I'm looking at daggers as a possible weapon choice, but I just can't see a good advantage over a two-handed sword. Two-handed sword is a nice 35 damage on a charged attack early on. Daggers are about 6 damage on a fully charged attack. Dual wielding does not seem to do much for charged attacks. Quick attacks are, of course, quicker, but the damage is still disproportionate. The two handed sword seems to have a better the strength modifier. I assume the advantage is critical. But can anyone fill me in on how this applies? Also, what is the advantage and disadvantage to one dagger vs two?
They have a higher crit chance. I used to use it for my offhand attack, though I am not certain i get better damage output. Perhaps they swing faster as well (if they don't they should).
Honestly, i haven't seen anyone using daggers and I've been playing since r7 or 8. I don't know if they have any advantage.
Let see Damge for a two hander is Deffinatly more but with a one handed weapon you can get some increase in defense and the ability to hit a second time off handed. The benefit is the Defense Bonus, DPS is lower. Now you can also use a one hander and a Shield with more defensive skills. So in the end for the simple answer 2 Hander = More Damage per hit and actually more DPS 2 One Handers = A little less DPS, but also a minor defense bonus 1 Hander and a Shield = Even Less DPS but much more defense. Do not think into it or overcomplicate it.
I've been trying to use daggers for the longest time. The advantage you get is that you can level up your blade skills super quickly, but you won't be able to kill enemies effectively. Yes, the crit chances are higher but crit damage off a dagger is useless because their base damage is piss poor. The buff to weapon range has helped a LOT. This release, I've been running around with a dagger and a shield just so that I can survive re-leveling again. Plus, due to their speed, daggers requires more frequent repairs.
The highest DPS right now is straight up auto-attacks. The higher the base damage on the weapon, the more DPS by a hefty margin. Daggers need adjustments, maybe even their own tree to be significant. Whirling blades with a long sword that is ~3 feet verse a 6" dagger is just ridiculous to even compare. Hopefully in coming patches they will have a solid look at.
Ah, so the benefit is meant to be the crits but they don't work right with the weapon? I notice the crit is a pretty large number though. No idea what the number implies. My thought was daggers may be better now that dexterity affected all weapons for crits.
Yes, all the blade skills scale off weapon damage. So your quad attack combo, coup, whirl are all so much better. Subterfuge isn't fully fleshed out and could bridge the gap by making high damage skills that require daggers. They should be better versus low armour targets (as dual wield), and heavy weps better vs heavy armour
I've been pretty satisfied by Subterfuge's performance so far. I'm mainly Blade, Tactics and Subterfuge (and SLOWLY building up LightArmor) and I can say that my only real problems right now is Sneak Attack and Sap. Like @Enfo says, you can't practically kill anything with daggers without auto-attack. I wouldn't put daggers in their own tree. Devs just need to realize that a short blade hurts just as much as a long one. Increasing the base damage should suffice and, if you need to compensate, make some Blade skill less effective with a dagger (like anything that slashes).