Part nine of my controller friendly build series: Piercing Valdun’s Cadence Tactician
The first thing is that the description of Fragmentation Round is misleading, (particularly on Grimtools where it neglects to mention that there are EIGHT projectiles): It fires eight projectiles at random within a fairly tight cone, (although they appear to only penetrate once), as shown below. In short, it’s an extremely powerful spell, with 720% weapon damage + 2.5k piercing in total.
I was convinced that this build could clear SR80, and after several hours of frustration and tweaks, I managed to do it. I wouldn’t recommend this build for SR80, but it’s fairly smooth for farming SR75.
Grimtools link. The prefixes and suffixes on Iron Maiden’s Shoulderguard are the best I have, not necessarily optimal. Altered link thanks to Gnomish_Inquisition’s suggestion. I think it’s a little bit stronger, but it’s not what I cleared SR80 with.
Longer Introduction
Valdun’s + Tactician seemed so straightforward, I was surprised nobody had done it before. I wondered if that was because it was terrible, but I decided to try it out anyway. It turns out that it’s very strong, in part due to the power of Fragmentation Round. Another strength is the 50% WPS on the set. While they aren’t the strongest WPS, they free up skill points to flesh out the defense. On a Cadence build, where WPS aren’t the primary source of damage, these WPS are good enough, and the build doesn’t struggle for damage, even with all the defense I put into it to clear SR80. The one thing I was disappointed about was the similarities in play style to my 2H ranged Witchblade. More on that below.
The playstyle is: keep Word of Renewal up, cast Word of Pain, fire Fragmentation Round, throw down Inquisitor Seal, cast Cadence until Fragmentation Round is back up, immediately fire Fragmentation Round. You cast Horn of Gandarr when you’re worried and Murmur’s Kiss when you’re in trouble.
Comparison to Witchblade
Obviously, they have almost no skills in common. Murmur’s Kiss is their disengage rune, they both use Markovian’s Advantage and Zolhan’s Technique, and they both have Field Command and some Soldier passives. However, the main skills you cast have very similar roles: Touch of Chaos/Cadence, Blood of Dreeg/Word of Renewal, Curse of Frailty/Word of Pain, and – to my surprise – Doom Bolt/Fragmentation Round. The Tactician has Horn of Gandarr and Inquisitor Seal, but they aren’t super important. So here are the pros and cons of Valdun’s Tactician compared to Rah’Zin’s/Harbinger Witchblade. Overall, I think my Witchblade build is stronger.
Pros vs Witchblade:
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Higher DA
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OA reduction from Azrakaa is more reliable than Murmur’s Kiss
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higher Armor
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a bit tankier, sometimes
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much better lifesteal
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much better levelling
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has a functional knockback
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less set reliant (if you’re missing a piece of Valdun’s you can get by, if you’re missing a piece of Rah’Zin’s that build doesn’t work.)
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more multi-target damage (although you have to line your enemies up)
Cons vs Witchblade:
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only barely clears SR80 (ie with like 20 tries)
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not much more than half the single target damage (sheet DPS is misleading because of the way Cadence interacts with WPS.) (Mad Queen took ~10s vs ~5s)
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dies instantly when tankiness runs out
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much less damage on the run and while kiting.
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Inquisitor Seal is only useful when you’re strong enough to facetank.
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the above factors make it inferior against Celestials. (I couldn’t even kill Ravager).
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overall takes longer to do stuff
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uses MI shoulders
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less healing when not lifestealing
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Word of Pain has clunky/inconsistent casting compared to Curse of Frailty
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Word of Pain has a smaller radius (unless you put more points into Word of Agony)
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less reliable DA reduction
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needs plenty of energy tonics
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is super weak against Fabius “The Unseen” Gazer; on SR80, he was almost impossible: I think Word of Pain triggers a big retaliation every time it ticks, which is once a second. So if you use Word of Pain, then when you run away to get your cooldowns back up you die from the retaliation, and if you don’t use Word of Pain he has too much pierce resist and takes forever to die, in which time he’ll get a lucky crit burst+WPS burst and kill you. Most of my deaths at SR80 were against Fabius.
