[Elite Idea] My Dark Knight idea REVAMPED- Greatsword, Support, Area Denial

[Zacchary.6183]

I've recently looked at my [old idea](https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/12707/next-elite-idea-dark-knight-greatsword) and decided a good portion of the elite did not express the normal mechanics and gameplay like many have said. However, I still plan to keep the original idea and a lot of it's skills intact. This elite is meant to be a damage sponge and support, not another Daredevil. Therefore, expect damage and mobility to be lacking and replaced with sustainability (if not, it can be tweaked). Now with more necromancer theme.

 

**Purpose:** Ranged/Melee Tank/Support Spec, Area Denial

 

**Specialization Utility:** Marks, Wells (Gates)

 

**Profession Mechanic:** Drain

The Steal mechanic is replaced with Drain which creates a blast of shadows from you that hit enemies around you. Each enemy you hit gives you a Life Essence up to a maximum of 10. Using a Life Essence produces another blast that heals allies and grants boons.**

 

---

**Steal.) Drain** (30s)

Siphon life energy from surrounding enemies and turn it into items that heal you and allies.

>Radius: 450

 

**Stolen Item.) Life Essence** (2s CD) (1/4s)

Consume Life Essence to create an explosion of life energy that heals allies caught in it.

>Heal: 244 (.6)

>Regen (5s)

>Conditions Removed: 1

>Radius: 450

>Max Count: 10

 

---

## Greatsword Skills

**1a.) Cross Slash** (1/2s)

Attack twice in a wide arc, hitting enemies to the front and sides of you.

>Damage: 481 x2 (1.2)

>Number of Targets: 3

>Range: 130

 

**1b.) Cross Cleave** (1/2s)

Attack twice in a wide arc, cleaving enemies to the front and side of you and make them vulnerable.

>Damage: 481 x2 (1.2)

>2 Vulnerability (4s)

>Number of Targets: 3

>Range: 130

 

**1c.) Mark of Suffering** (1/2s)

Mark

Swing your greatsword in a circle and cast a mark at your feet, weakening enemies that touch it.

>Damage: 698 (1)

>Mark Damage: 322 (0.8)

>Weakness (4s)

>Number of Targets: 5

>Combo Finisher: Whirl

>Range: 130

>Mark Radius: 240

>Blast Radius: 300

 

**Stealth.) Dark Flare** (3 Ini) (3/4s) (Ground Targeting)

Converge black fire into an orb that explodes shortly after, burning enemies at the targeted area.

>Damage: 927 (2.3)

>5 Burning (6s)

>Blast Delay: 1.5 Seconds

>Number of Targets: 5

>Combo Finisher: Blast

>Radius: 200

>Range: 600

_Inspiration:_ Profaned Flame from Dark Souls 3

 

**2a.) Dimensional Cleave** (4 Ini) (1/4s)

Shadowstep to target and swing at them in a wide arc that burns a hole in the veil between worlds. Turns into Mark of Grief.

>Damage: 322 (.6)

>2 Burning (5s)

>Weakness (3s)

>Number of Targets: 5

>Range: 900

 

**2b.) Mark of Grief** (2 Ini) (1/2s)

Mark

Leave a crippling mark behind as you Shadow Return back to your starting position. Allies nearby gain protection when the mark triggers.

>Cripple (5s)

>Torment (5s)

>Protection (5s)

>Number of Allied Targets: 5

>Number of Enemy Targets: 5

>Symbol Radius: 240

>Blast Radius: 300

>Range: 900

 

**3.) Dark Mind** (5 Ini) (3s)

Stab the ground and channel Fury and Retaliation into nearby allies. Completing this channel grants Regeneration.

>Fury 5s

>Retaliation 5s

>Regeneration 10s

>Pulses: 5

>Number of Targets: 5

>Combo Finisher: Blast

>Range: 600

>Recharge: 10s

>Initiative Cost During Recharge: 10 Ini

 

**4.) Dark Spike** (2 Ini) (1/2s)

Cast an unstable shard of ice at your target that bursts on impact. Slight tracking.

