Talk:Expert Focus

Expertise + Expert Focus

Would the 'x less energy on bow attacks' apply before or after the effects of expertise? -- (shawn - talk) 23:26, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Another skill that defeats it own purpose. The only thing this has over Kindle Arrows and Read the Wind is the energy gain, but its linked to expertise, which makes energy not a problem anyway. And this costs more energy. --76.2.226.20 00:28, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Ya, if it would scale the energy just 1 more, you could possibly use to reduce the points you put in expertise so you recoup your energy with this skill other than expertise. Other than that, I can only see this skill being a trade off with RTW with energy instead of speed. I like it. Sven 03:37, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Potentially some nice synergies with needling and quick shot. 203.217.0.53 04:39, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Even though with that high of expertise it will cost what? 2-3 energy anyway. Read the Wind adds as much damage, if not more. Maybe it might be good with Savage Shot and Disrupting Shot. I prefer the speed for interrupting though rather than a slightly reduced cost. Needs a buff IMO. --Deathwing 05:13, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Maybe if it lowered the energy enough to spam the 10e attack skills like Sundering/Penetrating Attack it could be useful for damage roles. Something to keep in mind though is that unlike the other Expertise emanagement skills, you don't need much Expertise for this to be good, energy-wise. 8 is the breakpoint for 2 energy. skaspaakssa 14:35, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Just use it with spammable Bow Attacks that cost 10 energy like Penetrating Attack/Sundering Attack and 14 Expertise. Then the skills cost only: 10-6(Expertise)-2(Expert Focus) = 2 Energy. Plus adds some damage. I think this would make those almost forgotten bow attacks worthwhile again. --Longasc 11:03, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Might be useful if combined with poison signet.

Uhh why? Sword.wind. 20:17, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Izzy and the devs, can you consider having this affect all attack skills and not just bow attacks?--Redfeather 22:15, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Thumpers? Ouch....but yeah, would be a cool little thing for some other combinations. --Deathwing 22:49, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I can't argue with the comments above -- I just don't see the point to this skill. If it were tied to Marksmanship, it would be more interesting. ChaoticCoyote 02:33, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually this has some pretty powerful potential along with marksmanship builds. When you go for 12-14 Exp in order to spam 10E attack at 4E, this prep actually cuts your energy use in half. Pure Marks-Exp builds could possibly benefit GREATLY from this. Hell, DShot would be free and Savage would cost 2E. You could possibly spam stuff like Penetrating-Sundering like crazy and have the energy for some IAS as well. Patccmoi 05:57, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I see your point. So this would facilitate using high-energy skills without needing Radiant armor... Even with my current Exp 10 build, 10-energy spells would only cost 4 energy with Expert Focus, and 5-energy spells would be down to 1 energy. With the extra damage, it could replace Read the Wind... yeah, you're right. This skill has potential. ChaoticCoyote 13:50, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

This icon looks familiar to another ranger skill....I THINK it's Zojun's Shot... Nhnowell 15:46, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I usually run 13 expertise anyways, this skill makes for some nice dps along with good e-management. Xitoahc 21:05, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

The Goal of this skill was to really help Marksmanship build happen, I have debating putting this in Marksmanship but I worry it helps non rangers a bit too much, maybe thats mute point as there are very few non ranger bow builds. ~Izzy @-'---- 21:09, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Most of the Bow Attacks are not worth using even with a primary Ranger. --Deathwing 04:02, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I actually prefer this in Expertise, links well with what it tries to do. Expertise is ranger's e-management, this skill is part of that, with a dmg boost. Which makes it a good choice in between other dmg based preparations like RtW and Glass Arrows. Xitoahc 22:34, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

