[b]BUILD HAS BEEN ABANDONED. CHECK THE LINK BELOW IF YOU’RE STILL INTERESTED IN THE CONCEPT
[/b]
It’s common to go Fire Strike when going ranged Aether. You have nice item support there but i wanted to try my hands on how good Ranged Cadence is and i am not disappointed by the results. This build is good with burst damage thanks to Cadence.
Ranged Occultist vs. Ranged Arcanist-
LMB builds and mostly Cadence benefit greatly from attack speed and it’s obvious to pick Occultist and convert the bonus chaos damage in it to aether for an OP build.
It’s good and would definitely work. Below i present concept for Aether Ranged Occultist for those interested-
1. Pistol/Rifle Aether Pyromancer vs Sorcerer-
Had i gone Aether Ranged Pyromancer all i needed to do was convert the flat chaos damage in Brimstone using AD rings and flat fire damage using Arcane shard of Agrivix and i could’ve made a ranged aether pyromancer.
This works awesomely cause we can easily convert the major damage types (Fire and Chaos) of the Fire Strike line.
These are the same conversion tools (AD ring & Arcane Shard) that any Sorcerer would use and hence in some ways Pyromancer is better than Sorcerer and in others inferior.
2. Pistol/Rifle Aether Witchblade vs. Battlemage-
Unlike Fire Strike where Fire and Chaos are the major damage types and Occultist had no issues converting them to aether, Cadence’s main damage type is Physical.
Physical to Aether conversion works well with Melee Witchblade because of Mindwarp’s proc giving us 100% Physical to Aether.
Ranged Witchblade is a different story as we would lack enough sources of Physical to Aether conversion to make the most of the flat physical damage on Cadence. So Witchblade lacks in this department, which is why we pick Battlemage.
So with current itemization available to us a Ranged Aether Witchblade would always be inferior to Battlemage.
Build Concept-
1. Conversion-
Physical to Aether shines when working with Cadence and hence Reckless Power is the way to go. There aren’t many sources of this and since we don’t have something as convenient as Mindwarp proc we can only achieve 55% Physical to Aether conversion with our BiS setup.
If you use different pistols then the conversion can be more but these provide attack speed.
2. Phantom Bullets-
Ranged Cadence has a chance to make bullets pass through your enemies completely and thus somewhat makes up for the lack of AoE it provides when compared with Fire Strike (especially Brimstone).
This can be used to proc things on multiple targets in a single shot.
3. Racial Damage and Resistance Reduction-
Our damage type does provide use the advantage that not many are resistant to our damage type.
Those who are can be dealt using resistance reduction and racial damage (%damage to aetherials).
We have 63% Resistance Reduction available.
Arcane Mark -33
Acid Spray 30 flat reduced resistances.
Eternal Haunt -15
This is the Level 100 version of the GrimTools link. Please refer to this from now on the rest of the guide will be updated at some later point
Battlemage - http://www.grimtools.com/calc/Q2zKObRV
DeathKnight - http://www.grimtools.com/calc/4NOQvYYV
Tactician - http://www.grimtools.com/calc/q2mM0k02
GrimCalc-
http://grimcalc.com/build/1009-q6Ip4V
Keybinding-
LMB- Cadence (w/ Acid Spray)
RMB- War Cry
Keyboard 1- Aether Tendril (w/ Arcane Bomb)
Keyboard 2- Mirror of Ereoctes
Keyboard 3- Nullification
Screenshots (w/ Toggled auras only)-
Rashalga kill-
Items-
Weapons- 2x Warped Bloodsworn Repeater of Fury
Helm- Helm-Clairvoyant’s Hat
Chest- Empowered Gunslinger’s Jacket
Shoulders- Warborn Pauldrons
Legs- Stonehide Solael-Sect Legguards of Kings
Gloves- Voidsteel Gauntlets
Feet- Stonehide Exalted Treads of Kings
Belt- Reforged Chains of Oleron
Ring 1- Band of the Eternal Haunt
Ring 2- Albrecht’s Duality
Amulet- Empowered Essence of Beronath
Medal- Mark of Divinity
Relic- Agrivix’s Malice
-Full Warborn (minus weapon) also works but i wanted to show how well not going the complete set also works. Also, with Warborn you get more attack speed.
-There does exist a prefix/suffix that gives you more %damage to aetherials maybe that could work
-Use Empowered Soulflayer if you don’t have these pistols. Soulflayer is pretty awesome.
Bosses-
Kite and kill, you have decent single target damage due to Cadence and the fact that not many are resistant to your damage type. You’ll notice some trouble with enemies like Shar’Zul who has Impaired Aim and Valdaran who is resistant to aether.
In Closing-
It would’ve been easier to make a sorcerer or even a pyromancer when picking Dual-Wielding Aether Pistols.
But i wanted to try out how a Battlemage would work and i am happy with the results, it’s not the most stylish of builds but i find it unique and am happy it can kill stuff.
Although i found my other experiment, aDW-Pistol Lightning based buildmuch more fun (personal preference, more flashy 
), this one is pretty fun in it’s own right
For those interested i presented some points on Ranged Aether using Occultist for Pyromancer and Witchblade under the section “Occultist vs. Arcanist”
When going Dual-Wielding Pistols you can go Chaos, Fire, Lightning, Cold, Acid, Physical, Pierce, Vitality. So i decided to present the concept for Dual-Wielding Pistols with Aether.
I loved this build cause it’s unique and i hope you guys enjoy playing it
