So, what are your opinions on this little focus burner? Worth it, or simply subpar to the Inquisitor´s Mark?
I´ve played Tempest so far and its Focus Ability simply fills another role than the Mark (Heavy Single Target Burst vs AoE Damage), but the Cloak of Shadows seems of very limited use for me.
It is not worth it imo (8 seconds don't really make so much of a difference and all party invisibility serves little). MoD is much better than Cloak of Shadows and it is not a focus skill. Now, if it wasn't a focus ability and it was just a skill that allowed you (not all party, that's unnecessary) to attack for 8 seconds straight in stealth then the thing would be different... Or if they wanted to have a focus skill based on invisibility then scratch all the party thing and for example make something like the masterwork (automatic stealth when not attacking under combat) for a good amount of time (as ranging from 30 to 60 seconds); it would already have been much better.
Sincerely Thousand Cuts would have fit much better on the Assassin's spec, and in my theory it was so at beginning then the QA testing the balance thought it to be too powerful in there and the focus skill got switched to Tempest instead, and a "filling" one put on Assassin.
It is not a bad focus skill per se (there are much worse) but it is neither so good given all the other skills in the spec that are amazing.
I guess it is ok as a life saver for your party (AoE damage put aside), but you could probably avoid getting into a dangerous situation by using Mark of the Rift in the first place, I guess.
Felt like it was one of theweaker focus ability in the game. It might've had some more use if Nightmare was truly nightmarish in difficulty and you needed a defensive cooldown or a way to get out of fights. But as it stands, it's of very little use compared to many focus abilities inclusing MotR.
If anything, it feels like a normal ability and Mark of Death feels like a focus ability.
It's insanely powerful. 3-6-8 (not counting +30% duration ring) seconds when all your party has 50% bonus damage and yourself as an Assassin (if you have more in party the better) 100% criticals?
Do you realize how HUGE your MoD will be? It will one shot any boss in game without any cheese. PS: Since you placed the mark, it snapshots your stats at the moment you activate the ability (armor pen / damage bonus etc, so it will trigger with 95% armor pen and 100% critical chance if you use it from cloak / stealth).
Mark is good AoE true, but there are tons of AoE focus / spells so I doubt you will need it past mid game. Cloak works wonders for me.
Do you realize how HUGE your MoD will be?
Which would make MoD more like a focus ability, not the cloak. The cloak itself doesn't do much, only when combined with MoD is it powerful. MoD on it's own, however, is already very powerful. So powerful that when you combine it with a tempest rogue or any other heavy burst spec, it pretty much ruins the game for me. 
I feel MoD's cooldown is way too low for such a powerful ability. You can honestly one shot pretty much everything with it in a correctly set-up party and without using any focus abilities. That's why it should've been the focus ability of this spec; to not make it such a mainstay of this spec and put some time in between uses. To me, MoD is somewhat similar to Thousand Cuts. The latter also does epic damage, but you can't use it on cooldown. You have to actively decide to use it or not and spend time afterwards trying to build focus. I'm ignoring the bug exploit with the flask here, obviously.
In short, it's ok to have a massive burst ability, but not on such a short cooldown. It trivializes content.
Am sorry but if you think 50% dmg for ALL PARTY for X seconds isn't much then I don't know what to tell you 
Regarding MoD vs Thousand Cuts. Sure you can use MoD often, but why would you? You need to have a target that has an amount of HP greater than what you can do with a single party member in 8 seconds in order to actually get a benefit from it. It's powerful when it matters - boss fights or very tough elites. Same with Thousand Cuts.
Regarding "massive burst": whack a mole type of fights (excluding dragons due to their mechanics) are boring, if they are very repetitive (ie: every elite will take several minutes to kill) the game will get boring fast and you will most likely start to avoid fighting them unless necessary. There are dozen of combinations (non-combo) that can deal INSANE damage. Most famous being the double static cage with several small AoE's hitting a target with multiple hit boxes which literally melts (add procs like hidden blades etc). There won't be any large hits, but a multitude of small hits. End damage / result is same.
Rift Mage focus ability fires a dozen of meteors on target location. Add Hidden Blades proc (dual if you want). Add Static Cage. Add Chain Lightning / Barrage. Add Walking Bomb / Fire Mine (dot). A ton of relatively small numbers that will melt stuff in seconds. No need of Thousand Cuts / Hail of Arrows / Mark of Death etc.
Anyway, having Cloak as a skill instead of focus will be more broken than anything else that was / is broken. Being able to vanish everyone for 12s and not break stealth while attacking and everyone gaining 50% dmg bonus IS HUGE. There are very few enemies with perception, so you will pretty much trivialize all content (not mentioning that you would have non stop full armor pen on your Assassin and 100% crits). Making it a Focus ability was the right way to do it
Am sorry but if you think 50% dmg for ALL PARTY for X seconds isn't much then I don't know what to tell you
50% damage for the entire party for a few seconds, pales in comparison to certain other focus abilities.
Regarding MoD vs Thousand Cuts. Sure you can use MoD often, but why would you? You need to have a target that has an amount of HP greater than what you can do with a single party member in 8 seconds in order to actually get a benefit from it. It's powerful when it matters - boss fights or very tough elites. Same with Thousand Cuts.
On Nightmare mode, I used MoD on many enemies that aren't the weak adds you get in every group.
Regarding "massive burst": whack a mole type of fights (excluding dragons due to their mechanics) are boring, if they are very repetitive (ie: every elite will take several minutes to kill) the game will get boring fast and you will most likely start to avoid fighting them unless necessary. There are dozen of combinations (non-combo) that can deal INSANE damage. Most famous being the double static cage with several small AoE's hitting a target with multiple hit boxes which literally melts (add procs like hidden blades etc). There won't be any large hits, but a multitude of small hits. End damage / result is same.
Rift Mage focus ability fires a dozen of meteors on target location. Add Hidden Blades proc (dual if you want). Add Static Cage. Add Chain Lightning / Barrage. Add Walking Bomb / Fire Mine (dot). A ton of relatively small numbers that will melt stuff in seconds. No need of Thousand Cuts / Hail of Arrows / Mark of Death etc.
The point is that those tricks are available yes. But with MoD being a normal, frequent use skill, you can basically use MoD to duplicate that insane damage every time. It's more an argument in favor of MoD having to be a focus ability rather then against it.
Hell, it's the very reason MoD is overpowered as a regular cooldown skill. You already have the tools to do enough damage. Why would you need something to completely ad utterly crush any semblance of challenge in an already easy game?
Anyway, having Cloak as a skill instead of focus will be more broken than anything else that was / is broken. Being able to vanish everyone for 12s and not break stealth while attacking and everyone gaining 50% dmg bonus IS HUGE. There are very few enemies with perception, so you will pretty much trivialize all content (not mentioning that you would have non stop full armor pen on your Assassin and 100% crits). Making it a Focus ability was the right way to do it
It's nowhere near as huge as using MoD coupled with the examples you yourself stated.
Cloak of Shadows = 50% damage increase for entire party over 9 seconds (max focus) every 3 FULL focus bars
MoD = 100% damage increase for entire party after 8 seconds every 32 seconds
Fairly easy math.
I don't even know how to use this ability right. What is it good for? Every time I activate it the party members just immediately exit out of stealth anyway.
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