Guild Wars 2

Currently, MH Dagger is taken because it’s our only power weapon that doesn’t suck. Axe has range, but lousy damage. Dagger is melee, but has pretty good damage. But with the Greatsword being seemingly purely direct damage focused, what does that leave for the dagger? Basically everything the GS was stated to do, which is large damage in melee to many foes, along with strong life force generation and oodles of CC, is what the dagger already does. Am I missing something key here, or is the GS just a strictly better dagger?

Dagger could go for a defensive weapon through life froce and life siphon.

Autoattacks? It could be like the warrior’s axe vs GS dilemma (where you use GS for its skills and the axe for its AA) or guardian’s sword vs GS/hammer.

We dont know the numbers yet but i assume GS auto would have lower damage than its dagger counterpart as a tradeoff for superior burst and cleave.

The dagger will still have its uses to people who value attack speed over the potential to be counter-played by blinds and people dodging your probably very-pronounced GS attacks. I’m not very good at looking out for counter-play on my necromancer, so I would probably fare better still using dagger, considering it probably isn’t as big of a deal to miss a dagger attack than a GS attack.

We’ll figure that out tomorrow, I seriously doubt the greatsword AA is better than dagger for pure single target damage.
Between shroud knight, greatsword bursting attacks, dagger AA and reaper’s touch, new damage shouts and ofc wells, I’d imagine power necros could pump out some insane dps rotations.

I don’t know what GS is going to look like damage-wise, but dagger #1 wrecks. Dagger #3 is beautiful for set-up, and will probably synergize well with the GS, especially if they have to use more dodges to avoid more hits. And if you land the Dagger #3, you can switch to GS and land the heavy hits while they are immob’d for 3 seconds (or more if you have more condi duration). Plus, dagger gives you the option for OHs, so you can choose something like dagger OH for AoE weakness and a blind/condi transfer, or focus for boon removal/more chill and burst damage that already combos with dagger #3. You can even still bring WH for more LF generation through WH #5 and the good ol’ WH #4 daze.

I’m sure everyone is thinking “Well you’re obvs going to want to bring Staff because you’ll get chill out of Staff #3 and chill out of Staff #5, plus condi transfer”, but that’s just one option. I personally am thinking about rolling GS/D+F for my weapon set at the moment, with GS/D+D as a back-up plan.

Heck, even dagger #2 is nice in certain circumstances, as you don’t need to face your target for it to continue channeling. It doesn’t have instant sledgehammer impact to the fight, but I’ve used it several times when there weren’t many other good options.

Turk.5460:

The dagger will still have its uses to people who value attack speed over the potential to be counter-played by blinds and people dodging your probably very-pronounced GS attacks. I’m not very good at looking out for counter-play on my necromancer, so I would probably fare better still using dagger, considering it probably isn’t as big of a deal to miss a dagger attack than a GS attack.

yep. you dont even need to take gs technically. the reaper shroud skills alone would suffice. get them down to half health with axe/focus then go in for the kill with a reaper shroud/dagger combo.

For all intents and purposes we could assume that the autoattack is stronger. In this situation we’d mirror Guardians who use their leap→spin→symbol→AA→spin swap Sword autoattack and repeat.

In this situation we could just as easily use our gap closer, use our burst damage attacks and swap to Dagger + Horn/Focus instead of just camping Greatsword

Dagger should work very well with the sword.

Also Dagger #3 is godly, and Dagger is QUICK (and if we’re in melee and power specced anyway, what else would we take?). And Focus for the oneshots via vulnerability (although with the fear to chill to vulnerability thing I don’t know if we’d even need it) or warhorn for Life Force sustain in melee and a daze.

Don’t forget focus chill or OH dagger blind

Anchoku.8142:

Dagger should work very well with the sword.

I don’t really think it will, especially if you take the new trait line. Having melee death shroud and a melee greatsword seems like having another melee set on top of melee DS is a bad idea.

The thing that I like about power necro right now is that I have long, mid, and short range options. Having all melee takes a lot of that away. Most of the trade offs should be worth it, but I doubt all of them will.

Im assuming dagger will have higher DPS on auto attack on single targetes, and gs will have lower single target dps but do more damage to groups of targets. So both are melee weapons, one for single targets (boss fights) one for groups (pvp, trash mobs)

Í will go DD + GS, see no reason not to keep my Dagger

Roe.3679:

Anchoku.8142:

Dagger should work very well with the sword.

