What's with daggers?

[my butt is erect]

So in all the dark souls games, I was never able to make daggers feel successful in a pve build. No matter what I'd do, they always felt weak/handicapped compared to every other weapon. Of course, outside of situations where you're getting easy backstabs/crits. Maybe historically they're more of a pvp thing?

I've yet to try daggers in this game. Do you have any insights or recommendations about making daggers useful? Are they inherently bad outside of niche situations?

Any thoughts about daggers in Elden ring will do.

[festizio]

https://youtu.be/ieEvXu0fr2A

[MULTIPASS]

Daggers still suck, use dual curved swords instead.

[Xengre]

Morton Koopa Jr. lähetti viestin:

I used to a bleed dagger in DS3, it was really fun. Except I think there was one boss where I had to rely on something else due to bleed resist.

Yup, Bandit Knife was king for pure bleed in PvE. Dragon Knight Armor (or w/e it was called) was really weak to frost and Gael was also weak to frost (res to bleed iirc) but the rest were all weak to bleed. I feel like there was at least one more standout non-bleed boss but I cannot recall off top of my head.

OP
Daggers are often very good for status effect application as they have the fastest attack rate while having comparable status per swing if they're inherent + further buffed/infused with that same status effect. In DS3 it was a clear winner but in ER with power stance dual wielding and generally really high bleed setups in general I'm not sure they edge out as mnuch as they did in DS3 (then again I stay at RL1 with +0 so it might change at higher level for PvE purposes, but this assumes Seppuku isn't in the factor which is clearly the best for bleed).

The other aspect is critical hits if you poise break, parry riposte, or backstab a player/mob/boss. Daggers tend ot have lower AR but the highest critical modifiers which make a huge difference despite the lower AR. The Misericorde has AR not far from an actual sword while having 140 critical and thus able to achieve obscene crits in PvE/PvP. Put something like "Flame of Redmanes" or the Rogier Rapier weapon art (forgot name) and you can easily poise break trash mobs in usually 1 hit or bosses in 2-3 getting tons of free nearly effortless crits. Equip Cerulean Dagger for FP recovery on crit and a single FP bar can clear an entire dungeon. Crits in PvP can easily secure a kill if performed.

A less common tip is in PvP if you don't mind sacrificing range you can buff daggers with elemental infusions and do some surprising dmg, esp at lower/mid level where dmg values aren't as absurd normally and buffs become more apparently useful. Buffs are factored after normal dmg calculations and can really add up on a weapon like dagger such as dagger + thunder grease/buff.

[Big Daddy-Chan]

In DS2 my first playthrough was with dual daggers and I loved it

[River]

I mean, I've got a power stance Reduvia build in ER that wrecks 99% of enemies I come across.

The thing to keep in mind is that you need a stick and move playstyle for them to be effective. They won't do obscene damage on their own, but the bleed procs will be frequent, which is what you're looking for.

If you wanted a dagger build that is insane, go with a Misericord and the Flame of the Redmanes Ash of war on it.

You'll stagger everything in 2 hits of the AoW, and the 140 Crit of the Misericord is crazy strong.

[Who Dat]

please ignore all the people telling you to play with reduvia solely because it does bleed damage, i swear on my life the majority of people playing elden ring are just like "try bleed damage"

misericorde is obviously what you are looking for for the high crit damage, ripostes do more damage than backstabs but as it has already been mentioned a good chunk of enemies recover from a stance break before you can switch to your dagger.

on my dagger build im running stone of gurranq to poise break and then i dont have to switch to the dagger its already in my hand.

you can put cragblade on the dagger and it gives the weapon extra poise damage so you can actually start to break stance with just the dagger itself. if you got a buddy to drop you an extra one and duplicated the ash of war you can dual wield them with cragblade on each and a enchanced jumping attack talisman and youll probably be breaking stance quite a bit and still have the dagger ready.

and finally there is the faith incant that works the same as aural decoy in ds1 where you basicly fool PVE mobs into attacking air so you can get an easy backstab on them.

