Ghoul thoughts and discussion
Posted: Sat May 25, 2013 7:52 pm
When I started up this run a bit ago, I was of the opinion that Ghouls were a really strong niche race.
When I ended it, I was of the opinion that they are basically only good for a challenge, and are probably overall worse than Yeek. The reasons are quite subtle, to a degree.
Let's look at the downsides, first.
A: 80% Global Speed.
This is easy to think of as a loss of damage, or versatility. This isn't really that accurate.
What it mostly means is that enemies randomly get two actions, in practice. Well, not randomly, predictably, but it's hard to predict precisely-a temporary slow or enemies having small bits of global speed can throw off your guesses.
This means that, in practice, you need to be durable enough to take two hits from any given enemy-or crowd, potentially.
This means that you are, in a sense, half your normal durability. Any attacks that two-shot you normally can double up and one-shot you. Any attacks that take four hits still mean you have to have half your life left, or you die.
The impact is variable based on how competent your enemies are-enemies that can level multiple 2HKO shots of damage against you will kill you, and those generally are competent enemies. Whereas, generally speaking, your average snake won't be notable still-if anything, your inherent advantages, as a Ghoul, will mostly counteract a normal snake.
Of course, you can also counteract this with class choices-but this limits you to a subset of classes and builds, and constantly build skills to mitigate something that isn't a problem for other people, which creates a subtle drain on your class points(usually, there's few speed boosting Generics). Otherwise, you have to constantly put up with this problem.
B: Status issues. Largely stemming from the lack of infusions, and no way to counter them.
Generally speaking, lacking infusions isn't so bad. Shielding can sort of replace Healing, and you have...arguably better escapes. Wilds are the main issue.
These status issues are worse than they look. Let's look at the base. You resist a lot of status that generally aren't major(though they don't hurt; Resisting Cripple is nice.), disease(which is nice, but not huge, again), and Stun.
Now, that Stun resist is great. You won't hear me saying anything against that. But it doesn't stop you from getting stunned until mid-game or so, when you can reliably get enough stun gear to cover it. If you're lucky, you can cover Stun pretty early. However, if you aren't, this means that you're breaking even, for the most part, early on, against Stun.
That is, for every Stun you resist, the Stun you don't will be that much more dangerous, because you can do nothing to remove it. Generally speaking, lowering the odds of a danger in a Roguelike, in exchange for making that danger more dangerous, is a trade down-you only have one life/a few lives, but enemies have many, and have many chances to make that tradeoff work against you. So, until you can stack up more Stun resist and make those odds poorer or non-existant, this is still a net loss, in my experience.
Now, what this doesn't do is cover Confusion at all. Which is also quite dangerous.
And there's more subtle issues with less common status. Slow, for example, is much more dangerous for you than most races-Slowing you below 50%(which most Slows tend to cap at, leaving you at exactly 50%, so Ghouls tend to go lower more often due to their speed base) is a massive danger for a Ghoul. Getting hit three times in a row is rarely survivable, unless you are specifically specced to wall that type of damage.
And Ghouls have no damage walling abilities inherently at all. Just more HP.
The other big issue that comes up is Silence. Silence isn't common before you get Relentless Pursuit, thankfully, but if you are hit with it before that, it's essentially a death sentence for any magical Ghoul. It seals off your runes, you see, which means that your escapes and spells are all set on cooldown. You're essentially left with Retch, Ghoulish Leap and items. Considering that magical Ghouls are some of the better ones, this is a huge issue.
Skeletons get hit by this(Most of this, really), but they have Resilient Bones. This means that poor Mindsave Skeletons can still lift Silence with Relentless Pursuit fairly reliably, and if you get hit with Silence before that, you have a better chance to survive. They also have superior defensive talents in Reassemble and Bone Shield, for waiting out a Silence-or any status. Ghouls don't have nearly as much in this regard.
The changes to runes help some, but elemental runes don't show up until L25, and are still silenceable.
So, what are the upsides?
14 Life Modifier is very interesting. +2 on the other high life races.
From what I've seen(and recall in formula, though I can't seem to find right now. If someone would like to find this for me, that'd be great.), Life Modifier gradually goes from +1 to +2.25(IIRC) per level as the game progresses-I may be recalling this wrong, I was hoping to find the code to quote.
Regardless, this means that one Life Modifier point equates to around 100 HP.
