dual-wielding sword and dagger

Does this neuter your damage output? Like you'd need double the nodes for the same bonuses? Or how does that work?

And what about e.g. Double Strike? Does that only count bonuses for your main-hand weapon?

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_kinimi_ wrote:

Does this neuter your damage output? Like you'd need double the nodes for the same bonuses?

Not necessarily. Like with other hybrid damage output builds, you can go for nodes that benefit both at once, such as increased physical damage, increased physical damage with attacks, increased physical damage with one-handed weapons, increased melee physical damage, increased physical damage while dual wielding, increased damage, increased attack damage, and so on and so forth.

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_kinimi_ wrote:

And what about e.g. Double Strike? Does that only count bonuses for your main-hand weapon?

The general rule for skills while dual-wielding is that you alternate weapons. The biggest exceptions are when it says so (you've probably noticed Double Strike says "with your main hand melee weapon"), when skills use both weapons at once, such as Dual Strike or Cleave, and when one weapon is eligible but the other one isn't.

In the case of Double Strike it doesn't matter whether your weapon types match; you could dual wield 999 dps swords, or have a 999 dps sword in main hand and a 10 dps driftwood club in the other, and your Double Strike will have the same damage output, because it specifies "with your main hand melee weapon."

The state of using Sword and Dagger is more interesting in the case of skills like Lacerate, which can be used with Swords but not Daggers. This results in what is called "fake dual wielding," which makes it act like Double Strike, except instead of the main hand weapon, it's whichever weapon is eligible. So in that case you could dual wield 999 dps swords or use a 999 dps sword and a 10 dps glass shank, and you would be doing the same amount of damage either way.

ty bro

If you want some stylish "rapier + dagger" gameplay, the best choice is probably to use a "stat stick": your skill only uses the main hand, you only skill into main hand passives, but the offhand grants some nice bonuses.
Ungil's Gauche would be an obvious choice in the dagger department, for 12% extra block and 80% global crit. Even a rare dagger with a tier 1 crit multi roll could be interesting.

If you want an offhand sword and have a main hand dagger, maybe prismatic eclipse: block and a bunch of global attack speed with 3 green sockets.
However there are not so many skills that will not use your offhand when the offhand is a sword, and the main hand a dagger.

(In both cases, sword or dagger may not be the best choice, there are other "stat sticks" out there, that are maybe more interesting)


If you insist on "using" both weapons, you'll either "waste" some skillpoints because they only apply to one hand, or you're missing out on some of the stronger passives.
You can still do this, it's just not "optimal".