I hopefully will if the axe is made decent and focus itself receives some improvements I’m not fine settling for staff. The only one I’m sure runs focus is Nemesis on his Executioner build I question it but the concept is good.

EremiteAngel.9765:

does anyone actually use focus?

if yes, wvw roaming or pvp or pve?

I think in pve it is used because of the vuln stacks. In pvp/wvw it is not really good compared to warhorn or offhand dagger.

EremiteAngel.9765:

does anyone actually use focus?

if yes, wvw roaming or pvp or pve?

I use it pretty much everywhere. I know the warhorn is better but I’ve just never really liked it all that much, and I don’t like giving up the huge nuke from Focus 4 or the boon stripping from 5. Recently, I’ve been trying a Dagger/Warhorn and Dagger/Focus build, forgoing the staff and relying on Shroud for long range attacks. Not sure I’m gonna stick with it but I do like the feel of this more.

EremiteAngel.9765:

does anyone actually use focus?

if yes, wvw roaming or pvp or pve?

It’s my favorite offhand in PvE. 4 is easy to bounce there if you just cast it at point blank range(where i want to be anyway) and gives a quick 12 vuln stacks. Is niiice..

EremiteAngel.9765:

does anyone actually use focus?

if yes, wvw roaming or pvp or pve?

pve:

1. for vuln and regen
2. for chill and it hits like a truck anyway with Spiteful talisman

pvp:

1. vuln again
2. Boon manipulation. Love it when your opponent panics when they lose all their boons.

Focus is great weapon.

Roleplayers use it all the time.

Skill 5 needs a cast time reduction, but other than that it’s a pretty good weapon.

I use it whenever I run the dagger build in PvE.

I think it would see more use in PvP if skill 5 had a lower cast time.

I don’t see a need for any outright buffs. There are some QoL changes that could be made though.

The focus 4 bounce should be able to bounce back at 1200 range instead of just 600 range. The bounces stopping if you’re outside 600 range makes it unreliable against a kiting enemy. Focus 5 does need to be sped up slightly as well.

EremiteAngel.9765:

does anyone actually use focus?

if yes, wvw roaming or pvp or pve?

I used it with dagger during the BWE test in PvE. The 4 skill allowed me to not only stack a ton of vulnerability (in close range) but also gave descent LF gen. I used the skill 5 for the chill, although only if everything else was on cool down.

Not that the GS is getting another source of LF and death spiral is getting a more reliable vuln stack ability, it will be retired to my bank once again.

Once it gets a rework on 4 (bouncing the full distance) and 5 (casting time) then I may be tempted to use it rarely, but the competition is VERY stiff with the warhorn currently winning the race.

EremiteAngel.9765:

does anyone actually use focus?

if yes, wvw roaming or pvp or pve?

PvE: Yes
Focus #4 is actually a pretty nice DPS increase if you can make it bounce a bit (which you often can); not just the damage but also the vuln.
Focus #5 is so-so, the cast time is a bit too long in most cases. If you have Spiteful Talisman as trait, it’s important to keep your opponent boon-free though, so it can be useful sometimes if you don’t have another boonstrip/corrupt ability.
Dagger/WH + Dagger/Focus are pretty solid for your weapon swap setup.

PvP: A bit less. Personally I quite like warhorn for the interrupt and speed as power user. And as condimancer I’m more inclined to go for dagger OH.
Also in PvP you often have to bring a staff as your secondary for utility, which limits your options.

All in all, I think dagger offhand is in more need of a buff.
Focus would probably benefit most from some cast time adjustments. I would prefer if #4 / #5 would be a 0.5 / 0.75 sec cast instead of the current (0.75 / 1.25). Cast times are really a major “unfun” factor for the necromancer. And I have yet to really understand why we’re the prime class that has such major ffin casttimes on everything.

I am levelling my 2nd necro and use mostly dagger/focus in PvE. I hate using 99% of all fights just end up with using skill 4 on arrival (focus 4) followed by auto attack dagger 1.

Well, out of 5 skills only 2 are useful. It’s horrible. That’s a huge disadvantage of this game and with its weapon skills. I really hope they’ll add some additional skills for existing weapons.

I use focus all the time.

skill 4 hits harder than I expect it to every time, and I never have problems seeing the bounce. if you are fighting one vet you can max vuln faster than any other class.

skill 5 does good damage, but its slow. I would like to see it cast faster, but Id much rather see it recharge faster.

