Cascade Point in Season 21, Will It Be Meta?

Perk Deep Dive: Cascade Point

Cascade Point is a new perk that was introduced in Season 19. On its release, it seemed like it had great potential to be a top DPS perk, but it has been outshined by traditional damage perks. Cascade Point increases the fire rate of a weapon when a different weapon lands a kill or multiple precision hits.

On paper this seems like a fantastic perk to pair on two weapons to cycle with one another for high damage. This perk has suffered from having a limited number of weapon types capable of rolling it. Sniper Rifles and Grenade Launchers are the main damage dealers that can have this perk, and both these weapon types have been overshadowed by Rocket Launchers for DPS.

With Sniper Rifles getting a sizable damage buff, Snipers with Cascade Point and Snipers that can pair well with a Cascade Point Grenade Launcher are a lot more appealing for DPS. This in turn increases the value of Cascade Point.

These two weapon types have the advantage of a higher ammo capacity than Rocket Launchers, but have not been worth utilizing due to their lower DPS before the recent Sniper damage buff. This article will look at how this perk works, analyze how to best get value from it, and assess if it compares Rocket Launchers and Thunderlord+Divinity to see if this perk is worth utilizing for DPS in Season of the Deep and beyond.

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Click below to jump to a topic!

• How Does Cascade Point Work?
• What to Test
  • Cascade Point Weapons
  • Non-Cascade Point Weapons
• Damage Testing
• All Cascade Point Weapons
• Mix and Matching
• Hothead
• Takeaways
• Conclusion/TLDR

How Does Cascade Point Work?

The perk itself will increase the fire rate of a weapon for 2.5 seconds (2.75 when enhanced). This timer begins once the weapon is readied. To activate the perk, precision hits or a kill with an alternative weapon must be obtained.

When utilizing precision hits to activate the perk, they must be within a 4-second window and the weapon type that is landing the hits accounts for a portion of the threshold to activate the perk.

• Bows, Linear Fusion, Sniper Rifles, Shotguns = 2 Precision Hits (Add 50% charge to threshold)
• Hand Cannons, Sidearms, Scout Rifles = 6 Precision Hits (Add 17.5% charge to threshold)
• Auto Rifles, Trace Rifles, Pulse Rifles, SMGs, Machine Guns = 13 Precision Hits (Add 8% charge to threshold)

Once 100% of the threshold is met, the perk is active. The perk must be used within 5 seconds or it will go away, and the charge must be brought back up again.

The typical gameplay loop for damage will be the following:

• Land precision hits until Cascade Point for stowed weapon is active
• Swap to Cascade Point weapon within 5 seconds
• Utilize Cascade Point weapon until buff runs out
• If the Cascade Point weapon has Auto-Loading Holster, swap back to charge-building weapons. Otherwise, reload cancel the Cascade Point weapon by swapping to the charge building weapon
• Repeat

The perk truly works by ridding the weapon of its firing delay between shots. The firing delay in milliseconds is equated the following way:

• Firing Delay = (60000/RPM)

So if a weapon has a RPM of 450, the firing delay is (60000/450) = 133.33 ms.

This is important to know because the perk is a multiplier that lessens the firing delay and has the following values:

• Sniper Rifles, Shotguns, Auto Rifles, Grenade Launchers – 60% (x 0.6)
• Machine Guns, SMGs – 70% (x 0.7)

To find the end effect you can multiply the firing error by the scalar to find the time between shots or divide the fire rate by the scalar to find the new fire rate.

Reddit user u/MrRokDC initially found the above values, and these were corroborated through our testing.

What to Test

Now that the behind-the-scenes info about the perk is known, let’s get into what weapons with the perk we will be using and what weapons we will pair them with.

There will be two main things to look at. Pairing two Cascade Point weapons together or pairing a Cascade Point weapon with a high DPS weapon that does not have Cascade Point.

There are a few perks on Cascade Point weapons we’ll be looking at and they are any damage-increasing perk, Envious Assassin, Auto-Loading Holster, and Triple Tap.

