Ghost Face is Broken on a Fundamental Level

He's so buggy with the reveal that it isn't even funny.

In every match it's one of two things. I either can't reveal him no matter how much of my screen he takes up, or I can glance at him from 60 meters away and even if he's behind a wall half a second later, OR I LOOK AWAY COMPLETELY, the music plays out and he gets revealed. His reveal never just works NORMALLY.

There’s a cooldown on his stealth ability and you can break him out unlike the other stealth killers. You can always look and inevitably you will find some downsides to killers and try to compare them but Ghostface has got them too. Wraiths addons are insane as a stealth killer compared to Ghostfaces and the Pig has extreme slowdown potential and pressure while Ghostface has none.

Stalking as ghostface has too many drawbacks to be viable. There's no point in stalking an injured survivor when an injured one can loop you as well as a health one, without the risk of you losing your "one-shot down" on them. There's no point in playing stalkface against survivors with eyes when you'll just be playing a discount meyers who can be put on cooldown, plus if you hit a survivor you have stalk on, you've wasted your time. No-stalk ghostface is popular because a streamer (Truetalent?) figured out a perk build that synergizes with it, and a majority of Ghostface players found it more effective than spending time stalking.

Stalking is a mechanic that, in GF's place, takes too much investment for meager payoff that survivors can mitigate. The first part of his stalk grants him instant benefit and survivors cannot control it - thus, it works as a power, especially when used with good perks. I'll say it again, God forbid a killer use his power without gimping himself for survivors.

The point of Ghost's stalk playstyle is to conceal yourself behind cover more often so than stalking regularly, which should never be done unless add-ons are applied or you are marking someone in a quick moment. Stalking in plain sight as Ghost Face is a bad play in general for many things, as you are given more incentive to use the lean mechanic for its more powerful effect. Sometimes, I think the community forgets that leaning doubles the rate of stalk progression, which is faster than Michael's stalk rate, and that's in Ghost Face's base kit. People who call it useless for sure do not stalk properly or are inefficient at stealth plays, which is disappointing in the hands of a stealth killer.

Even at rank 1, you'd be surprised how unobservative people can be vs a Ghost Face. Usually when it comes to either marking a survivor and ambushing them for the instadown, or going for the silent m1, it's all about situation with this killer. Using only one half can lead to mixed results, but using BOTH strategies helps him the most, and I believe that's what most of the community is missing about him. To clarify your judgement on exposing being pointless:

- For one, just don't mark them from ridiculously far away. Be close enough and not come from a predictable location to catch them off guard.

- Marking and downing survivors can add much more pressure than wasting potential minutes in a regular chase only.

-Some cases, you can intimidate others by marking them, but not approaching them as you might be closer to another player than they are to you. This can cause distortion and panic in the marked survivor. (This is not as favorable, but a fun thing to do)

- like I said, leaning when stalking is crazy fast, and wastes far less time then what regular stalking (without add-ons) can last for.

With the inconsistencies of his reveal phase being true, "the reveal through walls" issue is nowhere as common as people say it is judging from my experience playing the killer. That is a poor assumption to call his power's other half that people seem to dislike "bad".

First of all, I'd say that relying on your enemy to make a mistake is an unreliable strategy. It's not a bad strategy, but it's one most killers in this game are forced into. I don't think you should base your power on a survivor not being observant, especially when there are marauding survivors out there that know what your killer does and can read mindgames.

Secondly, I think you miss the point of what a no-stalk ghostface is made for. Stalk Ghostface does what you do above, and quite well, but I need to stress that No-Stalkface is different because the strengths are different. Stalkface makes you jump thru all of the hoops you mention above, and take extra time in your rotating to gens making sure you can ensure a good stalk vs reasonable alert survivors. No-Stalkface barges in with a free first-hit, and that first hit...

A. makes that survivor functionally "stalked" (1-hit down) until they get healed with both Sloppy Butcher and Thanatophobia penalties + the time it takes for a teammate to get to them

B. Applies Thanatophobia to all survivors, rewarding you slightly for damaging a survivor. Furthermore, makes them likely to proc your Nurses' calling, which works super-well when you can remove your TR and surprise attack or re-injure healing survivors.

C. Lets you continue the chase just like if you have marked them, except they cannot alleviate your mark by looping you for 1 minute to expire the mark.

This is far less conditionally helpful, less map dependent, and less dependent on your enemies than a stalk build. It's more reliable, it exploits survivors' meta instincts, and doesn't rely on a dubiously reliable reveal mechanic. It relies less on the survivors making mistakes or misreading your plays, and more on concentrating your reliable stealth on a productive end. That's why people are ranking up with it - because it produces reliable results with less effort than the convoluted Stalkface, especially vs coordinated teams.

In short, I'd say an injured survivor is an exposed survivor, and a survivor spends more time injured than exposed. Why not exploit that, especially if you're stealthy in both occasions?

"Relying on your enemy to make a mistake is an unreliable strategy" we are talking about Ghost Face, a killer who's weakness is a survivor's map awareness, which if they lack that awareness against him, they are prone to mistakes if too late to correct them with last second preparation. Those mistakes even apply with with the anti-heal build, given they bother healing, eventually learning that you are using Nurse's Calling, if the build wasn't a dead giveaway already. There are a few perks, one in particular no one really looks at, that counter this build easily. I stopped using the build and went back to traditional methods of gameplay once they figured ways around the build's penalties towards them, resulting in relying on NC to be rather time wasting. Now, you can always go for those silent basic attacks, and those indeed can mean catching an injured survivor with their guard down. It can possibly take too much time against a healthy survivor, give or take their experience with the game. Quicker hooks through surprise exposed downs can add-on to what already makes the build strong when needed at the right time. I once saw a GF use the build, but noticed quickly how we were beginning to take the upper hand against him. He began throwing in some stalking, and that managed to turn the tide back in his favor, because he didn't want to waste any time looking for someone healing, while others that were healthy, were on gens. Either playstyle really works with him, and one is not higher than the other as they are both powerful, especially when used together . It just really depends on the choices of the player using him that can determine the game.

And that's why I think he isn't broken, more than he is an actually good design BHVR stumbled upon unintentionally. The versatility of his power, intended or not, allows killers to take a variety of builds into a game and be reasonably viable (note, not excessively viable....) versus well-coordinated rank 1's, and not be too hardly gimped for being played as intended.

Just wait for the chapter 14 patch

This is seriously not picking and expecting STEALTH killers to give you a minute advance to react defeats their whole objective..and I'll also remind you every stealth killer aside from myers is considered very weak for that very reason..eyes peeled..run spine chill if you must..but complaining about an m1 killer..people wont take it seriously

Spine Chill hurts him massively. Also, look at him. Boom, now he can't use his power for 30 seconds.

Personally I like Ghost Face the way he is. He definitely is powerful because of his good stealth, but not op in my opinion. Maybe having him emit some noise that you can hear when you are within a 6 meters range of him or something like that would be fine. But I feel like he is perfectly fine right now balancing wise.

Also Stealth and his stalking while he is in stealth is really all he has, unlike Pig or Myers, who have powers outside of being in stealth.

His detection does need fixing though. Sometimes you can look right at him and nothing happens, and sometimes you can reveal him behind a wall.

The funny thing about ghostface when you try to reveal his position the game is like nope.

When you don't want to reveal his position or you literally don't even know he's there suddenly the game is like oh you want to reveal him