Necro focus can turn a 20 minute dredge fractal into a 10 minute one. I also always bring it when fighting svanir, inquest, or any other boon-heavy mobs.

in PvP you should proc fear first since the cast on 5 is so long and easy to spot, but paired with dagger 3 you can keep people out of capture points. even for a second or two means more points for your team, where every second matters.

don’t use focus in WvW. ever.

roachsrealm.9284:

don’t use focus in WvW. ever.

thats what I am trying to do now since I roam mostly and i love the bloodseeker focus skin >.>

Focus is terrible.

I think it was designed as a spike tool. You hit an opponent with #5 to remove an enemy’s defense, and follow up with team damage & your own big damage hit from focus 4 stacks a lot of vulnerability.

But it doesn’t work. Team spiking isn’t a thing in GW2, especially for the necromancer who does not have the scaling defenses to survive a team fight.

Focus 4 is odd. A 1500 range melee skill. The bounce range is tiny, and the damage without bounces pathetic. You have to use it in melee or its not worth the cast. Also the projectile speed is easily sidestepped. So if you were thinking this is a ranged skill, forget it.

It is a pale shadow of higher damage, faster projectile, lower cooldown Mesmer mirror blade, which provides its own bounce. Thats a good skill. Focus 4 is not a good skill.

I’m looking forward to trying out “ghetto mirror blade” with zero cast “rise” providing the bounce, but I think I’ll find that the damage is unimpressive & the projectile too easily sidestepped

Then there is the regeneration on bounce. Why this boon? Sources of healing that do not work in shroud are offensive.

Focus 5 has too slow of a cast time to use. It’s too much cast time for too little effect. Also it has best case balancing issues with the x3 bonus damage. The skill deserves that cooldown with that damage, but optimal circumstances don’t exist most of the time.

Ironically, as bad a focus 5 is, the trait chilling darkness that casts it instantly is too strong when all of the bonus damage hits & should be nerfed. It’s so strong that our downed state damage got nerfed. Now our traited downed state damage is worse than engineer unless you get a triple proc.

I suggest the following changes

Focus 4, faster projectile & far less cooldown. Vigor or Fury replaces regeneration on bounce

Focus 5, Instead of giving out bonus damage and three boon rips, you get 2 boon corruptions. (So no bonus damage). Also drop one second of chill. In return the cast time goes down to .75 and the cooldown goes down to 12.

Together, this changes the focus from a tool to spike down the enemy in a team fight into a spammy tool that can control the battlefield. Without the emphasis of the weapon on the triple damage, you can use the focus in non zerker builds too. And as the boon corruptions keep coming, the focus trait for bonus damage against foes with no boons starts to make sense.

Please anet fix axe and focus (and scepter). Every Reaper build should not be forced into staff because the other options are garbage. Staff can’t do everything, and it shouldn’t be trying to do everything.

EremiteAngel.9765:

does anyone actually use focus?

if yes, wvw roaming or pvp or pve?

I use focus in PvP.

Both Focus skills are pretty A-OK for the most part. The only real issue is that they each seem to miss-match all their effects.

reaper’s touch: This skill should apply protection instead of regeneration.

Spinal shivers: This skill should corrupt boons instead of removing them (or hell, make the spiteful talisman trait cause spinal shivers to corrupt boons instead. That’d make the trait worth taking.)

Problem with focus is that it is a bursty offhand, but lacks reliability because of the huge travel and cast times on the skills. Focus 4 needs to move faster and give literally anything but regen (seriously, reaper’s don’t heal people from my understanding). Focus 5 just needs a cast time reduction or to have the cast removed completely and to get rid of chill of death.

I just want to add that while focus has bursty damage oriented skills, the focus also nerfs your damage in shroud.

Its’s been a while since the math was shared here on the forum, but I think the nerf to damage from focus is even greater than the nerf you take by using that some of the other off hands.

Focus is a literally damage weapon that nerfs your damage.

This doesn’t make too much of a difference for Death Shroud (4 & 5 are not high damage oriented skills), but it is very much a big deal for Reaper shroud (4 & 5 are a big part of your damage rotation).

That’s a shame.

On paper focus looks ok for Reaper: vulnerability (decimate defenses), chill (many traits), boon rips, 2 boon stacks (blighter’s boon), damage skills, life force, & range.

But in the real world the boon rips and chill are on a cast that is too long to use, the big damage is not there in the real world because of conditional requirements outside of your control, & the range is nonexistent. Plus you take a damage nerf in shroud.

Off hand dagger condition transfer and horn AoE with swiftness are both very valuable or indispensable depending on build.

Axe works well with focus but lower axe utility limits focus use as well.

I have been running dagger focus in PvE and WvW recently and it is quite good, though it requires a bit of positioning compared to horn and dagger (more timing intensive).