Cadence - The New Best Support Gem In The Game - 0.2.0

In POE2's 0.2.0 announcement, GGG teased an attack support gem that will be incredibly strong in certain builds, providing a 60% more multiplier to damage under ideal circumstances.

It is, however, not suitable for all melee characters to use. And there's some very counterintuitive mechanics that need to be understood to optimize it.

(Unfortunately only a website screenshot of the gem is available currently, hence low image quality)

This article is based upon pre-release teaser information, and might change.

Cadence is not a gem for fast attacking builds, or for ultra-slow attacking builds. It is at its best supporting a skill that is in between the two extremes.

When it is great:

Your attack speed is such that you never quite reach 8 attacks in a 4 second window, even with the speed boost. In this scenario, it provides 60% more attack speed on every single attack once you get rolling.

When it achieves nothing:

There are scenarios where this support achieves nothing. On skills that are seldom used, or skills with long cooldowns such as Hammer of the Gods, it will not be useful. Likewise, it achieves nothing when supporting skills that don't scale with attack speed.

When it is actively awful:

It can even be detrimental sometimes. Worst case scenario, you slightly exceed seven attacks in four seconds - and you are banned from using an important attack for 10 seconds.

When you 'overcharge' Cadence like this, the average boost you gained for the eight attacks you made was only about 31% - one attack at base speed, one at +10%, and so on up to the one at +70% that triggers the lockout condition.

The average is 31% rather than 35% because the one attack made at 0% boost takes longer than the one attack made at 70%.

That's an OK boost, but not when it locks out a good skill for ten seconds.

When it is good, but VERY hard to use:

Consider this scenario.

Your attack speed is such that you just slightly exceed 8 attacks in a 4 second window once the speed boost from Cadence kicks in.

At this point, you can spend perhaps 90% of your time attacking, and a small amount repositioning.

In this situation Cadence is extremely strong, but even a slight mistake will be severely punished. The level of precision required here will be distracting, and splitting focus like this will often result in other play mistakes.

If you are determined to attempt this playstyle, I recommend using a musician's metronome (or a mobile phone app that performs the same function) set to 'tick' once every second.

Every fourth tick, take your finger off the attack button for a very short time. In the next section, you'll see why this time is usually 0.099 seconds, or three server ticks. A longer break is OK, a shorter break is a big mistake.

Optimizing Cadence:

For certain attack speeds, you will not quite hit 8 attacks per 4 seconds until Cadence is charged up. The math behind this is more complex than it appears, because of the concept of server ticks.

Mousing over an attack will tell you the time your character takes to execute that attack to the nearest 0.01 seconds.

However, this is not exactly correct.

Attacks can only take place on server 'ticks' which have been measured at happening every 0.033 seconds, which is just over 30 times per second. If an attack is listed as taking 0.32 seconds, and it first goes off at 0 seconds, the next attack will not be at 0.32 seconds, but at 0.33 - the time taken to execute the attack rounds up to the next server tick.

If your attack speed is sufficient to be 17 server ticks apart, your next 8 attacks will go off at the following times:

This is true for any attack speed slower than 0.528 seconds and no faster than 0.561 seconds.

To optimize Cadence, you want your attack duration to be 18 server ticks once Cadence is providing its full buff (60% more attack speed).

This requires an attack duration of 0.562 to 0.594 seconds with the (six-stacked) buff, which is 0.899 to 0.950 seconds without the buff.

An Emerald can be socketed into a jewel slot on your passive tree and these can roll 2%, 3% or 4% increased attack speed.

Replacing a 4% Emerald with a 3% one might seem counter-intuitive, but if your attack time is 0.897 seconds with the 4% jewel, the 3% one allows you to avoid the difficult to execute metronome playstyle.

Alternately, you might opt to use a harder hitting but slower weapon if your attack speed is 0.81 seconds with your present weapon. See if you can find a weapon that's about 12% slower so you fall into the perfect 0.899-0.950 second range.

Cadence is so powerful that this sort of manipulation is worthwhile.

If you are using Cadence, tapping an Acceleration Shrine or any similar mechanic that boosts your action speed or attack speed is bad news.

If you do click an Acceleration Shrine, either by mistake or intending to deny the buff to enemies, you have two options.

You can rightclick the buff to end it early, or use the metronome controlled attack approach.