Bloodstained Dagger

Notes

• Requires nine Strength and 12 Dexterity and weighs two. Standard favors Strength over Dexterity, unlike Great Knife's strong Dexterity focus; Heavy develops the Strength option further.
• Has 38 innate Blood Loss buildup on Standard affinity. It stays at 38 through +25 unless an affinity or applicable coating changes the setup; reinforcement alone does not give Standard an Arcane-scaling bleed effect.
• Blood, Poison and Occult add Arcane scaling, allowing Arcane to improve the native Blood Loss. Raising Arcane on Standard, Heavy or Keen does not increase that innate buildup.
• At +25, Blood affinity has 82 base Blood Loss before Arcane scaling. Occult keeps 38 base buildup but gives much stronger Arcane scaling for Physical damage and for scaling the existing bleed.
• Blood and Occult make different tradeoffs. Blood starts from more buildup, while Occult puts more of the weapon's damage into Arcane; neither is automatically the best choice for every stat spread or enemy.
• Cold affinity keeps 38 Blood Loss and adds 105 Frostbite at +25. That setup has no Arcane scaling, so extra Arcane does not increase either buildup. Its Magic damage improves with Intelligence, while Frostbite itself does not scale with Intelligence.
• Can use compatible Ashes of War. Grease or a weapon enchantment can be applied with Standard, Heavy, Keen or Quality affinity; elemental and status affinities prevent ordinary coatings.
• Quickstep is the starting skill and costs three FP. It can be replaced, and the weapon upgrades with ordinary Smithing Stones to +25.
• Has a critical rating of 110. This affects backstabs and ripostes, rather than giving every normal hit an extra 10% damage or a random chance to become a critical.
• Its short blade needs close contact. When pairing it with a longer dagger, keep close enough for both weapons to connect instead of assuming the offhand blade reaches as far as the other weapon.
• The eligible dagger-carrying Demi-Human has a base 4% drop chance at 100 Discovery. Rest and repeat the same carrier if it does not drop; the first kill is not guaranteed.
• Its Heavy affinity has a slightly weaker modifier for some separate Strength-scaled skill projectiles than the usual Heavy progression. This is separate from its strong Strength scaling for blade hits, and does not weaken every compatible skill.
• Blood affinity also changes the type of bleed proc: its usual flat damage component is 100 points higher than Blood affinity on a dagger without innate bleed. This is proc damage, rather than another 100 points of buildup per hit.