Cadence Based Gunslinger - need YOUR inghts and advice

made a cadence-based gunslinger commando and is progressing fairly well at ~Act 3 Veteran; except for the fact that I’ve been a potion whore since the start of the game. I need some (actually a lot of insight) so I know what direction I’m going to take from here on out.

Rushed Assasin’s Mark and building towards Huntress, means I’ve forgone defensive options. With me dropping my 1st - 30 pts on Cunning; I’m only starting to drop points on to Physique; and with Gunslinger Jacket being a requirement the -% Physique req is wasted thus my DA is pretty s%$#; i get hit quite hard…

So, let’s say I forgo Oleron’s Rage, in favor of Menhir’s Bulwark for the dmg red. how much damage, in terms of DPS am I actually losing?

Also, is there even a point for me being a Demo 2ndary? I see no benefit from the class for a Cadence gunslinger except for the flashbang CC. I have been theory crafting and am convinced that Occultist will synergize with my intended concept a lot more via:

  1. CoF (-% physical, bleed) - cadence apparently gives a lot of generous bleed dmg.
  2. Blood of Dreg (survivability and OA bonus)
  3. Focused Gazed via DEE - -x% physical dmg received

I’m not dissatisfied with my current damage and performance; but I always set my sights on the end game.

Please do leave your comments, would love to make this work out.

Attachment: GD DPS 1.JPG
Attachment: GD DPS 2.JPG

Drop one of the guns get Dearhdealer Sidearm go with Siegebreaker or Markovian set if you can get. That is what I am doing. It is pretty satisfaying.
http://grimcalc.com/build/lICQZkr

@bebaxat: will this be the conclusion? no way to make a cadence DW gunslinger HC ultimate viable? just to note, I am building it around the concept cadence based dual wielder, not just a cadence ranged type.

what about my question regarding Oleron’s Rage vs. Menhir’s Bulwark? am I giving up too much for survivability?

This is about your play-style. If you choose DW gunslinger, obviously you will be weak in defensive terms. I prefer to play safe. Menhir’s Bulwark is the far best defensive skill in the game.Plus it adds some flat physical damage, which is great for a defensive skill. Since you asked to compare MB vs OR, I thought that you were unsure and trying to decide on one of them.
If you wish to build a DW gunslinger than you will have to go for OR. I tried a DW but there are no as many items as supporting a DW compared to a shielded ranged soldier. Ther will be many wasted + skill on soldier items because most of them gives shield related + skills. However, there is a new set out for soldier. It might change the way things are.

@bebaxat: thanks, just wanted some confirmation. didn’t notice the “temper” skill line from commando, demo mastery might have more benefits than just flash bang; plus that added armor to all looks amazing. - will rethink hard before scrapping toon, or if im up to it probably build a cadence dw cadence gunslinger and compare their performance

Cadence has higher weapon damage and less flat damage compared to firestrike. Hence Cadence scales way better with heavy hitting weapons (2hand or slow DW maces). Moreover I believe Zohlans only takes the mainhand weapon making it pretty useless for dual wield. Dual wiel guns have the slowest base speed of 87 hence you need a lot of attack speed to compensate it. Moreover it is impossible to get enough crit on top of the attack speed. Demo and occultist gives good attack speed but no crit. Shaman and arcancist give crit but no attack speed.

Demo is nice due to blackwater cocktail. You don’t really need flashbang as overskilled marcovian (you are using cadence hence flashbang will be around normal level) already has high DA reduction.

So you need high attack speed and resist reduction. Flat damage is nice too of course. OA and crit is not important!

Occultist gives you high attack speed, strong 50% physical resist reduction and bleed, ~130 OA and >100 health regen and ~+10% physical resistance

Demo gives you high attack speed, ok 25% physical resist reduction, strong armor reduction and strong 18 reduced resistances. (break morale has higher reduced phyiscal resistances but the cocktail includes pierce resistance!)
You get ~130 OA and ~30 health regen. And temper gives flat physical damage and physical, pierce %

But fully skilled blackwater cocktail requires a heavy skill point commitment!

Conclusion: I believe that Demo is best together with acid spray devotion and 2 point blackwater cocktail for the 25% physical reduction. In this case you don’t need warcry/break morale and have plenty of points left to invest heavily into the soldier tree and max temper and flame touched and get 15% attack speed from vindictive flame. Occultist could be better for survival due to maxed blood of dreeg and aspect of the guardian But Demo has Blast shield… tough call!

If you go occultist I believe: http://grimcalc.com/build/zgL2XrS is best considering that you have many +soldier skills and no +occultist.
Of you go Demo I believe: http://grimcalc.com/build/VRAgbtC is best best considering that you have many +soldier skills and no +demo.

With commando you can really boost your damage with temper and the heavier focus on pierce damage maybe!

But to be honest for commando you will gimp your dps with cadence as http://grimcalc.com/build/P2Iiebt is much better. Just keep deadly momentum up for the huge physical flat damage increase. And convert as much physical to fire as possible.

It sad but Cadence only works well for 2handers and slow maces imo.

The two attached pics illustrate the scaling of crit damage and attack speed. attack speed it always better and should be maxed all the time! With double havoc you need 150% extra attack speed to reach the 200% cap. some crit is nice but won’t increase your dps a lot. And if you don’t have much crit it OA is not important at all. Attack speed hardly scale with OA. Hence no need to go above 2400 OA if you could get attack speed instead! ~110% crit damage at 2600 OA results in the same DPS as 20% attack speed and 0% crit damage at 2600 OA.

For double havoc auto attacks 1% attack speed is worth 5,5% crit damage at 2600 OA Just max attack speed and resistance reduction and ignore OA and crit damage! OA will be high enough anyway with soldiers exclusive!

For a big 2hander the autro attack scaling is more like 1% attack speed is worth ~3,5% crit damage. Hence crit is better but attack speed still dominates and should be maxed while just taking the crit damage that you can get easily.

For Grim dawn DPS just follow this 3 step plan:
1. resist reduction: 1 x reduced source (i.e. acid spray, break morale, elemental storm…), + as many -% reduced as possible (i.e. for lightning stack thermite mine + arcane bomb + ulzuin’s headpiece proc) + one % reduced source (i.e. Viper devotion for elemental or open hand of mercy ring for everything).

2. attack speed: Full focus on this and just take the OA and crit damage that you get on the way.

3. Accumulate Flat damage

@RayRay; thanks very nice info. 1st part answers my questions on the comparisons. also fills me in on the aspects im overlooking from demo mastery that benefits what i want to achieve.

the 2nd part of the info gives me insight on comparisons and future builds. thanks a lot. :smiley: really appreciate it and really made my day.

if im not mistaken - from what I read in the advanced mechanics you cannot stack the same type of reduction from different sources, right?

i.e. cocktail + break morale does not = x+y flat reduction

Blackwater and break morale stacks in the sense that you get the physical"%" reduced from breakmoral and the "%"pierce reduction from agonizing flames. But with 12/12 points in agonizing flames you can leave break moral alone. If pierce isn’t a big source it doesn’t matter anyway.

Just check the spreadsheet posted above for reference!

The spreadsheet is missing on gear hence I should note that the “open hand of mercy” ring is one of the few, if not the only source for physical reduction of category C!

If you only have physical damage then just pick “break morale” +all the various -% reduction like asassins mark and then finish it off with open hand of mercy. And get blind fury for Armor reduction or Acid spray w/o break moral for 30"%" reduced to all and huge armor reduction.

As I don’t play physical toons you should check the available gear for better combinations! To beat the game with authority aim for >100% resist reduction of your main damage source! And build a strong defense!