Daggers | Elden Ring Wiki

Which one is better for occult infusion in your opinioni? Great knife or bloodstained danger?

Submit

Wakizashi is the best dagger for off handing, has the highest raw damage (on affinity change) it's just not great for crits and power stancing I suppose

I really recommend it for those who want a lightweight weapon for their int build (or a misericorde/rapier if you actually do want parries)

Submit

A lot of people saying these are no good...I disagree. I've got lvl 40 into. Build mains +8 frosted misericorde amd absolutley dominates pve and pvp. Light roll with carian retaliation on the ice creat shiled. Parry riposte is a one shot kill. Or chip away with fast attacks and frost build up. Thinking daggers are no good is a skill issue.

Submit

Damn, they really gutted the movesets of these things for PVP in ER, guess they were afraid of another corvian knife/murky handscythe situation... which probably wouldn't happen in ER's current pvp environment due to poise, chief amongst other factors. The entire class being boiled down to black knifes ash and an ambitious swap misericorde is such a shame, I wish their movesets were good enough to use on their own merit.

Submit

most definitely the worst pve melee weapon class. awful range, awful poise damage (cant interrupt any enemy attacks), awful stance damage, awful status buildup compared to alternatives, awful dps compared to alternatives. they have absolutely nothing going for them. only useful for challenge builds if u want to make the game harder for yourself

Submit

very bad in pve and pvp. there is no way you can make them good

Submit

Honestly if you just looking for some of the best knifes here you go

-black blade: the weapon art is basically what makes this good, lot of range, and has HP drain as well
-Reduvia: bleed, and lots of it.
-scorpions stinger: it has alright rot build up, the Weapon art is actually pretty decent on a dagger, decent range and damage, it’s a solid pick really.
-Misericorde: has the highest crit, and is the longest dagger
-erdsteel dagger: it can be infused to scale off of Int and Fth, being one of the few weapons that can, making it pretty good with super high level builds

Submit

Quick slash 4 the neck

Submit

Daggers are my fav weapon type tied with whips, would be cool to see more of them in the dlc. They encourage a more tactical and stealthy approach, which coupled with light rolling a status effects make a fun playstyle, very different from the usual bonk everything or pew pew spam. Would recommend for the experienced players looking to shake things up

Submit

PvE perspective since I have bad internet for PvP and don't want to annoy other people with my lag:

I've found that the best setup for using Daggers, and especially powerstanced daggers is not to build them like you would a normal RPG Rogue-type character, but instead build them as an absolute poise-beast that just L1s until you're either out of stamina, or the enemy is dead.

You can build damage through Dex with most daggers, or Arcane for Reduvia + an Occult, innate-bleed dagger like Bloodstained, but I believe the absolute best way is Faith; let me explain. Flame-Art gets comparable or even better damage than a lot of other affinities at a much lower number of levels invested, as it midcaps at 50 Faith rather than the 80 of Arcane/Dex/Strength when Occult/Keen/Heavy respectively. Flame Art also scales very well with arguably the best Faith dagger in the game in the Erdsteel Dagger, which gets far higher AR than other daggers when using a Faith-based affinity. A common Dagger setup is 80 Arcane with Reduvia and an Occult Bloodstained Dagger. At the mentioned Arcane level, they get 399 and 401 AR respectively, but do have solidly high bleed buildup which is great for certain bosses and enemies, but absolutely useless against others, the most common example being Radagon and Elden Beast.

At 50 Faith, a Flame-Art Erdsteel Dagger (which you can get 2 of *without* NG+ or trading), deals a total of 498 AR, with 240 being physical and 257 being fire. Split damage yes, but they are also buffable with an Ash of War like Flaming Strike which adds another 90 flat fire damage to bring the total AR to 588, which is nuts for a weapon as quick as a dagger. Since you are faith-based, you also have access to all the bells and whistles for offensive and defensive buff incantations. Golden Vow + FGMS will skyrocket your damage, and stuff like Greater Barriers and Blessing's Boon/Blessing of The Erdtree are great at staying alive. As said previously, I believe the best way to build is to make a poise-monster. As much as it pains me to say, that means full Bull-Goat set (it's PvE though so no harm). Repetitive hit damage-scaling is also incredibly strong, so things like Thorny Cracked Tear, Winged/Rotten Winged Sword Insignia, and Millicent's Prosthesis (if you can stomach killing her, you monster).

