[Dark Souls II] A Dagger in Every Liver!

[Dirty Hipsters]

What dex level were your tests at?

I should've mentioned. 50.
I'm also wearing Flynn's and Blades+2.
Also, these were both maximum upgrade... 10 and 5, Dagger and Umbral.

I'm led to believe most stop at 40, but it doubt that makes up for the 300 difference on it's own... Umbral Dagger will still be better, and given how this game and it's Soul Memory work, those 10 points don't matter anyway.

Yeah, 50 is about what I expected. Like I said in my original post, the Umbral dagger would do more damage if you have more than 35 dex, but if you don't want that high a dex investment (like if you're running a strength build but want a dagger to maximize damage on ripostes) then the standard dagger is a better choice.

 

[garjian]

It's +150 vs. +50x1.3, and x1.3 means a lot less when it only effects the dark half of a Dark Dagger, which had low attack anyway even before being split by the infusion... and you lose your scaling on top of that.

Except that a dark dagger would be silly and I've never advised to use "dark" for daggers.
A dark katana on the other hand (a better weapon for the typical Dex user btw) is more than viable.

But for daggers - Mundane is god tier for obvious reasons. There's just no comparison. Once you are rolling Mundane, add any combination of a Mundane Avelyne, a Mundane Santier's Spear and/ or a Mundane Broken Straight Sword (with the Mundane Dagger for crits) to become a PvP beast.

Poison and Bleed are also both very viable for daggers. You can still add both the Ring of Blades and the Sacred Oath miracle, even though their effect is slightly reduced, as the bleed / poison effect is far more valuable than a few extra dmg points per strike. And both of those effects scale with Dex so, they fit right into the OPs plans. Poison and Bleed daggers will give more options against Jesters as the Umbral is the weakest dagger in regular attack and cannot be infused.

I stand by my assertion that infusion is very important in DS2. It just gives the saavy Souls player WAY more options.

Why did you bring it up as a weakness of Umbral Dagger then?
And by the way, if you put poison of bleed on any dagger, it'll do shit damage, and shit critical damage. If you want poison and damage, Mytha's is the best option for that as mentioned above. It outclasses a Poison Dagger by far in damage, and due to receiving higher bonuses from Rat Crest and Sanctum Gauntlets, deals more poison damage as well. You can't infuse Mytha's either, and it's by far the best at what it does.

As for Umbral, yes, it would be fantastic with Mundane, that's probably why you can't infuse it, but it's down to the build whether or not Mundane Dagger is better. I don't like to have INT and FTH and VIT and particularly ATN where they aren't needed, although it is hard to make a case for not having them at 10 (except ATN) at higher levels. I'll test a Mundane Dagger at that level myself and see how it compares.

Edit: Well, so far, I've Soul Vessel'd my useless ATN stat up to 10.
In numbers alone it's weaker than a normal Dagger, 57+204 vs. 115+178, 261 vs. 293.
It would take me 6 more ATN, 5 more VIT, 6 more INT and 6 more FTH to surpass the regular Dagger. By 4 attack. Even at that point, Umbral is still significantly better.
Also bare in mind, I start eating into Flynn's Ring, so that'll probably still be just under or break even.

Now I'm going to test the critical vs. the same Lion Warriors even though there's no reason it should do more damage.

Edit: 1100. 1104 to be precise. Less damage than my Mytha's does.

So no. I don't rate your Mundane Dagger, unless you already have the build for it... which in my own case and I'm sure many others, none of my characters do, save for my Hex-based character (who it turns out doesn't have any VIT sooo...).
Mundane Dagger no doubt does exceed Dagger eventually, but how many unused stats do you want people to take?
You're going to need a lot more than 20 in every stat to catch up to Umbral yet alone beat it.

 

[garjian]

Edit: 1100. 1104 to be precise. Less damage than my Mytha's does.

Can you please tell me how your Mytha's is scaling? It may not be apples 2 apples here.

