So.. Grim Focus.. Thoughts?

Lazrael

I'm sure there have been threads about it, but I wanted to put it out there.
I've been holding off, but finally decided to give Grim Focus a shot, and I'm hugely disappointed.
In theory, it sounds like a really neat skill. Awesome idea, and kudos ZOS for coming up with it.

But in practice, its awful, and really only works as an alright, at best, damage buff.
A stealth class is about high risk, high reward/hit hard, hit fast style, particularly in a skill tree called Assassination.
Having to hit something 8 times to proc the hard hitting ability is just too long for it to be used realistically. The only situation I can see it, is maybe when taking on a group boss, otherwise it just seems horribly inefficient, when you think of any other skill you could put into that slot.

Then there's the issue of having no idea when the Spectral Bow procs without watching your hot bar.

Not sure how to fix it overall from a design perspective, and make it useful but not OP.

Kinda falls under a lot of the Nightblade design issues, great idea, poor execution.

But what do you guys think?
Is there a way to effectively use this skill?
Am I missing something?
Or should we send Zeni back to the drawing board?
If so it'd be great to put some suggestions for them.

Thanks all!

f047ys3v3n

Grim focus is part of the disappointment that is NB right now. You've got 2 buffs with short timers to constantly re-apply in grim focus and piercing mark. The timer on these is short enough that if you want to use them they realistically have to be on the front bar. You've also got the option with siphoning strikes to basically not run out of resources but at the cost of 17% damage. You can take that or leave it, it's an interesting and compelling skill and choice. Maybe the only such compelling thing for the NB right now. If you put these buffs together with the nerfed funnel health attack and crippling grasp dot you find that the overall damage output is very low if you manage to keep the buff balls in the air and genuinely terrible if you don't.

Your really left with stamina as the only high DPS choice and you should be warned that NB's do not have a stamina heal option as the stamina sap essence morph does not heal, there is no stamina funnel health morph, and strangely NB's seem to have less compelling buffs and DOT's to add to the stamina weapon skills than other classes leaving them a bit behind in DPS. NB's were really quite dependent on a very few skills in 1.5 to be compelling. They were hit hard by the ultimates changes and harder still by how poor funnel health now is. It scaled to maybe 5x instead of the more typical 10x. This gutted the class which used to do pretty good single target even unbuffed and, with constant off heals and fast ult generation, was a excellent utility player in 4 man content.

As for that specific buff, like everything else about NB's right now, it seems lacking in magnitude. Just when it seemed in 1.5 that NB's had finally found a place in the world as castors now we are back to a stealth attack class in a world with nerfed stealth attacks and broken cloaks. I cry for my gimpy NB but given the relative lack of NB's left in game I don't really expect a buff forthcoming.

AssaultLemming

On paper this skill sounded interesting and fun, in practice it is far too clunky to use and will never get a spot on my bar. It's far too hard to keep track of when it needs to be cast or reapplied, most mobs have died long before it gets to 8 light attacks, and given that you need 2 toggles on your bar this just isn't good enough to warrant a spot.

It wouldn't take much to fix it, just lower the attacks needed to 4 light or two heavy (or 6/3 if that proves op) And make it so it automatically fires without needing to be recast. And this would actually be a great spell.

Right now it's too low damage and too hard to use to be worth the effort.

Lazrael

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Grim focus is part of the disappointment that is NB right now. You've got 2 buffs with short timers to constantly re-apply in grim focus and piercing mark. The timer on these is short enough that if you want to use them they realistically have to be on the front bar. You've also got the option with siphoning strikes to basically not run out of resources but at the cost of 17% damage. You can take that or leave it, it's an interesting and compelling skill and choice. Maybe the only such compelling thing for the NB right now. If you put these buffs together with the nerfed funnel health attack and crippling grasp dot you find that the overall damage output is very low if you manage to keep the buff balls in the air and genuinely terrible if you don't.

Your really left with stamina as the only high DPS choice and you should be warned that NB's do not have a stamina heal option as the stamina sap essence morph does not heal, there is no stamina funnel health morph, and strangely NB's seem to have less compelling buffs and DOT's to add to the stamina weapon skills than other classes leaving them a bit behind in DPS. NB's were really quite dependent on a very few skills in 1.5 to be compelling. They were hit hard by the ultimates changes and harder still by how poor funnel health now is. It scaled to maybe 5x instead of the more typical 10x. This gutted the class which used to do pretty good single target even unbuffed and, with constant off heals and fast ult generation, was a excellent utility player in 4 man content.

As for that specific buff, like everything else about NB's right now, it seems lacking in magnitude. Just when it seemed in 1.5 that NB's had finally found a place in the world as castors now we are back to a stealth attack class in a world with nerfed stealth attacks and broken cloaks. I cry for my gimpy NB but given the relative lack of NB's left in game I don't really expect a buff forthcoming.

