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Plus in my case I always run the Rakta Dark Dagger when running a shield Warframe, like Harrow ore Hildryn, since melee attacks restore shields
I'm probably one of the few people that actually use finishers. My single most used melee weapon is a dagger at 21%. But sure, don't add anything just look pompous.
Keeping in mind that Ceramic Dagger has higher damage (140) than the Skana (120)
Ceramic Dagger (W/ Covert Lethality + Finishing Touch) = 11648 finisher damage
Skana (W/ Finishing Touch) = 12288 finisher damage
Then when it comes to heavy attack damage:
Ceramic Dagger (W/ 3X from 2 mods) = 140*2*3 = 840 (yes, that's the heavy attack damage)
Skana (W/ 2X from 1 mod) = 600*2 = 1200
The Ceramic Dagger, which has a higher base damage than the Skana, deals less damage in finishers and heavy attacks using an extra mod (Covert Lethality).
The only thing that the dagger can do that other weapons can't do it open enemies with a heavy attack (we're still updating the wiki).
The dagger does less damage even with higher base damage and Covert Lethality (as an extra mod).
You're comparing a Puncture dagger that has absolutely no Slash whatsoever with a sword that is primarily slash, with equal but low amounts of Puncture/Impact. The Ceramic Dagger also has a 1.00 attack speed versus the Skana's .833, and the dagger has marginally better crit and status chance.
What I get from reading those and all the other stats is that the Ceramic Dagger is a better option for armored enemies, with the possibility of being built not just for a higher combo floor, but faster generation for a greater usage of charge attacks after being quickly built up by the fast attack speed and a mod like Covert Lethality.
Looking at raw numbers never paints the clearest picture for this game, that much should be obvious though. Not just your weapon matters but how it's modded and what it's used against.
I picked those 2 weapons because they're basic and because the dagger does more damage than the other weapon; to illustrate that even with Covert Lethality as an extra mod still means they do less damage in heavy attacks and finishers than other weapons.
TDLR: Yes, raw damage was used. I used a dagger with higher raw damage against a weaker weapon to show that it does less damage.
EDIT: You don't multiple finishers nor multiple high combo-multi in rapid succession against the same target. This test was to show they're terrible at both despite Covert Lethality.
Can I ask you, have you actually thoroughly tested every melee weapons yet to see how the chips have fallen? I'm not asking you for a sort of ridiculous proposition like "hurr if you haven't tried everything you can't say anything", I'm asking because I actually have. I have all the melees in the game besides the new Kuva Shildeg and the Tekko Prime, and I spent my weekend playtime on testing and remodding every single melee weapon including Garuda's Talons and Exalted melees.
Right now before I posted, to make sure I wasn't talking out of my ass, I made similar builds on a Skana and Ceramic Dagger, both using their stances from the Plains ( Swooping Falcon and Stinging Thorn, respectively.). The builds I did had Primed Pressure Point ( rank 8 because I don't want to forma 150+ melees to fit a maxed one, though I might max a separate at some like I did Blood Rush ), Shocking Touch/Virulent Scourge/Voltaic Strike for Corrosive,Corrupt Charge, and Killing Blow. From there, the only difference in builds is that I put both Slash mods on the Skana, and both Puncture mods on the Ceramic Dagger.
Accounting for minute amounts of wasted time with missed swings and my hand going from mouse/keyboard to my phone to time it all, it took me about 35 seconds to kill a 165 Corrupted Heavy Gunner with the Ceramic Dagger by swinging with the neutral and forward combos up to a x9 multiplier and finishing with two chained Heavy Attacks.
For the Skana, it took me just about a minute, doing the exact same thing with the two Heavy Attacks by x9, with it requiring me to beat it up further up to a x5 multiplier and two more Heavy Attacks and then one final swing to finish its last pixel of health.
My point is, the damage types seriously affect the purpose of the weapon, and if you're going to ignore that, you are doing yourself and your point a disservice. I'm not a blind DE defender or shill, I'm neither applauding nor condemning the melee changes in this post. I'm simply telling you, you have to test things and then you have to consider what specifics you are testing on.
I don't know about you or any other Warframe players, but I personally build every single weapon specifically by their strengths. Not just crits and status, but also their damage allocations. And then when I encounter situations that a weapon will do well in, it's there as an option for me to use. I don't try to use a handful of weapons for every situation. That's why I'm making such a big deal over you comparing a Puncture weapon versus a Slash. The difference is huge, killing a single target in 35 seconds vs 1 minute, even if the builds were only barebones. And that's without taking advantage of what even you brought up, the Heavy Attacks on daggers opening enemies up to finishers. I specifically equipped Corrupt Charge on both weapons instead of Covert Lethality on one, because I wasn't going to use the Finisher openings, to keep the testing on marginally more even ground.
No, I haven't tested them as to how they fair against everything.
The test was about finisher damage and how before they were great are now the worst weapon for that. Only the raw damage matters for finishers as everything is converted to true damage in the case of finishers, (500 true damage to a level-1 crewman is the same 500 damage to a level-160 bombard).
I also compared in terms of heavy attacks when you stated they get a 3X multi while all other get a 2X (once again, higher damage dagger with a 3X heavy multi does less damage than a lower damage 2X heavy muli weapons on heavy attacks).
