Analyzing Why Ghoul is Hated
Ardetha deep dives on why Ghoul is the most hated killer in the game but also loved by his mains he also talks about if Ghoul has counterplay or not finally if he's destined for a Complete rework.
Comments
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It's a pretty good video that sheds light on a lot of bugs i was not aware of. BHVR needs these bugs as high priority.
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I hope BHVR is listening.
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We seem to be reaching original Skull Merchant territory when it comes to versing Ghoul in solo queue. The last two games I've played against them yesterday, a survivor has quit instantly on hearing the terror radius music.
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- I'm shocked by only one thing: yes, Kaneki is very strong and truly deserves his "S" tier, but he's still weaker than Blight and Nurse. Why does everyone (including Devs) focus on him and do nothing for the other two killers who are truly problematic? The only counter to Nurse is to pray to God she's not good with her power... it's not normal. I've gone up against "good" Kanekis, obviously he got his down, but I still managed to run a "decent" chase for 20-30 seconds. Against a good Nurse, there's literally nothing you can do. Yes, okay, feints, going to the edge of the map, taking unpredictable routes, hiding line of sight... but I assure you, even these tactics don't work against a good Nurse.
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Its because the effort required by the killer to be a good with nurse or a blight player is higher (I mostly see complaints about aura read nurse and I myself don't like blight speed ad ons ) Kankei tho the effort required to be a "good" player is very minimal meanwhile survivors are expected to give there all counterplaying him.
Nurse? Break LOS and use rocks as they can effect her blinks
Blight? Depending on where you are you can use random objects making him use more bumps and potentially avoiding hit with right pathing.
Kankei? well first hit is just free unless you are not seen at all, Then during chase I'm expected to play pallet chicken like I'm versing legion but if I loose the pallet game I go down vs getting injured with legion OR I can do this precise vault back as the ghoul decides to vault towards me (Counterplay taken from videos someone posted in another ghoul thread)8 -
In regards to video It was a good watch I agree with his end wrap up statement "fix the bugs so killer cant delete his own counterplay and remove auto aim to no longer encourage bad play and instead encourage skillful cut off"
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I would agree that Blight needs more effort (and certainly more than Ghoul), but Nurse, while not being as easy as Ghoul, really does not require a lot of effort to be played.
She has a steep learning curve, mainly also because many things you learned on other Killers dont apply to Nurse. But once you got the hang of her, it is not really hard to win most of your games, even if you are not great on her. Blight on the other hand needs more effort, even if he is more compareable to other Killers than Nurse.
And Ghoul is basically the easy mode for everyone who has problems with any other Killer.
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Yeah I agree with that for Blight its more effort and for nurse its more of a learning curve.
Both of which kanakei is missing to have the kit he does imo.
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Ghoul's just basically like legion but worse. Soon as chase starts you end up with a basically unavoidable deep wound, then they use their power to keep closing distance and forcing pressure in chase.
And you end up with a similar issue. A killer that's an absolute seal club for survivors who can't loop effectively. Ghoul just does more funky stuff so has more potential at higher mmr than the one trick legion.
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Yeah, exactly. I dont mind if Killers are easy to play, but the easy to play Killers should not be the strongest Killers at the same time.
Ghoul is probably Wraith-level of difficulty for me (which is basically Bing Bong Hit), but while Wraith is completely fine for the difficulty he has, Ghoul is miles above that.
The ideal Killers are Killers like Wesker or Billy IMO, those who dont have such a high skill floor, but have a high skill ceiling. Wesker is also mentioned in the video and IMO he is the gold standard, you can pick him up relatively quickly, but once you are at this stage, you can learn so much more to get really good with him. And as Survivor I can also appreciate it, if someone puts in lots of effort into Wesker.
But I dont see it much with Ghoul, most Ghoul-players I encounter clearly struggle with other Killers, but the bloated kit and low effort of Ghoul just helps them massively.
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Because he counters shift-w which is all most survivors can do. Same goes for blight.
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For the most part I like the video, but I think it’s a bit misleading.
My biggest issue is this so called “Armint” tech. I’ve played a lot of games both with and against Ghoul, and I have never once seen this done in an actual chase.
If you go to 8:07 in the video, the Ghoul he’s looping doesn’t even raise his tentacles. They barely move, and when he grabs over the pallet it looks almost faint or desynced. It clearly looks like a bug right?
