Reliability of Assasin's Focus
By
GuyPerfect,
Posted on: 2012-03-17 18:36 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
You get Focus stacks from your attacks, yeah, but many attacks have only a chance to grant a stack, rather than a guarantee. City of Data lists each power's chance. And the stacks last 10 seconds, so yeah, with slower powers they can fall off before you get to 3.
I often end up just using my AS with 2 stacks, because I want the hide proc already and don't want to cycle through my attacks again.
Oh that's what I didn't understand then--chance to stack, not guaranteed. Is there it shows up on the buff bar to show how many you have?
The buff bar shows a special Assassin's Focus icon and it will indicate how many stacks you have.
Assassin Strike will critical with even just 1 stack, but it will be stronger with 3.
No, the critical is the same strength with any number of stacks, but it will not be guaranteed to crit with less than 3 stacks.
*Ponder*
I guess I should... use it with less than 3 stacks more often.
Quote:
Also, if I'm not mistaken, the stacks don't 'refresh'. So stack 1 will disappear in exactly 10 seconds, downgrading your stack counter. Even if you have 3 stacks and hit again with an attack guaranteed to give you another stack, you can only get 3 stacks at any time and the 1st stack will vanish exactly 10 sec after you obtain it...downgrading your stack counter.|
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
Oh that's what I didn't understand then--chance to stack, not guaranteed. Is there it shows up on the buff bar to show how many you have?
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I'm not sure if the same is true for Street Justice combos...those seem to keep refreshed or until you spend them.
[EDIT] And there is an icon for AF, like a silver nuke icon. I tend to not bother looking for that and simply know what my powers do. On my DM Stalker, Midnight Grasp and Siphon Life give focus nearly all the time, if not 100%, Shadow Maul gives focus very reliably (Redtomax says 90%) and Smite grants it decently reliably (Redtomax says 80%). Hitting with MG then SL will get me 2 stacks, so 66.6% chance to crit with AE. Tossing out a Smite or SM may get me 100% or not...it doesn't really matter if it doesn't crit...AE crits often enough to make a difference. Not everything is 100% to begin with...not even hitting with AE after you get 3 stacks.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by GuyPerfect
*Ponder*
I guess I should... use it with less than 3 stacks more often. |
For sets like those, AF should be considered a bonus. Sets with already strong ST dmg should probably game AF as it will make a strong ST set stronger.
I've never played a Stalker before, and never really intended to, but I happened to end up on during double XP weekend and so it kind of happened...
Anyway, I have a Spines/Ice Armor. He seems pretty good but I have a question about Assassin's Focus is supposed to work. I see from reading about it that 3 stacks should cause Assassin Strike to have a 100% chance for critical. However, I can't figure out what makes it stack. I assume its just hitting the enemy; however, more often than not, the orange ring around Assassin's Focus will appear halfway through an attack animation, then disappear before the animation finishes. That would seem to imply I'm close to 3 stacks, but hitting the enemy two or three more times in a row doest make it come back reliably. Is this just because the Spines animations are so long that the stack falls off before I can animate through a chain? Is it supposed to do that? Any advice is helpful.