Build into other defense as well, so use a higher level Dragoncrest Shield Talisman, or even better Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman, depending on your progress in the game. Also a huge factor is putting Endure on your right-hand dagger, so as to poise and tank through almost everything. So buff with Flaming Strike on left-hand Dagger, and Endure on right hand when you want to rip off big strings of hefty damage. Endure is less useful against a lot of larger bosses, so just getting an extra Flaming Strike with a Lost Ashes of War is good for that scenario to buff both weapons with 90 extra fire.

In addition, because your main damage stat only needs to be 50, you have a lot more levels to play around with in regards to Endurance, meaning you can stack quite a bit of it and attack for days, especially because your 2 weapons weigh very little. Dragon Communion Seal is perfect for buffing because it has 0 weight, and can be used with the base Arcane from the Prophet starting class. Prophet also has the perfect amount of Dex to use Erdsteel Dagger right out of the gate once you get it from Kenneth Haight. You'll just need to rush Redmane Castle and go around the outside to the back and up the ladder and navigate around inside to find the Red-Hot Whetlade. You can get Flaming Strike on the exact same trip in the graveyard just before the ladder up to Redmane Castle.

Submit

Daggers in Elden Ring have DS1's AR with DS3's critical damage. If you've ever done a dagger-only run in any of the previous games, hopefully that can help paint a picture. In PvE, be prepared to spam AoW for most of your damage, along with switching to another weapon so you can actually stance break.

In PvP, you have to work harder to do the same thing other weapons/playstyles can do from the other side of the arena (Moonveil/magic spam), from simple running attacks (often with powerstanced spears), 90+ poise bleed spinning slashes, crouch thrust attack spam with heavy weapons or Endure with bleed fists/claws.

I think some streamers have made using a dagger in one hand, along with a real damage-dealing weapon in the other hand a thing, but as a main-hand weapon I think they're the weakest class in the game.

Submit

I think arcane power stance daggers are very underrated in PvE. Haven't tried strength/dex/int/faith builds yet (shoutouts to power stance erdsteel daggers), but the rapid strikes of these things build up status and stun lock a surprising amount of enemies in the game, akin to how the Blades of Mercy in Bloodborne invalidate some enemies. Mix and match your Ashes of War for the different bosses you face and you've got yourself a fun build where you can constantly press L1 without fear of being hit during recovery frames.

They're appropriately rated in PvP though. Pretty bad.

Submit

I commented this before but I remembered that scorpion stinger was a very disappointing weapon and I always thought it could’ve used an aow or unique R2 like reduvia.

I think that aow was the concept the devs had in mind but they reconsidered it as it would be a bit tough to add. One more cheesy thing in invasions and duels like antspur rapier. Sad that many cool weapon concepts are discarded due to pvp

Submit

I really hope at some point they add the daggers the farum azula beast men have, imagine being able to throw them on the charged r2 like they do and the ash of war imbuing them with red lightning. even if the damage sucked I'd still use it. pls from

Submit

As someone who used daggers one handed two handed and dual wield i habe to say they are Kind of Bad in elden ring. One dagger has Bad damage and Bad reach.Yes they are fast, but curved swords and rapiers are two. Powerstanced daggers can lock you into animation on the first l1

Submit

I wish they increased the stance damage of a charged heavy with stealth or something when performed wih a dagger, so much for the signiature weapon of the class that it's supposed to be a specialits on critical hits.

Submit

No matter how bad they may be, I love their moveset so much. Daggers my beloved, I shall never leave thee.

