Daggers | Elden Ring Wiki

Wakizashi is unique in that it power stances with Katanas. even though it is a dagger. It wont power stance with other daggers.

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For anyone wanting to do power stance, Wakizashi doesn't do it with Reduvia for some reason

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Update on single-wielding a Wakizashi: It's moderately fun, similar to Caestus kind of? It's like Caestus in having really good uncharged strong attacks that you can use as your main attack, but one interesting difference from the Caestus is that there's actually a reason to use one-handed strongs in some situations and two-handed strongs in other situations. The one-handed strong is a quick wide slash with a nice step forward and a very quick followup into a second strong, very versatile and quick with good hitboxes and decent damage, while the two-handed strong is a forceful stab with more power (and Piercing damage instead of Slashing) but slower and with worse hitboxes, BUT it also follows up faster from a running strong. So two-handed has a nice running strong->strong combo, while one-handed has a nice standing strong->strong combo. Anyway also if you're going this route I strongly recommend Scholar's Armament or Electrify Armament or other weapon buffs to massive improve your damage.

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I'm interested by doing a Strength run with a two-handed dagger, and for some reason I've been assuming that the Misericorde was best because of its seemingly very high base damage combined with good scaling, but I just checked with the AR calculator and... at 60 strength (and 13 dex incidentally), the two-handed Heavy Misericorde +25 (411 damage) is beaten by the Heavy Bloodstained Dagger +15 (443 damage, with 169 base damage but amazing 174.2 strength scaling), the Heavy Wakizashi +25 (453 damage, with 211 base damage and 123.2 scaling) and the Cinquedea +10 (480 damage, with high 240 base damage and 102.6 scaling). Unfortunately the Cinquedea has a one-handed handle so it looks like **** when two-handed if you notice your hands, plus the Wakizashi and Bloodstained Dagger have bleed to make up for their relatively lower damage. Haven't actually evaluated whether they look good two-handed yet but based on the simple shape of their handles it looks promising, tho the Bloodstained might have a very short handle...

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Crazy, apparently no one here is good with daggers.I'm dex/arc and use reduvia left and blood Misericorde with bloodhound step in right. I've tried out most other weapons that fit my build like rivers of blood, uchigatana, elonoras poleblade, curved swords, but daggers are definitely my best, at least in pvp.

The strategy isn't mashing L1. At least for bleed, you wanna throw in a few quick hits until they bleed, with either jump L1 or running L1, or use the L1 combo if you find an opening, then back out quickly.

Bloodhound is awesome with daggers. The side dodge and then L1 lands very often, or you can use quick R2 after sidestep to quickly break poise then follow up with L1 combo.

Definitely the best weapons for bleed IMO

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The skinny on daggers.

Despite being sped up, the base AR is low and the range abysmal, so being in position to land a combo on a boss during their vulnerable periods requires that much more skill on your part.

The attack speed makes landing multiple status effects possible.

The stance jump attack is awful compared to straight swords, curved swords and many others.

They have high crit, but with flame of the redmanes nerfed, the only way to stagger for crits is glintblade phalanx or keeping a dagger as a swapout weapon and using a high stagger weapon main.

That said, several are outstanding weapons.

Glintstone Kris packs what is effectively a 10 fp Comet spell. Hits about as hard as the Moonveil ash with better range and a charge option.

Reduvia blood blade has huge bleed buildup from range. Possibly the best bleed weapon in the game after the bleed nerf.

Black Blade is the best way to start a boss fight as the ash knocks a chunk of health off the boss with one hit. It's a good ash even after the first hit.

Cinquedea is for beast caster builds.

Misericorde is the best crit sidearm and you could use glintblade phalanx with magic infusion and swap out for the glintstone kris to fight from range until you get a stagger. Honestly not a bad way to fight bosses.

The rest are kind of bad and will require superior play on your part to compare to other weapons.

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Bro, like 4 of them scale with INT, and three of those 4 are lackluster at best. Really hoping they add some non-niche daggers in the eventual DLC.

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Patch 1.08 they are now faster and have significant forward momentum

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Daggers were really bad before, havent been touched by a single patch since release and were also indirectly nerfed by the reduction in status build up on powerstance and the poise buffs to all armours, to the point they are virtually useless. Power stance moveset is actively a detriment, not a help and they desperately need changes now because as it stands they are literally a hair more than useless. They need more than crit damage, which misericorde is only useful for anyway, and is literally the only infusable one to use because of its thrust r2, but why bother when the entire weapon class is outclassed by literally anything else. Worst damage, no range, jank hitboxes, bad movesets, no poise damage, no speed advantage. For fashion or masochists only.

