Dagger Mainhand

[Patrick.2987]

Has it currently any use in any gamemode? Feels pretty underwhelming. If 3 had a 600-900 range port and lower cd maybe but in its current state i think it is not of much use.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Not really. I run it when I feel like doing power Scourge, but overall, it hasn't kept up with the power creep at all. It needs another pass with a focus on completing its identity, whatever that identity is.

[Nimon.7840]

Well. Necro weapons that need a rework pretty badly:Dagger mainhandStaffFocus

And shroud

[MithranArkanere.8957]

Dagger could use a bit more synergy with blood magic and bleeding, and some rework to give it more focus in particular purposes.

Like making the third skill of the autoattack deal bleeding on enemies that have any other condition, or making it steal life with the attack, more the more stacks of bleeding the target has. Or making the third strike of the autoattack always critical on enemies with 5 or more stacks of bleeding.

[Obtena.7952]

It's useful to anyone that wants a frequently hitting weapon that gives massive LF regen. I mean, lets not confuse having a misunderstanding of dagger's usefulness as being the same as dagger not being a useful weapon ... I think there a few mistakes being made here by Anet and players. Honestly, players obviously didn't think it was so useless considering the fanatical approach that some people took to justify adding a bleed on dagger AA because of Scourge.

Along the theme with dagger, I see problems with how managing the health siphoning capabilities in the traits keep this weapon from getting some rightful attention; Anet can't maintain the position of dagger as THE life stealer if the Life siphoning traits are applicable and almost as significant for all other weapons as it is with dagger too. Anet really screwed that concept up badly. They can only correct that by favouring dagger in those traits directly, or directly buffing dagger in that manner; the latter being a hard sell as it already has the highest LF regen as well.

On the other hand, players see this as a high damage weapon, an easily made mistake. I think if one looks at it's Life stealing theme and that it was never clear from Anet's actions that this was intended to be a DPS weapon, you can understand why Anet hasn't done much to buff daggers damage. As a good contrast, Anet's has done way more to position Axe as the DPS weapon with constant DPS buffs over the years. So you know if Anet thinks something should be more of a damage focused weapon, you can be assured they would have done something to it by now.

I'm willing to bet that it's going to be a while before dagger things get corrected, since there has been a great effort with Scourge to enhance the sustainability of the Necro's health bar, which also adds to any difficulty to ensure the life siphoning effects of dagger theme remain in 'reasonable' territory if paired with Scourge.

At this point, I would prefer if Anet went with a bit of a corruption theme on it; #3 already has that. Instead of dagger having LF regen, I believe it should be enhanced to use accumulated LF for something. Most obvious option being health.

[Subli.8217]

@Nimon.7840 said:Well. Necro weapons that need a rework pretty badly:Dagger mainhandStaffFocus

And shroud

Completely agree.

Dagger - needs a leap/port and a blast finisher.Staff - needs complete redesign, maybe keep the skill functionalities but change the visuals, animations. Get rid of marks they are ugly and boringFocus - this needs to be a proper power weapon. Make one skill an aoe field ticking big dmg like lava font, other skill make it invulnerability buff or something like that.Shroud - no idea really, it's beyond help.

[Nimon.7840]

The main issue for necromancer:No good weapon design.

Second issue: we need to hurt ourself to deal dmg. No other class has to do that and still like every other class does more dps in pve than necro.I dont even want to mention pvp. These skills are completly useless there. If these skills had no cast time. Ok. But they have both. Casttime and self conditioning.

With both things, they should at least in pve hit like a truck

[Nefras.7314]

Well its fairly usable on power scourge, synergizes well with bm and obviously well builds.Out of all the weapons necro got its one of the better ones imo

[Dadnir.5038]

Well... dagger MH is mainly a sustain weapon:

• LF sustain.
• health sustain.
• sustain power damage.

And it does it's job for all 3 of these roles.

The core necromancer has always been in this awkward state where finding it's "burst" is difficult. The fact is that the burst is meant to be handled by it's utilities (well and the awfull lich form) and the death shroud. To be honest, this work for PvP and WvW even if it doesn't always feel satisfying enough for the players, however, the end result has always been underwhelming as long as we talk about PvE.

