Building a good dagger Zaw

[[R] Nerva]

Okay, just as a preface, I know about the Zaw calculator, and I know several build calculators. I don't need links to those. Example builds are nice, but not strictly necessary. Riven mods are not an option.

So, I'm looking to build a dagger Zaw to replace my aging Sheev and as an alternative to my Rakta Dark Dagger - something I can use for actual combat, rather than merely slitting throats with it. Of course, Covert Lethality is definitely going on it anyway (mostly for stealth mission purposes and Inaros), but what I'm wondering is what sort of build I should be striving towards for it?

One thought I had was to build a Condition Overload dagger, and focus on speed and status chance to get as many procs on a victim as possible in a short amount of time. The Balla strike (currently the only possible strike for a dagger Zaw) has naturally high puncture and slash damage and a minimum of impact, providing two desirable status effects for a CO build, and with a Peye grip and Ekwana II Jai links, it reaches 1.17 base speed a 32% base status chance gilded. This is easily enough to reach 90%+ status chance with basic status modding, as well as making it the single fastest dagger in the game.

But then I considered a crit build - a base 32% crit chance with Vargeet II Ruhang link, plus the higher base damage of a Kwath grip, could possibly be combined with Blood Rush, Berserker, and other crit damage mods to produce a dagger with surprising speed for the damage it puts out per-hit. This Zaw would be faster than the Sheev and most daggers at .867 base speed, and provide much greater base damage as well.

So I'm debating which of these two builds to go with.

I could potentially run Maiming Strike on the first one if I want crits. 10% crit chance gilded + 90% from Maiming pretty much guarantees a crit on a slide attack. It would also have massive damage from Condition Overload, albeit not quite as much as a Plague Zaw strike (sadly, there's no Plague strike capable of a Dagger Zaw, or I'd use that in a heartbeat!) I'm wondering if the Peye grip's additional speed is overkill, and I should just use a Plague Akwin, Laka or even Kwath grip. Contagion-bombing will be strong, but not as strong as absolutely possible due to the lack of crit chance and the choice of grip. Due to the status chance of the weapon, Exodia Contagion will allow me to lead off fights with a Viral proc as well as what's already on the weapon to help pile on the status effects for Condition Overload. This is assuming, of course, the Covert Lethality Contagion-bomb doesn't kill them outright first.

If I go with the second option, crits are all I can really do with it. It'll be faster than any dagger except the Ceramic Dagger and the Dark Daggers, but I can't make use of Condition Overload (no status chance) nor Maiming Strike (it already crits constantly). It also might be better for Exodia Contagion bombing. It'll have Covert Lethality's already-considerable bonus, but since Contagion's projectile is affected by the weapon's own crit chance, I will have critical contagion bombs. In fact, possibly orange-crit contagion bombs if the bonus crit for combo counter affects them (I know the bombs themselves don't affect the combo counter, but I don't know if that works the other way around.)

Any suggestions as to which I should go with, other suggestions, or clarifications for the aspects I'm unclear on are appreciated. Extra-special appreciated is the reasoning behind your suggestion.

[Talenar]

https://youtu.be/wpYk290ubkM?list=PL6zmOPUF0hL3v65hlt31deBnGvO150E0r

[76561198290528435]

Balla Peye Vargett Jai II

Daggers even as zaws aren't that combat-viable except for contagion nukes (which is unnecessarily strong) so just max speed so you hit the finisher of stinging thorn (stance) quicker.
Above build is 25% crit 1.25 speed. PFury, PPP, CL and just pump more damage and you're done. Berserker is unnecessary.

[[R] Nerva]

Originally posted by bell:

Balla Peye Vargett Jai II

Daggers even as zaws aren't that combat-viable except for contagion nukes (which is unnecessarily strong)...

You certain about this? Daggers are fast weapons, and gilded Zaw daggers can achieve damage values that are competitive with non-Zaw weapons of other weapon types, largely due to Ruhang II links and their Vargeet/Ekwana variants (which I honestly hadn't considered).

