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Focus Items
From Hellgatewiki.com
Summoners do not require focus items to cast any of their spells except for Drain Life. All other summoning skills can be cast with any type of weapon equipped, and as of May 2007 Summoners start off the game with a Locust Hive rifle, rather than any kind of focus item.
Focal devices do more than enable spells; they are weapons that work like pistols, firing a steady stream of energy particles of various types. (The attack varies by the focal device, and focal devices spawn with magical modifiers like any other weapon.)
Name: Focus Item
Type: Focal Device
Damage Type: Varies (16 spectral on starting device in E3 2006 and TGS 2006 game show builds)
Max Mod Slots: 4
Critical Hit Bonus: Unknown
Faction: Cabalist
Special: Cabalist must equip a focus drive to cast most of their spells.
- See various Focal Devices in our image gallery.
- See Category:Focus Drives for a listing of all known types of focal devices.
Focus drives started out as orbs, crystal ball objects Cabalists had to hold to cast spells. Over time they evolved into glove-like objects that did damage in their own right, design and function elements that were not part of the original concept, as two Ivan Sulic quotes from mid-2006 illustrate.
"...the Focus Drive, which actually attaches to the arm of a Cabalist like a large gauntlet. The Focus Drive isn't actually a weapon in and of itself. But it is required to access certain skills and cast our equivalent of certain spells." "The gauntlets, or Focus Drives, are indeed class-specific items. They have replaced the orbs. And they work like tools. That is, they allow a Cabalist player to access specific class skills like the Life Drain, Power Drain, Spectral Lash, Spectral Bolt, and many more."
Focus drives might seem like a handicap for the Cabalist, but they can be just as good as or better than regular pistol weapons. During Flux's play time at E3 and Flagship HQ in 2006, he found very few pistol weapons better than the focal drive new Cabalists started with. However, realize that characters in game show builds are designed for new fans to have fun with, and as such they have starting equipment that's far better than characters will enjoy in the final game. Flux had time to play to around level 8 with several Cabalists in the E3 and TGS builds, and was never able to find a focal device that did more damage than the one his characters started with. Little is known of high end focus drives, and they might do as much, more, or less damage than comparable pistols later in the game.
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Categories: Focus Items | Pistol Weapons | Weapons | Items | Cabalist
