Another Sword & Dagger Suggestion

Well a lot of you that follow this profession forum know that i often make suggestion about sword because i am not quiet happy how it plays since launch although i seriously want to. Dagger offhand is also dissapointing for me since launch so i complain every so often about it too.So i played sword /dagger thief and got inspired how their sword skills are designed or specifically the sword/dagger duelwield skill.It reminds me heavily of serpents strike and stalker strike from sword and dagger of ranger but in one skill and its flipover.So my suggestion:New sword skill setup:

1. AA (cleave on all 3 skills)
2. Monarchsleap
3. Serpent strike with stalker strike as a flipover

New Dagger Setup:

4. Hornet sting (2 charges)

5. Criplling Talon (2 charges)

6. Sword would be more evasive AND would have more gap closing capabbilities

7. Dagger would be a distance gaining tool and would support Axe with range dmg and sword with snaring

8. No new fancy new skill so it would be less a dev work instead of completely new skills.

Any opinions and honest criticism is welcome.

I don’t think this would be a good change, you nerf swords mobility and stick it onto dagger, but then remove daggers damage and put it onto sword? The reason no one brings dagger is because it doesn’t really do anything, giving it some range opening potential with no damage isn’t going to fix that.

Sword doesn’t need anything atm, but dagger could use some charges on its 5 skill, and maybe adding a flip skill or some other effect to the 4 to increase its ability to do damage (id argue for hybrid potential but most people here would argue for Condi only.)

Dagger 4 applying double damage + Condi applications from behind would be good, and giving it a second skill to either stealth or get behind them would be good imo

@Durzlla.6295 said:I don’t think this would be a good change, you nerf swords mobility and stick it onto dagger, but then remove daggers damage and put it onto sword? The reason no one brings dagger is because it doesn’t really do anything, giving it some range opening potential with no damage isn’t going to fix that.

Sword doesn’t need anything atm, but dagger could use some charges on its 5 skill, and maybe adding a flip skill or some other effect to the 4 to increase its ability to do damage (id argue for hybrid potential but most people here would argue for Condi only.)

Dagger 4 applying double damage + Condi applications from behind would be good, and giving it a second skill to either stealth or get behind them would be good imo

Well you nailed basically what i was going for. I wanted to give dagger more mobility and sword more dmg. The PvP setup wouldnt change with sword dagger but the PvE sword would be improved. In addition to that you would not lose 1 evade on sword but would get the leap directly for combo finishers.Partly i use weapons for either utility or dmg. Atm it feels to me like sword and dagger both get the same 2 half baked sites of a coin. Both have 1 evade and both lack synergy with other weaponry.Ofc crippling talon could be improved with maybe immob or more stacks if condis but dagger as an evade OH would pair it well with Axe and Sword. Sword itself would have a better position as a hybrid weapon due to more dmg and with monarchsleap directly available it would go fantasticly with Axe OH and torch.I understand the point you are making about daggers dmg would go away but if you compare it to other OHs i think it would bring nothibg to the table ithers already do. In condi builds it would always suck against torch and in power builds against Axe and WH.

As a sword + wh user, I would hate to lose Hornet Sting on sword. It's a fantastic re-positioning tool and a Hornet Sting followed by a Monarch's Leap facing the opposite direction (with nothing targeted) allows for more ground to be covered (about 1,000 units) away from the enemy.

@Shadowcat.2680 said:As a sword + wh user, I would hate to lose Hornet Sting on sword. It's a fantastic re-positioning tool and a Hornet Sting followed by a Monarch's Leap facing the opposite direction (with nothing targeted) allows for more ground to be covered (about 1,000 units) away from the enemy.