If you move it to Marksmanship it doesn't compare very well to Read the Wind (as others have noted). In expertise it lowers the 13 sweetspot down to 8 for 5e->2e bow attacks which is quite useful. Keeping expertise at 13, however, is very interesting, because 5e->1e allowing a zealous bow to get you down to 0e (if you hit, of course, and suffering -1e regen) which is very interesting to use with R heroes for the spammable 5e bow attacks that are otherwise too expensive to let them use. Also keeping it in expertise allows a bar with this prep, Zojun's Shot, Point Blank all from one attribute (with high armor opponents and GW:EN weakness so common putting a lot of points into Marksmanship for this bar doesn't necessarily deliver value) leaving five slots and lots of points for, e.g., Beast Mastery, Wilderness Surv, and R/? (and you still get an elite). I ran a couple of PvE builds based on this concept this last weekend and was quite happy with them (apart from having no room for a skill to revive my pet in the BM case--can't resist plugging my suggestion to allow 10e 10c 30r Charm Animal to also barely revive your dead pet). In short I don't think Expert Focus is bad at all for R/?, if it stays in Expertise. If your intent is to benefit non-rangers though, by moving it to Marksmanship, then you better make skill level 12 Marksmanship get 5e->2e (rather than effectively 8 in expertise, as it is now, rangers only), or perhaps make it a rebate skill, %scale, like the elemental attunements. Crystalion 22:36, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Makes expert's dexterity builds more practical? 24.71.148.177 04:17, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Read their skill types. --Ufelder 04:28, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

ahh right. i guess it really aint that useful after all for reducing energy cost... 24.71.148.177 03:22, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Quick Shot

Needling Shot

Expert Focus

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The rest you can fill in yourself :P Anyway, what does anyone thinks? ----InfestedHydralisk 18:04, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

With QS you don't really need Needling Shot; I'll stick in one of the Conjure and bring Savage and Distracting Shot. Looks pretty impressive. --Ufelder 04:33, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

While personally i don't care much if this ends up in Marksmanship or Expertise, i really don't think it would change anything for the use of skills on /R. The bow attacks are ENORMOUSLY overpriced for /R and -2E would still not make those 10E attacks viable at all without Expertise on top. But putting it in Marksmanship would have the advantage of allowing for lower spec in Expertise, say something like 12+x+1 Marks, 9+1 Exp, 9 other which could allow to use pretty interesting secondaries, like fairly good damage conjures to add up to the damage of your bow damage, a fairly high specced Tiger's Fury, etc. But it'll be good in either line really, it's honestly a very good concept to help Marksmanship builds actually maybe becoming viable! 24.202.127.119 05:03, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

With Quick Shot alone, your attack speed isn't any faster than regular attacks. You need to use both QS and Needling to break the 2 second speed limit. Lightblade 18:56, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

If you've got Expertise up at 13, will this make 5e attacks cost 0e, or will there be a minimum cost? This is assuming Expertise applies before the reduction from this, otherwise we're only looking at a tiny effect. I like the idea of using a Zealous bow, using all the most expensive attacks to get someone below 50% HP, then spamming Needling Shot to actually regain energy...

As the skill is, it's nothing completely spectacular, but the reduction and bonus damage combined make for a strong effect overall. I really like this... it's most likely going to replace Read the Wind in my Prepared Shot builds (Prepared Shot, Dual Shot, Triple Shot, Forked Arrow, yay). Just make sure that energy reduction comes after the Expertise effect! :P -- Jioruji Derako.> 22:37, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

P.S.: It might be nice to see this scale up to -3 energy at rank 16... not many uses for 16 expertise, most players won't want to use that many runes on the attribute... but it could make for some fun ideas (makes 10 energy skills cost 1, if you decide to go all out with another superior rune for Marks, you could do some nice damage most likely). -- Jioruji Derako.> 22:41, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

This is definitely something I would consider using...Prepared Shot has almost become glued to my bar (though mainly because I like to make liberal use of Concussion Shot), and non-elite energy management for Rangers = you have my attention. Nice bit of extra damage as well. Could be godly with Needling Shot. Still, Read the Wind will always be the best for interrupting due to the speed buff, and for using a Flatbow, which with Read is absolutely the best bow type. Recurves without Read seem so slow by comparison, both in flight speed and fire rate. As has been said though, this is only good if the energy reduction happens after Expertise's innate reduction. Either way, leave it in Expertise, please. Those A/Rs don't need any more help. Arshay Duskbrow 00:04, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Read the Wind still owns this. Badly --71.164.131.254 05:08, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess it all depends on the situation you are in and the build you are using it in. If you are already use a Recurve bow, you really dont need faster arrows.. and you can sacrifice a point of damage for energy management if your build requires an expensive bow attack (BHA or Concussion Shot), or is even a pet build with attacks for both you and the pet.Shyke Lightning 01:22, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I see this working well with Crippling Shot in GvG. Maybe help divisify rangers use in them? It'd be a kind of trade-off. Either have poison, or high spamability. Stick in poison tip sig here and there? This way it could help with ganks as well. Or, go R/W with these skills and Grapple, maybe a shout or a stance (can you tell I miss the old R/Me shutdown builds :D ) Mat Cauthorn 18:45, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I find this skill incredibly boring. Extra damage? Kindle Arrows and Read the Wind do that. Less energy? Expertise does that. It would be nice if the skill was a bit more original - maybe replace the extra damage with some other secondary effect, like faster attack skill recharge? ~ Kailianna Firesoul 08:07, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Could use a buff in the damage where the breakpoints are, making it do 10 extra damage at 9, 10, or 12 expertise would make this pretty nice imo.--Atlas Oranos 10:27, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Translation Suggestions

