It has great single target damage, but it’s not only single target. I actually remember when it was only single target and the damage was way higher than it is now.
So? What’s your point? How is that in any way in favor of phys Cadence? All the casters and all the melee can do pretty much all the content better than phys Cadence hence it needs a buff. Case closed. A simple case really.
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It’s not supposed to be. “The point” is that
I legitimately do not care whether Cadence sees a buff. It’s my most-played skill, so who would I be to complain? But I do care if it becomes the only thing to play because it performs miles ahead of everything else. And if Physical Cadence is ever as potent in Crucible as some here seem to want, the skill as a whole will be all but omnipotent in the campaign.
Because the only thing people play in campaign right now is Reaver’s Claw/ SR set blademaster, right? There already is a spec that performs how people would like physical Cadence to perform, and it’s just one build out of a whole set of great ones. It’s not even among the really broken builds like Spite BM or Dark One’s Ritualists.
No, nor should that be the case.
Then…what’s the problem?
If you want to play a high-end variant of Cadence, you have one with Pierce. But Physical Cadence is still very much viable and performs appreciably well, as mad_lee’s post demonstrates.
This right here. Again, i’ll drop this quote from Zantai in with the key portion in bold:
Crucible is an AoE-centric environment. Physical Cadence by nature then should be at a disadvantage here. If you push it to perform decently in an area it is going to struggle in, it’s gonna be insane in situations that play to it’s advantages.
I think the problem here is that certain players/builders have come to expect a build to perform equally in all areas of the game whereas there is an intent that certain archetypes should excel in some areas and be less efficient in others evidenced by Zantai’s initial response.
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As far as i understand the problem is not that cadence itself is mostly a single target skill but the combination with physical specifically is under-performing. To me this is unexpected as in the given example with the 3k % phys damage warlord should absolutely smash stuff to bits just like other single target skill builds that do absolutely fine. It is not that other physically based skill suffer the same problem compared to their other damage type counterparts? Has this been researched enough?
In other words is it a physical damage type of problem?
Believe me, elemental cadence is in a same or even worse shape as it has only 1 weapon and transmuter to be supported with.
Because it’s reasonable to expect that a set dedicated to the main damage type of Cadence will outperform a generalist set. You don’t see builders picking the SR set over Clairvoyant for AAR, or over Demonslayer for transmuted PBlades, or over Warborn itself for physical EoR. That any viable class combination for physical Cadence with Warborn is inferior to a generalist set indicates that Warborn’s Cadence support is seriously lacking.
Again, this hasn’t been an issue with pierce Cadence, which does perform noticeably better in Crucible and has adequate MC performance. Warborn Cadence currently has lower single target AND AoE damage, as well as lower durability. What’s the secret area where it performs better than the generalist option? All this fearmongering about Cadence suddenly becoming too good is ridiculous next to the performance of AAR, double Wendigo totems, and set-supported PBlades.
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Perhaps the thing to suggest then is that the combination of DW Reaver’s Claw and the Shattered Realm set need toning down.
Look at Fluff’s Belgothian build. Belgothian is another single target focused build by nature and he compensates for this in Crucible by taking Azrakaa’s Epoch and maxing Blade Spirit for AoE, choices that previously would be seen as unorthodox.
hmm, i see that it is partly gear related. But i wonder what is exactly needed. Buffing the skill only buffs builds that are already in a good spot. Buff gear might work, but i cant really see what to buff exactly to make this pan out. Maybe make a change to both elemental cadence gear pieces and warborn gear pieces. But what exactly i cant put my finger on.
Maybe some more flat and additional targets.
Also, chaos Cadence is unbelivable shit, but this is also partly cuz of Chaos Witchblade spec.
Both s&b and 2h specs are very bad and slow. DW seems to be ± ok but still a beta version of Rah’Zin WH.
Just tested the build myself doing several changes in devotion pathing, augments, offhand weapon, weapon components etc. I had the best result with this setup -> https://www.grimtools.com/calc/xZy54PnZ
Died at 170, 6.15 mark. But to be honesty, i really tried hard to do my best and do it as fast as possible with aggro to make packs and spread trauma as much as possible etc. This build severly lacks burst damage if you ask me.
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How are you guys conviniently ignoring a huge part of my and other builder’s argument, it’s just ridiculous. Where I am from people with similiar rhetorical skills make careers on governmentally run tv and in politics.
And the argument, which you always seem to be conviniently forgetting when you keep repeating your “crucible is an aoe-centric environment yada-yada” mantra, is pretty simple: most synergetic melee builds have similiar problems with AOE but are good 1-1.5 minutes faster in Crucible.
