Daggers are weird.

[Giganx]

Range is the worst of any weapon in game, so much so that many enemies with large collision boxes can't even be hit during some of their basic animations no matter how close you are.

Damage per hit is the lowest in the game by a pretty big margin.

Speed: while powerstancing it's probably the slowest weapon in the game, locking you into a lengthy 3hit combo that hits for far less damage than any other weapon.

Status build up; likely where the weapon is supposed to shine... It's worse at status build up than Katana, Twinblades, Curved Blades and there's probably more. Pretty much every bleed weapon applies bleed faster.

I'm doing kind of a challenge run naked with daggers and I'm enjoying it, but I'm a little curious if daggers were intended to be objectively worse than every other weapon in every way, lol.

[Sonnenbank]

I tried to start a powerstance dagger playthrough 2 times.....
gave up-....

And i loved dual Daggers in DS3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sint9--NhYM&t=1s&ab_channel=lordad

The dual Dagger playthrough was one of the most fun i had


The big big problems with Daggers in ER are the short range and the bad boss hitbox combination.

You often get hit by invisible hitbox of bosses when you are really close.
But with daggers you need to get that close or you wont hit yourself
short story
dual dagger in PvE are just bad
end of story

[Xengre]

Originally posted by Gigan:

Originally posted by SadPlatty©:

You cannot use the phrasing "it is objectively the worst" when you are not even sure what's what. This is like saying "Daggers are literally the worst weapon in real life", completely discounting something like the Sword Breaker class dagger that is more designed to catch/shatter a sword and then go on the offence against an unarmed opponent as I didn't know they exist, or the Katar punch daggers that can puncture thicker armor as you punch with them.

Second issue - why do you bother using parry if it doesn't matter/doesn't close the gap? You seemed to really go for them at parts in the YT video you posted. Seems like a bunch of wasted time to me if I am to believe what you say now. I guess the challenge is seeing how much time you can waste on useless stuff?

Objectively worst damage per hit and range are accurate. Objectively worst power stance speed is probably true as well, but that doesn't account for recovery.

This is just some wordplay though. As I already pointed out, and I'm not sure why you've been dismissive of the points I raised, but your stating per hit. Yes, however, in terms of DPS (aka over delta) they have some of the highest DPS as pointed out. They also have the highest status effect application rates in the game except possibly curved sword but I'd have to test that in detail to verify (that said jump curved also has rvery high physical dmg scaling, too, for a good hybrid approach so its a bit super meta overtuned, another issue entirely...). Thus stating other weapons build status better is largely incorrect, similar to the incorrect gauge of "dagger powerstancing is slowest weapon in game".

You usually see this in other games with daggers, too. Aside from uber crits they often hit fast but produce more DPS. Heck, DS3 was straight sword meta because technically less per hit then heavier weapons but it was close enough that coupled with its faster attack speed and safer recovery it provided notably superior dps. DPS is usually far more valuable than damage when considering comparing performance, at least in most cases. You take it out of context and it looks bad but in context it isn't what you present. Bleed status buildup is very good on daggers, too, but there are some daggers with built in bleed for superior bleed buildup if you want to go for maximizing bleed buildup otherwise comparing it to power stance inherent bleed katanas and such and yeah... its not going to be much better.

Here is one video I came across before on the topic and it isn't totally maximally optimized, either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BM3-CMB72s
As you can see, very potent as one type of dagger build.

[Sonnenbank]

Originally posted by Xengre:

Here is one video I came across before on the topic and it isn't totally maximally optimized, either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BM3-CMB72s
As you can see, very potent as one type of dagger build.

tbh i cant actually see that its very potent.

Its a level 154 maxed out char vs midgame enemies...
ofc its gonna destroy....

id like too see this vs Horah Loux and compare the DPS to the setups i tested.
f.e Strength Fire Twinblade with a level 120 char.
I feel i did much more damage per second than this

[Giganx]

Originally posted by SadPlatty©:

Wow - weapons do things that help them compare to others!? So you mean - if you got really good at parrying (like most invaders in Dark Souls 1), I can almost parry your every hit and not even take damage, AND irritate somebody by doing constant chip damage to apply pressure while they keep getting animation locked by being parried? Wait... and I can dual proc because daggers do bleed and can further be imbued with rot for example to do MORE!?

Your right - that's such a bad idea,. Everything should just do the same damage just faster/slower. Daggers in their R1 combo should be able to blast out greatsword tier damage from their R1 combo.

Parrying just flat out doesn't work against most bosses and enemy types. It's not an alternative playstyle, it's a niche. As for bleed, Katanas have much higher base bleed, twinblades and curved swords build bleed much faster, and neither sacrifice their damage or range for status building. Daggers aren't "different," they're worse.

