Focus Essentials?

[(PSN)Cwellann]

Good morning!

As a fan of stealth farming my focus (and not a fan of zoning in and out much), my days of relaxing, almost meditative, enjoyable focus farming appear to be numbered.  So, I'd like to prioritize my remaining time appropriately.  Please note:  there's a ton of feedback, both salty and reasonable, in the update thread and in some general discussion threads.  If you'd like to fight, I'd recommend heading over there.  Thanks!

So, I'm looking to kind of triage my focus gains.  Here's what I've got currently:

Naramon: 2/3 Mind Spike, Maxed Mind Spike Mastery, Maxed Strategic Execution, Maxed Deadly Intent

Zenurik:  1/3 Void Pulse, Maxed Overflow and Mastery

Vazarin:  0/3 Mending Tides, New Moon and Mastery unlocked

Madurai:  Phoenix Gaze 2/3, Mastery unlocked

Unairu:  Tree is unlocked, never invested anything into it.

Hitting the cap every day at the moment isn't a problem (and may not be post update either (Excal in an hour survival right now is getting around 10k), but, for better or worse I'm set up for Stealth farming right now with a G Naramon on my Loki P, a Zenurik on my Loki, and a collection of melee weapons with all 5 schools amongst them, mostly in regular lenses, and this allows me to allocate exactly where my gains go)

So, what I'm looking for is advice on what to prioritize, as I've said.  Originally my plan had been to completely max Naramon, because I love it, but that didn't seem to be the wisest course.  I think I'm pretty much set on Naramon (though I was planning on maxing Mind Spike and Mind Blast at least) and Zenurik, but I'm really curious as to good builds for the other three schools.  Thanks in advance!

[(PSN)horridhal]

I really don't recommend "maxing" any school.  The bonuses to the actual attack aren't pronounced enough to warrant it and, with each new ability you unlock and add to the skill, the cooldown timer extends making it take longer for you to activate the attack and get the passives which are the real meat of the Focus system.

What I've done personally, and what I suggest, is to focus on unlocking each school, then maxing the passives and the cooldown effect.  Madurai was the one I started with, personally, and the one that took the longest to max.  I haven't touched Unairu, other than unlocking it, because it doesn't interest me at the moment, ditto Vazarin.

[(PSN)CowboyJeff72]

The above route is the one I'm taking as well. I started with Mardurai. I have unlocked the school, first passive, first upgrade, and just about done with the mastery. Once that is ranked up completely, I'll move onto the next school (Zenurik for me). Biggest difference for me was I wanted the three beam split which is why I unlocked and ranked the first power upgrade and not just the passive and mastery.

[(PSN)Agent_CHAR]

This is all my opinion but I think you really want 4 energy per sec from Zenurik, 2-4 instant revives from Vazarin, and the invisibility / crit chance bonus from Naramon.  Nothing else really matters other than getting the cool down as short as possible.  Basically everything else is garbage.

It also seems they are going hard with changes to make intensive focus farming with stealth a thing of the past.  I'm making sure to acquire many lens from all the schools now while they are still reasonably plentiful on console.  I want a very broad base of things with a lens installed so I can just play the game and gain focus along the way.  My target is 3 frames and 2x of each weapon type in each school.  I'm pretty close to done with that.

I also don't really care if I cap or not.  Having focus to spend on garbage abilities is a waste of time.  Perhaps I will regret this later if they ever change the abilities but given how DE operates they'll get around to that 15 months from now (not bashing DE really, just being realistic and honest).

Edited March 8, 2016 by (PS4)Agent_CHAR

[(PSN)Cwellann]

If you look at my current progress, you'll see that unlocking and then grabbing the passives is indeed the path I'm following.  Perhaps I should have been more specific in my questions, sorry.  

@(PS4)Agent_CHAR, I've already got all that, except the revives from Vazarin, which I'm actively working on right now.  ...I've been focusing on melee - building up a pool of lenses for primary and secondary weapons isn't a bad idea.  Thanks.

Zenurik:  Is energy spike worth it?  Or is a full Zenurik build pretty much Pulse/Overflow/Mastery?

Vazarin:  Really curious on this one.  Since the revives stack, a speedy cooldown build is obviously important.  But Disciplined Approach and Retaliation look pretty interesting as well.  Thoughts?

Unairu:  These passives looks like they could synergize extremely well with a melee Chroma that has energy management via Rage under control.  Any thoughts?

Madurai:  Jeff, Horrid, what have your experiences been with the passive here?  To me it looks kind of weak, especially for the investment required.  Madurai is the only one where the active ability interested me as the Chimera Breath and associated upgrades make it actually look pretty decent - being able to do a ton of damage and set everything including the ground on fire seems like a pretty powerful panic button.

Like I said in my OP, I'm just trying to figure out what to prioritize, since especially with the amount of Focus Madurai's passives take I'm kind of feeling a bit of a crunch and want to make sure I have at least the necessary bare bones before the changes drop for us.

