Devotion skills that are % chance on attack, when attached to an auto-attack replacement skill, proc on a per-attack-animation basis, not on a per-hit basis. This can be easily proved by attacking the two dummies in DC with maxed ranged Fire Strike and measuring the proc rate with a delay between each mouse click equal to the devotion skill cooldown. If it were on a per-hit basis, the proc rate would be at least twice the stated rate. But it isn’t.
I see a lot of people saying a con of Cadence is that it only procs on the 3rd hit, and stuff dies on the first or second hit…
but when I attack the dummies in DC, I can attack one twice, then switch, and it still procs Cadence on the third strike. Even if I alternate between them.
does it act differently on mobs?
No. Cadence is a buff granted when you have used the default attacks twice with the Cadence skill. The buff ends on the third hit regardless of enemy selection.
My opinions on Cadence are that the base skill is fine. Its modifiers, however, leave very much to be desired considering the investment required to reach/use them.
I think fighting form is fine, but deadly momentum…agreed.
Maxed Fighting Form is outdone by one point in Laceration.
You’ll have to explain that. I’m not following.
Cadence is generally outdone by ultimate blade arc in pretty much every aspect, including damage.
I’m using cadence as my main attack and I’m currently level 56. It seems to be doing well so far.
I haven’t used blade arc yet as the damage seems worse than cadence but everyone is saying it’s better. How exactly, the crit and extra targets ? What about if your OA isn’t that good, is cadence better then ?
1 point of Laceration gives you more targets and more crit damage than all of Cadence is capable of.
Probably not. +Crit Damage adheres to lower OA builds, because it allows them to turn a low-multiplier crit into a devastating hit.
I had 16/16 Cadence with 12/12 Fighting Form on my Commando, and my DPS was around 2500.
I removed these 28 points and dropped on Fire Strike and Explosive Strike with the transmuter and my DPS went to 4100+ plus I could benefit from Zolhan’s and Markovian, so yeah… Cadence kinda of blows atm… at least for melee.
Constant damage >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> “3rd time is a charm” gimmick for damage all day all night.
The same holds sort of true for max level, but on max ultimate level:
After three hits:
Cadence: 475% damage + some extra physical damage
Blade Arc: 525% damage + knockdown + bleeding + hits all enemies in an arc
Cadence really has been overnerfed.
It’s OK for ranged, where that 3rd powerful hit isn’t limited to 3 targets, but at the same time, it’s still annoying to use with ranged weapons, because projectile speed means that when not firing at point-blank range, it’s more likely to trigger on every 4th or even 5th shot only.
Wait, what? According to grimcalc:
Cadence (all ultimate): (275% weapon + 312 physical) + 135% more physical, 384 bleed for 2 sec. 3 targets max (I assume 360°, long as they are close). +56-88 ph, +60% ph, 70% bleed and trauma for 3 seconds after proc. All of this for 11 energy per attack.
Blade arc (all ultimate): 175% weapon + 221 bleed for 3 sec + 200% more bleed, +215 trauma for 3 sec, 65% knockdown chance, 280° arc, 14 targets max. All of this for 45 energy per attack.
Now I don’t now about you, but I usually focus on physical damage on my guy, and Cadence is clearly better there. I mean, I still use Blade arc, as an opener, to get the DoT going, but then it’s Cadence time. And if you are using Blade Arc on autoattack, with quadruple of Cadence cost… hope you like how them spirit elixirs taste! 
You have to compare the damage after 3 hits as cadence only triggers after 2 hits.
So Cadence does 100% + 100% + 275% and some neglible physical damage.
Bladearc does 175% + 175% + 175% and inflicts bleeding and hits lots of enemies and the knockdown is pretty good.
It’s a nobrainer.
The augments make this slightly more complex, however, the augments for cadence are crap anyways. +135% physical damage isn’t that big on top of my 4xx% physical damage i deal. The bladearc augment inflicts deep wounds, augments the bleeding damage and raises your crit damage. Deep Wound on cadence is another 12 skillpoints and a crap skill.
IMO… I wouldn’t rely on grimcalc, as the information/data isn’t updated to the current release of Grim Dawn.
As an example, just look at Menhir’s Bulwark on grimcalc & in-game and you’ll see that on grimcalc it is not updated with the proper information/data as it is missing the % to Stun Duration & % to All Retaliation Damage.
I forgot 60% more crit damage on Arc in my comparison. Sorry.
Anyway, you forgot to include Deadly Momentum into your calculations.
It’s more like 160+160+275(x135%) ph. damage.
Further on, that 312 (x135%) bonus ph. damage gets further enchanted by your bonus ph.damage, and on high levels that really make this absolutely not “negligible”. With your 4xx% that number will become 1981+ ph.dam, not that small, yeah?
Yeah, thing is I don’t have the access to ultimate levels of those skills to make correct comparison, so I have to use what’s available :).
The reason Cadence got advice for a slight nerf was the way it scales with other skills. You NEVER use a skill by itself, but buff it through other means. Like Flash Freeze’s passive the does -phys resistance to opponents and other means to boost the output of Cadence severely.
The flat physical damage is meaningfull.
The +% physical damage however, is mostly useless when you reach end of elite/ beginning of ultimate levels of gear.
We could argue that Cadence could be better than Blade Arc for leveling purposes, but the 10+ targets and dots of Blade Arc vastly outshine Cadence yet again.
There is one way to make Cadence work for melee (only one thoguh :undecided:): Full BiS Markovian set and other BiS item to get Ridiculous amount of flat physical damage through Mehnir, Shield Training and Deadly Momentum.
With this full BiS gear, you can expect excellent survivability with good single target damage. But still kind of crappy AoE though. Did I mention it needed very specific BiS gear ? Because it does. BiS. It needs to be. The gear. (This means the gear needs to be BiS. I am not sure that was clear enough).
I’m not going to argue cadence is an omg amazing skill, but there are scenarios where it is a solid choice. My warder build is bleed based and I only go up to tier 5 in soldier. If I had an infinite number of skill points, blade arc might be better, but there were too many other things I wanted to get.