We just have to remember that:

• Dagger is sustain
• Axe is mid range power DD
• Scepter is condi damage
• staff is "support" throught debuff
• Wh is also sustain
• OH dagger is condi management
• focus is range direct damage

Most of the skills aren't well fit for the gw2's gameplay but they do their job.

GS on reaper introduced some (overly telegraphed) power burst and torch on scourge introduced condi burst (well not that much...).

As players we tend to overly specialized our characters toward a single mean which is more than often "damage". The game offer these possibilities, however we got to trad something in order to achieve our goals. The necromancer, like other professions, have these choices. It's just that the shroud and more generally, life force, have a way higher impact on a necromancer's gameplay than most other profession's mechanisms.

[KrHome.1920]

I would adress two things:

• the leeching (Blood Magic) theme
• the impact without overlapping with GS, which means don't just add a simple 20% damage incease to be on par with GS

Dagger Auto: reduce the aftercast like done before for thief dagger and add a 100 HP leech on every attack(synergizes well with Blood Magic leeching traits - more heal sources and higher hit frequency)

Dagger2: change it into a 600 shadowstep to target that leeches 3k HP on impact (cast time 3/4s)(the weapon has poor defense, so it should at least be useful on sticking with the target and offer constant pressure)

Dagger3: keep it as it is, but remove the selfbleed(shadowstep -> immob -> attack - nice combo!)

[Anchoku.8142]

I have not played much, recently, but did put dagger on a Shaman's Blood Magic Scourge for some casual PvE and was totally unimpressed by its leaches and almost everything else. After that, MH dagger on Berserker's Reaper was as lame and redundant as I remembered. That left core Necro testing but I logged off, instead.

Power creep at its finest.

[Kiroshima.8497]

Dagger/Dagger is also very strange, as MH is more about power damage, but OH is about conditions and has 0 things to do with blood magic.

Maybe MH1 and MH2 should be more about leeching (which needs to scale with Power in addition to Healing Power), and OH and MH3 should be about spending health to do things. Like Dagger 3, 4, and 5 can be pressed on cooldown, and you will spend health based on the remaining CD to instantly use it again. Maybe like 75 health and 25 life force per CD? This would let you rack up self bleeds and always have Dagger 4 to transfer them (if you want to spend the health).

Example, dagger 5 has a 25 second cooldown. If you use it 1 time, nothing happens. If you use it immediately again, you'll spend 75*25 (1875) health and 625 life force to recast it. Traited Dagger can reduce the health cost by 33% (instead of a standard cooldown reducer, doesn't affect life force cost).

[Scarran.9845]

@Kiroshima.8497 said:Example, dagger 5 has a 25 second cooldown. If you use it 1 time, nothing happens. If you use it immediately again, you'll spend 75*25 (1875) health and 625 life force to recast it. Traited Dagger can reduce the health cost by 33% (instead of a standard cooldown reducer, doesn't affect life force cost).

Im not really a fan of self harming skills, I tend to avoid most of the corruption skills because of this. We already have enough ways to self harm ourselves and I would hate to see that increased further. I do agree though that the synergy between the two daggers do not really match but I would hate to see OH dagger altered too much as I use that alot in my builds.

Someone had created a thread about dagger before and in that I mentioned that I would love for the daggers to be siphon specific and for the siphon traits to be altered to suit this. I have been looking for the class to have a decent siphon build for a while now but the developers always seem to be too conservative with the numbers for it to be anything more than a pipe dream.

[Kiroshima.8497]

We don't have anything in the game that directly uses Hit Points, and Corruption condis are extremely easy to mitigate given necros plethora of transfers and clears (curses line, Scourge F2, Plague Signet, Consume Conditions). A true self harm kit would be interesting, especially since common takes on Blood Magic is about self sacrifice, rather than using others Blood. Spending Health for damage and utility, and then siphoning it back with dagger 1 and dagger 2, would be a very strong theme for the kit and would work perfectly on necro.

Basically, Siphoning and Spending Health go hand in hand creating a nice Risk Reward structure. Otherwise you get an unbalanceable life steal spec.

[Kain Francois.4328]

Necro needs a new condi weapon, and I don't see why a single-target projectile-less ranged fly swatter should be our only meaningful way of condi damage. Scepter is booooring!

