http://dbd.game/killswitch
The Ghoul is the New Skull Merchant
The Ghoul has officially become the new “go next” experience, just like Skull Merchant was for the majority of her existence. Most survivors just don’t want to play against him. You load in, see it’s The Ghoul, and everyone’s instantly in “go next” mode. People DC, give up on hook, or just walk into the killer like, “get it over with.”
Just like Skull Merchant, it’s less about survival and more about surviving the boredom.
Also, please don’t get mad at me. I’m just sharing what I’ve seen. If you’re having fun with him, that’s cool. But from what I’ve experienced, he’s the new “gg go next" for the majority. 🤷♂️
Comments
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They're perfect for each other honestly. I'm somewhere between remove Ghoul completely and they can be salvaged, but need a top to bottom rework
1 -
I think it was a bad idea to add another free hit + mending killer to the game. Legion has been disliked since release because of that, and yet the devs added it again, and decided to crank up the free hits even more.
I don't know why the devs didn't just give him mobility that works for map traversal and anti-loop, and leave it at that. There was no need to add free hits and deep wound to the mix.
40 -
This is what we in the buisness call "cope". I've played as her and against her and its not much different from playing against blight, plus just don't present a target and they won't getthe fast vault. the only "broken" thing about them is that deep wound negates the survivors 37 endurance perks. They really are weaker than people say (not that they are weak by any means, just not as strong as people say) People just don't want to learn how to play against them, and it isn't a free hit just play around objects like you do blight/ranged killers. Ive had plenty of times Ive been forced to m1 because they're playing smart.
-27 -
I have noticed that when I see accounts here complaining about Kaneki, it is usually the same person. lol
Now, are you guys still pointing your hate at this much nerfed killer?
-44 -
I mean, we will get the "go next" prevention mechanics, what a great day we live in
7 -
I’m Solo Q, but I’ve been pretty lucky with my Ghoul games. I’ve had people give up but only if like 2 people are dead hook at 5 gens. I haven’t had anyone immediately DC at the start aside from maybe like 2 or 3 times on the day he came out (probably burnout from the sheer amount of ghouls playing at that time)
I think a lot of it depends on the build they run too, and also map/rng. If it’s a big open space then yeah it’s kind of GGs.
I’m waiting for his kill stats to release to form a more solid opinion. As of my own experience/evidence of some of the hits he gets he feels slightly overturned but not OP. But again, we don’t have the stats yet so who knows, he could be at a 61% kill rate and actually be fine but he just feels slighty overtuned. Time will tell.
4 -
So does that mean Ghoul will get 57 reworks, only for Survivors to still DC against him because they don't want to learn how the new, much weaker version of the power works, and then he will get so thoroughly gutted that he might as well not have a power at all explicitly because the balance team doesn't know how to fix it, in anticipation of yet another rework that may come out before or after the next mass extinction event?
Ghoul's strong, but he's not unsalvageable like OG Skull Merchant. if you removed Deep Wound from his kit and made Kagume Mark have a shorter expiration timer (so he can't constantly triple jump and benefit from Mark-related addons), he'd already be less oppressive. You could then see how he does statistically and keep adjusting numbers from there.
3 -
Venusa
Joined January 2021
Posts 1,498Feel free to review all my discussions and comments. I ain't new here, and definitely not "the same person".😅 This is the first discussion I made about The Ghoul.
I'm just sharing my observations about people's behavior against The Ghoul. No idea why you're taking it personally.🤭31 -
Interesting that you’re not interested in my observations, yet took the time to respond directly to them. I’ve been part of this forum long enough to know that respectful discussion used to be the norm — it’s a shame when that gets replaced by smug dismissal. If spreading toxicity is all you’re here for, maybe take a second to reflect on what kind of contribution that actually is.
Post edited by BoxGhost on12 -
Ghoul is not comparable to Skull Merchant. Skull Merchant was an issue upon her release and after because of her Chess Merchant playstyle which could stall games for ridiculous amounts of time. Half an hour to an hour or until the server timed out. That is why people hated her, and hated going against her, but if they Dced, they would get the penalty.
The Ghoul can't do that. No killer can ever since the gen regression limit being added. The Ghoul is comparable to Wesker in the fact that both are really strong killers, really fun killers and are seen almost every game long past the new chapter hype popularity. The simplest answer is that players are just sick of playing against him, much like Blight and post nerf Wesker.
I think this says a lot more about lack of killer variety in the game which leads to fatigue. People want to play other killers, they really do, but most aren't worth playing because they're so weak. It's more frustrating trying to make a weaker killer work.
