Despite continuous discussion, it seems misinformation and lack of understanding plagues a lot of conversation around Veteran’s new stuff. In particular, I have a lot of testing hours behind “Focus Target!” that I would like to share and debunk some common misinformation.
Myth: “‘Focus Target!’ is bad because you have to wait for stacks”
FALSE!
This is a demonstrable example of the kind of reality most players live in, where if something cannot have 100% maximal uptime at all times, then it’s not worth taking or it is intrinsically bad.
There are multiple factors in which utilizing FT! regularly and on one kill after another is exponentially more useful for the team.
The first reason is that even 1 stack adds +4% Damage to a target. Between kills, you will most likely accumulate 2 to 4 stacks per target, amounting to anywhere from +8% to +16% Damage right off the bat. More Damage, no matter how little in this scenario, is infinitely better than no Damage at all.
Moreover, you can also reapply stacks to an enemy that has not died yet, ie. you have applied 3 stacks of FT! to an enemy, but you can target them again when you have 4, ad nauseum. These are NOT additive to each other, however. You can only reapply stacks when they are greater than the current stack. You do NOT LOSE STACKS as they will not reapply less than the current stacks.
Myth: “‘Redirect Fire!’ has upkeep that makes it not worth taking”
FALSE!
The stacks given by this Modifier are additive to each other, meaning they will continuously stack to your maximum stack size per Focus Target kill, based on the amount of stacks marked on that enemy.
For example, if you have 8 stacks total, you can gain up to 8 stacks of RF! for a total of +12% Damage for the whole party.
If you marked a target with 5 stacks, you will gain 5 stacks of RF! from that kill. You can mark an additional enemy and kill it with 3 stacks, making it stack to your total of 8.
No upkeep is involved in keeping a functionally permanent +12% Damage to you and your party. This is an incredible source of Damage!
BONUS!
‘Redirect Fire!’ is proven to stack from multiple Veterans, but only when the stack size is different. As you can see, 2 Veterans can stack up to 13 of RF!, making it +19.5% Damage to you and your team.
This does not work with multiple stack sizes of 5 or 8. Only a SINGLE INSTANCE of both 5 and 8 can exist in tandem.
Multiple sources of FT! can stack onto a single target, from what little testing I have done here, which can allow very consistent and reliable upkeep of RF!.
This may or may not be a bug and unintended behavior.
Myth: “‘Target Down!’ is terrible and does not help the team much at all”
FALSE!
This is a similar situation in which players think they have to wait for maximum stacks to get any sort of mileage out of FT!, resulting in something that is hilariously broken to be criminally underutilized.
1 stack of FT! is +5% Toughness. You will often have enough time between kills to get anywhere from 2 to 4 stacks of FT!, resulting in +10% to +20% Toughness constantly generated to you and the rest of your team every time you kill a marked enemy.
+5% Stamina is also massive sustainability in players’ survivability, given that pushing and blocking consumes plenty of Stamina, as well as sprinting. This is something a lot of players would very easily overlook, as blocking is vastly underutilized by a significant amount of the playerbase.
I hope this clears up a lot of misinformation. ‘Focus Target!’ is a hilariously broken Keystone when fully utilized and it’s shocking how little players understand this.