>Damage: 161 (.5)

>Chilled (1s)

>Number of Targets: 5

>Range: 900

>Radius: 180

 

**5.) Dead Zone** (3-8 Initiative) (2s)

Well

Sacrifice remaining initiative to curse an area that razes the spirits of the living.

>Damage: 362 (.9)

>2 Poison 3s

>2 Burning 3s

>5 Vulnerability 2s

>2 Torment 2s

>2 Confusion 2s

>Slow 1s

>Pulses: 5

>Additional Pulse per additional Initiative Spent: 1

>Number of Targets: 10

>Recharge: 20s

>Initiative Cost During Recharge: 12 Ini

>Radius: 300

>Range: 900

 

---

## Utilities

**Heal) Gate of Respite** (35s CD) (Ground Targeting)

Well

Cover the ground with a soft mist that heals allies and steals health from foes.

>Initial Heal: 5214 (.8)

>Healing: 354 (.2)

>LS Damage: 263 (.03)

>LS Healing: 204 (.1)

>Interval: 2 Seconds

>Duration: 10s

>Number of Allied Targets: 5

>Number of Enemy Targets: 5

>Combo Field: Water

>Radius: 240

>Range: 900

 

**1.) Gate of Seething** (30s CD) (Ground Targeting)

Well

Create an area that rends the life energy from foes, inflicting them with weakening conditions.

>Damage: 361 (.5)

>3 Vulnerability 5s

>Weakness 1s

>Chilled 1s

>Duration: 10s

>Number of Targets: 5

>Combo Field: Ice

>Radius: 240

>Range: 900

 

**2.) Gate of Asylum** (40s CD) (Ground Targeting)

Well

>Shield target area, creating a barrier that destroys projectiles while curing and shielding allies from conditions.

>Damage: 121 (.3)

>Resistance: 3s

>Conditions Removed: 2

>Interval: 2 Seconds

>Duration: 10s

>Number of Allied Targets: 5

>Number of Enemy Targets: 5

>Combo Field: Smoke

>Radius: 240

 

**3.) Gate of Harrowing** (40s CD) (Ground Targeting)

Well

Corrupt the ground and dredge up long forgotten spirits to attack foes. Allies are granted Aegis when entering it.

>2 Poison 5s

>2 Torment 5s

>2 Confusion 5s

>Aegis 20s

>Duration: 10s

>Number of Targets: 5

>Combo Field: Dark

>Radius: 300

>Range: 900

 

**4.) Gate of Possession** (45s CD) (Ground Targeting)

Well

Summon vengeful souls to possess your allies and drive them berserk.

>2 Might 10s

>Fury 3s

>2 Stability 3s

>Retaliation 5s

>Vigor: 3s

>Swiftness 5s

>Protection 5s

>Duration: 10s

>Number of Targets: 5

>Combo Field: Lightning

>Radius: 450

>Range: 900

 

**5.) Hellgate** (30s CD) (Ground Targeting)

Well

Create an area that sears enemies with brimstone, inflicting them with blindness and burning. You gain might every time it hits a foe.

>Damage: 121 (.3)

>Blindness 3s

>3 Burning 5s

>Might 5s

>Duration: 10s

>Number of Targets: 5

>Combo Field: Fire

>Radius: 240

>Range: 900

 

**Elite) Void Gate** (90s CD) (3s) (Ground Targeting)

Well

Summon an orb of pure darkness and send souls into the void. Enemies in critical condition take extra damage and you gain initiative each time you kill a downed foe with this Well.

>Damage: 443 (1.1)

>Damage Increase vs. Downed: 250%

>Duration: 5s

>Number of Targets: 5

>Initiative: 2

>Radius: 300

>Range: 900

 

---

## Traits

**Adept**

Minor: **Dark Hands:** Steal is replaced with Drain. You can use Wells and Greatswords.

- **Soulstealer:** Gain a Life Essence when you kill a foe.

