Guild Wars 2

Weapon of Choice: Claws

Gameplay Mechanics: Shadow Control Styles

Shadow Control makes usage of Initiative in a completely different way.
This Elite is like a complete overhaul for all Thief Weapon Skills due to the change in the way how initiative gets used under Shadow Control.

The Stalker works different with Initiative, he shares just the amount of Initiative, but Initiative in itself works differently here. It doesn’t regenerate automatically anymore.
The Stalker must earn Initiative Points back through the actions he does, but spending an Initiative point is alot more effective and impactful, than just being able to use a single Weapon Skill with them.
Spending Initiative to activate Shadow Control allows you to perform various different Features that become active for the amount of time that your Shadow Control works.
These Features are set to F3 and F4 – it are 6 different Shadow Control Styles, but you can have with you maximum 2.

1) Phantom Walker – A Shadow Control Ability that focuses on Shadow Steps and improves them to Phantom Walks.
Compared to a Shadow Step has the Phantom Walk the difference, that they increase the range of the Shadow Step by 20% and change the animation from an instant teleport into a super fast movement animation in which you deflect back projectiles and damage foes in a line of sight between you and your target enemy

2) Camouflage – A Shadow Control Ability that focuses on Stealth and changes Stealth into Camouflages. When using Camouflages, the durations are exceptionally longer, than in Stealths by +100%, but the Movement Speed gets reduced by 33% and all Movement Speed increasing Effects stop, while you receive also 33% more Damage from traps, if you run into them under Camouflage. Stalkers don’t haste, they stalk slowly to their victims silently to strike with their claws their victims like stalking panthers hunting their prey. This change in gameplay gives the thief a new tactical nuance in combat if you take Camouflage with you and activate it to alterate your Stealth Gameplay. Camouflage adds also for the Movement Reduction a Condition Effect Reduction by also 33%. Means, if you are bleeding, and you change into Camouflage, will be that bleeding for you 33% lesser damaging.

3) Shadow Clones – Using this Shadow Control Ability allows you to create Shadow Clones of yourself whenever you successfully evade Attacks. Shadow Clones work as offensive distractions, while also being at the same time defensive mechanics working as personified Aegis Boons that block for you received critical hits automatically and go “poof” with a little regain of Endurance for Critical Hits that should hit the Original. The protection triggers just only for critical hits, not uncritical hits that hit the original which are attacks from the target enemy, not from other sources like other untargeted combatants. You can have up to maximum 2 Shadow Clones with you and they stay with you, until the original receives a critical hit, or until you use them up as Heals by manually removing them to regain some Health and remove Conditions

4) Dark Spellslinger – Dark Spellslinger is a Shadow Control Ability, that focuses more on the magical aspect of Shadow Arts through offensive Shadow Spells that alterate also directly the Weapon Skills. Its a very direct gameplay changer by changign the Weapon Skilsl and adding as F5 directly a specific chooseable “Shadow Spell” Skill, which can be used while being in Stealth/Camouflage and gain on power, if you consume addtional Initiative Points for them by charging the Spells up in Stealth/Camouflage. (You are easily interruptable while doing this, so you don’t want to be hit while charging them up)

5) Persecution – A Shadow Control Ability that focuses on ranged gameplay with Pistols and Shortbow, because using it adds to all ranged components the feature of homing in shots and increasign the range of those weapons by +300 units. Ranged Attacks also gain the ability of the old Ricochet Trait. In case of Trick Shot does it add +1 additional bounce off of an enemy and the effect of Boon Stealing from enemies that get hit by bounced arrows.

6) Pickpocketing – A Shadow Control Ability that focuses on Stealing as its still the basics of every Stalker to steal like every Thief.
Pickpocketing changes completely the Stealing Feature in itself.
It won’t be anymore basically a Shadow Step Move, but now you passively automatically steal from foes just from attacking them in melee combat and the stealing when it happens is more impactful, because its not just the Stealing anymore that everybody knows – its instead – Disarmament, a new effect that disables foes to switch weapons as long as this effect is active. Against foes, which can’t switch weapons, these foes will get stunned for 2 seconds and can’t use in that time their Skills.