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Doom Bolt is cooler and more satisfying than Fragmentation Round (although they’re basically used identically)
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Chariot of the Dead is possibly thematically inconsistent with Inquisitor
Video proof of clear
Fight tips
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Offense: Cadence is your biggest damage dealer, and it will penetrate in a line, so try to line up your enemies for every third strike. If you’re holding down “A” (at least on controller) to cast Cadence, you need to release Cadence in order to cast Word of Pain.
Fragmentation Round is great: against clusters of enemies it will do a bunch of damage, and against bosses you can get all 8 projectiles to hit for a huge damage spike.
Make sure you drink energy tonics as necessary. You won’t need to drink them on cooldown, but you will need to pay attention to your energy. -
Defense: with 720% weapon damage, Fragmentation Round will also give you a big spike of healing. If you’re struggling for healing, saving Fragmentation Round can be useful. Inquisitor Seal, with so few points in it, is a modest buff, but rarely a game-changer. Horn of Gandarr is similar in that respect. When your defense runs out you will die instantly, so you have to be very careful against hard content. Sometimes you just have to keep running away until your skills are off CD, and your enemies get bored and leave.
Gear
As usual, the resists are overcapped to deal with resist reduction on high SR.
Essential Gear:
- Valdun’s Set: Fragmentation round on the weapon, strong passives on the chest and head, a decent WPS on the amulet, and a strong debuffing WPS on the 4 piece bonus. You can do campaign content while missing pieces, but I don’t think you’re clearing SR80. Or even SR70. Maybe even SR60. I haven’t checked.
Stuff I’m pretty sure is best in slot:
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Bladetwister Signet: the conversion and attack speed are nice, but the passive pierce resist reduction is essential since soldier has no pierce RR.
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Pack of Treacherous Means: flat piercing damage and an amazing passive plus 7 points in important skills make this a clear choice. And it has attack speed and max poison resist.
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Arcane Harmony Leggings: I know I’m probably the biggest fan of these, but I believe a build is only as strong as its weakest link, and without disruption protection you will really struggle against certain enemies. +84/126 spirit goes towards the spirit requirements of your gear, and +84/126 DA is awesome as well. The resistances are good too. I don’t know why other people don’t use this as much as I do.
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Direwolf Crest: while the passive is useless here, the piercing damage and skill boosts are excellent, and the offensive ability is huge on a crit heavy build like this. (You need crits to proc Assassin’s Blade, and they activate Deadly Aim, and you have crit damage bonuses.)
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Belgothian’s Sigil: while it only gives +2 to Markovian’s advantage, it comes with flat piercing damage and a lot of attack speed, which I needed to hit maximum attack speed. There may be good defensive rings, but none come to mind, and Belgothian’s was clearly the best for DPS.
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Serenity: there isn’t a strong piercing damage relic for this build, so it defaults to Serenity. With +1 to all skills and useful resists, it’s a solid option.
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Shadow’s Grasp: it was a tough decision between these and Quickdraw Gloves. Shadow’s Grasp has less attack speed, but the rolls on my gear were good enough that I still hit the cap. Ranged Expertise is maxed anyway, so those points go to your worst skill, while Deadly Aim and Deadly Momentum can use the points. Shadow’s Grasp comes with more Piercing damage, but the kicker was the big cunning boost, which increases damage and OA. Quickdraw Gloves would let you replace Consecrated Wrappings with a better defensive option, and have more vit resist and a useful bleeding resist, so if you don’t want to farm Ugdenblooms etc for the best components, Quickdraw Gloves may be the easier option.
Other stuff:
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Iron Maiden’s Shoulderguard: the +3 to Cadence is the main draw, although the health and armor percentage boosts are nice. The best one I have comes with Piercing damage and %DA, so it was clearly my best option. Since they drop from SR rewards chests, it’s not too hard to get a good one. You can also use Malmouth Vanguard Pauldrons, Amarastan Pauldrons, Warborn Pauldrons, or Goredrinker’s Mantle as solid options to finish your points in Cadence.
