Guild Wars 2

I main Power necro, and the only two options are dagger or axe main hand. axe is good when coupled with the focus and gives some pretty amazing burst damage. but dagger… Dagger has barely anything. I love dagger because of the root but beyond that it kinda sucks… a lot.

-super low range non cleaving auto attack.
-number 2 spell is pretty bad, the drain is weak and scales terrible, the cast time is long, hard countered by retal and the damage is weak compared to auto attack, range is pretty low for a channel.
- number 3 spell long cast time and long cool down.
- gives no boons at all.

the only pros are:
-the auto attack deals a lot of damage (if you can get close enough)
- a 3 second root.

I hope Anet looks into this weapon sometime… It really lacks a lot.

It really doesn’t lack much on its own, if the class finally got its mythical sustain changes, or teams in PvP finally got passed the kindergarten level team-comps, it’d be an amazing weapon.

Its problem is that for a tanky build, we don’t have quite enough sustain to make dagger as good as it could be (not saying its weak, but its just a teeny bit off great). For a glass build, you rely on your team to get you out. You will murder your target if you are playing it correctly, but then its up to your team to get your kitten out of there before you are destroyed. Also, I think the #2 needs a bit more HP/s, either through keeping the same overall healing and decreasing channel time, or by increasing HP per pulse.

Overall though, Dagger is really strong, and I’d use it in every power build I had if I wasn’t such a noob with it.

It’s the reason I use axe main hand in both weapon sets. Thieves and close range classes eat me alive if they’re good or if I screw up, but it’s better than putting up with auto attacks in cc range.

The only change i could see it getting (and necros in general) is lowering the cast time on 3, its really good on a power build, you just need to know when to use it or axe (i used it all the time before ds nerf, now i just stick on staff since im to lazy to drop combat for axe if a encounter doesnt allow for more than 60% melee time).

I don’t necessarily think dagger needs any huge changes. It’s extremely powerful in the right hands. A real high risk, high reward weapon. I think a lot of people find it hard to pull off though. That’s not a fault of the weapon design, it just comes with the territory of such an aggressive risky weapon.

I generally agree that dagger is in a pretty good place right now.

I’ve seen arguments pro and con regarding adding cleave to dagger #1. I’d be in favor of it more from the standpoint of allowing the necro to hit more targets to process life stealing than for straight up damage. One concern I do have, though, is if cleave were added, they may nerf the overall damage of the dagger. That’s something I definitely do not want to see happen.

Perhaps the compromise is to make only one member of the auto-attack chain cleave. My vote would be to add cleave to Necrotic Slash. My rationale being that Necrotic Slash strikes twice already on a single target. If that were extended to become a cleave, that would be a total of six strikes with Necrotic Slash (assuming there were three opponents in front of the necro). That’s six triggerings of life siphoning traits and the potential for six crits to process Vampiric Precision and/or life stealing food.

When paired with life siphoning blood magic traits, high precision, and life steal foods, dagger #2 comes close to healing as much as a primary healing utility. Combined with dealing direct damage, this makes it a very decent skill. In the interests of balance and counter-play, the damage and healing can’t be over-the-top and the channeling has to be drawn out long enough to give a target the chance to escape or interrupt. Perhaps make it scale better than just 5% of healing power, though.

Dagger #3’s immobilize is appropriate (versus changing it to a completely different skill, as I’ve seen suggested elsewhere). This is a single-target weapon for a profession with poor combat mobility. We aren’t meant to chase down our targets but – rather – chill, cripple, and immobilize them so they can’t escape. That said, dagger #3 should have it’s cast time reduced; not eliminated, just reduced a bit. Since it’s a snare that compensates for our lack of speed, it really needs to cast faster to help us better fulfill our role as the anti-mobility profession.

I tend to side with the people who say that dagger is in a pretty good place. The auto-chain hits like a truck, especially when going glass cannon. Melee range might be problematic at some places, but risk vs reward.

Regarding the lack of cleave, I do see that as a problem for power specced necromancers and I am hoping this will be aided in future, by increasing the weapons a necromancer could use.

I agree with the Op. Dagger is a gimmicky weapon that needs some changes.
The immob is on a way too long cooldown to be a reliable tool for setting up a well burst and once you take that away you pretty much got a weaker version of the axe (due to long channel on 2 and range req on auto).
Drop 10 points to get ground targeted wells and there really is no need to take dagger. Especially since the auto attack is pretty much high risk and mediocre reward compared to some of the prominent melee moves.

Dagger is a fun weapon and thematically really cool but it is not at the place it needs to be to become a viable alternative.

The survivability for 2 and enhancing traits don’t sustain you through PvE in many encounters, nor is the risk worth the reward, when the opportunity cost of nearly half your damage through lost berserker gear comes at the ability to sustain one more hit at best.

Since I don’t have much experience in SPvP, I can’t comment on it being viable, or not, but given that you have to be in very close range and have very little burst potential, I can’t see it being that useful, especially since you lose out on range.

Its fine, only the #2 is a bit weak for sustain. Cleave should be addressed with a new weapon.