Don't just take my word for it; Ghoul Example of Archmage, Dwarf example. Both seem fairly similar on Con and Life bonuses.
What does this mean? Well, as you can see, the lower example has 1100 HP, and the higher has 1300. Around a 15% life difference. On a fairly favorable comparison. A higher life rating would mean less relative difference.
Considering that enemies get five actions to your four on base speed, in order to remotely break even on this, you'd need to at least average a 25% life gain to break even. And as mentioned before, in practice you'd often need doubled durability to really make up for it.
Of course, if you can cover the speed weakness, that's free life. But then again, if you saw an equip that -20% Global Speed for +200 Life, would you think it was a good equip? Probably not. And if you saw an equip that granted +20 for -20% Global, you'd think the coder that made it had gone mad. Yet, this is basically the tradeoff for a Ghoul at L10 or so.
Retch is certainly a good skill...but when compared to Gift of the Highborn-not necessarily that amazing of a skill-is it actually better? If you're staying in the same spot, it sure heals a lot more and it does damage to enemies, but if you're not staying in the same spot, it's much less effective.
Ghoulish Leap is a good mobility skill by any measure, but consider that it is blown out of the water by many other teleport skills due to its high CD-Many of the other skills that are comparable(Phase Door, Dimension Step, Dream Walk, Telekinetic Leap, surprisingly even Reckless Charge) have better to much better CDs of 8-15.
And Ghoul is a fairly large waste(Few people level Skeleton or Ghoul). Gnaw is sorta neat for Reavers, but very niche right now.
So, you have a skillset that's, say, as good as a Dwarf's if you're being very generous. And some life modifier. And that's what you get for your downsides, outside of a lategame Stun resistance that is nice, but ultimately not a huge lategame deal-other status tend to take the spotlight, later, for my money. Still, the Stun resistance is basically the best point.
And now, consider how favorable this comparison has been to Ghoul. Looking at, say, a Ghoul Berserker vs a normal Berserker leads to a sub-10% life gain, no way to cure that speed issue except for equipment, only Unflinching Resolve to deal with status natively(which anyone can get through an escort), etc., and the potential of Ghoul as a challenge race is clear.
The basic question I have is simple, then.
Should they be a challenge race?
I think this actually isn't entirely a meaningful question. Even if they were buffed fairly majorly, they would be a sort of challenge race, as long as they kept their intrinsic downsides. Since those downsides are quite unique, I'm not interested in lifting them.
But should they be a huge challenge race? Should they get their own achievements for clearing with them?
Or should they be improved?
In the latter case, I have the following ideas;
Ghoul race(Base statistic buffs): +20% Armor Hardiness, +1 Life Modifier.
This gives Ghouls a base statistical bonus that is nearly impossible to reproduce. Their life gain becomes closer to the theoretical 25% tradeoff on low life classes-a nice bonus, but not the major part.
The bigger thing is that it allows them a unique advantage in reducing per swing damage from enemies. Ghoul non-fighters are that much harder to kill in melee at all times, and playing around their advantage-often with skills that aren't used by mages much, and equips, like heavier armor and Stone Skin, etc.-would allow you to capitalize on this advantage.
Ghoul(Skill): Grant either +4 "flat_rate_armor", or +6% of your armor as flat_rate_armor, per level. This is armor effects against magic, essentially.
This would allow heavy armor Ghouls both some mitigation for not being able to pick up Antimagic-a notable downside Ghouls have that I haven't mentioned-and would allow all Ghouls some mitigation for attrition type skills. They would still be very vulnerable to the burst damage I mentioned-this is no security against some of the biggest flaws of Ghoul, at all-but it would help against crowds of lower damage enemies.
Both versions have advantages; The former's less specific, the latter's more heavy armor oriented and has more payoff in the later game than the former.
I'm aware that this would make Skeleton's Skeleton skill look off, however. I've had several thoughts for buffing Skeleton(the skill); Granting 4% Cold/Darkness resistance per level(Or just 6% Darkness/Cold, or 6% Darkness.) would grant symmetry, while granting +20% Blind Resistance per level would be less symmetrical, but would fix a weird issue with Skeletons where they lack a specific resistance enemy Skeletons have. In either case, this would be harmless; Skeleton(the skill) is the least used Generic skill on a race that is built around its Generic skills, and a buff would not notably impact Skeleton as a race.