I don’t really think it will, especially if you take the new trait line. Having melee death shroud and a melee greatsword seems like having another melee set on top of melee DS is a bad idea.

The thing that I like about power necro right now is that I have long, mid, and short range options. Having all melee takes a lot of that away. Most of the trade offs should be worth it, but I doubt all of them will.

Yeah, but really, what else would you take? Axe is terrible, staff is twohanded meaning no warhorn which is great in CQC, scepter is condi … Dagger AA has good life force gain, superb damage, and dagger #3 can be godlike in PvP.

Shiki.7148:

Roe.3679:

Anchoku.8142:

Dagger should work very well with the sword.

I don’t really think it will, especially if you take the new trait line. Having melee death shroud and a melee greatsword seems like having another melee set on top of melee DS is a bad idea.

The thing that I like about power necro right now is that I have long, mid, and short range options. Having all melee takes a lot of that away. Most of the trade offs should be worth it, but I doubt all of them will.

Yeah, but really, what else would you take? Axe is terrible, staff is twohanded meaning no warhorn which is great in CQC, scepter is condi … Dagger AA has good life force gain, superb damage, and dagger #3 can be godlike in PvP.

Staff 1 is supposed to bounce after the update, and that could make it a lot less useless. Axe/focus also fills a niche, even if it does so poorly right now. I’d rather have something other than melee/melee/melee.

Kaldrys.1978:

We dont know the numbers yet but i assume GS auto would have lower damage than its dagger counterpart as a tradeoff for superior burst and cleave.

Don’t forget that fast pull skill. That could be the main selling point for Necro’s GS.

Roe.3679:

Staff 1 is supposed to bounce after the update, and that could make it a lot less useless.

Um what? Source?

Roe.3679:

Shiki.7148:

Roe.3679:

Anchoku.8142:

Dagger should work very well with the sword.

I don’t really think it will, especially if you take the new trait line. Having melee death shroud and a melee greatsword seems like having another melee set on top of melee DS is a bad idea.

The thing that I like about power necro right now is that I have long, mid, and short range options. Having all melee takes a lot of that away. Most of the trade offs should be worth it, but I doubt all of them will.

Yeah, but really, what else would you take? Axe is terrible, staff is twohanded meaning no warhorn which is great in CQC, scepter is condi … Dagger AA has good life force gain, superb damage, and dagger #3 can be godlike in PvP.

Staff 1 is supposed to bounce after the update, and that could make it a lot less useless. Axe/focus also fills a niche, even if it does so poorly right now. I’d rather have something other than melee/melee/melee.

Source?

Edit : Ninja’d.

I also want a source. That sounds really interesting.

Sabre.8627:

We’ll figure that out tomorrow, I seriously doubt the greatsword AA is better than dagger for pure single target damage.
Between shroud knight, greatsword bursting attacks, dagger AA and reaper’s touch, new damage shouts and ofc wells, I’d imagine power necros could pump out some insane dps rotations.

Dagger AA is able to hit 2 targets ages ago.

Bah, my mind is already set. D/D + GS and sometimes D/F + GS .

They mentioned staff bounce effect in the core specializations livestream I believe, I’m much more focused on the core ones than Reaper,dagger still has higher dps and definitely higher LF gain, GS are usually used in rotation for benefits.

Sagat.3285:

They mentioned staff bounce effect in the core specializations livestream I believe, I’m much more focused on the core ones than Reaper,dagger still has higher dps and definitely higher LF gain, GS are usually used in rotation for benefits.

Yup. It was mentioned on the live stream but they didn’t spend any time on it.

Dagger is gonna be more for survivability via life siphon, vampirism, and life force generation. Not to mention having warhorn as an offhand for that sweet life force generation, cripple, and swiftness.

Greatsword is probably gonna have higher damage, but less survivability and speed.

Roe.3679:

Sagat.3285:

They mentioned staff bounce effect in the core specializations livestream I believe, I’m much more focused on the core ones than Reaper,dagger still has higher dps and definitely higher LF gain, GS are usually used in rotation for benefits.

Yup. It was mentioned on the live stream but they didn’t spend any time on it.

I thought that was just a Mesmer thing, where all the bouncing attacks would gain an extra bounce baseline since they were removing Illusionary Elasticity?

