Yeah, can't believe I didn't realize sooner. O_o
Anyway, I did some rough maths and it seems that Shred won't lose its use. My maths might be wrong, I'm super tired, but I think it makes sense:
At ~660 Weapon Damage, Swipe would do more damage than Shred with no Mangle debuff.
Considering that, when both talented, Swipe costs a bit more than Shred (still without debuff), it would actually take ~820 WD to make it equal damage:energy ratio-wise.
And now with the debuff, it gets even more ridicule...
It would take some ~2100 WD for Swipe to be equal to Shred on a Mangle'd target.
And again, if you factor the difference in cost, it'd take ~4200 WD...
Surely some of you already had that figured, but, y'know, I haven't played in so long it actually sounded like Swipe could beat Shred.
Or I'm just really, really rusty at maths... who knows.
Edited, Jan 20th 2009 7:37pm by Selverein