To avoid some bad skill translations i'm opening a comment for new skills so everybody can post their translation suggestions in various languages, have fun :) --YukoIshii 23:27, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Italian: Esperta Concentrazione (maybe not totally literal but this way is nice to hear)--YukoIshii 23:27, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Expert's Concentration? Is there no Italian word for focus? Done25 23:48, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

It's "fulcro", but it's often used with the meaning of "center". "to focus" is tricky for me, it should be "focalizzarsi", so "expert focus" should be "focalizzazione esperta" and it sucks :) I hope someone will have a better idea, but concentraton it's not so bad, and preserve the meaning. --YukoIshii 12:16, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Polish: Skupienie Eksperta. I can post polish translations, right? I just think that the translators screwed up some skills... Abedeus 17:51, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Deducts BEFORE Expertise.

From testing in the EotN preview, this skill deducts the 1...2 energy from the base cost of the skill, before Expertise is applied. Thus, it is completely useless, and no one in their right mind will ever use it over RtW. Yay... Arshay Duskbrow 05:44, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Ouch. So much for that idea... hopefully that's a bug, can't see why they would make a skill that does such a tiny effect... adding skills to the underpowered list before they're even officially released is kinda disappointing. -- Jioruji Derako.> 08:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Ya i was quite annoyed after realizing that. I thought this could do a lot for Marksmanship Rangers, but at 14 Expertise, 10E cost skills are STILL 4E even using this. The only use is to reduce 5E skills to 1E at high expertise, but 5E skills at high expertise are already not a problem for your energy. All in all it's a truly worthless preparation as is. I can only hope it's a bug and it was intended to reduce it after expertise. If you keep it before, make the reduction scale for something like 1..4 so that it actually matters once expertise is applied Patccmoi 02:57, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

As it is, the only use is making 5e skills cost 4e on a non-ranger. And that itself is fairly useless. -- Jioruji Derako.> 05:39, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

This is what I expected. Energizing Wind and Primal Echoes are also calculated before Expertise. -- Gordon Ecker 20:30, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I've calculated a table. -- Gordon Ecker 10:55, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Well now...if that's accurate, it means you can run 11 Expertise and get the same benefit on 5 and 10 cost skills as you'd get at rank 14 without Expert Focus. Maybe not so useless after all...might be good if you wanted to sink points into Wilderness, or some other attribute. Although, the benefit only applies to bow attacks, not stances, etc. I'll probably still stick with Read the Wind...really, they need to change this to apply after Expertise if they want it to see any use at all. Arshay Duskbrow 11:20, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

What the hell izzy?

Deduct energy b4 expertise? What a useless piece of crap. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:128.83.101.109 .

If this is its intended use I suggest a energy reduction buff and/or damage buff be added to allow this skill to be more viable. As it is I'd rather take any other preparation over this one. Xitoahc 21:47, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I would like it to work with expertise but have a minimum energy cost of 1 or say 2 per skill. This way it would reduce 10 energy attacks from 4 to 2, while 5 energy attacks would still cost 2 or 1 energy at least. --Longasc 12:35, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Is this fixed yet?--Atlas Oranos 19:53, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

When I read the skill I assumed it was after expertise, oh well. What if it was moved to marksmanship? That way you can have less points in expertise, not meeting previous breakpoints for energy reduction - which will be covered by this skill, and more in marks/wilderness to make up for it. The only problem with this is it doesn't encourage new builds at all, just a different way to spread attributes. I hope this is just a programming mishap and this skill will apply after expertise though, doesn't really matter to me where it goes then. Dancing Gnome 19:23, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Ouch yeah this is really bad, maybe if it was a skill not a prep it would be useful, kinda... --Lou-Saydus 17:34, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I too feel that this Preparation is not of much use as it is, and needs a buff.