[Giganx]

Originally posted by Xengre:

This is just some wordplay though. As I already pointed out, and I'm not sure why you've been dismissive of the points I raised, but your stating per hit. Yes, however, in terms of DPS (aka over delta) they have some of the highest DPS as pointed out. They also have the highest status effect application rates in the game except possibly curved sword but I'd have to test that in detail to verify (that said jump curved also has rvery high physical dmg scaling, too, for a good hybrid approach so its a bit super meta overtuned, another issue entirely...). Thus stating other weapons build status better is largely incorrect, similar to the incorrect gauge of "dagger powerstancing is slowest weapon in game".

You usually see this in other games with daggers, too. Aside from uber crits they often hit fast but produce more DPS. Heck, DS3 was straight sword meta because technically less per hit then heavier weapons but it was close enough that coupled with its faster attack speed and safer recovery it provided notably superior dps. DPS is usually far more valuable than damage when considering comparing performance, at least in most cases. You take it out of context and it looks bad but in context it isn't what you present. Bleed status buildup is very good on daggers, too, but there are some daggers with built in bleed for superior bleed buildup if you want to go for maximizing bleed buildup otherwise comparing it to power stance inherent bleed katanas and such and yeah... its not going to be much better.

Here is one video I came across before on the topic and it isn't totally maximally optimized, either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BM3-CMB72s
As you can see, very potent as one type of dagger build.

I know there are strong dagger builds out there. Magic and weapon arts are so ridiculously strong in this game that every weapon is technically viable.

Not really what I'm talking about, though. Daggers basically sacrifice everything for status building; range, damage, even speed/recovery. Problem is they don't build status better than the other options, and the other options sacrifice nothing. I don't really mind that daggers are gimped, it makes them good challenge run fodder, but I still find it a weird decision.

[Sonnenbank]

yeha in the end dual rapier and dual dagger have about the same status effect applied per second rate but rapiers have better range.

So there is zero logical reason to use dagger except for fashion

[SadPlatty©]

Originally posted by Gigan:

Parrying just flat out doesn't work against most bosses and enemy types. It's not an alternative playstyle, it's a niche. As for bleed, Katanas have much higher base bleed, twinblades and curved swords build bleed much faster, and neither sacrifice their damage or range for status building. Daggers aren't "different," they're worse.

Are you saying they "objectively" don't work against most bosses as you finished your run/googled them all to confirm, or "subjectively" based on the couple you have faced so far, and maybe didn't try practicing much against either since you already say it's a worthless effort?

Massive attacks, yeah - not parrying those. Rykard will not work for example. But Malenia, and other humanoid bosses? It will. Crucible Knights, Banished Knights, Black Knives, and others will also work; maybe even the Revenents - I honestly never wanted to try against them.

Additionally, I find it funny. You keep saying how useless parrying is, but want to play with weapons that deal the bulk of their damage via critical strikes. Like are you even spec'ed to do the most crit damage to properly even compare against other stuff?

Ultimately - I see this as posting something like:
Katanas are basically useless half the time, because they bounce off of stuff like the Crystalians as they deal slash damage, and also off of cave/castle walls. Why would FROM design an enemy/area that literally forces you to consider blunt/strike weapons?

Missing the point that the games have a minor emphasis on "use what you got to survive", and are instead going right to the "I should be able to use ____ to kill everything equally" logic.

[Giganx]

Originally posted by SadPlatty©:

Are you saying they "objectively" don't work against most bosses as you finished your run/googled them all to confirm, or "subjectively" based on the couple you have faced so far, and maybe didn't try practicing much against either since you already say it's a worthless effort?

Massive attacks, yeah - not parrying those. Rykard will not work for example. But Malenia, and other humanoid bosses? It will. Crucible Knights, Banished Knights, Black Knives, and others will also work; maybe even the Revenents - I honestly never wanted to try against them.

Additionally, I find it funny. You keep saying how useless parrying is, but want to play with weapons that deal the bulk of their damage via critical strikes. Like are you even spec'ed to do the most crit damage to properly even compare against other stuff?

Ultimately - I see this as posting something like:
Katanas are basically useless half the time, because they bounce off of stuff like the Crystalians as they deal slash damage, and also off of cave/castle walls. Why would FROM design an enemy/area that literally forces you to consider blunt/strike weapons?

Missing the point that the games have a minor emphasis on "use what you got to survive", and are instead going right to the "I should be able to use ____ to kill everything equally" logic.

Can't parry any of the bazillion dragons in the game, fire giant, placideausax, elden beast, fortissax, basically any non humanoid enemy. Trying to play it off like parry/crit is an alternate playstyle is just silly; it literally doesn't work against a very large chunk of this game.

Also, Katana's aren't useless against anything. Jumping heavy's from the Katana break crystalline enemies.

I think you're missing the point. I don't care that Daggers are gimped; I chose them for a challenge run precisely because they're gimped. I'm just curious why From chose this design for them.

