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Am I the only one to love dagger offhand?


Arheundel.6451

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-A legitimate question-

After the last changes ,the dagger offhand has grown on me, it got exactly what I need for my playstyle based on evades and kiting. Dagger 4 it's a rather long evade that has allowed me to evade oneshot hits more than once, the cripple on dagger 5 is amazing to chase targets or keep pursuers off your back for a little while. enough to reclaim important CDs.

Been beating gs/lb quite comfortably.....ofc remember skill difference is always a factor...still for me it shows promise and now I am wondering if there are others out there who use dagger offhand also

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  • 5 weeks later...

@Arheundel.6451 said:-A legitimate question-

After the last changes ,the dagger offhand has grown on me, it got exactly what I need for my playstyle based on evades and kiting. Dagger 4 it's a rather long evade that has allowed me to evade oneshot hits more than once, the cripple on dagger 5 is amazing to chase targets or keep pursuers off your back for a little while. enough to reclaim important CDs.

Been beating gs/lb quite comfortably.....ofc remember skill difference is always a factor...still for me it shows promise and now I am wondering if there are others out there who use dagger offhand also

Rangers of equal or near equal skill, the more defensive/tankier build will win. This has been the case forever. It's a little less apparent now, however.

With that, dagger offhand is quite solid, especially now that crippling talon is an ammo skill and the buff to dagger 4 poison.

Dagger has always been a strong offhand imo. Although an argument could be made that it's worse for power builds in the recent metas than axe offhand and warhorn, It's the strongest for any Condi builds by far, torch is very weak. And it has historically been the strongest offhand for most rangers.

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I wish I liked dagger, but it's just not quite good enough to feel like it's worth being used yet.

If you compare it as an offhand, it just doesn't synergize as well with Soulbeast to beat Warhorn since the skill 4 on WH gives some strong pressure and the boon generation (especially with trait) is particularly good for a build that focuses on it so well. And on condi builds, the difference in damage is so large that the you can generally defend better by simply having the extra damage and area denial from the field than an evade.

Comparing it to Greatsword is still tough too since GS brings big burst from #2 and CC on skill 5 that you just don't get from S/D.

It's a shame too since I really like the style of a character wielding a sword with dagger.

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I've used off hand dagger on full melee roaming builds in wvw, both before and after the change, and it is obviously much better now compared to before. Overall good enough, while being far from powercrept. Doesn't make it into any "meta builds" in any game mode, though.

But I don't want to praise a change that came two years later than what it should have. Two years to add the ammo system to one of the skills it is most suited for, even when the weapon was relatively weak long before they introduced said mechanic? They showed off double dagger SB in the PoF trailer, so someone at the studio most have noticed how.. weak it was?

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I used to love running sword/dagger on my bunker druid back in the day for sPvP, when I could actually hold point against several attackers. This was, of course, way before they reworked ranger sword, so I had 2 on-demand dodges with sword 3 and dagger 4, in addition to sword 2 being the janky delayed dodge that sword 3 is now. I could outduel almost any spec with smart play, and the poisons helped apply reasonable counter-pressure that I could exploit if I played carefully.

These days? I run standard boonbeast to help deal with the other powercrept builds. I haven't tried dagger because I see it as an entirely defensive weapon, have become accustomed to GS for dps and utility. Maybe I'll give it another shot.

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@"Don Vega Van Kain.9842" said:GS/ Axe,Axe with one of the Highenest damages in the game and i know i'm the only one i play it (from Gold3 to Plat2)

I have perma something like this but ferecoty and power (power depending to might, in the pic, it's 14 stacks and the build is a might generator and ferocity can drop to 238%, everything else is perma)

GcnXKyo.png

A/a gs boonbeast is arguably the strongest spec for ranger right now. After the patch on Tuesday, I could see it being a viable side noder. That being said, you're correct. No one runs it.

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@"Don Vega Van Kain.9842" said:GS/ Axe,Axe with one of the Highenest damages in the game and i know i'm the only one i play it (from Gold3 to Plat2)

I have perma something like this but ferecoty and power (power depending to might, in the pic, it's 14 stacks and the build is a might generator and ferocity can drop to 238%, everything else is perma)

GcnXKyo.png

Mind sharing the build? I suppose you're running both BM and Skirmishing to hit those kind of numbers. I'm mostly interested in your utility choices.Thanks in advance.

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@Atronach.8520 said:

@"Don Vega Van Kain.9842" said:GS/ Axe,Axe with one of the Highenest damages in the game and i know i'm the only one i play it (from Gold3 to Plat2)

I have perma something like this but ferecoty and power (power depending to might, in the pic, it's 14 stacks and the build is a might generator and ferocity can drop to 238%, everything else is perma)

GcnXKyo.png

Mind sharing the build? I suppose you're running both BM and Skirmishing to hit those kind of numbers. I'm mostly interested in your utility choices.Thanks in advance.

Not at all :)

Beastmastery : 2 2 3Skirmishing : 2 1 3Soulbeast : 2 2 2

Bear stance, Dolyak stance, Sic'em, one wolf pack. (you already hit hard, imagine when you activate sc'em + one wolf pack)

The last slot you have take another defense (lighting reflexes for exp)

Demolisher amulet (what i play personnly) or paladin (what i was playing in the begining)

Large choice of runes. (divinity, hoelbrak,scholar) depending of what your facing. ;)

I've make this buid from a perspective of playing the soulbeast alone without pet (yep that's how i love playing my slb) so i leave beastmode just to give my self resistance or some healing out of combat.

