just a question hopefully I don't get flamed too much but any chance that underhand can be made kinda like backstab and charge? It's just kind of odd that daggers have all of this strength in terms of maledicting and bleeding and then you throw in the underhand (that can initiate battle) and it's kind of ridiculous considering they have concealed as well. Granted it doesn't lag like pincer does but besides pincer there's no other warrior spec that does that and they're already nasty. Not really a rant I'm just trying to figure out how that balances out with the rest of the specs are far as high damage battle initiating spec skills go.

Something you might not be factoring in is that, in general, which is to say, excluding specs or special skills, dagger is the worst weapon type in the game. It's very easy to parry, very hard to parry with, very easy to disarm, very hard to disarm with, etc.

Can't see how it makes sense to exclude spec skills given that only dagger specialists do this. Even without active skills you have concealed.

Dagger spec was still viable (but hard, for me at least) before axes became easy to dodge, and legacies like dance on the southern wind and harmonius equilibrium existed. I never had that much trouble fighting them before, but now they are close to the toughest enemies (and versatile too).

Now, I know I'm going to get hit with the entire range of dagger maladictions before that hero sucker goes down, unless I'm a voker.

I don't think underhand is overpowered. It's more the fact that most dagger specs melee so well now.

All that being said, what I said is still valid. Daggers are still (normally) the worst weapon.

If you take a dagger spec warrior who you think tanks well, and give him any other weapon to wield instead*, assuming skills are equal, he will generally tank better. That may not be the disadvantage it was once upon a time, but it still is one and still has to be part of considering relative spec value.


*I think whip is marginally worse to parry with in most cases, though it's also generally a lot better for hitting the other guy than daggers are.

I was being shredded getting hit something to the tune of 4 to 5 times per round and not hitting the enemy at all.

If I remember correctly, the parry check comes before dodge. Axes are hard to parry, so that means the dagger spec will have more opportunities to dodge than if he is fighting an easier to parry spec like a sword spec.

If said dagger spec is dodging successfully, he suddenly becomes an offensive nightmare with 8 attacks on a good round (5 attacks + 3 concealed).

As a fan of dagger specialists, the characters who destroy me most readily are able to engineer a situation where I did not get off the concealed attacks due to neutralizing my ability to dodge (strength or dex maladictions, entwine, etc.) or neutralizing my concealed skill(disarm/disarm legacy/fumble/wither, broken weapons, or minimizing their own attacks and relying upon spells or powers to attack).

Concealed is almost certainly the reason for the shredding.

That, and probably the dagger warrior is just built as a better tank than your character.

Seriously, drow battle flail, no wonder this game got to me.

It's really not that much worse. :)

And I'm pretty sure flail is usually better than dagger.

(In case you're wondering, all skills being equal, whip is generally more offensive than flail -- so that's not an endorsement to always use flail as a whip/flail, although I probably would if Battle since mages typically learn whip.)

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