Daggers moved: re-routing an old dagger build into the assassin cluster

If you played daggers before 1.0, your build lives somewhere else now. The 1.0 changelog says it in one line: "Moved dagger-related skills from the warrior area of the skill tree to the assassin tree, where it makes much more sense." This article is the practical translation: which six nodes moved, what the warrior area kept, and how to re-route an old dagger build through the new assassin cluster — following the exact path our Poison Dagger Assassin guide walks, node by node.

The six that moved, and the one that left earlier

Every dagger skill you trained before now sits in the ranger area's assassin cluster:

• Dagger Mastery — flat dagger damage; unlocks Expose Weakness
• Dagger Specialization — unlocks the dagger Special Ability [R]
• Backstab Mastery — damage from behind, the opener's engine
• Fatal Precision — crit chance and crit damage in one node
• Cutthroat — deepens the assassination payoff
• Eagle's Bane — the remaining dagger-line skill on the move list; its row carries the same changelog quote

A seventh skill moved in the same era but for a different reason: Double Jump was pulled to the center of the tree in Update 8 — "to make it easily accessible for every combat class" — so it is a core node now, not part of any class story. All seven carry a moved marker with the changelog quote attached in the ranger change list.

What stayed behind: the warrior area is now pure melee damage and tanking. If your pre-1.0 plan mixed dagger nodes with one-handed warrior nodes in the same neighborhood, that neighborhood no longer exists — the two lines live on opposite sides of the tree, and paying to travel between them is exactly the kind of point leakage a rebuild should cut.

Re-routing: the 52-point path through the cluster

The Poison Dagger Assassin build (A-tier, 52 points, 19 nodes, levels 20–50) is a working answer to "where do my points go now". Its route, stage by stage:

• Entry (core + pips). Start from a core ✦ Spark, take the +1 Dexterity entry pip, then cheap damage ranks and one +1 Endurance pip that bridges into the assassin cluster — the cluster's price of admission is attribute pips, not skills.
• The opener line. Backstab Mastery (3 ranks, +30% damage from behind) → Sneak Attack (the stealth opener) → Cutthroat (3 ranks). This is the reason the move "makes much more sense": the crit-from-behind kit now sits on one cluster instead of being split across areas.
• Dagger identity. Dagger Specialization unlocks the dagger Special Ability [R]; Dagger Mastery (3 ranks) unlocks Expose Weakness.
• The new poison payoff. 1.0 added two nodes no changelog announced — Venomous Blades and Venom Mastery — and Expose Weakness makes poisoned targets take extra damage. Daggers never had this loop before 1.0; it is the strongest reason to rebuild rather than just refund.
• Survivability and escape. Silent Stride (3 ranks) for re-stealthing between pulls, Quick Reflex Block as the panic answer when an opener fails, and Veiled Vigor (3 ranks) for max-health scaling off Dexterity.
• Crit close-out. Fatal Precision (3 ranks) plus Thrust (3 ranks) on the same line, and Slice and Dice (+50% next bow attack after a dagger crit) as the swap finisher.

Every connection above is verified against the live 1.0 node graph — open the guide and its planner link loads the exact allocation, or explore the cluster yourself on the ranger skill tree.

Leveling the route, stage by stage

The guide paces the same path across the level range, so a fresh character can follow it without sitting on dead nodes:

• Early (levels 1–15): Dexterity pips → Backstab Mastery → Sneak Attack. The stealth opener works from the moment it's bought.
• Mid (levels 15–30): Dagger Specialization, Fatal Precision ranks, Veiled Vigor for HP. Add the venom line as soon as the second Endurance pip is reachable.
• BiS (levels 30–50): Venom Mastery, Expose Weakness, Cutthroat to 3 ranks, and a Toxic Reaction gem. Then route to Double Jump in the core for mobility — the same node Update 8 pulled to the center for every class.

The dagger itself progresses in step: any crafted dagger from the tier-1 sets early, a Revelwood-tier dagger with a poison or critical perk in the mid game, and a Nomad Highlands-tier dagger upgraded at the crafting survivor for the endgame — the guide pairs it with a Gem of Toxic Reaction, massively buffed in 1.0, which stacks with the venom line.

Rebuilding without burning Runes

If your tree was force-reset by 1.0 (it was — every existing save got reset on first load), your first re-spend is free. After that, a full reset costs 1 Rune per spent point, so a 52-point rebuild you regret costs 52 Runes to redo. The zero-cost version: load the guide's allocation in the planner, right-click anything you'd swap, and settle the tree before you touch an altar — the respec economics piece has the full cost table.