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Lore Vs. Focus


Lore Vs.Focus  

38 members have voted

  1. 1. Lore or Focus? Which is one, when there can be only one!

    • Lore
      5
    • Focus
      33


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O.k. this question has come up many times and inevitably there are cases for both. so in a civilized fashion, lets hash this one out.

 

My take is that Focus is more important than the Lore. 1. for the regen benefits. 2. for the focus level. The upside of the lore is a damage multiplyer and chance for crits, casting speed if its not a weapon aspect. Both of which are pretty easily socketed. But lowering regens and pumping Combat Art levels without the focus is tough, actually almost impossible.

 

so let er rip folks! lets hear what you think.

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Heya,

 

you know Loco.... that it might depend a bit on the build. RpH has a big impact too... making higher level Combat Art's attractive. As an example, for buffs... Nature Weaver Lore is quite a good choice for Dryads. Lore always has its value.... think of a Source Warden Temple Guardian.

 

IF, however you can take only 1... then RpH tipped the scale for me in favor of Focus. Higher Combat Art lvls also make for nice scaling bonusses.

 

BOTH have their value, and I would not really advise a build with only 1. It can be done, and I have done so several times, but you need to be really sure of what you are doing and have the resources to back the toon for the things it WILL lack. Any build goes... but leaving out skills that it should have, will lock you on your bargainers and smithers for a bit :lol:

 

My two cents :)

 

Greetz

Edited by Barristan
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Heya,

 

you know Loco.... that it might depend a bit on the build. RpH has a big impact too... making higher level Combat Art's attractive. As an example, for buffs... Nature Weaver Lore is quite a good choice for Dryads. Lore always has its value.... think of a Source Warden Temple Guardian.

 

IF, however you can take only 1... then RpH tipped the scale for me in favor of Focus. Higher Combat Art lvls also make for nice scaling bonusses.

 

BOTH have their value, and I would not really advise a build with only 1. It can be done, and I have done so several times, but you need to be really sure of what you are doing and have the resources to back the toon for the things it WILL lack. Any build goes... but leaving out skills that it should have, will lock you on your bargainers and smithers for a bit :lol:

 

My two cents :)

 

Greetz

 

 

Agreed! at least for your main aspect I recomend both, but for a secondary.....

 

I think a lore only build would be one of the tortures Chattius would put his girls through for some extra RAM or a vid card.

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I also vote focus. Regen time + higher level is much better than lore. Granted, lore improves the damage, but if, say, the Combat Art does 100 damage at Combat Art level 1 and 300 as Combat Art level 10 with the same regen time, that's 300% increase to the damage which the lore can't easily manage.

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two arguments for Lore:

 

1. If the Combat Arts tied to it are mostly damage (so that Lore's beenfit is maximized)

2. If you are NOT using the buff in the aspect (most folks crank buff levels earlier than spammable Combat Arts)

3. Casting Speed - execution is 36% faster with Lore, so you don;t have to catch up on 180% damage, but also 36% cast speed. (note: Cheaty platform users can sail right by this, by placing skills that have no focus in a combo, which uses attack speed. And by cheaty I mean me)

 

In general though - I am a Pro-Focus

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two arguments for Lore:

 

1. If the Combat Arts tied to it are mostly damage (so that Lore's beenfit is maximized)

2. If you are NOT using the buff in the aspect (most folks crank buff levels earlier than spammable Combat Arts)

3. Casting Speed - execution is 36% faster with Lore, so you don;t have to catch up on 180% damage, but also 36% cast speed. (note: Cheaty platform users can sail right by this, by placing skills that have no focus in a combo, which uses attack speed. And by cheaty I mean me)

 

In general though - I am a Pro-Focus

 

 

Execution speed on non weapon based Combat Arts is a cool one I forgot about with the Lore. But would you choose lore over focus? no I say

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I had to vote Focus... because in MOST cases, if you only can choose one then it is better for most of the aspects.

 

There is a lot of cases where we could argue the Lore is better, but when you consider that most of the Combat Art modifications scale by Combat Art level... then Combat Art level trumps a more damage and faster execution speeds.

 

Example - Source Warden. The base damage increases are quite small from level-level, so I thought Lore would be more important here.... but the resistance reducers on Firey Ember and Icy Evanesance scale by CAL, so by the time we are in Niob, that resistance reduction contributes more damage than 1.5 - 2 times damage multiplier.

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If you can only have one then your not going to be able to deal much damage anyhow. So adding some damage% and crit won't matter. Early on it won't matter (niob whets) and late game it won't matter because you'll be using whatever aspect you got both mostly. The only reason to use Combat Arts from an aspect with only focus or lore is to get the non-damage effects.

 

From that standpoint the only case for lore is if the casting speed is so low with only focus that it lowers the worth of the Combat Arts you get to unplayable. I'm not aware of any class where a little slower casting (and the game does have items for casting speed though rare) outweighs the superior Combat Art levels of focus. I think the one case where it is close is the HE delphic where you mod GI, expulse, and shadow step. The first two Lore strongly affects and you can just try to raise the Combat Art level by eating runes, 200 for GI. But focus would still be better.

 

If you WERE dealing damage lore would be better. But imo without both its plain silly to try to deal damage.

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Some aspects where it (can be) all about the damage

 

Inquisitor: Astute Supremancy CM, LA, and RT are damagers (don't use the buff and Zealot is used for distraction only) - I have an inquisitor that runs this way (level 100)

 

Temple Guardian: Lost Fusion (no buff) use the Flamethrower, Amplifying Discharge, Jolting Touch modded for damage

 

Shadow Warrior: Use only shadow veil buff, and the other two buffs become meaningless AND you get double duty from Tactics Lore. I have a ranged Shadow warrior that runs this way.

