“This Royal stockpiles her daggers when enemies are far away. When they dare to draw near, she unleashes her daggers in a rapid flurry! Oh, one more thing. Don't call her Princess.”
The Dagger Duchess is a Legendary card that is unlocked from Electro Valley (Arena 11). It is a single-target, air-targeting, long-ranged tower troop with high hitpoints and low damage. She deals damage by throwing daggers. While she isn’t at 0 daggers, she will have a 0.45 second attack speed. Once she has thrown 8 daggers, she will have a 0.9 second cooldown to regain one of her daggers, for 10.4 seconds total for all 8 daggers to be regained. With a higher damage-per-shot, but a 33% reduced speed, a Dagger Duchess with 0 daggers has 61% the DPS of the Princess Tower, or 50% of the Cannoneer.
Strategy[]
- The Dagger Duchess is most effective against small swarms, small pushes, and frailer troops due to her extremely fast initial attack speed and damage.
- The Dagger Duchess is best utilized in decks that struggle with other decks using a fast cycle, such as beatdown decks like Golem and Elixir Golem. Since fast cycle decks rely on small pushes, the Dagger Duchess would be less likely to run out of daggers, thus increasing her effectiveness at destroying them before any major damage is done.
- Like the Cannoneer, the Dagger Duchess can fully counter Wall Breakers if she has 6 daggers remaining.
- If the Evolved Wall Breakers are used and ignored, the Dagger Duchess will do enough DPS to only allow 1 Runner to connect.
- Against a Furnace, she will easily deal with the Fire Spirits as they will be destroyed in just 3 daggers, causing nothing to connect to the Dagger Duchess. She will also replenish her daggers in between the waves, ensuring she never runs out.
- Similar to the Furnace, the Goblin Hut is also weak to the Dagger Duchess as she will quickly destroy Spear Goblins with 2 daggers, allowing few connections per wave.
- Frailer support cards, such as Little Prince and Evolved Archers, are very weak to her as they will take around 8 daggers to be destroyed, causing them to get little to no damage on the Dagger Duchess when left alone.
- The Evolved Knight is extremely effective against the Dagger Duchess as his damage reduction while moving allows him to easily take her attacks, forcing her into the dagger cooldown without dealing much damage to him. However, he can still be countered with nearly any tanky troop or building to disable his shield.
- The Dagger Duchess is very weak against troops with high hitpoints, like Giant and P.E.K.K.A, and very large pushes, due to her charging dagger mechanic slowing down her DPS once all 8 initial daggers have been used.
- A full burst of daggers from the Dagger Duchess is enough to destroy any unit with as many hitpoints as a Fisherman before she needs to reload them again. Keep this in mind for when to drop any defending units to defeat any incoming enemy troop and for when to let her soak up the damage herself.
- Unlike other tower troops, it is not recommended to utilize scouting strategies against the Dagger Duchess because the Dagger Duchess will be able to nulify the attempt by defeating or heavily crippling the troop used to scout the opponent's deck. An exception can be applied to scouting cards that can outrange her, like the Princess, or cards with high hitpoints, like the Lumberjack.
- With the assistance of properly placed Goblins, the Dagger Duchess can fully counter a Hog Rider and Ram Rider for a +2 and +3 positive Elixir trade respectively.
- By herself, the Dagger Duchess can cripple the Battle Ram and Evolved Battle Ram, and with the help of almost any card, the Ram can be taken out. However, this will use up all her daggers and put her into dagger cooldown, allowing the Barbarians to deal significant damage if ignored.
- Kiting opposing troops into the other lane with any card, such as an Ice Golem or Goblin Giant, is especially powerful with the Dagger Duchess as the other Crown Tower will usually have full daggers, destroying or severely damaging anything that was kited much faster as both of them will be attacking the kited troops. This can also buy the Crown Tower in the initial lane enough time to reload daggers for any incoming future push.
