Guild Wars 2

So most of the things I read suggest dagger war horn or axe focus. Why is dagger dagger not the preferred weapons for melee power build?

OH dagger is a defensive / condition-based weapon. Why exactly would you use it in a dps focused power build? O_o
In pvp it’s not super-uncommon to see dagger offhands even in power builds.

Dagger #4 does a bit of DMG and removes conditions. WH #4 does a bit of DMG and dazes. Dagger #5 is and aoe DMG and condition spell and WH is an aoe that adds swiftness spell. I don’t see how one is more defensive then the other I guess.

Actually, Wail of Doom doesn’t do any damage.
In sPvP/WvW off-hand dagger is actually a popular choice for power builds, not for its damage of course, but for the utility.

So that even more makes me not understand why D/W is the common choice of weapons. Is because we are suppose to be auto attacking and it gives us a kind of ohh crap button?

Stubie.5834:

Dagger #4 does a bit of DMG and removes conditions.
> actually what it does is blind and transfer conditions. The damage is only there so on-crit abilities can trigger. Sounds pretty defensive to me

WH #4 does a bit of DMG and dazes.
> wh#4 doesn’t do a bit of DMG. I don’t know about you, but with the current necro playstyle the daze is 99% offensive for me, to lock targets in position (wells, locking them out of position, blocking access to defensive skills, stopping heals).

Dagger #5 is and aoe DMG and condition spell
> dagger#5 is used for the weakness and the condi aoe. Weakness is defensive, aoe damage is condi-based.

and WH is an aoe that adds swiftness spell.
> swiftness for you, inflicting cripple to the target. You will not outrun your opponent as a necro (once wh#5 is down they are back in your face), you won’t do damage with a mh dagger while ‘kiting’ with wh#5. This spell is used to keep in range of your target (necro being the aggressor) and/or to gain lifeforce and for traveling longer distances.

I don’t see how one is more defensive then the other I guess.

Conclusion: wh is used offensively, oh dagger is used defensively
If you can’t see that then there’s nothing I can do for you.

Stubie.5834:

So that even more makes me not understand why D/W is the common choice of weapons. Is because we are suppose to be auto attacking and it gives us a kind of ohh crap button?

Actually, the best power necros I’ve met in WvW run both warhorn and dagger off-hand.
Dagger is clearly to lowest damage option for power necros, but the cleanse and blind makes it a good choice for every build.

According to spoj, D/W is the highest single target dps you can get with a necro in PvE. I’ve never used his build but I’m inclined to agree.
On the other hand: cripple, swiftness and lf regen is (like the aoe daze) a better selling point for PvP.

It all depends on the situation on what you should bring.

OH Dagger: Condition strip and blind on 4. AoE Bleed and Weakness on 5. In PvE, conditions are not a big issue as predictable mob attacks allow you to avoid most applications. Blinds are always useful on trash, but nerfed to near uselessness on bosses. This leaves 4 as not that important in PvE unless you load utilities that self inflict conditions. In the PvP meta, condition removals are always nice, so that increases usefulness. For skill 5, 2 bleed stacks are ok, but the butter of the skill is the weakness cast. Unfortunately the long cooldown of the skill means it’s not that great for boss fights with duration hits maybe affecting one attack. The slow cast means it’s not worth it for the bleeds unless it’s a group of trash. In PvP, that weakness cast can decide fights.

OH Dagger verdict: PvE: Not that useful unless you have a build that self-inflicts conditions. PvP: Good for any build type as both skills are nice in PvP fights.

OH Warhorn: A cone daze on 4. A swiftness, AoE cripple and Life Force ticker on 5. In PvE, 4 can shut down a group of trash before you melt it. It also can help tick down defiance for a CC on bosses. In PvP, the usefulness of an interrupt is amazing. However the cooldown is long enough that typically you have to use it strategically as you’ll only get it off once in a fight. For that reason, it ticks down a peg in usefulness for PvP. For skill 5, the swiftness and cripple are OK for PvE, and good for PvP chasing. Really, though, the main advantage for this skill is its life force gain. Hit this to fill it more quickly, or this before DS for some solid tanking. This has definitely saved my bacon when I found myself low life force, low HP, and out of dodges. Because of this, 5 becomes a survival skill which is useful in any situation. However I would rate this a bit more in favor of power or DS builds. Power builds can better afford the trait that is a solid boost to WH that takes it from “pretty good” to “good”. DS builds want all the LF they can get.

