Guild Wars 2

Devastation (new) trait line:

Major Adept trait Assassin’s Presence (150 ferocity party buff)
Major Master trait Ferocious Strikes (150 ferocity personal buff)

Masters are supposed to be stronger than Adept traits. I think think anyone would argue that 150 ferocity for yourself is better than 150 ferocity for everyone in your party.

Also, parties will demand the party buff—and rightfully so. But this currently forces us to choose between the party buff and a major class defining ability in Rapid Lacerations.

Major Adept trait Rapid Lacerations (attacking with sword gives a stacking 2% skill speed increase, max 10%)

Swapping AP and FS fixes both issues. We can support our team and still be the fast attacking assassin that defines the Shiro style at the cost of 150 personal ferocity. This is critical for class style as well as the mechanics we’ll need to be desirable in PvE/PvP/WvW.

• Anyone know off hand the math of:
• 150 ferocity -> damage?
• 10% skill speed -> damage?

Assassin’s Presence is only in combat however, so it doesn’t apply on the first hits.

Also ferocity damage depends on your crit chance. At level 80, having +150 points of ferocity means +10% critical damage. If your crit rate is 50% that’s an average 5% increase in damage, if you have 90% it’s 9% and so on.

being adept master or grandmaster doesnt effect the strength of the trait in the new system

since u have to pick 1 of the 3, its more about placement of them then if they are in the first set or last set.

Terrible idea. That would put two weapon-based traits in the same Adept tier.

Yeah, one of them requires sword. Better if it’s not changed

Hope you all enjoy never running Rapid Lacerations.

All the other party aura stat buffing traits are Master tier, I see no reason why this one shouldn’t be too.

For this to work, it would have to be in a separate tier from the similar Ferocious Strikes AND Ferocious Strikes would have to be in a separate tier from Rapid Lacerations.

This means that you’d need to perform a double swap. Ferocious Strikes needs to be adept, but it can’t be with Rapid Lacerations, so these need to be swapped. Now a second swap – either with Jade Echo or Nefarious Momentum – needs to be done to move Assassins Presence to Master.

But what does this actually do at the end of day? Rapid Lacerations would still be less appealing than Assassins Presence for anything but a non-Shiro build that camps MH Sword. Whichever trait is left in the master tier (either Nefarious Momentum or Jade Echo) would not be able to compare to Assassins Presence at all. The Master Tier would actually become less of a choice than it is now.

At best, you’d end up with an Adept Tier that is a choice, simply because all three choices are terrible. Malicious Reprisal? Is that a joke? Jade Echo is a freaking downed trait on a 90 second cd. Ferocious Strikes is nothing but a bad version of Assassin’s Presence shoehorned into a dual-wielding only. The other possible candidate is Nefarious Momentum, and it only barely competes with Ferocious Strikes – swapping it to Adept instead of Jade Echo would leave Master a complete non-choice.

The real problem here is that most Devastation traits are awful, with very little viable choice in the line.

In PvE you’re gonna want ferocity for party.
In WvW/PvP you’re gonna want Maliscious Reprisal (unblockable attacks on block).

So while it’s pretty cool I can’t really see where RL will fit in.

I wouldn’t agree with swapping FS and AP that would make the Adept tier pretty b0rked, as has been pointed out, with 3 great dps traits in contention with one another. RL being the least important IMO as it’s more of a sustained dps PvE trait.

Gav.1425:

Hope you all enjoy never running Rapid Lacerations.

How does your suggestion change it? It’s inferior to both traits.

They could merge Ferocious Strikes and Rapid Lacerations which are basically 2 traits for similar requirements. One requires a sword, the other requires dual wielding—which you’re already doing if you have at least one sword.

Fast attacks is a class defining mechanic and shouldn’t be written off so ..rapidly.

I say merge them into Ferocious Lacerations or Rapid Strikes.

Major Adept Ferocious Lacerations / Rapid Strikes (attacking with sword gives a stacking 2% skill speed increase and 30 ferocity, max 10% skill speed and 150 ferocity)

With the recent changes, almost all classes with multiple traits for the same thing ie Manipulations or Sword either had one element made baseline (ie cool down reductions) or both merge into a single trait. Why add multiple traits for the same/similar things now?

This proposal fits the new trend and the intended direction of Shiro, a fast attacking assassin that builds up power over time to quickly finish enemies.

Gav.1425:

They could merge Ferocious Strikes and Rapid Lacerations which are basically 2 traits for similar requirements. One requires a sword, the other requires dual wielding—which you’re already doing if you have at least one sword.

Fast attacks is a class defining mechanic and shouldn’t be written off so ..rapidly.

I say merge them into Ferocious Lacerations or Rapid Strikes.

Major Adept Ferocious Lacerations / Rapid Strikes (attacking with sword gives a stacking 2% skill speed increase and 30 ferocity, max 10% skill speed and 150 ferocity)

With the recent changes, almost all classes with multiple traits for the same thing ie Manipulations or Sword either had one element made baseline (ie cool down reductions) or both merge into a single trait. Why add multiple traits for the same/similar things now?

This proposal fits the new trend and the intended direction of Shiro, a fast attacking assassin that builds up power over time to quickly finish enemies.

We actually don’t know if Rapid Lacerations stacks with Impossible Odds and the Quickness boon so your suggestion might be moot.

Artaz.3819:

We actually don’t know if Rapid Lacerations stacks with Impossible Odds and the Quickness boon so your suggestion might be moot.

I would hazard a guess that they don’t. Speed buffs currently don’t stack as it is.

I’m pretty sure Roy said it stacks in the Shiro POI

Kidel.2057:

I’m pretty sure Roy said it stacks in the Shiro POI

You’re right. Listened to POI again and at @ 31:10, Roy specificially states it stacks and makes for some “really crazy fast attacks”.

something to consider is personal dps vs group dps. It is reasonable to give up one for the other. However, given what we have seen of rev, balancing may be better if we give rev both in this case. It all depends on how much damage things do.