Greatsword for skills, dagger for auto-attack and proccing runes. Gonna’ be epic and I can’t wait.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Roe.3679:

Sagat.3285:

They mentioned staff bounce effect in the core specializations livestream I believe, I’m much more focused on the core ones than Reaper,dagger still has higher dps and definitely higher LF gain, GS are usually used in rotation for benefits.

Yup. It was mentioned on the live stream but they didn’t spend any time on it.

I thought that was just a Mesmer thing, where all the bouncing attacks would gain an extra bounce baseline since they were removing Illusionary Elasticity?

Nope it will bounce.

Dagger will be used to deal damage instead of the greatsword. Because of the lack of sustain of necromancers generally but expecially in melee by the time they land their fancy slow attacks they will be dead. Meanwhile with dagger you can jump in, deal huge damage then run like a kitten.

In the odd case they actually survive enough to cast a few attacks all their hits will be completely shut down by blinds, dodged because of the huge ramp up time, interrupted etc.

We don’t even know what the greatsword does, we need to chill out.

Bhawb.7408:

We don’t even know what the greatsword does, we need to chill out.

That’s exactly what the greatsword does, according to the blog post.

Captain Unusual.9163:

Bhawb.7408:

We don’t even know what the greatsword does, we need to chill out.

That’s exactly what the greatsword does, according to the blog post.

Then it’s alarmingly ineffective, based on the amount of threads generated here before the actual reveal of the new skills and (possibly) traits.

Edit:
If you’re talking about bouncing staff attacks, and you’re talking about the words around 3:08:30 in this video (I don’t know how to imbed timestamps into these urls, sorry) then they’re still talking about the Illusionary Elasticity trait on Mesmer.

I get that the hype train is off the rails, but come on guys.

Bhawb.7408:

We don’t even know what the greatsword does, we need to chill out.

Formal Accusation:

Bhawb with the Pun in the Forumatory.

Tim.6450:

Dagger could go for a defensive weapon through life froce and life siphon.

Life siphon sucks though.

runeblade.7514:

Tim.6450:

Dagger could go for a defensive weapon through life froce and life siphon.

Life siphon sucks though.

Decent heal if you decide to take signet of vamp. Auto attack until u take an accidental hit, then use life siphon. Then when signet of vamp is up again you get another half heal. Otherwise, yeah life siphon is bad. Dagger is purely a single target DPS weapon. Hopefully, gs is a melee cleave weapon for multiple targets, and maybe some burst skills. So you would: locust swarm, swap to gs to do a burst, then swap back to dagger for Auto attack. Hopefully. Atleast for dungeons. In pvp, gs might have a role as a mobility weapon or an anti-mobility weapon (it appears to have a pull). So you can p ull targets back if they try to escape with gs, or pop into DS and have some mobility TO a target.

Life Siphon is great if you invest in a bit of healing power. It easily hits 3-4k heals without taking Healing Power primary gear, which is quite strong considering its short cooldown.

As for what the dagger’s role is? We’ll have to see. I’m sure in single or dual target situations, it’s still our best choice for DPS.

If you are talking about PVE, the dagger’s main-hand’s main role will be to enable the various off-hand weapons that necros have.

No one can disagree that dagger main-hand’s only purpose is to deal damage. But, necro off-hand weapons are actually pretty good. Dagger off-hand has a chaining blind + condition transfer, and a long lasting AoE weakness and bleed. The warhorn has a potent AoE stun plus nigh permanent swiftness when traited. The focus has good damage and vulnerability application, as well as chill + boon removal.

It is likely that the new loadout will be Greatsword / Dagger + Focus. Unless the axe gets some hereto unmentioned buff.

Sagat.3285:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Roe.3679:

Sagat.3285:

They mentioned staff bounce effect in the core specializations livestream I believe, I’m much more focused on the core ones than Reaper,dagger still has higher dps and definitely higher LF gain, GS are usually used in rotation for benefits.

Yup. It was mentioned on the live stream but they didn’t spend any time on it.

I thought that was just a Mesmer thing, where all the bouncing attacks would gain an extra bounce baseline since they were removing Illusionary Elasticity?

Nope it will bounce.

It said nothing in the livestream about Necro Staff 1 bouncing, just that Illusionary Elasticity would become baseline for Mesmers.

Just that damage while downed will be reduced, minion recharge and focus range has been made baseline, Dark Armour and Spiteful Talisman were removed.

http://dulfy.net/2015/04/24/gw2-specializations-ama-livestream-notes/

Warcry.8914:

For all intents and purposes we could assume that the autoattack is stronger. In this situation we’d mirror Guardians who use their leap->spin->symbol->AA->spin swap Sword autoattack and repeat.

