There is something wrong with Ranged Cadence and ranged auto-attack replacer in general that is not fire strike

I usually never really give a feedback to buff / fix particular build because I would assume that I haven’t solved the puzzle yet. However, I think these cases need to be raised because I think I have done all I could and it’s frustrating that there’s still a dysfunctional old skill in this late of game development.


CADENCE
So I recently theorycrafted this particular pierce tactician with 2x oathbearer + 3pcvaldun:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/0V0Ljq9V

I use 2x oathbearer because I see no hope in full valdun tactician as flat damage is even lower and the multi-projectiles WPS can’t even double charge cadence in 2H /1H case.

So, crazy flat damage number that is almost pure pierce and almost capped attack speed, 100% DW WPS to ensure cadence double charging, high OA and respectable crit damage. Here is what the cadence damage looks in game:

This build should wreck face in all environment with all these numbers, but no. Dummy kill is nothing special at 22sec, and can’t even complete cruci because it can’t kill fast enough.

I see some problem that the WPS is not consistently double charge the cadence, probably due to hidden internal cooldown of it, thus multi-projectiles bullet or double hit won’t always charge cadence. I don’t know how long the internal cooldown is, but it’s clear that it’s the major thing that hold this skill to fly.

That being said, I have some suggestion to improve ranged cadence in general:

  • Whatever the internal cooldown is, it should be shortened. At least, make WPS, double hit, multiprojectiles, and penetration gun to always double charged cadence.
  • Fighting form should give 100% penetration AND multiple blast like seal of void WPS effect. You can limit the blast to three max.
  • Change discord transmuter and make it benefit range weapon exclusively. Move the 100%phys>elemental conversion to the relevant legendary weapon.

RANGED AUTO-ATTACK REPLACER EXCEPT FIRE STRIKE

Will always be inferior to melee. Flat damage is lower than melee and there is no WPS that gives high %WD like execution. Every hit from WPS even after supercharged by savagery/RF does not feel much improvement from regular attack. I have tested oathbearer RF and Evoker of Elgoloth Savagery a lot of times but never really got the results matching the number I have.

I think the solution is to double the %WD modifier of those two weapons and increase the %WD of all ranged WPS across the board. The WPS buff won’t really affect fire strike as it doesn’t rely on that, but will certainly help ranged RF and savagery in general


Thanks for the consideration…

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I believe today is the international cadence day. The mysteries of cadence still mesmerizing people after all those years.

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Haven’t tried ranged cadence much lately, but will second the other AA replacers are what the forum would consider meme status next to anything fire strike with ranged. RF oathbearer was especially poor damage (but super tanky in SR set). I’ve basically focused the last few months of playing only ranged pistols and rifles, and 1 build (elemental firestrike) felt like enough damage to fit forum post requirements as they currently stand. I still have fun with them, but Aether Bonemonger Oppressor for example was not going to be breaking 6 minutes anytime soon (but is very tanky and enjoyed it for SR, so ymmv).

Smite is the best WPS option imo to try to bring damage if you aren’t working jaxxon and rata damage with big flat, passthrough, and huge racial bonuses, but it can’t close the gap (and is still available on fire strike anyway e.g. flame keeper shieldbreaker). You basically can’t touch high level brimstone, especially if you’re using any sort of pass through weapon, and I don’t actually know how you’d address that now.

Will replay through the last few months again when 1.1.7 hits to see if WPS make up the difference, but again, you’re getting those WITH brimstone on fire strike builds anyway. The damage increase would have to be silly to make brimstone an afterthought.

Fire strike got its damage from explosive strike + brimstone and their interaction to multi-projectiles WPS. I think static strike is bugged because there is no difference when I overcapp it or not. Also, pro tip, 2H ranged fire strike will always be stronger than DW ranged because of the transmuter it has. DW ranged Fire strike is weak.

But that’s a topic for another time.

I have some experience with ranged Cadence, 2H Pierce with the green MI weapon and Exonerator DW pistols. And I can say Cadence have high sheet damage but single target vs actual enemy isn’t impressive and it lacks AoE as well.

I think Cadence isn’t fully utilizing the WPS skills.

RF Oathbearer Paladin is tanky ( I tried it with SR set early FG) but damage was mystery vanished. I saw OP’s attempts with more offense version aren’t much better. So maybe indeed FS is so much better for ranged…

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Nope. Not how the cooldown works. The cooldown does not prohibit Cadence charge generation, it prohibits multiple Cadence activations.

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I think it will still affect the cadence charge as I still see inconsistencies that the WPS does not double charge cadence in some instance.

I’m not disputing that that happens, but it isn’t due to the cooldown.

I evaluate the cadence charges with the activation of deadly momentum.

Probably the case is cadence is always double charging with the WPS/penetration/double hit, but I was assuming it’s not because deadly momentum is not triggered due to the hidden internal cooldown.

Happens to me with every 2nd build I try.
Must rock & smash on paper - though is a loser in game. Gave up understanding the mechanics long time ago. Just trial and error.

