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Exploding Penguin -> Which class is best for focus builds? (10/6/2015 1:25:04)
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Hey everybody, here's just a short analytical/informative post on exactly which class is actually best for using a focus build! This is based off of my own personal analysis so it is not the truth, it is just a theory supported by evidence that I will bring up. I'll try and keep it fairly short for you guys. This serves as nothing more than an informational post that will bring up discussion. Its motive is NOT to suggest any changes, although people may do so if they wish in their replies.
So, what exactly is a focus build? A focus build utilizes these main features that distinguish them from other builds:
-Reduced negative effects from diminishing returns through fairly equal stat spreads
-A robot that actually does quite a bit of damage. It is substantially higher than pretty much any other neutral* attack that a focus build has
-Overall, a build that typically thrives off of its neutral game** rather than an energy-centric battle that caster builds favor more.
* Neutral refers to attacks that don't require energy and are more than 1-use. This includes strike, regular gun attack, aux, and robot attack
** Neutral game refers to a fight where energy is pretty much not spent at all and all damage is done through neutral attacks. This is reminiscent of old phases where some classes had no ways of regenerating energy
So, what makes these focus builds good? What should the best class for a focus build offer?
-Tons of enhancing skills. Enhancing skills are stuff like debuffs. I typically do NOT count buffs as enhancers because they take a turn to cast and aside from the strength ones they are really more of a countermeasure. Debuffs also strike to deal a decent amount of damage on the same turn they're applied.
-An energy-related skill which forces the neutral game scenario to happen. This mostly pertains to skills which drain more than recover, however there are some exceptions where certain focus builds on classes benefit greatly off of tiny amounts of energy which, when drained, don't benefit the opponent much at all anyways
Now I'll go through each class individually, starting from the worst in my opinion, up to the best.
The Worst: TLM
Some people might argue that TLM can actually effectively run a focus build. In reality I guess it could but nowhere near as efficiently as its kit would hope to make it. Battery backup is a TERRIBLE skill for focus builds. It only feeds your opponents energy and makes it very hard for you to do your own thing aside from caster-based skills, which TLM has a ton of. This brings me to my next point that caster-centric classes will inherently not be that amazing at hosting focus builds because caster skills do not actually scale well at all with rounded-off stats. What a focus build wants are skills that benefit all other options the focus build can use. With the inability to drain energy to force a neutral game, TLM is easily the worst class for a focus build, given that you aren't using a club (which you shouldn't be). The only highlights of this class are toxic grenade, which I have MANY qualms with on a focus build, and frenzy, which is a skill that's literally just free everything. Free damage, free health, free energy. A very good skill that is completely inefficient to level up but as a focus build you have nowhere else to dump points into, actually just destroying the whole point of your build being efficient which is what focus builds enjoy. As for toxic grenade, this skill brings up a lot of problems. It is, hands-down, the highest base damage skill in the game bar none. It doesn't scale with anything aside from the initial cast damage but it will massively outdamage pretty much any skill in the game that aren't ultimate ones in almost all scenarios, while also costing barely any energy. Why do I not like this? Because your most efficient move on turn 1 is most likely going to be your robot as a TLM, and now you're slapping your build's efficiency in the face by having the option of using your toxic grenade or not. The absolute worst part of TLM focus though is that aside from frenzy you have pretty much no enhancing skills to improve your build's effectiveness and thus you're forced to dump points into mineral armor/blood shield/toxic grenade, the first 2 which are highly situational and will rarely be used.
Pretty Bad: TM
I would contest this to be 4th rather than 5th but after the bludgeon nerfs this class's focus builds are near dead. The only good skills this class really has are technician and assimilation. As previously explained the wide array of caster skills at your disposal are pretty useless aside from supercharge which can only be accessed by wasting 2 skill points along your tree to get to the skill. Technician is a great skill because it just improves your deflection chance by a lot as well as your resistance and robot damage while barely costing anything, but is still a defensive buff and has its limitations. Malfunction is very, very weak in both actual effectiveness and just its base numbers while costing a fair amount of energy. Bludgeon's base cost and damage are nowhere near as efficient as it once was and therefore cannot really be run on a focus build. If anything you should just dump most of your skill points into assimilation and field medic, since with all that energy regeneration a high field medic is near impossible to stop, but you don't really have any other options but to outheal some builds. And you will not actually be capable of outhealing many opponents who have a strong energy drain, with the only types of builds you can outheal being the ones with very strong initial burst and nothing to offer afterwards.
