This is the fundamental flaw of "Focus" in SOTA

After many threads I think I can elaborate the fundamental flaw with "focus" that the dev's need to address which effects complaints about a *lot* of different things.

The dev's have designed focus in this game as an intelligence based stat. Focus is gained by mostly +int.

This fits mages perfectly, a mage will primarily take +int, get a huge focus pool that regens fast, Most of their primary spells are also going to be int based (and dex as secondary in some trees).

The problem is that "focus" in its real use in SOTA is a catch all for *ALL* skills. Melee characters have to also use focus and their trees are designed to burn it just as fast as casters and their spells. Meaning, my blunt based "knockdown" skill takes just as much focus as a mage offensive skill.

So in short, a melee character is nothing more then also a focus mage, my blunt "knockdown" is a spell no different then a "death ray" with significantly less focus.

The problem is that a melee character is taking on STR and DEX as their primary stat, in fact they are required in most skills (Blunt has to be +str). This leaves melee with a tiny focus pool.

So this leads to for example me in PvP with 500 focus as a melee and my opponent mage has 900 focus which they can use to burn me down with almost endless focus with their

Solutions:

The Devs need to treat "focus" as a catch all for all skills melee and mage. That or the devs need to create a new stat called like "constitution" that is STR based that is used by melee skills.

We should be able to get +focus by int or Str. Melee should probably have passives that are gain them +focus.

 

focus comes from int. everyone needs focus.

health and carrying capacity come from str. everyone needs health and carrying capacity.

hit, crit, and dodge rates come from dex. everyone needs to hit, crit, and dodge.

maybe you should just let go of the idea that there are builds that will only need to train one base stat. making all of them necessary goes along way toward making the chars as classless as claimed.

 

There is just no way in SOTA to not level the other "magic" skills or skills you may not want in order to progress your character. It seems that everyone just has to be a mage of some sort in SOTA to be successful. Maybe that is the mythos they want to put forward.

I guess you can call it classless, but in the end it seems like everyone will be the same 'classless' profession.

I have cast insane amount of spells in lots of trees on my path as an "archer".

 

<-- Melee
And focus is just [removed poor word choice - by Berek], there, i said it...

 

As I said in your other post, the new pool for melee energy called whatever you want to call it can't be based on STR unless you gain it at a lower rate per point of STR compared to the amount of focus gained per point of INT simply because STR is significantly easier to increase than INT... by a landslide.

For example, I'm a pure mage who has 142 buffed STR and 86 buffed INT. My Train Intelligence and Train Strength skills are the same level. I've also got INT on all of my gear, with STR only on my chest piece right now.

As long as that's considered, I'm all for melee having their own energy pool from STR.

 

you fail in this post to recognize that this is a discussion about *FOCUS* not int overall. Focus can also be acquired by gear itself.

The average mage in our PvP battles has more focus then the average melee has hit points.

 

Go through the blunt tree and tell me which stat a blunt melee build needs absolutely as a primary.


Even with GM in blunts, my max damage crit has been about in the 130 hp range with 125 str. My max damage with obsidian arrow locked at around 80 is about 205. This is on the 5 skull cultists.

This of course has forced me out of even trying melee and has turned me into a mage.

The other guy has it right, I also think the devs have an agenda to force people into casting.

 

I was talking about your comment on making a stat based on STR for melee to use instead of Focus for their attacks. And my comment isn't about INT overall. The concern my post was pointing out is that STR is significantly easier to raise than INT. Therefore, if you gained points for the new energy pool that your proposing from STR at the same rate that focus is gained from INT, then you'd be sitting around with say 1800 "Constitution" while the mage you're fighting has 900 Focus.

Maybe I'm not explaining what I'm saying well enough. Here's an example: Say that 1 point of INT give you 1 point of Focus. This would mean that 1 point of STR would need to give somewhere around 0.5 points of "Constitution" since you can easily get twice as much STR as INT to keep the energy pools balanced for both mages and melee/archers. The other option is to just make the new energy pool for melee and archers based off of DEX instead since you can get just about as much INT as DEX.

 

Gotcha, that does make sense. I would only ask that a melee have the same access to the "focus" level or "constitution" level of a similar lvl mage as well as a similar DPS per focus point.

I was thinking more that if the devs kept focus that some of say the blunt passives increase "focus".

But they have to have stats on this.

If a mage has say 900 focus and can put out 5 hp damage per focus point and a melee person has 500 focus and can only put out 4 hp damage per focus point, its pretty clear that its unfair.

900 x 5 = 4500 hp
500 x 4 = 2000 hp

To tie this into the other guys point about str = health well, that is FAR less important for example:

char a with 100 str has 500 hp
Car b with 130 str has 600 hp

How much does that really matter compared to "focus" and its ability to generate damage.

 

your obsidian arrow is strong because your strength is high. the earth tree gets a boost from strength and has since release 26.

 

I of course agree. Melee certainly needs help right now. As long as the ratio of damage per point of focus (or "constitution" if a new stat is introduced) used is similar, then everything is all good imo.

If focus is to remain the only energy pool, then melee skills should cost much less focus. I can cast Obsidian Arrow for up to 120 damage on a single stack non-critical. If a damage-only melee attack at the same level as my Obsidian Arrow hits for half the damage of Obsidian Arrow, but is twice as fast (since it has no cast time), then each use of that melee attack should cost at most half the focus of what my Obsidian Arrow costs. That way, if you can use that skill twice in the time it takes me to cast Obsidian Arrow, then the focus cost for both would be the same and do similar damage. Technically the focus cost should be a little less than half of Obsidian Arrow's though since melee can't get as much focus as a mage without heavy investment in INT and +Focus% gear.

 

I've said it before, I'll say it again. They should have called it something else other than "focus" because that makes it more confusing the way you use it in game. When you jump, run, and swing a sword in real life you lose energy right? Same with "focus". I believe that is just your general "energy" bar. Your mana. Casting spells drains you just like sprinting and jumping so you lose energy/mana. I agree with you on how it is an intelligence based stat and that can easily be fixed. Have both intelligence and strength/dexterity skills and passives contribute to focus. Say you are building a warrior, you should be able to go into passives and spend points to decrease the amount of focus you use with melee skills. Since everything in the game uses focus. Everything should also be able to increase it instead of putting more points into intelligence. They just have it set up wrong at the moment. It is a simple fix!

 

You could go with a system that either has a stat cap, or aligns dexterity with a 'stamina' bar, which melee glyphs would use.

But with no stat cap I don't see it as a necessary change. Maybe the higher your dex is should lower the focus cost of melee glyphs by .5% per point of dexterity.

 

One thing that could be done would be to have dex, int, and str all contribute to focus. This would make it so melee, ranged, and magic classes all wind up with a similar focus pool based on the actual stats they use. Currently, design appears for everyone to play a hybrid melee/mage and focused classes are not functional.