View Full Forums : Anyone else have distain for Focus Items


Gimli fan
07-29-2002, 09:27 AM
I wish they would take these things out of the game completly. If not please make the second wave of the items known and put the focus effects on a ton of things.

It is hard enough getting geared up, but to have to focus on getting focus items! It will turn out that everyone will be wearing the same thing in order to get this needed boost in power.

Please save much headache and take the things out of the game and give a small boost to all casters in these areas.

The bazaar does not even filter by focus items and it is the most important thing that could be on gear depending on what the effect is.
(I think that Any effect will bring them up..meaning you get a Fungi tunic on the list along with 27 batfang earrings.)

Uggg. Ok I will go to the corner and calm down now.

WyteNK
07-29-2002, 09:43 AM
Yeah, talk about elusive. How about giving mages a summoned focus item for healing?

Or for that matter, remove the lore tag an allow mages to summon stacks of them and sell them at the Bazaar? I would much rather log in, purchase my focus items, and be on my way rather than to hunt them down. Right now, I just don't bother most of the time. If we have a mage at a raid I get them, if not then I do without (which is most most of the time). And I even have a roommate that plays a mage, /shrug

Wyte Psycnosis <Ordo Malleus>
60 Dooid - Rallos Zek

Bern Fizzlesticks
07-29-2002, 06:22 PM
But they give us yet another way to make our characters better and you want it gone? Think the whole concept is great since you have to futz with stats vs that now. More decisions = better. It reminds me of people who got made at the Wis capped being raised because now they needed new gear.

Xitix
07-29-2002, 06:45 PM
Print out the list from the equipment section here. Then search limited by class:druid, and type:any effect, pretty easy to then pick out focus items. Focus items are Verant's answer to caster complaints about not gaining power from items like melee do. It's also one aspect of caster balancing when comparing them to melee classes.

Fayne Dethe
07-29-2002, 08:46 PM
Aside from improved healing 3, getting focus effects arent nearly as hard as you make it out to be ;p. Dain cloak for spell haste - easy raid mob who spawns like once a day now cause of shawl quest. Extended affliction 3 (longer dots and possibly longer snares/RFS if it stays again) - kromnif military bracer quest which is very easy and soloable. Improved damage 3 - necklace from harla dar who can be taken out by 1-3 groups (number of groups depend on levels/how well equipped). Extended range 3 can be obtained in Karnors off the hand area from supple scale armband. Mana efficiency - obulus death shroud from Sebilis that can be obtained duoing or grouped. Even Improved Healing 3 can be obtained easily if you go along with the manaburn crew when they do VP, although I doubt wizzies would bring a druid along :) .

And if you do places like NTOV, you can get upgraded items with better stats with similar focus effects.

Tiane
07-30-2002, 03:16 AM
Exactly! What's anyone complaining about! All you need to be balanced via focus items is to be in the top 1% guilded/equipped of the level 45+ players!

Silly people! Stop wasting your time in VT and Ssra and get thee back to the Dain! Call up the Manaburn crew and tell em you are in need of balancing!

/sigh
/boggle

Tia

Seriena
07-30-2002, 04:22 AM
Umm, ok so Dain's Cloak, Harla Dar, VP and NToV Yeah, that's Balance.

/sarcasm

I'm in a guild that can do those things. Definately not your uber high end guild, but we can do places like NToV, kill Harla Dar etc. I play a lot, to much actually. Raid 5 out of 7 nights per week and what do I have to show for focus items? Obulus Death Shroud and a Bandit ring that anyone over lvl 44 can't even use. Forget that a lvl 44 or under can't even kill Bandits...yet they call that balance.

Bern Fizzlesticks
07-30-2002, 04:31 AM
Well the things I have is a Idol of Thorned from Hole, Obulous Death Shroud (8k)(III) and a White Dragon Scale. None of these things are obtained in a Dain level encounter. There are things out there, they just have to be hunted down.

Hobbo
07-30-2002, 07:22 AM
The whole focus thing is simply so stupidly implemented it baffles me. What items that got focus effects...I still refuse to think verant can be this stupid must been a bug and they simply couldnt change it all a third time. Eg. healing on mask of fall a int caster item, summoning efficiency on circlet of summer a wis caster item, improved damage on mask of the dragonslayer a melee item, mana preservation on nevederias left eye a melee item...

And none of the best items got any focus effects at all, afaik not a single item in VT has focus effects and none in ssra except ring of shissar. So if I was in a guild that did ssra and VT I would have to chose between uber stats on items off the mobs we put in months to be able to kill or get crap items from mobs we killed a year ago just to get focus effects... very flawed system imo. And there are also way too many different focus effects especially breaking up necro and other summoning effects is stupid and pointless. It's like having ranger only primary 1hs haste items, one haste item for warrior secondary 1hb and one for monk primary h2h etc etc... and on top of that put only 3 items of each type in the game and give them crap stats. Then you end up with not alot of equipment choices, just like casters have it with focus. I would remove all but general spell haste, improved damage including dots, improved healing, mana preservation, extended enhancement including debuffs, extended range, reagent conservation and maybe some type of focus for all sorts of pets. All other effects are just variations on these and limits the choice of items to put them on, i mean 4 different types of spell haste?