[SadPlatty©]

Originally posted by Gigan:

Can't parry any of the bazillion dragons in the game, fire giant, placideausax, elden beast, fortissax, basically any non humanoid enemy. Trying to play it off like parry/crit is an alternate playstyle is just silly; it literally doesn't work against a very large chunk of this game.

Also, Katana's aren't useless against anything. Jumping heavy's from the Katana break crystalline enemies.

I think you're missing the point. I don't care that Daggers are gimped; I chose them for a challenge run precisely because they're gimped. I'm just curious why From chose this design for them.

I think it is you missing the point - you are mentally gimping the dagger, and playing it off like it is more outrageous a concept than it really is. I played a whole run of nothing but the Dragon Incantations as a run, making sure to kill every boss. I knew Malenia would suck as she is fast, but I didn't try stoking my ego like "Oh yeah, I know this is hard, that's why I did it plebs" - I just did so because they looked cool. Some dragons tossed my salad more than an olive garden too.

If you are forcing yourself through a challenge run, might be worth just giving up before you waste too much time. This type of thing takes dedication - look at the folks that have done "no hit runs", that is a challenge run. No dying besides when it is required, and Passive runs included. But not so much "I want to use the worst weapon type", maybe if you picked the worst weapon period.

Otherwise, why did you post here expecting most people to agree? Otherwise, it would have been removing the challenge from your run as people mentioned all the pluses.... unless that was the point.

Either way - it's post 5 here, and I am going to play some Fallout now

[hemorrhage911]

Daggers are notoriously garbage in this game - not sure what the hell people are blabbering about in here. The hitbox for them is garbage - pretty sure there are a decent amount of videos showing this.

[Xengre]

Originally posted by Sonnenbank:

Originally posted by Xengre:

Here is one video I came across before on the topic and it isn't totally maximally optimized, either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BM3-CMB72s
As you can see, very potent as one type of dagger build.

tbh i cant actually see that its very potent.

Its a level 154 maxed out char vs midgame enemies...
ofc its gonna destroy....

id like too see this vs Horah Loux and compare the DPS to the setups i tested.
f.e Strength Fire Twinblade with a level 120 char.
I feel i did much more damage per second than this

It actually works at extremely low levels, too. I've tested to confirm my suspicions but it isn't very stat dependent.

Of course leveling would help only make it stronger, but as frost only scales from weapon upgrade and it is a huge chunk of the dmg (bleed style % hp, but unlike bleed cannot scale off any stat at all) this means it maintains its performance much better than bleed does at lower levels (bar Sepukku weapon drop trades). The base dmg isn't too bad, either, because while it will increase with levels and weapon upgrades it isn't actually a significant % increase over even its most base values and most increase comes from weapon upgrade, itself, like with most other weapons. Of course, at lower level it wont stunlock as back to back high frequency nor will it do as much dmg as a upgraded weapon since it will start with +0 weapons, but this goes the same for bleed and anything else naturally.

For Horah Loux it depends. If your build with fire dmg was high enough it might have passed up this one as this boss is one of them resistant to frost/bleed/etc. It also just depends on aggression level for application of the status effect considering that boss' movements and how well you can stick and apply between his actions. Of course, you can see the general dmg in other boss fights in the not maximized video and while this is a very powerful build, there are going to be some others that are also powerful or better fit per context of encounter, not to mention meta overtuned options. I wouldn't assume this one build would get you through every single fight. Flexibility is still going to be key.

Originally posted by Gigan:

I know there are strong dagger builds out there. Magic and weapon arts are so ridiculously strong in this game that every weapon is technically viable.

Not really what I'm talking about, though. Daggers basically sacrifice everything for status building; range, damage, even speed/recovery. Problem is they don't build status better than the other options, and the other options sacrifice nothing. I don't really mind that daggers are gimped, it makes them good challenge run fodder, but I still find it a weird decision.

You do sacrifice range in many cases, though it could be argued that outside PvP spacing range is far less important in PvE bar fairly rare cases of more than 1-2 mobs as PvE mobs/bosses aren't capable of intelligent intentional roll catching and don't have the ability to perform iframe dodges that demand tight punishments thus you could be on top of their face and it doesn't really matter the overwhelming majority of the time.

You don't sacrifice dmg. Bleed and frost build daggers are some of the highest DPS possibilities out there, bar broken Sepukku uber builds, Ash of War cheese uber dmg nukes, some caster nuke builds, some Curved Sword OPness (which is debatable possibly but would require doing a really deep break down to see if its actually significantly different). If you're going for non-status daggers or poison/rot then its a bit more difficult to say for sure and would require more detailed testing to be certain but they will probably lose compared to something like power stance curved sword/colossals by a good margin though I hesitate to say that is 100% true until fully verified due to possible edge case builds. As seen in the video presented the dmg output of that particular build, for instance, is incredibly high.

