What is the purpose of the AoF? (in General)

According to Henk Bres, if the Amulet of Focus no longer increased Evasion, it would be entirely worthless.

Agree/Disagree? Evasion - IMO - is not a problem. It causes you to (gasp) evade tanks. Sometimes, if you devote quite a lot into it, you can evade tanks higher than your MPR. That's no problem to me. Boosting it with Elven gears? Not a problem.

But like Ranger has pointed out in the past and recently again to me, the AoF boosts it enormously. This makes for a pretty big size jump in the stat, one that is not IMO overpowered, but that can be boosted far beyond what it should be....

So what's the point of the AOF? To help out increasing EDs on a minion at the cost of increased opponent EOs? Or to buff Evasion? Is that really its sole purpose?

Some think that removing its ability to buff Evasion specifically - much as ENC affects no skills other than Evasion - would dramatically balance the Evasion/Tank game. Would this, however, make it a useless item? What do you think?

:)

I disagree with Henk, AoF has tons of uses - superbuffed IF, for instance.

If the AoF stops providing skill boosts, evasion in mind, then what is the point then of that thing? ED boost? great lovely, you also get a huge EO boost from your opponent. No one uses that the AoF just to boost ED without the RoS. And even then you have DM that nullifies that ED, yes AoF does not boost it.

IF ow yes, super boosted AMF. Super boosted backlash yeah that would great. Get that with a mage seeker and EC and you have a winner.
Why EC? You need to kill of those db's.

The AoF has a million and one uses... I'm pretty sure nov's AoFs play a bigger role in his wins/losses than his DBs do... Aof can be used for enchanter tank teams (haste, GS, etc.). I see people junctioning them to DD familiars and JKFs left and right. UC guys seem to love them, and while it isn't the most devestating of uses, it can be used on a PL dude to save on XP needed for PL, and increase any HP that minion would get from AS... There are more than this, I'm sure... But this is all i could think of in the time it took me to type this... :P

Evasion does need less boostability, or a small scale-back... I personally believe evasion is on the overpowered side... Not ridiculously so, like many claim, just a notch or two above where it needs to be for "balance" (heh... balance... I pointed out yesterday that I'm taking G Beee's score with a 2 week old char... balance :P). Considering that with EBs, EGs, and EC alone, you can get 50-60% boost, I doubt the AoF is the sole issue with evasion... :P

at the time of introduction, it was supposed to be 2 percent to skills. iirc, jon had accidentally set it at 3 and then just left it.

realistically, and with all of the changes since that time, it probably should be at 2 percent. it did give mages a needed boost at the time, but perhaps too much now in conjunction with evasion.

the original changelog is here:

http://www.carnageblender.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001uSR

at 2 percent and with the downside of amf being increased as well, i think it might be balanced better than now.

"If the AoF stops providing skill boosts, evasion in mind, then what is the point then of that thing? ED boost? great lovely, you also get a huge EO boost from your opponent. No one uses that the AoF just to boost ED without the RoS." If it becomes as useless as you say for any particular team, I would guess that they would just sell it and get another Amulet.

It's great for UC and junctioning to familiars. I also lowers the amount of XP you need to put into skills like BL, Archery, and Juncion, which need to be kept at certain levels, or PL, like Hatch pointed out. Admittedly, there's very limited useability and benefit with Archery or BL, but it's still somewhat helpful to those complaining about how much XP Archery saps away.

"No one uses that the AoF just to boost ED without the RoS."

Nope... Nobody... at... all... ;)

"No one uses that the AoF just to boost ED without the RoS. And even then you have DM that nullifies that ED, yes AoF does not boost it."

If one is using an AoF with a RoS, the problem posed by DM is rather insignificant, no?

I use an AoF and a RoS to significantly buff my main attacker. It works quite well. While I'm obviously susceptible to Etherial Chains with the AoF, there are very few Dispel Magics around my PR that even touch me (it's still Evasion that is my Achilles' heel).

So no, even without Evasion on my team, the AoF is far, far from useless.

The AoF is a must have item for ED bases teams and familiars.

Henk: AMF is certainly boosted, but it casts for exactly the same %amount as it would without the AoF. The blowback is increased as much as the damage. The DD boost is the largest available to any mage, and makes familiars worth the lack of evasion.

^That's only true for familiars

I really don't think it'd lose it's worth much at all if it wasn't useful for pure Evasion. Maybe it wouldn't cost a ridiculous price any more but people would definitely still use them.

I use it for UC...

I use it to boost my PL and increase AS casting on my wall.

I use it for evasion ><

I had a separate minion casting AS and a PL wall (with a ... sigh, rented, AoF) casting a good sized protection. sure, it was vulnerable to a medium to big dm, but when dm wasn't present he got a big boost to pl, as, and the Protection on him. it's why i still wish i had one of my own.