Guild Wars 2

Stalkers are rangers who have adapted to hunt in the forests. They are wild, evasive, and lethal. By gaining access to dagger-mainhand and Transformations, these hunting masters are able to change their form into wild animals to catch their prey with rapidity and efficiency. Since rangers are masters of ranged combat, stalkers prefer heavy melee damage combined with great mobility and ferocious attacks.

Profession mechanic: Gain 1 stack of Ferocity every time you hit an enemy. Max 25 stacks. Once you reach 25 stacks, you have access to Wild Strikes (15% more damage for 8 seconds for you and your pet, 15 sec cooldown).

Weapon skills-Dagger Mainhand
1) Autoattack – Hunter’s Slash: Slash your foe twice, inflicting bleeding. Hunter’s Stab: Hit your foe again, inflicting poison. Hunter’s Bite: Hit your foe and steal health.
2) Shadow Bite: Throw the dagger to hit your target and returns to you. If it hits, you become invisible for 3 seconds.
3) Lethal Strike: Shadowstep to your enemy and strike him. Does more damage if you are in stealth.

Slot Skills – Transformations
Similar to the engineer’s kits, transformations allow the stalker to replace weapon skills with other skills, according in which animal you have turned.

HEALING SKILL. Become the Turtle. Transform into a turtle to gain healing abilities.
1) Chomp: Chomp your foe to gain health.
2) Regeneration: Remove 1 condition from you and nearby allies.
3) Turtle Shield: Block attacks for 2 seconds.
4) Stunning Shell: Roll to your foe and stun them. Combo finisher Whirl.
5) Healing Wave: Heal yourself for a large amount and heal nearby allies for a small amount. Water field.

Become the Leopard. Transform into a leopard to gain faster abilities.
1) Slash: Slash your foe, leaving them vulnerable.
2) Bite: Bite your foe for heavy damage.
3) Rush: Run to your foe and hit them.
4) Speedy Roar: Give swiftness to nearby allies.
5) Evasive Jump: Jump back, dealing damage. If this skill hits, you gain stealth. Breaks stun.

Become the Bloodscale. Transform into a Bloodscale to gain fast bleeding application.
1) Slash: Slash your foe rapidly. Gain quickness after 3 consecutive hits.
2) Bite: Bite your foe, inflicting bleeding. (5 stacks)
3) Assault: Run in a straight line while scratching foes and evading attaks. Gain might every time you hit.
4) Takedown: Knock down your target. If you knock him down, your next attack inflict 4 stacks of bleeding.
5) Sharpen fangs: Next several hits apply extra bleeding stacks.

Become the Bison. Transform into a bison to gain defensive abilities.
1) Jab: Jab your foe with your horns.
2) Goring: Lash out a powerful strike with your head that launches your target. Up to 3 targets in front of you.
3) Heavy Ground: Pulse stability for a short duration in a target area. (6 sec duration)
4) Protection: Apply protection to yourself and nearby allies.
5) Cold Spirit: Give frost aura to yourself and nearby allies. Breaks stun.

Become the Scorpion. Transform into a scorpion to gain fast condition application.
1) Twin Darts: Fire two shots from your tail. 20% chance of poison.
2) Venomous Tail: Hit your foe with you tail, poisoning and burning them.
3) Crippling Blow: Immobilize your target. (2 seconds)
4) Poison cloud: Spit a ball of venom that covers an area with a poisonous cloud. Combo field poison
5) Tormenting Venom: Inflict 2 stacks of torment at first. Additional stacks of torment added over time.(max 5 stacks)

ELITE. Become the Behemoth. Transform into a giant Behemoth to gain powerful AoE abilities.
1) Tail Swipe: Spin around, dealing damage up to 5 targets.
2) Sonic roar: Daze foes around you. Gain 3 stacks of Might for every foe you interrupt. Blast finisher.
3) Assault: Charge into a straight line. Every hit you take while doing this skill heals you instead.
4) Defy Pain: You take no damage for the next few seconds.
5) Earthquake: Hit the ground 5 times, removing 1 stack of stability on nearby foes with every hit. The fifth hit immobilize foes.

TRAITS
Minor Adept: Gain access to Transformations.
Minor Master: Steal life every 5 strikes.
Minor Grandmaster: Gain boons when gaining Wild Strikes (fury 6 sec, quickness 3 seconds)
-Major Adept-
Wild Purity: Transforming cleanses 2 conditions on you. (10 sec cooldown)
-Major Master-
Stalker’s Speed: Gain swiftness (5 sec) and quickness (3 sec) when you use a Transformation.
-Major Grandmaster-
Transform Benevolence: Pulse a boon according to the animal in which you have turned. (1 stack for 3 seconds every 3 seconds).
Turtle-regeneration; Leopard-Vigor; Bloodscale-fury; Bison-retaliation; Scorpion-might; Behemoth-stability.

