Dingo Dimrys
Burning DragonHunter
I made a topic a bit ago about same thing. For build this is what i wanna test.
Burn comes from virtue, symbol of energy, blocks, purging flames, judge’s intervention and radiant fire trait. Right placement you can also add in burn from projectile finisher on longbow(skill 1 being 20% chance and skill 2 + 3 being 100% chance).
Most thing in build should make sense why they are taken. Procession of blades is taken because i hope it has chance of stacking high burn fast, in same way whirling wrath does on greatsword
But with this build, gives you even less desire to use spear of justice. Since that passive is what keeps you condi going even with everything else is gone and every proc of justice passive = AoE burn, criple and 1 vul (Dream would be AoE cripple and vul. but doubt Zealot’s Aggression works with Permeating Wrath)
I’ve tried some theorycrafting for PvP Burn DH’s, but to be honest, I’ve had trouble coming up with a burning build that wouldn’t be better off as a power build. The main issue is that there are too many trait lines that are important for burning – Radiance, Valor, Virtues, and now Dragonhunter.
To clarify, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t try to make a burn DH, but here are some things you should keep in mind when you’re theorycrafting and testing this weekend:
If you drop Radiance for DH, you’re losing 15% burn damage, 20% burn duration, burn on block, 25-30% critical chance, and a huge amount of free burning on the Torch (leaving it as a fairly mediocre weapon choice). The DH’s cripple, vulnerability, and Justice charge/cleanse on block aren’t nearly enough to offset this loss.
If you drop Valor, you’re losing a massive chunk of your potential sustain and will be depending on the healing from Wings of Resolve to survive. Wings of Resolve does provide better overall healing than the Smite Condition utility now, but there are a couple problems. The first is that if you trait WoR to cleanse conditions with Absolute Resolution, you lose Supreme Justice, which is especially important for a DH trying to maximize cripple/vulnerability procs. If you don’t take AR, you may be able to get by with the Focus (Ray of Judgment + blocks with Hunter’s Fortification) and Purging Flames, but your condition removal still isn’t going to be particularly consistent or effective. This is where the comparison to power builds becomes most relevant, because a power DH can easily opt out of the Radiance line and take Valor, Virtues, and DH. This lets them pick up Absolute Resolution, Hunter’s Fortification, and traited Meditation heals that can stack on top of the big heals from WoR. They sacrifice basically nothing for all of that, so it’s probably going to be easy for power DH’s to build for heavy damage with that kind of foundation. Burn builds without Valor will have a fairly difficult task ahead of them if they want to keep up with power builds, unless DH burn builds just specialize in massive, gimmicky burn spikes and hope they can kill opponents before they’re killed themselves.
Dropping Virtues is basically out of the question, since losing Supreme Justice is going to seriously reduce your potential for cripple/vuln application (the entire point of using DH), and losing Permeating Wrath slashes your damage output outside of 1v1’s and +1 situations. If PW affects Cripple application from Zealot’s Aggression, that’s an even bigger reason to keep Virtues. Defender’s Dogma isn’t nearly enough to make up for the lost Justice procs from these two traits, unfortunately.
Again, I won’t say that you can’t make it work, but I personally think that the condition side of DH needs some more love before its burn builds are going to be on par with its power builds. While the tone of this post may come off as being negative, I hope that my points here can help those who are committed to Burn DH develop some builds that I’m not seeing right now. Best of luck!
Since you talking about condi cleanse. Would longbow projectile finisher through light fields not be good condi cleanse, or am i remebering wrong on how projectile finisher works(Mostly play guardian, so never used that finisher type much)
We good at putting down light fields, skill 1 has 20% to be finisher, skill 2 is on 4sec CD with 100% chance and skill 3 is 100% chance with 10sec CD.
Since you talking about condi cleanse. Would longbow projectile finisher through light fields not be good condi cleanse, or am i remebering wrong on how projectile finisher works(Mostly play guardian, so never used that finisher type much)
We good at putting down light fields, skill 1 has 20% to be finisher, skill 2 is on 4sec CD with 100% chance and skill 3 is 100% chance with 10sec CD.
From the wiki: “Projectile effects are applied directly to the skill’s target, or, in case of the Water and Light fields, to a single ally adjacent to the target.” So if you stood in melee range of your target with your longbow with no other allies around and shot through a Light field under your feet, you could maybe get a cleanse off. It’s not something I would rely on, though, and it won’t help much against a condition burst. I’m also not sure whether or not the cleanse still applies if you miss your target. Personally, I’ve never noticed any cleansing I may have received from projectile finishers in Light fields.
It works a similar way for Whirl finishers, and just using Whirling Wrath on top of a Symbol isn’t enough to get a self-cleanse. When you send out cleansing bolts, the bolts that strike your allies will apply a single condition cleanse in a 150 radius around the ally (slightly larger than the reach of a regular melee attack). Basically, to get personal cleansing out of the Whirl, you need to execute it when you’re right next to an ally and make sure you stay near them until a bolt flies in their direction. This usually isn’t feasible with offensive Whirls like Whirling Wrath, since your priority is to be moving toward enemies to deal your damage. Once again, this isn’t something I would count on for cleansing.
I personally feel that Light fields could use a revamp, with how awkward they currently are to use and how underwhelming some of the effects are, but unfortunately, that’s what we’re stuck with for now.
Takes LB and Traps (fancy that) and is a burn based build. Wvw has tons of chokepoints (especially with the new bl) that you can use to guarantee damage. The premise is built around using multi hit skills at range, causing widespread burning and cripple while you reap the benefits of all that damage before an engagement. Hunters Ward can proc 5 mini Rings of Warding, which can lock down or severely strip many stacks of stability while Smite and Cleansing Flame add even more VoJ procs. Purging Flames provides more burn stacks and condition cleanse as needed. (Don’t forget the bleed on traps is being replaced with a daze, and Zealot’s Aggression is being moved to Master, providing 10% damage and cripple on VoJ passive)
A pvp variant could work for some lulzy point defense, but you generally don’t want to be near people in melee range, which is harder to accomplish in that format.
Fishsticks
(edited by Ghotistyx.6942)