I'm not saying every killer should be as strong of Ghoul or Blight. There's just not much incentive to play other killers.
6 -
see ill never understand this mentality. whenever i play as survivor there are killers i'd prefer not to go up against but play through regardless. Its so silly and childish making up excuses as to why you lost again the killer: "killer is OP, his addons are broken, his perks are unbalanced".
Think survivors need to start looking inward and think: "maybe its me? maybe it was the mistake I made? Maybe he was just the better player."
But no, its usually: "its everyone else's fault but mine."
-11 -
If I'm honest, I think I would rather play against the original DC Merchant over The Ghoul. They are probably my least favourite Killer that isn't Ghost Face. Any Killer with an oppressive chase power and full load out of aura perks and add-ons is not a recipe for a fun time (especially when you can barely loop a basic M1 Killer).
That said, his popularity has already fallen off quite a bit and I've not seen more than a couple in the last week or so. Or his performance is such that he's already way above whatever my rock bottom MMR ranking must be and I just don't see Ghouls anymore. Either way, I kinda hope it stays that way for me.
0 -
He's like Wesker except a lot more boring to play against and unlike Wesker's prime all of the chase perks are hard nerfed so I'm not shocked people dislike playing against him.
6 -
Ghoul and SM can't be compared.
1.0 SM was hated cause she could easily hold a 3 gen setup for unacceptably long times and the so called free hits from her which I thought was crap.
Legion has to run up to you could juke or pallet stun him so there's counter play there. SM there's the very obvious drones scanning the area tagged 3 times get injured. Can easily avoid the drones by not moving for a moment or crouching or avoiding the beams. She's was easy to deal with and I've seen a lot of players just being careless running into them and complain about it when there plenty of counter play.
And there's Ghoul all he needs is line of sight with very little counter play that's available other than breaking line of sight. Haven't found a means of properly dealing with him so can't say much.
0 -
I hate his free hit so much. His range is insane and easy to trigger. Its like 3x times worse than Legion + he has very strong chase power. What does not help he is overplayed which makes this even worse.
20 -
I get more easy quits off Pinhead.
-4 -
Blight is another broken killer who is equal in strength to Kaneki. They both have the same issues, too many chances to get effortless injures/downs (mostly just blight since his power actually downs) and having way too short cooldowns.
Kaneki I would say has more counterplay, as you can double back on catch up leaps or put a long prop between you and the killer to force more leaps and in turn, longer cooldown for some more chase time. He really is just a stronger legion
-3 -
He isn’t as strong as some people think. I believe that nerfing the vaulting speed is the only adjustment he needs. I’ve played a lot as this killer, and I’ve done quite well when facing him because of my experience while playing as him. I’ve even made a few players disconnect.
Edit- I don't see anyone giving up more against this killer than any of the other ones tbh.
-3 -
Yeah unfortunately people just refuse to learn the counterplay.
-12 -
He is pretty annoying indeed.
For me it is his first injure hit which it feels you can´t avoid.
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To be clear, I’m not comparing the Ghoul to the Skull Merchant in terms of gameplay or power — that’s not the point I was making. What I’m comparing is how the majority of players react to the two killers, like the "it’s not fun to go against" or "I want to go next" type of experience. The way people react to them is the comparison, not their abilities or strength in the game.
6 -
Hes super annoying and while I dont do it, I really understand survivors instantly giving up against him, its 100% the same feeling as old SM.
15 -
I don't think Ghoul needs a rework at all, his power is fun and straightforward. All he needs are some more nerfs to the most frustrating aspects of playing against him. His strength comes from that he's pretty good at everything while being extremely easy to use. Incredible mobility, super free injure, free slowdown in mending, counters prerunning and can catch up almost instantly between tiles, decent looping with power cancel and enraged vaults.
But there are loads of ways to nerf him further if he keeps being a problem without wasting resources by reworking a perfectly functional and fun power. They could reduce the grab attack range, reduce enraged vault speed, add more cooldown after cancelling power until you can attack, even remove Deep Wounds completely and make the mark a separate thing entirely from it, taking like 3 seconds to remove instead of the 10s to mend. Just removing Deep Wounds would instantly make the character far more bearable to go against since he'd no longer counter important perks like OTR or DH.
9 -
I said this in another thread but I feel he is so badly designed that if you nerf him, no one will play him, and keep him as he is currently or strong everyone will hate playing against him. I also feel like it's the weakest collab we've ever recieved hype wise.
kind of telling that's why he opinions are so clashing when it comes to him.
I personally don't like playing against him, but I don't go out of my way to quit.7 -
A more apt comparison would be Blight or Wesker.
