Guild Wars 2

As the title says, has anyone a viable spec for a Necro based on main hand dagger? I’ve tried a few setups, PvE and PvP, but it always falls short of the mark that all other weapons can achieve.

That one is tricky. I have tried it, too, but it’s so hard because you have to be in melee, so you have a better chance of getting killed. You can dodge in and out, of course, but it’s still tricky to achieve.

I’ve found that a dagger main hand with a warhorn offhand works well for me. I like the dagger because it does quite a bit of damage and with the warhorn you get the speed boost and the slow, so you can run circles around your target. I only use daggers for PvE though, so I don’t know how well it would d in PvP.

Managed to exceed at it! In arenas pvp at least.
I use this build → http://en.gw2codex.com/build/16321-dagger-pvp-necro

I’m not sure about higher levels, since I’m just about level 30 on my necro, but dual daggers work great for PvE when in a group. As soon as the mob switches agro to me I swap to scepter/focus and start kiting.

My personal current dungeon build is dagger main hand warhorn off hand ( the daze on the horn allows for an interrupt that otherwise would be lacking) im still fiddling with the traits for max damage out put, but as far as skills go, i try and keep dmg mitigating skills at the ready. being a light armor person in melee range is tricky but with the added life leech and a few defensive cds. ( and knowing when to swap weapons to the staff) iam so far finding the build enjoyable. more testing to come!
Senkrad-WTF guild- Maguuma

IMO and a lot of other good necro players I know. The dagger builds mesh together with the wells. But the problem is overall we are very squishy even with the large health pool. And you have to be way to close they couldn’t have made the daggers range any shorter…. I’ve messed with these in both PvE and PvP. In PvP against a good player your going to run into drastic problems. Let alone if you get more then one person on you.

Holy.2356:

Managed to exceed at it! In arenas pvp at least.
I use this build -> http://en.gw2codex.com/build/16321-dagger-pvp-necro

Not too shabby, almost identical to how I play in sPvP sometimes.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#McVMMccMoMGxomwRTM0xax0McbmVRb

I use that in dungeons. I originally made it for Arah since there’s bosses that are immune to condition damage there (just what everyone in the game asked for). I haven’t had the chance to test it there since, but I have used it in all the other dungeons. I pretty much just stand there and dps, even when the mobs focus me, the wells have enough healing to keep me at full hp 90% of the time. The other 10% is usually somebody else hitting a healing skill once while my stuff is on cool down. I do have 1500 toughness though, so you’ll probably need good gear.

Keep in mind I mainly PvE. I use Dagger&Focus/Staff with an emphasis on healing and wells for support.

In sticky situations I stagger the wells as needed to keep protection up as long as possible. And I do as many heals as I can to keep party up: Reaper’s Touch/Well of Blood/life transfer/heal out of death shroud/mark of blood on staff swap etc.

I stack power, healing, and toughness as main stats

Reaper’s Touch and Well of Suffering also stack a lot of vulnerability quickly for quite a big damage boost when healing isnt needed.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#MzVMMm9MoMxGmoMxGmx0ax0zMbmosR

Worden.9241:

Keep in mind I mainly PvE. I use Dagger&Focus/Staff with an emphasis on healing and wells for support.

In sticky situations I stagger the wells as needed to keep protection up as long as possible. And I do as many heals as I can to keep party up: Reaper’s Touch/Well of Blood/life transfer/heal out of death shroud/mark of blood on staff swap etc.

I stack power, healing, and toughness as main stats

Reaper’s Touch and Well of Suffering also stack a lot of vulnerability quickly for quite a big damage boost when healing isnt needed.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#MzVMMm9MoMxGmoMxGmx0ax0zMbmosR

This is pretty much my strategy as well. In PvE I mainly use staff and wells for aoe galore, but the dagger + focus weapon swap serves these main functions:
- Superior single-target DPS and death shroud generation, especially when marks are on CD
- Life Siphon and Reaper’s Touch for additional healing, especially right after using Mark of Blood
- Dark Pact and Spinal Shivers to disable dangerous melee foes

My main is a necro and I play duel daggers all the time in PvE very successfully. They key to this build, and to surviving in melee range is Blinds. With dagger off hand you get one blind on a very short cooldown (17sec if traited) and for you skills you can use shadow fiend to blind (14 sec cooldown) and also well of darkness for AoE long term blind (1min cooldown)

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#McVMzm9MoNxRmoNxRm

Also with the Flesh Golem. You can knock down multiple enemies, adding even more survivability. The key is to start off with Enfeebling Blood, then as you run into melee, Life Siphon, Once in melee alternate between your 3 blinds/1 knock down, and a cycle of your main auto attack. It works perfectly and you almost never get hit and your pets take almost no damage. If for some reason your pets are about to die, plop Well of Blood and there back up again!