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2 Titan Plating components: I put these here to try to help me deal with SR80 Fabius. I’m unclear on how his retaliation works, or if it even is reflected damage or just bleeding or something. The Titan Platings may have helped a little, but he still killed me almost every time.
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Windshear Greaves: give you big DA, piercing damage, and +2 to fighting form. These aren’t amazing, but I think they’re slightly better than alternatives. I’m far from convinced.
Devotions
I’m not happy that I had to go with Chariot of the Dead on an inquisitor, but I needed the stats it provides. You could also do a thematically preferable version with more defense, getting the +40 +6% DA from Obelisk of Menhir, but I needed the OA from Chariot to have the necessary crits on SR80, and the other stuff was important too.
Core
- Assassin’s Blade: pierce RR, so it goes on the main skill.
Not core
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Azrakaa, the Eternal Sands: good bonuses to your damage, and gives impaired aim. It’s 0.5s cd makes it a natural fit for Word of Pain.
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Hydra: attack speed and lifesteal, OA and convertable physical damage.
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Kraken: great source of attack speed. Other damage bonuses too.
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Harpy and Mantis: flat piercing damage, and energy regen.
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Hawk: crit damage and 3% OA
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Panther: OA and energy regen
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Chariot of the Dead: only necessary for high SR, where (I think) it’s the best way to get enough OA without sacrificing too much defense.
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Everything else is just for defense.
Skill choices
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Cadence: this is the primary source of damage. If you’re unfamiliar with how it works: you do two normal attacks, then a third Cadence strike, which does massive damage and, with Fighting Form >= 12, always penetrates (at least once, I’m not 100% certain about after that.) While the Cadence strike doesn’t apply WPS, the two attacks before it can. Since they don’t get (partially) multiplied as they do with other attack replacers (like Savagery or Righteous Fervor or Fire Strike), in this Cadence build WPS are more for applying debuffs than for increasing damage. Damage is nice, but choosing more damaging WPS doesn’t really increase the build’s damage.
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Zolhan’s Technique: this is a great WPS, as it penetrates, does 170% damage, and massively slows the attack speed of enemies it hits for 10 seconds. This means the debuff should almost always be up. Initially I was using Bursting Round (which I generally love), but switching to Zolhan’s gave a big increase in defense.
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Markovian’s Advantage: it only applies its debuff to the first enemy you hit, which isn’t ideal. Against bosses – where you need the DA reduction – it should proc enough to let you get the crits you need.
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Field Command: gives you big OA and DA and a huge armor boost.
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Scars of Battle: is great for high SR.
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Word of Pain: Death Sentence is your second highest, and most reliable, source of Pierce resist reduction. The first point in Word of Agony is essential, while the next 3 are just because I got frustrated with how few enemies Word of Pain would afflict.
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Ranged Expertise: huge offense buffs
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Word of Renewal: essential for defense, and provides solid healing.
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Aura of Conviction: I thought about Oleron’s Rage as the exclusive skill, but while Oleron’s will give about 200 more OA, Aura of Conviction gives more damage and defense.
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Deadly Aim: should be up close to 50% of the time, so it’s great. I wanted to put more points into it, but I needed the defense for SR80.
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Inquisitor Seal: I do not like this spell for ranged builds, but for 2 points it is somewhat useful.
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Horn of Gandarr: I have mixed feelings about this skill, because the confusion doesn’t appear to work on strong enemies, but this build doesn’t have a good source of damage reduction so I went with Horn of Gandarr for that reason alone.
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Rune of Murmur’s Kiss (the medal augment): a ranged build should usually have a disengage, and Murmur’s Kiss gives a big OA reduction and percent damage reduction. Since it’s your only mobility skill, and thus your only escape, you can’t spam it to keep up the debuffs, or else you may not have it when you need it. Plus, it moves you out of inquisitor seal.
Leveling tips
This was a really strong build for levelling. I think it was the power of Cadence and the defenses of Soldier that made it so smooth. I didn’t really have trouble with anything, but I also have a lot of gear in my stash. The level 75 Valdun’s set is good through level 94, when you can equip the full version.
Try to get Azrakaa as soon as possible because it takes so much experience to max out.
, if you don’t mind