cull the weak, a boring trait
I use it in PvE sometimes with my hammer build since it effectively has 100% weakness uptime off of fierce blow, so it’s like having an extra force sigil pretty much.
Of course, both hammer and mace are relatively poor choices for PvE, as is the defense line, so only crazy and stubborn people like me will likely find any value at all in it. Besides, someone wanting bonus damage on their mace could take sundering mace to get +10% vs. weakened foes in addition to recharge reduction and not even worry about that +5% from cull the weak.
The only adept trait in the defense line that is worse is vigorous return. All the other ones provide much better benefits.
I think extra adrenaline off weakened foes could be a pretty cool addition. Kind of like how fierce shot on the rifle gets bonus adrenaline from vulnerable targets, except this would be against weakened targets… maybe with a short ICD so as not to generate a butt load of adrenaline, or only on application of weakness instead of being exactly the same mechanic as fierce shot. It would also give additional inherent adrenaline generating options for the mace and hammer, which tend to be the worst for building adrenaline quickly. Could even make it apply to only hammer and mace as well if they didn’t want it to benefit the other weapons.
I was thinking adrenaline on weakness application. So if you ran mace/warhorn you could use call to arms to help fuel your skullcrack.
And so a single auto chain could give you most of a bar of adrenaline.
in a pve axe+mace dps build, swapping with GS, you can add to that +5% a lot of other +X% of damage when… like +5% by dual wielding trait, or +10% whit GS trait, +10% if the enemy is bleeding, etc.
add to that trait other traits and you obtain a lot of free damage.
But all alone it’s a weak trait, yes.
in a pve axe+mace dps build, swapping with GS, you can add to that +5% a lot of other +X% of damage when… like +5% by dual wielding trait, or +10% whit GS trait, +10% if the enemy is bleeding, etc.
add to that trait other traits and you obtain a lot of free damage.
But all alone it’s a weak trait, yes.
In that build you mentioned, you’re also dependent on someone else applying weakness for you as neither axe+mace nor GS has any form of weakness application. If you were going to run such a build, particularly for PvE purposes, there’s much better places to stick those 2 trait points instead of the defense line for a trait that you can’t even benefit from unless someone else in your group is running a weakness applying ability. So I wouldn’t even say it’s good even combined with other damage increasing traits.
It agree with the notion that it would be a better option for that trait slot if it had a more novel effect on it rather than “here’s a small conditional numerical bonus to your damage”.