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These are by far the most underpowered weapon type. The powerstanced attacks are way too slow and NEED attack canceling. I just tested the dodge roll L1 between daggers, straight swords and curved sword and they're all the exact same speed. Dual curved swords get 4 hits in a powerstanced jump attack while daggers only get 2. Dual straight swords transition from a jump attack fluidly into the second chain of their normal attacks while dual daggers have a pause and then begin their normal chain from the beginning. There's so much more but you get the point - Daggers, which are supposed to be the weapon type with the most fluid and fast playstyle, are unbelievably clunky to use. Even for applying status effects you're better off with curved/thrusting swords (better damage, moveset and range), claws (innate bleed), or fists (strike damage). There's sadly absolutely no unique positive to daggers, except for carrying misericorde for crits and spamming reduvia/black knife AoW's.

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At least one dagger with innate poison would be nice.

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Miyazaki pls buff.

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Why did they nerf status on these? The other weapons I get but status effects on dual daggers would have been a good niche. From honestly REALLY hates daggers.

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As long as curved swords and thrusting swords are as good as they are dual daggers will be pointless.

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They should have nerfed status build-up for all weapons EXCEPT daggers. Typical From blanket nerfing everything the absolute wankers.

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Thrusting swords stack status faster, have more range, and more damage.

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all of these should have 115 crit at the minimum, thats literally half the reason to use a dagger in the first place

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Where are the colossal daggers?

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Dagger? I hardly know her

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Wish we had a margit throw AOW would be cool, or even as an incantation in dlc

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Why can't I get the glowy meteorite knife the claymen use? I don't normally use daggers in these games but I would make a whole build just for that one. :(

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I want to parry with my dagger, or L1 for quick interrupts. Try to parry an enemy on a hill. It doesn't work very well at all. Otherwise is fun.

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Not a single dagger with innate poison to satisfy my assassin build dream, but TWO (!!!) shields that cause build-up of this status (Coil Shield & Ant's Skull Plate). From, you ok?

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Doing a dagger build at endgame, running a great knife/misericorde combo, switching to black knife to start a fight with and the frenzied flame for incants. The hitboxes make big bosses super annoying but really fun when it works. Everything's low weight so you can have a massive versatility of options with low cost. Successive attack talismans, stacking status effects, and getting crits make for a weird stealth/poise style of combat. This would be my favorite playstyle if not for the hitbox issue.

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Just completed a daggers only playthrough on NG+ 7, here are my insights:
-Reduvia Blood Blade will melt pretty much anything that can bleed, and for pure physical damage the Reduvia and Cinqudea powerstanced are your best bet
-The Glintstone Kris staggers things a lot more than you'd expect, and a fully charged Glintstone Dart does a lot of damage
-The Black Knife is good for starting off a boss fight, and the Blade Of Calling is pretty decent against anything undead (it was doing 4000+ damage to Death Rite Birds)
-I only used the Scorpion's Stinger against Rykard and Fire Giant, and it only rotted Rykard, so I wouldn't say it's worth it
-The Misericorde is of course super good for crits

Daggers are fun, I'm gonna do a straight sword only playthrough now. Results pending.

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Just completed a daggers only playthrough on NG+ 7, here are my insights:
-Reduvia Blood Blade will melt pretty much anything that can bleed, and for pure physical damage the Reduvia and Cinqudea powerstanced are your best bet
-The Glintstone Kris staggers things a lot more than you'd expect, and a fully charged Glintstone Dart does a lot of damage
-The Black Knife is good for starting off a boss fight, and the Blade Of Calling is pretty decent against anything undead (it was doing 4000+ damage to Death Rite Birds)
-I only used the Scorpion's Stinger against Rykard and Fire Giant, and it only rotted Rykard, so I wouldn't say it's worth it
-The Misericorde is of course super good for crits

Daggers are fun, I'm gonna do a straight sword only playthrough now. Results pending.

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you know daggers have been done dirty when the basic dagger has the lowest range in the dagger class

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any ash of war that adds flat damage can be really good on these, tedious to reapply, but effective

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I use a misericorde and reduvia dagger. Honestly, my two favorite daggers in the game.

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Yet another weapon class that shows the trend of longest weapon = highest damage. Why is ER so backwards with its weapon balancing? It makes no sense.

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My 1st NG+ was a dagger build. And it was alot of fun.