In this situation we could just as easily use our gap closer, use our burst damage attacks and swap to Dagger + Horn/Focus instead of just camping Greatsword

I never understood the swap in the guardian here. The sword and the GS has the same casting time both takes 1 1/2 sec to complete the chain. But with GS you get an stack of might. Unless you have some sigil on weapon swap i fail to see the utility.

Right now the necro weapon sucks. If GS has a very long casting times will render that weapon useless because would depend to much in the target being immobilized.
the only way this could work if is chill applies Slow on enemies, so they casting times increase and by that they can’t dodge/interrupt our casting if they are on melee range.

So i could say the dagger will keep it’s rol just yet. Lets see what Anet bring us with the Reaper.

Daggers are fast GSs are not?

anduriell.6280:

Warcry.8914:

For all intents and purposes we could assume that the autoattack is stronger. In this situation we’d mirror Guardians who use their leap->spin->symbol->AA->spin swap Sword autoattack and repeat.

In this situation we could just as easily use our gap closer, use our burst damage attacks and swap to Dagger + Horn/Focus instead of just camping Greatsword

I never understood the swap in the guardian here. The sword and the GS has the same casting time both takes 1 1/2 sec to complete the chain. But with GS you get an stack of might. Unless you have some sigil on weapon swap i fail to see the utility.

Right now the necro weapon sucks. If GS has a very long casting times will render that weapon useless because would depend to much in the target being immobilized.
the only way this could work if is chill applies Slow on enemies, so they casting times increase and by that they can’t dodge/interrupt our casting if they are on melee range.

So i could say the dagger will keep it’s rol just yet. Lets see what Anet bring us with the Reaper.

Well first, the autoattack damage of sword and gs are similar, but the third attack in the chain favors the sword, which has higher coefficients (1.5 vs 1.2 on the GS), thus the sword is marginally higher damage on AA.

sw/focus also gives defensive utility via blinds (2 vs 1 in GS), projectile blocking and a 3-hit block. Not to mention focus 5 is very good damage.

However, where the sword really shines is via traits. GS gets a trait that increases damage by 5%, compared to sword which gets a trait which increases damage by 10% AND gets a trait which increases critical chance by 15%.

Sure, when you look at both sword and GS AA in a vacuum, they might seem comparable, but when you include the traits and the offhand skills, switching to sword for AA is much preferable to camping GS.

Dagger will be the fast hitting weapon.

Greatsword will be the burst damage & cleaving weapon.

Axe will be the thing nobody ever wants to use.

Staff will be the utility weapon

Scepter will be the condition choice.

Really I wish they would change axe training trait so that the damage was baked in base line & it instead increased the range of number 1 & number 2 to 900 or even 1200 units.
Then the necro would finally have a decent ranged power weapon.

The weapons may get tweaked.

Dagger focus looks like it will have the most synergy with great sword.

Axe may lose more equip time but it is still the longest range power weapon and condition caps are being reviewed.

If we go by the trait lines, dagger is situated in blood (our support line), so it is technically supposed to be a support weapon. It would be great if Anet made #2 on dagger heal allies via the Transfusion trait that currently only works in DS. This would go a long way with giving necros some team support.

Kharr.5746:

If we go by the trait lines, dagger is situated in blood (our support line), so it is technically supposed to be a support weapon. It would be great if Anet made #2 on dagger heal allies via the Transfusion trait that currently only works in DS. This would go a long way with giving necros some team support.

mmmm “All channeled siphons heal nearby allies” I like that.

Mainhand Dagger role? Fast high DPS weapon with a sizable siphon. The opposite of Reaper GS.

The main reason for mainhand dagger is offhand dagger

They need to increase the cleave on dagger – i don’t get the restriction.

cerulean moth.2743:

Kharr.5746:

If we go by the trait lines, dagger is situated in blood (our support line), so it is technically supposed to be a support weapon. It would be great if Anet made #2 on dagger heal allies via the Transfusion trait that currently only works in DS. This would go a long way with giving necros some team support.

mmmm “All channeled siphons heal nearby allies” I like that.

I have actually suggested for a long time that they change the “Vampiric Rituals” trait so that it causes all your hits & hits of nearby allies to siphon health.

Though simply making all channeled life siphons effect nearby allies for a % would be nice.