I tested 2 things, the damage type is irrelevant (finishers convert all damage to true damage, a higher raw damage dagger w/ a 3x multi can do less damage than a lower raw outclassed weapon with a 2x multi on heavy attacks).
EDIT: If you want to say daggers are strong due to having 1 high damage type stat that's totally different and has absolutely no bearing on either of those tests. I'm talking about mechanic basics, not how 2 specific weapons with mod builds compare to each other.
In the same way they brought down Maiming Strike and normalized Condition Overload and Blood Rush, Covert Lethality was an incredibly powerful and essentially crucial mod for all daggers. I agree, it gave them an incredible niche that made them relevant in that state of melee. But now DE has changed the state of melee, they removed that niche of the mod, and in doing that, have had to give daggers new purpose.
You are hanging up on insisting that niche be finishers, but I disagree. Because while they may have taken away Lethal Damage, they also went and brought up every single dagger to a state that can be comparable to the majority of all other melee types. In losing Lethal Damage, they made daggers feel capable, or moddable to feel capable, against the same situations and targets as other melee weapons, including groups.
Correction, I said they can start at a x3 multiplier while other weapons can only start up to a x2. That doesn't mean I was talking about their raw heavy attack capabilities. My point there was that because they can start off higher, that offers two benefits, the first of which being an increased Heavy Attack damage floor. The other on is that a raised minimum combo plus high attack speeds across all daggers means that they are also capable of building up their multiplier to the cap very quickly. Even if the heavy attack is weaker than that of other weapons, it's not worth ignoring that building up a higher multiplier faster and dishing out those Heavy Attacks more and more often is most obviously a good thing, before even considering any secondary benefits you may have modded into Heavy Attacks like Life Strike or Exodia Brave.
To bring Covert Lethality back into the conversation, you have to remember that modded Finisher damage not only affects the True damage of a stealth or frontal Finisher, but also ground finishers as well. When you look at the dagger stances, I believe they're all capable of bringing enemies to the ground, which you can then follow up with a buffed up ground finisher via Covert Lethality.
From there, in case you are unaware, I'd like to inform you that ground finishers seem to add a significant amount to the combo counter. You can test that by playing a Nidus or Vauban and grouping enemies together with Larva/Vortex and performing a single ground finisher. This is with any and all weapon types of course. What that means in conjunction with Covert Lethality, is not only are you doing much more damage to these guys, even if it isn't Lethal or even True damage, but you are also more likely to end up with a greatly increased combo multiplier, which you can then immediately expend with Heavy Attacks. And of course with a dagger, that means that if something were to survive all of that, the heavy attacks would open them up to a frontal finisher which is ALSO buffed with Covert Lethality. That same situation may not be possible with a different weapon type.
And I'm saying you tested poorly and too strictly. And apparently, you aren't understanding my point at all about the damage types. If I have to reiterate, fine: I'm not saying daggers are strong due to "having one high damage type stat and etc..." because I never made that claim. Instead of reading the arguments you want to see me be making, you should actually rebut the actual arguments and points I'm making.
Of course, I'm not a hypocrite and I'm always willing to point out when someone is right about something. So yeah, if you were purely testing finisher damage between a Skana and Ceramic Dagger and those were your results, then alright, you've made that point and it was correct, as was your reasoning around how non-ground Finishers are calculated.
But when you began to talk about Heavy Attacks, that's where you fell off. You didn't even mention what you were hitting, at what levels. On top of that, it doesn't negate my points about the generally faster and more often performed Heavy Attacks that daggers can do, which is absolutely a relevant point.
If you want to argue about how we lost Covert Lethality's niche given to daggers and what that means for attempting to build daggers for Finishers, that's one subject. But I've been talking about a completely different subject, about the general performance of daggers. I'm not hanging on to a thread that DE is obviously going to keep cut, I'm moving past that and adapting to the changes by seeing what daggers can actually do now, not what they could before.
I didn't mention what the enemies were because it only really matters for specific weapons and damage types. Different damage types have their damage based on what they're hitting and armor is a percentage reduction (not a flat subtraction). Every class of weapons has a relatively diverse array of weapons with different damage compositions. While yes, some weapons are unique and inherently do better against some factions I'm making generalizations on the assumption (for now until they finish fleshing out the system; I know the assumption is ultimately wrong) that there's going to be close enough base damage comps that it doesn't need to be taken into account (for now); I'm looking at what a weapon class does rather than particular weapons. Although, over time I've stumbled on some such weapons that I'd normally never take a second look, but found that they're so exceptional that they're better than my go to ones in some situations (found a new favorite that way too).
I didn't address it because I was using the Ceramic Dagger and Skana as an example for similar weapons in the same tier. In terms of stacking combos yes, dagger is better than sword. However dual blades are even better at doing that (in general) without really giving up much in return. That's my point, there's nothing the daggers do decently that another class doesn't do better with less drawbacks.
Kind of my point, finishers use to be good for singling out a single heavy target to take down. Now it's just quicker to freeze them (sleeps, lifts, lockdown, bullet attract, and so on) then just shoot them in the head.
I have everything maxed out (except choice paths I want to be lower) and have almost always and still use Unairu (haven't even swapped it in over a year). Not saying anything by it, just a sticking point that in my opinion kiddo martial arts are a bit too overpowered... But that's another topic entirely.