While it may be concerning about becoming overpowered in PvP hybrid builds, for PvE sake I would very much welcome some competitive bleed/torment stacks added to dagger MH auto, with our Dagger #3 becoming competitive to Scepter #3.

[Patrick.2987]

Ye we need more condis. Are you for real? I want gapclosers, evades sth like that.

[Obtena.7952]

@Patrick.2987 said:Ye we need more condis. Are you for real? I want gapclosers, evades sth like that.

These people ARE for real. They actually think a smattering of conditions on the AA will fix dagger. smh Even if some part of the AA did apply conditions at a similar level to what Scepter does, dagger would STILL be an inadequate condition application weapon and therefore, still very undesirable for the intent they want to use it for. There are simply too many traits (and additional boon stripping effects) that make Scepter THE condition weapon to bother with any other. People can't see that .. or choose not to. Either way, they just want a poorly-performing condition weapon ... for reasons.

[Swagg.9236]

Reposting from another thread because I don't know how to link individual thread posts, but your dagger re-work (and a complementary focus re-work) is at the bottom of this thing (whole thing included for reference on new mechanics mentioned in the re-works):

Life Force gain Re-work

Necromancers no longer gain life force from the deaths of ambient enemies.

All skill-specific instances of life force gain are removed (Death Shroud skills and some traits will still generate flat, percentage-based amounts of life force).

Soulreap (3s): For each stack, gain 0.5% life force every second.

Whenever a Necromancer successfully strikes a foe in combat, that player gains a stack of Soulreap (always a 3-second duration; stacks in intensity up to 5 times baseline). Whenever a player enters into shroud, that player immediately loses all active Soulreap stacks. Players cannot gain Soulreap stacks while in shroud.

Certain skills (i.e. spectrals) and power-leaning traits or traitlines can temporarily increase the maximum amount of Soulreap stacks that one can have at a single time. Condition-leaning lines and traits will have minors and some majors embedded with trade-offs which passively (always in effect) reduce (typically by 1 stack per respective trait) the amount of baseline Soulreap stacks that a player can have at once.

Should a player have a Soulreap stack total that is above that player's respective baseline maximum at the point at which a stack limit increase buff ends, that player's Soulreap stack is immediately reduced to that player's next highest stack limit atural maximum stack limit (i.e. if a player has 8 Soulreap stacks when Spectral Armor ends, and had no other Soulreap stack increase buffs active at the time, that player's stack limit is immediately reset to 5).

• Power builds will retain high LF generation through attacking with potential ways to temporarily further increase LF generation by means of conditional triggers or specific actions. Condition builds will still steadily generate LF but at a slower baseline rate than power builds.

SPECTRAL RE-WORKS FOR SOULREAP

![spectral Armor]!Recharge: 8s!Spectral. Gain an initial barrier. Soulreap stack limit is temporarily increased.! Initial barrier: 3055 (0.5)! Spectral Armor (8s): Soulreap stack limit increased by 3.! Maximum Count: 2! Count Recharge: 40s!* Breaks stun

![spectral Walk]!Recharge: 25s!Spectral. Soulreap stack limit is temporarily increased. Gain superspeed at every interval while you are above the Soulreap stack threshold. You may return to your initial position by using Spectral Recall.! Spectral Walk (10s): Soulreap stack limit increased by 3; gain superspeed while above the Soulreap stack threshold.! Superspeed Soulreap stack threshold: 5! Superspeed interval: 1s! Superspeed (1s): Movement Speed is greatly increased!* Breaks stun

![spectral Grasp]!Recharge: 15s!Spectral. Soulreap stack is temporarily increased. You may activate Spectral Hale to pull nearby foes to you.!* Spectral Grasp (10s): Soulreap stack limit increased by 5.

![spectral Hale]!Cast-time: ¾s / Recharge: 30s!Spectral. Pull nearby foes to you.! Number of foes: 5! Pull radius: 600!* Unblockable

!Has its own respective cooldown separate from Spectral Grasp.

