dagger buff/change please?

[Zeek.6743]

Its very nice to see weapons getting buffed so we aren't stuck with just scepter condition builds. But one thing I'm wondering is if we could ever see a buff or change to the dagger for necromancers. If you look at axe traits and skills it gains a TON of bonus damage while applying vulnerability and a ton of it when targets hit below 50% while also being ranged. Personally I would love to see scepter changed to torment damage (throw a bit of confusion on final attack or just keep it poison) and add bleed to dagger autos with poison on final attack as well or just more bleed stacks instead of poison. Or instead of adding it directly to the weapon change the dagger trait in blood magic (Quickening Thirst) to I don't know, increase attack speed/damage and give auto attacks bleeding allowing daggers to be used for condition or power (other blood magic traits would need to change to make you choose the added dagger bonuses or something else to choose power or condition based builds). Either way dagger needs changed. I just do not care at all for the other 2 dagger main hand skills as the auto attacks are just bad and out classes by the axe skill power damage and the scepter condition damage. And lets just not mention how outdated staff is lol.

[ZDragon.3046]

For a long while it was the opposite dagger outclassed axe by a mile after several maybe a half dozen patches or more of

axe damage +10%

axe damage +13%

axe damage +11% and so on

 

Its finally at a point where its far above dagger now we need dagger changes

 

This is a conversation thats been had way too many times i think the devs are going to leave it as a disregarded request at this point.

[Manpag.6421]

Dagger has already been buffed reasonably often, sometimes at the same time axe has, and I find that in practice it is on a similar level to axe due to how differently it works. Axe is good, and ranged, but single target only and only skill 2 generates life force. Dagger, on the other hand, has decent damage, a much faster attack speed and hits 2 enemies at once while gaining life force on most hits. It's immensely useful for regenerating life force. Sure, buffs would be nice since I don't think they would _break_ dagger, but I don't find axe to be as superior as it would seem to be on paper. Axe was better before they changed Unholy Feast, as the reliable retaliation made it less unsuitable for fighting multiple opponents.

[ZDragon.3046]

> @"Manpag.6421" said:

> Dagger has already been buffed reasonably often, sometimes at the same time axe has, and I find that in practice it is on a similar level to axe due to how differently it works. Axe is good, and ranged, but single target only and only skill 2 generates life force. Dagger, on the other hand, has decent damage, a much faster attack speed and hits 2 enemies at once while gaining life force on most hits. It's immensely useful for regenerating life force. Sure, buffs would be nice since I don't think they would _break_ dagger, but I don't find axe to be as superior as it would seem to be on paper. Axe was better before they changed Unholy Feast, as the reliable retaliation made it less unsuitable for fighting multiple opponents.

 

Its not been buffed as much recently actually i think the only thing thats changed is cooldown times which is not where the complaints are with main hand dagger.

Its damage is low for a melee weapon vs axe which is a ranged weapon.

The cast times are lengthy and prone to being interrupted very easily.

 

The change to unholy hardly mattered. Necros cant make much use of retaliation unlike guardians where they can have a whole build based around it.

Axe has higher burst potential and slightly less sustained dps potential most people profer the burst potential over the sustained.

 

Axe may not seem as good on paper but its good in actually application when used correctly. Axe 2 alone can do 20k+ in open world and 8k+ in pvp consistantly under the right situations

 

The only good things dagger has right now are

The extra LF gen from auto spamming

Some sustain if you can do it without being interrupted at the cost of alot of damage loss.

A immobilizes that rarely makes a big difference.

The fact that it can cleave several people during the auto chain.

[pah.4931]

For PvP, dagger has fallen behind. With nerfs to Shroud cooldown, you don't benefit that much from the LF gen of dagger, and other weapons do more damage and are easily to land attacks (even GS outclasses dagger in PvP by a lot).

 

For PvE, I have no idea.

[Fireline.6093]

Dagger would instantly become amazing for healing scourges if Life Siphon applied to 5 targets instead of self. Could heal in groups and solo with minions.

May be as simple as making a trait that adds +4 targets to life siphon in the scourge trait lineup.

 

Scourge Traits:

Major Adept: Combine "Abrasive Grit" and "Desert Empowerment" into one trait and remove the "grants might" portion (druids already do this).