Ghoulish Leap: Add -2.4 CD per level, cap at 5 CD(so enemy Ghouls don't spend 99% of their time Leaping).
This puts Ghoulish Leap more on the same lines as those mentioned mobility skills. It's really good for that, of course...but it makes sense. -2.4 caps at 8(Raw talent) or 7(Modified talent), normally. The cap of 5CD would only apply to if it used modified talent(after a catpoint or equip bonus), or if an enemy had it(which is the main reason for that).
Obviously, you could just use a 2CD reduction for 10CD at L5, too. That'd probably be good enough.
Retch: Grant a (Talent Level*5)% chance to remove any non-other negative status on undead, and remove any non-other positive status on non-undead, every turn that someone is in the Retch radius.
This suddenly grants you a more unique advantage than just regeneration replacement+damage. Enemies with buffs lose them while in Retch's radius, and you have a kind of Unflinching Resolve effect built into the race. It won't fix their status problems, but it means it isn't instant death for those that haven't found a fix.
It also means enemy Ghouls are worth mentioning now. Sort of.
Gnaw: Have a 50-50 chance to either Stun or Confuse the target for (3+TL, cap at 10) turns on hit, in addition to its current effects. Change the damage to (0.4, 1.4) WeaponTalent.
This reproduces the old effect it had of having debilitating status, albiet more randomly(this feels fitting of a gnaw, to randomly stun or confuse the target), and makes it capable of doing a normal weapon strike worth of damage at high levels. It becomes a very versatile enemy disabler that makes multiple status checks.
Now, do I think these changes will make Ghoul a good race? Actually, probably not. I think they'll still be low end, but they'll be a lot more interesting, and a very large amount less frustrating. It'll feel more like you screwed up, when you die, and not that Ghoul simply had no way to live in a situation. You'll still round a corner and die sometimes, though. It's still a Ghoul. And I think that is an intrinsic trait of Ghoul that will never go entirely away.
And I'm okay with that. I like them that way.
So yeah, this is my thoughts on Ghoul right now. They should either be accepted as a challenge race, and get a nice achievement for a clear with one, or buffed to be still kinda challenging anyways, but more interesting. I'm curious as to which people want, and if they have any suggestions along the latter lines as well.
When I ended it, I was of the opinion that they are basically only good for a challenge, and are probably overall worse than Yeek. The reasons are quite subtle, to a degree.
Let's look at the downsides, first.
A: 80% Global Speed.
This is easy to think of as a loss of damage, or versatility. This isn't really that accurate.
What it mostly means is that enemies randomly get two actions, in practice. Well, not randomly, predictably, but it's hard to predict precisely-a temporary slow or enemies having small bits of global speed can throw off your guesses.
This means that, in practice, you need to be durable enough to take two hits from any given enemy-or crowd, potentially.
This means that you are, in a sense, half your normal durability. Any attacks that two-shot you normally can double up and one-shot you. Any attacks that take four hits still mean you have to have half your life left, or you die.
The impact is variable based on how competent your enemies are-enemies that can level multiple 2HKO shots of damage against you will kill you, and those generally are competent enemies. Whereas, generally speaking, your average snake won't be notable still-if anything, your inherent advantages, as a Ghoul, will mostly counteract a normal snake.
Of course, you can also counteract this with class choices-but this limits you to a subset of classes and builds, and constantly build skills to mitigate something that isn't a problem for other people, which creates a subtle drain on your class points(usually, there's few speed boosting Generics). Otherwise, you have to constantly put up with this problem.
B: Status issues. Largely stemming from the lack of infusions, and no way to counter them.
Generally speaking, lacking infusions isn't so bad. Shielding can sort of replace Healing, and you have...arguably better escapes. Wilds are the main issue.
These status issues are worse than they look. Let's look at the base. You resist a lot of status that generally aren't major(though they don't hurt; Resisting Cripple is nice.), disease(which is nice, but not huge, again), and Stun.
Now, that Stun resist is great. You won't hear me saying anything against that. But it doesn't stop you from getting stunned until mid-game or so, when you can reliably get enough stun gear to cover it. If you're lucky, you can cover Stun pretty early. However, if you aren't, this means that you're breaking even, for the most part, early on, against Stun.
