Damage While Dual Wielding Daggers: What Does It Mean?
In the world of Last Epoch, dual-wielding daggers offers unique advantages for players focusing on maximizing their damage output. This tactic is primarily utilized by the Rogue class (specifically the Bladedancer mastery), allowing for rapid attack speeds and massive critical strike potential.
While dual-wielding daggers significantly boosts your offensive capabilities, it comes with a trade-off: in Last Epoch, dual-wielding generally causes you to take increased damage (typically 9% more damage taken). Therefore, balancing this aggression with dodge and glancing blows is essential.
Benefits of Dual Wielding Daggers
Equipping two daggers unlocks specific mechanical advantages that single-weapon builds cannot replicate:
- Double Implicits: You gain the implicit stats of both daggers. Since daggers often have high "Base Critical Strike Chance" or "Global Critical Strike Multiplier" implicits, stacking two of them can skyrocket your crit stats.
- Attack Speed: Dual wielding inherently provides an attack speed bonus, which is crucial for applying ailments like Poison or Bleed rapidly.
- Versatility: You can mix and match daggers to cover different needs (e.g., one dagger for Crit Multiplier, another for Flat Physical Damage).
Strategies for Maximizing Damage
To fully exploit the "Damage While Dual Wielding" affix, consider the following strategies:
- Skill Synergy: Use skills like Shadow Cascade or Flurry. These skills have specific nodes that grant bonuses based on your weapon type. For example, Shadow Cascade has nodes that grant "More Damage per Dagger Equipped."
- Affixes and Idols: Look for Stout Lagonian Idols which can roll "Increased Damage while Dual Wielding." This affix provides a massive boost that applies to all damage types (Physical, Poison, etc.).
- Passive Skills: The Bladedancer tree is filled with nodes that scale with dual wielding, such as Weapons of Choice, which grants unique bonuses depending on your weapon combination (e.g., Dagger + Sword or Dagger + Dagger).