The Scrying Pool continues its speculation on specializations with Necromancer's Dreadknight.

Domain of Pain – Passive: Self, Nearby Allies and Nearby Enemies take damage whenever they attack. Active: Heal self and nearby allies. Damage nearby enemies based on health restored. (Healing Skill | Utility Type: Domain)

Domains are a bit of an expansion of the Necromancer’s Corruption utilities. The Corruption utility type is all about hurting yourself to hurt the enemy. Instead of hurting yourself to hurt the enemy, Domains hurt everyone to later hurt enemies even more.

Domain of Pain is the heal skill. Yourself, nearby allies and nearby enemies all take damage when they attack (similar to how Confusion works) whenever the Dreadknight is in combat. The active works to help alleviate some of this pain, by healing the Dreadknight and nearby allies but then damaging the enemies even more based on how much health was restored.

Domain of Fear – Passive: Occasionally applies Fear to self, nearby allies and enemies. Active: Break stun for self and nearby allies and grant stability to them. Nearby enemies are Chilled and Slowed.

Those that have played the original Guild Wars might be getting a bit of nostalgia about these skills. The Domains are thematically based on the Realm of Torment from Guild Wars: Nightfall where many of the maps were called Domains. Domain of Fear was one such map where players on the map would be under a debuff that would make them move, attack and activate skills slower.

This Domain of Fear skill would call back to that debuff, with the active causing enemies to be both Chilled and Slowed resulting in them moving, attacking and recharging skills slower. In Guardian’s Cleric, I said that I want the ability to break stun become a support for other characters. Here I bring that idea back with the active breaking stun for the Dreadknight and nearby allies while additionally giving stability to combat the passive while giving the skill more party support.

Domain of Madness – Passive: Occasionally applies Poison to self, nearby allies and enemies. Active: Remove Poison from nearby allies and self and grant them Regeneration.

Domain of Madness is another throwback to the map of a similar name. Gate of Madness was a mission in the Realm of Torment that reduced player’s healing effectiveness. Domain of Madness calls back to that by applying Poison which reduces healing effectiveness in Guild Wars 2.

Domain of Torment – Passive: Occasionally applies Torment to self, nearby allies and enemies. Active: Remove Torment from nearby allies and self and grant them Resistance. Copy removed stacks of Torment to nearby enemies.

Domain of Secrets – Passive: Occasionally applies Weakness and Cripple to self, nearby allies and enemies. Active: Cure Weakness, Cripple and Immobilize from nearby allies and self. Immobilize nearby enemies and grant Vigor to self and allies.

Domain of Torment and Domain of Secrets are only partially a throwback. Domain of Torment is named after the overarching Realm of Torment and the skill’s effects are more of a tie-in to the condition of the same name in GW2. Domain of Secrets did exist in GW1, but the map’s debuff was to increase skill energy costs, something that doesn’t exist in GW2.

Domain of Torment is all about controlling the condition Torment. Dreadknight will passively apply this to anyone nearby, but their active will remove all stacks of it from itself and nearby allies (including Torment the Dreadknight didn’t apply) and copy them over to nearby enemies.

Domain of Secrets takes some inspiration from the GW1 map’s debuff. Instead of skill energy, it is affecting a player’s dodge energy before expanding out into more movement impairing conditions. Passively it applies weakness and cripple. Cripple slows their movement while the Weakness reduces Endurance (dodge bar) regeneration by half. Actively it removes these conditions plus Immobilize from self and allies while Immobilizing enemies and granting Vigor (Endurance regeneration) to allies.

Domain of Anguish – Passive: Occasionally apply Bleeding and Vulnerability to self, nearby allies and enemies. Active: Remove Bleeding and Vulnerability from self and nearby allies. Apply Might and Protection to self and nearby allies. For each stack of Bleeding and Vulnerability removed, summon a bone minion. (Elite Skill | Utility Type: Domain)

It is only fitting that the Elite Skill be named after the Elite Mission located in the Realm of Torment. While the effects are not themed after the GW1 area, the skill is worthy of an Elite with the ability to give friendlies both Might and Protection while summoning a small army of bone minions.

While for this series I haven’t been looking at traits, I wanted to make an exception for this as the traits really flesh out what these Domains can do. Some of them, such as Domain of Madness only applying Poison, might seem weak while other, such as Domain of Torment applying and copying stacks of Torment, might seem really strong even against the Dreadknight’s allies. These traits will help alleviate some of that team-killing while buffing some of the weaker Domains.

Calming Domain: Domains’ negative effects are less effective on self and allies. Heal self and allies for a small amount when activating a Domain.

Domain of Aggression: Activating a Domain does damage to affected enemies and applies a short duration of Resistance to allies.

Greater Domain: Increase range of Domains. Grant might to self and affected allies when activating a Domain.

Imminent Domain: Reduces cooldown on Domains. Domains’ Passives are active during cooldown.

Are Domains too powerful? Maybe you think they are too weak? Do you not like the idea of hurting your friends or your friends hurting you? Let me know what you think.

Matt "Mattsta" Adams loved playing more Stronghold this week!

Work continues ever onward for unlocking the dungeon skins as I'm still working on AC by running the dungeon and HotW through the dungeon reward track in PvP. Outside of the dungeons, I have finished both the Corrupted weapon set and the last of the Blade Shard backpacks (was just missing the green version). What are you working on while we wait for Heart of Thorns?

If you have a question for me or a topic you would like to see talked about here, leave a comment below. You can also tweet your question and topics to me on twitter @MattstaNinja. Also, check out my site Mattsta.Ninja that focuses on guides and more for Guild Wars 2.