The recovery is longer for power stance attacks with daggers, but that same recovery is comparable to a single swing of a huge number of other weapons in the game despite putting many hits out in that time frame. As for single dagger attacks they're the fastest melee there is. It's like complaining about Colossal weapons being slow but only because you use charged 2h attacks or power stance and never try to roll, jump, or r1 swing when it fits. I feel you massively exaggerate the issue of recovery outside of context if I'm being frank.

The issue I have the biggest gripe with, though, is you say daggers don't build status effects faster than other weapons. This isn't true at all. Aside from heavy weapons having more per hit in terms of status build up, the typical case is more hits in less time = best application which would be daggers both 1h attacks and power stanced. In fact, aside from a 1 jump burst curved sword power stance jump attack even they don't apply status build up as fast over 2-3 seconds of dps windows and they're less safe during tighter windows. There is no weapon as good at building up status effects as daggers. However, while this is true this is a bit more complicated for DoTs like poison/rot. While they build up those faster, too, there is some room to argue uptime vs downtime efficiency and trade offs because those are long duration effects (15, 30, etc. seconds) where it might only take a couple seconds to proc and then be up for a good period at which point having rapid application is rarely as important as other weapon goals if the trade off but I digress.

I'm also not factoring the OP Misericorde FotR/Phalanx crit abuse since that is less engaging and just straight broken.

I think the bigger issue with daggers is its easier to not properly build or utilize them making them typically kind of gimped, where other weapons are often much more straight forward, rather than whether they are genuinely actually gimped or not. Of course, FROM is notorious for not being exactly balanced in their games tool/weapon choice so if anything I'd consider it less of a "decision" and more of a they done f'd up. Look at Sekiro tools, DS3 Straight Swords, any FROM game's magic system, etc. :P

[Giganx]

Originally posted by SadPlatty©:

I think it is you missing the point - you are mentally gimping the dagger, and playing it off like it is more outrageous a concept than it really is. I played a whole run of nothing but the Dragon Incantations as a run, making sure to kill every boss. I knew Malenia would suck as she is fast, but I didn't try stoking my ego like "Oh yeah, I know this is hard, that's why I did it plebs" - I just did so because they looked cool. Some dragons tossed my salad more than an olive garden too.

If you are forcing yourself through a challenge run, might be worth just giving up before you waste too much time. This type of thing takes dedication - look at the folks that have done "no hit runs", that is a challenge run. No dying besides when it is required, and Passive runs included. But not so much "I want to use the worst weapon type", maybe if you picked the worst weapon period.

Otherwise, why did you post here expecting most people to agree? Otherwise, it would have been removing the challenge from your run as people mentioned all the pluses.... unless that was the point.

Either way - it's post 5 here, and I am going to play some Fallout now :bye:

You're trying too hard. All I did is ask if people thought the gimped design of daggers in this game was a weird decision/direction for From to take them in here. I was kind of curious to see what people thought the point of Daggers was in this game; my conclusion is that they're challenge run fodder.

All of your pretending that I'm upset, making excuses, whatever is just projecting. I already knew this was going to be difficult and I don't care; that's the point of a challenge run. Some bosses like Valiant Gargoyle will be near impossible with just straight up daggers. I don't need or want Daggers buffed or anything like that. I'm just here to see opinions on them.

[Giganx]

Originally posted by Xengre:

Snip

First, bleed/frost build on anything is going to do insane damage against enemies that are weak to status. Of the weapons that are designed for status builds Daggers build status among the slowest. Katanas, Curved Swords, Twinblades, etc. all build faster with higher base values and/or more hits.

Now, what daggers have to balance out their middling ability to apply status is the worst base damage of any weapon in the game; the worst range of any weapon in the game; and a powerstance that rivals heavy weapons in terms of recovery. Not saying I need or want Daggers buffed, but doesn't that strike you as an odd balance design for them ?

[Rodrick]

I have never seen people so outraged about a dude asking why a weapon tipe is trash.
Yeah my man, I don't like them either. I love the style, but its just too hard unless doing a challenge run and I aint got time nor stamina to pull that off. Dunno why people here are whining. I get ya. Salty soul vets just need to scream at something I guess

[Senki]

Originally posted by SadPlatty©:

I played a whole run of nothing but the Dragon Incantations as a run, making sure to kill every boss. I knew Malenia would suck as she is fast, but I didn't try stoking my ego like "Oh yeah, I know this is hard, that's why I did it plebs" - I just did so because they looked cool. Some dragons tossed my salad more than an olive garden too.

Uh, not to burst your bubble but that isn't anywhere close to a challenge run. Especially if you use the rot breath which is one of the best attacks in the entire game and will ruin 90% of the bosses easily.

So it's not comparable to a dagger run at all.