Cenomakesacadencethread.png
So, you made a Cadence build in 2026? Well, that was your first mistake.
Outdated Maths
I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the rationale behind how Cadence has been balanced is itself predicated on long-outdated assumptions about how the game works. Which is to say, for many years Cadence was balanced against regular DARs at the baseline of those DARs’ performance. Let me put that plainly with some math.
Cadence at 26/16 deals 550% WD / 3 Hits, equating to an average of 183.33% WD.
If you compare that to Savagery, which deals an average of (162% * 1.15 = 186.3% WD), Cadence doesn’t look too far behind. Similarly, Righteous Fervor deals an average of (158% * 1.15 = 181.7% WD), placing Cadence right in the middle of the pack! And this was a “balance” established many, many years ago.
But here’s the problem: That’s not the full picture. We now know (and have known for some time) that DARs multiplicatively stack their WD with the WPS they proc. Cadence, of course, does not. In the most extreme case, we have things like
Which is more than half an order of magnitude beyond what Cadence provides. Legitimately, this is 6.65x the biggest Cadence hits (averaged over three hits). Now, I don’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility that Jarldin and Upheaval alike both get nerfed in the near future, but something tells me they won’t be nerfed by a factor of 6. And, frankly, they shouldn’t be.
Cadence has fallen behind, because the math that dictated its design is incomplete.
It’s up for debate what exactly the model should be for Cadence. As said, I somehow doubt we’ll be seeing a 3660% Weapon Damage Cadence anytime soon, though that would probably make the skill fairly competitive. 
But even I have no idea what the proper goal should be for a DAR that cannot proc WPS on its main hit. Just, more than 550%, apparently.
But sheer Weapon Damage isn’t everything.
What Cadence Wants
At the eleventh hour before the expansion’s release, I bullied Zantai into developing secondary-skill support for skill modifiers, resulting in the last-minute inclusion of some item skill modifiers for Deadly Momentum. This is a great start, as it finally allows Cadence to begin getting what it truly wants without worrying about imbalancing other skills:
Speed.
That’s right, there’s no greater cocaine addict in the game than Cadence. In terms of available bonuses from skill modifiers, I generally have the following list in order of priority for Cadence:
- TDM
- Speed
- Crit/OA
- Targets
- Weapon Damage
- Flat Damage
Let’s work bottom-up here.
Flat Damage
For a skill whose hallmark is doing a butt-ton of damage every third hit, getting incrementally more damage is not super ideal. It’s not nothing, of course, but generally flat damage modifiers to Cadence are pretty negligible except in scenarios where Conversion is hard to come by. Note that if we saw Flat Damage modifiers to Deadly Momentum, that would be a hugely different story; even 10-20 to DM (with multiple modifiers) would be of a higher priority than Crit to Cadence.
Weapon Damage
Similarly to Flat Damage, for a skill that already has a numerical ton of Weapon Damage baseline, getting additively more hits immediate diminishing returns. Skill Modifiers sources of Weapon Damage are rarely sizable enough to make any meaningful difference in Cadence’s performance.
Wanna do that math? That’s a 1.45% damage increase from a very expensive (factoring in the opportunity cost of using Magic Armor) Ascendant Modifier. Not particularly great.
Unlike Flat Damage, though, there’s more potential here. Large % WD modifiers could boost Cadence notably. Also unlike Flat Damage, we cannot get %WD to Deadly Momentum. So big enough values are more preferable to Cadence than Flat Damage, but it’s still not the end-all be-all for boosting the skill’s performance.
Targets
Targets is largely a Crucible/SR thing, but its usefulness cannot be overstated. And with Nemesis/Dread farming now being dependent on sheer kills, +Targets may have greater Campaign viability too. At the end of the day, you want to activate Cadence as few times as possible to clear as much as possible, and +Targets is very literally force-projection in that regard. Again, this is a Cadence-only modifier. It wouldn’t do anything on Deadly Momentum.
