I don’t get where the controversy comes from.
Physical Cadence WB whacks things with a stick and relies on procs for aoe.
Chaos Cadence WB whacks things with a stick and relies on procs for aoe.
Physical version has two built-in resistance reductions, and another two readily available (Black Matriarch ring and Assassin’s Mark, both of which fit the build like a glove)
Chaos is the worst damage type in the game because there are almost no good resistance reductions in the game and a third of Crucible and one entire act of the main game resist it heavily. The only available sources of chaos resist reduction are Eldrich Fire which requires green devotion you don’t want and actively screws you trough mana burn reflect and Mark of Solael, which is a weapon augment. They add up to 30, whooptie fucking doo. Casters recieve some additional options though.
Cadence line does physical already, so do soldier wps. Solael’s Witchfire does chaos, so you lose effectiveness there I guess.
To make a chaos version, you need to stack conversion, and chaos doesn’t even have a 10% conversion ammy like lightning and such. Physical and chaos don’t mix well, both in terms of items, attributes and constellations, so a hybrid is out of the question. You can’t simply rely on flat chaos bonuses since they are extremely weak.
Physical has a straight forward devotion path with the best melee procs in the game (poison can compete tho).
Chaos has shit constellations which are all over the place and no procs.
Menhir’s Bastion is insane.
Possession is not horrible now that it doesn’t drain mana, but nothing to write home about.
Why would any sane person do chaos Cadence, except for a challenge/roleplay? And why does every thread these days devolve into people trying to convince others that melee chaos (aside from Brimstone) is a good idea? It’s not.
Here’s a challenge: post a chaos-based build. Not something that does <33% in chaos like Fire strike pyro, something where chaos is the primary damage source. I’m willing to bet that I can find a buld that fits the same archetype that is already posted as a guide on the forums and which beats the chaos version on every single metric.