Agreed. I've noticed that the sap is much weaker. Now I like playing as an Assassin, but like you said, nerfed stealth and broken cloaks. Not to mention that our cloak depends on Magicka but you now pretty much have to be stamina build to be an effective damage blade. THIS CLASS NEEDS FIXED ALREADY. The reason the population is low, is because they have been slacking on fixing it, not because people don't want to play it. I don't have time to level another main right now. So I'm kinda in a place, of fix NB or I'm out.

c0rp

Grim focus...sounds cool, tried it out. Its fail. 8 hits is too many, sorry. From my experience, it has to be 8 hits on the same target too, which makes it worse. And it doesnt last long enough either. I am sure it can be tweaked into something useful though.

Orihara_Izaya

But in all seriousness, grim focus is useless and unless they make some changes to the skill it's going to get put right beside Agony in the "never touch" category of skills.

GreyRanger

Just chiming in to agree. Have tested it a bunch, cool idea, but really worthless due to execution.

Draehl

It's can be fun, though as stated before very clunky to use in most situations. I find it's only useful against bosses or beefier mobs like trolls. Too many attacks are required to trigger it, and in any sort of hectic situation like PvP you may not even get 8 light attacks in before the buff expires. Even then- it's not *that* much better than other competing skills like Crippling Grasp or Entropy.

-Reduce the number of attacks needed to proc it and/or let skills proc it too.
-Using the proc should re-start the damage buff and not require pressing the same button twice in a row. It's this reason that even against bosses its only a modest damage gain since you waste 2 skill activation to get back to where you started.
-Once procced, let it stay available much longer, if not indefinitely. If I fight one mob, trigger it just as it dies I shouldn't have to scramble to find a mob to use it on.
-Possibly add a PvP/tanking application to it and allow charges to be stored when you are attacked. Max of 1 charge from an incoming attack every 3 seconds.

Greywolf46

My Night Blade was my first character and my main for a while, but frankly playing the class was too tedious for me. Every fight was a near death experience and I am not good at dancing around mobs. I have read many posts concerning the class and some of the flaming people have been subjected to because they cannot play a night blade as well as the flamer.

I tried Grim Focus and really never saw the magnitude of damage from using it, and I agree with the chat above that any skill that requires 7 hits to trigger is a bit useless. Perhaps the morphs will prove better.

Jando

Do the 6 strikes from Rapid Strikes from the Dual Wield line count as 6 of 8 hits required to proc Grim Focus?

GreyRanger

geoffreyb14_ESO wrote: »

Do the 6 strikes from Rapid Strikes from the Dual Wield line count as 6 of 8 hits required to proc Grim Focus?

Never tested it, but I assume not since it is now 7 light attacks. Grim Focus is still as useless as cripple.

Fatalyis

GreyRanger wrote: »

geoffreyb14_ESO wrote: »

Do the 6 strikes from Rapid Strikes from the Dual Wield line count as 6 of 8 hits required to proc Grim Focus?

Never tested it, but I assume not since it is now 7 light attacks. Grim Focus is still as useless as cripple.

Cripple + Concealed Weapon + Dark Cloak.....far from useless

Jando

GreyRanger wrote: »

geoffreyb14_ESO wrote: »

Do the 6 strikes from Rapid Strikes from the Dual Wield line count as 6 of 8 hits required to proc Grim Focus?

Never tested it, but I assume not since it is now 7 light attacks. Grim Focus is still as useless as cripple.

Well, if those 6 Rapid Strikes count, it seems like it could be a fun combo.

JDar

Remember the Poochy episode of The Simpsons? That's what Grim Focus is to me. Poochy. We didn't ask for it, it's too edgy and over thought, and we all hope it goes back to its home planet soon.

DDuke

It's good in PvE, part of my rotation in fact

Morph it to Merciless Resolve, and you can get the tooltip damage over 13k...


That said, it's still a very, very limited & weak skill in PvP in my opinion.

Celless

DDuke wrote: »

It's good in PvE, part of my rotation in fact

Morph it to Merciless Resolve, and you can get the tooltip damage over 13k...

That said, it's still a very, very limited & weak skill in PvP in my opinion.

I'm still practicing with it myself in PvE. I note in the end that it is a DPS increase at the end if the battle will continue more than 15 seconds and is not during the execute phase. I admit, I don't have the consistency to prep the Merciless Resolve version of Assassin's Will with an empower effect and hope it crits.

But I honestly cannot imagine pulling off Assassin's Will in PvP as well. Still kind of hoping that Assassin's Will will refresh the minor berserk duration.

Kahrgan

Even after the buff to it, which only requires 7 LA/HA, its still too clunky. Most times if you have to move at all, it may proc the bow but you wont get a chance to use it before the buff fades.

Duration on grim focus needs to be 60 seconds, fading once the bow is available.

AssaultLemming

Seems like if you cast it then swap bars it doesn't count your light attacks. Also swapping targets seems to confuse it...anyone tested?