Cascade Point Weapons

• Volta Bracket (Enhanced CP) – Sniper Rifle – Envious Assassin
• Albruna-D – Sniper Rifle – Clown Cartridge
• Regnant – Grenade Launcher – Auto-Loading Holster
• Regnant – Grenade Launcher – Envious Assassin
• Wendigo – Grenade Launcher – Auto-Loading Holster
• Unwavering Duty – Machine Gun – Auto-Loading Holster
• Terminus Horizon – Machine Gun – Triple Tap

Non-Cascade Point Weapons

• Cloudstrike – Sniper Rifle
• Whisper of the Worm – Sniper Rifle
• Stormchaser – Linear Fusion Rifle – Auto-Loading Holster + Firing Line
• Nessa’s Oblation – Slug Shotgun – Reconstruction + Vorpal Weapon
• Heritage – Slug Shotgun – Auto-Loading Holster + Focused Fury

Thunderlord and Leviathan’s Breath were left out because of their DPS coming from ramping up fire rate as they are utilized and Izanagi’s Burden was left out because it only shoots one shot and would not reach the Cascade Point threshold.

Damage Testing

The pairings will contain their DPS values that will account for swap speed and utilize the most ideal combination of Surge Mods and weapon elements. For instance, Cloudstrike will be paired with Wendigo rather than Regnant because 3 Arc Surge mods can be utilized to give both weapons a 22% damage boost. When elements are of different elements, 2 surge mods for the higher damage weapon will be used, and 1 surge mod for the other weapon will be used.

The damage values are theoretical calculations based on damage numbers from Kalli of Last Wish and not all combinations were tested in game. This boss takes excess precision damage and non-precision weapons are multiplied by a scalar to normalize the boss’ critical hit multiplier.

These calculations will account for swap times, perk bonuses/timers, and will be calculated assuming all precision hits. Some options are shown with a reload cancel, and if that was performed it will be designated with red text.

Lastly, it is important to note that all of this testing comes before another 10% Sniper Rifle damage buff.

All Cascade Point Weapons

With Volta Bracket and Albruna-D being the only non-heavy weapons with Cascade Point this testing will be pretty simple. The combinations that will be looked at are 3 Cascade Point weapons, a sniper juggling with a machine gun, and a sniper with an Auto-Loading Holster Grenade Launcher.

Volta Bracket + Albruna-D + Wendigo

• 1 Strand Surge, 2 Arc Surge
• Envious Assassin Volta Bracket
• Clown Cartridge Albruna
• Auto-Loading Holster Wendigo
• Volta Bracket (2 shots) → Wendigo → Volta Bracket (6 shots) → Albruna → Wendigo
• Full Rotation = 49,932 DPS over 11.87 seconds

Volta Bracket + Unwavering Duty

• 1 Strand Surge, 2 Solar Surge
• Auto-Loading Holster Unwavering Duty
• Envious Assassin Volta Bracket
• Volta Bracket (2 shots) → Unwavering Duty (27 rounds) → Volta Bracket (6 shots) →
• Unwavering Duty (27 rounds)
• Full Rotation = 36,037 over 10.41 seconds
  • The ideal DPS with this combo doesn’t utilize Auto-Loading Holster because of the amount of shots fired
  • Unwavering Duty with Extended Mag + Firing Line deals 36,388 DPS over 9.07 seconds

Albruna-D + Terminus Horizon

• 3 Arc Surge
• Clown Cartridge Albruna-D
• Triple Tap Terminus Horizon
• Albruna (Reload) → Terminus (50 shots) → Albruna → Terminus (22 shots)
• Full Rotation (Albruna Reload Cancel) = 31,348 DPS over 19.52 seconds

Albruna-D + Wendigo

• 3 Arc Surge
• Clown Cartridge Albruna-D
• Auto-Loading Holster Wendigo
• Albruna (Reload) → Wendigo → Albruna → Wendigo
• Full Rotation (Albruna Reload Cancel) = 42,027 DPS over 15.84 seconds

Mix and Matching

Now for the mixed pairs of weapons. Here are the combinations that will be tested.

Cloudstrike + Wendigo

• 3 Arc Surge
• Auto-Loading Holster Wendigo
• Cloudstrike (Reload) → Wendigo → Cloudstrike → Wendigo
• No Cloudstrike Reload = 59,015 DPS over 7.1 seconds
• 2 Rotations (1 Cloudstrike Reload Cancel) = 49,911 DPS over 16.79 seconds

Albruna-D + Stormchaser

• 3 Arc Surge
• Auto-Loading Stormchaser
• Clown Cartridge Albruna-D
• Stormchaser → Albruna → Stormchaser
• 46,809 over 17.27 seconds

Heritage + Nessa’s Oblation + Regnant

• 1 Kinetic Surge, 2 Void Surge
• Envious Assassin Regnant
• Reconstruction/Vorpal Nessa’s
• Reconstruction/Focused Fury Heritage
• Heritage/Nessa’s (2x Slug Hotswap – 4 shots each) → Regnant (7 shots) → Heritage/Nessa’s (2x Slug Hotswap – 4 shots each) → Regnant (6 shots)
• Full Rotation = 70,265 over 13.26 seconds
  • Assuming nearly perfect slug hotswapping

