Some Thoughts Concerning Mainhand-Dagger

I am slowly getting tired of GS so messed around with Mainhand-Dagger in WvW smallscale roaming the last few evenings. Holy shit that weapon is so useless now. It's embarrassing. No damage, no defense, no impact. It's a shame, it looks so cool but I would sell my Incinerator immediately if I could.

Nightfall is easily the most important skill for Reapers in teamfights now - even more than Spectral Armor used to be. You can't achieve anything without it. Even Gravedigger is better than any skill on Dagger as its super telegraphed cast forces opponents into defense (dodge, block, kite -> they stop hurting you for a moment, which is good!).

As I don't believe that we get more defense in the next patches, ANet should focus on fixing Dagger now to at least create some diversity for the class!

Dagger is very much conflicted right now. It acts like a power weapon but inflicts self-bleeds like a corruption utility and siphons like vampiric traits.

It used to be the power weapon for Necromancer and has potential to dove-tail into a support-Scourge but it feels like it was left out of the elite's development.

Another weapon left behind.

Good luck getting into melee.

....i still like dagger. its got good dps, its an extra heal, and its an immobilize so i can catch up to get into melee.

dagger offhand on the other hand.......

It should be remade into the support weapon of necromancer. Make Life Siphon affect allies around and give it regen+damage if healed above health threshold and make the healing increase with amount of bleeds on the target rather than a flat from having a bleed affecting the necro, add a small heal to the attack chain and a bleed to the first attack of the chain so the weapon atleast synergizes with itself. Maybe even a blast finisher+Might around the necro for Dark Pact

MH Dagger is for immob only, sadly, and other skills are useless. As a Condi Scourge, it's perfect for me, used for both defensive and offensive. There may be better weapon choices, but this fits my playstyle very well.

What if dagger gave up the extra cleave on AA for a modifier that added power based on the condition damage stat so that it could still be an effective power weapon on condi builds?

Right now, dagger is redundant on Reaper, under-powered compared to 900-range axe on core Necromancer, and limited by its power-based dps on Scourge.

@arenta.2953 said:....i still like dagger. its got good dps, its an extra heal, and its an immobilize so i can catch up to get into melee.

dagger offhand on the other hand.......

Dagger offhand is very good with some builds because of condi cleanse and weakness, in spvp that is.

I do agree bleed on dagger #3 is annoying (useful for condi build but power build wants this weapon so meh?) and #2 seems pretty useless nowadays because of dmg creep. #1 dmg doesn't feel very impressive.

Dagger main hand used to be nice before expansions but now well.. not so much.

Hey, I got an idea ... what if they add bleed to dagger AA!!!! It would fix everything!

HAHA, J/K

True, dagger isn't very impressive anymore. It really never was. It's sort of stuck in the same place that Blood Magic traitline is ... a cool but under-performing idea. I don't think it's even in the range where Anet could save it with a DPS buff ... what would it need? 20% flat increase? That's a bit rich.

Despite some people's initial concerns when PoF was released, it's not even necessary as THE LF regen weapon on Scourge; I'm never near using all the LF it gives me.

Personally, I would like to see it enhance sustain, especially with Blood Magic traits. It just never brought it with the Vampire stuff.

@Obtena.7952 said:Hey, I got an idea ... what if they add bleed to dagger AA!!!! It would fix everything!

HAHA, J/K

True, dagger isn't very impressive anymore. It really never was. It's sort of stuck in the same place that Blood Magic traitline is ... a cool but under-performing idea. I don't think it's even in the range where Anet could save it with a DPS buff ... what would it need? 20% flat increase? That's a bit rich.

Despite some people's initial concerns when PoF was released, it's not even necessary as THE LF regen weapon on Scourge; I'm never near using all the LF it gives me.

Personally, I would like to see it enhance sustain, especially with Blood Magic traits. It just never brought it with the Vampire stuff.

So bring back Vampiric Precision and roll it into Quickening Thirst?

I have to agree that mainhand dagger is underwhelming and I used to run with two daggers when the game initially launched.

But over time with the various changes to the game and other weapons the mainhand dagger got left behind. I would like to see it be made into a proper siphon type weapon to go along with the siphon traits that need buffing in the bloodmagic line but I have been looking for the class to have a proper viable siphon build for a long time and ive given up hope of ever seeing it.

The developers attempted to make siphons a thing a while back but were really conservative with the numbers for it to even be remotely considered.