Next Post is all about Example Skills

Due to the Stalker using Initiative differently, all Weapon Skills will also work differently under this Elite Specialization and have other effects and mechanics.
Under the Stalker, Initiative Points are used mainly only for activating Shadow Control Styles.
This means, all Weapon Skills under the Stalker won’t work anymore with Initiative.
They get changed to normal Skills with Recharge Times like all other Classes have them

That makes a Stalker in combat naturally not as fast and reactive, as like a Basic Thief, but thats simply said that natural cost for being a specialized profession – give and take. If Stalkers use their Initiative specificly only for their specialized abilities, then its naturally that the combat Skills can’t use anymore Initiative too..

Now will follow some example Skills for the Stalker, beginning with the Claws, its unique Weapon.
Stalkers are very martial artistical combatats with their Claws and can be very fierce in melee combat, if you let them act freely without stopping them from using their Shadow Control Styles

1) Shadow Fang > Black Mantis Thrust> Horns of the Ox
You create with your Claw a bigger Shadow Fang to attack your Target, followed by a quick weakening Thrust Attack that is a Shadow Step, if your target is already further away from you than your weapon range to close the gap, finished with a dual claw ram attack like horns of an ox, causing Vulnerability and Bleedings

2) Sadistic Paranoia
Gain Stealth for 4 seconds. The next attack out of Stealth will cause Fear for 1 second and Torment for 2 seconds and converts additionally a Condition from you over to your Target Enemy you hit. Recharge Time 12s

3) Spin Kick (Dual Claws)
Perform with your bladed boots a Spin kick that hits all targets around you and knocks them down, while causing also Bleedings. Recharge Time: 15s

3) Snakebites (Offhand Dagger)
Strike the foe with the dagger, causing Immobilization for 2s, followed by three fast Claw Thrusts like poison fangs of snakes that cause Poison. Recharge Time: 15s

3) Sudden Piercing (Offhand Pistol)
Shoot at a target, followed with a Shadow Step into the back of your target thrusting your Claw into the target, causing Vulnerability and being unblockable. Recharge Time: 15s

3) Phantom Bullet (MH Pistol/ OH Claw)
Leap at a target while auto evading incoming projectiles, to knock the target down, followed by a burst of the pistol into the pinned down foe, causing Burning for 3 seconds. Recharge Time: 15s

3) Slice ‘n’ Dice (MH Dagger/ OH Claw)
A quick quick of two strikes, first with the dagger by a horizontal swing, that a vetical claw attack which dazes foes. If you get attacked while performing this skill, then the attack gets automatically blocked and counterattacked with a more powerful claw attack that causes Bleedings and steals Boons.

4) Flashing Blades
A quick Claw Thrust to the face that is unblockable and blinds foes and grants you Might, Swiftness and Fury for 5s. Recharge Time: 20s

5) Dark Escape
Perform a backwards jump while attacking your target enemy, leaving a Dark Field that can stealth allies that enter that field for 5s. Attacks that are dealt to foes while beign in that Dark Field, will leech health.

Looks like powercreep central.

While I like the concept, some of your suggestions are just better variants of what we already have. Sudden Piercing is just a better variant of Shadow Shot. Dark Escape is just an outright better variant of Cloak’n Dagger. It seems like claw is just destined to completely replace off-hand dagger with this setup as Dancing Daggers seems … Mediocre, compared to an unblockable blind that grants you all the boons.

Now I know Daredevil is a culprit of the same thing, but the last thing we want is more of it. Elite specializations should offer new playstyles without obsoleting the core theif kits.

On an off-topic mandatory sidenote:
http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/095/141/remiq.net_14077.jpg

Ignoring the fact that this won’t happen because ANet will not implement a new weapon type for a single specialization.

And then exacerbated by more weapon skills and mechanics changes through the spellslinger etc.

It seems like a lot of unnecessary mechanical changes.