The problem is you have a huge amount of power (always top damages dealing even with reapers and revs in my team) but not much defenses against condi build (specially mes), that's why i start every fight againt condi's with activating my healing (6 sec = 6 condition removed) after that Dolyak stance (-33 condi's duration and if you take Hoelbrak's rune , it's another -20%) but normally the fight is already done ;)....have to kill condi's build the faster you can or you'll die/run away.

Otherwise, thief, war(core, bersek not sb thx to the bubble), necro, weavers even fb melt with this build.

Your main defense is your attack.

Ps : always swap weapons at cd to keep the nearly 100% critics.

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@Don Vega Van Kain.9842 said:

@Don Vega Van Kain.9842 said:GS/ Axe,Axe with one of the Highenest damages in the game and i know i'm the only one i play it (from Gold3 to Plat2)

I have perma something like this but ferecoty and power (power depending to might, in the pic, it's 14 stacks and the build is a might generator and ferocity can drop to 238%, everything else is perma)

GcnXKyo.png

Mind sharing the build? I suppose you're running both BM and Skirmishing to hit those kind of numbers. I'm mostly interested in your utility choices.Thanks in advance.

Not at all :)

Beastmastery : 2 2 3Skirmishing : 2 1 3Soulbeast : 2 2 2

Bear stance, Dolyak stance, Sic'em, one wolf pack. (you already hit hard, imagine when you activate sc'em + one wolf pack)

The last slot you have take another defense (lighting reflexes for exp)

Demolisher amulet (what i play personnly) or paladin (what i was playing in the begining)

Large choice of runes. (divinity, hoelbrak,scholar) depending of what your facing. ;)

I've make this buid from a perspective of playing the soulbeast alone without pet (yep that's how i love playing my slb) so i leave beastmode just to give my self resistance or some healing out of combat.

The problem is you have a huge amount of power (always top damages dealing even with reapers and revs in my team) but not much defenses against condi build (specially mes), that's why i start every fight againt condi's with activating my healing (6 sec = 6 condition removed) after that Dolyak stance (-33 condi's duration and if you take Hoelbrak's rune , it's another -20%) but normally the fight is already done ;)....have to kill condi's build the faster you can or you'll die/run away.

Otherwise, thief, war(core, bersek not sb thx to the bubble), necro, weavers even fb melt with this build.

Your main defense is your attack.

Ps : always swap weapons at cd to keep the nearly 100% critics.

While I think there are better trailines to use for a/a gs boonbeast, I would suggest striders defense as you don't neeeed spotter. This would synergize well with the soulbeast trait when you gain quickness you add duration to your other boons.

You're probably also over killing might gain and might be better off with sigil of courage on axe and taking shout CD reduction in beastmastery.

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After trying it out, ended up doing similar thing as Eurantien mentioned. Put sigil of courage on axe, along with either energy or cleansing. Annulment and energy on GS. Took strider's for quickness as 100 precision I feel like doesn't matter that much especially when you considered you cap crit chance if you hit from side or behind.Also tried taking resounding timbre and using SotP instead of OWP and I feel it's a viable choice since its a added stability source, but on the other hand it's a much higher cast time and it's not that potent with F2 from smoke assault and not shared with team.The build's weaknesses are clear though, and minor condi cleanse is basically not-existent. That's why i took brown bear as 2nd pet, since you can merge out and swap for team( and self) condi cleanse. Still, I feel like on your own you can't handle prolonged pressure that well and the build really shines with support since this is a teamfighting build(especially when compared to other ranger builds atm).Not really that good in 1v1 as lack of defences can be exploited, but can still catch some players unaware with dmg.A fun build to play for sure, plat material.

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@Atronach.8520 said:After trying it out, ended up doing similar thing as Eurantien mentioned. Put sigil of courage on axe, along with either energy or cleansing. Annulment and energy on GS. Took striderer's for quickness as 100 precision I feel like doesn't matter that much especially when you considered you cap crit chance if you hit from side or behind.Also tried taking resounding timbre and using SotP instead of OWP and I feel it's a viable choice since its a added stability source, but on the other hand it's a much higher cast time and it's not that potent with F2 from smoke assault and not shared with team.The build's weaknesses are clear though, and minor condi cleanse is basically not-existent. That's why i took brown bear as 2nd pet, since you can merge out and wap for team( and self) condi cleanse. Still, I feel like on it's own you can't handle prolonged pressure that well and the build really shines with support since this is a teamfighting build(especially when compared to other ranger builds atm).Not really that good in 1v1 as lack of defences can be exploited, but can still catch some players unaware with dmg.A fun build to play for sure, plat material.

Right :) you have summed up the build perfectly.

It's shine in team fight (it's not a side noder), for the sigils, i take Sigil of Cleansing and sigil of Courage too.

@Eurantien.4632 said:I already tried striders defense but it dosen't proc. that much in fights (try it for at least 5 matchs)

I've tried almost everything with this build, a very good team fighting build, good in 1 vs 1 depending what your facing (as @""Atronach.8520" said, can't handle prolonged pressure in a 1 vs1, have to kill your opponant asap and you have the power to do it) but you must temporize with heavy condi builds if u don't burst them at the begining.

Can be improved. ;)

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Played around the other night with GS and A/A. BM and Skirmishing seems pretty squishy, especially against condi. I ran a build much closer to current Boonbeast, except that I swapped Nature Magic for BM.

I believe overall traits were:WS: 1-2-2BM: 2-2-3SB: 1-1-3

Most everything else was generic Boonbeast with GS replacing S/W (https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Soulbeast_-_Boon_Beast)

Seemed to do pretty well and still fared well in most 1 v 1s. The AoE chill strike on A/A from BM and overall damage in team fights was nice to have as well. The lack of ability to throw GS4 isn't as bad when you have A/A as a weapon swap too.

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