That is, for every Stun you resist, the Stun you don't will be that much more dangerous, because you can do nothing to remove it. Generally speaking, lowering the odds of a danger in a Roguelike, in exchange for making that danger more dangerous, is a trade down-you only have one life/a few lives, but enemies have many, and have many chances to make that tradeoff work against you. So, until you can stack up more Stun resist and make those odds poorer or non-existant, this is still a net loss, in my experience.
Now, what this doesn't do is cover Confusion at all. Which is also quite dangerous.
And there's more subtle issues with less common status. Slow, for example, is much more dangerous for you than most races-Slowing you below 50%(which most Slows tend to cap at, leaving you at exactly 50%, so Ghouls tend to go lower more often due to their speed base) is a massive danger for a Ghoul. Getting hit three times in a row is rarely survivable, unless you are specifically specced to wall that type of damage.
And Ghouls have no damage walling abilities inherently at all. Just more HP.
The other big issue that comes up is Silence. Silence isn't common before you get Relentless Pursuit, thankfully, but if you are hit with it before that, it's essentially a death sentence for any magical Ghoul. It seals off your runes, you see, which means that your escapes and spells are all set on cooldown. You're essentially left with Retch, Ghoulish Leap and items. Considering that magical Ghouls are some of the better ones, this is a huge issue.
Skeletons get hit by this(Most of this, really), but they have Resilient Bones. This means that poor Mindsave Skeletons can still lift Silence with Relentless Pursuit fairly reliably, and if you get hit with Silence before that, you have a better chance to survive. They also have superior defensive talents in Reassemble and Bone Shield, for waiting out a Silence-or any status. Ghouls don't have nearly as much in this regard.
The changes to runes help some, but elemental runes don't show up until L25, and are still silenceable.
So, what are the upsides?
14 Life Modifier is very interesting. +2 on the other high life races.
From what I've seen(and recall in formula, though I can't seem to find right now. If someone would like to find this for me, that'd be great.), Life Modifier gradually goes from +1 to +2.25(IIRC) per level as the game progresses-I may be recalling this wrong, I was hoping to find the code to quote.
Regardless, this means that one Life Modifier point equates to around 100 HP.
Don't just take my word for it; Ghoul Example of Archmage, Dwarf example. Both seem fairly similar on Con and Life bonuses.
What does this mean? Well, as you can see, the lower example has 1100 HP, and the higher has 1300. Around a 15% life difference. On a fairly favorable comparison. A higher life rating would mean less relative difference.
Considering that enemies get five actions to your four on base speed, in order to remotely break even on this, you'd need to at least average a 25% life gain to break even. And as mentioned before, in practice you'd often need doubled durability to really make up for it.
Of course, if you can cover the speed weakness, that's free life. But then again, if you saw an equip that -20% Global Speed for +200 Life, would you think it was a good equip? Probably not. And if you saw an equip that granted +20 for -20% Global, you'd think the coder that made it had gone mad. Yet, this is basically the tradeoff for a Ghoul at L10 or so.
Retch is certainly a good skill...but when compared to Gift of the Highborn-not necessarily that amazing of a skill-is it actually better? If you're staying in the same spot, it sure heals a lot more and it does damage to enemies, but if you're not staying in the same spot, it's much less effective.
Ghoulish Leap is a good mobility skill by any measure, but consider that it is blown out of the water by many other teleport skills due to its high CD-Many of the other skills that are comparable(Phase Door, Dimension Step, Dream Walk, Telekinetic Leap, surprisingly even Reckless Charge) have better to much better CDs of 8-15.
And Ghoul is a fairly large waste(Few people level Skeleton or Ghoul). Gnaw is sorta neat for Reavers, but very niche right now.
So, you have a skillset that's, say, as good as a Dwarf's if you're being very generous. And some life modifier. And that's what you get for your downsides, outside of a lategame Stun resistance that is nice, but ultimately not a huge lategame deal-other status tend to take the spotlight, later, for my money. Still, the Stun resistance is basically the best point.
And now, consider how favorable this comparison has been to Ghoul. Looking at, say, a Ghoul Berserker vs a normal Berserker leads to a sub-10% life gain, no way to cure that speed issue except for equipment, only Unflinching Resolve to deal with status natively(which anyone can get through an escort), etc., and the potential of Ghoul as a challenge race is clear.
The basic question I have is simple, then.
Should they be a challenge race?
