Focus

Focus Points and Focus Charges are accumulated during Combat and allow both heroes and creatures to perform impressive actions that can potentially shift the tide of battle. The most common creature abilities can allow them to utilize alternative attacks or buff their allies, while some will unlock hidden potential inside of them, increasing their base stats and damage, and some can even summon new creatures out of the corpses on the battlefield.

Focus Points & Charges

Creatures generate Focus Points by engaging in combat. Being attacked by another unit will generate one Focus Point, as will attacking another unit with a ranged or long-reach attack. Melee attackers will generate 2 Focus Points. Focus Points are awarded for each strike, so units that attack multiple times will generate more Focus than other units. After amassing 6 Focus Points, you will get a Focus Charge, which can be spent to activate both Creature and Hero abilities.

Note: The amount of Focus Points gained per attack is currently defined in the creature's stats in the game files. Melee-based creatures will always gain 2 points per attack, while ranged and long-reach based creatures will only gain 1 focus point per attack.

Focus Points Awarded in Combat
Melee Creature Attack	2 Focus Points
Long-Reach Creature Attack	1 Focus Point (even in melee range)
Ranged Creature Attack	1 Focus Point (even in melee range)
Retaliation	0 Focus Points
Taking Damage	1 Focus Point per hit

• Tip: One way to acquire Focus Points quickly in the early game when other options are still unavailable is to split ranged attackers into many smaller stacks in your army. Each attack from a unit generates Focus Points, no matter if they are a single creature or a stack of 500+, so having ranged attackers split up into smaller stacks will help you generate Focus Points quickly without risking retaliation from other creatures.

Abilities

Creature Abilities can require 1-3 Focus Charges to use. Your Focus bar has a maximum of 3 Focus Charges that can be held at any one time, so choosing to use cheaper Focus abilities more frequently or saving up for stronger, more expensive abilities is a choice to weigh during battle. One exception to this rule is the Grove faction, whose faction skill allows their heroes to permanently increase the maximum number of Focus charges they can accumulate during a battle.

By default, most abilities using focus charges will end your unit's turn after using them, but there are some which will allow you to take another action afterwards. These abilities will specify in their description whether using them will end the units turn or not.

Additionally, you can use Focus Charges to use Hero Abilities as well. All Heroes start with an initial ability called Heroic Strike that you can use to make an attack against an enemy unit for one Focus Charge. This ability will scale with your Hero's level, and can be further enhanced with the Combat skill as well as by various subskills or Artifacts.

As your Hero continues to grow and develop over the course of a game, you may discover other Hero abilities that can be used during a battle as well.