- She is quite effective against dual lane pushes. Due to them being weaker by having the troops split into both lanes, she will have an easier time dealing with them than if they were all in the same lane. This can allow for the player to ignore the attacks completely or respond to them with cheaper cards than they otherwise would use if they were not split.
- The quick unload of her daggers makes her great at defending passive buildings from incoming Miners and Goblin Barrels. These cards will have dealt little damage to the passive buildings, allowing them to gain more value from the deployment, whether that is waves of troops spawned, or in the Elixir Collector's case, Elixir. A similar principle can be applied to protecting frail ranged cards from the same attacking cards.
- Aggressively deploying tanks or mini-tanks at the bridge can stop enemy tanks from crossing the river and expending the Dagger Duchess's ammunition, saving them for a higher-priority target like an incoming Hog Rider. Even if the tank is destroyed, it will have bought enough time to deal with the opponent's main offensive units first.
- Be especially careful during Double Elixir and Overtime. The higher Elixir generation will allow your opponent to aggressively re-rush the same lane over and over again, preventing Dagger Duchess from being able to reload her daggers. In this case, it's highly recommended to bring strong defensive cards during Overtime and avoid taking too much Crown Tower damage.
Statistics
Dagger Duchess Attributes
Hit Speed |
Range |
Target |
Type |
Rarity |
---|---|---|---|---|
0.45 sec | 7.5 | Air & Ground | Tower Troop | Legendary |
Dagger Attributes
Max Daggers |
Dagger Charge |
---|---|
8 | 0.9 sec |
Card Statistics
Level |
Hitpoints |
Damage |
Damage per second |
---|---|---|---|
9 | 2,298 | 93 | 206 |
10 | 2,527 | 102 | 226 |
11 | 2,768 | 112 | 248 |
12 | 3,035 | 123 | 273 |
13 | 3,327 | 135 | 300 |
14 | 3,657 | 149 | 331 |
15 | 4,013 | 163 | 362 |
History[]
2024
- The Dagger Duchess was added to the game on 1/4/2024, in the April 2024 Update.
- On 14/5/2024, a Balance Update, decreased the Dagger Duchess’s hitpoints by 15.8%.
- On 14/6/2024, a Balance Update, decreased the Dagger Duchess’s damage by 27%, but also decreased the Dagger Cooldown to 0.8 seconds (from 1.2 seconds).
- On 2/7/2024, a Balance Update, increased the Dagger Duchess’s attack time interval to 0.45 seconds (from 0.35 seconds), and increased the Dagger Cooldown to 0.9 seconds (from 0.8 seconds).
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The Dagger Duchess doesn’t like being called a princess, attacking anyone who treats her like one.
- According to the Dagger Duchess reveal video and family tree, the Dagger Duchess is the blue King’s cousin. However, this may be contradicted as in her practice missions, the Blue King refers to Dagger Duchess as his niece.
- According to the Dagger Duchess reveal video, she is a fan of Crow from Brawl Stars, likely due to his use of daggers in combat.
- When attacking, she may say "It's duchess to you", "You're so dull", "Just sharpening my knives", “Don't call me a princess", or "Stay sharp".
- The Dagger Duchess is voice acted by Ronja Stanley.
- The Dagger Duchess is 1 of 2 tower troops that speak distinct words when on the field, the other being Cannoneer.
- The Dagger Duchess is 1 of 9 cards with an alliteration in their name. The others being Mighty Miner, Goblin Giant, Ram Rider, Royal Recruits, Cannon Cart, Mega Minion, Barbarian Barrel, and Goblin Gang.
- From dialogue in her practice mission, the Dagger Duchess appears to have a friendly rivalry with the Tower Princess.
- The Dagger Duchess was the first tower troop to be a Legendary.
- Her design may be inspired by Piper from Brawl Stars.
- The Dagger Duchess was one of the only cards to have a dedicated tutorial, the others being the Little Prince and Goblinstein.