DEATH MAGIC RE-WORKS

!Putrid Defense removed and replaced with Strong Soul (Death Magic adept-major)!Recharge: 1s!While at or above the Soulreap stack threshold, gain might at every interval.! Soulreap stack threshold: 5! Interval: 1s!* Might (6s): +30 Power, +30 Condition Damage

!Soul Comprehension (Death Magic master-minor)

!Soul Comprehension (Death Magic major minor)!When you enter into shroud, you briefly gain life force at every interval.! Soul Comprehension (4s): Gain life force at every interval.! Interval: 1s!* Life Force: 3%

!Deadly Strength (Death Magic master-major)

!If you enter shroud while you are at or above the might stack threshold, lose might stacks and grant Deadly Strength to nearby allies.! Might Stack threshold: 5! Might Stacks lost: 5! Number of allies: 10! Deadly Strength (20s): +150 Power, +150 Condition Damage!* Radius: 300

!This effect does not stack in any way. New instances of Deadly Strength will overwrite any active instances.

!Corruptor's Fervor name changed to Dark Fervor (Death Magic grandmaster-major)

!While at or above the Soulreap stack threshold, pulse increased power to nearby allies at every interval.! Number of allies: 10! Soulreap stack threshold: 8! Interval: 3s! Dark Fervor (9s): +150 Power

!Similar to banners, this effect does not stack in any way.

Unique Necromancer party-support mechanic

Bloodthirst: Heal for 7.5% of outgoing damage; cannot gain more than a total of 50 (0.5) health in this way per second.

This effect does not stack in any way.

Total potential health gain per second scales directly with the caster's Healing Power regardless of which ally receives the buff. This buff effectively works as a pro-active version of Regeneration (heals in totals which are calculated within 1-second intervals; player must be doing damage to obtain healing). If a player hits the healing cap before a 1-second interval ends, any further damage inflicted during that 1-second interval will not count toward or result in any healing.

BLOOD MAGIC RE-WORKS

! Mark of Evasion name changed to Ravenous (Blood Magic adept-minor)

!Gain an increased critical hit chance while under the effects of Bloodthirst.!* Critical Hit Chance Increase: 5%

!Blood Bond (Blood Magic adept-major)

!Whenever you apply Bloodthirst to an ally, you also grant stacking power and ferocity.! Number of allies: 5! Blood Bond (20s): +30 Power, +30 Ferocity!* Maximum Stacks: 5

!Vampiric (Blood Magic master-minor)

!Bloodthirst heals when it is applied.!* Healing: 130 (0.125)

!This healing applies to all allies as well as the user so long as a given instance of Bloodthirst is applied by a user equipped with this trait.

!Vampiric Presence (Blood Magic master-major)

!Grant Bloodthirst to nearby allies when you use Shroud 4.! Number of allies: 10! Bloodthirst (5s): Heal for 7.5% of outgoing damage; cannot gain more than a total of 50 (0.5) health in this way per second.!* Radius: 300

!Last Rites (Blood Magic grandmaster-minor)

!* Healing Power bonus is now fixed at +150.

!Vampiric Rituals (Blood Magic grandmaster-major)

!Upon creation, wells grant Bloodthirst to nearby allies.! Number of allies: 5! Bloodthirst (3s): Heal for 7.5% of outgoing damage; cannot gain more than a total of 50 (0.5) health in this way per second.!* Bloodthirst application radius: 300

!The radius of this trait's Bloodthirst application is centered at the middle of an associated well's placement location.

BLOODTHIRST IN NON-WEAPON SKILLS

![blood is Power]! Cast-time: ¾s / Recharge: 20s! Corruption. Grant Might and Bloodthirst to nearby allies.! Number of allies: 10! Might|10| (10s): +300 Power, +300 Condition Damage! Bloodthirst (5s): Heal for 7.5% of outgoing damage; cannot gain more than a total of 50 (0.5) health in this way per second.! Combo Finisher: Blast! * Radius: 300

![signet of Vampirism]! Cast-time: 1¼s / Recharge: 25s! Passive: While in combat, gain life force over time whenever you are under the effects of Bloodthirst.
! Active: Gain health over time. Mark nearby foes for increased damage and grant Bloodthirst to nearby allies.! Passive Combat-Only Bloodthirst life force gain: 0.5%! Passive life force gain interval: 1s! Self Healing per second: 1620 (0.5)! Self Healing duration: 5s! Number of allies: 5! Number of targets: 5! Bloodthirst (5s): Heal for 7.5% of outgoing damage; cannot gain more than a total of 50 (0.5) health in this way per second.! Vampiric Curse (8s): 15% Incoming Damage! * Radius: 300

![Well of Suffering]

! Recharge reduced from 35s to 15s.! Duration (in seconds) and total pulses reduced from 6 to 5 respectively.! No longer inflicts vulnerability.! Radius reduced from 240 to 180.