Just as an example:

Broken War, has 15% crit, 10% status, and a total of 90 raw damage (9/9/72 IPS), with 1.0 attack speed. A Balla/Peye/Ruhang II dagger Zaw has 18% crit and status, and a total of 92 raw damage (4.6/55.2/32.2 IPS), with .95 attack speed. The dagger zaw has .05 less speed in exchange for 2 extra raw damage, +3% crit chance and +8% crit chance over the Broken War.

I specifically chose Ruhang II links on the example because of its lack of specialization - you could push either crit or status significantly higher at the cost of the other to compete with other weapons.

For instance, use Vargeet Ruhang II, and you've got a full +10% more crit than the Broken War (25%), at the cost of only having a 4% status advantage (14%). This means it's now jockeying competitively with the Krohkur, to the tune of +22 raw damage and +0.177 attack speed at the cost of -4% crit and -9% status. Use Ekwana Ruhang II, you've got a -1% crit disadvantage (14%), but a whopping +15% advantage in status chance (25%). This lets the dagger zaw trade face-punches with the Mios, with a +12 advantage in raw damage and matching status chance, at the cost of being .58 attack speed slower and a -1% crit disadvantage.

Not saying you're not right, there could be other factors I'm not considering, but the numbers aren't bearing your point out. It'd help to know exactly why you consider daggers not direct-combat viable, because it may be fixable.

[Bael]

Personally I use a condition overload build on my zaw dagger with those same parts and it annihilates enemies sortie lvl and beyond. Just yesterday I found about Exodia Force which I believe will make zaw daggers so much better than they already are. At max rank Exodia Force give you a 50% chance on status effect to deal 200% damage in a 6m radius giving the dagger decent range and the ability to deal a ton of damage in an area. I’ll post a pic of my build later when I’m at home and if you want I can give you my Balla riven I don’t intend to farm the kuva to get a good roll it’s at like 9 rolls and only good stat I ever rolled was +100 something crit chance. Add me in game and I’ll give it you later when I’m home if you want it. ign is Zahzoo

[[R] Nerva]

Apologies for revisiting this thread so long after its last post, but I've still been mulling over this in light of the new Zaw parts released, and figured it was better to post here than to make a new thread.

The dagger zaw I'm looking at right now is Balla/Korb/Ekwana Jai II. Here's its stat block:

DMG 30.8 slash, 4.4 impact, 52.8 puncture
SPD 1.03
CRIT CHANCE 14%
STAT CHANCE 25%

The Korb grip is basically the Kwath grip on steroids. Even slower, but far more damaging. Normally your links have the most prominent effect on raw damage, but the Korb grip provides so much that it's ridiculous. As a result, I don't really need Ruhang links on a fast grip like the Peye - I actually get slightly better speed and damage by using Jai II links on a Korb grip.

Any speed value over 1.00 will ensure that my dagger zaw is faster than the fastest non-Zaw dagger in the game. It's also far-and-away more damaging than the most damaging non-Zaw dagger in the game. It has more damage in its puncture stat alone (52.8) than any other dagger has in its entire stat-block (best is tied between Karyst and the Rakta Dark Dagger, each with 50 damage total). You could put a Sheev and a Ceramic Dagger together and still not outdamage this thing, and it'd still slightly outspeed the faster of the two!

I decided to go with Ekwana Jai II links because they allowed my attack speed to exceed 1.00 and gave me a solid status chance to build a Condition Overload weapon around. With 14% crit, I'm probably not building a crit build on this thing, but I do at least have just enough to have the option of Blood Rush at high combo multipliers to achieve a decent crit value. Plus there's always Maiming Strike if I need crits for anything.

Thoughts?

[Bael]

Originally posted by R Nerva:

Apologies for revisiting this thread so long after its last post, but I've still been mulling over this in light of the new Zaw parts released, and figured it was better to post here than to make a new thread.

