Gloom Stalker Ranger: D&D 2024 Optimisation Guide

Lurk in darkness using shadow magic to ambush your foes with this stealthy ranger subclass.

What is the gloom stalker?

The antithesis of the fey wanderer, gloom stalkers draw their magic from the shadowy mirror plane known as the Shadowfell. Wreathed in darkness and shadow magic, these rangers are experts at ambushing their targets, stalking them in the dark, then pouncing on them with deadly precision.

Where fey wanderers boast a charming and mischievous presence, gloom stalkers are anything but this. They are skulkers. Using both magic and skill to disguise their presence from both prey and predator. Choose a gloom stalker if you want to be a stealth expert, an ambusher and an assassin.

Originally released in Xanathar’s Guide, the gloom stalker has been updated for D&D 2024, becoming one of the core ranger subclasses. With huge changes to the core ranger class, I’ve put together this guide with tactics and optimisation advice for creating a gloom stalker in D&D 2024.

At a glance

Half caster, half martial class
Solid utility class that leans into the exploration elements of the game
Become a stealth and ambushing expert

What’s changed in D&D 2024?

Gloom stalkers get a few updates to the subclass in D&D 2024 including:

Dread ambusher is no longer limited to the first round of combat. It can instead be used a few times per day.
Stalker’s fury replaces stalker’s flurry so instead of making another attack when you miss, you make your dread ambusher attacks more powerful and can enhance them with an extra attack or inflict the frightened conditions.

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Gloom stalker features

Dread ambusher – Lv3

How it works

In your first turn of combat, you can move an extra 10ft. You can add your wisdom modifier to your initiative roll. You can add 2d6 psychic damage to a number of attacks per long rest equal to your wisdom modifier.

Tactics

You can only deal the extra damage a few times per long rest so save this for nasty creatures you need to kill quickly. Landing this early in combat will be most effective as you can nullify them early on. Your improved initiative will help here.

Gloom stalker spells – Lv3

How it works

You get a bunch of prepared spells with most of these aiding you in staying hidden.

Umbral sight – Lv3

How it works

You gain/increase darkvision by 60ft. You can also have the effects of invisibility when in darkness and viewed by a creature with darkvision.

Tactics

Darkvision is great, but invisibility in darkness against creatures with darkvision is quite situational. Decent enough when it lands, but relies on too many situations aligning.

Iron mind – Lv7

How it works

Proficiency in wisdom saving throws is strong as it’s one of the most common saving throw types. Just enjoy being a bit more resilient with this.

Stalker’s flurry – Lv11

How it works

Dreadful strikes now do 2d8 damage, and when you make them, you can either choose to make another weapon attack, or cause fear on enemies nearby.

Tactics

It’s important to see that the wording allows for these abilities to occur even when using ranged weapons as it’s proximity to the target that’s the defining factor.
Fear is a great option for a crowd of enemies as it can semi-nullify multiple enemies for a turn. Pure damage is great, though again, you are reliant on enemies being close together to make this work. Once you hit this level, I’d say it’s worth saving dreadful strikes for moments when you can hit clusters of enemies.

Shadowy dodge – Lv15

How it works

Use a reaction when an enemy attacks you to impose disadvantage on the attack and then teleport 30ft once the attack has been resolved.

Tactics

This works best against melee attacks as multi attacking enemies might lose out on landing subsequent attacks.
Theres no use limit other than you can only do it once per round (as it takes your reaction) so it is worth using as often as you can.

Building a gloom stalker

Gloom stalkers are best when they’re stealthing around and then landing deadly attacks. Below is some advice on how you can build your character around the gloom stalker’s strengths.

Ability scores

Recommended options

Dexterity: You’ll need this for ranged attacks, a decent AC and to have strong stealth skills. You can also opt for finesse weapons in melee if you want to avoid investing in strength altogether.
Wisdom: The effectiveness of your spells and some of your subclass features rely on this so needs to be highly invested in.
Constitution: You’ll need the resilience from this as a potential frontline warrior. It’ll also help you maintain concentration on certain spells. And you’re likely to be making a lot of concentration saving throws, especially if you’re jumping headlong into melee combat.
Strength: You can opt for a strength build if you want. I wouldn’t recommend it as the most optimal approach for a gloom stalker as you’ll have to sacrifice dexterity to make it work which limits your stealth and ranged capabilities in particular. But if you want some hard hitting two handed weapons, it is an option.

Options to avoid

Intelligence: Of little worth to a ranger.
Charisma: Unfortunately, you don’t have enough space to invest in charisma and face skills, so should leave this to others.

