Playing with burning DH (Radiance/Valor/DH), Carrion amulet in PvP, Balthazar runes. I did start the season with power DH and a big streak of wins which put me in gold ~1500, but then I hit and incredible lose streak. I swiched to burn and I’m having better results despite lacking the Virtue traitline and any kind of stability. Reasons:
- As a condi DH if you gonna lose a fight you usually last as much as a power DH, but if you gonna win it will happen much faster.
- Burn DH has better matchups than DH, and some of those (vs Scapper, Druid, Warrior, power Rev…) will probably stand higher that power DH in the Pro League.
- Hate projectile so strongly introduced in HoT that made DH lb weak is almost irrelevant with burn DH due most of our damage comes from well placed blocks, AoE fields or even random procs.
Yes, you may burst people down much quicker if they are unprepared for a burn guard/DH, but for 1) your biggest nuke (Purging Flames) requires a trait and utility slot that can be filled with a much more useful sustain, and for 2) you don’t have as much cover condi as other classes so it’s honestly really easy to condi cleanse what a burn guard puts on you.
It worked wonders for me at first. I was ok in my placement matches as core burn guard, going 6-4 or 7-3 (can’t remember which) and landed at 1600 mmr. Switched to burn DH (virtues/valor/DH) for the better sustain and team utility until Plat, where burn DH’s weakness was made prevalent. Sure, I survived long enough to be the last alive in teamfights, but I definitely feel like I wasn’t putting in enough work as a dps anymore, especially with an enemy ele present o.o.
I still feel better with burn DH in 1v1s, but that’s just because of how great the duels are, waiting for your enemy to use up their condi cleanse and then comboing them into a 12-stack burning nuke. Although, with even non-mender’s power DH you can hold your own in 1v1s against most of the cast, even though you probably shouldn’t be if you can help it.