![Well of Corruption]

!* Recharge reduced from 40s to 30s.

![Well of Power]

!* Recharge reduced from 40s to 30s.

Weapons and Death Shroud

DAGGER

! [Necrotic Slash] (1a)! Cast-time: ½s! Slash foes.! Number of targets: 3! Damage: (0.7)! * Range: 130

! [Necrotic Stab] (1b)

! Cast-time increased from [current] to ½s.! Number of targets increased from 2 to 3.

! [Necrotic Bite] (1c)!Cast-time: ¾s!Stab foes and increase your maximum Soulreap stack limit.! Number of targets: 3! Damage (1.4)! Necrotic Bite (3s): Soulreap stack limit increased by 2.! Range: 130

!This skill only grants an increase to the user's Soulreap stack limit if it successfully strikes a foe.

! [Life Siphon] (2)! Cast-time: 2¼s / Recharge: ½s! Siphon life from foes in front of you. While below the life force threshold this skill's initial strike increases your maximum Soulreap stack limit. If you are above the threshold, your initial strike grants Bloodthirst.! Number of targets: 5! Damage (4x): (2.8)! Life Force threshold: 30%! Life Siphon (3s): Soulreap stack limit increased by 2.! Bloodthirst (3s): Heal for 7.5% of outgoing damage; cannot gain more than a total of 50 (0.5) health in this way per second.! Maximum Count: 2! Count Recharge: 10s! Range: 400

!This attack strikes foes in a cone identical to Elementalist [Cone of Cold].

! [Dark Pact] (3)! Cast-time: 1s / Recharge: 10s! Leap to the target area and damage foes when you land. Deal more damage based on your life force total.! Number of targets: 5! Damage below 25% life force: (0.25)! Damage above 25% life force: (0.75)! Damage above 50% life force: (1.25)! Damage above 75% life force: (1.75)! Radius: 180! Combo Finisher: Leap! Range: 800

!Attack functions identically to Engineer's [Jump Shot].

FOCUS

! [Reaper's Touch] (4)! Cast-time: ¾s / Recharge: ½s! Unleash a barrage of necrotic blades that return to you. These blades damage foes and heal allies.! Number of targets: 5! Number of allies: 5! Blades: 3! Damage: (0.75)! Healing: 130 (0.125)! Maximum Count: 2! Count Recharge: 12s! Range: 900

!This skill fires “necromancer-green” [Vapor Blade] projectiles which space themselves and travel out in a manner that is functionally equivalent to the 3-blade version of the Poobadoo [Vapor Blade] attack.

! [spinal Shivers] (5)! Cast-time: 1s / Recharge: 25s! Curse the ground in front of you, damaging and stripping boons from foes with every pulse. If this field strikes a foe without boons, it also dazes that foe.! Number of targets: 5! Damage (6x): (3.0)! Boons removed per pulse: 1! Daze vs foes without boons: 1s! Field duration: 6s! Combo Field: Ice! Range: 480! Unblockable

!Skill functions akin to Revenant [searing Fissure]. The field created by this skill also matches the size of [searing Fissure].

!The field strikes immediately upon creation and then at the start of each second of its duration (6 strikes total).

DEATH SHROUD

! [Life Blast]! Cast-time: 1s! Unleash a blast of life force that explodes on impact, damaging nearby foes. If you are above the life force threshold, this blast leaves behind a pulsing field of dark energy which continues to damage foes.! Number of blast targets: 3! Blast damage: (1.4)! Blast radius: 180! Range: 1200! Life Force Threshold: 75%! Number of Field targets: 5! Field damage (2x): (1.6)! Field duration: 2s! * Field radius: 150

!*Shares the same projectile arc and travel speed as Elementalist [Fireball].

!The field strikes foes at the end of each second of its duration.

!The pulsing, threshold-conditional field has no combo field typing in order to prevent excessive mono-type field spam.