- **Corrupting Footfalls:** Shadowstepping places a Mark of Lament at your feet. Take less fall damage and place a Mark of Lament at your feet when you do.

Mark of Lament

Place a mark on the ground that wrings the emotions of those affected.

>Crippled 3s

>Slow 3s

>Weakness 3s

>Blinded 8s

>Number of Enemy Targets: 5

>Symbol Radius: 240

>Blast Radius: 300

-- Fall Damage: -50%

- **Violence:** Greatswords, Swords and Daggers deal more damage and cleave more targets.

-- Damage: 10%

-- Additional targets hit: 1

 

**Master**

Minor: **Dark Armor:** Vitality +500, Toughness +150

- **Killing Intent:** You increase the Concentration and Expertise of nearby allies.

-- Radius: 600.

-- Concentration: +150

-- Expertise: +150

- **Mending Wells:** Wells revive downed allies every second.

-- Revive: 2%

-- Can only be affected by one well at a time.

- **Shadow's Flight:** Increase running speed while wielding a Greatsword. Marks grant Swiftness.

-- Speed Increase: 25%

-- Swiftness 5s

-- Number of Allied Targets: 5

 

**Grandmaster**

Minor: **Dark Surge:** Well grant boons to allies on their first pulse.

-- Regen 5s

-- Vigor 3s

-- Alacrity 3s

-- Number of Allied Targets: 5

- **Sadism:** Gain initiative when you kill a foe. (1s)

-- Initiative: 1

- **Eye for an Eye:** Using Drain also copies conditions on you to foes hit by it.

- **Last Laugh:** Instantly cast Dead Zone at your feet when you are Defeated.

-- Duration: 5s

 

---

## Changes

- Life Essence: Removes one condition. Added 2s CD.

- Dimensional Cleave: Changed Raw condition damage part to burning. Increased range to 900. Also changed flavor text to reflect it.

- Dark Flare: Halved Blast Delay time. Tooltip edit.

- Added tooltips to AoEs showing they affect up to 5 allies AND 5 enemies to keep the support and attack aspects of them intact.

- Added a mechanic to Dark Mind and Dead Zone that increases initiative cost while they are on recharge.

- Dark Spike: Increased scaling and added chilled.

- Dead Zone: Added poison, slow, burning and more range.

- Gate of Respite: Added an interval to pulses and edited tooltips for clarification.

- Gate of Seething: Added damage, scaling Chilled and turned it into an ice field.

- Gate of Asylum: Changed to an anti-condition smoke field.

- Added well Gate of Possession.

- Hellgate: Is now a fire field instead of smoke.

- Corrupting Footfalls: Mark of Grief changed to Mark of Lament.

- Augment Will: Changed to Killing Intent.

- Mending Wells: Increased Revive rate.

- Shadow's Flight: Speed increased for Greatsword only. Added swiftness to marks.

- Dark Surge: Wells add boons to allies when they first appear.

- E4nE: Drain now copies conditions instead of Life Essences.

- General tooltip cleanup.

[Arcaniaxs.4519]

For traits:

Too much overpoweredot useless traits like last laugh(op) and sadism(useless in boss fights and also maybe messes up ur rotation)

Eye for an eye seems very decent but make a 30sec CD like the drain skill

Dark surge and Augment will increase too much healing power if u consider the overall stats and runes and sigils so it may seem useless

Shadowflight only increase movment speed while using GS

Souleater is useless at boss fights imo

For utilities:

Gate of seething providing vuln seems useless bec most classes already provide 25stacks of vulnerability alone.

