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I'd like to know what weapons you use when duel wielding
On any stamina class daggers work best in PvE, if you have high CP. The bleed chance is only 8% per axe so it's pretty unreliable. Also it only applies on basic attacks and 2W skills, I think there was a bug a while back when it only applied to heavy and light attacks, I don't know if it was fixed or not. The advantage of bleed is that it's not mitigated by resistances, but if you are near the resistance cap: fighting overland mobs that only have 9K, fighting in vMA where most have 12K or less or fighting in a coordinated group in trials where the 18K resistance is almost completely debuffed, your other DoTs wil hit much harder that the bleed. The 5% extra critical chance from having a dagger equipped applies to all your skills, including the ones you apply from your back bar, like endless hail or caltrops. Mathematically, if you run trap and have 66 CP in Precise Strikes, you will do 1.82 damage on critical, so a 0.82 bonus damage. If you multiply that by 5% it's 4.1% bonus damage on longer fights. For Templar and NB it's 0.92 bonus damage, so it increases to 4.6%. With Warhorn up you will go even higher. In conclusion for PvE ideally double dagger, second best dagger and axe.
By comparison swords give a flat 2.5% damage increase. That may be valuable on magicka classes, since daggers only give weapon critical, or in PvP where you run against people with shields (cannot score critical hits) and wearing impenetrable (critical hits partially mitigated). Maces ignore 10% of target physical resistance, but only after other things like CP, set bonuses and minor/major fracture have been factored in. So in fact it's a very small bonus. So maces are only worth running against heavy armor users, on no-CP campaigns, and if not having access to major/minor fracture; not worth running in PvE under any circumstances. But the axe bleed damage ignores resistances. So for PvP Stamina double swords or sword and axe. Not sure if running double axes is wort it. On magicka classes always 2 swords, since swords buff all your damage done, including magic one, so both for PvE and PvP that combo works best, although in PvE you are probably better off running a staff, since weaving with that will give much more damage than weaving swords, due to the way LA/HA scale on weapon damage (very low on magicka builds) for melee weapons and bow, and spell damage for staves respectively. The only class that can sometimes use double swords in PvE is Templar, but even then using a lightning staff will outperform due to the buff to AoE skills.
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Dual-dagger for my Stamblade in PvE. It still just scales best with high CPs and Nightblade class skills.
Edited by Flameheart on October 19, 2017 2:53PM
Sometimes the prey turns and nips us... it's a small thing.
So let the snow flakes and unicorns dance alone until they melt or vanish from existence, we will finish up with those smart enough to stay in the glowing circle of love.
I've always thought extra crit from daggers comes to 2.5-3% extra damage each.
Math stuff
Given 1.85 x base damage crit multiplier
If you have a 40% crit rating:
There would be a 60% chance of dealing 1x base damage and a 40% chance of dealing 1.85x base damage.
Average damage multiplier = (1.85 x .4) + (1 x .6) = 1.34
If you gain 5% more crit from a dagger:
There would be a 55% chance of dealing 1x base damage and a 45% chance of dealing 1.85x base damage.
Average damage multiplier = (1.85 x .45) + (1 x .55) = 1.3825
The damage gained by adding 5% to a 40% crit rating is 3.2%
If you have an 80% crit rating:
There would be a 20% chance of dealing 1x base damage and a 80% chance of dealing 1.85x base damage.
Average damage multiplier = (1.85 x .8) + (1 x .2) = 1.68
If you gain 5% more crit from a dagger:
There would be a 15% chance of dealing 1x base damage and a 85% chance of dealing 1.85x base damage.
Average damage multiplier = (1.85 x .85) + (1 x .15) = 1.723
The damage gained by adding 5% to an 80% crit rating is 2.5%
One axe works well on a Stamblade. There could be 10 - 12 attacks made on the dual wield bar in each rotation. I usually get 1200 DPS out of an axe. Adding a second doesn't seem worth it since the bleed only rises to around 1800 DPS.