Extremely strong, true, but more importantly, they were EVERYWHERE for the first six months and remained hugely popular after.
5 -
This game is my favorite competitive game of all time. I have over 4000 hours in it. I have multiple p100 killers and I am working on getting my first p100 survivor, and I have all achievements and completed all the tomes. I enjoyed the game through old Circle of Healing, Made For This, and Overbrine Eruption. I like playing against most of the cast, and the ones I don't like playing against I don't hate.
I hate playing against Kaneki. I hate playing against him a lot. One match against him tends to put me in an absolutely foul mood that lingers even if I immediately get off the game and do something else.
It's not the fact he's anime, in fact I bought several volumes of his manga to learn about him before he came out. It's not his free hits. It's the fact he has basically old Chucky scamper on top of the ability to dash ahead or on top of you and cancel power and down you because he moves almost exactly at survivor speed during it.
You have to be next to something you can loop him at at all times or you die. And a lot of Kaneki players realize that they're in a win/win situation on maps which don't have great pallet density, so they don't need to mindgame at loops. If they just walk through the pallet, they win. Either you drop it, they break it, then they catch up to you and kill you after creating a deadzone. Or you greed it and they down you.
You feel like you're in a constant lose/lose situation against this killer, and he is stupidly easy to pick up and play unlike other S-tiers. Other S-tiers also don't have a bunch of people saying they're not S-tier or trying to downplay their strength.
And it's even more psychologically needling if she's using the Rize skin, because she's giggling smugly at you while you're in a situation knowing you cannot possibly stall her for more than a couple of seconds unless you have a ridiculously survivor-sided map.
16 -
I'm not sure what exactly you're supposed to do against him, but I imagine it's similar to Nurse, in "get out of his LoS, always have an obstacle between him and you, except you can predrop and stun him, unlike Nurse.
8 -
What counterplay?
The only counterplay I've found against this killer is busted maps where you can quickly chain multiple tiles together, and hope your allies are efficient on generators.
17 -
Please enlighten us on the counterplay. In a ton of situations i cant see it at all.
14 -
The comparison to Skull Merchant isn't in terms of their kits or relative strength, but how many survs view facing them.
Because Ghoul is both popular and very strong, it adds to the feeling of it's Ghoul again we have no chance I'm out. It's not about counterplay, it's about not even trying against them in most cases. Just like Skull Merchant for so long.
0 -
that sucks cause I wanted to play ghoul. He seemed so interesting to play cause his leap seems so much fun. The devs should do a bit more play testing themselves before releasing a killer. His power could be great if you just make it take longer for the tokens to refresh or something that I can’t think of.
2 -
I played at the start of BM event when he came out. Realized how stupid broken he was, took like 3 weeks off and came back to see how he was after his lil 'nerf' patch. Realized the nerfs did almost nothing consequential to him, dropped the game again.
Most people with a brain saw he was a problem within the first few hours when he released. Disingenous and biased players defended him.
Hopefully BHVR does something soon. Going to be difficult changing people's perception of a killer after leaving it in such an unfair & unfun state. Especially if he isn't reworked or hit with heavier nerfs.
6 -
This.
10 -
You seem to believe there's no counterplay but here you go if it decides to embed.
https://x.com/i/status/1914709319184212314
Several situations where you can just wait out the power and have time to vault.-10 -
reply above. Also having good teammates is good counterplay to you? Please.
-7 -
None of this addresses my issue with Ghoul.
My issue is that if you ever don't have something to loop next to you, you die, because their cancel cooldown and movement speed is way too short.
8 -
The only issue I have with Ghoul is how seemingly generous the first hit is.
I don't have an issue with the actual concept of him getting the first hit super quick but a lot of the time it feels like he uses his first token then he's immediately grabbing you and locking you in place and some of the angles I've been hit from make no sense at all. I've legitimately got screenshots of me being completely around a corner and still getting grabbed and injured from it.
Is this an actual skill issue or is it just THAT generous?
6 -
To be fair, now that the ghoul loses two of his tokens when breaking a pallet, the likelihood of being next to a pallet or window after Ghoul uses his leap is noticeably higher, so indirectly this issue has been addressed. Question is just if it's enough, but at the moment I feel like it is.
And if not, BHVR can still nerf the cooldown after canceling kagune leap a bit.
0 -
If you don't have anything to loop you played badly. Hands down.
-12 -
I once spawned in to Borgo, and he jumped across the map and hit me with Lethal Pursuer.
The match had just started, there should be plenty of pallets for me to run to. So I ran forward to look for one.
I literally couldn't reach one before he was on top of me again.
