Race balance: Ghoul

[bpat]

Since I started playing ToME in 1.0.2, there have always been a handful of races that were significantly better than all the others, which weren't worth playing at all if you're playing to win. Back then, the strong races were Shalore at the top, then Thalore and Cornac, then Yeek. Halfling was better than the rest of the races but it still pales in comparison to the Elves and Cornac, Dwarf is just a bad Halfling, Higher is plain awful, and Undead are terrible since on top of having underwhelming racials, they cannot use Infusions. Since then, Doomelves and Ogres were introduced. Doomelf is actually in a great spot, being around Thalore's level of strength, but Ogre was clearly powercreep since it took over Cornac's niche and does it better, being the only race with six Inscription slots and having other perks on top of that. Now that Ogre exists, the gap between the good races and the rest is bigger than ever and needs to be addressed.

Presently, the power of races is something like Shalore = Ogre > Thalore = Doomelf > Yeek > Cornac >>>>> Halfling >>> Dwarf > Higher >>>>> Ghoul > Skeleton. While Cornac and Yeek haven't really been changed since I started playing, I'd say Yeek has passed Cornac in relevance since Ogre is a better Cornac, so I rank Yeek slightly higher. This list is probably not perfect, but I am positive no race is more than one place off of where it belongs. Since Undead are the weakest races by a massive margin, I would like to address them first, but I plan on making further race balance posts for the other races in the future. I currently have ideas for Skeleton and Cornac, which I will make separate threads for soon.

I believe around Thalore/Doomelf level is desirable for most races, and ideally none should be stronger than Shalore currently is or weaker than Yeek currently is. This means that Ghoul and Skeleton must have, by a significant margin, the most powerful racials in the game (Ghoul even more so because of the 20% global speed penalty). This is because Infusions are much better than Runes for the most part and not having access to powerful Infusions like Movement, Heroism, and Wild is absolutely crippling. Undead races must be able to succeed without Infusions, so they need very powerful survivability and status cleansing powers to fill the void of Infusions. With this in mind, here are my propositions for rebalancing Ghoul.

My vision for Ghoul is they ought to absorb tons of damage and resist physical status effects, allowing them to last in extended fights. It seems like this was the original intention for Ghoul but in reality they lack mobility and status cleansing, and their defense is actually very poor overall. Specific classes I would like Ghoul to be good with are Necromancer and Reaver, because of the Undead and Disease synergies, but I would like for Ghoul to be at least viable for all non-Wilder classes.

Ghoul
Current: Improves your ghoulish body, increasing Strength and Constitution by 2-11. Your body also becomes incredibly resilient to damage, you can never take a blow that deals more than 90-50% of your maximum life.
New: Improves your ghoulish body, increasing Strength and Constitution by 2-11. Your body also becomes incredibly resilient to damage, any damage past 10% of your maximum life that you would take from a single blow is reduced by 10-50%
This is going to be so strong that it would be insanely overpowered on a class that could use Infusions, but since the only way Ghoul can heal on classes like Brawler or Bulwark is Retch, it really needs to be this good. Also the way it's worded means that the first 10% of your health the damage instance would do isn't reduced, only the damage beyond that is reduced. So if you have 100 max health and would take 30 damage, 20 of that damage would be reduced but the first 10 damage would all hit, so at this talent's max rank 10 damage of the 30 would be blocked. Additionally, this block wouldn't work with damage shields.

Ghoulish Leap
Current: Leap toward your target. Cooldown: 20-12. Range: 5-10.
New: Leap toward your target, removing stunning, dazing, and pinning effects. Cooldown: 12-8. Range: 5-10. Use time: 75% of a turn.
Ghoul needs a mobility talent, but the old Ghoulish Leap took too long, allowing you to get double turned. Also its cooldown was way too long making it worse than Phase Door. This new version prevents you from getting doubleturned and acts as a cleans for the same statuses Movement Infusion prevents, giving it a similar roll overall to Movement Infusions. The cleanse seems better than it actually is because you will easily hit 100% stun resistance thanks to Ghoul's innate 50% stun resistance, so the things it will cleanse late game are pins.

Retch
Current: Vomit on the ground around you, healing any undead in the area and damaging anyone else. Lasts 7-16 turns, and deals X (Con based) blight damage or heals X (Con based) life. Creatures standing in the retch also have 6-27% chance to remove a physical effect each turn. Undeads will be stripped from a detrimental effect while others will be stripped from a beneficial effect. Cooldown: 25.
New: Vomit on the ground around you, healing any undead in the area and damaging anyone else. Lasts 7-12 turns, and deals X (Con based) blight damage or heals X (Con based) life. The user will heal for 8% of the damage it deals to creatures in the retch as long as the user remains in the area as well. Creatures standing in the retch also have 6-27% chance to remove a physical or magical effect each turn, with 100% chance on the first turn. Undeads will be stripped from a detrimental effect while others will be stripped from a beneficial effect. Cooldown: 15.
It used to suck at healing, but the lifesteal will make it suck less. Note that the lifesteal isn't that much better than Bloodcaller which all classes have access too, it's just way more reliable. However, it confines you to the area so if you have to run, you won't be able to lifesteal for a while. Also the guaranteed cleanse on the first turn can help remove something that needs to be removed immediately, like Blinding Speed from an enemy or Impending Doom from yourself.

