This is a very nice idea.
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You don’t need cooldowns to force people to use different runes. You just need to balance them better and/or have mobs deal with them better.
If a rune can be used at distance and does same or more damage at the same cost it of course is going to be abused. It’s not rocket science.
Just balance the runes AND stop having enchant remove 2 rune slots. Removing gem slots and giving a curse is enough, don’t kill build variety.
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100% agree that once you have focus regeneration combat becomes boring. It ruins the sense of risk and reward if I can enter any combat scenario with a full focus bar. You could even just back off the enemy and wiat to refill .
They appear to not want a game to be fun, replayable, and build diverse. They want the one-way-only solutions that is
- “rofl-evade”
- “ridiculously-op-parying”
- “by-hart-memorizing-attack-patterns”
what is the same since ages for basically all soulslikes.
They do not want or maybe are not able to
- plan out a character beforehand
- accept that there can be multiple solutions to a problem
- develop new approaches based on failure
- let other people be happy
Seriously, why in gods name cant you just NOT use a mechanic YOU do not like, but want to enforce that NOBODY can use it. I just dont get it… you dont discuss about adapting, improving, balancing… no, you just want to remove it… why?
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Oh wow, many interesting points here.
If you don’t like cooldown, and I really get why, change it up to a charge meter. Abilities wont hit as hard as long as they are “charging”, but you can however. This would also enable gems like: “gain charge on focus use” maybe. This would require you to cicle through your abilities I think.
Just guessing here.
Please keep in mind, that multiplayer will be a thing, which is why many playstyles must be viable and go toe to toe to each other. 
Basically, there is a fear (and it has been proven in other games), that in the end there will be one rune builds and they are so strong, that the meta will evolve around them. I want to be honest here: I never liked that…
I absolutely agree with the first suggestion.
On suggestion 2, I’d have an alternative suggestion, where runic abilities should have a cooldown. Remnant 2 actually has a nice way of managing skill abilities. Most skills have only 1 charge of use to refill based on given cooldown duration once used, and some others, have 2 charge of uses, meaning they can consecutively use the 2 charges, while it refills each charge by it’s cooldown duration. So a runic ability such as blink, could have perhaps 3 charges, and each charge cooldown is maybe 5s-10s.
The third suggestion could instead just have the ability to reduce runic cooldowns.
Just wanted to add an insight about, what Focus actually does and a bit of conclusions.
Focus, as long as it can be solved, adds a puzzle element to the game.
Solve the puzzle → Spam abilities
Don’t solve the puzzle → Gain other boni in return
I like puzzles. I like that players have systems that can be learned and solved. Are these necessary for the game though? No. It can be good, if the opportunity cost and different ways of solving it are interesting.
Currently the issue is, that the puzzle exists, but solving the puzzle is very easy and requires little investment. Also, solving the puzzle trivializes the game. The other boni you gain by not solving it, don’t compare.
TLDR
If we keep the Focus system, as it is and we want dynamic movesets:
Option 1:
Make Focus HARD or even IMPOSSIBLE to solve completely AND make all runes either VASTLY different in cost, depending on their powerlevel or close to EQUALLY powerful (which is much harder to do).
I think this is what OP is trying to suggest.
Option 2:
Balance with Focus being solved in mind → Make all Runes and also non-Rune combat equally powerful. Use Focus Cost as a secondary balancing factor only.
Other Balancing Factors to consider:
- Cast Time
- Versatility
- Effect / Status
- Number of Hits
- Movement / Distance
- Reliability
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