Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2 on and off from time to time. I remember when offhand Dagger on Necro was so viable and Warhorn was considered trash. Today the meta game is Warhorn over Dagger. Why is that? I’m just wondering because you can apply more bleeds with Dagger.

Thanks to anyone that replies.

Because warhorn gives you swiftness, allowing you to take a utility that isn’t locust or spectral walk. While providing a daze that can be devastating if used right. Sometimes it’s not just about damage. Warhorn allows for higher pressure and decaps (pvp), also +1ing (pvp). While the dagger condi tranfers, can be swapped out for plague sending/signet.

Warhorn helps you secure a down when the daze is properly utilized, it’s irreplaceable, necros don’t have a lot of interrupts. Offhand dagger doesn’t do that. Not to mention the on demand swiftness + lifeforce is nice.

Personally I use a focus for boon stripping and chill generation.

Psaro.6178:

I remember when offhand Dagger on Necro was so viable and Warhorn was considered trash. Today the meta game is Warhorn over Dagger. Why is that?

Because warhorn was never trash, apparently it just took a while for most people to realize that.

Psaro.6178:

I’m just wondering because you can apply more bleeds with Dagger.

Ironically, back when dagger was more popular, you could actually have a higher bleed stack uptime with a traited Locust Swarm and Barbed Precision.

flow.6043:

Psaro.6178:

I remember when offhand Dagger on Necro was so viable and Warhorn was considered trash. Today the meta game is Warhorn over Dagger. Why is that?

Because warhorn was never trash, apparently it just took a while for most people to realize that.

Yes it was never trash but it also wasnt good. It only became popular after the buff to locust swarm. The extra 5 seconds swiftness and the reduced casttime (it was 1 sec before) helped that weapon a lot.

The reason why now warhorn is taken over offhand dagger is essentially a change in opportunity costs. In the past we had spectral walk as a staple in our utility slots but with the buffs to locust swarm (and changes to our signet skills) it became better to use warhorn+signets instead of sw+offhand dagger. This was also the time when necros used mainly celestrial (and power) builds over condi builds. That was before HoT.
Well Hot changed the meta builds again to what we have today.

Warhorn has unique utility benefits

The unblock able AoE daze is incredibly helpful for halting rezzes/stomps, interrupting key skills like heals or channels, and in general throwing the enemy’s rotation off.

Warhorn 5 is really nice too yeah for the swiftness + AoE cripple, but also the AoE damage over time can help remove blinds from yourself or disable aegis on an enemy so you can hit harder with your key skills.

Dagger off-hand is also nice but not as useful — I don’t doubt you can do reasonably well with it, but you’ll be missing out

edit: not to mention the damage over-time helps build life-force

Muchacho.2390:

flow.6043:

Because warhorn was never trash, apparently it just took a while for most people to realize that.

Yes it was never trash but it also wasnt good. It only became popular after the buff to locust swarm. The extra 5 seconds swiftness and the reduced casttime (it was 1 sec before) helped that weapon a lot.

The reason why now warhorn is taken over offhand dagger is essentially a change in opportunity costs. In the past we had spectral walk as a staple in our utility slots but with the buffs to locust swarm (and changes to our signet skills) it became better to use warhorn+signets instead of sw+offhand dagger. This was also the time when necros used mainly celestrial (and power) builds over condi builds. That was before HoT.
Well Hot changed the meta builds again to what we have today.

I believe you misunderstood.

First of all, the swiftness increase and cast time reduction were only two of many slight buffs it got over the past years, and at best it coincidentally happened somewhere near the pivotal moment in time when the meta shift occured.

Secondly, and more importantly, the warhorn really was always better.
Of course you could argue that certain buffs to other skills or traits made the dagger even more obsolete. But in regards to the warhorn itself, there was never a substantial change in opportunity cost, no such thing as a need for movement speed after Spectral Walk had seen less use in popular builds. No rational train of thought could ever explain why people ever believed a condi transfer (which is really the only thing an off-hand dagger can provide in PvP) was better than an unblockable aoe daze and a skill that has the potential to fill more than your entire life force pool, especially at times when our sustain in team fights was abysmally bad.

So here’s what happened:
Some popular necros used an off-hand dagger in PvP or WvW, which of course was a mistake because the warhorn was always better, so everyone else just copied that build, thus forming the popular opinion that dagger is good and warhorn sucks.

This might sound like some hipster rant, but that’s actually how it was back then. If you were using a warhorn, good for you, you used it before it was cool. If you were using a dagger, well that sucks, you were missing out on a superior off-hand weapon.

It could also be personal taste and a dagger or warhorn suit playstyles differently.

flow.6043:

Muchacho.2390:

flow.6043:

Because warhorn was never trash, apparently it just took a while for most people to realize that.

Yes it was never trash but it also wasnt good. It only became popular after the buff to locust swarm. The extra 5 seconds swiftness and the reduced casttime (it was 1 sec before) helped that weapon a lot.