But while Targets IS a great boon to Cadence, it’s not the highest priority because the skill already has a bonus here as well through Fighting Form. Note that FF has some specific functional breakpoints; Ranged Cadence has no reason to take the skill past 8/12 (at which point it gets 100% Projectile Passthrough), and Melee Cadence gets new targets at 6, 11, 17, and 22/12. Truthfully, I wonder whether FF should get some scaling that matters between these ranks, as otherwise it’s effectively just a skillpoint-hungry Transmuter right now. Anyways, +Targets on item skill modifiers does not go unnoticed, but it is weighed against the existing +Targets bonus from FF, making it not as high a priority as it would be on other DARs.
Crit/OA
When Cadence triggers, it needs to be a hit 100% of the time. And when Cadence triggers, it really should be a crit as often as humanly possible. And if it is a crit, we want that crit to punch. Hard.
All this is to say that OA matters more than ever on a Cadence build. All builds (other than debuff builds (if they exist?) and pet builds) love OA, but Cadence loves it the most. Most builds have a consistent enough flow of damage that having 20% of your hits be crits is fine. But if 20% of your Cadence hits are crits, that means only 1/15 (~6.667%) of your meaningful hits are crits.
It always surprised me that Cadence did not have an innate Crit Damage bonus, and that there are literally no Skill Modifiers that provide this stat either.
When Cadence Crits, it has to be more impactful than most other skills in the game by a wide margin. We’re talking juicy Doom Bolt or Grenado crits over here - we’ve doubled up on the crit chance RNG by only seeing it once every three attacks, after all!
So, to this end, Cadence loves high OA and % OA sources and modifiers, and it is deeply hungry for Crit Damage modifiers. Crit Damage could come in big chunks directly to Cadence itself, and OA/%OA could land in more moderated quantities on Deadly Momentum to keep the damage flowing. But presently, we see neither.
Speed
If our biggest source of damage comes once every three attacks, then Attack Speed is a Cadence build’s version of Cooldown Reduction. Problem is, until recently, Cadence has not had a vector for scaling its “CDR” any greater than its peers. Everyone had 200% Attack Speed until FoA! And if you had less, you weren’t playing a Cadence build, I can tell you that!
But now we have +Max Speed. And no one and nothing capitalizes upon that stat as much as Cadence does. (Except channeled skills) Now the math gets funky. Want to give Cadence 1000% Attack Speed? Sure, and you know what, Jardlin can keep its 1220% WD.
I don’t imagine Cadence will be getting 1000% Attack Speed, just like I don’t think Jarldin will be keeping its 1220% WD. But hopefully the point is clear. High Speed Cadence is the future, man. Fortunately for build creativity but unfortunately for Cadence, +Max Speed is not the rarest stat out there. It’s sprinkled here and there for many different builds and skills to capitalize upon. I’m not going to argue that other builds shouldn’t have access to +Max Speed, but I am going to be upfront and blunt about it: Cadence should have the most access to it.
DEI this bitch.
TDM
Pop quiz! How many TDM modifiers exist for Cadence?
If you said 7
You’d be wrong!
5 of those are buried in the Valdun 4pc. (GT counting each piece and the set as a whole as individual results)
So that leaves us with effectively 3 TDM item modifiers for Cadence (Voldrak’s, Portent of the End Times, Valdun) as well as the Discord modifier itself. So, the most Weapon-dependent skill in the game has its weapon slot occupied by a two-hander if you’re hoping to get any TDM scaling.
This is…less than optimal. TDM is a unique multiplier that has, over the years, proliferated and helped scale a number of skills into competitive viability. But not Cadence.
We could see (probably small) TDM modifiers to Deadly Momentum as a means to ensure our in-between hits pack a bit more of a punch than they would ordinarily, and we could also see large(r) TDM modifiers to Cadence itself to make things extra punchy still. The Voldrak, Portent, and Valdun modifiers are fine, I have no qualms with them in isolation. But I think Helmet/Amulet/Hands modifiers would not be remiss, along with giving 1H and Shield TDM modifiers as appropriate. Non-Weapon-locked TDM would be the highest priority and encourage the most variability in Cadence build design. As I’ve always said,
Every weapon is a Cadence weapon.
But this argument holds less water when only a select few weapons alone have TDM modifiers.
Alright, I’ve said my piece. Another thesis down. I’m sure there’ll be more soon.