This was just bad map spawn RNG, a bunch of pallets did not spawn, but it isn't a skill issue that I couldn't materialize a pallet in front of me in the time it took him to finish his enrage animation and use his power again.
The fact is there are a few maps in the game where the tiles are spaced far apart enough that you may literally not be able to make it to anything. Haddonfield is another example of this, once a pallet or two in the street are used up then good luck making it to anything if he catches you out there.
12 -
I find it EXTREMELY hard to believe there wasn't some sort of pallet or window within EIGHT seconds of running to make it too.
-10 -
Honestly you and me both.
"Okay- there should be a pallet here- no. Okay, there should be a pallet her- no… okay, it's that weird loop with the pallet in the center and the window, I'll take- what do you mean the pallet isn't there??"
7 -
Just to throw my 2 cents in:
I've been playing since Oni. Rarely do I ever take breaks from DBD. I even stuck around during Skull Merchant's reign of terror.
Personally, Ghoul feels so awful to play against that I had to stop playing survivor completely.
As killer, many times people were thanking me in endgame chat for playing something other than Ghoul. I've never seen that before for any other killer's release (not even when Wesker became so common). Make of that what you will.
5 -
The same issues are there when it comes to Blight or Slinger in Lerys, or Huntress/Dredge with maps with low locker count. A good or bad map can make or break a killer, and it can make or break counters to killers too.
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IIncreasing The cancel cooldown wouldnt actually help in the situations People find annoying. Getting 0.5 seconds extra time in a deadzone does nothing. Getting 0.5 seconds extra in a loop is an insane gutting of kanekis skill expression which is body blocking mid loop. This is the last thing they should touch
-7 -
Fair point, but I feel like there are instances where survivors can just barely not get to a pallet or window because the cooldown is fairly short.
However, I would probably just nerf the movement speed during the cooldown instead of increasing the cooldown duration. That should then also not really affect bodyblocking at loops too much.
3 -
I've recently become a Houndmaster main and i've had people either DC immediately or give up on hearing my dog. ( I don't think houndmaster is a problem personally, I lose all the time, but I have had some people say she's boring to go against and negates mechanics in the game when I asked why they people seem to DC in the endgame chat.) This seems to be the trend when it comes to whether or not people wanna play against a killer is how often they can just ignore mechanics to the game or invalidate them to a extreme. With Ken, I can imagine no one wants to play against him from what i've seen from how annoying he looks to go against from what i watched on this forums from clips alone. It's basically what happens if Legion and nurse had a baby and got rid of the downside of the nurses having to hit their inhaler whenever they finish blinking. Only he has a bugged grab that can hit around corners, through some walls, etc. I've not played enough survivor to have seen more than maybe 1 skull merchant, but I've seen videos of people complaining about her.
Makes me wish I investigated what made her so hated.0 -
I didnt say that I believe there is no counterplay. I said that i straight up see no counterplay in many situations. Im very much capable of admitting when im wrong but until now, every person here just said, that people refuse to learn counterplay while none of them provide how the supposed counterplay looks like.
One person even told me that they play this killer and dont know what the counterplay is, hoping that nobody will find something so that they can continue stomping. I kid you not.
I checked your link. Sadly it leads me to a post that has been removed. Im certain though, that you could also describe the counterplay we are all missing.
6 -
It seems like many other people have made some good points, but at the end of the day I think the frustration boils down to a lack of ability to really make any meaningful plays in both the micro and macro game. Skull merchant did this through just dropping a drone at a loop and holding a 3 gen. Kaneki does this through his insane mobility both inside and outside of chase that is extremely easy to maintain access to at nearly all times. Less so with recent nerfs, but still. It's frustrating to have a good tile, make a good mindgame, and then die anyways because he right clicks next to you with his power. It's frustrating to use your resources wisely, only to have that pallet not by you absolutely any distance because he can just right click on you after you've thrown it and you won't make it back around even a single time, you can't even play for the 50/50. It's frustrating when your team is efficient with which generators they do, but it doesn't matter because the killer can cross the literal entire map in a matter of seconds. And don't get me wrong there's killers that can do aspects of what Kaneki can do, but I don't think there's a great example of a killere that can combine all of those different aspects and do them at the same time. Even the strongest killers in the game typically have one or the other, not both.
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I copied and pasted the link just fine. It just boils down to knowing how long the ghoul CD is. If there's a pallet down in front of you can the ghoul already used one leap, wait for the cancel and then vault because the cooldown is so long you can make it. Also whats stopping you from figuring out counterplay yourself? Or are you one of the people who scream no counterplay and refuse to play against said killer without trying.
So I found out the most likely problem with the link. You need to be logged in to see it.-3
