From a steady but slow meme in 9.8 to an easy to play machine gun in FoA. Perma Arcane Will sure is nice. If you like Enchanters/Arcane Archers from cRPGs, can only recommend.
I was looking at all the cadence weapons and wondered why nobody had touched Nar’s arcane destroyer yet.
Great build! I love it !
Why Rowan’s crown though ?
You already have reduced resist through discordant gem.
He already mentioned it in the video that the elemental shred only happens in the third strike of Cadence so it’s safer to apply Rowan’s crown which is also AOE, provides flat elemental bonuses in the first node and it also provides elemental dot damages in the active.
On a side note, I’m wondering why pick Dawnshard Grip over Fatebreakers since there’s already 100% aether conversion to elemental. 
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My bad. I didn’t watch the video (At work) I just looked at the grimtool.
Good answer
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Now this is my kinda build
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Really nice looking build. Ranged cadence is fun, and this one gets some crazy uptime on Arcane Will with extra buffs. I have a AAR battlemage lying around somewhere I’m rather bored with, might try this weapon instead.
With a good roll the current gloves add more flat damage. Besides that they have more % elemental damage and more attack speed.
More importantly, the passive on Fatebreaker doesn’t work (it’s dual wield) and it adds more phys/aether conversion you don’t want, so all you really get is a bit of extra OA and a few more skillpoints to play with.
NOPE.jpeg
The flat aether dmg in Fatebreakers towards Iskandra is way higher than the flat elemental dmg in Dawnshard Grip, and the aether to elemental conversion it’s already at 100% The attack speed in Dawnshard can be higher, but with a good roll in the Nar’s Arcane it would easily max out using the lower attack speed in Fatebreakers. Fatebreakers and Dawnshard both have exactly the same %elemental/aether dmg, but Fatebreakers also have %electrocute dmg. Fatebreakers get extra offensive which is more than welcome for a crit build, not to mention the defensive ability. The only thing that dawnshard would have over Fatebreakers would be the extra health.
The dual wield passive in fatebreakers is irrelevant. We’re not even discussing that Fatebreakers would give an extra 15% chance to proc Zolhan which would allow to roll the 3 asencion augments that are required in other pieces of gear for Zolhan to reroll for anything else utility wise.
Uh, no.
The aether on the Fatebreaker is only 22, the elemental on the gloves goes up to 26.
The in-game display for the Iskandra modifier shows the MODIFIED aether damage, it has already applied your % aether damage. The gloves do not. That 18-26 (and that 22 aether) is going to be multiplied by 33-36 because of the % elemental damage and spirit this build has, and then by the 700% weapon damage on Cadence. Which is why every bit of flat helps.
Hm? Fateweaver only has % lightning damage, not % elemental damage. That makes it only 1/3rd as effective, because you’re missing out on the % fire and cold and this is a tri-elemental build. Another 60% elemental damage isn’t going to make or break anything, so not too big a deal, but % elemental is still preferred on a build like this.
This one is true though, I missed that because of the ascended modifier on the build, didn’t spot that the gloves give another 15%. That is a pretty big boost. Might make it worth using despite the damage loss from the % phys aether conversion.Then again, 20-30% phys conversion is quite a lot… even if it doesn’t apply to the cadence hit it still hurts your other attacks a fair bit.
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Basically what Jason said. Didn’t wanna fuck around with the counterconversion, though I honestly didn’t test the numbers in-game, it just dismissed the gloves at the drafting stage already. The %WPS is nice but not necessary, you can fix it with ascended affixes and more importantly I don’t think it’s all that important even without the ascends, your WPS tickle compared to the nuclear assblast you release with the actual Cadence. Then there’s the lower attack speed range, the lower flat damage, the missing 2/3rds of the % damage. If the granted passive applied, well worth using, but without it it just didn’t seem to do enough to justify the conversion mess. Basically the main gain would be the extra OA, and the savings on ascends which aren’t even all that crucial IMO.
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You’re using estimates from grimtools which are aproximate and incredibly innacurate. I took a photo with my phone on a Magehunter which has more elemental dmg than aether dmg. Now I’m taking a screenshot with a Warlord who has zero affinity for elemental or aether dmg and the values are still abysmal, 26 elemental flat dmg in dawnshard and 133 aether dmg to iskandra in Fatebreakers.
Electrocute and Lightning damage which are extra dmg not base damage. It doesn’t matter that it does not have the other elements, all elemental dot dmg is augmented thru Overload and Elemental Balance. Damage is damage, more it’s better. You’re also completely ignoring that fateweavers have the same % aether dmg that Dawnshard has in %elemental damage.
You are right that Fatebreakers do add physical to aether conversion, but even marcus states that Reckless Power also adds physical to aether dmg. The real question would be how much is too much that it bricks the build due physical to aether conversion.
People don’t post builds as much anymore but the first mention of it in this forum is by @mi023 in the big cadence feedback thread before 1.3.1.0. I copied it and posted a run in my youtube, then @romanN1 improved it. Eventually @mad_lee came back to playing gd and made a tactician version. Both battlemage and tactician are in their respective author’s youtube channels (except mi’s which is in bilibili). We kinda got tired of battlemage after 1.3.1 because of the discordant nerfs but lee is still glazing tactician to this day.
Elemental is the strongest cadence right now. Kudos to marcus (how tf do i tag you) for still doing battlemage even after nerfs.
