http://dbd.game/killswitch
Suggestion for Ghoul changes (Updated August 2025)
As an avid Ghoul enjoyer I honestly think that they can reach a point of healthiness in terms with the proper changes without affecting their overall strength all that much (even if it may be a lot stronger than the average killer).
Keeping that in mind, the following changes are meant to alleviate problematic and frustrating points for Ghoul players and survivors facing them. Oh and also give more add-on variety because this killer is in dire need of it.
Buffs:
- Reverted Kagune Leap's maximum range back to 16 meters. (from 14 meters)
- Decreased minimum distance to initiate a Leap next to an obstacle to 2 meters. (from 5 meters)
- Decreased minimum distance to initiate a Leap next to survivors to 0.5 meters. (from 2 meters)
- Increased default Kagune Leap movement speed by +2 m/s, increasing both of its values to 12 m/s and 16 m/s, making current Fresh Coffee basekit. (was 10 m/s and 14 m/s respectively)
- Increased the 3rd leap's default movement speed by +4.2 m/s. Accounting for the previous change, this would make Ghoul move at speeds of 16.2 m/s and 20.2 m/s on their 3rd leap, making current Fresh Coffee + Kaneki's Satchel basekit. (from 12 m/s and 16 m/s respectively)
Many pointed out that the range nerf was the only undesirable part of The Ghoul's changes in 8.6.2. Alongside this, the minimum distance being so close to the maximum range in terms of numbers is odd and can lead to awkward situations for Ghoul players when lining up their Leaps. Plus, the Fresh Coffee add-on's current effect is required most often than not to outplay tiles with the Ghoul's power against skilled survivors, while still requiring precise input from the Ghoul player's part. Adding it basekit would elevate Ghoul's skill floor and ceiling at the same time without requiring an add-on to begin with. Same thing goes for the Kaneki's Satchel add-on which incentivizes Ghoul players to use their 3rd leap more often than not to cut survivors off inside of a tile with high precision on the killer's end.
- Removed the miss penalty for trying to use Kagune Leap on an invalid target. (was 1 second)
The miss penalty makes using Kagune Leap much clunkier than it should be, and it feels like the only reason that the Adjusting period (AKA the windows of opportunity to perform consecutive leaps) is so long, so the best way to remedy this is by removing it to compensate for the Adjusting period's duration being reduced (can be found in the 'nerfs' section).
- Decreased the cooldown when latching onto any survivor with the First Leap or on survivors holding an active Kagune Mark with any of the Kagune Leaps to 2.25 seconds. (from 2.5 seconds)
- Increased movement speed for said cooldown to 1.15 m/s. (from 0.92 m/s)
- Survivors are pushed slightly forward when one of the aforementioned conditions is met, preventing survivors from denying value out of Kagune Swipes / Prompt-Stealing by means of standing at the very center of a pallet/window. (Added Effect)
These changes would make latching onto survivors without the intention to grab-attack them feel less "out of place" for Ghoul players, and it would be a well-deserved buff to the "prompt-stealing" playstyle as the hinder effect that Ghoul's power gives to survivors whenever a 'Kagune Swipe' happens has a special effect that blocks survivors from performing any action like vaulting/dropping pallets, although only for a duration of 0.5 seconds. So, my reasoning behind making survivors move slightly forward while a Kagune Swipe is being performed on them is to force them out of a safe position and prevent them from camping a vault location without Prompt-Stealing being overwhelmingly in Ghoul's favor as it would still require precise timing and positioning.
Nerfs:
- The Ghoul can no longer vault while using Kagune Leap.
As complaints for The Ghoul's Leap Vault grew more and more, the best-looking decision was to remove it entirely as it currently bottlenecks his balance and lowers his skill floor. Especially knowing that by removing vaults from his power, 'kidnap-tech' is also removed, one of the unhealthiest interactions in the entire game. Additionally 1st leap vaults are very unhealthy by themselves and lead to awkward situations which are won by Ghoul most of the time. Not only that but also, 2nd/3rd leap vaults are useless against people who know how to counter them (if you don't account for kidnap-tech of course), turning them into another layer of unnecessary knowledge checks which makes Ghoul more 'noob-stompy' than he should be. Bamboozle and the current version of Red-Headed Centipede also accentuate the issues with his vaults, leading to extremely unhealthy gameplay. And on a tangent, vacuuming windows or pallets while trying to go for cool stuff as this killer can be super frustrating.