If you’ve read this far, first of all, thanks for your attention. Second, this is just my concept for a possible future specialization of the ranger.
My idea was to have an aggressive and “wild” gameplay through mobility skills, quickness and leaps on your enemies. I’ve tried to make a specialization that doesn’t rely on the pet for damage, but without ignoring it altogether. I’ve also tried to bring a more impactful gameplay in larger fights, through aoe boon application and heavy melee aoe damage with some transformations. What do you think guys? thanks again for the attention

kappa.2036:

What do you think guys? thanks again for the attention

First of all, good job putting your ideas together like this thumbs up

Secondly, this spec sure looks OP by picking the best ideas/abilities from other classes, mainly thieves and necromancers, then tweaking and combining them into this.

Personally, I’m not a fan of transformations at all, but many seems to like that idea, so I haven’t much to say about that.

First initial thoughts on this: very creative and very cool! I am pro dagger main hand as the next weapon, as 1 or 2 other options.
Allthough I would’ve thought transforming into animals(spirits) was kinda covered in game, I still really like this concept.

Wow, plz make this so!

Except, instead of Behemoth, make it a Wyvern.

Your ideas are solid! I’ve wanted a transformation build for ranger for ages too, and would be nice to get a more complex playstyle with a ranger, as they’re my favorite class in the lore, but gameplay less complicated / fun than a mesmer or ele for example. Hope they add something like this

Very very cool. I’m kinda hoping for main hand dagger too

This is sooo good.

Mind finishing it?

1.) Need stun break utilities with the transformations even 1.
2.) you are missing 2 Major traits each for Adept, Minor, and GM
3.) I think the GM trait is okay but I dont want a herald ripoff. Might be better if they are soft CC conditions, will synergize really well with Predator’s Instinct

I do not want to become Raphael.

StickerHappy.8052:

3.) I think the GM trait is okay but I dont want a herald ripoff. Might be better if they are soft CC conditions, will synergize really well with Predator’s Instinct

I think it would suffice if the boons were only given to the stalker. It would make sense as this seems like a selfish DPS spec first and foremost.

Well… let’s say it, I am a “transform hater” and I aknowledge this spec as a very bad idea, however I’d like to understand a few point :

- Why is this spec called “the stalker”? A stalker is supposed to be something almost uncatchable that wear done it’s foe bit by bit and for this kind of gameplay, transformation or even “kit” are absolutely a “no!” in GW2.

- What about traits and thematic? Traits, instead of skills, are the backbone of each e-spec. Everything around the traits and the thematic that they support is “flavor”. Skills are here to support the thematic not to make it. If we look at your E-spec, the thematic should be built around the idea of a kind of “enrage” : Wild strike. It’s not a bad idea but nothing in your spec really make it shine. It just feel like a plain and empty mechanism in the current form.

- What’s your opinion about the limits of transform skills? If you look at it superficially transform skill give you access to a lot of new skill and a cool new design. However, as soon as you look at it more thouroughly, a transform is a direct change in your avatar with new boorish animation and a very bad combat abilities. All transform skills in GW2 make you dull and hurt more your gameplay than anything and this is mostly because of the limitation of the new form that you assume. You should try those transformation that already plague the game as a whole, except the shroud that is slightly ok to use, no transform skill make you stronger in fight, you just lose all reactivity and agility in a game where those 2 factors are what matter.

- What about balance? Engineers don’t have access to any weapon switch due to the fact that they have those so called kit that effectively replace a weapon switch. You obviously see those transform like kits but (regardless of the kit’s skills) this give the ranger a huge edge over the engineer that would have plenty of reason to complain about this unjust fact.

- Don’t you think that anet should work on our pet skills instead of introducing 5 new set of skills that will need countless hour of balance when they don’t even have time to make our pet able to even hit properly their target? Our pets are plagued with skills that they almost never even dared to try to balance, there is pet skills that even hinder the ranger in his gameplay and most F2 skills are so bad that it’s painfull to look at them. Do you really think that introducing 33 new skills hindered by a crappy form on a single ranger E-spec is a good thing for the ranger as a whole?

To be honest this E-spec feel exactly like the druid E-spec. It feel like it’s especially designed around the popular belief that it’s better to turn a blind eye on the ranger pet’s horrendous state. The ranger’s core issue lie in it’s core mechanism which is the pet. An intelligent E-spec can only be an E-spec that correct this issue and that’s not gonna happen by keeping the pet as it is. Rangers need E-spec that directly impact how the pet system work not good looking spec that will create more gameplay issue and just leave the things that don’t work how they are.

