[Feedback] Current state of different-damage-type Cadence (videos inside)

For current state of Physical Warborn cadence please visit THIS topic.

Here I wanna look over other damage types and Cadence and see how it performs and what lacks. Here we go.

  1. Chaos. I’ve tested two specs:
    2H (GRIMTOOLS LINK) and S&B (GRIMTOOLS LINK).
    Both builds have 2 green items - 1 double-rare (shield/pants) and medal to boost stats.
    Both builds have huge flat and % chaos damage, 1st spec max damage is almost 1,4 million, 2nd - 771k.
    The results of testing, unfortunately, are super-bad. 2H spec is about 8:30 with neutral mutators and 8 with good. S&B spec does more than 10 mins and isn’t very tanky at all.
  1. Elemental Cadence. A poorly supported spec - 1 weapon and 1 transmuter - alongside with rather modest RR make it really weak and outperformed.

The build I played: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/w26K3rbV . Despite having lots of procs, 22/12 Seal, AoC, racial damage reduction etc, the spec is still not very tanky and not very damaging. Died 2 times out of 2 - on 170 wave because of lag and on 162 because of MQ. Times are also very modest, about 8 mins in Crucible.

In SR their performance is slow and boring, completing SR65-66 (yes) but it takes up to 2 mins and more to clear a boss room.

  1. Cold Cadence. Old-as-world Blademaster build that used DM set but after multiple nerfs - racial damage, ADctH, cold damage nerfs - it is in a bad place. About 7-7:20 in Crucible with not 100% consistency.

  2. Vitality Cadence through BK and 2 Edges of Death. Also very modest performance about ~8 mins in Crucible. Here I call for @Nery to say a word about Cold and Vitality specs as he played them and made builds.

Cadence has multiple problems and some of them are:

  • Very little AoE (almost zero - 3-4 targets);
  • No in-built crit damage that other Soldier skills - FW and BA - have;
  • Speaking for 2handers, the problem is that the 3rd strike can become nothing but tickling if a minimum WD is rolled.

My suggestions are: (they’re incomplete, as he problem seems really big to me)

  • Elemental Cadence - buff Malakor’s Infusion. Increase rr to -10%, add +1 to Soldier instead of +1 to Demo, buff the Discord transmuter so it would give more ele damage. Or give flat ele damage to Cadence to Mal’s Infusion.
  • Chaos Cadence … umph. I really suggest adding +2 targets to Obsidian Juggernaut alongside with AS. Also, Horns of Ekket’Zul can be given +4 to Cadence instead of Agonising Flames. Dunno what can help S&B spec. Maybe some kind of a buff to Obsidian Defender like -1 hit to fully charge Cadence.
  • Cold - maybe it’s time to revert some of the Deathmarked’s nerfs. Also, it is supported only by 1 amulet which is bad. Maybe at least add some flat cold to it. Or. speaking about another weapons and specs, I’ve also tested cold DK with 2 Dreadweavers in Morgo’s set. A meme spec but I suggest giving Dreadweaver +2 to cadence instead of +2 to RoH and replacing WC mod with -10% cold RR to Spectral Binding/Ill Omen.

Also I shout out for famous builders like @mad_lee, @Nery, @Safarel and everyone who ever played with cadence and has sth to say about it.

9 Likes

Nice topic of comparing different Cadences. I suspect DW aether DK will be in worse state compared to the end of FG. Lightning Warder should be glass but not really canon.

Reaver’s Claws is the only top tier Cadence build. It have extra target after all.

Cold DM fall of the cliff and broke a shoulder, chest and head and his body as whole. Luckily it’s not completely bad, just not a good build anymore.

Vitality is reserved for casters, pure DW melee is weak. DK it’s very sturdy option though, of course vitality Savagery Ritualist is faster.

In conclusion Cadence deserves little buff, in combination with Physical version buff. That is my opinion!

1 Like

I lack information about aether DK and how it is now.
Also, 2h Lightning Cadence with Stromreaver showed ~6:30 in Crucible but I think it’s obvious that is not because of Cadence itself.

Pierce is on top now, yes, alongside with - surprisingly - Krieg Battlemage (it can go under 6 mins or around). Probably it’s not very surprising as it utilises specially dedicated set and 2 very good swords.
The true miracle is that BM without any aether RR in mastery is faster than Physical with 2 rr-s. And that’s a shame.

1 Like

I do have experience with Elemental Cadence since I was the guy who made Zantai’sMalakor’s Infusion Tactician back in AoM. Pretty sad spec nowadays. It even has aoe, lol. But it’s still super slow and unreliable.

About physical 2h Cadence - tested it before I switched to 2h BA and made my Big Bad Witchblade. Just no. Super bad and super inconsistent.

My suggestion is to add to some of the Cadence items/sets a mod that reduces a number of charges by 1 but also reduced a weapon damage by an approriate amount (like by 50-100%). It will add aoe (because more Cadence hits), will obviously add damage but most importantly will add consistency, since every second hit now can roll crit and high weapon damage value.

1 Like

Evidently pierce Cadence is ok. Even a joke all blue pierce Cadence build can pull off 7 mins.