- Decreased the window of opportunity to perform consecutive Kagune Leaps to 3 seconds. (from 5 seconds)
- Decreased the reticle's stickiness time effect on survivors to 0.08 seconds (was 0.18 seconds)
- Decreased Grab-Attack range to 1.5 meters. (from 3.5 meters)
- Seperated Kagune Leap's range to be considered lethal (aka being able to grab-attack) from its normal effective range, this new range would be set to 6 meters. This change would reduce a lethal Kagune Leap's range by -8 meters. (from 14 meters)
The overall reduction to The Ghoul's aim assist around his release was a welcomed change from both sides, but some of its 'has yet to be addressed frustrations'—accidentally latching onto survivors when intending to do it on a surface or survivors getting grab-attacked through walls—are still noticeably present in most matches. Reducing a grab-attack's range would also minimize frustration on the survivor side and weakening the window of opportunity to perform consecutive Leaps (aka the adjusting period) would be completely fair as its current amount is too long.
- Kagune Leap deactivates for 5 seconds after breaking a pallet instead of losing tokens.
This is basically meant to alleviate one small issue with the current token removal system for Ghoul that is caused by using the Broken Chain add-on, which makes it so The Ghoul can gain a Kagune Leap token back in 2.6 seconds instead of 4 seconds while out of Enraged Mode, weakening the pallet-break penalty in this scenario.
The Ghoul's Add-Ons:
Taiyaki (Common) (Rework)
- Decreases maximum Kagune Leap range by 25%.
- Increases Slide duration by 50%.
Anteiku Apron (Common) (Buff)
- Increases maximum Kagune Leap range by 25%. (Added Effect)
- Decreases Slide duration by 50%.
Kaneki's Wallet (Common) (Nerf)
- Extends the window of opportunity to perform consecutive Kagune Leaps by 2 seconds. (was 3 seconds)
Hinami's Umbrella (Uncommon) (Buff)
- Increased bonus amount to 20 seconds. (was 10 seconds)
Kaneki's Satchel (Uncommon) (Rework)
- Grants the ability to slide at the end of the 3rd leap.
- The 'Cancel Kagune Leap' prompt becomes visible while both performing the 3rd leap and sliding at the end of it.
Aogiri Tree Robe (Rare) (Rework)
- After exiting Enraged Mode, gain the Undetectable status effect for 20 seconds.
Amon's Necktie (Rare) (Rework)
- Survivors located within a 10 meter range of a dropped pallet are revealed by Killer Instinct while aiming mid-leap.
Red Spider Lily (Rare) (Rework)
- Performing a basic attack on a survivor while in Enraged Mode grants that survivor the Broken status effect for 18 seconds.
Torture Apparatus (Very Rare) (Rework)
- Changed condition to gain the Haste effect to after performing a grab-attack, instead of Enraged Mode ending.
- Increases leap cooldown by 10%. (basically the opposite effect of old Hinami's Umbrella)
Red-Headed Centipede (Very Rare) (Rework)
- Increases strafe magnitude ratio while leaping by 200%. (from x0.15 to x0.45)
- Decreases Kagune Leap movement speed by -4 m/s.
This add-on would make leaping around as Ghoul more flexible at the cost of a lower overall movement speed, flexible like a centipede. (sorry)
Fresh Coffee (Very Rare) (Rework)
- For each completed generator, Kagune Leap becomes 4% faster, up to 20%.
- The Ghoul's aura is revealed in white for 5 seconds to all survivors when the first generator is completed. 5 seconds are added to the aura reveal's duration for each generator completed afterwards, up to an additional 20 seconds. The Blindness status effect cannot block this aura reading.
CCG ID Card (Very Rare) (Rework)
- Survivor holding a Kagune Mark scream and their auras are revealed for 7 seconds to the Ghoul after going outside a 16 meter radius around him.
- These effects have a 20 second cooldown.
Iridescent Eye Patch (Visceral) (Rework)
- Reduces movement speed to 4.4 m/s.
- Decreases the 3rd leap's cooldown by 25%. (Similar effect to the old version of Hinami's Umbrella)
Yamori's Mask (Visceral) (Rework)
-Decreases Enraged Mode duration by 50% of its current amount.
-After hooking a survivor, the following effects are granted to The Ghoul for 20 seconds after going outside a 48 meter range from the hooked survivor:
- Increases terror radius to 48 meters.
- Increases maximum Kagune Leap range to 20 meters.
- Increases maximum Kagune Leap movement speed by +4 m/s.
- Decreases recharge time for Kagune Leap tokens by 30%.
- 3 seconds are added back to the timer every time The Ghoul performs a grab-attack, but this bonus will never let the unique timer go above its initial amount.
-These effects automatically end once The Ghoul downs another survivor.
