Guild Wars 2

I’ve been checking wikis/FAQs and haven’t been able to locate DPS figures on daggers vs <600 life blast. I know dagger wins, but by how much? Is there a thread somewhere or a good reference point? Thanks!

apple vs. orange

Fight!

It really depends on build specifics. I made a post about it in another thread on these forums:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Hybrid-vs-Full-Power-dps-wise/first#post2783281

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I think you guys are underselling lifeblast when it is traited with unyielding blast and deathly perception.

On my zerker 30/0/10/0/30 build, I have a base crit chance of 49% after food buffs, and a crit damage of 252%. I’ll use this as a standard for crit mods.

The dagger does base 940 damage over 2 seconds, having a DPS of roughly 470. Life Blast does base 341, but 10% extra with axe or staff, so this comes to 375 over 1.5 seconds, or 250 base damage per second.

With deathly perception, LIfe blast has a 99% chance to crit. So, the appropriate crit mods for each of them is 1.745 for the dagger, and 2.504 for Life Blast. This comes up with an adjusted base damage of:

Dagger: 820.15
Life Blast: 626 (436.25 W/O deathly perception)

On any single target, Dagger will outdamage life blast. With piercing life blast from Unyielding Blast, if Life Blast were to hit more than 1 target, then Life Blast outdamages the dagger.

So life blast is definitely a viable form of offense. You just have to line up and hit multiple enemies with it.

Basically, Life blast is really only worth it in a few circumstances:

#1: You can’t fight at melee for a moment.
#2: You can hit 2 or more enemies with unyielding blast while using either deathly perception, axe training with an axe, or a staff.
#3: You can hit 3 or more enemies with unyielding blast while not having deathly perception, axe training with an axe, or using a staff.

#4: use it before a fight or when in a condition spec as a cd-filler to get some might

In a dungeon where you realistically will have some boons and especially a bit might, with full zerker, your dagger rotation will do around 8-11k every time. Life blast does around 5-8k from what i’ve seen.
Not sure about which of the two is faster though, the full dagger #1 rotation or life blast shots, does anyone know?

In PvP, both are equally effective (from my view), I just use them in different situations.

Sometimes in WvW, I see someone I have decided not to like. They are kiting around, and so my dagger will be harder to implement. I switch into DS, and just use life blast. Itis surprising how may targets can’t cope with the DPS of it. Even super heal guardians tend to melt to it when they have no blocks and invulns there. And my lifeblast onyl hits for around 3k. xD

In my wvw death shroud build I run full valkyrie with just a smidge of zerker and a set of runes of the pack. This gives me 28% crit base before deathly perception. and 26k hp. While dagger does awesome damage if you have high crit chance you sacrifice a lot to get that precision stat up.

I would take my 26k hp necro that does 4-6k dmg hits at range to a 18k hp zerker dagger necro that does 8k at melee range. The crux is that by maxing vit and 30 into soul reaping, my DS HP is: 20451. 1% of 20451 is 204hp versus a 30/30/0/0/10 Dagger necro having about 10400 DS hp and 1% at 104 hp. While we produce life force at roughly the same rate percentage wise, not only do I start with twice as much hp, I get twice as much hp back pet hit. For instance one staff 1 ‘heals’ me for 816 hp.

In a fight the dagger necro has to get in range of me, not easy between multiple fears, chills, ect. Then he has to chew through 46k effective hp where I only need to lifeblast through 28k hp. Meanwhile I am regaining hp twice as fast as he is. So even if he had double dps, I would still win via lifeforce ‘healing’. Realistically, I can neutralize a lot of any melee enemies dps via kiting and skill. So I actually win hands down, even if my dps isn’t top notch.

I fought a very skilled mesmer not too long ago. He was that condi stacking build that is considered the best 1v1 build in wvw right now. Well, we fought for a very long time over a camp. Eventually he partied me and we talked. We agreed to a duel and we literally downed at the same time. Afterward he commented I was the first necro he could not beat. I’m not saying my build is the best 1v1 build for necro right now but I bet its pretty kitten close.

So don’t count out lifeblast. Even as a single target attack, range matters, and with the right build, you can even beat top notch players with it.

Dagger is awesome solo farming weapon. Massive down side of being meele range only, and single target only. It dose gen very nice lifeforce vs time.

Axe is kind of nicer in a group, as it stacks vuln. Has a little range. Massive down side is, #2 is very visual and it’s only LifeForce gen, so super easily avoided in PvP.

LifeBlast, is nice because it’s ranged. With traits, it go’s thru a line making it sort of AoE, also stacks vuln & might. (Tho not might stack per mob hit unlike say war)
LifeBlast’s damage is off current weapon. So flipping to staff before going into DS will do the best damage. (You used to be able to swap weaps in DS, but dev’s added a bug so it dosen’t, they know about it, but said they can’t be bothered fixing it)

it’s just a tad bit difficult to get to use the dagger, like most of the time, for various reasons. Except maybe npcs.

I count dagger in mostly for life force gain at close range if you don’t have enough range to make better use with axe. Even though dagger also does nice dmg, but like said there’s many reasons which prevent you from using dagger.