Well personally i would actually would change sword 2 to: monarchsleap with hornet sting as flipover just with about 20s time to jump back (so kinda similar to thief sword 2) but i couldnt come up with a new dagger skill because the double evade attack on sword 3 would just be overall beneficial to the weapon for all modes so i want to keep stalker strike as a flipover to serpent strike.On my previous suggestion:With a double backwards evade it would finally give dagger some utility in all modes (except closed PvE). Personally the one evade on dagger is underwhelming and it cant compeed with any other OH dmg wise so i think a utility Improve would serve the weapon well.

@InsaneQR.7412 said:

@Shadowcat.2680 said:As a sword + wh user, I would hate to lose Hornet Sting on sword. It's a fantastic re-positioning tool and a Hornet Sting followed by a Monarch's Leap facing the opposite direction (with nothing targeted) allows for more ground to be covered (about 1,000 units) away from the enemy.

@Durzlla.6295 said:

@InsaneQR.7412 said:

@Shadowcat.2680 said:As a sword + wh user, I would hate to lose Hornet Sting on sword. It's a fantastic re-positioning tool and a Hornet Sting followed by a Monarch's Leap facing the opposite direction (with nothing targeted) allows for more ground to be covered (about 1,000 units) away from the enemy.

Would be totally fine with that honestly.Some CC with boonstrip would be actually quiet nice. Problem with that is that dagger OH awould need new skills which would need more resources. And a direct stealth weaponskill would need to do more than just some additional mobility. I am still for a backwars evade that could lead into stealth. Camouflage would be a nice naming IMO.The projectiles could be a daze with boonstrip and cleave with 2-3 charges. So dagger would have synergy with both core mainhands and would be a nice interupt tool. And sword would have more dmg for PvE and more direct mobility for gap closing.

I wouldn't touch the skills from the sword. The weapon is in a good place right now, it can be improved removing some clunky pre/aftercasts (monarch leap) and increasing the range of serpent strike and having 3 targets in all AA chain, but generaly the weapon is better than most we have.

Dagger off hand needs an small rework but not as price of removing the sword utility. In general it would simply improve a lot if:a) Stalker strike to add stun t it's effects.b) Cripping talon to be a ground target teleport which applies the effect up to 3 targets in an small radius. The idea is you teleport to the target and use the cripple to keep them close. Right now you apply the cripple from 1200 which doesn't do anything to keep the target in range. This skill is best to be ground target as when you are using axe or sword you need a weapon which can repositiion you effectively. None of those weapons do.

@anduriell.6280 said:I wouldn't touch the skills from the sword. The weapon is in a good place right now, it can be improved removing some clunky pre/aftercasts (monarch leap) and increasing the range of serpent strike and having 3 targets in all AA chain, but generaly the weapon is better than most we have.

Dagger off hand needs an small rework but not as price of removing the sword utility. In general it would simply improve a lot if:a) Stalker strike to add stun t it's effects.b) Cripping talon to be a ground target teleport which applies the effect up to 3 targets in an small radius. The idea is you teleport to the target and use the cripple to keep them close. Right now you apply the cripple from 1200 which doesn't do anything to keep the target in range. This skill is best to be ground target as when you are using axe or sword you need a weapon which can repositiion you effectively. None of those weapons do.

If you look at it exactly i didnt touch sword skills.I shuffled them arround.I stated in later posts (probably one or two above yours) that i would simply reshuffle them and add stalker strike to serpent strike.Monarchsleap is not used often most of the time you use hornet sting to go out of trouble and reposition and reheal. If it would work similar to infiltrator strike, so you jump in and evade attacks and than you have 20s to use hornet sting to get out if things get dire it would much more versatile IMO. . The double evade of serpent strike is basically there because dagger is only paired with sword because of the evade. Stalker and serpent strike are basically the same skill with different numbers, allowing them to be on one weapon would improve it.To get my perspective: sword and Dagger are very engaging and useful in competitive modes but are dull and lacklusterin pretty much all PvE contentbdue to either long animations, low dmg, focus on AA and nearly no functional combat impact except evades. I try to get the functionality up if the weapons for all modes without hurting the one it already has, evasion. In contrary i want to improve that plus give it more CC because ranger does not have a CC offhand.Thus i would like to see the stun/daze on crippling talon with charges as an interupt tool and a new dagger 5 as a disengage stealth skill. This has atleast use in open world and would be great for PvP/WvW.