! [Dark Path]! Recharge: ½s! Teleport to the target location.! Maximum Count: 2! Count Recharge: 15s! * Range: 500

! [Doom]! Recharge: 15s! Fear foes at the target location.! Number of targets: 5! Fear (1s): Involuntary retreat; unable to act; stacks duration! Radius: 150! Range: 900

! [Life Transfer]! * Recharge reduced from 40s to 30s.

! [Tainted Shackles] (PvP)! Cast-time: ¼s / Recharge: ½s! Reveal and bind nearby foes with your life force, increasing incoming damage on them. If the bind is allowed to expire naturally, it inflicts heavy damage.! Number of targets: 5! Initial revealed (3s): You cannot stealth! Tainted Shackles (4s): 15% Incoming Damage, 15% Incoming Condition Damage! Expiration damage: (1.5)! Maximum Count: 2! Count Recharge: 25s! Shackle radius: 600! Unblockable

! [Tainted Shackles] (PvE)! Cast-time: ¼s / Recharge: ½s! Reveal and bind nearby foes with your life force, increasing incoming damage on them. If the bind is allowed to expire naturally, it inflicts heavy damage.! Number of targets: 5! Initial revealed (3s): You cannot stealth! Tainted Shackles (6s): 15% Incoming Damage, 15% Incoming Condition Damage! Expiration damage: (3.0)! Maximum Count: 2! Count Recharge: 25s! Shackle radius: 600! Unblockable

[Nimon.7840]

@"Dadnir.5038" said:Well... dagger MH is mainly a sustain weapon:

• LF sustain.
• health sustain.
• sustain power damage.

And it does it's job for all 3 of these roles.

The core necromancer has always been in this awkward state where finding it's "burst" is difficult. The fact is that the burst is meant to be handled by it's utilities (well and the awfull lich form) and the death shroud. To be honest, this work for PvP and WvW even if it doesn't always feel satisfying enough for the players, however, the end result has always been underwhelming as long as we talk about PvE.

We just have to remember that:

• Dagger is sustain
• Axe is mid range power DD
• Scepter is condi damage
• staff is "support" throught debuff
• Wh is also sustain
• OH dagger is condi management
• focus is range direct damage

Most of the skills aren't well fit for the gw2's gameplay but they do their job.

GS on reaper introduced some (overly telegraphed) power burst and torch on scourge introduced condi burst (well not that much...).

As players we tend to overly specialized our characters toward a single mean which is more than often "damage". The game offer these possibilities, however we got to trad something in order to achieve our goals. The necromancer, like other professions, have these choices. It's just that the shroud and more generally, life force, have a way higher impact on a necromancer's gameplay than most other profession's mechanisms.

The thing is. How else should we define ourselfs?

Dagger mh is completly useless. Cause for pve content, you dont need the sustain, dagger offers and for pvp modes the sustain is way too low. So we need to define us by doing more dmg. Necro sustain is nowhere near being good.

Maybe with minions. But play a minionmaster in pvp. Everyone will laugh bout you and your little friends. Cause they can be killed easyly

[Dadnir.5038]

@Nimon.7840 said:

@"Dadnir.5038" said:Well... dagger MH is mainly a sustain weapon:

• LF sustain.
• health sustain.
• sustain power damage.

And it does it's job for all 3 of these roles.

The core necromancer has always been in this awkward state where finding it's "burst" is difficult. The fact is that the burst is meant to be handled by it's utilities (well and the awfull lich form) and the death shroud. To be honest, this work for PvP and WvW even if it doesn't always feel satisfying enough for the players, however, the end result has always been underwhelming as long as we talk about PvE.

We just have to remember that:

• Dagger is sustain
• Axe is mid range power DD
• Scepter is condi damage
• staff is "support" throught debuff
• Wh is also sustain
• OH dagger is condi management
• focus is range direct damage

Most of the skills aren't well fit for the gw2's gameplay but they do their job.

GS on reaper introduced some (overly telegraphed) power burst and torch on scourge introduced condi burst (well not that much...).

As players we tend to overly specialized our characters toward a single mean which is more than often "damage". The game offer these possibilities, however we got to trad something in order to achieve our goals. The necromancer, like other professions, have these choices. It's just that the shroud and more generally, life force, have a way higher impact on a necromancer's gameplay than most other profession's mechanisms.

