Question about Focus Lenses

[LMIB]

This focus system still confuses me. So Ive got a Zenurik lens equipped into my Equinox, and a Unairu one into my Frost. From what I understand, replacing lenses on a Frame destroys it yes?
Also you can basically farm focus with 1 Frame, and unlock all the other abilities from the other trees, for your other Frames.

However, I'm kinda confused at the moment. I decided to make the Zenurik tree the primary one on my Forst even though I got an Unairu lens installed on him. Yet I'm still able to use the abilities from the Zenurik tree. Am I missing something here?

[Indal]

You have zenurik as primary tree. You can still gather focus for other trees.

[Mikoto]

Lens = what school you get focus in, that is it.

You can select any school but not get focus in it if you are wearing a lens for another one.

[Null_User]

All lenses will still give focus to their schools regardless of what school you are using as primary. Of course, affinity rules apply to everything, so if you bring a Zenurik gun to a mission and you don't use it at all, you won't get focus with it. So if you want to farm focus, do the same tactics as if you were farming affinity to level up your stuff.

[Tigerlight]

The Frame and Lens has NO effect on what tree you are using, you select that in the Operator Focus menu options and it persists across all Frames at all times (only unlocked Passives in schools are in effect regardless of choice of Primary School).

Lenses gather Focus points toward whatever School the Lens is for, so your Frost is gathering points toward Unairu and your Equinox is gathering points toward Zenurik.

Focus Lenses themselves only gather Focus as a percentage (a low percentage) of the Affinity that thing (Frame or weapon) got for killing enemies or using abilities. If you want to maximise your Focus gathering, put a Lens on your Frame and all your weapons, and concentrate your efforts toward ONE school until you have achieved at LEAST the passives and Way-Bound passives before moving onto another School.

[Venrez]

I dont understand the function of selecting a Primary and a Secondary Focus tree - then what Waybounds actually are.

If Zenurik is my primary and Unairu is my secondary - but Naramon or whatever it is has the Affinity melee passive (+affinity for melee kills), is that still active at all times?

Or only if Naramon is primary / secondary?

[Null_User]

I'm not too far into focus yet, but as I understand it, you have your primary, and everything you have unlocked on your primary will be used. Any other focus school you have unlocked passives of, will also have their passives working, but the rest of what you have unlocked on those schools won't be used while they are not the primary until you make it the primary school again.

http://warframe.wikia.com/wiki/Focus_2.0

Still, this explains it all better...

[sal]

your primary tree is unrelated to orbs put on your gear - lenses equipped simply mean that when you grab focus orbs you will gain focus towards whatever schools you have lenses for.

primary tree determines what active abilities/way-bound passives you will have.

[scram]

Okay, there are three passives for each school. Two of those are waybound and will have an effect even if the school is secondary, but the third one only works when the school is your primary.

Lenses have no bearing on which school you're using (you set that yourself), just where your focus points go to.

[Venrez]

Alright, I am still confused because people are still talking about Lenses. I understand how that works for getting Focus points.

I have Zenurik as my Primary. I have 5/5 in Energy Pulse, Energizing Dash, Void Siphon and Void Flow and Inner Might. They are all passives except for Energizing Dash.

Void Siphon and Void Flow are Waybound. Does this mean Zenurik must be Primary or Secondary for them to take effect?

I have Unairu as my Secondary. If I put 5/5 in the very first thing, Void Spines, is that active at all times across all Warframes, all the time? What happens if Unairu is no longer my Secondary?

The next thing in Unairu is Basilisk Scales. That says Way-bound. Does that mean for it to function, Unairu must be Primary or Secondary?

Lastly

If I have 5/5 in Mending Unity, the very first thing from Vazarin, but Vazarin is *not* Primary or Secondary, is the passive bonus still taking effect? Is it still working across all Warframes at all times? It is not a Waybound thing.

[Null_User]

Originally posted by Venrez:

Alright, I am still confused because people are still talking about Lenses. I understand how that works for getting Focus points.

I have Zenurik as my Primary. I have 5/5 in Energy Pulse, Energizing Dash, Void Siphon and Void Flow and Inner Might. They are all passives except for Energizing Dash.

Void Siphon and Void Flow are Waybound. Does this mean Zenurik must be Primary or Secondary for them to take effect?

I have Unairu as my Secondary. If I put 5/5 in the very first thing, Void Spines, is that active at all times across all Warframes, all the time? What happens if Unairu is no longer my Secondary?

