Focus Philosophy Question

[(PSN)Cwellann]

To start off, please keep this vague, I'm trying to stay in the dark about the specifics of the paths I don't have (Madurai and Naramon unlocked so far).  

 

So, in general, what have you all found to work better, a tree that is consistent with your frame's ability (e.g. Madurai on Ember) or a tree that fills in some gaps on your frame's ability (e.g. Naramon on Ember, Madurai on Loki or Trinity).  

 

Again, please keep it to general philosophy, and thanks!

 

EDIT:  There's spoilers about Naramon and Madurai in my post further down, for anyone who hasn't unlocked them yet and doesn't want to know.

Edited December 23, 2015 by (PS4)Cwellann

[-CM-Hekovashi]

In my opinion-chose focus schools is only for passives, coz skill themself are kinda meh. So passive wise zenurik for casters, naramon for melee channeling dudes aka excal, valkyr, wukong and madurai for channeling casters aka equinox, ember etc for small damage buff, since they usually don't go in melee range and don't gonna benefit from zenurik stuff due to channeling

[Zardbooster]

Unless the weakness of the frame is near crippling for the frame, which it rarely is in my opinion, I would personally give it something that complemented the frame's strengths, since you get more out of it that way.

 

Apart from that I actually chose what i felt was more in my style of play, and intend to stick with it on most, if not all, of the frames. Although to be fair, it seems there might have been others schools that could do more or less the same in terms of abilities and passives as the one I chose.

But such is the way of vauge descriptions.

[Genoscythe]

I like Zenurik for the energy regen, it really helps and we finally can counter parasitics/energy leeches this way.

 

However most damage abilities are not worth it, additionally the focus abilities suffer the same lame reductions as all abilities by enemies (looking at nullifiers and ancients).

 

Madurai rocks for excalibur of course as he has all three physical damage types in his radial javelin, but let's be honest: The passives should trigger when the match begins, not after two or three minutes when you got the first charge-up.

 

Right now focus rather seems marginal to me and not "elite" enough, as it is supposed to be. You can play the game perfectly without it.

[(PSN)KestralSylver]

Personally, I went for Vazarin and Zenurik simply because I embody a more support oriented playstyle and it also helps tremendously for solo play survivability.

[(PSN)Cwellann]

Thanks so much for the quick feedback.  Yeah, Excal is one of the only ones where choosing between one of the two trees I have so far is difficult.  I'm much more Radial Blind/slide combo in EB oriented than kill-everything-wave-spammy/javelin-all-the-things though, so I think Naramon's probably the right choice for my playstyle for him.  I can definitely see how Madurai would fit him though.

 

Followup question:

Does the slash passive bonus in Madurai work on Maim?  If so, is it just the proc, or does it buff the explosion as well?  If not, is it one of those bugged things or host/client issues like the Naramon invisibility supposedly is?

 

Edit:

Personally, I went for Vazarin and Zenurik simply because I embody a more support oriented playstyle and it also helps tremendously for solo play survivability.

This is exactly where I'm trying to get to with my question - do you use these trees even when you're not playing a support character, or would you go whole hog and swap over to more aggressive trees?

Edited December 23, 2015 by (PS4)Cwellann