Frost scythe vs obliterate (BFA)

[ellieg]

Has anyone done some testing on this? With the standard 110 gear that u start off with when u make a new character on the beta, my frost scythe is critting for 1300, and my obliterate is critting for 1800 (MH+OH) against the training dummy. This is with 33.6% mastery, the 15% razor ice debuff, and 15% strength from unholy strength.

Frost scythe costs 1 rune, obliterate costs 2. Unless im missing something, it looks like all killing machines should be used on frost scythe, even single target.

Also, obliteration no longer decreases the rune cost of obliterate. Does this mean that during obliteration we should be frost scything? The only negative of that i see is that you wont stack up pillar of frost extra damage as high, but i wonder if the 5-6 extra runes you save will make up for that.

Anyone have any thoughts? No idea if this will change at 120, and what azerite traits will do, but right now it seems like you will only ever use obliterate if u have 4+ runes and no killing machine.

[Deleted]

It's partially the same issue enhance has. Main ability not scaling with mastery, making it worse.

What i clearly believe: it wont work because you simply lack free GCDs. And you didnt compare non crits. Wasting KM procs for the lower dps spell should be bad too.

I bet the DK theory crafters put some work into it.

[ellieg]

Frost scythe does 4x dmg when it crits, it will never be used without killing machine (single target). Thats why i was only comparing crits.

priority between the 2 would be
Frost scythe with a km proc
obliterate at 4+ runes so 3 runes are always recharging
wait for km procs to use on scythe

I dont see an issue with gcd's when running that priority list. 1 rune for 1200 dmg vs 2 runes for 1800 dmg. I'll test the dps tnite.

[Baddok21]

Things like Ambidexterity and crystalline swords (thronebreaker) helped prop up Obliterate vs Frostscythe in Legion but now that those are gone, Frostscythe will naturally catch-up to Obliterate on a much shorter timescale now.

the single rune playstyle has always caused one issue blizzard trys to avoid, and thats the removal of the need for haste when you have a 6 rune dump as your builder, as it takes you 11 second to use up 6 runes and 2 Frost Strikes at 0% haste then you factor in 2 rime procs and the subsequent 3 seconds of GCD it would take to use both Rimes and 1 rune instantly regened from 1 of 2 Frost strikes along with natural rune regen kicking in to restore 2 runes in that total time.

a single rune rotation quickly approaches GCD capped at minimal haste values which they simply dont like.

It was speculated in Early legion (before Night hold) that a all crit+mastery build that simply spammed Frostscythe and ran Shattering strikes would be viable (you would Frost strike after every third Frostscythe as it would always lead to 2 auto atatcks and 3 FSc to have 5 stacks of RI up). The legendary helm, ring, gathering storm and BoS promptly put an end to that. as Frostscythe did not spend runes fast enough to have good Gathering Storm uptime, less Gathering storm uptime meant much less legendary helm synergy and the theoretical build fell apart since NH tier was going to extend the need for more GCDs with 2pc (giving more rimes) and extend our resource generation with it 4pc (rime generating RP).

entire culmination of new legendaries + Tier bonuses AND CoF lead to the birth of Nighthold BoS and promptly stopped the FSc build from ever taking breath (intentional or Unintentionally).

[Deleted]

But thats not changing. Why would i FSc with KM for 1300 dmg and obliterate for 900 non crit. Gathering Storms leads to ressource pooling so you want to spend as many runes as possible really fast. And then use FS to hopefully get more runes.
FSc is AOE. Thats it. I dont see it work in ST with realistic haste/mastery/crit levels.

[ellieg]

I see what you're saying but I would actually be running glacial advance instead of GS. As for fscing woth km for 1300 vs 900 obl non crit, it's because its half the rune cost but 2/3 of the damage. I tested the damage last night and I was doing 5% more dps with fsc on kms. I'm sure it could change at 120 depending on the stats and azerite geat, just thought it was interesting.

[Deleted]

Hitting a dummy never works. I could get higher dps on dummy testing ignoring a dps talent because of lucky procs.

The general playstyle doesnt support that gameplay unless you have many free GCDs.

Sims can tell if it works. But the feeling is: no it wont. Especially since you will have much lower msstery levels in BfA and prob never reach current legion values.

[ellieg]

Things like Ambidexterity and crystalline swords (thronebreaker) helped prop up Obliterate vs Frostscythe in Legion but now that those are gone, Frostscythe will naturally catch-up to Obliterate on a much shorter timescale now.

the single rune playstyle has always caused one issue blizzard trys to avoid, and thats the removal of the need for haste when you have a 6 rune dump as your builder, as it takes you 11 second to use up 6 runes and 2 Frost Strikes at 0% haste then you factor in 2 rime procs and the subsequent 3 seconds of GCD it would take to use both Rimes and 1 rune instantly regened from 1 of 2 Frost strikes along with natural rune regen kicking in to restore 2 runes in that total time.

a single rune rotation quickly approaches GCD capped at minimal haste values which they simply dont like.

It was speculated in Early legion (before Night hold) that a all crit+mastery build that simply spammed Frostscythe and ran Shattering strikes would be viable (you would Frost strike after every third Frostscythe as it would always lead to 2 auto atatcks and 3 FSc to have 5 stacks of RI up). The legendary helm, ring, gathering storm and BoS promptly put an end to that. as Frostscythe did not spend runes fast enough to have good Gathering Storm uptime, less Gathering storm uptime meant much less legendary helm synergy and the theoretical build fell apart since NH tier was going to extend the need for more GCDs with 2pc (giving more rimes) and extend our resource generation with it 4pc (rime generating RP).

entire culmination of new legendaries + Tier bonuses AND CoF lead to the birth of Nighthold BoS and promptly stopped the FSc build from ever taking breath (intentional or Unintentionally).

