building a viable dagger user

building a viable dagger user

OK, I know I need a life, but it irks me that daggers are basically useless in D2. the 2 logical classes for daggers are both useless for them. Barbs can master every wepon but daggers and assassins use their own special weapons, which might as well be daggers, but aren't.

so, what kind of character could you build that could survive specializing in daggers as their main killing weapon? I'm thinking a poison dagger-based necro, but would that be the only option? and if so, what skills would he focus on?

 

i don't know why at first glance the name barbarian would indicate daggars, barbs like things big... they aren't going to stoop to using daggars... but to answer your question:

As you said, poison daggamancer is probably the best build for daggars.

I also had an idea that you could make a thrower barb that uses THROWING daggars, technically, that IS daggars =)

you could aslo make a trapsin that uses throwing daggars after traps are laid, or for those pesky lightning immunes, but that probably wouldn't work well

 

Hmm...

Paladins can use just about any weapon and rely on Zeal + elemental aura (Holy Fire/Freeze/Shock) to pummel their enemies.

Barbarians can, if they have access to the runes, dual-wield Fury daggers (for some reason these have been popular on Realms) , or better yet Fleshripper (CB, OW, DS... what more could you ask?).

It is rather annoying that Blizzard went to all the trouble of adding daggers and throwing potions only to make them so darn useless that nobody ever uses them. At least Wirt's Leg sees some use... even if it's mostly to open the Cow Level...

 

I suppose you can go with a frenzy barb? Problem is most class has slow swing speed (relative to the damage done) for dagger except assassin and amazon. And they don't do much damage unless you are willing to shell big for ghostflame or fleshripper, or invest the runes to upgrade some exceptional uniques.

 

You know, I was just looking through runewords (I need to figure out what I want my merc to wield...thinking of switching a Hone Sundan for something else) and noted that Venom is also a very nice bug/feature synergy runeword for a dagger mancer...the charges give a total of (15+13)*20% = 560% poison damage to Poison Dagger, at no cost in skill points...

 

The amazon is also an excellent char for daggers. She has excellent speed, good FHR when using daggers, and lots of support skills. Good weapons are Fleshripper, Heartcarver, or rare throwing knives (for a ranged option as well).

 

My most successful hardcore character was a daggerzon in 1.09. Made it to Act IV Hell using a Spineripper. It was a tourney character limited to level 12 and under skills - I had maxed Critical Strike, Dodge and Avoid. Combine it with high blocking and you're a tank. Zons also get excellent attack speed with daggers because it uses the same one-handed thrusting speed calculations as javelins. A -20 speed dagger (dagger-class and kris-class weapons) need only 68% IAS to reach a 7 frame attack.

Chris

 

I've heard that Werebears using daggers (or similarly fast weapons) can be awesomely powerful, especially with a fully synergised Fire Claws.