Should Frostscythe replace Frost Strike?

With the reintroduction of MotFW and the change to Killing Machine, I personally no longer want Frostscythe replacing our new Obliterate for AoE when playing 2H Frost. That’s even assuming that tuning happens that allows it to be competitive with Avalanche.

But I do love the Frostscythe animation and functionality. So I think that Frostscythe needs to be reworked into a simple replacement for Frost Strike. No interaction with KM. Just a simple cleave ability.

And by having Frostscythe changed to cost RP, it wouldn’t interfere with 2H Obliterate and the bonus KM damage that is supposed to balance 2H vs DW.

Glacial Advance, with it’s sometimes awkward positional requirements, isn’t the type of ability that we should use too often. So, with Frostscythe moving to an RP cost, it makes sense to me for Glacial Advance to be changed back to a rune cost with a longer cooldown. Additionally, it could benefit from KM just like Frostscythe does now. It would become more interesting and would never replace Obliterate in the rotation which is important.

Some people have mentioned the idea of having Frost Strike cleave while standing in DnD similar to Blood and Unholy. But I think this is a much better path to take. Especially since we already have Frostscythe as a talent option. We just need things slightly reworked to make all the pieces fit together with 2H Frost.

EDIT: Posted below

So I was thinking. Alternatively, they could just buff Frostscythe damage and not allow it to benefit from KM. In this scenario, we would use Frostscythe all the time and only use Obliterate when KM procs.

This would offer a mechanically different alternative to Avalanche for 2H Frost. Additionally, Frostscythe would actually increase single target damage a bit as well just like Avalanche.

Even though I like the idea of Frostscythe replacing Frost Strike, this may be a better way to go.

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Chances are, all the new things that affect Obliterate with MotFW and KM, will also affect Frostscythe since its a replacer.

Towards the DnD frost strike cleave, I’m another person who thinks that we should get something like that, because currently DnD is completely pointless for us, and frankly is just a wasted rune and GCD

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Frostscythe doesn’t replace Obliterate…

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Pretty sure that’s an intended part of the design, that the new “offspec” abilities be useless.

Fury doesn’t use Slam either.

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I really want to play frost, but I hate having to set my talents (and now my choice between DW and 2h) in such a way that weakens me to either ST or cleave. At least with weapons it’s a bag click rather than a respec.

A. The DnD cleave thing is dumb. I especially hate that it’s a mechanic for Unholy. I can see how it would be a mechanically sound idea for many classes. But DKs have lots of ways to deal damage considering our class fantasy and kit. It was a very unneeded addition for us. So I definitely don’t want to see it added to Frost.

B. Adding back all of these useless abilities to specs was a dumb idea. BUT at least Frost can use DnD in pvp to protect from Rogues. So we do have that I guess. But otherwise, it just serves to confuse newer players and gum up the works.

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Finally someone else who also doesn’t like this “unpruning” pitch. I swear, it feels like they are marketing regression as progression, and we are licking it up.

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It was called when things were removed or put on the GCD that they would just give it back at a later date and people would eat it up. Thats exactly what is happening.

Frostscythe when you get the proc is already the stronger move to use than Obliterate in ST and AOE situations. You use Obliterate if you don’t have procs.

A big issue with Frostscythe is the fact that both Frostscythe and Obliterate can eat the KM proc if you are trying to use both. That’s why it’s generally a good idea to just spam Frostscythe at a certain amount of targets.

With MotFW, that threshold is raised since Obliterate will hit harder. So we are gonna have to see some type of change for 2H Frost to ever use Frostscythe. Especially since Avalanche does decent damage and is also a single target gain.

In beta, 2H obliterate with a KM proc does more damage than frostscythe on 5 targets.
Effectively, frostscythe is dead for 2H unless we have very high crit values, in which case it would only be worth using on 5 targets without a KM proc, assuming you would get mostly critical strikes.
Obliterate WAS just nerfed a bit, but it’s still a damage gain to only use obliterate, particularly if you are using Koltira’s. :woman_shrugging:t2:

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Basically yeah, we need to be able to cleave with our runic power.

I haven’t checked out anything for frost DK’s for PTR yet. Is Frostscythe really that underwhelming so far?

Which would imply that Frostscythe would be used in conjunction with Obliterate, and not replace.

It desperately needs tuning. The above posts are accurate in how underwhelming Frostscythe is currently performing.

I see what you mean, but if you’re proccing (which happens quite a bit) You’re using frostscythe and not Obliterate. I use frost scythe way more than obliterate.

So I was thinking. Alternatively, they could just buff Frostscythe damage and not allow it to benefit from KM. In this scenario, we would use Frostscythe all the time and only use Obliterate when KM procs.

This would offer a mechanically different alternative to Avalanche for 2H Frost. Additionally, Frostscythe would actually increase single target damage a bit as well just like Avalanche.

Even though I like the idea of Frostscythe replacing Frost Strike, this may be a better way to go.

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I think I would rather have the aoe RP spender, rather than it being tied to runes.

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What if Glacial Advance cost 40 Runic Power, but had a 100% chance to trigger Runic Empowerment? Damage would obviously be increased. That would jive well with 2H Frost.

Glacial advance definitely has some potential, but it misses the mark by quite a bit. If it hit in a cone instead of a line, did significantly more damage, actually applied razorice as intended, and had no cooldown, it could see use. Especially in AoE, but potentially even on long ST fights, for the razorice debuff.
Having a guaranteed runic empowerment proc also doesn’t seem like it would be worth it, since it is so likely to proc on 40RP anyways. Also, having a cooldown of 4 GCDs feels bad, since RP dumping is a part of DK playstyles
Personally, I would rather glacial advance just be removed because it’s garbo in its current state, and frost strike cleave would be both easy to implement and interact with our spec quite well

Frostscythe replacing Frost Strike, or having the active replaced with a passive that allows Frost Strike to cleave in DnD is probably the best way I could think of improving the spec’s baseline AoE.

I’d also really like Howling Blast to return as a a power spell, and come with a cooldown, with Icy Touch back as a DoT applicator+dispel.

Imagine a world where Howling Blast is a big nuke on a 8s cooldown, and instead of relying on Rime for its damage, the damage is just in the spell baseline. Rime could act more like Tactician and reset the cooldown, rather than giving it a damage boost. Brings back old Frost vibes imo.

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