Finally the whole implementation with 3 levels with different level restriction just sucks. Why not just put higher % on the better items and let everyone use them? Would also give alot more room to balance items eg. put 15% on ntov items and 20% on VT or something. It would eliminate the problem with your focus item becoming useless when you level up or if you acuire an item that allready is unusable. You could still use levelrestriction on the best items if you wish (not that it matters much with everything being nodrop anyway).

/focus rant off

Fayne Dethe
07-30-2002, 10:41 AM
The items I listed other than Dain cloak can easily be obtained without a guild and many of them solo or duo at most ;p. And the focus effects werent made to balance casters but to give casters some loot that added real effects like melee haste/nice melee weapons.

Most of the Luclin loot outside of VT is balanced without focus effects - the majority of caster loot has some sort of flowing thought on it, a right click effect that adds to mana regen (boon of recovery, lunar whispers, etc), or a right click effect with nice buff like cursed tunic. Almost none of the Velious loot had any such effects and needed a boost, albiet, Verant messed up on which eye they put mana preservation on and which mask they put improved healing 3/improved damage 3 on ;p. Then there is Vex Thal - that zone reward is already screwed up without even considering focus effects as half the loot there is total garbage, the next 1/4th mediocre, and final 1/4 unbelievably fantastic. Verant needs to go back and change around the mediocre/garbage loot and give it better hitpoints/mana and throw in some focus effects. Seems as though the majority of caster loot outside VT is geared towards maxing out your FT, so it would make sense inside VT to start giving more focus effects to replace Velious focus effects ;p (there is already at least one item in VT already with same focus effect as mage summoned focus).

Paldor
07-30-2002, 11:43 AM
I still lub my focus gear...

Probably cause I have access to a 56 Mage account as well.

Bracer and ring are awsome.

Breath of Karana casting in 2.4 seconds doing up to 919 damage.. Not bad at level 56.

VERY LOW SODIUM
07-30-2002, 11:57 AM
I like the way focus items were handled in the Final Fantasy line... have empty effect slots on items and allow people to build their own items. Have the ability gems drop off of the same sorts of encounters, and have exceptional gems drop off of exceptional encounters.

I doubt EQ's engine could do this, though :/

Bern Fizzlesticks
07-30-2002, 05:03 PM
I think the point is to make choices. Do I wear an old cloak for DD3? Do I use a crappy ranged item instead of the great one I always have? If they make the best items with the best effect there is no tension between the improvements. Some items would obviously be the best. I am guess that is the plan for PoP.

Ehran Dyrwulf
07-30-2002, 10:07 PM
Happy was I when Circlet of Summer got Improved Healing III.


Guess how I felt 2 days later when it was switched to Summoning Haste III.

Focus items are fine for in game. They don't radically affect one class from another since everyone can get at least the mage summoned items. But some of the decisions they made on which items to give which focus effects to.....

I keep hoping that some patch will bring the Circlet of Summer back to Improved Healing III.

Laeleriel Starweaver
08-01-2002, 09:22 AM
/agree Tiane and Seriena


Let me start by saying that I play a lvl 56 druid on Inny and I am not in an even remotely uber guild, not teir 2, not even teir 3 probably. To expect people to have to get some of these what I still consider VERY uber items (NToV? Dain? In my wildest dreams), in order to get useful focus effects is just ridiculous. Yes I realize that many of the effects are very powerful and they shouldn't neccesarily be EASY to get, but they shouldn't all require teir 1 and 2 guilds to get.

Personally, I would like to see some limited focus items without any other stats. ie. give me a necklace with a lesser % version of Imp Heal III (Lesser Imp Heal III?) that has no stats on it other than the focus and you can be damn sure I would wear it over what I have now. It has to be significantly easier to get than exiting IH3 items though. When they first announced focus items way back before luclin even came out this is how I immediately thought it would be done, ie, you have to give up valuable stats in order to gain the focus effect.

So theres my 3 CP.

Laeleriel Starweaver
Lux et Veritas
Innoruuk

L1ndara
08-01-2002, 09:13 PM
Yeah, making anything but level 3 useless for people over 40 was really really dumb and causes most of the problems. Why they didn't do what they did for mage summoned items boggles the mind, level 1 mana efficiency should give 1 to 4% savings, 2 gives 2 to 6% and 3 5 to 10% or something similar. That way you aren't rendering gear neigh useless suddenly as you ding and it makes obtainable level 2 items desireable if not end game like harder to obtain level 3 would be.

Saraden
08-04-2002, 11:14 AM
Hobbo put it perfectly.

Too many different effects=not enough choices for people. 3-4 choices of items for an effect is simply too few.

Screwed up items like the eye and the mask. I agree people should have to make some choices between stats and effects but these can not be seriously anything other than a mistake.

Should have done % modifiers instead of spell level restricted, so items don't become useless and people have more choices.

As is all it did was help out with twinking and for players of higher levels that belong to guilds that are NToV capable/Giant allied.