Ability score	Point Buy	Standard Array
Strength	8	12
Dexterity	15	15
Constitution	15	13
Intelligence	8	8
Wisdom	15	14
Charisma	8	10

Skills

Recommended options

Athletics: Acrobatics will often be better for a ranger with their bigger focus on dexterity, but isn’t an option as standard. Athletics is a decent option though.
Perception: Crucial skill for a scout and highly used.
Stealth: Practically a must have for a gloom stalker.
Insight: A good skill for social situations. You may pick up on things your companions don’t.
Investigation: Great option for an exploration class.

Options to avoid

Survival: It feels like if anyone should have this, it’s a ranger. The problem is it just comes up too rarely to be of much use.
Animal handling: Used far too little to be of much value.
Nature: Another rarely used skill.

Species/race

There are a few things to consider when choosing a species for a gloom stalker:

Resilience: Rangers can mix it as frontline and ranged martials, so the more resilience the better, especially as it can be hard to invest heavily in constitution.
Innate spellcasting: As a spellcaster, you can repeat cast spells and have the wisdom to back this up. Rangers tend to have a limited repertoire of spells, so enhancing this tends to be a good option.
Damage dealing: Gloom stalkers should be dealing damage most rounds so enhancing this can definitely help.
Utility class: Rangers are something of a utility class. Species that can aid this are usually a good option.

Recommended options

Aasimar (2024): Resistance to necrotic and radiant damage increases your hardiness. For celestial revelation, I’d lean on inner radiance for the extra damage. Necrotic shroud requires decent charisma which you’ll struggle for. However, temporary flight is always useful. Expect to use this for accessing hard to reach places and enemies or to launch projectiles from the safety of the skies. A bit of healing is a decent emergency option too.
Dragonborn (2024): You don’t get much in the way of AoE damage as a ranger, especially with the option of being a frontline martial. This makes a Dragonborn’s breath weapon a useful tool. You can use it in place of just one of your attacks too. Temporary flight again lets you get to hard to reach enemies. Plus there’s a resistance for better durability.
Dwarf (2024): An extra hit point per level is great for a frontline warrior. And for even more resilience, you have resistance against poison and advantage on saving throws against the poisoned condition.
Elf (2024): A skill for utility and some resilience to things like the charmed condition is useful. The main thing here though is the extra spells. A High Elf can get you another cantrip of your choice and the likes of misty step (great for exploration and safety). A Drow gets you darkness and faerie fire. But you may want to consider a Wood Elf for the extra stealth and speed.
Goliath (2024): Faster movement makes you even better at traversing the battlefield. Your giant ancestry grants some very useful options too. For a ranger, the durability of the stone giants, knocking enemies prone with hill giant and extra damage from fire giants are all great options.
Gnome (2024): A forest gnome will get you minor illusion (great for stealth and distractions) and speak with animals, useful if you need to speak with any animals. You can repeat cast speak with animals, but can also cast it as a ritual. Gnomish cunning is great for added resilience.
Human (2024): A great option if you want to lean more into the utility aspects of a ranger. An extra skill and a feat will help here, while a regular supply of heroic inspiration is always useful.

Options to avoid

Any race can work well for a gloom stalker so there are no bad options here.

Backgrounds

Backgrounds are much more important now with D&D 2024 as the ability score increases previously tied to your race/species are now linked to your background. You also get an origin feat linked to your background too.

Primarily, you want to focus on increasing key ability scores (mainly dexterity and wisdom, but constitution is decent too) with the associated origin feat being your next priority. As such, I’d suggest the below are your best backgrounds for a gloom stalker:

Name	Ability scores	Origin feat	Skill proficiencies	Tool proficiency
Criminal	Dexterity, constitution, intelligence	Alert	Sleight of hand, stealth	Thieves tools
Farmer	Strength, constitution, wisdom	Tough	Animal handling, nature	Carpenter’s tools
Guide	Dexterity, constitution, wisdom	Magic initiate (druid)	Stealth, survival	Cartographer’s tools
Sage	Constitution, intelligence, wisdom	Magic initiate (wizard)	Arcana, history	Calligrapher’s tools
Sailor	Strength, dexterity, wisdom	Tavern brawler	Acrobatics, perception	Navigator’s tools
Soldier	Strength, dexterity, constitution	Savage attacker	Athletics, intimidation	One kind of gaming set

Only the guide and sailor backgrounds offer the ideal combo of dexterity and wisdom increases. Unfortunately, sailors get the tavern brawler origin feat and rangers aren’t really built for unarmed combat, especially as things like dreadful strikes rely on weapon attacks. Thankfully, the guide background has magic initiate which is decent for a ranger.