Submit

how sick would a yin-yang blade of calling and black knife build be?

Submit

endure + dagger spam = really good

Submit

I don't think the infusable daggers have a single AoW that can't be better used by other weapons. The best AoW on daggers is probably "quickstep," but thrusting weapons arguably even that better. Even axes and hammers have wild strikes, war cry and barbaric roar. None of the infusable daggers have anything unique going for them it seems. Even the non-infusable ones are typically only used for their AoW.

Even the devs don't seem sure what AoW goes best with daggers in this game, as evidence of "repeating thrust" on Scorpion Stinger, which doesn't accommodate any of the weapon's strengths, nor shores up any of its weaknesses.

Daggers could use an AoW unique to the class, like "unsheath" for katanas, "Square Off" for straight-swords, or even how the polearms get "ice spear" and "spectral lance." Aside from quickstep, it feels like too much of a struggle trying to find an AoW that works best with them. Storm Blade is decent, but it's also decent on weapons with much higher AR.

Submit

PVP/PVE Dagger user here, thought I'd impart some knowledge for anyone looking to make a build. Opinions are my own of course.

1. High Endurance is key. This means Greatjar Arsenal w/ light roll.
2. The weight of daggers will also benefit carrying multiple on you. This means multiple ash's of war and multiple fighting styles on a whim. Where people are fumbling hard swapping, you don't have to.
3. Reduvia is king. So for pure minmax, starting off as Bandit and pumping points into Arcane is good.
4. As for the ash's of war, Sword Dance and Quickstep are fantastic with low fp. Sword Dance in particular closes distance and has hyperarmor which confounds opponents.
5. Consider an Occult Miserichorde for backstabbing.
6. Consider a low weight buckler or otherwise for Parrying to pair with point 5. If you suck at partying (Parrying in PvP I only really reserve for the most obvious attacks), consider Carion Retaliation for Spellcasters.
7. Lord of Blood Talisman seems like a choice fit, but tbh I find the damage unreliable for the type of fighting you do with daggers. Green Turtle w/ Rotten Winged Sword Insignia for that burst damage had better results for me.
8. Because of your high Arc, consider Serpents Bow. Consider combining this with Poison Moth Flight on one of your many daggers.
9. Running light/heavy attacks followed by a light back roll. Punish every missed attack with a light one of your own followed by a back roll. Only Powerstance to punish severely, so use it sparingly in both PVP and both PVE. The Powerstance should only really be used to charge up your atk power when combined with the sword insignia.
10. Conclusion: Daggers are good if you lean into all their strengths, which is their weight speed and crit. You basically fight like an extremely annoying mosquito.

Submit

The most useless weapon type :) everything it does - Claws do better. You want status build up? Use claws instead. Trust me. Only thing daggers have is Misericorde (aka the ugliest dagger where you dont even feel like youre using a dagger cuz it looks like a Sword, which is the main reason you want to use daggers cuz you DONT want them to look like swords, you want them to look like DAGGERS but okay) but theres other weapons which deal higher crit than Misericorde because total AR matters too and daggers have no AR.

Submit

daggers are cool

Submit

Black Knife has the highest damage number for daggers, however it isn't raw damage. Best raw would be Misericorde which also has the highest crit of all daggers! This applies for most stat settups.

Submit

just started a run where i'm powerstancing reduvia with the normal dagger, Smaller enemies can't even move, never seen anything like it.

Submit

The main draw of daggers in Souls games is the high crit damage, but despite ER having the largest selection of daggers out of any Souls game, only 2 of these have crit modifiers that are any better than what you often find in other weapon classes. The Lordsworn's Greatsword has a crit modifier of 110 and is available much earlier than most of the daggers, has a much higher overall AR (as you'd expect; it is a greatsword after all), and it only needs 11 STR to wield it 2-handed too.

