Guild Wars 2

Torch dominates the condi builds even after the minor nerf it received recently.
the only other Condi OH we have is dagger which is underperforming in comparison to torch. The evade is good in PvP but it lacks in AoE which makes it inferior to all other offhand options.

I would like to see that Anet improves the cleave/AoE capabbilities of dagger OH.
I am still thinking about a decent solution.

Good proposals are welcome.

Simply adding cleave to Stalker’s Strike would make it follow the same design as our other off-hand options (one long-range targetted attack, one PBAoE attack).

The dagger is really strong in PvP as a condi utility weapon thanks to the evade and the ranged cripple/bleed.

It’s just these days skills aren’t just gap closers that apply blind. They’re gap closers that apply AoE blind and drop a PBAoE light field upon landing that pulses half the damage of the initial strike every second for 4 seconds and pulses fury to allies standing in its radius, that can also be traited to apply vuln, have increased crit chance, deal more damage, have a chance to burn have the field last longer, heal and recharge 20% faster.

Dagger gives us what? An evade and applies 3 stacks of poison that can be improved to maintain perma poison easily. A projectile that inflicts cripple with 40% uptime at base when the mainhand you typically pair it with has ~98% base-line cripple uptime on its auto-attack.

Dagger is alright in a vaccuum as a defensive off-hand option but it lacks damage type synergy with our sword. The biggest change I would make for PvP is giving Crippling Talon an Immobilize, similar to crippling shot and, again, cleave on stalker’s strike for PvE, possibly an increase to the dagger’s physical damage overall.

Edit: But I’m a big proponent for skills being simple and fun like our dagger skills are currently and not having screen spanning tooltips.

Lower cooldown on Stalker’s Strike to 8. Maybe give a bigger radius/cleave or a poison field and put crippling/torment/weakness to it.

Unblockable or/and Piercing on Crippling Talon and has 3 bounces between targets (can bounce on the same target again). Also, lower cooldown to 12.

I 2 thought of the immob on crippling talon. A leap that hits 3 target gor stalkersstrike that applies 3 stacks of poison each could be sweet. It could work well with fields, traps and weaponswap mechanics.