Ya I get this. I played the machine gun build. I'm still obliterating at 4+ runes so i can always keep 3 charging, and save a gcd. This rotation realistically only adds 4 to 5 extra frost scythes a minute, but I have seen it to be a dps increase.

[Deleted]

Hitting a dummy never works. I could get higher dps on dummy testing ignoring a dps talent because of lucky procs.

The general playstyle doesnt support that gameplay unless you have many free GCDs.

Sims can tell if it works. But the feeling is: no it wont. Especially since you will have much lower msstery levels in BfA and prob never reach current legion values.

Getting the 33% Mastery the OP is describing wont be a Problem at all. Im having 28% Mastery @ lvl 120 with gear from normal dungeons, cant even que for Heroic dungeons yet, because my ilvl is so low. Since im super low on haste i really have a lot of downtime. Numbers are pretty equal to what he is describing. Scythe crits are roughly doing 2/3 the damage of Oblit Crits for 1/2 rune cost.

I may be wrong, but iirc it was already the case that if you were specced into Scythe and were not using the Belt it was already better to use KM Procs for Scythe instead of Oblit in Legion? (outside of Obliteration)

My guess is that they will "fix" this Problem with Azerite Traits like they did it with artifact traits in Legion.

[Deleted]

Getting the 33% Mastery the OP is describing wont be a Problem at all. Im having 28% Mastery @ lvl 120 with gear from normal dungeons, cant even que for Heroic dungeons yet, because my ilvl is so low. Since im super low on haste i really have a lot of downtime. Numbers are pretty equal to what he is describing. Scythe crits are roughly doing 2/3 the damage of Oblit Crits for 1/2 rune cost.

I may be wrong, but iirc it was already the case that if you were specced into Scythe and were not using the Belt it was already better to use KM Procs for Scythe instead of Oblit in Legion? (outside of Obliteration)

My guess is that they will "fix" this Problem with Azerite Traits like they did it with artifact traits in Legion.

You are losing 3 pieces with secondary stats. Just unequip your chest, shoulders and head, how much mastery is left?

Secondary stats will be much lower in highend BFA gear. And wont scale as extreme. And the problem with free GCDs will continue to exist.

Well it is not easy since you basically just cant compare FSc vs Obliterate.


It is more about FSc vs Obliterate+another talent like Frozen Pulse. So you FSc would have to stronger than FP too. For AOE it looks fine and is intended.

[Deleted]

You are losing 3 pieces with secondary stats. Just unequip your chest, shoulders and head, how much mastery is left?

Secondary stats will be much lower in highend BFA gear. And wont scale as extreme. And the problem with free GCDs will continue to exist.

Well it is not easy since you basically just cant compare FSc vs Obliterate.


It is more about FSc vs Obliterate+another talent like Frozen Pulse. So you FSc would have to stronger than FP too. For AOE it looks fine and is intended.

Im already wearing azerite armor pieces without stats, im 120.

OP ist not saying that choosing Fscy will result in the best ST DPS. GS or FP will probably be better for pure ST fights. But if you are specced into Scythe for m+ for e.g. and you have ST Boss fights it will probably be better to use KM procs for Scythe than for Oblit, at least outside of Obliteration. And im pretty sure that is the case on live if you are not using the belt.

[ellieg]

Im already wearing azerite armor pieces without stats, im 120.

OP ist not saying that choosing Fscy will result in the best ST DPS. GS or FP will probably be better for pure ST fights. But if you are specced into Scythe for m+ for e.g. and you have ST Boss fights it will probably be better to use KM procs for Scythe than for Oblit, at least outside of Obliteration. And im pretty sure that is the case on live if you are not using the belt.

Yes, this is what I'm referring to. I do mainly m+ and will be picking up scythe. I have the ring on live that gives me scythe. I do currently use scythe on ST with km except during oblit.

Spec I'm currently looking into is IA, RA or ME (not sure I'll need ME if we scythe during oblit now), scythe, GA, oblit. So I can clear m+ trash consistently fast, and have oblit for some extra help on ST

[Deleted]

Yes, this is what I'm referring to. I do mainly m+ and will be picking up scythe. I have the ring on live that gives me scythe. I do currently use scythe on ST with km except during oblit.

Spec I'm currently looking into is IA, RA or ME (not sure I'll need ME if we scythe during oblit now), scythe, GA, oblit. So I can clear m+ trash consistently fast, and have oblit for some extra help on ST

I´d assume that during Obliteration it still would be better to Oblit than Scythe, because with ME and the 40% Chance to get a rune from the RP Spenders (+RE) there should be a lot of Ressoruces available. But thats something sims will show, when tuning is done

[ellieg]

I´d assume that during Obliteration it still would be better to Oblit than Scythe, because with ME and the 40% Chance to get a rune from the RP Spenders (+RE) there should be a lot of Ressoruces available. But thats something sims will show, when tuning is done

Ya I'm sure sims will let us know. I'm just bored at work and curious lol. If we were to scythe during oblit, I'm sure we would spec RA, not ME, because rp will be the limiting factor. Probably burn down to 1 to 2 runes, stack close to 100 rp, then start obliteration every 45 seconds. If a lot of free rune procs, then just obliterate to keep them charging.