Why I think people struggle with the Ghoul (even post nerf)

UndeddJester

Hello all!

I'm back from my ban... and a lot has been going on since my departure eh? 😅

The Ghoul is a hot topic, and there is a lot of anger surrounding him, and I thought I'd throw my take in the ring....

Far as I see it, and what I can gleam from discussions that most people seem agree with, is ultimately his issue is his skill floor is too low for the amount of strength he has. People may remember me as a Skull Merchant apologist, and even when defending her, this was not a point I ever ignored and I always professed the ease of play meant she did need changes to address... and I feel Ghoul has the same problem...

I've seen a lot of killers say "m1 killer" and "refuse to learn counterplay", and often say he not as strong as Blight so what is the problem? This last statement is not wrong, but as I stated above... he is nowhere near hard enough to play for the strength that he brings, and if you want to keep the killer and his unique elements, you're gonna have to accept that Ghoul does not take a lot of skill to play and actually turn up to the conversation.

So where does his issue lie?

The Ghoul IS an M1 killer... but he is an m1 killer that can subvert all of the weaknesses of m1 killers.... Individually the different parts of his kit aren't necessarily a problem, but when you combine it all together it, it leads to a situation where the killer can be pretty poor in numerous elements of DBD... and yet still perform very well, demanding Survivors play MUCH better just to have a chance... thsi was the Skull Merchant problem, and you mustn't ignore it.

His strengths include: -

• Incredibly reliable first injuries.
• Extremely good map mobility for macro control, anti-distance.
• A mobility loop power that can be cancelled to reliably get hits at long tiles and to cut off chains to other tiles.
• A vault that is effective against windows and God pallets,especially when enraged against unmarked survivors.
• Very strong perk synergy, particularly m1 perks.

The Get Good Argument

People already know I'm not the strongest looper in DBD, however I am likely better than your average Joe. As I said prior, Kaneki removes almost all weaknesses every other m1 killer has...

If you are marked and mending vs. The Ghoul, you CAN loop him at strong tiles that link together effectively, I have done so myself a number of times... but the reason why this doesn't hold water overall is the Survivor loses in the vast majority of other scenarios.

IMO it's important to remember any of these things aren't necessarily OP on their own... but when combined a problem starts to form.

• The Ghoul can injure very quickly and effortlessly, easier than even the likes of Legion and Plague, making healing against them largely pointless and a waste of time. This massively enhances the strength of all the below interactions.
• A skillful Ghoul can flat out get ahead of you at any long tiles, such as the back of shack or any long isolated tile with a single weak pallet, with nowhere you can reach before his leaps get ahead and cancels to recover and m1 you, even eliminating the strength of Exhaustion perks with ease.
• Related to the above point, on numerous maps there are isolated tiles that The Ghouls can force the survivor to stay at, and ensure the survivor can't leave to reach another tile, even if the Ghoul breaks the pallet or gets stunned. A Ghoul can simply force them to move to the isolated side of the tile and then break when they see fit, and even with his new cooldown, a hit is still inevitable at a good number of tiles. Even if he overshoots his cutboff, he still forces the survivor back towards the newly created deadzone... so the Survivor loses anyway.
• The Ghoul when enraged can grab marked survivors over windows and even God pallets, slightlly stunning them in place, and making a number of normally very safe tiles more dangerous. This also means the Ghoul often doesn't have to mindgame and can brute force survivors to throw pallets knowing that they can either vault, or simply hold forward to m1 them down.
• A Ghoul who knows the so called "kidnap tech" when enraged can grab unmarked survivors over windows and even God pallets, significantly stunning them in place while cancelling his own recovery, and making a number of normally very safe tiles incredibly deadly. This tech specifically makes not healing vs. The Ghoul and even just removing your mark extremely dangerous and forces survivors to heal and only advance objectives when they are sure.
• The Ghoul has incredible map traversal and can easily make it back at any point they desire to control gens, interrupt heals, return to hooks, slugs or isolated gens on demand with basically no time risk, and requiring no real map knowledge or survivor movement prediction to exert strong macro control. In conjunction with the Kidnap tech, this can leave even healthy survivors unable to leave "safe" areas of the map. His power also negates a number of defensive perks the survivor can take to try and mitigate his ability to snowball.
• Related to the previous point, while beatable at strong chaining tiles, vast majority of maps do not have close chainable tiles in multiple areas of the map... and even the ones that do, there are normally a number of gens that are in semi deadzones that are almost completely off limits to pressure vs. the Ghoul unless healthy (again feeding into the time pressure of having to heal vs. a rapid injury killer).
• Lastly the Ghoul has exceptional perk synergy able to make use of any M1 perks, and deadly anti-loop perks like Bamboozle, Crowd Control, Dissolution, or Brutal Strength. Once again, remember that the Ghoul can injure survivors very quickly, which greatly amplifies the danger posed by these abilities. In all of these perks cases you are normally forced to try and bait the ability and mind game to leave the tile... but against the Ghoul you often can't leave the tile, and if you go too early, the Ghoul can just cut you off anyway... this makes successfully winning an exchange extremely hard.

In summary vs. The Ghoul playing at max potential, can only reliably be looped if the Survivor is in a supporting map location, are extremely competant with checkspots, preserving resources and chaining tiles, and the Ghoul sticks to chasing the marked survivor.

If played correctly the Ghoul has the advantage in every other scenario... he can't be beaten on strong tiles, can't be beaten on macro and often can't be beaten without near flawless looping on weak tiles (and even then he often has perks to offset the difference or can drop chase to pressure elsewhere with practically no time loss).

Conclusion / what needs changing?

At the very least, his Kidnap Tech needs to be removed. This one trick of using the vault to cancel his animation against an unmarked survivor who is locked in the full animation is just plain broken... a killer that knows about it is just plain unbeatable. You have 0 counterplay options and will just die at every tile that isn't a God tier chain... like Badham shack window into pallet level chain.

There is also an argument to remove the enraged vault as well, or heavily reduce its recovery. A skilled Kaneki can already always get a hit with good use of his cutoff when trying to use long tiles, or chain tiles on weaker maps. He is already forcing you stick to mostly to playing 50/50 mind games at smaller weaker tiles most of the time, and can make them unwinnable with perks.

That's how I see it... his sling shotting for hits and cancelling at the right time is no joke in the hands of a skilled player, and as BS as this ability is, if you at least remove his enraged vault and Kidnap Tech shenanigans, his unique element is maintained, still has a high skill ceiling, while drastically increasing his Skill floor.

Otherwise its good to be back!

Cheers folks!

PetTheDoggo

Kidnap tech should definetly not be a thing and I don't really see reason why his vault should ever be faster than Wesker's vault. I am fine if it can be used on god pallets, but the fact he can use it effectively even on short loops is just ridiculous.

You can kinda counter his vault, if he got there by using leap, because you can easily tell when he canceled his power and drop pallet on reaction before he can swing.

Issue is he can also easily use first leap, when you drop the pallet, if he ran to it…


I still think and it would make him way more enjoyable to play against, if he wasn't able to cancel his slide. I am not even sure, if it is intended or a bug…