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i love daggers in games and in most games daggers can usually compete with the best of the weapons out there but in d2 they lacked in all areas. they came down to poison dmg that was only good in normal or that dagger with 100% MF. not to mention only 2 slots for runes crippled them entirely. i understand that claws were the new dagger and whirlwind sin was sick as hell but id love to see some dagger skill trees and possibly unq or recipe daggers that do more than just poison.
you could have all range of life leach, poison, crit, stun, instant ko, crazy atk speed, magic, damage daggers and maybe some awesome duel wielding to go along with them. and lets throw in a better looking stance than holding it over your head and poking them.
1. Ever heard of Wizardspike? Right, maybe it's not a very good stabbing weapon but it's a dagger after all...
2. I don't see how a dagger can compete with a sword/axe/mace of any size. It simply lacks weight (on the other hand it's hard to shoot fireballs in reality too)1
I personally think daggers are the wrong weapon to use in a game like Diablo. It's a stabbing, one-kill weapon, and in Diablo you kill tons of heavy, armored enemies...
Daggers do have their place. My D2 Barb uses a "Heart Carver" rondel as my alternate weapon and switch over to it when "finding item" over a corpse. It may not have its place as a melee weapon, but some could have magic bonuses which make them appealing to some players.
Also, it would be cool to see a dagger add a bonus to a second weapon, with a secondary attack or blocking - allowing any character to dual-wield them.
It's basically Heart Carver, Gull, Wizardspike or The Diggler, yeah - and the only reason The Diggler is in that list is because its disadvantage is an advantage in some cases.
In my opinion, Assassins should've had something to do with daggers. However, I can imagine it would be hard to implement something like that if daggers are already in the game and Assassins are not.
Also, Necromancers were already sort of tied to daggers (and wands, ofcourse).
Basically, like in real life, swords and axes are in most cases more useful than daggers. But I agree, it would be cool if they did something with daggers. Tying in to the one-stab-kill aspect of daggers, assassination-style, wouldn't it be a good idea to give all daggers a (small) inherent Critical Strike chance or something similar?
It looks like the OP mentioned what I was going to say, but just to add...
I think it would be hard for Blizzard to come up with realistic ways of making daggers powerful--this is a challenge they should embrace. Maybe daggers could have the fastest attack speed in the game by a longer shot that in d2. So the only way to make the fastest possible attacker is to use daggers.
It makes sense because they're small and easy to use/stab/swing with.
Duel-wielding also makes perfect sense. Maybe, how about EVERY class can duel wield daggers, but this is the only weapon class that allows duel wield (except barbs of course).
Then there could be another special bonus where daggers by nature have a 10% chance of critcal hit on every dagger (even white). There's the 50% damage to undead on maces, so I don't see why daggers should be left out of a natural mod.
...basically, the OP's ideas enforced to an extent that daggers cannot be ignored! I think they have a true place in any fantasy type of game. They might also need a few more dagger skills (like posion dagger or a martial arts skill).
And one more thing: ignoring defense! Daggers are perfect for getting in through chinks in the armor.
I thought of a few more things: Life leech is likely out, but maybe (you guessed it) daggers could be the only items in the game that spawn with life leech. So you could get leech, but the downside is you're using a dagger so you don't do godly damage. Sounds fair enough.
Magic daggers that you can throw and they return to the hand of the thrower. Other throwing weapons (like spears/java/axes) would have the annoying stack size mod and cannot return like daggers.
They could have encouraging unique dagger names, like Diablo's Dagger--the knife that the d1 warrior used to pluck out Diablo's soulstone.
Finally: daggers have got to be the easiest weapons anyone could learn to use (beacuse of their simplicity and lightness). Maybe they could have NO level requirement for even the best daggers in the game.
I would love to see daggers have a place, but it would be hard to make them work. If there is a rouge type character then they could make it into a bow/dagger type character, massive crits, bleeding, whatever.
The problem is, it's not possibly to "realistically" make daggers powerful, just like unarmed fighting - it simply does not work unless you start chucking magic in it.
So giving them unique magic mods is indeed probably the right way to make them useful - make them into a utility weapon that doesn't compare in killing speed to the big hitters but can hold effects other weapons cannot.
Quote:
...basically, the OP's ideas enforced to an extent that daggers cannot be ignored! I think they have a true place in any fantasy type of game. They might also need a few more dagger skills (like posion dagger or a martial arts skill).
Yes, they have a true place in fantasy - however Diablo isn't exactly a universe where you sneak around assassinating bad guys 1 by 1. Daggers don't hit as hard as other weapons, they don't penetrate as far, and it's more difficult to use a shorter weapon than a longer one - you expose yourself too much when you actually try to hit with a dagger. I just don't see them being mainstream weapons. (Plus, using a dagger as a combat weapon is more difficult than using a club or the sort)
If they have an actual place in the game, I would say it would have to be with the ranged character. Using ranged skills but if all else fails then that would be the back up weapon, or against bosses/etc. They could put in a skill that is sorta like charge where you rush up to an enemy and attack, if you click on an enemy in the pack of a pack then you rush through the pack while slicing everyone within range. You still wouldn't be doing zomfgwtf!? damage but it seems like the best way to actually make the dagger an option.
daggers aren't that useless. Why can't you all see these things. it's not because you can't use them perfectly on paladins that they are useless.
Lets see:
Ghostflame: perfect it does 197 damage. That's more or equal to the comparable fast swords and maces though you gain idt. And some magic damage can't hurt. If I every find a perfect one, I'm making a daggerzon.
Fleshripper: the damage might not be that spectacular though mods like crushing blow, deadly strike, openwounds, prevent monsters heal and slow make it a decent weapon for characters that don't use their weapon to attack. It's far from a bad weapon for kicksins.
Wizardspike: it lacks skills. That's true though for each other mod, it can compete with the super expensive runewords.
the Gull: as far as I know, this baby packs the highest mf certainly if you can't afford to waste ists in your weapon. it's the perfect switch weapon for mf sorcerers that can't afford the most expensive equipment.
Spectral Shard: it packs 50 fcr and 10 to all resistances. however, it's cheap as hell. You could probably find people giving you cash just to take one from them. It's very good on budget casters, certainly on non-ladder as spirits are quite expensive.
So In conclusions, if you look at the game the ways it should be. And that is by ignoring the duped high runes as we wouldn't all be running around with several high runes if they wouldn't dupe them. Daggers aren't that bad. that main problem I see the fact that they are range 1. For the other aspects, they really have their place in them game.
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If you want to talk about underused weapons, consider crossbows or perhaps even one-handed maces.
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