The next thing in Unairu is Basilisk Scales. That says Way-bound. Does that mean for it to function, Unairu must be Primary or Secondary?

Lastly

If I have 5/5 in Mending Unity, the very first thing from Vazarin, but Vazarin is *not* Primary or Secondary, is the passive bonus still taking effect? Is it still working across all Warframes at all times? It is not a Waybound thing.

From the wiki:
"Each School's Way-bound abilities passively enhance the Operator's base combat stats. Unlike all other Ways, these can be "unbound" from the Focus school they are part of, therefore showing up (and treated as) as an additional unlocked Way in any selected school afterwards. To activate the unbound node(s) their usual capacity is still required.

E.g. Unbinding Rejuvening Tides from Vazarin allows the player to activate it as a Way and benefit from its effects even whilst having Naramon as the Primary school. The player will also need 10 additional Way Capacity on top of that consumed by activated Ways in the Naramon school, to activate Rejuvenating Tides.

Unbinding a Way-Bound node simply requires the particular Maximum-ranked ability node to be spent on, 1,000,000 Focus points and a Brilliant Eidolon Shard.

Each school has two Way-Bound nodes, for a total of 10 Way-Bound nodes available to unlock."

[LMIB]

I guess my main question is, what’s the point of equipping different lenses on different warframes, when regardless of what Primary focus tree you’re using, you’re still gaining the benefit from the other trees, passives, non passives alike.

The answer seems to be, equipping a certain lens means you only gain focus for that lens. I was under the impression focus is focus regardless of what lens you have equipped, and can invest it in any skill tree whenever you want. Gotta double check on that

[Tigerlight]

Originally posted by Χ Ξ Σ:

I guess my main question is, what’s the point of equipping different lenses on different warframes, when regardless of what Primary focus tree you’re using, you’re still gaining the benefit from the other trees, passives, non passives alike.

The answer seems to be, equipping a certain lens means you only gain focus for that lens. I was under the impression focus is focus regardless of what lens you have equipped, and can invest it in any skill tree whenever you want. Gotta double check on that

Your impression was completely wrong.
Focus from a Zenurik Lens is points ONLY in Zenurik. When you are gaining Focus toward a specific School THAT is the type of Lens you want equipped on your gear.

The difference the Primary School makes is not in the Passives but in the other abilities. After you have unlocked and unbound all of the passive abilities they will persist across Schools but you can only use active abilities in the Primary School.

[Venrez]

I... guess what you're saying is, all passives are always active regardless of whether that Focus group is your Primary or Secondary or not. (Provided you're put points in it and selected them, marking them red, obviously).

Unless it is Waybound. Then it is only active if that Focus group is your Primary... but you can unbind it with that enormous expense.

What function does Secondary have then?

Because you can select Primary, Secondary and then just have the passives from everything else I guess.

I still dont really understand it. Operator mode sucks. I just want the passives that boost your Warframe, like the Zenurik energy, Unairu armor and such.

[Omnipresent Oatmeal]

Waybound passives can be unbound to be active regardless of what tree you are using.
Doing so costs 1 million focus points for that school and an Eidolon shard.

The only tree you get the full benefit from is the one selected as your primary tree.

Lenses give focus to the school in their name.

[[R] Nerva]

Okay, let me clear up the confusion.

There are two kinds of passive Focus abilities in Warframe; normal passives, and Waybound passives.

Normal passives affect both Warframe and Operator or just the Warframe. They are only activated when you select that passive's school as your primary. An example is Void Pulse, the Zenurik passive that causes you to gain bonus energy for a few seconds after collecting an Energy pickup.

Waybound passives affect only the Operator. Normally, they work like standard passives, but if you max them out, you can unbind them from their school. This lets you use them no matter which school is your primary. So if you've Unbound them, you can have Vazarin's bonus Operator health and Zenurik's bonus operator energy, while using Unairu as your primary school.

Your Primary School determines what active powers and standard passives you can use. Waybound passives initially are limited to being used in the school they started in, but once Unbound, can be used in any School.

Lenses are not affected by your choice of Primary School at all. Each Lens is bound to a particular school, and will give Focus points earned by it to that school, no matter what. If you've chosen Madurai, but your Warframe has an Unairu lens on it, any focus earned by your Warframe goes to the Unairu school. If your weapon is also lensed, let's say it's lensed to Naramon, then the focus earned by your Warframe goes to Unairu, and the focus earned by your weapon goes to Naramon. Madurai gets nothing until you put a Madurai lens on something.