The thing is. How else should we define ourselfs?

Dagger mh is completly useless. Cause for pve content, you dont need the sustain, dagger offers and for pvp modes the sustain is way too low. So we need to define us by doing more dmg. Necro sustain is nowhere near being good.

Maybe with minions. But play a minionmaster in pvp. Everyone will laugh bout you and your little friends. Cause they can be killed easyly

I think the right question is not "How should we define ourselve?" but "How does anet define the necromancer?".

The issue with the later question is that we somehow know the answer but none of us like it and this answer is terrible in game. The necromancer is supposed to be an attrition focused profession which use a "necromantic" thematic. The necromancer per se is not designed to finish it's fight quickly, the necromancer is designed to sap it's foes strength and outlast it thanks to it's sustain. Want it or not the necromancer is balanced around the fact that he will spend a lot of time sheltered behind the shroud and everything that refill the shroud fuel is seen as sustain.

Most of the necromancer's balance in number are based on theoretical result. Thus, for the devs, at worst, dagger autoattack cycle net you 8% LF which is in "health point" equivalent a little bit over 1k health per second just for auto attacking. Add the siphons from blood magic that feel like ridiculously low or/and add a some vitality on your stuff and dagger's "virtual" sustain shot through the roof, easily breaking through 2.5k virtual health point per second with 0 investment in healing power.

Now, we know that it doesn't work like that in game. We know that it work quite differently for scourge. But nobody can deny that it's quite the sustain for a relatively fast attacking weapon. Thus, It feel quite wrong to say that dagger MH is not a weapon that is clearly define. It's clearly and undeniably a sustain tool.

The weapon skills all make sense when you think about it as a sustain tool. Dagger#3 allow you to keep our foe in range so that you can either "sustain" yourself thanks to your autoattack or refill your life thank to dagger#2. Seriously there is no weapon that have a clearer identity in game than this one.

[Anchoku.8142]

I can imagine MH dagger becoming more of a utility weapon if, for example, it gave boons or a modifier within its cleave range.

To elaborate, if it proc'd a 1 sec regen on the third strike of its AA for the Necro and 2 others and the siphon healed the Necro and 2 others that would make it a solid support weapon even with low dps.

[Nimon.7840]

The siphon would be much better to use in pvp if they didnt make it a channeled attack. If this would generate a unique debuff, that works like a dot and steals health over time, that would be a good fighting weapon

[KrHome.1920]

If you ask yourself what ANet thinks about Necro Dagger:ANet promoted MH Dagger as a bruiser weapon in the balance patch where Life Siphon was buffed. (They said the buffed healing should help in a bruiser playstyle)

This is far from reality. If you don't run a very offensive build your Dagger damage values are ridiciously low and the weapon offers close to zero sustain. You get outdamaged and outsustained by everyone! The Reaper GS is the definition of a functioning bruiser weapon.

[Anchoku.8142]

With axe buffed for the n-th time and greatsword a better power weapon with higher dps, more cleave, and better defense, dagger has no function as a power weapon once Reaper is unlocked.

[Obtena.7952]

@KrHome.1920 said:If you ask yourself what ANet thinks about Necro Dagger:ANet promoted MH Dagger as a bruiser weapon in the balance patch where Life Siphon was buffed. (They said the buffed healing should help in a bruiser playstyle)

This is far from reality. If you don't run a very offensive build your Dagger damage values are ridiciously low and the weapon offers close to zero sustain. You get outdamaged and outsustained by everyone! The Reaper GS is the definition of a functioning bruiser weapon.

This is true and relevant ... you have to be IN the fight to maximize the sustain with the weapon. The risk/reward is completely out of wack on these dagger skills because the risk changes massively, but the reward is always the same; a fixed amount of LF or health. I don't expect that to change, but it's a problem IMO.

@Anchoku.8142 said:With axe buffed for the n-th time and greatsword a better power weapon with higher dps, more cleave, and better defense, dagger has no function as a power weapon once Reaper is unlocked.

Another true ... the chance that dagger is positioned as a DPS weapon is LOW. I wouldn't even contemplate any suggestion where the focus is to make dagger compete with other DPS weapons we have.