Thanks again.

Edited March 8, 2016 by (PS4)Cwellann
lenses.

[(PSN)horridhal]

3 minutes ago, (PS4)Cwellann said:

If you look at my current progress, you'll see that unlocking and then grabbing the passives is indeed the path I'm following.  Perhaps I should have been more specific in my questions, sorry.  

@(PS4)Agent_CHAR, I've already got all that, except the revives from Vazarin, which I'm actively working on right now.  ...I've been focusing on melee - building up a pool of lenses for primary and secondary weapons isn't a bad idea.  Thanks.

Zenurik:  Is energy spike worth it?  Or is a full Zenurik build pretty much Pulse/Overflow/Mastery?

Vazarin:  Really curious on this one.  Since the revives stack, a speedy cooldown build is obviously important.  But Disciplined Approach and Retaliation look pretty interesting as well.  Thoughts?

Unairu:  These passives looks like they could synergize extremely well with a melee Chroma that has energy management via Rage under control.  Any thoughts?

Madurai:  Jeff, Horrid, what have your experiences been with the passive here?  To me it looks kind of weak, especially for the investment required.  Madurai is the only one where the active ability interested me as the Chimera Breath and associated upgrades make it actually look pretty decent - being able to do a ton of damage and set everything including the ground on fire seems like a pretty powerful panic button.

Like I said in my OP, I'm just trying to figure out what to prioritize, since especially with the amount of Focus Madurai's passives take I'm kind of feeling a bit of a crunch and want to make sure I have at least the necessary bare bones before the changes drop for us.

Thanks again.

Zenurik : I never worried about Spike.  I just went Pulse/Mastery/OF.

Unairu : I really don't like this tree, personally.  I can see the benefits of what you are talking about but, realistically, I would say that another school like Madurai or Naramon would be better for any melee based build.  Especially Madurai with fully maxed passives on a Tank frame like Chroma.

Madurai : It really depends on your playstyle and what you are looking for.  I use Madurai when I run any melee frame solely to get the benefits of the damage boost, and I have all 3 passives fully maxed.  It is nice, also, to have non-elemental damage types added to elemental weapons, which happens with the Madurai Focus.  That said, I can't really recommend Madurai over Naramon or Zenurik.  Both, in my opinion from having used all 3, are better choices overall, though I believe Madurai is a better choice than Unairu and Vazarin.  Vazarin, to me, is basically the biggest waste of all because I don't really need instant revives all that often.  The few times I do I can just use a CC ability and get a couple of seconds to pull off a normal revive.

One benefit to Naramon over the other schools, in terms of passives, is the boost to affinity earned by melee weapons.  This might be something you want to look into if you are running Loki with melee to farm your Focus.  That bonus affects your focus gain.

[(PSN)Agent_CHAR]

12 minutes ago, (PS4)Cwellann said:

 

@(PS4)Agent_CHAR,  ...I've been focusing on melee - building up a pool of lenses for primary and secondary weapons isn't a bad idea.  Thanks.

 

Yeah, my assumption is that focus changes from a solo activity to a squad based one mostly because they open it up to shared affinity but at the same time nerf the percentages.  Since you aren't alone any more killing everything in sight with a particular weapon or skill you really want everything in your loadout with a lens on it.

[(PSN)Cwellann]

Just now, (PS4)horridhal said:

One benefit to Naramon over the other schools, in terms of passives, is the boost to affinity earned by melee weapons.  This might be something you want to look into if you are running Loki with melee to farm your Focus.  That bonus affects your focus gain.

Agreed!  That's advice I've given here several times, and was the very first thing I did after unlocking Naramon a few days after completion of TSD, as it literally pays for itself if you take it early enough.

Madurai might be nice for balance on my defensive Excal build - Naramon is a bit silly when 5 mods are dedicated to being able to take a punch.

[(PSN)CowboyJeff72]

50 minutes ago, (PS4)Cwellann said:

 

Madurai:  Jeff, Horrid, what have your experiences been with the passive here?  To me it looks kind of weak, especially for the investment required.  Madurai is the only one where the active ability interested me as the Chimera Breath and associated upgrades make it actually look pretty decent - being able to do a ton of damage and set everything including the ground on fire seems like a pretty powerful panic button.

It's not bad, but honestly I decided to see it through mainly because I chose it after the quest and just decided to grind it out and then move on. LOL Chimera Breath is definitely a good panic button if you will, especially running your more squishy frames. I used it a few times in the Sortie yesterday to good effect. I tend to mix gunplay and melee up quite a bit so the slash from the passive is a huge help. I don't think I'll bother with the other two though. But honestly, if you don't see value in the passive just from your gaming standpoint, I would put focus into Chimera Breath and then concentrate on another school.

[(PSN)horridhal]

One addendum to my previous posts : Madurai Focus passives work like Bane mods for those who were unaware, meaning that the % of bonus damage is calculated after all other mods and affects are applied.