Feats

At 1st level, you can grab an origin feat through your background and from level 4, you can pick up a general feat (or another origin feat if you want) instead of an ability score increase.

General feats are all half feats now as they give an ability score increase and the traits of a feat. But you’ll need to give up the +2 from a standard ability score increase to get them.

Below are some feats I’d recommend for a gloom stalker:

Origin feats

Alert – Going early in combat is always handy to get some damage in before your enemies do, and you can stack this with your already superior initiative rolls.
Lucky – More ways to be reliable at important rolls is universally beneficial.
Magic initiate – Grab some more spells, including a couple of cantrips. Things like minor illusion and guidance are good for a stealthy, utility class while something like thunderclap and thunderwave are great for melee combat. You should have the wisdom to back these kinds of spells up too.
Musician – A universally great feat for dishing out heroic inspiration. Great for altruistic rangers. Plus you can ensure you have some heroic inspiration available too.
Savage attacker – Decent enough damage dealing feat to make your attacks a little more powerful.
Skilled – You may find you need a lot of skill proficiencies as subterfuge tends to require a lot of skill proficiencies. You could grab acrobatics over athletics this way too. And maybe even grab sleight of hand so you can work as a backup rogue.
Tough – You’re a martial and may be required to take a bit of a beating, even if your preferred place is shooting a bow at the back. This will help here by giving you more HP.

General feats

Defensive duelist – Better AC at the expense of your reaction is a strong option if you’re wielding a finesse melee weapon. Less good if you expect to be shooting a bow a lot.
Fey-touched – Misty step is great for escaping danger as well as getting into it and even for exploration too; all things you’re likely to get involved in as a ranger. You get another spell too, just make sure you go for the wisdom increase.
Great weapon master – Excellent option for a strength build if you just want to deal more damage. You’ll get to land extra attacks occasionally with your bonus action too, though that can be hard to balance with your other bonus action demands.
Inspiring leader – Great for granting temporary hit points to the party. Go for the wisdom increase to make this work best.
Mage slayer – Best against mages, but having what is practically legendary resistance is also great.
Sentinel – Good for a melee ranger, especially if you’re fighting with an ally.
Shadow-touched – Invisibility is great for a stealthy class plus you get an extra spell. Make sure you increase your wisdom for this. You do get greater invisibility later on, but invisibility is best for stealth and greater invisibility for combat.
Sharpshooter – Great for a primarily ranged ranger.
Skill expert – Great for becoming more of a skill expert. Plus you can get proficiency (and even expertise) in a skill you don’t normally have access to, like sleight of hand.
War caster – You’re mainly there for improved concentration (important for maintaining hunter’s mark and some of your other spells), which is enough to be honest.

Weapons

The weapons you choose will depend largely on how you want to fight and what weapon mastery properties you want to be using:

Pure damage: Go for two-handed weapons like a greatsword, greataxe, glaive, halberd or maul. Just be aware you’ll need to go for a strength build of you want to do this which is challenging to balance the stealth aspects of this subclass too.
Sword and shield: If you want to go heavier on defense, you’ll need a one handed weapon like a longsword, battleaxe, morningstar or warhammer.
Two weapon fighting: If you want to fight with two weapons for the extra offhand attack, you’ll need to use light weapons. Handaxes, shortswords and scimitars are best for this. To make this work best, you’ll want to invest in things like two weapon fighting, dual wielder and/or the nick weapon mastery property. With so many demands on your bonus action, I’d suggest ignoring dual wielder and take nick so your bonus action is free. Take two weapon fighting to increase your damage output a bit.
Ranged: A longbow is likely your best option here. Crossbows need reloading which is no good once you get an extra attack (unless you take crossbow expert). If you’re strength based, you could go with thrown weapons like a trident or handaxes if you want to dual wield or take a shield.

If you want some help choosing a weapon mastery property, you can check out my weapon mastery guide to work out how best to utilise these properties.

Armor

If you’re a strength build, go for 14 dexterity and take medium armor. Half plate is tempting as it gives the best AC, but disadvantage on stealth checks is poor for a subclass so reliant on stealth. That means a breast plate is your best option for medium armor. Having said that, if you want to be stealthy, you should probably just go for a Dex build and take light armor (studded leather is best).

If you want some extra protection, a shield is a good option but it will diminish your damage output.