The ones you find later on that have unique WA's aren't affected by this since they'll always have good utility beyond the crit modifier, but for those that don't, you have to look pretty hard for reasons to use them - by the time you find them, you've likely already found better alternatives (either other daggers or other weapons that do the same things but better on your build).

Submit

I didn't know that the Night Maiden dagger wasn't droppable... until i came to look on here.

Submit

they weigh nothing and are fast as ****, might as well have one on every build

Submit

Even if their not the strongest in PVP, or PVE, daggers will always be some of my favorite weapons.

Submit

wish there was a flowing dagger like the nox have

Submit

whats the best dagger for pure physical damage? misericorde? great knife?

Submit

I wish they'd make an int dagger like Aquamarine Dagger in DS3 again. Its concept is very interesting.

Submit

these dont really hold a candle to fists and claws in terms of damage or range, which is a shame because they look cool af

Submit

Why is it I can stun lock normal godrick soldiers but not a knight? by stun lock I stop them from attacking me if I keep attacking.

Submit

It it just me or are the daggers kinda underwhelming this time around. Sure they are by no means unusable but i struggle to see why over literally anything else. The dual blade of calling build was just a lot more work then everything else. Hopefully fromsoft shows some love to this weapon type.

Submit

Why are daggers slower than rapiers and katanas the size of houses?

Submit

ooooo daggerss

Submit

daggers NEED to 1 shot when stabing from behind none of that half to 1/3 of health crap and have a cool animation for different daggers depending on the dagger it would have a different animation like a picture reduvia have an animation where it grabs the enemy from behind and slicing their throat or scorpion's stinger just stabing into the spine or back. for bosses it would do like 1/4 maybe even 1/5 to 1/3 health (this is all my opinion)

Submit

You know what would be fan-f***ing-tastic for daggers? If you could backstab with them while off-handed... It would actually give them greater significance and utility in most builds. Like I get that you can swap.. that's fine. However, it's so fun to have a big slow weapon in your main, and a quick small one in your left. I mean, that's literally the abyss watchers for DS3. Yes, you can do that but it seems silly to have to be like "oh, time to crit hit this guy... Lemme just put down my ultra great sword and swap to a teeny tiny toothpick"

Submit

Are any of the infusable daggers actually useful besides the misericorde? It got the best range, highest crit modifier, and has the best ar on keen/heavy; are any of the others worth using?

Submit

I like daggers to go alongside my colossal weapon cause sometimes the colossal is just too big and slow to get the job done, even if daggers do less damage they're really fast, in the same amount of time I can swing my golem's halberd I can get like 3-5 dagger hits off

Submit

would have been cool if daggers had a higher status MV on riposte, so you could insta-proc bleed or poison on a stab

Submit

Hi Tarnished, why complain that daggers are the worst weapon class? They’re daggers. What did you expect? They have niche uses, which makes sense. Mainly crits and low-weight conduit for Golden Vow AoW. Why should you expect to main these without struggling? Of course they’re worse than swords.

Submit

Too fast

Submit

I think all the daggers with less than 130 critical could afford to have their modifier increased by 10 or 15. It would make weapons like the greatknife feel a bit stronger early, which is where daggers struggle the most, compared to other weapons.

Submit

now completely outclassed by fists. fromsoft doesn't know wtf they are doing

Submit

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

Submit

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

Submit

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.

Submit

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...

Submit

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

Submit

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.

Submit

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.

Submit

Patch 1.08 they are now faster and have significant forward momentum

Submit

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.

Submit

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.

Submit

At least one dagger with innate poison would be nice.

Submit

Miyazaki pls buff.

Submit

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.

Submit

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

Submit

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

Submit

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

Submit

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

Submit

Where are the colossal daggers?

Submit

Dagger? I hardly know her

Submit

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

Submit

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. :(

Submit

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.

Submit

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?

Submit

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.

Submit

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.

Submit

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.

Submit

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

Submit

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

Submit

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

Submit

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.

Submit

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

Submit

****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.