@InsaneQR.7412 said:If you look at it exactly i didnt touch sword skills.I shuffled them arround.I stated in later posts (probably one or two above yours) that i would simply reshuffle them and add stalker strike to serpent strike.Monarchsleap is not used often most of the time you use hornet sting to go out of trouble and reposition and reheal. If it would work similar to infiltrator strike, so you jump in and evade attacks and than you have 20s to use hornet sting to get out if things get dire it would much more versatile IMO. . The double evade of serpent strike is basically there because dagger is only paired with sword because of the evade. Stalker and serpent strike are basically the same skill with different numbers, allowing them to be on one weapon would improve it.To get my perspective: sword and Dagger are very engaging and useful in competitive modes but are dull and lacklusterin pretty much all PvE contentbdue to either long animations, low dmg, focus on AA and nearly no functional combat impact except evades. I try to get the functionality up if the weapons for all modes without hurting the one it already has, evasion. In contrary i want to improve that plus give it more CC because ranger does not have a CC offhand.Thus i would like to see the stun/daze on crippling talon with charges as an interupt tool and a new dagger 5 as a disengage stealth skill. This has atleast use in open world and would be great for PvP/WvW.

Although i agree with you, sword needs some small improvements, personally i use Hornet sting to stablish some separation from the target to swap to bow or let my pet do the work for me while i heal or something.I like how the skill is designed mostly, i don't enjoy the precast of hornet sting, it makes the skill really clunky in the actual game (now with many classes with instant attacks).

If we were to have an directional arrow (as you requested some time ago) or at least to go forward if no target was selected and speed up the precast in hornet sting the skill would be a lot of fun.Being like it is now it allows you to have a 2 stage leap which allows you to play with LoS when fighting (using monarch leap to go around a corner), allows you to play with the skill a little bit. Removing that functionality would make sword much more plain and basically boring.

@anduriell.6280 said:

@InsaneQR.7412 said:If you look at it exactly i didnt touch sword skills.I shuffled them arround.I stated in later posts (probably one or two above yours) that i would simply reshuffle them and add stalker strike to serpent strike.Monarchsleap is not used often most of the time you use hornet sting to go out of trouble and reposition and reheal. If it would work similar to infiltrator strike, so you jump in and evade attacks and than you have 20s to use hornet sting to get out if things get dire it would much more versatile IMO. . The double evade of serpent strike is basically there because dagger is only paired with sword because of the evade. Stalker and serpent strike are basically the same skill with different numbers, allowing them to be on one weapon would improve it.To get my perspective: sword and Dagger are very engaging and useful in competitive modes but are dull and lacklusterin pretty much all PvE contentbdue to either long animations, low dmg, focus on AA and nearly no functional combat impact except evades. I try to get the functionality up if the weapons for all modes without hurting the one it already has, evasion. In contrary i want to improve that plus give it more CC because ranger does not have a CC offhand.Thus i would like to see the stun/daze on crippling talon with charges as an interupt tool and a new dagger 5 as a disengage stealth skill. This has atleast use in open world and would be great for PvP/WvW.

Although i agree with you, sword needs some small improvements, personally i use Hornet sting to stablish some separation from the target to swap to bow or let my pet do the work for me while i heal or something.I like how the skill is designed mostly, i don't enjoy the precast of hornet sting, it makes the skill really clunky in the actual game (now with many classes with instant attacks).

Although i agree with on some way i wouldnt call it boring, rather different.The directional change would be QoL that is needed despite cast time.But to go towards your complain, i also suggested a retreat skill on daggger witch is most common in conpetitive modes anyway.