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I’ll try to find the link and post it here… but I made a dw ranged elemental tactician using full luminari set and a phase breaker. I also planned on testing dw phase vs the luminari pistol, but I haven’t got around to it yet. The cadence charging certainly felt strange. With the pass through from mainhand basic attacks/WPS it felt like cadence would instantly charge sometimes. I think the best run I managed was 6:45ish with some armored mutators for lowered enemy elemental resists. (This was also on the test version of 1.7) I know the cadence tooltip isn’t nearly as high as the screenshot you posted too.

As for internal cooldowns; ranged cadence ICD is half that of melee.
Found my original concept https://www.grimtools.com/calc/0V0Lp31V
Im fairly certain I changed the devotions a bit by at least adding ghoul because it was dieing a lot with out it. Even with big armor and 22 seal, it wasn’t enough. (My last resort)

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I did some testing this morning to try and determine if what you say is true. I have no idea how melee DW cadence works charging wise (as a comparison) but the video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZbDeo0wnAU

The rule I found to explain cadence behaviour for ranged (for a warlord, possibly chilling round and storm spread yield more charge given extra hit): Only the cadence hit matters for faster charging, if a single attack round consists of either cadence+wps or a cadence+basic then cadence will occur after the next attack round.

If a solo cadence shot occurs then there is no charge gained and it will take 2 more attack rounds to trigger cadence buff/proc.

On any non-cadence attack round, wps and pass through do nothing for charging, it’s only ever one charge gained.

It seems the maximum possible ranged cadence attacks would be (attack rounds / 2) - 1 @ 100% wps (if wps can increase that cadence double hit chance). So out of 30, 14 cadences for ranged dw should be the max if this rule is true. In 100% wps scenario dw cadence shots will be a lower proportion of all hits compared to 2H (14/60 vs 10/30), is that fair?

As for my feedback:

I don’t want ranged cadence turned into the mess that fire strike is, as explosive strike and brimstone + wps shotgunning doesn’t feel right to me. Though neither do I want OP’s suggestion to randomly grant cadence 3 shots.

Small sample size, but 13 cadence shots out of 30 attack rounds seems worse than going 2-hander to use cadence (10 cadence in 30 attack rounds?), why take lower weapon damage for small gain in cadence attacks? In the vid I had 50% wps + 2 exterminate procs (not sure how they work). Extra charge only being gained on cadence itself is a heavy restriction compared to Fire Strike, which seemingly has no limitation on explosive strike or brimstone.

These builds can do SR50 OK, but unreliable in harder content. Many shots/hits don’t contribute to charging cadence, would be nice if this mechanic could be improved for ranged.

Also worth mentioning unless ranged cadence itself is changed, I anticipate that the wps change won’t do much to rectify ranged cadence being worse than FS.

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I tried a Deathdealer Cadence Death Knight with Warborn and it felt like crap. There’s definitely something off with ranged Cadence that i can’t put my finger on. Righteous Fervor felt better by comparison, but still not as good as Fire Strike ranged.

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I had the experience of ranged Cadence with old Valdun. Made Blademaster with it! (I think was like early AoM or something). Was trully depressing to play. Ranged builds basically don’t cut it outside out of FS.

Cadence is trully an artefact of the past, skill ridden with weird limitations and interactions with wps. It’s also super unreliable as adtch source as two hits are basically white attacks that leech quite poorly.

So whatever the solution is for buffing ranged Cadence, I am all for it. Just don’t make it classical Crate’s “Oh, so ranged Fire Strike is much better than Cadence? Let’s fix it by nerfing ranged Fire Strike”

I’ll add that i don’t like how all Valdun passives only work with two handed ranged (and that includes amulet wps). If they worked with all ranged options, it would make the set better for DW ranged.

Of course the main set wps working with DW ranged doesn’t matter since DW can’t reach it.

+1 from me! I tried to make Valdun work and not having the passive bonuses apply for DW ranged is a pain.

I’ve heard that they did that in the Commnuty Patch beta (made Valdun bonuses work with 1h guns) and Double Oathbearer 3-piece Valdun Purifier became better than or as strong as full Valdun, lol. So gotta be careful here.

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Ditch the rifle and embrace silverbolt… :shushing_face:
That being said, I still owe you on testing your full valdun build. Lol…

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Nope, it’s still the same double charge.

Not sure about this. I am pretty sure double hand hit will double charge cadence, penetration gun will also double charge it.

This seems to be the case. But it’s not consistent, sometimes you will still need 2 attacks before cadence, it’s still a mystery even now.

I can assure you 2H cadence is even more horrible.

My suggestion on WPS is to improve ordinary charging Auto attack replacer like savagery or RF, not cadence. Cadence is a problem on their own.

I’m not surprised. However I imagine this is the case because of dw benefits, higher attack speed and such, rather than the mechanics of the skill inherently favouring dw.

As I said, dw cadence represents a significantly lower proportion of all hits relative to 2H (~25% lower than 2H), even after accounting for it’s increased charge speed. If anything, 2H should get more value from cadence due to its mechanic.

Yeah, I meant that wps adjustment is unlikely to bring struggling cadence builds up by very much. Cadence and wps seem to be (mostly) separate mechanics.