I know there have been many critiques on the forums regarding the usefulness of Grim Focus and most are negative, but I see a lot of potential here, even though I do recognize that a few changes must be made.

That being said, I would like to use this opportunity to outline some proposed "fixes" to improve the functionality of Grim Focus, while maintaining the spirit of the ability. I encourage you to read through the entire post and provide your comments below. For your convenience, I will provide my version of Grim Focus first, and then discuss the differences and improvements from the current ability below. Changes are written bold.

New: Grim Focus
Cast Time: Instant
Target: Self
Duration: 30 seconds
Cost: X Magicka

Gain Minor Berserk and Assassin's Will for 30 seconds. While Assassin's Will is active, hitting with 5 Light or Heavy attacks will charge the ability, allowing your next Heavy attack to fire a spectral bow to deal X magic damage to your target, and 20% damage to surrounding enemies within 7 meters. Duration is increased by 1 second at each level.

Minor Berserk gives the player 8% bonus damage done.

*On to the Morphs!*

New: Relentless Focus
Cast Time: Instant
Target: Self
Duration: 33 seconds
Cost: X Stamina

Gain Minor Berserk, Minor Endurance and Assassin's Will for 30 seconds. While Assassin's Will is active, hitting with 5 physical attacks will charge the ability, allowing your next Heavy attack to fire a spectral bow to deal X magic damage to your target, and 20% damage to surrounding enemies within 7 meters. Assassin's Will now scales off weapon damage and max stamina.

Minor Berserk gives the player 8% bonus damage, and Minor Endurance increases stamina regeneration by 10%.

New: Channeled Focus
Cast Time: Instant
Target: Self
Duration: 33 seconds
Cost: X Magicka

Gain Minor Berserk, Minor Intellect and Assassin's Will for 30 seconds. While Assassin's Will is active, hitting with 5 magic attacks will charge the ability, allowing your next Heavy attack to fire a spectral bow to deal X magic damage to your target, and 20% damage to surrounding enemies within 7 meters.

Minor Berserk gives the player 8% bonus damage, and Minor Intellect increases magicka regeneration by 10%.


*Now, the discussion of each change and their necessity given the current state of Grim Focus:

First, activating Assassin's Will using a Heavy attack after the ability is charged. This is probably the most significant of the changes and drastically improves the performance of the ability in combat. With this change, you could use Assassin's Will as a legitimate part of your rotation, regardless of which ability bar you're using, and continue to build additional charges after triggering Assassin's Will, without having to recast Grim Focus.

Second, turning Assassin's Will into a buff. The first thing I noticed when Assassin's Will was charged, is my Minor Berserk buff disappeared. The only way to re-initiate the buff was to trigger Assassin's Will and then recast Grim Focus. This took precious time that I could put to better use. Turning Assassin's Will into a buff would separate the functionality of these two abilities and allow for a more seamless execution of Assassin's Will, while maintaining the Minor Berserk buff.

Third, increased duration. Throughout testing, it was my experience that 20 seconds wasn't enough time to charge Assassin's Will efficiently, and recasting the ability wiped any current charges. Increasing the duration would resolve this issue.

Fourth, reducing the number of charges required to trigger Assassin's Will. I know this was already tweaked since the first introduction of the ability, going from 8 strikes to 7, but I feel a little more is necessary. Five strikes seems to be appropriate, and given the increase in duration, you could effectively trigger a few Assassin's Will proc's for each cast of Grim Focus. Considering the reduction in required charges, lowering the damage of Assassin's Will may be appropriate.

Fifth, depending on the morph, hitting will all physical or magical attacks, excluding dots, will add charges to Assassin's Will. Here is another big change. This would dramatically improve the viability of Assassin's Will in all combat situations, as long as you're doing damage. With the reduction in damage, this could become a staple in all builds for either stamina or magicka.

Sixth, adding an AOE damage component to Assassin's Will. One thing I noticed that was missing from the NIghtblade's toolkit, was a class based AOE ability that functions at ranged or melee distances. I think Grim Focus can fill that gap. Keep in mind that this is a template and that all values are fluid, but this change would give Nightblade's a reliable class-based AOE ability. As mentioned in suggestion 4, adjusting the damage of Assassin's Will would be appropriate to preserve balance.

Seventh, providing both a stamina and magicka morph. Considering the difficulty of executing Assassin's Will with the current state of Grim Focus, I found the Merciless Resolve morph to be a serious waste of time. This is why I've opted to scrap it, in favor of providing both a stamina and magicka morph, which scale with their respective stat pools and provide either Minor Endurance or Minor Intellect.

My apologies, this post turned out to be longer than expected. In short, all of these changes are geared towards improving the quality of life for Grim Focus, making it's use more responsive and meaningful, while maintaining the spirit of the current ability.

That's all! Please let me know what you think. I'm eager to read your comments. Obviously, I would like this to reach the attention of ZOS, so if you support these changes, please be vocal about it, so it shows up on their radar.

Thanks for reading!

Sincerely,
Xeilos


Edit: Moved to Combat & Character Mechanics