How much mastery before Frostscythe outperforms Oblit on ST?

[Lyshnek 1]

Hey all, I have read and heard that once you get to a certain % of mastery, Frostscythe will outperform Obliterate on ST and AoE. Some questions: Does Frostscythe really outperform Obliterate when you factor in Rime procs on ST fights? And if so, does it completely replace Obliterate, or only when KM procs? Lastly, how much mastery is needed for FS to do better than Obliterate? Thank you for reading this, and for any advice you can give me.

[Agrul 1]

I've been playing around with this, and number crunching myself. To give you some reference, I'm at iLevel 822 and my Mastery is at 35%. 

And the short answer is, when all is said and done, I'm guessing that it's going to take quite a bit of Mastery, probably an upwards of 60%+ before you start seeing returns on Frost Scythe over Obliterate for ST. AoE, Frost Scythe is better usually on 3+ targets, but only on KM Procs. Otherwise it hits like a limp noodle. 

In the long run, Obliterate is the single best thing to spend your Runes on in Single Target fights, it seems. Earlier on, you may be able to get away with Frost Scythe, but as you reach Ambidextrous on your Artifact Weapon, you're probably going to see a lot stronger returns on Obliterate single target. 

I've done some pretty extensive number crunching on this, and it seems like it's going to be a while before Obliterate is outclassed by Frost Scythe for single targets.  My Obliterate/Rhime procs almost always did more damage than Frost Scythe, with a few outliers on some high crit rolls. 

[Lavarelth 1]

I've just done some of my own calculations. Crit will make some difference, but not much. For the purpose of my calculations I used ~20% crit. It's also going to depend on talents and artifact traits/relics. I'm assuming no points in Blast Radius, 3 points in Ambidexterity, and not taking Freezing Fog.

On single target, with a KM proc, it looks like Frostscythe does equal damage to Obliterate + Rime at about 40% mastery. Frostscythe is is better on 2+ targets with KM regardless of mastery, and at 5+ it's better without KM (i.e. with 5 or more targets just spam FSc and ignore OB altogether).

Picking talents or artifact traits that favour Howling Blast or Obliterate damage will increase the mastery required for Frostscythe to overtake Obliterate. It's also worth noting that at any level of mastery, Frostscythe does more damage per execution time (i.e. more burst damage) than Obliterate+Rime, regardless of talents or artifact traits.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Lavarelth

[demonardvark 556]

As said above it will take a very high Ilvl for frostscythe to outperform obliterate on single target. The  tldr is that frostscythe is a cleave talent and even it would take a high poing (mythic gear lvl, maybe nighthold?) to surpass obliterate.

However, obliterate does and always has scaled very poorly. So, it's not too long of a shot to see it becoming overshadowed. So, as I previously said, maybe at higher nighthold gear lvls we will see it overcoming obliterate, but if numbers don't change, certainly it could come the tier after. 

The main reason pre patch it was so favored was because of our set bonus and the amount of mastery available with gear. 

[Lyshnek 1]

Sorry for the late reply, been focusing on Unholy for the most part. I am at the point where I have one point in Cold as Ice so it will be a while before I get ambidextrous. I find frost more fun so once I get the trait in Unholy that causes ghouls to apply additional buffs/debuffs (next trait) I am going to focus on frost. Seeing the Syndragosa trait crit for 1-2 million makes my day :P, and thank you all for the detailed responses.

[demonardvark 556]

1 hour ago, Lyshnek said:

Sorry for the late reply, been focusing on Unholy for the most part. I am at the point where I have one point in Cold as Ice so it will be a while before I get ambidextrous. I find frost more fun so once I get the trait in Unholy that causes ghouls to apply additional buffs/debuffs (next trait) I am going to focus on frost. Seeing the Syndragosa trait crit for 1-2 million makes my day :P, and thank you all for the detailed responses.

Agreed, Fury of Sindragosa is one of the single most powerful attacks in the game and very satisfying to watch. Also, one big little update is that if you use the shot gun rotation in the guide, you basically only use frostscythe. As the expansion progresses I think that will eventually become the preferred rotation as obliterate still scales the same. We'll have to see though :)

[Lyshnek 1]

On 9/14/2016 at 0:09 PM, demonardvark said:

Agreed, Fury of Sindragosa is one of the single most powerful attacks in the game and very satisfying to watch. Also, one big little update is that if you use the shot gun rotation in the guide, you basically only use frostscythe. As the expansion progresses I think that will eventually become the preferred rotation as obliterate still scales the same. We'll have to see though :)

Is the machine gun rotation decent at boss fights? I only plan on doing mythic + dungeons, not raids. Basically I am looking for a talent build for dungeons, I can link my armory if necessary.

Edited September 15, 2016 by Lyshnek

[demonardvark 556]

16 hours ago, Lyshnek said:

Is the machine gun rotation decent at boss fights? I only plan on doing mythic + dungeons, not raids. Basically I am looking for a talent build for dungeons, I can link my armory if necessary.

I noticed you posted in Zefryks's post and I would use his logs as a reference. One of the big things to bare in mind is he has very good gear. However, he is using a derivative of the machine gun build. Frankly, I find it much more effective then the default one. So, that's probably the best starting point.

Redundant but link to forum

His talent choice is Icy Talons, Frozen Pulse, Avalanche, Winter is Coming, Volatile Shielding, Runic Attenuation,Glacial Advance