So claw skills all have cooldowns, and the forms act as shrouds to gain bonuses but stop initiative regeneration? How strong would these skills need to be to justify their cooldowns? Do these not have initiative costs and thus gain the full benefits of the controls at all times? Seems totally overpowered. And Pickpocketing seems totally broken if each attack stuns for two seconds, claws or not, initiative or not, considering the AA chains right now on the thief are already primary damage sources. Actually, a lot of them look really broken for the playstyles they cover (100% stealth increase in particular) I can only imagine the fun of that with an SA build letting D/P stealth infinitely on only one use of BP, or SR yielding almost 50% uptime on its own.

Seems like a lot of work for something that’s not mechanically sound/convoluted and what appears to be very overpowered.

@ Twice Dead
Sure it looks OP on first look, concepts always look for other readers in like 90% of all cases overpowered, because it is always easier to overpower something, than to find the perfect sweet spot instantly on first try … but that makes it also easier to go down with the concept from that point on then slowly.
Or have you ever seen any Class Concepts here, where people said after reading it – oh man, that idea is so massively underpowere,d you have to make it much stronger, or this ship will sink already, before it could even run out into combat ???

No, you won’t ever see something like this happening, because people always tend to overpower things.

The Main idea behind my Stalker Concept here is to provide an Elite Specialization for the Thief, which is fully specialized completely about Shadow Arts.
The Daredevil is all about Mobility and Dodges (Acrobatics basicaly so to speak), the Gameplay Design is focused on changing Dodge Styles.

But currently the Thief has no specialization aspects when it goes about Stealth.
Anet has dumbed down the Stealth Aspect of this game already so much by giving Stealth to more and more other Classes, that Stealth has completely lost its uniqueness for Thieves!!!

I’ve also to disagree with your two false skill analizations.

Sudden Piercing = Shadow Step with Damage on impact of the bullet followed from an unblockable attack into the back

Shadow Shot = Shoot an unblockable Bullet, that Blinds a foe, folled then first by a Shadow Step to attack the target again with the Dagger

Sudden Piercing is a faster dual hittign attack, but it has no defensive component like Shadow Shot that prevents you from receiving damage, cause it doesn’t blind .
Both skills just share the shadow step and the unblockable mechanic, but the difference is, that you oversee here. Shadow Shot is spammable due to its regenerative Initiative System!!! Sudden Piercing NOT due to Recharge Times & no automatic regenerating Initiative

Dark Escape is also no better Cloak and Dagger. C&D is a single target self centered attack skill to give you alone stealth, which you can again spam quickly if you should miss with your first try as long as you have initiative for it…

Dark Escape doesn’t stealth you when you hit the target, Dark Escape is a SUPPORT SKILL, it lets you perform an attack with an integrated evade jump to create a distance between you and your targte, while causing also a supportive Dark Field, which will stealth allies that enter it (not you) while working as Combo Field for Leeches.

@ DeceiverX

You’re making assumptions here…who said, that if Anet introduces Claws, that they would do that only for Thieves? There are other good class Candidates, that could use Claws as weapon too, most sense makes the Ranger for example for a Beastlord E-Spec thats all about spcialized Pets and becoming more wild and ferocious like a beast which uses Claws to become more in touch with being like a beast which has claws. Or Necromancers would be also a good candidate for them, like a Torturer. In all of these cases could be the Claw also be replaced with the Whip, however, for a Thief-Spec I though, Claws make more sense, because they are still more melee orientated, than mid range combat based, so Claws made more sense for me for this concept

Shadow Control Styles don’t exactly work like shrouds, Shadow Control Styles change specific aspects of the Basic Thief mechanics that are based on Shadow Arts (Shadow Steps, Stealth, Shadow Spells which would be new, and and improval of Stela in form of pickpocketing to disarm foes to make Stalkers unique by making it possible for them to to stop their enemies from switching weapons temporarely.