The skill line has too much going on for pierce and there is no point in focusing on phys vs pierce: both base skill and DM bonuses are reduced by enemy armor greatly and this fact is by far a greater dowside compared to occasional pierce resistent enemies.

Other dmg types suffer mostly from no support from the Soldier mastery, first and foremost there is no RR.

In my opinion, the best universal way to buff Cadence is to make the 3rd strike a regular, default attack so it could proc WPS. Cadence on paper is very strong compared to other AAs but somehow it shows poor performance in a multitarget environment, regarldess of the dmg type. It’s pretty obvious that bad interaction with DW is a big part of that. Main problem for 2H clearing time is attack speed combined with inconsistent dmg output. The majority of Cadence strikes with 2H are huge overkills, a lot of dmg is wasted.

Another suggestion:

  • Make the base skill all about WD and increase %WD on non-Cadence strikes. This change will heavily buff phys Cadence (it removes one armor reduction from your strikes), it buffs other dmg types because it gives less phys dmg to convert. But it wont buff pierce because most pierce builds get Cadence bonus phys dmg converted for free.
    It will also increase the consistency of the skill performance.
  • Increase the number of targets
  • Double the IT value on DM. The current value is pretty sad.
3 Likes

@afanasenkov26, nice review. Did you test elemental cadence for battle mage build as well? For example something like this (good rolls so no issue with resistances): https://www.grimtools.com/calc/Q2zDoXRZ

Just wondering, at what point is Cadence actually worse than Beronath Fury…?

would anyone be willing to test an update version of my aether cadence DK? https://www.grimtools.com/calc/DV93wMPN

Back in AoM this build was good… and that was before the conduit was a thing. It relied on the old version of that axe to get physical to aether conversion

1 Like

Has anyone tried out a variant replacing Malakor’s Infusion with Empyrion’s Mercy? It seems like it should have several stats that might work with cadence, RR, and a sizable % damage bonus too.

Honestly I don’t get why you decided to pick Obsidian Juggernaut over Wrath of Tenebris. Sure you lose some useful skill mods, but attack speed is king on melee 2H builds, no?

And this is why Z wanted to remake it into Lightning Cadence, but the community raised up to defense of the tri-element transmuter. Community won, Z gave in. Enjoy the useless transmuter now.


Overall that’s a good thread. It’s missing aether and acid though. Aether should be pretty good, but it’s largely carried by Krieg set ofcourse.

Z redesigned Malakor infusion and made it somehow the best 1handed weapon for tri elemental cadence builds (then he nerfed it :D). And there was no AA lightning 1handed weapon at that moment (Post-FG). Fisher needs a good rod before he starts to fishing. Blame community, your logic is pssssttt.

And lose -15%rr and +2 to both masteries? :thinking:

Back at you.

Transmuter being reworked to support lightning cadence at some point in the past is a fact, you can dig it in changelog.

Community complaining about it is a fact too.

If they didn’t we would have had lightning transmuter instead of elemental now. And used it for Dawnseeker Tactician for example.

Malakor redesign happened later.

Nah I prefer Savagery over Cadence for lightning, especially with Dawnbreaker. You know every transmuted mod affects build so much (ie Starpact), it may destroy many builds and put them into bottom. I still cant sense your logic about lightning cadence, when savagery exists.
There was plenty tri elemental cadence builds at that time, and most ppl agreed that unless the mod buffs huge lightning dmg to cadence (or increase total dmg like x%, -% lightning res), overall savagery always is the best choice.

I think it was not Stupid Dragon’s but Zantai’s logic. Which sometimes can be kinda hard to understand!

I know Krieg BM is very good today, despite all odds.
DK is probably on ± same level.

Acid … I’ve never heard of it out of some meme concepts. Maybe somebody tried it in our Discord but suppose the results were far from brilliant.

Just forget it. Currently game mechanic doesn’t allow that.
----
Besides, let me remember how DW Cadence works:
As known dual-wielding allow chance to hit with main hand, off-hand, or both. Same is true for Cadence discharge (I don’t use 3rd strike term due to the following). So, when you discharge Cadence with both hands, as known only one weapon deal full damage, but second one counts as basic attack and charge your next Cadence. Moreover such attack can prock WPS. Thus with enough of luck you will have Cadence discharge each 2 attack.

Changing it to lightning did literally nothing for builds already using elemental transmuter, because - surprise! - lightning is one of the elemental damage types. Zantai tried to explain it to buildmakers too, but wasn’t successful.

On the other hand it opened new opportunities for other builds, because optimizing around one damage type is easier than around elemental.

You prefer Savagery? Okay. But I can’t get Savagery on Tactician.

None of which got ruined by switching elemental to lightning. It was just bitching on their builds losing a bit of “tri-elemental” flavour. They got to keep the flavour, the price is it’s a mechanically inferior transmuter and lack of gear support. You said Malakor, what else is there? There are three weapons that allow lightning cadence right now.

Don’t speculate on things like that, ok?

I try to understand why some decisions were made. Sometimes I like them, sometimes not.

But you just went and made it sound like I’m a minion parroting my master’s words.

1 Like

no offence, mate, I didn’t want to insult you by any means!
I just wanted to say I consider Lightning Cadence being Zantai’s decision so you may not know the true reasons of that.
again, no offence!

are you absolutely certain about that?