Guild Wars 2

In my opinion our MH dagger needs improvement which in one strike would solve several shortcomings of the necro class and make it more fun to play.

I would suggest the following adjustments:

Dagger #1 Necrotic Stab: Leach endurance with a successful strike.

Reason: Dagger MH essentially is a melee weapon and the necro lacks survivability in melee range compared to the other melee classes. So if you want to use the #1 autoattack against other melees you have to go in, do some damage and get out real quick. The necro however lacks the ability to retreat from melee combat. With more endurance (and less on my enemy) it would be easier to get out, but still need some skill.

Dagger #3 Dark Pact: Reduce cast time to 0.5 secs. Reduce CD to 20 secs. Add a chain skill which at successful hit gives you the ability to pull yourself to the target, causes a little damage and acts as a leap finisher.

Reason: Bring it more in line with http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magnetic_Grasp. The CD reduction of 0.5 secs does not sound like much, but it makes a huge difference when some melee is whacking you and simply jumping around like crazy (not dodging) when lag comes into play. Also the CD reduction of 5 secs seems justified considering Magnetic Grasp only has 12 secs CD for a 2 sec immobilize. The chain skill leap would give the necro a 600 range gap closer (which all melee weapons have in some form) as an alternative to DS #2 and it would add additional complexity to the necro playstyle since we have no other chain skills (except autoattacks) and the player would need to make the decision whether to use the gap closer for the damage/finisher or better not (risk-reward). Also it would give the necro a leap finisher which could be used with our dark/poison fields.

I think these two changes are necessary to make the MH dagger necro viable against other melee classes. The current situation is that almost all dps is packed into the #1 autoattack which however we cannot use against other melees since necro lacks the tools to go toe to toe with them. With the above changes some fast paced melee guerilla style of play would be possible. For example: Put down a well, immobilize them in the well, leap to them causing blindness, get off a round of autoattacks and then dodge away.

I totally 100% agree that MH dagger needs a buff.

I know it needs SOMETHING. Maybe a 300 range cleave like ele’s dagger in fire attunement.

Hell maybe all we need is some way to gain vigor, as we currently have NO ways to gain endurance which is vital, since the dagger is our only damage dealing power weapon really.

It has one damaging ability at long range, #2, and #3 goes along with it well. But auto attack is really its best damager and you can hardly use it because there is no survivability. Our utility that gives protection is on a 90s cooldown.

Currently our only option (that I could find) is to use dagger offhand for the blind, and well of darkness. Maybe add a blind to the second hit of dagger auto attack?

It is possible to get protection via spectral wall, spectral armor, last gasp, ritual of protection, armor runes, and increased effectiveness through boon duration. Not to mentioned the survivability we get through life force generators.

I really do feel like dagger is missing something though, but I’m not quite sure if it’s a gap closer. We already have both dark path and spectral grasp on relatively short cooldowns, that can be reduced even further with traits. I think what you might be suggesting is a more responsive and timely gap closer- Having to go into death shroud, and wait for a slow moving projectile to hit the target (which can be avoided by LoSing the projectile before it hits them) as well as using an ability that fails to work half the time due to a bug/terrain/projectile LoS via spectral grasp (as previously mentioned with dark pact) is simply too unreliable.

Edit: I really do like your endurance drain idea though, but it has been mentioned several times before.

A blind on autoattack would be too strong. Against an enemy with slow attack speed like a hammer or mace warrior you could probably just stand there autoattacking him with him not being able to hit back. I also do not think cleave for #1 would solve the problem of #1 autoattack having a bad risk-reward ratio against other melee.

I already use Spectral Armor with decreased CD, Last Gasp and runes with +20% protection duration and another free 4secs protection every 30secs, but stepping into melee range with other melees still turns out bad for me most of the time. Other classes with melee weapons simply have too many utilities on the melee weapons to cc you or avoid your attacks. On the other hand for necro MH dagger #2 does nothing to support you in melee combat while the immobilize on #3 also does not help when attacking other melees.

The only real chance I can see for necro melee is that he gets some way for temporarily disabling other melees for a quick strike and then quick retreat. And a quick gap closer combined with a blind (if done right) seems viable. DS #2 and Spectral Grasp are not really suited for that due to the slow projectile speed + 0.75 secs cast time – if I use these on enemies < 600 range that are not running away it is faster to simply run. Also neither of them are a leap finisher.

Levian.6742:

I know it needs SOMETHING. Maybe a 300 range cleave like ele’s dagger in fire attunement.

Would not even need extra range, just being able to hit an arc with the auto-attack would go a long way towards making vampiric builds more viable, as you would then be bringing in 50 health pr target pr slash. if you could get them to pile 5 high, that is 250 pr slash. More if you happen to land a wave of crits.

In my opinion, MH dagger needs the AoE/retaliation move MH axes have.

Personally a cleave would be enough for me to at least consider playing it. Honestly, if Vampiric scaled off Healing Power like it should, I’d use MH Dagger for the attack speed alone. I do think #3 needs to be changed though. Immobilize on the closest-range weapon I’ve ever seen? Wow, that’s so useful.

Though perhaps it’s intended to use it then behind backing away while using #2 (which I also find underwhelming). The range on that move makes it so I just end up taking more damage than I heal from having to be so kitten close. Half the time, immobilized things can still hit me while I’m close enough to Life Siphon.