Explanatory statement: Expert Focus' 10 points Energy cost doesn't make it a viable e-management option for low Expertise levels, which is bad since the 'sweet spots' for 10e bow attack skills under this Preparation are at 8 and at 11 Expertise. At these Expertise levels, activating Expert Focus will cost 7e respectively 6e, and one has to use three to four 10e bow attack skills to actually regain that Energy investment. The full Energy management benefit occurs not until the fourth respectively fifth(!) 10e bow attack skill; using 5e bow attack skills it's even worse, because the Preparation saves them only 1e each. Since bow attack speed is pretty slow, Expert Focus will wear off in most instances before giving a noticeable Energy benefit. The damage bonus is however similar to Read the Wind and i.m.h.o. okay.

Suggestion: Change the skill stats as follows:

Expert Focus - Expertise, Preparation. 5e 2a 12r. For 24 seconds, your bow and pet attacks cost 1...2 less Energy, and you deal 1...8 extra damage with your bow.

Besides the improved e-management for bow attack skills even at low Expertise levels, extending it's scope on pet attack skills too should give primary Rangers interesting options for hybrid builds, respectively gives pure beastmasters a non-elite e-management skill. OR:

Expert Focus - Marksmanship, Preparation. 5e 2a 12r. For 24 seconds, your bow attacks cost 1...2 less Energy and deal 1...8 extra damage.

By moving the skill to Marksmanship and reducing it's Energy cost, it would be RtW's 'sister skill', making bow attacks less expensive instead of increasing arrow speed. I personally feel that more non-primary Rangers (including me) would like to use a bow in some builds, but balk at the attack skill costs. Especially Warriors would benefit from this - i can see some interesting W/R builds focusing in Strength and Marksmanship... Zelda Gareth 11:08, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Table

Is that table accurate? Does it calculate in the Exprt Focus effect before or after the expertise breakpoints? Dancing Gnome 01:32, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Can I just say that after reading the text with that table, I still don't really understand what this table signifies... --  (CoRrRan / talk) 23:09, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

It basically says with this preparation all 5 energy skills that cost 2 after expertise cost only 1. While the 10 energy attacks still cost 4 energy - and actually THOSE would have been interesting, if I would really try to kill something with 5 energy bow attacks I would take rapid fire and not this. I would have liked penetrating and sundering attack on 2-3 energy, then we could talk about a "Marksman" build. Right now this preparation reduces energy cost mostly where energy was not a problem anyways, imo. --Longasc 13:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Lol I still can't understand the table with all that blue and red stuff. -- Halogod35 01:23, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

The table's NOT correct. Some of the values are incorrect or were misinterpreted. Its the value for expertise=4/energycost=5 (should be 3, not 4, and Expert focus does not reduce energy cost by 0, but by 1) as well as the background color of the values for expertise=8 andexpertise=9 at energycost=15 (expert focus reduces energycost by 1 at expertise=8 , and 2 at expertise=9 ).--137.226.239.135 13:15, 14 September 2009 (UTC)pza

Checked it out and your right. Its a good chart minus the inaccuracy and I dont understand how people cant figure it out. Should be fixed. I would but im not getting into another revert war over another chart. Justice 11:22, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Would someone be so kind as to fix it if it's inaccurate? — Raine Valen 20:26, 29 Jul 2010 (UTC)

Related Skills

changed related skills to "read the wind" since its more relavent than Archer's Signet. Once Great King 02:28, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Bug Note

How is it a bug? It clearly states in the description that attack skills get a damage boost. Not regular attacks. Harrier 18:01, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

it does not - Wuhy 18:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

It's kind of implied. Regular bow attacks don't cost energy. Poor description, yes, but bug? Freedom Bound 18:59, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

does this bug include spear attack skills (in that case, explicit it, since deft strike is quite a special example), or Deft strike is the only exception ? Elephant 14:03, 27 February 2010 (UTC)