Another thing which you keep ignoring is the case that I made for this thread: Warborn freaking Dervish showing absolutely similiar results.
I would say it’s partly Cadence partly physical.
That yields him like 15-20 seconds in the speedrunning specs. If you take a solid and balanced Belgothian Blademaster build that is not glassified for the sake of Crucible records you can still comfortably clear in sub 6 minute times, without Azrakaa or tripple blade spirits. I know because I made such a build, look up my Luminari Godkiller.
Great result! Best I (but not actually me, someone else) could do with my spec was 6:35. But I also have this problem of dying despite having more defenses on paper.
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You guys, @Ceno @Evil_Baka @Norzan and others who feel like this, i don’t think you’ll ever come to agreement or even to understanding with so called “cutting edge” players who really are just endgame players trying to find challenge in the game they like.
All the arguments about campaign and dungeon performance of the build are moot and frankly out of place here. ANY endgame ready build flies through the 3 stages of MC easily. So i’m not really sure what is the meaning behind the phrase “omnipotent in the campaign”. Every endgame build is omnipotent in the campaign. The only difference is how easily it reaches endgame. So if you are afraid Cadence can SOMEHOW become to easy to level with and farm dungeons with… just don’t be. There are things miles above it, for any kind of content whether it’s veteran capmaign or shard 95.
In the end, if the skill does get too powerful (very, very hard to believe that) you can always tweak numbers more towards the dependence upon WD. So that the skill only becomes powerful with very high WD value which can only be reachable by the endgame setup.
More or less. The problem of armor is partially mitigated by 2H because 2H has fewer heavy hits so the dmg gets reduced less. The problem doesn’t exist for EoR because this skill, with its high attack speed and small WD, makes basically all the flat dmg bonuses go through the armor due to 70% of monster’s armor absorption.
I’d say the problem is 60% phys dmg is bad and 40% Cadence is bad.
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If they want a challenge why are they asking for buffs and complaining about nerfs? Idunno, seems pretty damn casual if you ask me.
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Except this is rarely how Zantai sees it.
Every aspect of the game is equally as important to him in terms of a build’s performance. If a skill is OP at level 10, I wager it’s something he cares about, and at the end of the day he is the person you are trying to convince to make these changes.
I am having difficulties to follow the exact problem, however i do recognize also in building myself that physical cadence lacks, i haven’t tried elemental cadence. Maybe its just the way it works like the third hit does damage but yeah if it doesn’t crit or hits low then you are again waiting for some better hit. It is too random. Maybe the skill should be something like a charge where the first 2 hits also do some damage. So like 150% 250% 350% or something. It would also be more friendly to lifesteal or more smooth and make it for dual wield possible to hit on the last charge or so. I dont know how to do it honestly but when i last checked primal strike at max level hits for 320% weapon damage in an area and can be spammed at attack speed. but yea that is a 2h skill so maybe not the best comparison. But 500% weapon damage on the third hit and from what i understand with only 1 weapon might not be on par with skills that deal this damage more spread out. The “burst” feel might be more with skills that do consistent streams of damage and also be able to leech better of that. Even if dual wield phys cadence would hit with 2 weapons on the final charge i don’t think this would “fix” cadence and it might break other builds too.
This is the crux of the matter which I know for a fact is being widely missed.
When we are asked to test new content, we are explicitly asked not to do so with high-damage, “cutting-edge” builds. So, for instance, when 1.1.5.0 rolled around and brought the new roguelike with it, I slapped together a middle-of-the-ground, 1500% damage vitality build to see how the majority of players would experience the new content.
But, obviously, this sort of strategem isn’t immediately apparent to people:
Skilled players GDStashing perfect rolls and slamming themselves against Crucible content is a poor representation of Grim Dawn’s playerbase and ergo not the only consideration for the way things are balanced.
Something being better (a vitality caster being better than a vitality autoattacker) or something being worse (physical cadence being worse than pierce cadence) is an inevitability of a game with customization as broad as GD’s. I understand the argument that, inherently, one might fundamentally expect a Physical Warborn Cadence build to automatically be better than all other implementations of Warborn Cadence, because Warborn grants Physical Damage and % Physical Damage. However, I do not agree with this assertion and, in fact, I am glad that it is not the case. I’m glad there’s still a means to get creative with sets and use them in ways that are not immediately apparent to fantastic results. If Warborn Cadence were shoehorned into Physical Damage, it’d be another monotonous set in a sea of monotonous sets.
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