Not the Best. At all: CH
mehhhhhh. This class. It's so quirky in this meta in so many ways. At first you might think it's great at running focus builds because it forces a neutral crazy easily with EMP. Unfortunately, that is the only thing this class has to offer which is beneficial for a focus build on it. Static charge would be an amazing skill on a class like BH but on CH it is pretty useless. Once you get that energy you can't actually use it on anything good for a focus build? wtf is this? Your best options are just shadow arts, field medic, and another EMP really. I actually don't know what to think of this class at all because its base damage values are bad, it doesn't gain enough energy to actually do anything other than EMP again unless you stack 2 static charges' worth of energy which will not happen against anyone aside from TLM, and it really can't have an impact on the battle. This might actually be 5th place but TM is also really bad so I'll just stick it here and say they're both about the same-ish
Getting Better: BM
This class used to be #2 in my opinion, but bludgeon nerfs killed it. Energy parasite is an overcriticized skill which definitely requires very skilled timing to use. It also favors what BM initially was which was a class that did not need much energy to function very well through staple skills like intimidate and bludgeon. However, intimidate fell out of meta after the strength nerfs so it's a dead skill, and bludgeon's level 1 efficiency got smashed with a hammer so it's unusable now. If anything, this class really only has 2 main skills to offer that greatly benefit focus builds. 3 actually, if you factor in plasma cannon which is quirky in its own way so I will get to it. First of all, lifesteal, particularly mark of blood, is an amazing skill on focus builds because not only does it not cost that much and applies damage and the debuff on cast, it provides lifesteal for ALL damage you deal to that target. You simply apply this and any move you make on your opponent heals you! The best enhancer skill IMO, any class which has this will just be better with focus builds. The second skill is actually going to be energy parasite. Energy parasite is a skill a lot of people think is bad, but they just can't use it right. It's supposed to be timed precisely to mess up your opponent's energy regeneration, kind of like a harder to use version of hatchling rush since the duration is shorter. Plasma cannon is a nice skill because by itself, especially when it crits, provides a MASSIVE amount of instantaneous damage which is one weakness focus builds lack. It punches through tanks and opposing focus builds very easily. The only drawback is its high cost which can really limit your energy consumption on other essential skills, but since this class gets a lot of healing from blood commander it actually does not need energy for other skills and thus is more free to use plasma cannon. However, merc is a lot easier to play and features a lot of similar characteristics so I am going to say that this falls just a tiny smidgen below merc.
This class can finally do something: Merc
I really don't see merc at all these days, but what I can say that is that the class has a really good foundation for a strong focus build. With hybrid armor being just downright broken (it's basically a modified version of shadow arts that favors tanky builds more, which is way better in most cases), and static smash returning a LOT of energy while also draining even more, this class has a good foundation for a focus build. Put blood commander into the mix which just improves your strike damage AND adds a decent amount of lifesteal which is actually the main indicator of which classes run the best focus builds and this class is set. Maul is also an amazing skill which is very cheap, deals a nice bit of bonus damage through ignoring defenses, and has a small chance to stun. Surgical strike, if you choose to invest skill points to get to that skill, is great for reducing damage done to you through the rage reduction. Bunker buster functions similarly to plasma cannon but I think there's too many places to invest skill points in to have any room for it on an optimal build, although there are definitely different types of focus builds which can also utilize it well, just not as well as if that focus build had dumped investments in other skills. Overall, a lot of skills which work well with static smash since they are low-cost, and these skills are really great for focus builds too. People don't play this class a lot at all but I bet you that if they start picking up a blood commander + hybrid armor-centric focus build they can really reach new heights with it.
The best class for focus builds: BH
I don't need to explain again why mark of blood is amazing. Not only that but static grenade is a skill designed for removing energy from a fight. The tiny amount it gives is PERFECT for using a mark of blood or smokescreen after. This is one of the rare cases where a debuff is strong, and it's because once you drain your opponent's energy, they don't really have much of a response to a debuff, so I would suggest maybe investing a few points into smokescreen. Smokescreen is a good enhancer skill that synergizes incredibly well with mark of blood to grant even more healing off of damage. People might argue that CH can also do the same thing but initiate the scenario faster with its stronger drain, but since CH does not have lifesteal and needs field medic to recover health, it just ends up dying too quickly to supplement the sub-par early damage that focus builds typically have. The holy trinity of this class is MoB, static grenade, and smokescreen, which all synergize with each other way to well for BH to not be considered the best runners of focus builds
Agree? Disagree? Leave your thoughts in your replies below! Please at least give some solid reasoning as to why you agree or disagree. Kind of tired of hearing people spout stuff out of their mouth and being really vocal without actually justifying any of their statements.
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