Started this about a week ago. Currently lvl 55 just finished Act 3 on Elite. 3 deaths so far and two of those were in Rogue areas. This build since created has been a mouse only build with cadence and default attack and health potion as the other mouse button.
Gear is nice for a level 55, here is the build as I am going to end up at 85
http://grimcalc.com/build/1008-2mOkTv
The one sad part is that I am 1 devotion point from Elemental Seeker…:furious:
Elemental Balance is good only for the +% crit damage. And +% crit damage is useless if your crit chance is low. So you need offensive ability. You need to look into getting more points into Field Command and Inner Focus. Overload isn’t that great either.
Okay I think literally need to add this to my signature.
Witchblade>> Battlemage for Elemental Cadence
You lack the RR to support it Elemental damage type!!
It seems this is your first character in GD?
From your build plan, you seem to try to get through Ultimate with a one button Cadence build by facetanking everything without active buffs/debuffs (overguard, war cry, OFF, etc). Ultimate is no joke and you’ll be dying left and right.
As people on this forum say - “Veteran and Elite are tutorials, Ultimate is the real test”.
Here are my takes on your build:
Don’t be discouraged, it takes some experience and game knowledge in Grim Dawn to make an ultimate viable character.
If this is your first character and you still want to play sword and board, I would suggest you to reroll a Commando or Witchblade because Cadence Battlemage is in a very tough spot right now.
Enjoy your adventure.
wow, guys. Why so harsh, I rather think its going well considering a mouse only build with gear that is a mishmash of epic and legendary items that are not actually for this character type. In any case I will review your comments to see if changes make a difference
The actual game starts at Elite
And pretty much everyone aims for their build to be able to kill end-game content.
Battlemage isn’t optimized to do that imo
It is hard to make a decent build out of an elemental battlemage due to the lack of RR. In my opinion you would better switch to 2h if you find a prismatic eviscerator (extremely good for this build). Anyway, some things I would change:
-Pick some skill for CC, for example OFF is excellent for that (but won’t work on most bosses)
-At least a point in blitz can be very useful for mobility
-Zolhan’s technique is no good for this build imho
-Put a point in Fighting Form, you get an extra cadence target
-Max field command (extra armor, OA and DA is very good), maxing squad tactics is of secondary importance
-I think you may have trouble with survivability as your build is now, maybe it is better to max Military conditioning and maybe add some other point to menhir’s will.
-Max soldier mastery, not only you will get more stats (especially hp, which arcanist lacks), but you will have access to very good skills (scars of battle (max it) and either oleron’s rage (good if you go 2h) or menhir’s bulwark (take this instead of maiven’s sphere of protection if you use a shield) ).
-Lastly, if you lack OA consider putting a few points in Inner Focus. If you stick with shield and you feel lacking in defense also consider overguard.
Sorry for the long list! Despite all the people who despise battlemages I think they are fun to play. Good luck 
I don’t despise Battlemages
But it’s no secret Discord is not optimized for Battlemage
My favorite Battlemage happens to beCT Battlemage ;)
well actually battlemage is strong or can be strong with this patch, lemme say something to clear this ‘battlemage sux’ thingy in forum
and you will be able to convert tons of flat phys of DM buff to elemental dmg aswell…
i am a bit tired to continue but, with some iskandra set pieces , berenoth reforged wep you can have really solid ultimate char can kill MQ so so fast and clear all rogue likes actually…
you can go s&b and go menhir bullwark or olerons for flat electrocute fburn burn dmgs and reach 3k 3.5k OA eyes closed…
elemental balance offers insane +crit and gonna boost all your 2ndary elemental damage…
maiven sphere always awesome and now you can add menhirs bullwark to it, you can go starpact for CD and more elemental damage and goes on…
1 and only thing BATTLEMAGE lacks is RR source, which can be covered with rhowan crown constellation and tome of names offhand… cause well designed battlemage will gonna deal astronomical damage %50 total RR will be enough…
w/e soldier + X class is always legit in this game… rest is upto your imagination and theorycrafting imo.
Good points
Discord (full Elemental) is a Witchblade thing
Discord (Fire/Lightning) is meant for Commandos
I don’t see Battlemages being optimal in any way due to lack of RR
People are way to dependent on -rr, you can beat the game with no real issues using no -rr.
Battlemages get plenty of -rr with viper and rhowans crown, plus what ever they get from gear and augments.
Good points and good of you to mention ToN Off-hand
Personally i hate building Melee builds with Off-hands. So if that’s the way this needs to be done then i stand by that Discord isn’t meant for Battlemages
I love the class combination, and both the classes but Discord doesn’t work
If anything this entire setup could be done much better with Witchblade and Fire/Lightning Commando (You get extra RR and flat OA source to go with Oleron since we are using ToN off-hand)
Discord builds are in the far-back burner for me so i can’t test it at the moment
And Queen isn’t the best test for Elemental builds. In such a case Shar’Zul, Valdaran would be better imo
While this is 99% true. The problem occurs when you face an enemy that is perfectly resisting all your damage types. Every Celestial in the game is highly resistant to all your damage types. You can’t do significant damage to a Celestial w/o RR
Yeah, I know you are right. I will never get tired of saying that arcanist should have access to some skill for rr (for aether and elemental) and curse of frailty should not have elemental rr, but chaos rr
Ps: nice build!
Thanks for the compliment.
CoF is fine the way it is. I like Demo giving me the Chaos RR, works great from Synergy point of view
As for Arcanist, I’d personally prefer if they reworked Olexra all-together to get some actual RR
I am hoping Necromancer (or whatever they plan to call it) has Aether RR
Thank you all for your input. I will soldier on without RR to see how far I can get. I was thinking of going to “Break Morale” but I believe if using discord it negates its RR benefit.
I am not a hardcore player just a retired vet needing “something” and this game keeps my mind occupied, for me the game “starts” at lvl 1 and it “stops” when for some reason I am not enjoying the class or build for some reason. My current build considering I have brought him to lvl 58 I would say I am enjoying it, no frustrations on killing bosses (so far). I don’t expect to stay at 3 deaths nor just using the mouse, but I thought that was an accomplishment hence the reason I posted.
Current combat stats are (rounded down)
1300
1600
4900
850
A Discord Battlemage I through together on my test character. 65% -rr (maybe -80 not sure if Essence of Ch’thon stacks with Viper)
First Pic is with Deadly Momentum 2nd Pic is fully buffed. Have 22% Life steal. There’s nothing wrong with Discord Battlemage tho. Obviously this character is only for main campaign and not crucible 
You do realize Witchblade would be better right? Due to higher RR and attack speed
But interesting build and fuck those MIs :undecided:
Btw, Essence doesn’t stack with Viper
Wasn’t arguing which build was considered better, just saying battlemage is more then good enough. You get tons more flat damage from IEE, more spirit, more crit damage, mirror, nullification (personally I don’t use this skill but it is very strong) OFF and you will wind up with way more burn, electucate % frost burn damage for stacking against bosses.
Not everyone is going to pick a pretty shitty class combo because of vulnerability. Again the65% -rr I have is more then enough and you can have more if you need through gear and devotions.
Calling the most optimal way shitty? :eek:
RR is pretty important in builds like this imo
Why is it the most optimal way?
BWC goes Sorcerer 90% of the time, but by your opinion pyromancer is most optimal because woo hoo an extra 30% -rr
Stun jacks goes Elementalist, I’m guessing that’s stupid also because you lose 30 -rr.
For crying out loud you did a physical force wave commando, wtf you lost out on -rr from CoF. You must have struggled leveling it without that.