OH Warhorn verdict: Useful in both PvE and PvP from the DS survivability increase, with the edge in PvP as interrupts and chase ability are more important there.

As for actually choosing between the two, WH is a no brainer in PvE unless you build around self-inflicted conditions. PvP it’s a difficult choice as the utility they bring are nice for different reason – personally I lean towards OH Dagger for s/tPvP as fights are small and the condition transfer and weakness hit to be huge; and OH WH for WvW as I find the survivability increase in mass fights to be much much more important.

Didn’t really touch into Focus as that was not asked about. This one is pretty much an absolute must for PvE – so if this is competing against WH or OH Dagger, drop them in a flash for this. Focus 4 is a 10-15 vuln stack along with passing regen to nearby party members. Such a massive party DPS increase shouldn’t be skipped. Focus 5 is not that amazing in PvE as boons are usually not an issue and the cast time is not worth it for just the chill… but it is a strong skill in PvP. Someone running? Strip their swiftness, slow them down and put their escape moves on longer CDs with one move. And if your target is boon heavy, this becomes a solid hitter. However when this is pitted as a weapon choice for PvP, the choice isn’t as clear as it is in PvE.

TL;DR – OH Dagger = Condition removal + Weaken target DPS. WH = interrupt + DS survival. Focus = Increase your DPS on target + Chilling boon strip. All are useful, just pick what’s most useful to you. :p

Well still see the perks in all the OH weapon choices. Guess I’ll get a focus now and give that a go as well! Thanks for the responses!

I use Axe/Dagger and never looked back.Dagger OH is just to good to not use were Condi is the new meta.

Dagger 4 does the most DMG out of any other Necro OH weapon.

Banjal.7328:

Dagger 4 does the most DMG out of any other Necro OH weapon.

No… unless you transfer enough conditions.
If you’re referring to the skill dmg coefficient: you need to add 50% for every boon removed with Spinal Shivers. And Locust Swarm ticks 10 times or 13 if traited.
Not to mention that Deathly Swarm has a 3 target aoe cap, while all others have 5.

See that’s what I’m saying. The above poster said danger off hand is a defensive weapon. I fail to see how a spell that does DMG and blinds and a spell that does DMG and adds multiple conditions is more defensive then a spell that does no DMG and dazes and a spell that does aoe DMG and gives a swiftness boon. I have an off hand dagger and I’ll pick up a focus and try them both out against my oh wh. Nice discussion though. Thanks for the input.

flow.6043:

Banjal.7328:

Dagger 4 does the most DMG out of any other Necro OH weapon.

No… unless you transfer enough conditions.
If you’re referring to the skill dmg coefficient: you need to add 50% for every boon removed with Spinal Shivers. And Locust Swarm ticks 10 times or 13 if traited.
Not to mention that Deathly Swarm has a 3 target aoe cap, while all others have 5.

Yeah im counting the condition transfer,its part of the skill.So to me Dagger 4 is very useful in PvP,in PvE I use Warhorn.

Last night I was fighting a Sword War,I let him do his little burst bleed and immobilize stack on me.I hit dagger 4 and he got 20 stacks of bleed and 4 sec of immobilize on him.The same night I ran in to a Condi Engi,he did his pull and stacked his confusion on me.I hit Dagger 4 and he killed himself before he realized he had his confusion on him.If you ran dagger OH you want them to stack Condi on you.Also it acts like a mini epidemic.

I like D/W.

Warhorn synergizes with mh dagger really well. You can get the most fluid action compared to the other off-hands. However, warhorn doesn’t synegerize with any other weaponset all that much since you have the ability to get out of melee range.

With D/W, necros have the ability to never let enemies escape you. You get immobilize and a cripple aura. You get a daze to stop warriors from leaping away. If that is not enough to stop elementalists or mesmer blinking away, use Dark Path to laugh at their attempts to run away.

Off-hand dagger is clunky and is more suited for scepter. It is great for emergency defense.