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Jason is right, item skill modifiers scale on character display, item stats don’t. The flat mod on IEEE is 22, the flat max on Dawnshard is 26, no two ways about it. So in that aspect, the two break even.
% aether damage does nothing for our scaling. Conversion happens first, then % bonuses apply. All we care about is % elemental, fire, cold, lightning, or all damage (+DoTs). % lightning is 2/3rds less desirable than % elemental, so Dawnshard wins out on the % bonus front.
But Reckless Power has too many other benefits to pass up. It’s one of two exclusive skills that we could use that even increases any of our % damages (where on the gloves we lose % elemental for only % lightning) and while it does have undesirable conversion, it’s FULLY compensating for it by giving us 59-68 Aether damage to convert to elemental. That is much more than we lose from the wrong conversion. It also gives us attack speed to reach the cap. The gloves do neither. They have a worse conversion ratio, cost us % damage, break about even on the flat damage, and cost potential attack speed to reach the cap (I only reach the cap thanks to above average rolls). The gloves cost us stuff and don’t seem to do enough to make up for it, their only merits are the 60 OA, 15% for Zolhan proc and +3 to Zolhan.
XD Start with LM 
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Grimtools is accurate. It gets its data from the game files, it is not making estimates. There are SOME things that are different in-game, like the resistance displays, and it may occasionally have a bug, but when it comes to exact values like these you can and should rely on it.
Your in-game example still has modifiers messing with your results, probably from the spirit score and whatnot.
Compare your damage score instead on a character that actually has a few points in Iskandra’s. Check the damage on your weapon attack, not the in-game DPS score which ARE inaccurate.
You will see that the damage goes up more with the dawnshard gloves than with the Fatebreakers. (Unless dual-wielding, then Fatebreaker will win out.)
I don’t get how that would not matter. If you deal 100 elemental damage and you get a 100% elemental damage boost, you deal 200 damage. If you get a 100% lightning damage boost, you deal 133 damage.
The electrocute is nice to have, but this is not a DoT build so it is less helpful than bigger flat modiers. Again though, % modifiers in end-game count in large amounts, if the other stuff on the gloves worked this would not be a dealbreaker.
I actually asked Marcus while on stream, why was he maxing out Elemental Balance instead of maxing out Fabric of reality since I thought the build didn’t have dot dmg. He answered that Rowan’s Crown does dot dmg in Elemental Storm and all the trauma dmg in Deadly Momentum gets converted to dot elemental dmg. It’s not a FOCUSED dot elemental build, but does indeed have valuable dot elemental. You cannot claim that having “ADDED” on top of conversion dmg to just lightning/electrocute doesn’t give out more dmg output.
Did you read Marcus’ comment on how conversion works? He explains it very clearly.
Thanks for posting the build.
Gloves’ discussion aside, i wonder why you don’t use Korvaak helm? For Damage reduction on War Cry?
Silvercore bolts are worse here than Seal of Resonance?
Why Fabric of Reality is not maxed? Flat damage, % damage to aetherials and chtonics. no points for it?
Also how is Arcane Will permanent here, please?
Main Question, though: Battlemage or Tactician for Nar’s Arcane Destroyer? -40% elemental resistance and % damage reduction on Aura of Censure is really hard to argue with.
This is the build I am using based on MadLee`s original setup: Battlemage, Level 100 (GD 1.3.1.0) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
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Most of this I discuss in the video, but in short:
Horns of Korvaak are definitely an entirely viable option, I chose the green helmet for more comfort with ability to apply War Cry as you move forward and 6% OA and DA is nothing to scoff at either.
Silvercore Bolts are better for damage, Seal of Resonance for safety against Petrify and Trap.
Fabric of Reality is an option but not all that great. The flat damage it provides is miniscule, it’s like 1.5 Aether per skill point, we don’t convert the Chaos at all, and the racial is nice, sure, but not needed, we slice through Grava or Dread well enough. So it’s either you invest points here and increase your damage against select enemies while basically throwing the skillpoints away against all other targets, or you can use the free points to max out Elemental Balance and have better crit and DoT against everything regardless of race. Your choice, neither is going to break the build.
Arcane Will is permanent because once it triggers, both Nar’s Arcane Destroyer and Discordant Gem keep extending the duration (Discordant Gem especially) and the duration extension has no cap, so after a few minutes of fighting your Arcane Will can easily have like 20 minute duration because of how often we crit.
Battlemage vs Tactician…hmmm. I feel like the main appeal of Nar/Discordant is the fact you can make permanent Arcane Will for a massive chunk of extra flat, (120!!!) and 25% extra attack speed so I’d probably stick with Battlemage. The DR from Inquisitor is whatever, we got better with War Cry, so it’s a choice between the extra RR and WPS or the %absorb, massive flat damage, extra OA from Inner Focus and massive attack speed from Arcane Will. I’d prefer Battlemage either way just for the amazing flavour but they might break even. For Tactician I’m much more intrigued by Arcanum Infinitum…even though that’s trying to make a melee Tactician so no Inquisitor WPS for that one.
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Thanks, i watched the video so i got the idea behind the helment and how Arcane Will is permanent
Would still prefer to have 16/12 Inner Focus though, even at cost of points in Zolhan’s Technique, and it’s hard to decide if it is worth taking points Elemental Balance and put them into Fabric of Reality (of course it makes no sense for superbosses).
Thanks for taking time to reply and great video with very good explanation!
I recently found some Valdun Tactician so i would probably leave Tactician for Valdun and Battlemage for Elemental Cadence.