Major Master: Replace Desert Empowerment with "Desert Sacrifice" (or some other name) granting +4 recipients to Life Siphon healing.

 

Dagger already has great life force generation. Missing damage, but if it were modified to be a healer's weapon instead the damage wouldn't matter as much.

The dagger just needs a purpose, I believe. Right now it has none.

[Nimon.7840]

> @"Manpag.6421" said:

> Dagger has already been buffed reasonably often, sometimes at the same time axe has, and I find that in practice it is on a similar level to axe due to how differently it works. Axe is good, and ranged, but single target only and only skill 2 generates life force. Dagger, on the other hand, has decent damage, a much faster attack speed and hits 2 enemies at once while gaining life force on most hits. It's immensely useful for regenerating life force. Sure, buffs would be nice since I don't think they would _break_ dagger, but I don't find axe to be as superior as it would seem to be on paper. Axe was better before they changed Unholy Feast, as the reliable retaliation made it less unsuitable for fighting multiple opponents.

 

Well dagger 2 is the worst skill u can use in a 1v1. Thats like asking to get interrupted.

Good luck in landing any autoattack. The dmg is decent but necro lacks stickyness to the enemy.

 

You just cannot keep up with the movement of every other class. So u wont land a lot of hits with that auto.

[KrHome.1920]

> @"Zeek.6743" said:

> Its very nice to see weapons getting buffed so we aren't stuck with just scepter condition builds. But one thing I'm wondering is if we could ever see a buff or change to the dagger for necromancers.

MH-dagger was buffed multiple times, but besides some nice skill 3 buffs (more corrupts + more damage) anet just added useless synergies: Bleed on skill 3 which can either be used to buff self heal on skill 2 or be transfered with skill 4 to buff the damage of skill 2. Regarding the long cast/channel times that's super clunky and the result is not worth the effort at all.

 

>If you look at axe traits and skills it gains a TON of bonus damage while applying vulnerability and a ton of it when targets hit below 50% while also being ranged.

Axe still does significantly less dps than dagger. It's a nice ranged burst weapon now, but not more. It does not outclass dagger!

 

>Personally I would love to see scepter changed to torment damage (throw a bit of confusion on final attack or just keep it poison)

This would make scourge OP. It deals enough ranged condi damage with shades. Necro lacks a melee condi weapon. Maybe in the next expansion...

 

>and add bleed to dagger autos with poison on final attack as well or just more bleed stacks instead of poison.

MH-dagger is not meant to be a condi weapon! The self bleed is not meant to siginificantly damage yourself (which it does, when you spec into condi) because this would result in making the heal on dagger 2 useless.

 

>Or instead of adding it directly to the weapon change the dagger trait in blood magic (Quickening Thirst) to I don't know, increase attack speed/damage and give auto attacks bleeding allowing daggers to be used for condition or power (other blood magic traits would need to change to make you choose the added dagger bonuses or something else to choose power or condition based builds).

Useful changes have already been discussed multiple times the last few weeks.

 

>Either way dagger needs changed. I just do not care at all for the other 2 dagger main hand skills as the auto attacks are just bad ~~and out classes by the axe skill power damage~~ and the scepter condition damage. And lets just not mention how outdated staff is lol.

True (besides the axe part).

 

[Schnuschnu.9857]

I do think dagger does not need damage buffs but rather a unique identity. Maybe make it a support weapon or a control weapon, but don't leave it as it is.

[Obtena.7952]

Dagger is unlikely to get damage buffs ... or at least ones significant enough to placate people wanting to use it for damage. That's just not it's theme. Personally, I think it's likely to get more of a corruption approach ... that seems very inline with its current skills.

[Anchoku.8142]

MH dagger's deficiencies have been discussed a number of times. There is no reason to use dagger on Reaper and it does little besides generate LF, at great risk, on a Scourge power build.

 

The best thing we can do for MH dagger is not use it. Game statistics will make our case as Arenanet sees how few hours of play it gets.

[Nimon.7840]

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> Dagger is unlikely to get damage buffs ... or at least ones significant enough to placate people wanting to use it for damage. That's just not it's theme. Personally, I think it's likely to get more of a corruption approach ... that seems very inline with its current skills.