But if you compare that to 13:58, where he supposedly demonstrates how the tech is performed. In that example, you can clearly see the animation cycle:
- Tentacles raise
- Tentacles lower
- Then they’re used again
The animation is visible and consistent throughout.
Those two clips don’t look remotely the same mechanically.
I even went into customs with a friend and tried to replicate what happens at 8:07, and we couldn’t reproduce it. The animation always shows correctly when done intentionally.
So what exactly is happening at 8:07?
If this “tech” can’t be consistently replicated in customs, and it doesn’t show proper animation behavior like it does later in the video, then using that clip as proof of a reliable strategy feels questionable.
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I don’t see Ghoul all that often anymore, but I don’t think I’ve ever escaped against one because at least one teammates has DC’d or gone AFK every single time I’ve faced Ghoul.
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I can agree with this. It happens quite often. Ghoul, Blight and sometimes pinhead of all killers will get DC's in my experience.
Best we can do is get a SWF and attempt to beat a Ghoul that way. As far as solo'q goes, getting a team to stay is the first line, and then those team members being somehwat decent being the other facotr. SWF takes care of both problems. Sad this is even a solution. Come on, BHVR.
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I see Ghoul all the time. The new Vecna though, seems to have dropped off the face of the earth. Almost as though all the Ghouls tried him for a week and have now returned to Kaneki.
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Off topic, but i dont understand this, Why not cleanse the Plague? not cleansing means you are permanently one hit ??
now imagine her playing with PWYF, she would catch up pretty quick, and if she uses perks where she have no terror radius on top of that..
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The only thing you can really do for Nurse at this point is a complete rework changing her ability into something else entirely but since shes a killer people very rarely see these days Devs don't have any priority on her.
Blight is a killer that requires more effort then nurse and ghoul but is still very strong that people realize he could use some simple changes.
Finally Ghoul is so hard focused on by everyone is because Ghoul is a very easy and simple killer to use and super strong and is very common to see in matches
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I think the reason is Survivors have adjusted to the First the counterplay is fairly understandable for the average player unlike the "counterplay" of the Ghoul.
While the First is strong he requires more effort, Aiming and knowledge on Survivor pathing and prediction. While Ghoul is straightforward simpler and easier while being stronger then the First.
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Exactly which is why I think ghoul needs to either be reworked to make him take more skill to play for his strength level or be toned down to fit his easy killer design.
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It's all very situational. You don't want all 4 injured for Thana or to do a risky hook rescue injured. But overcleansing, and doing it in the wrong part of the map, where there are still active gens or in the middle where she can get the red puke quickly and be back into live parts of the map make it very easy for her to get quick downs and/or snowball the game very quickly. If you have to cleanse which sometimes you do, best to do it in the corner of a map where there aren't any gens or the nearby gens have been completed. It has to be somewhere where she wastes a decent amount of time.
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Easy to play but vsing him means executing on very precise counterplay, makes every win he gets feel unearned, compared to Nurse and Blight who are both far more expressive of skill.
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Yeah I don’t agree with the never cleanse approach at all. Smart cleansing is necessary. 3/4 people broken against a proxying plague with multiple slowdowns is a great way for the game to snowball out of control if people are getting one shotted trying to make saves. Cleanse away from gens and/or edge map and stealth when she has power.
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I don't quite get the Ghoul hate; if I want to win, I'd look at the blight. Ghoul is easy to pick up and good into easy survivors, but there's a plateau you hit with him where Blight would take you farther more consistently. sure, he's "easy no skill" but how skillful somebody is is kinda irrelevant to me. id sooner face a round of AFK Pig than play vs the super skillful Blight.
the kidnap tech is gone so I don't really have the strong negative emotions I used to. but there's still an echo I guess. but people still hate SM and Pinhead so sometimes there's no reasoning with people
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If the devs just fix any bugs left on ghoul and just ignore the people crying about him soon, players will stop crying and accept the fact they have to learn counterplay and accept him. Just like the blight.
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people hated pinman? why?
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it was a mix of solo q concerns (you can't expect people to play the game...case in point 2v8 bystander effect) and solving the box used to be a little technical. if you didn't solve it at the correct times, you'd be afflicted by infinite chain hunt. his chain hunt chains came in waves of 3 so you had to wait for the interval before solving it
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This. Nurse and Blight are harder to master, but pay off with the time investment. There's a reason Ghoul is so popular, because he pays off immediately. High reward for no effort.
