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.