 

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> Dagger is unlikely to get damage buffs ... or at least ones significant enough to placate people wanting to use it for damage. That's just not it's theme. Personally, I think it's likely to get more of a corruption approach ... that seems very inline with its current skills.

 

If its not getting buffed dramatically. Like half casttime on 2. It wont see any use in pvp environment.

 

Yeah i experimented with it, playing condi dagger/torch + staff scourge for 1v1s wirh spectral grasp.

The idea was to lockdown people in your elite.

Well against newby pvp players it worked perfectly fine. But as soon as you play against an experienced player, they will just delete you, because dagger isnt generating any perssure nor does it generate enough lifeforce in comparison to the dmg u get while having to stay melee

 

If casttime of 2 would be halfed and if 3 was a 450 range leap with the corruption and immob on hit. Dagger would actually be a good weapon for pvp, as it is pretty difficult, to stick at the enemy as a necro

[Mordeus.1234]

I agree with the sentiment that MH Dagger shouldn't get a damage boost as that isn't really contributing to its' identity. Instead it should focus more on maintaining close combat pressure. So basically it should punish enemies that enter close range while making it harder for the enemy to retreat to a safe distance.

 

Auto-Attack should gain Cripple on it's last hit. The entire dagger auto-attack lasts for around 2 seconds, so 1 second of cripple added into that sequence would help the Necro to land more hits from a fleeing opponent.

 

However the big selling point of MH Dagger should be #2's Life Siphon. I suggest that it should gain a Taunt effect for as long as the channeling lasts, so it would go in three 1 second pulses . This means that if the Necromancer is disrupted by a second enemy or ends it prematurely then Taunt doesn't last longer than the animation. It also means that if the enemy tries to remove the Taunt too early, then the channeling will hit then with another pulse of Taunt.

 

Thematically it would be like how a vampire hypnotises the victim to draw them nearer. This move would be used to slowly draw the enemy from all the way from 600 range to auto attack striking distance. It could be useful to draw an enemy from a cap point or from a WvW zerg, for a scourge it could be used to draw the enemy into a shade. It's also basically the inverse of Fear which the Necromancer uses. The health drain effect would stay the same.

 

I think with these two changes the dagger could have it's place as a very strategic weapon.

[KrHome.1920]

> @"Mordeus.1234" said:

> However the big selling point of MH Dagger should be #2's Life Siphon. I suggest that it should gain a Taunt effect for as long as the channeling lasts, so it would go in three 1 second pulses . This means that if the Necromancer is disrupted by a second enemy or ends it prematurely then Taunt doesn't last longer than the animation. It also means that if the enemy tries to remove the Taunt too early, then the channeling will hit then with another pulse of Taunt.

Not a problem on power necro and reaper but clearly overpowered on condi scourge as scourge would be able to mash F-skills while taunting (and what a nice coincidence that scourge inflicts torment that heavily damages moving (=taunted) targets).

 

Scourge already has overpowered soft cc melee lockdowns. This would add a hard cc (complete lost of character control) and further mess up the spec in its one-dimensionality. Scourge needs more sustain or mobility but less control spam to be viable in a wide range of possible matchups without being overpowered in one or another way.

 

 

[Mordeus.1234]

> @"KrHome.1920" said:

> Not a problem on power necro and reaper but clearly overpowered on condi scourge as scourge would be able to mash F-skills while taunting (and what a nice coincidence that scourge inflicts torment that heavily damages moving (=taunted) targets).

>

> Scourge already has overpowered soft cc melee lockdowns. This would add a hard cc (complete lost of character control) and further mess up the spec in its one-dimensionality. Scourge needs more sustain or mobility but less control spam to be viable in a wide range of possible matchups without being overpowered in one or another way.

>

>

Sure then make it a single Taunt effect with a duration determined by the length of the channeling rather than pulses. The movement speed with Taunt is actually quite slow, if you were to use it at its' maximum 600 range, a second or two of Taunt wouldn't be strong enough to pull an enemy close enough to a Scourge, although they might close the gap by running up to the enemy. It also might be enough to pull them into a shade, but a good opponent would be staying clear of any Shades. I suggested Taunt because it's less impactful than Pull and it has a relation to Fear. With a close ranged Necro you don't really want to be using Fear, but rather you want to draw the enemy closer.

