Alright, from looking at and testing the new Slash SB combo, I've come to this conclusion: Slash is kinda like the old version of BSN's Shred; 25% chance to bleed on first hit, 25% chance on 2nd hit, and 50% chance on third. Slash's bleed chance production, additionally, doesn't seem to be affected by Focus stacks like Reaper's Caress is, which I suppose makes Slash slightly better for cross-powerset building.
As for raw damage, it appears that Slash does slightly more damage per hit, though Reaper's Caress hits twice on the third combo swing, making RC deal the most damage per combo. Slash's cost is lower than RC's, though (as of right now), Slash doesn't have any advantages besides the Shredded one. RC has that same advantage as well as Accel. Metab. and iirc another that I can't recall right now.
As it stands right now, I don't think Slash is "better" than Reaper's Caress. It might work better for some, and might prove to be worthwhile in Str-based Enrage builds (would be nice if Slash had some sort of knockdown, hmm?) but as long as you're using Focus Reaper's Caress will be better.
Oh, and I've noticed that sometimes on the 2nd swing of Slash your weapon will mysteriously morph into the new Knife weapon skin.
It makes sense, if you don't think about it.
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Most often Slice N Dice@zap-the-eradicator in-game.
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As for the bit about activation times, don't forget that although the 3rd swing of Caress takes 1 second, it strikes twice. Overall, Caress will most likely hit the target more often than Slash in the same amount of time.
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Most often Slice N Dice@zap-the-eradicator in-game.
As things stand now, Slash is pretty unimpressive compared to RC, especially its attack arcs: 180/180/30 vs RC's 240/240/360. Really, that 30 degree arc on the final hit has to be a typo or something.
Though all three have a Shredded Advantage just under different names, names don't matter, I'm always told that you want to rank 2 it with a shredded debuff for more physical damage penetration. Can't go wrong with that. I'm going to remove Shred on one of my alts and put in Slash, I have the imaginary melee weapons so I'm sure it will be bomb. o3o
I use a non-focus bleed toon the one with AoTB/WoTW, so that's fine as is.