This build is amazing and works wonders for me.

Malloway.7382:

My main is a necro and I play duel daggers all the time in PvE very successfully. They key to this build, and to surviving in melee range is Blinds. With dagger off hand you get one blind on a very short cooldown (17sec if traited) and for you skills you can use shadow fiend to blind (14 sec cooldown) and also well of darkness for AoE long term blind (1min cooldown)

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#McVMzm9MoNxRmoNxRm

Also with the Flesh Golem. You can knock down multiple enemies, adding even more survivability. The key is to start off with Enfeebling Blood, then as you run into melee, Life Siphon, Once in melee alternate between your 3 blinds/1 knock down, and a cycle of your main auto attack. It works perfectly and you almost never get hit and your pets take almost no damage. If for some reason your pets are about to die, plop Well of Blood and there back up again!

This build is amazing and works wonders for me.

This.

I love dual daggers, and have great survivability despite being in melee range all the time (constant movement and circling the target). This is also pretty much my exact build, and it’s the most fun so far in PvE for me. I love getting up close and personal and shredding my opponents.

I admit I switch to staff for PvP…but for everyday questing and leveling, daggers is the way to go!

I’m in the low 50’s and I am almost entirely a dagger necro. Although I have to say that I do level off of every map area, so that I go into quests at least 2+ levels over. But back to the point. I’ve been using daggers in the main and off hand. The offhand has a blinding skill. On my selected skills i rely on wells mainly if I know I have a group or strong enemy. The well which puts conditions of enemies such as vulnerabilty can help a ton for quick damage. The well which blinds i rely on the most with large groups because you need those few seconds to put a ton of damage down without the fear of getting hurt. For the final regular skill select I choose either the power signet or another well to keep conditions on the enemies. The last power skill i choose is the lich. The lich’s basic attack does around 3x the damage and the minions, while short, do pretty good damage. Wells for damage and crowd control are suprisingly effective. And when that doesnt work well enough. I switch to staff and lay down those marks till my skills recharge.

Hotface.8906:

I’ve found that a dagger main hand with a warhorn offhand works well for me. I like the dagger because it does quite a bit of damage and with the warhorn you get the speed boost and the slow, so you can run circles around your target. I only use daggers for PvE though, so I don’t know how well it would d in PvP.

I tried a warhorn and found that I preferred a Focus instead. Main reasons being that with the focus you get a vulnerability on your enemies and a regen on your allies (including you) In addition the 5 skill chills and strips buffs from enemies. I feel it allows me a better selection in terms of utility.

Aaronrdmkr.4013:

I’m in the low 50’s and I am almost entirely a dagger necro. Although I have to say that I do level off of every map area, so that I go into quests at least 2+ levels over. But back to the point. I’ve been using daggers in the main and off hand. The offhand has a blinding skill. On my selected skills i rely on wells mainly if I know I have a group or strong enemy. The well which puts conditions of enemies such as vulnerabilty can help a ton for quick damage. The well which blinds i rely on the most with large groups because you need those few seconds to put a ton of damage down without the fear of getting hurt. For the final regular skill select I choose either the power signet or another well to keep conditions on the enemies. The last power skill i choose is the lich. The lich’s basic attack does around 3x the damage and the minions, while short, do pretty good damage. Wells for damage and crowd control are suprisingly effective. And when that doesnt work well enough. I switch to staff and lay down those marks till my skills recharge.

I run a similar build and I have to ask, when using the Lich skill do you find yourself to be fairly squishy? I know it has great damage but it seems lackluster on dodging and doesn’t seem to add any real survivability. How do you cope with that?

