Foci are useless, you might remove it from the game

Hi, Foci mainly is a witch weapon, Sorceress preferenciably will use staffs, Monk Quarterstaff (but they have their evasion shield option) or dual-wield, we may argue that other classes can use Foci as well but it always will be a more exotic build.

Which how POE2 works, the inability to block is a HUGE miss when every enemy can Usain Bolt to you while ignoring your minions, I found the guard button to be my best friend because the minion IA don't prioritize protecting me and if I run/dark souls dodge roll the entire map the mobs only will increase and my minions won't follow me, making it worse.

I think it's fair for Foci not passive block hits, but it should have a active blocking, make it cost mana based on your % mana (this way no matter how much mana you have, it will be balanced), drain energy shield while blocking or whatever.

Also your minions should be able to body trap enemies, only rogue type enemies should bypass minions and certain skills, like the damage rolling that enemies does on act 2 and etc.

I know that on paper, stay behind your minions may sound super OP, minion builds while can be strong they hardly are the meta of any game due how we lack firepower ourselves and have to rely on the IA, we play because we like and not everything has to be about the meta.

Disclaimer: Minion witch atm are the stronger witch but only because the counterpart build SUCKS, not because minions particularly are op, I believe that the Paladin/Druid will be a million times better summoner main.

Raise Shields exists, and blocks all hits from the direction it's raised in. I think foci could be an alternative.

Make it an omnidirectional block that takes both mana and stagger gauge.

Options include:

-requiring the user to stay still to channel it, to differentiate it from raise shields being able to move while blocking

or

-each hit taking an equal percentage of mana and stagger gauge

or

-A faster stagger gauge fill rate due to omnidirectional 100% blocking

or

-Mitigation of a percentage of incoming damage based on mage-specific stats, or focus-related stats. (longshot)