[Perdition]

It's hard to pad your hit when you can do all the padding options that you're capable of and still not be able to reach the hit values other weapons can get. Like... daggers are more or less solely basic attack weapons, yes? Why is it the onus is on that type of weapon specifically to minmax hit when other weapons get so many tools to do so. Spears get multiple basic attack skills that add on 20, almost 30 hit to their values as well as have higher accuracy values and they aren't even a de facto basic attacking weapon like daggers are.

Fists get a bunch of passive hit bonuses from their own class, while also not being nearly as reliant on basic attacking as daggers are. Bows and guns also get a wealth of hit steroids, and daggers are still more basic attack dependent than either of those weapons (guns come pretty close I guess). So why is it when it comes to daggers that overcoming hit issues requires entirely external choices that every other weapon has access to on top of their own unique bonuses while also not having basic attack be literally their own damage source. This is definitely an issue rather than a weakness.

As far as the magical and physical split of VA, I actually think that's fine. The two don't need to have synergy. They do, however, have to be fleshed out so they feel like two complete, different playstyles rather than two incomplete different playstyles. If you want to play a void mage you get detogate and black bolt and that's more or less it. You grab utility skills and maybe impure element if you want to go down that route. Ironically, if you go dagger, you don't actually have that much dagger specific support from VA. On top of that as was mentioned in the OP the SP cost is insane so there are times where you can't even get everything you'd like for either strategy.

Being forced to play Redtail or Corbie also feels really shit because if I don't want to play those races but want to play a dagger strategy and be competent in pvp then I'm shit out of luck. As for AoE, I'm of the opinion that it's not really something VA needs on the dagger front. Limiting design because of class fantasy isn't always the right way to go, but in this case I think daggers should be hyper specialized on single target damage. Maybe some kind of cleaving basic attack would be fine but other than that, it seems unnecessary. Even if you let void skills be castable by daggers that doesn't change much because dagger SWA is laughable on top of it being highly unlikely you'll have enough res for your dark atk to matter. I guess it's QoL though.

Lastly on the top of a basic attacking gap closer... I count this as an issue as well, honestly. Again, with the point I made about other weapons having tools to buff their hit while not being nearly as reliant on basic attacking, the same applies here. Swords get sidecut, spears get stillcut and coulair to a certain extent (not a gap closer but it's something you can do to get your basics in from a distance). You teleport with Geldoren from monk, even if it's a small distance. Black Knight gets hanging, which technically works with daggers but daggers and BK really don't mix that well outside of a small selection of skills. Even Bonder has a spear basic attack gap closer. I think axe is the only other without its own exclusive gap closer, I could be wrong but that's just a guess of the top of my head. But again... axe also isn't as reliant on basic attacking.

Which comes back to my main point. Why is it these other weapons not nearly as focused on basic attacking have all these different tools and the weapon type that can more or less -only- basic attack does not have them? It honestly makes no sense. If the answer is their basic attacks have more damage potential than the other weapons, that seems like a shit answer to me because that damage becomes 0 if you have negative hit against your opponent.