 

I just tested it and the use of Manifest Sand Shades actually cancels the channeling, so it would prematurely end the Taunt. Sadly the other Shade skills don't cancel the channeling when they probably should, but that's a wider Scourge problem. It would be an easy fix to make shade skills cancel channeling abilities, since there isn't many available to the Scourge aside from Axe #2, Dagger #2 and two underwater abilities, it wouldn't be a drastic change. With those ability canceling changes, it also wouldn't allow the Scourge to exploit their Torment, so any movement by the Taunt wouldn't matter. Although I concede that the Torment from the Torch could be used, but I don't know why a condi Scourge would want to ditch Scepter for extra damage on skills with 20-25 sec cooldown.

 

If a Scourge was to use the MH Dagger as I suggest then they'd either lose access to the Scepter, their most powerful condi weapon or lose the AoE Life Force regenerating Staff. I think gaining a Taunt effect probably wouldn't merit the Scourge ditching either of those, unless they go Power Scourge which is the rarer build.

 

As for Scourge itself, that is a separate topic but my feelings is that they shouldn't become more mobile. Dodging their shades and ranging them is pretty much the only reliable way to kill them unless you can withstand their condi spam. As for sustain, they could probably do with the ability to access a defensive shroud at the expense of consuming Life Force. Maybe split the Desert Shroud into two abilities. One would retain the pulsing effect while an extra F6 would be a toggle skill that has the Death Shroud appearance while using built up Life Force to shield Health Points balanced out with a slow decay of Life Force as upkeep for using the toggle skill.

[Obtena.7952]

> @"Nimon.7840" said:

> > @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > Dagger is unlikely to get damage buffs ... or at least ones significant enough to placate people wanting to use it for damage. That's just not it's theme. Personally, I think it's likely to get more of a corruption approach ... that seems very inline with its current skills.

>

> > @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > Dagger is unlikely to get damage buffs ... or at least ones significant enough to placate people wanting to use it for damage. That's just not it's theme. Personally, I think it's likely to get more of a corruption approach ... that seems very inline with its current skills.

>

> If its not getting buffed dramatically. Like half casttime on 2. It wont see any use in pvp environment.

>

> Yeah i experimented with it, playing condi dagger/torch + staff scourge for 1v1s wirh spectral grasp.

> The idea was to lockdown people in your elite.

> Well against newby pvp players it worked perfectly fine. But as soon as you play against an experienced player, they will just delete you, because dagger isnt generating any perssure nor does it generate enough lifeforce in comparison to the dmg u get while having to stay melee

>

> If casttime of 2 would be halfed and if 3 was a 450 range leap with the corruption and immob on hit. Dagger would actually be a good weapon for pvp, as it is pretty difficult, to stick at the enemy as a necro

 

I don't get your comment to what I said. If dagger isn't a good weapon for PVP, then that maybe a result of the intended theme of the weapon.

 

For that matter, I've went back and purposefully tried to implement dagger in all kinds of different game elements with different strategies ... it's certainly deficient. It's only redeeming position I can see is core-only power builds for PVE. It has a very limited scope of optimized play. I would still like to see it become some kind of heavier corruption-themed weapon.

[Kiroshima.8497]

Dagger is really odd, especially since OH and MH don't really match as a set.

 

I'd really prefer that they move 3% off of the last hit in the chain (btw it generates 6% even if you hit 2 targets at the moment) and put 1% on the first hit, and the other 2% on Life Siphon (seriously, why doesn't this generate life force).

Remove the boonstrip from Dark Pact. Just let it immob and do damage. (we're moving the boon rip to Dagger 5)

Maybe replace Deathly Swarm with https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Vampiric_Swarm (targeted aoe siphon). This grants you an AoE siphon.

Also, I find it hilarious that Enfeebling Blood was a curses line in GW1, how about we just switch Dagger 5 with something else from Blood Magic, like I dunno:

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Strip_Enchantment, remove 2 boons, siphon health per boon removed (the life steal version of Spinal Shivers).

 

For flavor, I'd like to see Dagger have a health spending mechanic when traited. Like https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Cultist%27s_Fervor or something (bleeding is ok too). Maybe: All dagger skills except the auto chain inflict 2 stacks of self bleeding (10 seconds). All dagger skills reduce the cooldown of core utilities by 1/2 a second per bleed on hit. Or something like that would be neat (only when traited).