I think this actually isn't entirely a meaningful question. Even if they were buffed fairly majorly, they would be a sort of challenge race, as long as they kept their intrinsic downsides. Since those downsides are quite unique, I'm not interested in lifting them.
But should they be a huge challenge race? Should they get their own achievements for clearing with them?
Or should they be improved?
In the latter case, I have the following ideas;
Ghoul race(Base statistic buffs): +20% Armor Hardiness, +1 Life Modifier.
This gives Ghouls a base statistical bonus that is nearly impossible to reproduce. Their life gain becomes closer to the theoretical 25% tradeoff on low life classes-a nice bonus, but not the major part.
The bigger thing is that it allows them a unique advantage in reducing per swing damage from enemies. Ghoul non-fighters are that much harder to kill in melee at all times, and playing around their advantage-often with skills that aren't used by mages much, and equips, like heavier armor and Stone Skin, etc.-would allow you to capitalize on this advantage.
Ghoul(Skill): Grant either +4 "flat_rate_armor", or +6% of your armor as flat_rate_armor, per level. This is armor effects against magic, essentially.
This would allow heavy armor Ghouls both some mitigation for not being able to pick up Antimagic-a notable downside Ghouls have that I haven't mentioned-and would allow all Ghouls some mitigation for attrition type skills. They would still be very vulnerable to the burst damage I mentioned-this is no security against some of the biggest flaws of Ghoul, at all-but it would help against crowds of lower damage enemies.
Both versions have advantages; The former's less specific, the latter's more heavy armor oriented and has more payoff in the later game than the former.
I'm aware that this would make Skeleton's Skeleton skill look off, however. I've had several thoughts for buffing Skeleton(the skill); Granting 4% Cold/Darkness resistance per level(Or just 6% Darkness/Cold, or 6% Darkness.) would grant symmetry, while granting +20% Blind Resistance per level would be less symmetrical, but would fix a weird issue with Skeletons where they lack a specific resistance enemy Skeletons have. In either case, this would be harmless; Skeleton(the skill) is the least used Generic skill on a race that is built around its Generic skills, and a buff would not notably impact Skeleton as a race.
Ghoulish Leap: Add -2.4 CD per level, cap at 5 CD(so enemy Ghouls don't spend 99% of their time Leaping).
This puts Ghoulish Leap more on the same lines as those mentioned mobility skills. It's really good for that, of course...but it makes sense. -2.4 caps at 8(Raw talent) or 7(Modified talent), normally. The cap of 5CD would only apply to if it used modified talent(after a catpoint or equip bonus), or if an enemy had it(which is the main reason for that).
Obviously, you could just use a 2CD reduction for 10CD at L5, too. That'd probably be good enough.
Retch: Grant a (Talent Level*5)% chance to remove any non-other negative status on undead, and remove any non-other positive status on non-undead, every turn that someone is in the Retch radius.
This suddenly grants you a more unique advantage than just regeneration replacement+damage. Enemies with buffs lose them while in Retch's radius, and you have a kind of Unflinching Resolve effect built into the race. It won't fix their status problems, but it means it isn't instant death for those that haven't found a fix.
It also means enemy Ghouls are worth mentioning now. Sort of.
Gnaw: Have a 50-50 chance to either Stun or Confuse the target for (3+TL, cap at 10) turns on hit, in addition to its current effects. Change the damage to (0.4, 1.4) WeaponTalent.
This reproduces the old effect it had of having debilitating status, albiet more randomly(this feels fitting of a gnaw, to randomly stun or confuse the target), and makes it capable of doing a normal weapon strike worth of damage at high levels. It becomes a very versatile enemy disabler that makes multiple status checks.
Now, do I think these changes will make Ghoul a good race? Actually, probably not. I think they'll still be low end, but they'll be a lot more interesting, and a very large amount less frustrating. It'll feel more like you screwed up, when you die, and not that Ghoul simply had no way to live in a situation. You'll still round a corner and die sometimes, though. It's still a Ghoul. And I think that is an intrinsic trait of Ghoul that will never go entirely away.
And I'm okay with that. I like them that way.
So yeah, this is my thoughts on Ghoul right now. They should either be accepted as a challenge race, and get a nice achievement for a clear with one, or buffed to be still kinda challenging anyways, but more interesting. I'm curious as to which people want, and if they have any suggestions along the latter lines as well.