When I say "scaled at 10" this implies that you are (or near) SL 36. If you are closer to the endgame SL 150, then you really should be basing Mundane off of the 20 scale for an apples 2 apples comparison. What kind of crit damage can you get from Umbral and/ or Mytha's at SL 36? And what about the other facets of your character? Are you gimped in all other respects because you invested everything in Dex to match up with Mundane?

I already know that your claim of 1500 crit dmg for Umbral required a hefty investment into Dex (50). You are going to have to be at least SL 50 (as a deprived class) to reach those numbers - completely ignoring all stats other than the 12 Str (required to equip, unless you 2 hand it) and 50 Dex. This is not really recommended.

Meanwhile, by SL 50, your Mundane Dagger can be scaling at 11 and your character will not be seriously gimped in all other respects like your Umbral wielding character is at that level. Bonus, Mundane (even at that level) actually plays well with low level hexing - while that Umbral build is stuck as a one trick pony - and one trick ponies are "easy pick'ins" in PvP.

Pure damage is not the only thing to take into account in these cases.

Edit: Also, can you confirm if Umbral is not as good for Ripostes? I've read this somewhere and I'm wondering if it's true. If it is true, with the weaskest attack of all daggers and weakened Ripostes, the Umbral Dagger is truly a one trick pony dagger (backstabs).
In this case, I'll still take Mundane, as it is more rounded (and I don't just mean dmg), even if the backstab damage is a little less than Umbral.

If 2 equally skilled players meet for PvP, one rolling mundane with an all around spread of stats and secondary abilities and the other rolling Umbral, with its many weaknesses and one esoteric advantage - I'd bet on the Mundane user everytime. He/ she just has more options.

50 DEX requires less stat investment than 20 in every stat. Going from Deprived as it's Level 1, 50 DEX requires 44 points, 20 in every stat requires 126. Additionally, I don't think you need 50 DEX for Umbral to outclass other daggers. I have so much simply because I had nowhere else to put the points at the time.
Not every build utilises ATN, for instance my dual-dagger build. ATN is worthless to me.
Not every build utilises VIT, particularly builds with very light weapons.
Getting Mundane to work requires a Mundane build, a build with very specific stats.
Getting Umbral to work only requires you to invest in DEX, and getting Shadow Dagger to work, STR. I wager most players have 1 of these 2 stats fairly high, but don't have the specific stats required for a damn Mundane build.

Umbral is a one trick dagger, but that's all the OP wanted. He literally asked for "pure damage".

I can't confirm about ripostes, but I'm sure they run off the same hidden critical stat.

Yes, somebody using only Umbral Dagger would probably lose to somebody using everything available to a Mundane build and a Mundane Dagger, but I'm sure you'll notice how that is not a fair comparison. DEX gives you access to more than Umbral Dagger, and not wasting points in VIT, ATN and unnecessary levels of INT and FTH also benefits you... more space for END, more space for VIG.

 

[Mahorfeus]

Speaking as someone interested in jacking up my sorcerer's Intelligence and just leaving Strength and Dexterity at the minimum requirements for [insert weapon here], would I be better off with an Enchanted or Magic dagger?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Speaking as someone interested in jacking up my sorcerer's Intelligence and just leaving Strength and Dexterity at the minimum requirements for [insert weapon here], would I be better off with an Enchanted or Magic dagger?

Considering I'm a big proponent of having multiple weapons for different situations, I'd say the best thing is to have 1 of each.

On the one hand if you do a magic enchantment it'll reduce your strength and dex scaling and give the weapon magic scaling at a C level. That's useful for enemies that have low magic resistance (which is most of the enemies in this game other than the lion warriors), and it's going to do damage through shields. The base damage however isn't going to be as high as if you enchant because enchantment just straight up makes it so your physical damage scales off of intelligence. This is good because straight up physical damage is useful against everything and you're going to get the most out of your scaling since you're planning on putting most of your points into int. anyway.

I would personally recommend using an enchanted infusion on your primary weapon, and then using a magic infusion on a back-up weapon, preferably one that already has built in magic (like the blue flame or the dragonrider's halberd) because that'll give it better magic scaling. That way you have an all purpose weapon and a specialized weapon, both of which are playing off your character's strengths.