Why is dagger 4 so overnerfed in pvp/wvw?

[RabbitUp.8294]

Even against enemies that are not using skills, it does exactly the same damage as axe 4, with the same casting time and cooldown. Meanwhile, axe 4 does the same big damage regardless of what the enemy is doing, it can cleave 3 targets and it gives quickness.

[Sobx.1758]

True, that doesn't make much sense.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Either buff the damage or give it boon steal. Honestly this is one of the skills they should not have reduced the damage on.

[cryorion.9532]

Agree, dagger offhand shouldn't get damage reduction. Welp, happens when you nerf everything equally without thinking about repercussion. However, I can imagine that outcry why it wasn't nerfed like everything else... now we got another useless offhand weapon.

 

Also, I suggest changing cast time on Bladestorm, where reflect starts sooner or even instantly on skill activation. Reflect on this skill in general is quite inconsistent and not really good for reactive gameplay against fast projectiles (e.g. Point-Blank Shot, etc).

[Kodama.6453]

It is nerfed that way for consistency.

 

They apply a new rule of thumb for competitive game modes, 2.0 is the new maximum power coefficient for single hit skills. Some other examples which got nerfed to the same value:

Eviscerate has now a 2.0 coefficient in PvP.

Dragon's Tooth has now a 2.0 coefficient in PvP.

 

Now look at the mechanic of dagger 4: If the enemy is not using a skill, then the damage gets increased by 100%. The skill has a coefficient of 1.0 baseline, an increase of 100% means it gets buffed to a 2.0 coefficient.

Which is in line with that new design rule. If the skill would strike 2 seperated times, then it would have escaped this nerf. But since it does a single hit, it gets this treatment and reduced to a 2.0 coefficient if the conditions are met.

[RabbitUp.8294]

> @"Kodama.6453" said:

> It is nerfed that way for consistency.

>

> They apply a new rule of thumb for competitive game modes, 2.0 is the new maximum power coefficient for single hit skills. Some other examples which got nerfed to the same value:

> Eviscerate has now a 2.0 coefficient in PvP.

> Dragon's Tooth has now a 2.0 coefficient in PvP.

>

> Now look at the mechanic of dagger 4: If the enemy is not using a skill, then the damage gets increased by 100%. The skill has a coefficient of 1.0 baseline, an increase of 100% means it gets buffed to a 2.0 coefficient.

> Which is in line with that new design rule. If the skill would strike 2 seperated times, then it would have escaped this nerf. But since it does a single hit, it gets this treatment and reduced to a 2.0 coefficient if the conditions are met.

 

Then it needs some other form of compensation. It's a pure damage skill that offers no other utility, on a high cooldown and has a condition to even do that damage in the first place.

 

There are many ways they can buff it, reducing the cooldown is the most obvious since it can be split between modes, or they can add some other utility like the boon steal suggested above.

[Kodama.6453]

> @"RabbitUp.8294" said:

> > @"Kodama.6453" said:

> > It is nerfed that way for consistency.

> >

> > They apply a new rule of thumb for competitive game modes, 2.0 is the new maximum power coefficient for single hit skills. Some other examples which got nerfed to the same value:

> > Eviscerate has now a 2.0 coefficient in PvP.

> > Dragon's Tooth has now a 2.0 coefficient in PvP.

> >

> > Now look at the mechanic of dagger 4: If the enemy is not using a skill, then the damage gets increased by 100%. The skill has a coefficient of 1.0 baseline, an increase of 100% means it gets buffed to a 2.0 coefficient.

> > Which is in line with that new design rule. If the skill would strike 2 seperated times, then it would have escaped this nerf. But since it does a single hit, it gets this treatment and reduced to a 2.0 coefficient if the conditions are met.

>

> Then it needs some other form of compensation. It's a pure damage skill that offers no other utility, on a high cooldown and has a condition to even do that damage in the first place.

>

> There are many ways they can buff it, reducing the cooldown is the most obvious since it can be split between modes, or they can add some other utility like the boon steal suggested above.

 

Agreed, the suggestion that the skill should steal some boons sounds like a good idea.

I just wanted to provide the reasoning behind the nerf given to the skill, since you were asking why it is nerfed that way in competitive modes.

 

Anet just applied some new rules to all skills, it is the same deal with the CC spells. There are quite alot of CC skills in the game which don't make sense having such a low damage. They have to revisit alot of skills in the future and buff them up again. Dagger 4 is one of them.

[Sobx.1758]

Basically it seems they nerfed dagger 4 by 33%, but only nerfed axe 4 by 15% for some unknow reason. Whether one of these skills is overnerfed or... the other undernerfed is up for discussion :D

 

@Kodama if that's true (seems to be?) then they took some weird way to go about this rebalance, which this example shows pretty well. They chose to be consistent about the "cap of single hitting skill dmg" instead of actually nerf the skills by a similar/constant % of dmg, which I think would make much more sense.

[Infusion.7149]

Dagger offhand needs help in general.

In PvP you're better off with shield (as a gap closer/stun and block) or axe offhand (for damage + mobility), maybe even mace (vulnerability+damage , knockdown).

In WvW you're almost always better off with axe to gain adrenaline and have better cleave or warhorn for condi clear if running support. Dagger 5 (bladestorm) happens to eat a lot of retaliation damage as well.