Dadnir.5038:

Well… let’s say it, I am a “transform hater” and I aknowledge this spec as a very bad idea, however I’d like to understand a few point :

Do you hate engineer kits as well? Since it was specified that these skills would work like kits, you can pop in and out any time you like.

Hey guys, thanks all for the reply!

@StickerHappy
1) There are 1 stun break on Leopard and 1 on Bison.
2) I know, but I didn’t had time for those sadly.
3) Boons are only given to the stalker, i apologyze if i didn’t specified.

@Dadnir
Why is this spec called “the stalker”?
I didn’t imagine a stalker as a “something almost uncatchable”, like you said. I imagined it as a wild predator with ferocious attacks and high quickness uptime. Have you ever seen when our Smokescale is under the effect of quickness and rush to the enemy? I wanted something like that. About Transformations, i decided to put them over Venom skills just because they fit the “wild theme” better and makes the E-spec more interesting than a condi thief 2.0
What about traits and thematic?
Sadly, I didnt had time to finish the traits. Minor traits are good in my opinion, probably I could do better with Major traits that are just too simplistic and they don’t fit well the E-spec theme.
What’s your opinion about the limits of transform skills?
Right now necro/reaper use transform skills and are totally playable. Same goes for warriors with Rampage and eles with Tornado. And don’t forget that if you play Stalker you can pick only 1 or 2 transformations.
What about balance?
Maybe transformations should have an internal-cooldown?
Anyway, you are completely right. But I am not Anet.
Don’t you think that anet should work on our pet skills instead of introducing 5 new set of skills that will need countless hour of balance when they don’t even have time to make our pet able to even hit properly their target?
Pet is a core ranger question. Personally, i would prefer an E-spec without the pet completely, but i don’t think this will never happen.

Pets, and their functionality (or lack thereof) are core issues. A new e-spec should never be about finally making our pets worthwhile, that would be the biggest mistake ever done to any class in this game.

With the exception of the transformations (which I loathe), and while I think the general combination of an e-spec that combines the best from thieves and necros as described here feels OP, I like to read ideas like these shared by the community, so keep’em coming (but please – leave the transformation/shapeshifting ideas at home).

Yannir.4132:

Dadnir.5038:

Well… let’s say it, I am a “transform hater” and I aknowledge this spec as a very bad idea, however I’d like to understand a few point :

Do you hate engineer kits as well? Since it was specified that these skills would work like kits, you can pop in and out any time you like.

I guess if you had read my whole post you would have understand that the issue don’t come from “kits” but from “transform”. In this game if you happen to heavily modify your shape, it inevitably lead to awfull overall performance in game. Assuming a beast form will bound you to beast animations that restrict you a lot. Even norns transform that are pretty close to humanoid form are incredibly clunky. It’s absolutely impossible to expect anything good from a spec that heavily rely on beast form transform.

But I guess masochist player may enjoy being toyed by other player like their pets are already toyed. They may like to be rooted when they cast a skill which is inevitably slow due to the performed animation.

The conclusion is that kits are okay (even if it feel like a waste and a serious headache to balance) however, transform are a “no!”.

I would rather see the following:

- Class trait – F5 is another utility slot
- New skills – physical type

Hi !
Nice imagination. But i am no fan of shapeshifting. Personally, i think they should rather improve EACH basic spec. I mean you can chose 3 specializations and one of this three can be chosen as elite with a specific f5 for the ranger case.
The current elite specs add so much to the class mecanic that everyone take them and just fill the two other slots with basic one. I d like each spec fould add its specific game play.
However, your dagger mh example is interesting. I hope they will add a new mh weapon. It would add much more combinations than a new th weap !

kappa.2036:

What’s your opinion about the limits of transform skills?
Right now necro/reaper use transform skills and are totally playable. Same goes for warriors with Rampage and eles with Tornado. And don’t forget that if you play Stalker you can pick only 1 or 2 transformations.

Um… why? If you’re handing out a new suite of skills, they should all be useable together. Unless the stalker’s transform is specifically tied to the pet out at the time, I should be able to switch from a turtle to the leopard to the bison to the bloodscale.

I admit, this is an interesting idea, but it has a lot of kinks that need ironing out before it becomes something balanced and viable.

I would like a venom ranger with skills that improve power and condi builds.
Or physical/trick skills which can also be very interesting but survival skills are pretty similar though.
An additional pet skill depending on pet race would be interesting or something like a “dualwield” skill which changes depending on mainhand and pet race (this would give alot of new skills though and a lot of work)

I’m not sure how it would work without trying it, but its certainly inventive. just wish there was a tiger transformation… -_-

All in favor of a condition dagger mainhand in next expansion.