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****ing useless weapons. They suck on everything compared to other weapon classes. The only advantage these have is increased buildup. Tried to use dual blade of calling and black knife vs maliketh. Both max upgraded. The damage is ****ing miserable. Its just not worth the buildup increase cuz regardless of weapon speed most of the bosses will only let you hit them a couple of times before they unleash the next furry of combos on you. So unless you want to make the game harder, stick to other weapon classes.

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If it wasn't so easy to apply status, I don't think daggers would even be good in pve. Early game dagger gameplay in previous Souls feels like easy mode compared to Elden Ring.

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Daggers are overall bad and very situational. First, they suck at ad clear because of the range, moveset and weird collision boxes; enemies will just clip through each other and hit you. Also, they don't stagger anything at all and they rebound from hitting shields. Also, since they don't break poise, fighting humanoid enemies is really hard and dangerous mobs are better dealt with using heavier weapons.

That leaves daggers as specialized single-target DPS weapons mostly for bosses. Most bosses won't even give openings to land that many hits and powerstance L1 locks you for eternity; it is way too slow and can't be canceled. The hitboxes are horrible and there is the collision issue where attacks whiff point blank. On top of all of that, you can't stagger bosses easily with them to make use of the critical value or spam fast attacks to cause status effects

Yeah they are powerful against VERY specific bosses to apply status effects but that's it. Overall, you can land 4 hits midair and do more damage with powerstanced curved swords or powerstance GS/straightswords to get staggers AND spam attacks for status effects.

I am trying to have fun with daggers but the ridiculous hitboxes and collision issues make it a miserable experience.

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As the two below have said, adaptation is important. While you basically have to be up against your opponent, 3 L1s can melt health bars. In the early game, I've been doing great with Reduvia and the Great Knife paired together.

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these things may not do a lot of damage, but they stack status like nothing else and have hella swag

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Idk what are you all seething about, I literally beat Radhan dual-wielding black-knife+5 and reduvia+5

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None of you know how to use daggers if you are saying they're underpowered. The sheer speed of the swings can stun lock people in both pve and pvp. Add status effects and they're even better.

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Daggers are butchered all around. There are some good ones like reduvia, glintstone kris and black knife, but even then they rely heavily on their skills, due to lackluster range, made more obvious against fast bosses

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Literally no point to this class of weapon anymore. Barely was a point in some of the other soulslike. Dark Souls 2 saw the best uses of them with some silly shenanigans in DS3 but overall From seems to hate them...a lot.

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I dont care if daggers are bad. Im just mad there isint a sai weapon. I want to co-op as monsoon

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Worst weapon class. Only good one is Misericorde for crits. Every other RPG gives them something to be able to stand toe to toe with other weapon classes, but from gives them nothing.

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Daggers are all garbage.

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Reduvia is cool and i love power stance moveset, but nothing is even close to Aquamarine Dagger

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This is my first soulsbourne game and from what i get you are just supposed to use quickstep and backstab regular enemies. I tested it a bit and it works. for bosses you'll get your chance to punish after they do a heavy attack or a long combo which is weird since that's how I use big weapons. I really thought daggers would be more versatile but nope. Only difference between powerstance daggers instead of colossals is now you are punishing with blood buildup instead of jump attacks. i don't know if it was different in darksouls but that's how it is now.

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Aside from Misericode, the critical damage seems a bit lacking for most of the daggers. At +17 with Great Knife, I regularly riposte for like 700-ish damage. That's like comparable to straight-swords and axed. Meanwhile, Misericode hits over 1000 at +12. It's not like other daggers have better movesets or higher AR to make up for this either.

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None of these are worth using for direct combat. Misericorde is the only good crit dagger, not that parrying/backstabbing is much of an element of the game anymore, and Black Knife is the only good unique L2. Glinststone Kris is alright but you could just put Glinststone Pebble on anything and achieve similar, or better, results.

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Hope the clayman's glowing dagger is added in the DLC.

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This community is full of toxic losers it's not even funny lmao

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I do like daggers in this game overall, but no blindspot, BHS on every weapon, and zero hitstun makes these feel pretty bland. The speed and crit just don't serve much in a game where everything is fast, strong, spammable, and gigantic. They feel like pure crit tools more than ever before short abusing generic overtuned status effects like every other weapon type lol

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This entire weapon class needs an AR buff. MHS and 2 hit combos are no longer a thing, so it's not like a damage buff would suddenly break them.

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yall complaing how daggers are bad, how about fromsoftware brings back the MHS? how would you feel about that?