It could pulse torment instead

Gate of harrowing should increase targets to 10 and has 3 pulses with 2 secs for each pulse

All of these are personal opinion though

Wish u added more condi and pulses to ur wells and greatsword skills so it could also have a condi variant too

And maybe more shadowstep to trigger healing via shadowstep in shadow arts traitine

This spec could make a great tank by

Critical strikes/acrobatics/dark knight

and a good healer by

Shadow arts/trickery/dark knight

Or a nice hybird dps by

Deadly arts/critical strikes/dark knighy if the wells had more condi applycation and using daggers or pistol/dagger set

Nice spec idea

[Arcaniaxs.4519]

The problem however was that it didnt provided any special boon(quickness/alac/25stacks of might) and no group dmg buff (spirits or banners or spotter or such stuff) or a good dps stat buff for group

And 500vitality increase is a bit too much... isnt it? 200 would be enough

[Arcaniaxs.4519]

So it would sit in the corner and probably only used as tank/healer hybird in some raids/fractals

[Zacchary.6183]

> @"Arcaniaxs.4519" said:

 

Thanks! It still needs plenty of work but I figured I would post an alpha revamp to get ideas and suggestions. To address your concerns:

- The +500 vitality bumps thief up almost one HP tier. It would suck at tanking without some boost in HP or heavy access to defensive boons, which imho would chafe non-thieves. So I went with the HP boost. This trait also bumps thief up one Armor Tier.

- As for special boons, Alacrity is Mesmer's and Aegis is Guardian's. My reasoning is if I did, the access to it would be negligible and probably pointless. Adding a new kind of boon would cause issues in itself. But I'll think of something.

- You are right, vuln is already dished out like candy and putting in more damaging conditions on thing might be better just for the sake of build diversity.

- If I am going to increase well targets to 10, I might as well make it uniform. But there are three things. One, wells only affect 5 targets. The only reason why Dead Zone is 10 is because it takes after Meteor Shower, which can hit a large amount of targets, but not as damaging as MS. Second, because this elite is heavy in AoE's, it means lots of tagging. Lots of tagging means a trait like Soulstealer will produce plenty of Life Essence assuming things are dying. While this won't be very useful vs. a boss, it will be useful in keeping the party healed and buffed and tagging adds. Finally, these Wells hit 10 times. 1 per second. I should probably add that tooltip.

- I'll look at Dark Surge and Augment but tbh thief's overall heal scaling is poor. And considering this elite is supposed to be support, I figured adding healing power traits to a profession that doesn't do well with heals would help it fill that role. Augment I put there to help other healers. I almost considered doing +100 vitality or +150 Concentration and Expertise.

- Sadism/E4nE/LL were all meant to be a little OP. You get one OP trait to choose from GM traits. :^)

- I will think on your suggestion with Shadow's Flight, but that will make that trait flat imho. Probably would just scrap it for a Well or Life Essence trait.

- Also have a few ideas for condition removal. I DID forget to put some in lol. What would support be without condition removal?

[Arcaniaxs.4519]

I still think 500vitality is too much... considering thief can take invigorating perception trait and heal it self while damaging the boss and it results in 1k-3k heal per second depending on the physical dps

Also for boons... life essence could have a trait that results in giving 3 stacks of might for 5 seconds to 10 allies or give 2 seconds of quickness to 5 allies.

Btw as a tank class u dont have much aegis or blocks and have the defult 2 dodges so u might wanna change that

[Zacchary.6183]

> @"Arcaniaxs.4519" said:

> I still think 500vitality is too much... considering thief can take invigorating perception trait and heal it self while damaging the boss and it results in 1k-3k heal per second depending on the physical dps

> Also for boons... life essence could have a trait that results in giving 3 stacks of might for 5 seconds to 10 allies or give 2 seconds of quickness to 5 allies.

> Btw as a tank class u dont have much aegis or blocks and have the defult 2 dodges so u might wanna change that

 

There are many ways thief can survive a boss. Focus more on group settings since this elite is supposed to be about support. There are plenty of heals on this elite alone and with something like Signet of Malice which heals per hit, you can easily tank with this spec. I also kept away from might stacking since there is already enough in this game (also a support Deadeye can make up the might spam with Fire for Effect during a boss).

[DeceiverX.8361]

So basically reaper with blood magic traited lol.

[Zacchary.6183]

> @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> So basically reaper with blood magic traited lol.

A reaper is a reaper. ;P

But yeah just with more healing and stealth.