I’ve yet to see a good Dagger Necro in dungeons. You just don’t have enough lockdown to survive in melee and the damage isn’t so much better than Scepter that I don’t find it to be worth it. Offhand? Dagger’s the best choice. For the main hand your DPS is while the best of the choices still not super hot while you lose utility and range. For generalized leveling it works perfectly well, but you simply do not have enough uptime on your blinds and knockdowns to make it worthwhile.

In terms of sPvP you’ll want to pair it with a Focus or a Warhorn and it works far better. Focus basically means that they can’t escape you between the Chill and your Immobilize while the Warhorn does it through cripple + swiftness and the Daze gives you a chance to stop annoying moves such as 100Blades and gives you 2 seconds of free hits. It’s still not as good as the other options in my opinion, but it works a lot better

I’ve run double dagger pretty much exclusively up till this point (level 50 atm), just cause I love the vampiric flavor of the whole thing.

Over all the build rocks for solo/duo PvE, it thrives on being surrounded tons of enemies for you well to hit, and your death shroud life drain…holy jeebus that thing and a well of suffering combined cankittennear kill half a dozen equal level mobs and leave you with a full health when DS drops.

In fact the more I play the more sure I am deathshroud is the key to the whole survivability. In particular I think specing 30 into soul reaping (in addition to 30 into blood clearly) might just be the key to making the dagger build survivable. In addition to helping with the whole extra life bar thing, it helps with how reliant you are on well cool downs, giving you a chance to regularly chill in death shroud while you wait to spam wells again.

Something like this perhaps?-http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#MmVMzzczohxMoMNTaM9MaxxmMRboRq

My current build has a double dagger and a staff. Works excellent if you get the vampirism traits. Have the well healing skill, plus some condition-focused skills(and the signet of locusts for even more healing). Siphon health is essentially a healing skill on its own if you handle everything right, healing multiple thousand health(I’m at level 49) in a matter of seconds, recharging quickly as well.

I feel like dagger on the necro is a hair’s breadth away from being viable. I see so many good synergies and traits for it… but then the traits are only accessible if I give up some of my core traits that would be infinitely more useful. If they rejigger the traits, and give us maybe just one more way as dagger to avoid damage, it could be fantastic. But for now, I can’t help feeling that axes are the best way to go.

due to the way traits are setup, dagger isn’t really that functional unless you switch to it for a quick siphon then switch back. Bout all it’s good for, even then it’s better to roll with a staff 2ndary rather than dag/dag.

Tried Holy’s spec early in sPvP for some while. Not too bad, but if they avoid the root they avoid the wells – and if they avoid the wells, they’ve won. Didn’t seem to be too good for team play either. A bit hit and miss.

But it’s still by far the best setup I’ve tried DPS-wise with the dagger. I fear it might be a bit too bursty to have much viability in PvE compared to the other weapons, but have yet to test that.

I’ve been using the dagger a lot as a support/healing Necromancer in WvW, just for the root really although the small health siphon isn’t unwelcome on occassion. Still nothing worth throwing yourself into melee for.

I use the dagger all the time…. though… I typically have 6 minions toting behind me which tends to help the survivability issue (30 in death).

Dual dagger is the way to go if you plan on mainhanding daggers. Like some said above, blinds are key to survival. Well of blindness is an excellent tool, and if you throw that down with well of blood on top of it and then life siphon, you can nearly full heal. I saw a few people saying they traited with death magic and used a lot of minions, I’d advise against this at higher levels. If you’re gonna go the minion route, daggers is not for you. Blood, soul reaping, and spite are good for dagger necros. You want your hp to be as high as you can get it, don’t bother with too much toughness. I tried statting that way with lots of toughness and it just doesn’t work. If you have lots of hp you can still use the skills that inflict self conditions without taking a huge hit from it. Also spectral grasp is a good way to pick your target from the crowd and bring them to you as opposed to running leeroy style into a large group and getting facerolled. Wells are your best friend, learn to use them effectively and you will pwn with dual daggers. As far as the elite, idk I have used the flesh golem some but I also have warband support being a charr and honestly i like it better, but that’s just personal preference moreso than it being more viable, so the elite really is up to you. I did try Plague for a little bit, but that’s a really good way to get dead fast, You have to be in melee range to use the plague attacks and it locks out your entire bar other than the 3 plague skills including any healing so you usually wind up dying in a few seconds. As far as gear goes, I usually go for power/condition damage stats and vitality on all my accessories/rings, ect. My daggers are :mainhand has the fire sigil (does aoe fire damage every so often) and the chargeable power sigil (grants +5 pwoer with every kill until you are downed) but sometimes I swap that offhand with an identical dagger with the chargeable condition sigil, depending on what I’m up against. In dungeons you can use the dual daggers easily on most trash mobs, but for heavier fights forget it. Either go with staff, or my personal favorite for toughies: axe/focus. The axe is way more powerful than people give it credit for, it can tear down their defense on tough guys quickly and make them much easier to deal with. Plus the focus helps add some regens to your group as well as retaliation and boon removals. Hope this helps, give it a shot and see how it works for you!