 

That being said. FOCUS IS STILL BETTER

:-)

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Reading this topic makes me realize how much that I still need to learn about Combat Arts/Lores/Focus... the offensive and defensive skills always seem to be more attractive to me (probably just because they are easier to understand).

 

That being said, I have two skill slots left for my Temple Guardian, and so far I have zero combat art skills (no focus, lore, etc). Any recommendations? The majority of my runes have been going into dedicated blow, battle extension, T-Energy Shroud, amplifying discharge, and Icy Evenesence.

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Devout Guardian Focus and Warding Energy Lore, and focusing purely on the Devout Guardian aspect as the other ones will be useless without modification points.

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I actually did already get Warding Energy Lore (was in the Defensive Skills list), I figured it would make sense to get Devout Guardian Focus but was unsure of what to get for my last skill. I guess the other focuses and lores won't be worth getting since I'm only putting points into one Combat Art (amplifying discharge and Icey) in each of the other aspects?

Edited by rhs408
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I actually did already get Warding Energy Lore (was in the Defensive Skills list), I figured it would make sense to get Devout Guardian Focus but was unsure of what to get for my last skill. I guess the other focuses and lores won't be worth getting since I'm only putting points into one Combat Art (amplifying discharge and Icey) in each of the other aspects?

 

 

Combat Discipline would be another good one. give 10% reduction in regens. on PC it also adds a ton of base damage. don't know if the damage part works on console.

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If you take Devout Guardian and don't have tactics lore taking tactics would be good because with DG you'd probably want to use spikes and maybe a weapon attack and tactics would boost that. Plus more mod points.

Edited by claudius
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Definitely Focus. When it comes to battle Combat Arts, higher level will increase the Combat Art dmg, and decrease the regen. Lore gives a very small increase in dmg for every point, and I can always get an incomparable amount of dmg from x-x dmg rings for weapon based Combat Arts and the dmg% for the non-weapon based Combat Arts.

 

Sure, Lore increases good stuff like the armor and hp regen on AB and the energy shield etc. But Lore is almost useless without Focus and Focus doesn't need Lore.

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  • 4 months later...

The first character I built before really getting to know the mechanics of the game was a Seraphim who has no focus as yet with three skill slots left to fill. She gets tons of runes but can't use them because of the penalties. She got to level 46 before I gave her a rest and built another seraphim with a focus on focus. Although she does a lot of damage using appropriate buffs (cleansing brilliance for undead and T-energy mobs) she can get overwhelmed and I have to hit the space bar frequently when hit with large groups because her CAs damage and regen are limited. She will be getting Exalted Warrior Focus soon. So I say go with focus and add lore later if you want both in a build.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Combat Discipline would be another good one. give 10% reduction in regens. on PC it also adds a ton of base damage. don't know if the damage part works on console.

Not sure what definition of base damage you're using Loco, but CD is a % damage bonus just like the Lores (unless I've got the wrong end of the stick about your post).

 

Edit: Actually, it doesn't look like it is a % bonus...

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Combat Discipline would be another good one. give 10% reduction in regens. on PC it also adds a ton of base damage. don't know if the damage part works on console.

Not sure what definition of base damage you're using Loco, but CD is a % damage bonus just like the Lores (unless I've got the wrong end of the stick about your post).

 

Edit: Actually, it doesn't look like it is a % bonus...

I get confused on that one. It acts like base. But wiki I think says percentage. Iirc I am not sure now.

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If the skill tooltip says +1225 it means +122.5%, I think...

 

Yeah, but that's not what I saw when I did some investigating... I'm confused too now & it didn't help that the per level damage bonuses on the CAs aren't linear:

 

Baneful Smite (from spells.txt) does 49 damage + 24.5 damage per level both physical & magic, though the magic gets a +2% bonus per level as well. That all adds up to 149.5 at level 1, plus the % bonus from Int (13% on the level 200 seraphim I was using) gets me to 168.9 damage & the Int screen was saying 166 damage, which is fairly close. level 60, however, should give 1,519 physical damage + 3,342 magic damage, for a total of 4,921, plus the Int bonus of 16% gives 5,708 damage, but I was only seeing 1,372 damage (429 physical & 943 magic).

 

Then add in CD:

level 1 CD (+74) 176 dmg at level 1 BS, 1,436 dmg at level 60 BS.

level 10 CD (+313) 214 dmg at level 1 BS, 1,641 dmg at level 60 BS.

level 20 CD (+537) 255 dmg at level 1 BS, 1,833 dmg at level 60 BS. Interestingly, at level 1 BS, the Magic damage was 130 while physical damage was only 125).

level 50 CD (+1,030) 334 dmg at level 1 BS, 1,641 dmg at level 60 BS.

level 100 CD (+1,829) 469 dmg at level 1 BS, 2,942 dmg at level 60 BSInterestingly, at level 1 BS, the Magic damage was 237 while physical damage was only 232).

 

Even after taking into acount the 13%/16% Int bonus & the 2% per level BS bonus, I can't get the damage bonus from CD to calculate correctly... :D

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  • 2 weeks later...

I go for the focus. Just as stated before it has one big advantage: lower regentime. And that means you can improve your Combat Arts without having a limit.

Also, if you use non-combat based Combat Arts, then you can take Ancient Magic to increase the damage output of those Combat Arts.

On the other side, things as armor lore and shield lore helps also to lower the regen time. Especially armor lore is often used. But I guess it's here about the lore of the aspects.

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