Elemental Cadence BattleMage

I wanted to make an elemental cadence battle mage but there are some mechanics that I am unsure of before committing to the build.

The soldier + arcanist both have a lot of options for armor reduction, physical resist reduction, offense % increase and defense rating decrease. This leads me to believe the two best ways to improve my cadence would be either through raw damage or a crit build.

Before I can decide however I need to know two things:

1. Does the final cadence hit get boosted by reduced armor / physical resist before converting to elemental?

Maxed out it looks like solider + arcanist can get -80% physical resist and 400+ reduced armor. If the cadence hit isn't boosted by physical reduction before conversion it will probably be a waste though.

2. Is it possible to stack enough % OA and defense rating to crit bosses?
There looks to be a potential 25% crit damage, 10%+ OA boost, and 380+ defense rating reduction from the 2 talent trees. If I can't build to crit everything though I probably won't bother.


Here's a armor reduction build and a crit based build I drafted. I'm still undecided on devotions.

1. armor - http://ift.tt/2bgcjmJ

2. crit - http://ift.tt/2br0qhe

Elemental Cadence BattleMage