Sigma.9746:

I’ve yet to see a good Dagger Necro in dungeons. You just don’t have enough lockdown to survive in melee and the damage isn’t so much better than Scepter that I don’t find it to be worth it. Offhand? Dagger’s the best choice. For the main hand your DPS is while the best of the choices still not super hot while you lose utility and range. For generalized leveling it works perfectly well, but you simply do not have enough uptime on your blinds and knockdowns to make it worthwhile.

I survive with the one I linked. A lot of it has to do with the weakness on crit trait I picked at 30 points. I can stand in the first pull @CoF with the flamethrowers, glancing blow everything, and never drop below 50% with all 3 hitting me. Dagger is huge for dpsing objects, everyone knows it takes scepter 10 years to destroy an object, it only takes 2 years with a dagger. We dont have spin-to-win for burst, but we have some decent sustained with it.

Couple that with me going 30 points into Curses anyway, you can switch back to scepter any time you want depending on the situation and go conditionmancer. Like say if there’s a boss you really just cannot stand in melee range with, I haven’t seen it but maybe others would have trouble because of gear.

Hmm, I’ve never really taken the Weakness on Crits trait. I’ll look into it today and give it some testing.

Worden.9241:

In sticky situations I stagger the wells as needed to keep protection up as long as possible. And I do as many heals as I can to keep party up: Reaper’s Touch/Well of Blood/life transfer/heal out of death shroud/mark of blood on staff swap etc.

Just a quick note: Protection stacks in duration, so dropping all 4 Wells at a time will simply extend the duration of Protection.

D/F burst build

If at range you can start a fight by popping DS and use dark path to teleport and chill your target. Then use dark pact, spinal shivers and your flesh golem’s cripple to keep your target from running out of your wells. The burst damage comes from traited Bone Minions that explode for 1.8k-2k each and combo with your wells dark field to create an aoe blind. The axe/dagger switch gives you a bit of range and allows you to build up vuln stacks, and the dagger off-hand is good for another blind and condition transfer.

While I probably wouldn’t use this build for dungeons, it’s pretty fun when soloing.

My build: http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#McVMzm0MmbRaombRaM0p0GpMcMaVR

Mainly made it for WvW, pulling foes down their walls is incredibly fun. But it works in most situation and give great mobility (constant +25% move speed, reduced fall damages) . I use it with a rage sigil and power/pre/crit + power/tough/pre equipment mix.

Not good for WvW but in SPvPAfter I destroy people. 30 spite with 30% damage to minions, 25 blood, 15 death with golem elite. Try it and use your golems charge every time it’s up.

Nay of the Ether.8913:

Dual dagger is the way to go if you plan on mainhanding daggers. Like some said above, blinds are key to survival. Well of blindness is an excellent tool, and if you throw that down with well of blood on top of it and then life siphon, you can nearly full heal.

Any well creates a blind field on blast. So you can achieve the same effect by using, say, bone wurms or bone minions with a more useful well.

Here is a build i have been using lately.. mostly spvp.

It is rather fun to use as you are rather tanky and the damage is average. You have a lot of speed inherent in the build, good for getting in and out of a fight. The key is swapping in and out of death shroud for the retaliation as well as keeping up a few stacks of might. Although it really isnt a pure dagger build as I switch weapons a lot

For those going the life steal type specs you might wan to try something else, it is very mediocre right now with some traitsare not working properly and the returns are rather pathetic. Something like 30 health from each well tick. And you know that life transfer signet, the 50% on life steals actually makes this perform worse ><