[AMANE_KANATA]

daggers are really fun to use been using them since ds3. In pvp two daggers can land you around a 450-550 hit if you get a successful attack but I prefer the R2 attack (heavy attack if not on controller) which does 240 a hit for a longer range attack.
My right hand is a lvl 24 misericorde dagger with flame of the red manes and my second right hand weapon in a lvl 25 spiked caestus with beasts roar (both of these help prevent people from spamming spells) my left hand is a lvl 9 reduvia and a buckler shield for misericorde ripostes. (don't forget to use dagger talisman if you plan to parry)
the reduvia is optional I just use it because its a high lvl dagger I have that has good physical damage because I don't want to use status effects since they're cringe. I'll grab a clip I got to show you.

[hbyw618]

It's fun, I think maybe we love it after try it.

[Slinky]

with the new tools they added. you can black out an area sneak away, and with right tali's basicly stay invisable and just backstab your way through the game.. misericode with 140% crit is wicked as a tool to use with any build.. on a stagger crit with the right build i have done 8k dmg with the dagger. and 2.4k dmg with a sneaky backstab,,

[AMANE_KANATA]

https://youtu.be/0RCh9ssXBQE
https://youtu.be/9UE_ywfGRLk

[Zoid13]

i started with the bandit and used dual daggers for the first half of the game.
it lets you get in fast hits without getting stuck in attack animations that get you hit.
they do a tonne of damage if you get a good opening especially if you have some frost or bleed on them.

they get much harder to use later on against heavy enemies because they don't stumble the enemies on attack like the heavier weapons do. so if you try just attack into enemies faces be prepared to just trade blows and lose lots of HP lol

you need to be mobile.

i swapped to the raptor talons for the 2nd half of the game when i found them because i liked how they looked :P but they are also very fast light weapons and don't fumble enemies on hit. i liked the raptor talons for how flexible they are too being able to change them to any element and customise the AOW ect.

[AMANE_KANATA]

Zoid13 lähetti viestin:

i started with the bandit and used dual daggers for the first half of the game.
it lets you get in fast hits without getting stuck in attack animations that get you hit.
they do a tonne of damage if you get a good opening especially if you have some frost or bleed on them.

they get much harder to use later on against heavy enemies because they don't stumble the enemies on attack like the heavier weapons do. so if you try just attack into enemies faces be prepared to just trade blows and lose lots of HP lol

you need to be mobile.

i swapped to the raptor talons for the 2nd half of the game when i found them because i liked how they looked :P but they are also very fast light weapons and don't fumble enemies on hit. i liked the raptor talons for how flexible they are too being able to change them to any element and customise the AOW ect.

yeah that's what I honestly find more fun about daggers. you have to be agile and play a 50/50 risk or reward. in ds3 my build was "path of the dragon" dragon body with a chaos dagger for heavy dmg lol.

[Blerrger19]

The paired daggers in Ds3 were pretty good with a VERY specific build to make them viable, but they were barely just that. Daggers have never compared with heavy-hitting weapons like greatswords or anything else basically. They're gimped by low base damage and almost no reach, and almost exclusively used for backstabbing.

That being said I had a lot of fun sneaking up on enemies in Elden Ring (since stealth is actually quite good), and sometimes took out entire camps without being detected.

However if you're trying to make a viable daggers-only build using them as your main weapon...good luck. They're pretty bad tbh and I'm hopeful we'll see a patch soon to make them more viable (fists got one! daggers too, please?)

[River]

Who Dat lähetti viestin:

please ignore all the people telling you to play with reduvia solely because it does bleed damage, i swear on my life the majority of people playing elden ring are just like "try bleed damage"

I suggested the Reduvia because it's a great weapon that you can get super early AND it scales with Arcane. The fact that it has bleed is just gravy.

Now point on the doll where the Reduvia hurt you, okay?

[AMANE_KANATA]

River lähetti viestin:

Who Dat lähetti viestin:

please ignore all the people telling you to play with reduvia solely because it does bleed damage, i swear on my life the majority of people playing elden ring are just like "try bleed damage"

I suggested the Reduvia because it's a great weapon that you can get super early AND it scales with Arcane. The fact that it has bleed is just gravy.

Now point on the doll where the Reduvia hurt you, okay?

They’re probably referring to spamming weapon arts because a lot of new players to the souls series tend to do that, especially with rivers of blood and moonveil which is understandable. I normally don’t like spamming weapon arts because it’s not fun for me or the player getting hit by it