Comments
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I recently updated this post I made months ago, some of these changes are heavily inspired by Bnork since we share the same approach for Ghoul.
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Added even more stuff!
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"The Ghoul can no longer perform a Leap Vault with their first Kagune Leap token." This would basically kill him. If you couldn't use the vault on the first Leap, the survivor would just wait for you to cancel the power, and you'd never be able to use the vault.
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Can we add a feature where the survivors can mori his annoying screeching self, if he somehow loses.
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Skill issue, get hits without using the vault
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Geting hits at a loop without using the vault is almost impossible if the survivor has any brain. His power isn't like Blight that you can hit at any time during the dash. Also his leaps is very imprecise and difficult to control where you want to be exactly.
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Blight cannot attack during the first dash.
But also, because Ghoul has no slowdown upon canceling power it's incredibly easy to catch someone after vaulting before they can even make it back around to that vault. He makes God pallets worthless.
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He can't attack on the first dash, the Ghoul can't attack on any, which makes it extremely easy to deal with them in a loop. And god pallet is something that shouldn't exist in this game
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Alright I'm curious
Why shouldn't survivors have strong pallets that are limited in quantity? Are pallets not the main thing survivors have to waste time?
If you want to argue that god windows shouldn't exist, I would be more inclined to agree with you but god pallets while strong, once they are gone- they are gone.
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I wonder how I got this far being a Pig main.
You do know that m1 mindgames do exist? The original core aspect of dbd? Sure, they don't work on all tiles if the survivor is aware, but LT's, pallet gyms and a lot of other tiles are perfectly playable as a normal m1 killer.
The amount of ghouls that never mindgame and just brute force with their power still amazes me. They are often one single mindgame away from getting a down but they simple refuse to do it.
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One thing to note is that I purposefully want first leap vaults removed while knowing that good survivors can prevent you from vaulting with your 2nd/3rd leap by bodyblocking and/or vaulting continuously similar to what they would do against a Wraith while he's cloaked. As of right now there's little you can to counter Ghoul's vault with their 1st leap, their cancel duration when they cancel their initial wind-up animation (1 second) is much shorter compared to cancelling afterwards while in power (2 seconds), so by the presence of 1st leap vaults Ghoul will always win a pallet stand-off as they can wind-up their power and then cancel immediately to fool the survivor into thinking that they're gonna M1 directly, forcing the survivor to drop the pallet and then getting a guaranteed use out of your power vault. Something which Ghoul cannot do with their 2nd/3rd leap. Every other buff in this update is meant to compensate for Ghoul's vault lethality, grab-attack, and some of his strongest add-ons' strength being diminished.
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If anything this opens up for the argument of making Ghoul unable to vault in power completely since countering 2nd/3rd leap vaults is a knowledge check, which not a lot of survivors can pass. Of course, you'd need to give big compensation buffs to Ghoul if you decided to do that.
Post edited by beerey on1 -
Yes, I know. But a killer having to rely on mindgames to get a down is very inefficient.Most loops you can avoid mindgames by using the correct checkspots. And also, getting a down with the m1 takes much longer and the DBD in 2025 is not very favorable for killer. Time is not on your side, and survivors have many advantages over you. You can't afford to waste any time.
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I said that I think god pallets should not exist. God pallets is those type of pallets that the killer is forced to break no matter what if they want to move on. The Game is a perfect example of those pallets.
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They are a finite resource however, if people would stop respecting them, they'd get rid of them faster.
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Most m1s have something to balance that out. Pig for example has the strongest build in slowdown in dbd. This gives her the time to m1. Ghoul has one of the best mobility powers in dbd. This safes them a LOT of time as well.
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But having a built in slowdown will change nothing if the killer doesn't have a effective way to down the survivor... It's like Sadako, she can put some pressure with her condemn, but when you condemn someone, what you supposed to do after? By the time you got someone downed, the game is almost over.
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Sadako? Agressive hit and run. You tke the chase when you want it. Piggy? I agree, that the first doown can be the most difficult one. Try stealthing to get the first hit and do your best too get the second. After getting the firrst trap out, it gets a lot easier.
M1-mindgames can be a very effective way to down a survivor. A Wesker that misses his power 4 times wastes more time than a Pig that loses one mindgame.
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Alright, after hearing about the most recent revelations about Ghoul yesterday, I decided to update this change list to include the removal of power vaults alongside other add-on changes which are related to this mechanic. All my reasoning behind these changes are laid out in the forum post.
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Ok after my billionth edit on these suggestions, I think this is THE definitive version of my change list.
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