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Why you guys say daggers are bad? They're pretty fast, do decent damage, and have fast recovery time compared to most weapons in elden ring. They're not really viable in pvp, but they're good enough for pve.

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This weapon type is pretty bad, but that's what makes it good. Great for "dagger only" challenge runs, for people who aren't total masochists but are looking for a challenge.

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Worst damage, worst range, worst poise break, bad power stance moveset, quickstep can be put on any other weapon now so they are outclassed by literally anything else including fists. Been playing daggers since ds1 and they really need drastic help in this game with how powerful everything else has become. Says everything that the UGS crouch poke is faster than the daggers.

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I miss blindspot

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Y'know what? These fellas had their time in the spotlight in ds3. I'm fine with them being way worse in this game, despite the fact that I adored them in ds3.

(I'm talking pvp, by the way, since I know there's someone out there who thinks I'm referring to pve)

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Tbh if any other weapon has that fast of an attack speed it would be so OP,
I think the reason the damage per slash is low, but the ridiculous speed well makes up for it

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bring back murky :(

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Wish there was a bit more artistic designs for the knives. I love the ones we have, but only Reduvia has any type of a hand guard. Would love to go out like Kratos one of these days. :)

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Best weapon type for many "pure" builds!
Low stat requirements, low weight, 2H moveset is surprisingly good, slash and pierce attacks (might need to 2H to stab).
Generally high DPS and range is better than some of the other small weapons like claws.

STR: Cinquedea has excellent strength scaling for a somber weapon, try two handing it or power stancing with a heavy/fire dagger.
ARC: Reduvia, can be combined with another occult/bleed dagger such as the great knife.
DEX: Scorpion's Stinger is pretty good. Most of the regular daggers have high Keen DEX scaling.

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Was looking forward to the frenetic, agile and roguish dagger moveset they had for the Blades of Mercy with its lunging, darting attacks, damage modifers on dodging strikes and rapid combo strings that made you feel like a threat at close range.

Yes I know its ER not Bloodborne, but it feels silly to land so close to a winning formula before ignoring it altogether and taking two steps backwards. They struggled with daggers in the past, nailed it once and now are back to struggling.

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Dagger's range is so atrocious bad that you against some bosses your attacks will miss when you are standing as close to them as possible. Other than that they're overall pretty weak unless you go for a status effect build

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Daggers are really good to proc different ailments with. For example the bloody helice takes about 3 to 4 hits (takes about 3-4 seconds) to proc bleed on an albinaric. Power stancing erdtree daggers with a blood enhancement takes the same number of hits they get those hits in in half the time. You sacrifice a good deal of regular damage to get that though.

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Misericorde does not weight 3

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these daggers are bad! no MHS! proof that DS3 is better than elden ring

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Daggers - for when you want every encounter to be like a boss fight.

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Powerstance Dagger attack rate is kinda underwhelming. Since they have very low range and lower AR than most weapons they should be the category with the fastest attack rate but rolling R1 and jumping attacks are just single hits with each weapons + long recovery while dualblades and curvedswords get 4 hits in a single attack. The only time daggers are OKish is if you stand still and press R1 and dont move for seconds but thats not that realistic in most fights and even than the other weapons apply faster status.

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Is the occult arcane scaling for the Erdsteel dagger broken?

I have a +18 Occult Erdsteel dagger and 52 arcane - at this point it has a B rank in arcane scaling but only gets 119 + 18 damage.
in comparison, my +14 Occult Dagger with B arcane scaling has 117 + 120 damage.

Makes no sense to me that the Erdsteel dagger only gets 18 bonus damage from the B scaling in arcane

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Kinda bummed you can't get the beastman hooked throwing dagger

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crystal dagger is a scam, go for Misericorde infused.

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No blindspot, bruh

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Wakizashi should be in katana category

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Sad there are no Standard/Pierce daggers making an Estoc/Cleanrot/Rogiers' Rapier and dagger combo viable.

Be nice having the Mail-Breaker and having that in game

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You dual wielding dagger guys might want to try the SCORPIONS STINGER + BLOODSTAINED DAGGER and use bloodhound step on the bloodstained dagger with poison affinity. You'll deal poison, rot and bleed and stack them up fast due to high attack rate and be able to zip in and out of range with bloodhoundstep.

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An extremely irritating thing about daggers, is that because of their short range and how the camera aims you upward, you will miss 99% of your hits against large enemies even if your face is touching their feet.

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No aquamarine dagger sadness

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Strange that you can't get the Clayman's Dagger they use in Ainsel River.

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