Having tested some more of a plague facet based Rogue Messer build, I have some feedback on the state of some runes:
1- Dual Flurry is incredibly weak and not worth the 50 focus. For 50 focus it deals less damage than the regular attack sequence, while being stationary and not having longer range tracking lunges that the regular attack chain has. It also costs focus instead of generating it.
To top it off, a dual flurry will not even fill the poise bar of a regular chaff enemy like a Risen footman/bandit, a regular Gloam thrower or Pickaxe Prisoner or the Prisoner Witch or Torn Darter. This is also likely because enemy poise on solo play is massively overbuffed and Prisoner Witches are even facetanking lv30 2H hammer swings, taking 2 of them and still not even being staggered.
Dual Flurry damage is bad, its reach is bad, and it doesn’t even apply some other useful utility like poise break or have a built in dodge.
2- Dual Slash and and Dual Breaker are pretty good and pretty much your best runes for a 100 focus rune attack that has tracking long range lunges with good damage output.
3- Lightning Claw and Dashing Stab are just OK, if not a bit overpriced for what little they contribute over the alternatives.
4- You get a couple of crossover 1h knife runes like Wild Rush that is more or less your highest damage per focus rune but has a long animation time, making it much riskier to getting disrupted out of the animation since baseline player poise is nonexistent and even players in full plate 2H builds get trivially interrupted out of rune attacks by regular mobs.
5- Double Daggers is highly lacking in rune moveset variety, elemental coverage, and analogues to other weapons for high aoe nukes. There is no analogue on daggers for Skyfall Punch or Buster Rift or wide arc spinning slashes that can have aoe coverage against crowds of mobs like other weapons.
You’d think that for this lack of aoe coverage daggers would be compensated in high single target damage or exceptional mobility/coverage/evasiveness, but they’re not. Their movesets are just generally inferior to other weapons.
6- Several runes are locked behind uniques or very low % acquisition chance from the Seneschal vendor. Pierce Dodge and Tornado Spin are practically unavailable outside those uniques. This makes the already small and limited dual dagger rune kit even more restricted. And since these unique daggers like most unique weapons are really bad outside Lacquered Bow(which has a really overtuned regular attack but really poor rune kit that is just there to prop up the regular attack).
Of course, with current gear % scalars you can make any endgame build relatively good damage wise to cover up these shortcomings, but I imagine those % damage affixes and the especially OP gems are adjusted or removed, the warts and blemishes of this weapon type will become painfully obvious.
The one thing going for daggers is that they’re just better gauntlets with more reach/lunges built into the regular attack chain and less animation lock, while gauntlets have a much better rune attack spread, but both weapons are still notably worse than 1H swords and maces, and even some 2H endgame weapons and wands, in both damage output and cleave/reach without compelling compensation upsides.