Stalkers are slower in combat, than basic thieves, thats part of their concept design, because they have to lose mobility so that they can be much better at Stealth and all aspects of Shadow Control. A stalker slowly follows its victims unseen under the protection of the shadows, until its too late for them

Pickpocketing isn’t broken, it has just only 2 main goals in regard of against which type of class it gets used against.
Use it agaisnt a class, which can switch weapon sets = stop that enemy from switching weapons for x seconds to force the enemy to stay on a specific set for some time
Use it against a class, which can’t switch weapons, like the Elementalist or the Engineer = Enemy gets stunned 2 seconds to stop this way the foe from attacking you

This ability gets used only, if you spend your initiative points for them and spending initiative points for Shadow Control Styles can and will cost differently much points. and can, if it must be also be combined with the usage of recharge times.
If this won’t work, then – nothing is set in stone, the whole thing can be also replaced with something else, but I think as an elite spec of the thief, should a stalker also steal in its own unique way.

ANet has made it very clear any new weapon additions to the game are not happening in the foreseeable future. Claws seem a bit too exotic for the GW lore (similarly to scythes and sickles, kusari-gama, etc. that people keep asking for), and the scope of work to integrate all those new weapon types and skins into the game would be huge. Realistically, I don’t think ANet is up for that. It’s a very niche weapon. I see two medium-armor professions and maybe a light running around raking people with claws. I think your suggestion, particularly given its emphasis on magical effects, would make more sense just recommending a focus. Many of the recent skins have a katar/claw-like appearance to them that could easily justify a melee-weapon use.

Frankly, I don’t even think ANet will release another dual-wieldable weapon for the thief. That requires more skill changes than they’d probably like to do or try to balance given the fact they know so little about the profession, and changes to weapon skills exacerbate this.

I’m not criticizing the quality of the suggestion, mind you. I’m just stating I don’t think the proposal is realistic in its very nature.

Still, I’m not sure if I follow the mechanical changes. These abilities have no cooldowns (but you say they do?), but how long do they last for? Initiative stops regenerating when using them, so you justify their use by providing them better innate power than what the normal thief has access to (this is my biggest concern since PvP will be trivialized into doing nothing more than using a control), and the claw’s weapon skills themselves all have weapon skills attached to them while not using the initiative system? I see no reason to run anything other than claws since if initiative stops regenerating, using initiative-based skills on control costs would be worthless unless only ever used for a burst engage, which kind of defeats the entire purpose of the design behind the elite, since then it’ll only get used for power-creeped gimmick play.

Speed and teleports don’t seem to be adjusted which account for most of the mobility on the thief. Shadow Shot, Infil Arrow, ISignet and IS/IR are all still available skills which would offset any mobility penalties, and all of them currently act in-game as very fast sprints; that’s what lets IS/IR/IArrow/Steal/ISignet/SS get interrupted on static fields and the likes. There’s seemingly no downside.

Your initial post states that when pickpocketed, players cannot swap weapons “as long as this effect is active.” You specified no inclination of what a duration might be on the effect, and I only presume it’s permanent since it’s modifies all skills and abilities and has penalties while stopping initiative regeneration. You’re also suggesting the player gets stunned and prevents being able to use abilities such as stunbreaks; that’s quite literally the old Basilisk Venom, duration and everything, which on a 60s cooldown was considered an effect (Stone) too overpowered for the entire game, and was changed to a normal stun.

Camo’s 33% damage reduction + RoS’s 20% damage reduction + RS’s 10% damage reduction + protection on durability runes would enable a 67% reduction in damage; that’d put a stealthed thief’s EHP taking advantage of RS to over 33k innately, and one running say a marauder/valkyrie mix to an EHP of between 45k and 63k without WvW health bonuses. That’s still assuming power damage gear; one in D/P condi for example would have an EHP against power of close to 100k. That’s an absolutely ridiculous amount of health for a stealthed target.
And as mentioned, the mobility change doesn’t really mean much considering the number of accessible teleports available to the thief, and SA’s 50% movespeed bonus in stealth would directly and totally offset the penalties to movespeed, while also being completely punishing to anyone not in SA, and again, this would also push stealth gained from one cast of BP + HS to 8s, which would enable permanent stealth with relative ease and very easy procs on RS.

Your proposal has a lot of just blatantly crazy and over-the-top OP abilities tied into it, and doesn’t really provide enough detail to either prove otherwise or give a better as to why the ideas are logically sounds ones aside from the “this would be so rad” factor.