Overview

The Shadow Knight embodies the anti-hero fantasy of a dark and brooding knight, bending souls to their will and learning more dark magic from the study of monstrous creatures. Shadow Knights use drains and debilitations of the body and soul to gain an edge over their adversaries, and in combat use their life draining abilities to supplement a combat style more focused on offense than defense.

In this update, we’ve tried to separate the Shadow Knight from the Necromancer class without sacrificing the most important parts of the class mechanics. There’s some subtle theme switching: command over souls and corruption in place of undead reanimation, as well as custom versions of spell lines that make a bit more sense on a class that spends the majority of their time taking hits in combat. The future Profane Study (monster hunting) system will unlock a unique and flavorful way for these dark knights to acquire new types of power.

Pets

The three spell lines of pets shared with the Necromancer have been replaced with a singular pet - a lost soul bound to the service of the Shadow Knight. This Soul Servant is now summoned using a Soul Remnant reagent you’ll siphon from enemies, rather than buying bone chips in a market.

The summoning spells themselves are set up in 4 ranks, creating pets that scale with your level (if a bit behind compared to more dedicated pet classes).

You’ll retain the ability to sacrifice the pet to form a Sacrificial Barrier, and additionally be able to sacrifice them for a damage shield via Wreath of Souls.

Melee Abilities

Shadow Strike replaces Slam as the basic Shadow Knight melee ability, making room for Siphoning Slash and Reave as the more powerful and longer cooldown abilities.

Shadow Strike - This attack extends the duration of any of your Shadows dot spells on the target by 6 seconds. Hitting an enemy with this within the last 10% of its life will siphon a remnant of it’s soul, allowing you to bind it to your will as a pet.

Siphoning Slash - A slightly stronger attack that heals you for 50% of the damage inflicted. This ability shares a cooldown with Reave.

Reave - This dedicated 2H weapon attack requires a brief wind up but hits hard with no additional frills.

Goading Bash - This shield ability shares a cooldown with Kick. In addition to interrupting a spell being cast, you’ll generate bonus threat on targets you block for a brief time afterward.

Kick - This basic spell interrupt is usable without a shield, but locks casters out of recasting for less time than a shield bash.

Offensive Spells

Soulrend - The lifetap abilities shared with Necromancer have been slightly tweaked into the Soulrend line. These lifetaps cast quickly, but have a shorter range than the Life Drain line had.

Palpitation - This new DOT replaces the Poison line shared with Necromancers and is a combination agility debuff and damage spell. The damage on this spell ramps up over 4 ticks, but deals its full damage faster than the Poison line. The lack of front-loaded damage and ramp up compensate for the fast cast time on the line.

Smothering Shadows - A new line of Shadow spells replaces the shared Necromancer version. These cast faster than the previous versions, but have a shorter duration as well.

Theft of Vigor - A combination Strength and Stamina drain that replaces the previous Drain Strength line of spells.

Grip of Shadow - This ability is used to grab an enemy from afar and pull them to you, interrupting them should they be casting at the time. While this is not a new ability, the range on it has increased from 15m to 20m.

Grip of Agony

Grip of Agony has had a substantial bump in its base damage, and now has an additional Stamina based scaling component. Additionally, when under an Unholy Pact from your Aura of the Unholy, Grip of Agony will heal you for 50% of the damage done.

Auras

Shadow Knights continue to have the two Auras: Vampirism and Unholy. These two had significant overlap in that they both increased the group’s damage with a health regaining component. Additionally, Unholy was a bit off-theme for Shadow Knight, which shouldn’t be buffing regeneration outright to their group.

Aura of Vampirism - This Aura is unchanged, and provides each member of the group a chance to cast a lifedrain attack on a melee hit

Aura of the Unholy - This ability has been completely reworked and is now a more tank-centric aura. This aura provides a modest Holy resistance buff to your group, while increasing your generated Threat and Parry Chance. Additionally, when your health falls below 25% of it's maximum, call upon an Unholy Pact to protect you. This pact will reduce incoming damage, empower your Soulrend with additional healing, and grant Grip of Agony a lifesteal for half the damage dealt.

Buffs

Lord of Shadows - This self only buff replaces the Spellshield line, granting you increased Intelligence, Armor Class, Hit Points, and Mana Regeneration. Your physical stat buffs will come via your Theft of Vigor drain spell.

Wreath of Souls - A new ability and way to use your pet. Sacrifice your pet to place a whirling wreath of souls around you, damaging those who attack you.

Holy and Cold Resistance - These abilities are retained but are now self-only buffs. Note that Aura of the Unholy can provide some Holy resistance to your group.

Retained Spell Lines

The following spell lines weren’t specifically mentioned as they are preexisting, but continue to be available after this update.

• Locate Corpse

• Polar Alignment: North

• Invisibility versus Undead

• Lull the Dead

• Terror in the Shadows

• Feign Death

• Spirit Break

• Grip of Shadow

• Repel the Dead

• Summon Corpse

• Dark Embrace

• Summon Companion

• Fear

• Fear the Dead

• Unholy Bulwark

Removed Spell Lines

• Skeleton, Zombie, and Ghoul pet (this is now Soul Servant)

• Burning Bones

• Slam

• Weapon Shield

• Focused Concentration

• Deflect

• Life Drain (this is now Soulrend)

• Spellshield

• Noxious Deluge (replaced by Palpitation line)

• Swirling Shadows (replaced by Smothering Shadows line)

Profane Study

A new theme and mechanic being layered onto the Shadow Knight is the hunting of corrupt entities to empower the knight. This is a planned future system that will be entering the game in a later patch and is not implemented as of the Early Access launch.

Shadow Knights will get a new skill, ‘Profane Study.’ It is used to study, understand, and control the unnatural forces granting power to the most heinous creatures of Eth-ur. By tracking down these abominations, slaying them, and studying their corpse with your Profane Study skill, you’ll be able to improve your existing abilities, or even uncover new forms of power.