Dps condi builds: why warhorn and not dagger offhand?

[Tinker.6924]

For support builds Warhorn brings better abilities, without question, but for condi dps everything I see in dagger is just significantly better:  better baseline strike damage, way more bleed and burning condi damage, far stronger breaker bar dmg (50% better), plus some decent movement and condi cleanse. Only 1 Warhorn ability, Lightning 5, compares favorably to the dagger abilities for dps. 
 

Yet, every guide I’ve seen recommends warhorn and doesn’t mention dagger offhand at all.  Am I missing something?

 

 

[Atoclone.4810]

Wh probably comes out slightly better as it seems to fit everything however I swapped it out with of hand dagger on my power cat raiding build and I honestly don't think it's holding me back at all.

Caveat, I've played d/d for years,I don't need to think about what button does what, wh I'm not as fluent so maybe that's dragged down wh for me.

Also /d is just more fun and fun is an automatic boost to DPS,

[Tinker.6924]

I’m wondering if Warhorn is recommended over dagger in pve because it’s more group friendly which was more important before elite specs and specialized support builds became so impactful. Now in raid and strikes each subgroup has 2 support guys bringing heals, alac, quick, stab, and might out the wazoo, the  subpar  boons/heals from a guy running full viper or zerk isn’t really useful, but the paradigm remains and people use warhorns because they always have. 

[Bleikopf.2491]

If I had to guess, it's probably because Warhorn skills like Wildfire and Dust Storm are not actually a single AoE field, but multiple.
Therefore, you can usually get multiple hits in if the target is big enough.

[Noodle Ant.1605]

wildfire will usually be able to hit up to 10 times (traited). thats 3 * 10 burning vs ring of fire 2 * 4 (using base durations)

dust storm is the trippy skill but even without the multihit gimmick on larger targets it should be able to hit 3 times baseline, making it 2 * 10 * 3 bleed vs churning earth 10 * 8

dust storm hitting more times (usually twice as much) is one factor, but another is that offhand daggers cds dont really fit as well into rotations as warhorn does. you could easily do 2 ring of fire in place of every 1 wildfire (ring of fire still loses significantly) but then you can really only do 1 churning earth in place of 1 dust storm without delaying the rest of the rotation. so dagger would lose overall even on the smallest of hitboxes

offhand dagger is still technically the better option if the target(s) dont stay in aoes, however

[Markus.6415]

On 3/19/2024 at 4:22 PM, Tinker.6924 said:

I’m wondering if Warhorn is recommended over dagger in pve because it’s more group friendly which was more important before elite specs and specialized support builds became so impactful. Now in raid and strikes each subgroup has 2 support guys bringing heals, alac, quick, stab, and might out the wazoo, the  subpar  boons/heals from a guy running full viper or zerk isn’t really useful, but the paradigm remains and people use warhorns because they always have. 

Ele couldn't even use warhorn before elite specs existed. It was introduced when HoT released and was ONLY usable as Tempest for all those years, until SotO came out and you could unlock elite spec weapons for the whole class. And that was the moment everyone realized that warhorn is the best in slot offhand weapon for every role in instanced PvE, be it condi, power or healsupport. It even recieved a nerf shortly after the release of SotO, but still is the strongest.

Edit: And condi weaver was using focus on offhand before, because of the fireaura detonate.

 

Edited March 20 by Markus.6415

[Serephen.3420]

Because the support weapon warhorn must also be the best power and condi dps option for ele, what is dagger supposed to be anyways? and focus is taken for 2 skills which are mostly for pvp.

[Tinker.6924]

On 3/20/2024 at 1:01 PM, Noodle Ant.1605 said:

wildfire will usually be able to hit up to 10 times (traited). thats 3 * 10 burning vs ring of fire 2 * 4 (using base durations)

I decided to test this on the golem and you're right.  

For me and my gear vs an avg sized golem with avg health

• warhorn fire 5 did approx 25k per cast total damage vs 2 casts of dagger 4 (2 casts since its a 12 sec cd vs war 5's 24 sec) doing approx 15k total damage
• warhorn light 5 did something like 8k single target per cast vs almost negligible damage for both dagger lightning abilities
• water did favor the warhorn for damage but dagger's water abilities I think are better defensively with e
• earth dagger 5 was slightly better overall damage vs warhorn earth 5.  It inflicts a huge amount of bleeding

I guess this is one of those situations where the ability descriptions really fail to fully describe how the abilities work.  Dagger does provides 54% more CC bar damage, defensive utility and mobility and I can see why its the clear choice for pvp/wvw.  Warhorn is certainly better in pve. 

i stand corrected.

[luigrein.8514]

Also of potential note: sure the ele in full dps gear isn't going to generate many of their own boons. However fire 4 lets them copy select boons their support gave them to the rest of the party and earth 4 extends all boons on the party. Neither effect cares about the ele's stats. Sure ideally neither matters but outside of high end groups they are helping patch up any boon duration issues.