Nessa’s Oblation + Regnant

• 3 Void Surge
• Reconstruction Nessa’s Oblation
• Envious Assassin Regnant
• Nessa’s (6 shots) → Regnant (7 shots) → Nessa’s (6 shots) → Regnant (6 shots)
• Full Rotation = 59,207 DPS over 15.4 seconds
  • Roughly the same DPS as hot swapping 2 Slug Shotguns

Volta Bracket + Whisper of the Worm

• 1 Strand Surge, 2 Solar Surge
• Envious Assassin Volta Bracket
• Whisper of the Worm (6 shots) → Volta Bracket (5 shots) → Whisper of the Worm (6 shots) → Volta Bracket (5 shots)
• Full Rotation = 35,307 DPS over 14.79 seconds
  • ~6% worse than Whisper of the Worm on its own

Hothead

Here is a breakdown of the most common damage strategy. These calculations were performed with a Hothead that includes the Wolfpack Rounds from Gjallarhorn.

• Hothead
  • 3 Arc Surge
  • Field Prep + Explosive Light + Impact Casing + Adept Big Ones Spec
  • 4 Shots = 51,651 DPS over 10.46 seconds
  • 5 Shots = 49,331 DPS over 13.69 seconds
  • 6 Shots = 47,896 DPS over 16.92 seconds
  • 7 Shots = 46,922 DPS over 20.15 seconds
  • 8 Shots = 46,217 DPS over 23.38 seconds

Takeaways

For starters, something to take note of is how ridiculously strong Slug Shotguns are. If a damage encounter allows you to stand within slug range and deal damage safely, you should do so. They are difficult to master, but the damage is the highest in the game with good ammo economy.

Pairing a Slug with a Cascade Point Grenade Launcher yields about the same DPS as hot swapping with 2 Slugs, but is much easier. But if you are able to hot swap 2 Slugs, throwing in a Cascade Point Grenade Launcher yielded the highest damage value of all scenarios.

Snipers are a solid option, but it’s mostly carried by Cloudstrike. Cascade Point Snipers do not appear worth the effort when Cloudstrike exists. And this praise of Cloudstrike is without considering the 10% damage buff Snipers will be getting in Season 21.

Cloudstrike + Wendigo is a fantastic combo that has great burst damage, very good sustained damage, great ammo economy, and is reasonable in terms of ease of use. The Albruna + Stormchaser combo is worth a shoutout, especially with how long that combination can keep up sustained damage.

Unfortunately for Cascade Point Machine Guns they are best for clearing waves of enemies and are not good for single-target damage. Everything was done to avoid their very long reload times and even then they had very weak damage.

Now let’s talk about Hothead. Is using any of these combos worth it over Hothead? I’d say it there are scenarios in which it definitely is. Rocket Launchers are definitely very easy to use, so the little bit they lack in damage compared to the best combos makes them the best for hard-to-hit bosses or as a strategy to always fall back on.

The first worthwhile contender to Rockets are Cloudstrike + Wendigo for bosses with a generous crit spot and/or have a very long damage phase. Warpriest, Oryx, and Templar are just a few examples of good encounters.

The other contender is Slug Shotguns with or without Cascade Point Grenade Launcher. The Grenade Launcher makes the combo a little more complicated to pull off, but helps with overall damage, ammo economy, and allows for longer sustained damage.

Caitl, Gahlran, Nezarec, and Zo’Aurc (Macrocosm) are examples of encounters where this works well. Just be sure to stand at a distance where the Slugs are in range, but the Grenade Launcher doesn’t self-damage too much. There are quite a few qualifiers to hit with this combo, but if they are met, this strategy is ideal.

Conclusion/TLDR

• Rocket Launchers are easy to use and if there is little need to min/max they are a safe bet with ideal rolls.
• Cloudstrike + Cascade Point Wendigo is very good for sustained damage and ammo economy because of allowing you to utilize all the same Surge mods.
• Slug Shotguns are tough to master, but top in terms of DPS and are highly recommended to use when an encounter allows for it.
• Even using just one Slug Shotgun and a Cascade Point Grenade Launcher is well worth it, and much easier to perform than hot swapping 2 Slug Shotguns with a Grenade Launcher.

For builds, god rolls, and more, head to the Mobalytics Destiny 2 site.