[Mhurron]

Depends on how the door was shaped.

BMW with front door

[Taskmage]

O.o Fine, doors win. But that doesn't make the "only one or the other" discussion any less silly.

For red mages:

In general, daggers are better DoT for rdms before Joyeuse because their lower delay increases the number of times Enspell fires, thus directly increasing your damage. Joyeuse's double attack makes it faster than any dagger except Beestinger, Platoon Dagger and Hornetneedle, which all have lower base damage. Against magic-resistant mobs, swords become better in general, since their total damage is weighted more towards physical and is reduced less.

For weaponskills dagger has a better toolbox, with a int-based WS in AoE and non AoE flavors, an mp-drain WS, and eventually a strong physical WS with Evisceration, which opens/closes Darkness. All are available without a special subjob. Sword on the other hand has the invaluable Spirits Within, and at 100% TP Vorpal Blade from /drk /pld /war or /blu is comparable to Evisceration. All sword weaponskills can close level 2 chains. Savage Blade opens/closes Light.

All daggers do piercing damage, and will thus do more damage to flying mobs and mandies than a slashing-type sword with the same damage rating, but less to skeletons and hounds. However there are both piercing-type swords and slashing-type swords, making them superior as a category from a standpoint of damage type flexibility.

Of course, depending on your level the quality of weapon selection on each side of the comparison varies widely.


For thieves:

Swords are better mainhand weapons until 100 skill at level 33, since two-hit SA Fast Blade owns one-hit SA Wasp Sting, and no other weaponskills at that point gain any benefit from SA (ignoring the option of h2h with /mnk). After that, physical dagger WS stay firmly ahead of their sword counterparts, and sword skill rating drops off.

[Murphie]

As a Taru, I find my Cyclones still do more damage than Spirits Within, which is sad, but not unexpected.

[Mhurron]

Originally Posted by Taskmage

O.o Fine, doors win. But that doesn't make the "only one or the other" discussion any less silly.

Actually I believe it makes the thread very silly.
Anyway
For red mages:

Originally Posted by Taskmage

Taskmage said some great stuff, look up to read it.

Bottom line is, swords look better. As far as using weapons you should have both available by the time you go out swinging one. This will probably mean helping a lot with AF coffers and skillup parties.

[Mhurron]

Originally Posted by Murphie

As a Taru, I find my Cyclones still do more damage than Spirits Within, which is sad, but not unexpected.

Spirits Within doesn't do much unless you wait until a full 300% TP. I don't use a dagger much so I can't off the top of my head remember what a 300% TP cyclone does.

[Murphie]

Yeah, I mean with 300% TP. I just don't have a huge HP pool.

[Mhurron]

Originally Posted by Murphie

Yeah, I mean with 300% TP. I just don't have a huge HP pool.

I've never been that sad with Spirits Within. But then I've never expected my melee output to be any good since I have no gear geared towards that.

[Murphie]

Well, it doesn't make me sad, per se. It's just that I get better results generally with my dagger WS. I still use my sword, but it's just not as impressive.

Not that I expected anything all that impressive in the first place.

[Raydeus]

Depends on your lvl of course but a 300 TP Cyclone does 450+ dmg to all mobs, while a taru RDM wont go beyond the 350-375 mark with SW (15/32 of your current HP) unless they wear a ton of +HP gear.

And Evisceration will pwn both easily when you get it.

[Murphie]

Yeah, I get somewhere in the mid-300s generally.

[hongman]

Ok, while it still somehow makes sense to me what I'm asking, it doesnt to you but the answers (even the windows vs doors) have been more than I expected.

The comparison Taskmage made was spot on. Thanks!

[Humar]

I go with daggers cause i just like to attack more often and now that im a THF at 33 i can SATAVB in parties(assuming the tank DOESNT FLIPPIN MOVE ON ME AFTER VOKING!!)
but none the less i have both Sword and Dagger capped and im moderatly trained in H2H as well.....

[Karinya]

What makes SATAVB good isn't the fact that it's a crit, it's the bonus to DMG from THF main SA and TA (based on dex and agi).

If you try SATAVB as a RDM60/THF30, it still sucks, because you're getting the crit but not the +DMG.

Daggers get more hits and more enspell damage compared to normal swords, but not compared to Joyeuse or Justice Sword. Too bad there isn't a virtue dagger...

P.S. Does anyone know if Martial Knife gets more MP from Energy Steal/Drain? Enough to make it worth using despite its otherwise poor stats?

[hongman]

Another thing I thought of is whilst using a dagger attacks quicker so therefore gives the mob more TP quickly - so if the mob has a nasty TP Move, I'm sticking to Sword

[Armando]

Mob TP gain speed shouldn't have any significant weight when choosing a weapon. It just doesn't make a difference most of the time.