I wouldn’t hate this. Or, heck, just consolidate KM and Obliterate through a new choice node, between a KM-consuming and more powerful (than present baseline) Frost Obliterate (you otherwise still just use a 2-Rune Rune Strike) and a talent enhancing Frost Strike and allowing it to consume KM.
Axe MotFW’s Obliterate-fixated effect, replacing it with a simple damage increase to the damage of Rune and Runic Power spenders, effectively offering choice between greater RF optionality or raw damage. Now both weapon types can better access both playstyles.
On this note, a quick question since I can’t log in until late tomorrow to test myself:
Does Razorice affect the spread damage from Cleaving Strikes on Frosty/KM Obliterates to targets after the first, or is only the first target’s damage affected (and perhaps spread)?
Though, LPI doesn’t confer a damage loss per strike to the attacks following its consumption. I actually slightly prefer the greater impact SB has over it for that reason, but it certainly makes it a bit more work to manage.
That said, if one can essentially stop caring about further targets’ Frost damage taken from anything but Howling Blast until such time as they’d naturally have enough RI stacks to pop them with Frost Strike again… the implications and effect of tuning may vary for AoE.
I would rather Howling Blast just hit the primary target harder than the rest, perhaps more so during Rime.
It’s not copying the damage, just letting it hit 3 targets so each individual target receives damage based on their state. Thinking about it, I don’t think there’s any ability that just replicates the damage at a 1:1 ratio.
It’s a bit funny because with AA and Avalanche, RI will be at 5 stacks within seconds of the fight starting vs the current 20-30. It’s functionally just a “you do 15% less damage for the first 3-5 seconds to a target” condition. Shattering Blade makes it something other than a personal Chaos Brand, and even then, a majority of people that have or will complain about it will very likely not swap off 2h so it’s irrelevant.
The Shattering suite is purely for DW to have a separate tuning knob against 2h in ST and AoE. DW will always suffer from 30% less Obliterate damage and the suite puts the power into FS instead of just giving DW that same 30% modifier.
I asked (in lieu of being able to hop on and test) because despite similar language Beast Cleave, for instance, clones the original strike verbatim. I could have sworn Blade Flurry did so as well once. Not at 100%, ofc, but not via separately modified attacks either.
But I suppose if it did that it’d list the cloning damage source separately and that source would seem incapable of “critting”. So I should have guessed already. My bad.
As for DW always having to suffer from 2H’s lack of a 30% Obliterate mod(?), why? They’re perfectly free to generate the “fewer but bigger hits” vibe any other way and/or open up the choice between noodle-Obliterate-as-just-a-builder (rear-loaded per cycle) vs. Obliterate-as-a-nuke-in-its-own-right (front loaded per cycle) to each weapon preference.
Wait, is the CD on Frostscythe reduced by 1 second per target hit with a KM proc? Or just 1 second period? It’s gotta be the former, right? A 1 second CDR is totally pointless.
With how many KMs the spec gets it’s about a 15s~ CD during Pillar and 20 outside which is more than fair for an ability that hits harder than Obliterate and cleaves without any conditions.