Could it be possible to reliably use frostscythe as a complete replacement for obliterate if you have really high crit as a primary stat? Frostscythe does 4X the damage when it crits and only uses one rune.
Has anyone theorycrafted the damage output of such a build?
How much crit would you need to make this work?
So the problem isn’t. It’s the base damage of Frostscythe. Even with the 4x multiplier, it can’t compete against Oblit, especially with Cleaving Strikes now hitting 3 targets.
Yea, but you can also free up extra talents by using frostsycthe instead of obliterate. But if you need a ton of crit to get it to work, I guess it would be pointless. Because you also need mastery to keep your frost damage high. Obliterate mostly just needs mastery whereas frostscythe would need crit and mastery.
By skipping Obliteration just to try to make Frostscythe work, you just gimped your entire ST damage output and no longer have a Pillars window
I think some quick napkin math was done and Frostscythe was needing like a 300% buff to be comparable to Obliterate and Cleaving Strikes. And that was with only 2 targets. The buff to Cleaving Strikes making it hit 3 targets is going to increase that even more (even with the Frostscythe buffs).
The problem is, there are so many talents that modify and buff Obliterate and you got nothing for Frostscythe.
At only 380ilvl I’ve had a single Obliterate do 330k damage. Frostscythe, even with the 4x multiplier from Crit, that’s the number it has to top to be worthwhile to press.
How many targets is needed for that? Especially since it has reduced damage beyond 5 targets? Isn’t guaranteed to Crit for the multipliers, whereas Oblit I can guarantee Crits
Your biggest offender is Frostreaper though and that’s why Frostscythe isn’t an option
The only time Frostscythe has been of any use is tanks just continuously gathering mobs and them spending about .5 seconds in your DnD for cleaving strikes.
Even with high crit it would have to be really close to 100% crit and then at that point you might as well just Obliterate.
Frostscythe is just garbage thanks to Obliterate design and everything that is linked to it.
Scythe should be your aoe spender, problem solved 
Yes, it should be our AoE rune spender. We already have glacial advance if we want it for an AoE RP spender.
Its like Blizzard is trying to please everyone, people wanted Obliterate to cleave more and others wanted Frostscythe to get buffed to actually be used, so they gave Frost both… which didnt help Frostscythe at all.
Add some sort of utility to Frostscythe. Like cutting healing in half or something
They need to bring back 8.3 Frost to make FScy work.
So corruptions? Thats what made Icecap worth it since you could clip Icy Citadel with high crit and haste from corruptions.
Frostscythe would be used in aoe outside of BoS builds. The target cap and Frostreaper killed Frostscythe. With the target cap set to 5, and Frostreaper prior to the Obliterate nerf, you needed 8 targets for DW and 10 targets for 2h to use Frostscythe over just Obliterate on 1 target let alone 3 with KM procs.