The reason why now warhorn is taken over offhand dagger is essentially a change in opportunity costs. In the past we had spectral walk as a staple in our utility slots but with the buffs to locust swarm (and changes to our signet skills) it became better to use warhorn+signets instead of sw+offhand dagger. This was also the time when necros used mainly celestrial (and power) builds over condi builds. That was before HoT.
Well Hot changed the meta builds again to what we have today.

I believe you misunderstood.

First of all, the swiftness increase and cast time reduction were only two of many slight buffs it got over the past years, and at best it coincidentally happened somewhere near the pivotal moment in time when the meta shift occured.

Secondly, and more importantly, the warhorn really was always better.
Of course you could argue that certain buffs to other skills or traits made the dagger even more obsolete. But in regards to the warhorn itself, there was never a substantial change in opportunity cost, no such thing as a need for movement speed after Spectral Walk had seen less use in popular builds. No rational train of thought could ever explain why people ever believed a condi transfer (which is really the only thing an off-hand dagger can provide in PvP) was better than an unblockable aoe daze and a skill that has the potential to fill more than your entire life force pool, especially at times when our sustain in team fights was abysmally bad.

So here’s what happened:
Some popular necros used an off-hand dagger in PvP or WvW, which of course was a mistake because the warhorn was always better, so everyone else just copied that build, thus forming the popular opinion that dagger is good and warhorn sucks.

This might sound like some hipster rant, but that’s actually how it was back then. If you were using a warhorn, good for you, you used it before it was cool. If you were using a dagger, well that sucks, you were missing out on a superior off-hand weapon.

I agree on that part that Wail of doom was always really good but locust swarm with the slow casttime was really annoying to use.

But i disagree with the fact that warhorn was always better then offhand dagger atleast for condi builds (power builds and later celestral builds always used warhorn due it synergy with mainhand dagger).

In the past condi necros was played in such away that you always tried to stay at 900-1200 range which heavely limited the use of warhorn (which was also easier to do then it is today, since only thieves could pressure you into close range if your team was half competent and you knew how to postion correctly). Which is totally different then how condi builds are played today thanks to reapershroud+dhuumfire.

Well of couse you now could argue that this was never the optimal playstyle to begin with for condi builds but at this point we dont really can test it anymore, which makes the whole discussion opinion against opinion.

War horn got some buffs way back, iirc. Off-hand dagger was buffed more recently but only for corruption so it is an even better match for scepter.

I have never tried a condi warhorn build but i imagine it will work well with perplex runes

EremiteAngel.9765:

I have never tried a condi warhorn build but i imagine it will work well with perplex runes

I ran horn and perplexity runes two Halloweens ago in a pretty optimal PvE situation, the Mad King’s Labyrinth. It worked a little and I used every trick to proc an interrupt but perplexity did not do much dps, overall. It was more fun just fearing, stunning, and otherwise controlling clumps of mobs while farming candy.

Necromancer has no native source of perplexity so the runes are a hard sell.

Muchacho.2390:

I agree on that part that Wail of doom was always really good but locust swarm with the slow casttime was really annoying to use.

Just fyi, the cast time reduction was implemented in January 2015 and the swiftness buff in September 2014. Both a long time before people started using warhorn instead of dagger.

Muchacho.2390:

In the past condi necros was played in such away that you always tried to stay at 900-1200 range
…
Well of couse you now could argue that this was never the optimal playstyle to begin with

I could, and I will. That’s exactly my point.

The meta build back than was terrible and it forced people into this useless playstyle of off-point camping + scepter auto attack spamming.

Muchacho.2390:

at this point we dont really can test it anymore, which makes the whole discussion opinion against opinion.

Well, in my opinion it doesn’t need testing because the warhorn was obviously better.
But, guess what, I actually did some tests, and I had a few discussions about it here on the forums whenever the subject came up. I even had people in game ask me why I was using a warhorn and why I was fighting on point so much, because “warhorn sucks and that’s not how you necro…”.
People’s mentality of how necro should be played was just aweful.

Keep in mind, before the Blood Magic revamp necros had no source of healing other than Consume Conditions and maybe regeneration. A ~6-7k heal every 25 sec to sustain a 25k health pool, that was all we had. And that meant, if you didn’t know how to manage your life force and Death Shroud cooldown you were a sitting duck.
So yeah, perhaps it’s a matter of opinion because your team might’ve carried that passive semi-afk playstyle. But regardless, in those times – in my opinion – it was incredibly foolish to pass on a weapon that was only second to Necrotic Grasp in regards to having by far the highest life force regeneration potential (especially when traited) out of all our skills.

Wail of Doom goes through blocks.

HoT added a bunch of blocks.

PvP>Warhorn. mobility and extra lifeforce.

WvW> Dagger, I can kill mobs for lifeforce and will run around full of it anyway. The roaming builds pack alot of conditions and boons and I sometimes cant be bothered with plague signet that gives me random LONG chills and cripples even from someone else’s minions or friendly npcs.