Dagger 1 is great, dagger 3 is good but with a tad long cast, dagger 2 is a poor skill with no synergy with the other two skills. It’s a low powered ranged channel that give low amounts of hp, you literally benefit more from using the 1 skill due to the much higher damage inflicted and great LF generation. If you’re in a position where you don’t want to be in melee range, then that’s what your second weapon set/death shroud is for.

Dagger two should be a melee skill of some sort, I would of course love some heart seeker ranged leap (so gain less hp, but faster action, so it’s actually worth using, and could allow to close after the immob etc), but honestly so many things would just work better with the other two skills then what we have now.

Thief dagger doesn’t have cleave, no reason for us to have it either, if we want to be doing multi-target damage we’ve already got plenty of tools for that as is.

I run power wells, so I only need a good source of single target damage. It’s always been dagger for me. It’s only recently axe has been boosted to its level, but that’s reliant on spite tree.

It’s just that it’s mostly just 1111 (2 is bad).

Mainhand dagger is one of our better weapons, IMO. #3 is really strong, #1 deals extremely high damage and regens a LOOOOOT of LF, and #2…. is terrible, but that’s one bum skill out of three. It’s still a really strong weapon that has a well-defined playstyle.

Dagger 2 is something that looks pretty good on paper, especially if you count in traits, where it gets to a 3k heal on a 10 sec cd but fails in practice.
Devs said some time ago, at the peak of bunker eles, that they wanted to add counterplay to the healing capabilites of an ele.
Dagger 2 is pretty much what you get, when you add way too much counterplay to a weapon skill that heals. It has a hit requirement (heals only when dealing damage) and so it gets dodged, interrupted, outpressured and locks you out of defense for 3,5 seconds.
In conclusion i think it need some changes. I would like to see some vampiric touch spell, similar to ele touch spells (lightning touch, fire grab) because necro lost the whole lot of touch spells with its transition to gw2. This would fit with the melee concept of dagger and by making it a touch spell it would lower the cast time significantly, which is a requirement for successful melee moves. Obviously numbers would need to be changed.
Also to further strengthen the weapon set i would like to see dagger3 cd reduced and a activate-after-hit ability added that works as a gap closer.
Explanation: As it is now dagger 3 is a make or break ability. If it lands it enables you to keep someone easily in place for 4 seconds (30 spite is likely the way to go with it), which, if the enemy lacks teleports or condi cleanse at this point in time, will likely result in him exploding in the carnage that is a well and dagger 1 bomb. If it doesn’t land or the enemy ports out, then you have to pretty much live without it for the rest of the fight.
Also i can’t think of a place in pve where a 4 sec immob would be gamechanging compared to a 3 sec (eg.: undead abominations are immune to immob and slowing effects, everything else can get easily kited with cripple & chill).
So i would like to see the cd reduced to 15 sec, the immob duration reduced to 2 sec and a gap closing move added as a on-successful-hit ability.

I want Life Siphon to be good, but I think that really what I want is for Life Siphon to be on a different weapon.

I have loved using dagger playing a berserker build. The problems with dagger have already been pointed out but there are some ways around the weaknesses. I will comment on PvE and WvW because I do not play enough PvP. I play MH dagger/focus, dagger/dagger.

1. Auto attack – Hits like a tank in a gc build. Great life force generation. Requires very close range but there are ways to help with this. In PvE, making sure you are aware of the enemy movement, dodging at the right time and dropping a well of darkness can help. When endurance is out or if you are taking too much melee damage, dropping back and using dagger 2 or DS1 can be used as a filler. In WvW with enemies who actually move, this can be more difficult. Using dark path as an opener then dropping out of DS before the projectile hits can get you a few good dagger hits on someone before they can react. Using offhand focus 5 can also somewhat help lock people down. When people start to run, dagger 2 helps get some short range damage in and DS1 is always great for the last few shots. Also, traiting for Enfeebling Blood on entering death shroud and using dagger 5 can allow you to stick in for a little longer while fighting in melee while taking some damage.

2. Life Siphon – in PvE, I use it when I am out of endurance and need to back out of melee. Does okay damage and get a little heal as an additional bonus. For example, I love using it in the volcanic fractal when the champion growl shaman is winding up. In WvW, I usually use it as an enemy begins to run away after a dagger auto attack chain.

3. Dark Pact – a decently long immobilize. I find it most helpful for enemies who charge in PvE. For WvW, it can be difficult to hit sometimes because of the long, obvious cast. When it does hit, what I do next depends on the range I am in. In melee, I will try to drop a well of suffering because it is devastating. After the WoS, or if I am not in melee when the immobilize hits, I tend to jump in DS and use ds1. I do this whenever the immobilize hits out of direct melee range because usually, by the time I make it into dagger range the immobilize is broken or if not, I wasted too much time without doing damage. Another short range option I tend to use less is dagger3 → dagger2.

As a side note, using focus 4 then dagger auto is amazing

Sorry for the long post that doesn’t necessarily answer OPs question – I just love using dagger and wanted to talk about it