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I don't see hate for Pinhead specifically, just that succeeding against him takes team effort so in solo queue that can go either way. If the survivors work together (ie take turns going for the box, keeping chain hunts at bay) then the game goes smoothly. If only one person is making the effort, then the game is a slog that you just want to be over. So it's more apprehension, I think, with Pinhead, as you don't know what your team mates will do.
My most memorable solo queue Pinhead game was a couple years ago. I was the only one going for the box, I was the only one getting into chase, and so i died first. Of course I spectated. One team mate was in basement moving from locker to locker, one was crouched in a corner next to an exit gate even though multiple gens were still needed. The third actually hopped on a gen but then a chain hunt started, and she just kept trying to do the gen through it. The other two would just fight off the chains in their hiding places. The one next to the exit gate was right next to the box too but he didn't go for it, just stayed in his corner. It was the weirdest thing to watch. I'll never forget it. Pinhead obviously noticed the lack of other survivors so checked basement and found that survivor, which is when I stopped spectating lol
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it takes around 1 match against ghoul
and several matches against other killers to know why everyone hates ghoul.
its not rocket science
if you genuinely dont get why ghoul is so hated.
then you clearly havent played enough survivor matches to majority of the killer roaster and compared them to ghoul.
its not that hard guys.7 -
Results vs Difficulty do not match with Ghoul at all…
He has easiest injury in DBD, best vault in DBD, one of best mobility powers, mending for slowdownI personally hate his vault so much. When I play duo, we usually write in lobby Ghoul is go next.
I don't mind strong killers, Billy and The First are my favorite killers to play against, but I need to have respect for the effort killer put into the game. I just have none for Ghoul… Why should I try, when Ghoul doesn't need to try?
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Super strong and super easy, requires 0 skill to get -4 almost every game, unplayable against in soloQ, unplayable on some maps, doesn't have a counterplay, extra boring to play against and all of that for young anime boy, not for the REAL KILLER.
Post edited by sethrollins on-1 -
because when you cleanse she gets her red puke which injures you. Being broken is better than giving her power. Especially when your teammates know her counterplay stay broken and you cleanse give her a ranged attack and now your teammates gets destroyed.
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The devs said Ghoul is flat out middle of the road statistically which means that despite all the crying he is actually very balanced.
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Are we really surprised? The DBD community has built a reputation for turning frustration into balance campaigns.
Every time something disrupts established habits, the conversation shifts from “how do we adapt?” to “this needs to be changed.” Emotion drives momentum, and momentum gets framed as consensus.
That makes it incredibly difficult to separate legitimate design concerns from reactionary pressure.
It often feels less like discussion and more like strategic narrative-building, repeat something enough, amplify edge cases, ignore counterplay, and push until it looks like a widespread issue.
I genuinely don’t know how the devs deal with it. Filtering real balance problems from emotionally fueled noise has to be exhausting.
Balance shouldn’t be determined by who complains the loudest. It should be determined by data, reproducible mechanics, and whether something is truly unhealthy for the game, not whether it disrupts comfort.
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Be careful what you wish for, I thought the community was against balancing things purely based on stats that's how we get stuff like onryo nerfed.
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People are for/against it based on how it fits their narrative.
So hey Ghoul has normal kill rate, but so does Nurse…He is still obnoxious, so that at least warrant changes, it doesn't have to be strict nerf.
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Because corrupt because threatens to deal 2 health states more quickly than just plague herself could deal 1; It's more effect to save the time from cleansing and loop well instead.
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It boils down to being braindead easy while being top tier, its not that he doesnt have depth but that it isnt necessary to succeed.
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The biggest gripe I have with Ghoul is that his skill floor is very close to his skill ceiling. You can put the best Ghoul player next to a bad one, and the difference in how they execute his power is minimal. Meanwhile, when facing Nurse, Blight, Billy, or other strong Killers, you can clearly tell whether the player is skilled or not. Even a regular Blight player can be miles apart from a really good one. The same goes for Nurse, Billy, Wesker, houndmaster, and the list goes on (pretty much most of the cast).
When you combine that skill floor almost equals skill ceiling dynamic with how strong he is, that’s what makes him so annoying to play against. Sure, playing as him is super fun. You don’t have to think much, you can just vibe. But that’s exactly what makes him more frustrating for Survivors, because they know not much is required to pilot him well, yet the amount of thinking ahead required to play against him is quite substantial.
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