What should I do to be at least on equal terms with them as another melee (warrior, non-daggerspec) class?

If you don't lag them they quickly maledict you so you can't dodge and hit and most likely drop your weapon.

If you lag them they outtank (most of them dex-based + evade) you and outdamage you with concealed strikes.

Daggers are light so it's hard to make them them drop it.
They can initiate combat with strong skills as well.
Combine it with balance of the sisters legacy and mace or whip.

And being arguably the most versatile/fun to play/powerful melee combo they have cool utility skills like hurl throat.

Any advice welcome!

nt

Try and gear for items that have +stats on them so that when you do get maledicted it doesn't affect you as much, that alone helps you to fight dagger specs. The other way around it was as an Orc who got pretty much owned by dagger specs my best tactic was straight damage output bash so they couldn't maeldict, flee heal from them outdamaging me and go for big damage hack/whomp, or lastly dirt disarm. They can't use their specs if they don't have their weapons.

Seriously.

Or drop/sac.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

- In general, daggers are terrible for parrying and relatively easy to avoid with various defenses. (If they're dodging well, they'd be dodging well with any weapon in hand.) While it's good for a lot of things, it's a detriment to their tanking.

- They do have a ready selection of lightweight weapons. So yes, STR loss isn't going to be great-- it's not supposed to be a universal tactic. DEX loss is crippling, however, and you can also just go with throwing tons of damage-- most of the builds that work well with daggers aren't brimming with extra HP.

- Dodge-heavy classes in general need to travel light. This both restricts equipment choices, and works counter to certain power-based skills like Bash.

- If they can't take your weapon with STR-loss (you gear for it and/or wield something very light, etc.), they're going to have a lot of trouble getting your weapon out of your hand-- daggers are fairly terrible for Disarm and related skills.

- As warriors go, their options for denying your commands are lower than usual. Whatever tactic you decide to go with, you're going to have a shot at using it.

Overall, they certainly aren't dominating. It's not remotely the most common spec choice, and it's not overrepresented among the highest-PK warriors. (Actually, it's fairly new that finesse-based warrior builds make that list with any frequency. It used to be more like a pile of giant/duergar bash specs.) I think the current situation looks healthy-- there are very effective dagger-spec warriors, but there are also very effective warriors with other specs.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Having been a hero dagger spec, I found my two main weaknesses were:

1. Tanking for indirect damage. I know it sounds crazy, but you'd be surprised how badly dodge/evade serves you against classes you can't lag. If I couldn't trip them, then invokers, bards, transmuters and shamans would really hurt. Taking them out was a matter of hitting and running because of that. They all have huge damage reduction instead of evasive defenses - that means you have no defenses to pierce, and find yourself very short on pure damage output. Dagger specs are also pretty bad versus a lot of mobs - although they probably out tank several other specs, they're not near the top with things like spears, swords and polearms. And these other specs can be easier to tweak-up in terms of melee damage (eg, polearms and trapping, swords+flurry, spears+felar). Even most of the better daggers don't have a very high average, and dagger specs won't gear as much for +dam.

2. Dex malediction. You skills rely on your dexterity, and having it nerfed by boneshatter/impale leaves you unable to tank AND use spec skills reliably. Because there is also a back-lash associated to dagger skills, this pretty much incapacitates you. If you want to go around teasing dagger specs, take maces. They're by no means a guaranteed win but they have all the tools required to hammer a dex-based warrior. Combine with whips for entwine, and a defensive legacy or two (riddle, gates, etc), and you've got a pure dagger-spec killer.

Hope that helps. The other solution is always to bring a friend :P

Yhorian