Table of contents

Dagger vs Axe

We re-examine the question of axe versus dagger for stamina DPS.

The axe bleed was buffed in patch 5.1.5 (Scalebreaker release), getting a 24 percent buff, so it's worth re-examining how well the axe performs relative to the dagger.

Each dagger provides an additional 5 percent crit chance.

This gives us a rough approximation of how much damage a dagger provides. Using our "worst case" scenario, where the dagger brings you up to 100 percent crit chance, we'd be getting roughly 3 percent more damage with a dagger, all else being equal.

This means that for the axe to be stronger, the bleed damage must do more than 3 percent of our overall DPS.

On most stamina builds, we are able to meet that threshold with an axe, so it is usually stronger than a dagger. Of course, the bleed is a proc, so we are at the mercy of RNG, but in general, you should be able to get a little more DPS out of an axe than a dagger.

The only class where this is not true is the Stamina Templar.

This is because Stamplars using Biting Jabs as their main spammable.

Because this isn't a Dual Wield ability, we are not getting as many chances to proc our axe bleed compared to a build that is using Rapid Strikes. As a result, the axe bleed does not meet that threshold, so for Stamplars, we want to keep using two daggers.