Stubie.5834:

See that’s what I’m saying. The above poster said danger off hand is a defensive weapon. I fail to see how a spell that does DMG and blinds and a spell that does DMG and adds multiple conditions is more defensive then a spell that does no DMG and dazes and a spell that does aoe DMG and gives a swiftness boon. I have an off hand dagger and I’ll pick up a focus and try them both out against my oh wh. Nice discussion though. Thanks for the input.

… just wow. I just realized why most of the respectable theorycrafters stopped posting here. My brain cells are dying just from reading this crap.

How does an attack that BLINDS and does less damage than mh dagger auto attack make oh dagger an offensive weapon?
‘adds multiple conditions’… what the kitten is the inherent offensive nature of ‘adding conditions’. The damage part is condition based (it’s rather weak on a power build) and the other condition is kittening weakness.

I’m not even gonna go into the difference between ‘offensive’ and ‘direct damage’ (which is not exactly the strength of necro OHs). Not that I’m surprised, but you didn’t even mention the (arguably :P) best dps OH: focus

Bawi.9541:

Stubie.5834:

See that’s what I’m saying. The above poster said danger off hand is a defensive weapon. I fail to see how a spell that does DMG and blinds and a spell that does DMG and adds multiple conditions is more defensive then a spell that does no DMG and dazes and a spell that does aoe DMG and gives a swiftness boon. I have an off hand dagger and I’ll pick up a focus and try them both out against my oh wh. Nice discussion though. Thanks for the input.

… just wow. I just realized why most of the respectable theorycrafters stopped posting here. My brain cells are dying just from reading this crap.

How does an attack that BLINDS and does less damage than mh dagger auto attack make oh dagger an offensive weapon?
‘adds multiple conditions’… what the kitten is the inherent offensive nature of ‘adding conditions’. The damage part is condition based (it’s rather weak on a power build) and the other condition is kittening weakness.

I’m not even gonna go into the difference between ‘offensive’ and ‘direct damage’ (which is not exactly the strength of necro OHs). Not that I’m surprised, but you didn’t even mention the (arguably :P) best dps OH: focus

When you have stacks of bleeds or like when a necro does a condi burst on you it does alot of dmg. The meta right now is all about Condi stacking,so having a weapon that can transfer them back is a good thing to have.

You do realize that I agree with that, right? I love oh dagger, still it is not something that I would consider to be the go-to offhand for mainhand dagger.

It’s a defensive weapon. You can’t use it to pressure all by itself. You need someone to attack you first – specifically with (dmg) conditions – to be able to retaliate.

Then again, if the OPs would start to mention the context of their questions maybe they could get useful answers right away, but yeah… n/c to that.

You’re a class act Bawi! You’re insults and condescending responses are both rewarding and helpful. I see both being of use hence the topic of discussion. I did mention focus actually if you read above where I said I will try dagger and focus to see which one I like better. Thanks for your vast insight on the necro weapons and obviously your superior opinion.

You’re welcome
Glad to spell out the tooltips to you
It’s been a pleasure to hear all the interesting ‘opinions’ on how the mechanics work. I was actually amazed at how the spells actually do what the wiki says they’d do. Wish you a nice day!

Thanks buddy right back at ya

Offhand dagger is good if you need the utility and weakness. Otherwise its beaten by both focus and warhorn. Locust swarm is a really good skill to have traited. Especially against multiple targets. Also reaper’s touch is amazing burst with vuln. When looking back at the numbers i found locust swarm is a very minor dps increase over just auto attacking on a single target as long as you get the full duration off. But with multiple enemies it becomes worth it every time. I havent calculated offhand dagger dps but with the cast time of dagger 5 id imagine its a dps loss over just auto attacking.

If you time it right, it’s actually not that bad (oh how I would love to get reliable information on the animation times ._.) It’s just that there are 2 power based offhands available :/
The lacking (crit (damage)) scaling is the problem of dagger#5 (imo). The base damage of the bleeding isn’t too shabby.

//edit: according to my calculations it is a dps loss compared to dagger#1, the gap depends on the actual animation times. I can’t see it overtaking wh or focus ever. Reaper’s touch only has to hit the enemy once per cd for it to destroy all the other OHs on single targets.