The dagger zaw I'm looking at right now is Balla/Korb/Ekwana Jai II. Here's its stat block:

DMG 30.8 slash, 4.4 impact, 52.8 puncture
SPD 1.03
CRIT CHANCE 14%
STAT CHANCE 25%

The Korb grip is basically the Kwath grip on steroids. Even slower, but far more damaging. Normally your links have the most prominent effect on raw damage, but the Korb grip provides so much that it's ridiculous. As a result, I don't really need Ruhang links on a fast grip like the Peye - I actually get slightly better speed and damage by using Jai II links on a Korb grip.

Any speed value over 1.00 will ensure that my dagger zaw is the faster than the fastest non-Zaw dagger in the game. It's also far-and-away more damaging than the most damaging non-Zaw dagger in the game. It has more damage in its puncture stat alone (52.8) than any other dagger has in its entire stat-block (best is tied between Karyst and the Rakta Dark Dagger, each with 50 damage total). You could put a Sheev and a Ceramic Dagger together and still not outdamage this thing, and it'd still slightly outspeed the faster of the two!

I decided to go with Ekwana Jai II links because they allowed my attack speed to exceed 1.00 and gave me a solid status chance to build a Condition Overload weapon around. With 14% crit, I'm probably not building a crit build on this thing, but I do at least have just enough to have the option of Blood Rush at high combo multipliers to achieve a decent crit value. Plus there's always Maiming Strike if I need crits for anything.

Thoughts?

I’ll have to try this out when I get home to compare the stats but it sounds pretty good I like the attack speed cuz I hate slow attack speed. Using my zaw dagger a lot in hard onslaught mainly for Exodia contagion because it’s annihilating all the enemies in 1 hit and if this zaw combo you posted gives me more damage imma use it for sure. Might test a few variations of it because why not I have hundreds of each mining resource from the plain with nothing to use it on. If I find one that’s a little better I’ll be sure to share.

[[R] Nerva]

Okay, I know it's been a couple days, but here's the more-or-less final product of my Zaw.

Few notes before I post the build:
- No forma yet, but it is potato'd
- I'm using Pointed Wind because I don't have Stinging Thorn yet. Working on it.
- Yes, Primed Pressure Point is not maxed, but it's R9, and you should be able to see where it's going damage-wise
- Couldn't fit in Primed Fury without dropping Drifting Contact, Covert Lethality, Condition Overload, or one of the 60/60 elemental mods. May be able to drop 2 elementals and fit Primed Fury in alongside Weeping Wounds, but not sure how that would affect DPS. Needs testing.
- Exodia Contagion isn't complete. Need to get more sentient gems to finish out the stack.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1371515948

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the results. Damage output is no problem with this thing, and it's pretty quick even without Primed Fury thanks to dagger stances being ridiculous fast to begin with and its 1.03 speed. 95% status is more than enough to utilize Condition Overload; I can drop a 60/60 and still have 80%. Not sure if that's a good idea yet; it would let me throw in primed fury for faster direct combat strikes, and I would be trading out either Corrosive or Blast for Toxin or Heat (Toxin/rad might just be a good idea considering that Exodia contagion adds viral). Bears more testing and tweaking.

That aside, oh my lawd the Exodia Contagion bombing. Bring a friend if you intend to use Exodia Contagion outside the Plains, because I've seen this thing deal upwards of ~250,000 damage in a single attack, and that's after armor on a level 52 Grineer. I am absolutely not joking, this thing will murder you pretty much instantly if you catch yourself in the blast, but it'll also murder damn near anything else you land the blade close to. This thing has cleanly one-shot Corrupted heavy gunners and ancients all the way up to the mid-80s. You may want to consider a maxed out Exodia Force instead of Contagion, for those situations where you cannot be guaranteed a long-range shot.

Considering it pulls this crap now with my half-built one, I'm mildly terrified of what this thing might do with a maxed-out Exodia Contagion arcane...

All in all, I'm pretty damn happy with how this dagger turned out. It's brutal, it's fast, you can shred enemies in direct combat or instantly delete them if you can trigger a finisher, and if you drop an Exodia contagion on someone from far enough away, they and everyone in a 7m radius dies.