Guild Wars 2

Let’s be quick for once:
Problem: dagger main hand and GS compete in the same field (melee damage). They obviously differ in some aspects but it seems difficult to balance so that one does not completely replace the other in one way or another (the main thing I see balance-wise is in PvP if GS does more DPS but misses more often because so slow).

danger:
the GS is not a “normal” weapon, it is bound to an elite specialization, so you can’t make it steal the place of a core weapon since not everyone will have the expansion/not everyone want to give up a trait line for it/future elite specializations won’t be able to use the GS

Solution: make dagger a hybrid weapon. You could actually keep essentially the same damage coefficients as currently but add some conditions to it. For example for the AA, if you keep the coefs and add 3 bleed (6s base) and 1 poison (4s base) you can do the maths and see that the damage of dagger is about the same in power as it is in rampager/sinister.

pros:
We would thus have a niche for each weapon
GS: melee damage
dagger: melee condi/hybrid
axe: mid-range damage
scepter: mod-range condi/hybrid
staff: long range utility/defensive

also, this change would not invalidate the dagger in power builds for those who don’t have the expansion or simply prefer dagger vs GS
but it would open options for condi builds

cons
Somehow I think people won’t like the idea of changing the dagger since it’s our most used weapon (with staff), almost present in every build. But I really think there is no downside to it.

future
I think the poison/bleeding fits very well with the theme of the dagger. But scepter already applies those. Many people already argue for a revamp of the scepter, and maybe some new conditions attached to it would be nice to cover more different type (terror? torment?).

I’ll just illustrate why people won’t like this idea.
1) This would make dagger our only weapon. No one would take scepter or axe over it, which is pretty much already the case.

2) Dagger auto would be the best condi and direct dps, what point would their be in taking anything else? A hybrid weapon should be best in hybrid builds, not every single build (thus why hybrid warriors use sword, but zerker ones use gs).

3) Dagger auto is already necros best weapon skill, meanwhile dagger 3 and especially dagger 2 are undertuned. Those skills, or the other weapons would be better off getting buffs.

4) Literally just walking all over scepter. Scepter needs some changes, they don’t need to rework the whole weapon though (Scepter only really needs torment instead of bleeding on grasping dead and the 3 skill to apply conditions per condi on the target). If they did this and only changed scepter a little, they would be too similar thematically.

5) GS and dagger don’t fill the same role. The only things that are similar on the two weapons are that they are melee (even then, dagger has 1 melee skill). Something like this would hold some merit if Gs and dagger did the same thing, but they are very different weapons (big aoe cleave damage vs mostly single target lockdown).

So yes, this is a suggestion I don’t like. It is a suggestion that doesn’t make sense to me, and I don’t think it would fix any of our problems. It would shoehorn us into always running dagger on base necro, and make scepter and axe, which are the weapons that need buffs, even more irrelevant.

GS and dagger won’t compete, look at other professions which have a ton of melee weapons. If anything I’ll be using them both in the same build, as will a number of people.

Well I agree partly with your comments. But it just shows that the other weapons are lackluster! Scepter should make sense over dagger for the additional range if it was stronger (or scepter AND dagger mh swap to complete each other).
Also, GS should be stronger than dagger in order to become our go-to melee damage weapon.
Axe would not be less used than it currently is.

I didn’t want to reduce the coefficients for dagger to make sure people wouldn’t see that as a nerf of the dagger. But yes, more condition and less damage could work.

Currently condi is unviable mostly because of the weaknesses of scepter as a condi weapon (+ staff is not really a condi weapon considering its AA does not apply any condi, although it is still viable in a condi build). Buffing scepter and adding dagger would make a good combo.

That being said, I agree with torment on scepter. But scepter 3 also need a change.

I fully plan on running Dagger/Warhorn+Greatsword for PvE content. Greatsword doesn’t have the rapid attacks or attack speed to compete with stacking Life Siphon in PvE, which adds an incredible amount to your front loaded DPS. I’d then swap to Greatsword for cleaving and big hits while my wells and Signet of Vampirism are on cooldown, blow those cool downs, swap to Reaper’s Shroud go through the rotation, swap back to Dagger/Warhorn, and repeat.

I don’t agree that dagger and greatsword will compete. There will be good builds for both.

But we do lack a melee condi weapon so there is some merit to the idea.

The problem is adding conditions to dagger baseline is a buff to power builds since it’s extra damage we didn’t have before and we use conditions to proc certain traits. Dagger is already so good I don’t think a baseline buff is a good idea.

I’d say change a trait to add conditions to dagger so it takes some investment.

Move quickening thirst to curses and make it add torment to all dagger skills. New trait would be like:

Move 25% faster while wielding a dagger. Dagger skills inflict 1 stack of torment for 5s. Dagger skills recharge 20% faster.

Put it in adept instead of chilling darkness. Just scrap chilling darkness entirely and add a new blood magic trait that would be worth using. Here’s a simple idea:

Blood Ritual – Cast Blood is Power when you enter shroud.

Boom ship it.