Gnaw
Current: Gnaw your target for 30-65% (weapon) damage. If your attack hits, the target may be infected with Ghoul Rot for 4-8 turns. Each turn, Ghoul Rot inflicts X blight damage. At talent level 2, Ghoul Rot also reduces Strength by Y; at level 3 it reduces Dexterity by Y, and at level 4 it reduces Constitution by Y. At talent level 5 targets suffering from Ghoul Rot rise as friendly ghouls when slain. The blight damage and stat damage scales with your Constitution. Cooldown: 15.
New: Gnaw your target for 100% (weapon) damage. This attack infects the target with Ghoul Rot for 4-8 turns, and cannot be saved against or resisted. Each turn, Ghoul Rot inflicts X blight damage. At talent level 2, Ghoul Rot also reduces Strength by 2*Y; at level 3 it reduces Dexterity by 2*Y, and at level 4 it reduces Constitution by 2*Y. At talent level 5 targets suffering from Ghoul Rot rise as friendly ghouls when slain. The blight damage and stat damage scales with your Constitution. Cooldown: 8.
Since it can't miss anymore, it can now be used by casters, though they will still need to be in melee range. Also it can't be resisted anymore similar to epidemic, since most classes don't have a mechanism to deal with disease immunity and having to deal with spell saves sucks on physical or mind characters. The cooldown has been significantly reduced and the weapon damage has been increased in order to make it a core part of any melee character's standard rotation. The stat reduction has been increased since it's very low currently, now it will significantly weaken enemy melee attacks. The stat reductions barely matter anyway aside from Strength, but if they're going to be included we may as well have them be good.

[Davion Fuxa]

While I'm not sure about the race rankings, I can certainly agree that the Undead are definitely around the bottom of the list and could use some improvement. I see a bit of an issue of keeping Retch connected to Constitution though - but that's more of an issue with the Constitution stat needing a buff then Retch being connected to it.

As an aside though, maybe Gnaw could be changed so that it could be a sort of Sustain ability instead of an Active one. Maybe you could turn it on and whenever you are adjacent to enemies, you Gnaw at them at no turn cost. Then Gnaw goes on Cooldown.

[overgoat]

For Gnaw maybe a percent chance to land a melee attack which returns a percent of life steal and has a chance to disease the target.

[Amphouse]

Keep in mind that there will always be one race that is the "worst". I've always thought that the undead races were meant to be challenge races, and if so you don't want to buff them too much, they should remain difficult to play. Also, Embers of rage will probably be changing things up considerably; in particular I have no idea if the undead can use the upcoming "medical salves", but if they can it will make them significantly stronger.

[Atarlost]

If we can judge intent from earlier versions, Yeeks are intended to be the challenge race. If the undead are worse either yeeks should be nerfed or the undead buffed until that's no longer true. Or both.

[Davion Fuxa]

There is nothing wrong with certain races being challenge races, but despite the type of challenge presented, the race should be fun to play. Yeeks for example are fun to play because despite their detriments they can synergize well with a lot of class setups while having some powerful racial abilities - including a boost in Global Speed.

Actually in a way, this also applies to other races - regardless of whether they are challenge races are not. I found Shaloran fun to play not because they have Timeless but because of how Timeless can pair up with different playstyles. Cornacs are fun because they can get that extra category point which they can use to unlock another inscription or an early line of skills - Rampage on Cornac Cursed for example.

In looking at the Undead - nothing really makes up for their lack of Infusion use well enough to really make playing them fun.

[HousePet]

I find Skeletons quite good with their bonus heal and shield talents. I'm quite surprised by them being placed at the bottom of a race ranking. Also surprised at how low Halfling was rated. Do we have any data to support such an assessment, or is this just opinion?

[twas Brillig]

in particular I have no idea if the undead can use the upcoming "medical salves", but if they can it will make them significantly stronger.

One of the changes that snuck into 1.4.0 was undead being unable to use infusions from previously only being to use runes -- no change in the current version, but presumably this will allow them to use new types of inscriptions going forward...unless salves are meant to be a non-inscription buff, in which case I agree it's questionable. (That said, "skeleton with a chainsaw" is a great metal album cover.)

[Davion Fuxa]

I find Skeletons quite good with their bonus heal and shield talents. I'm quite surprised by them being placed at the bottom of a race ranking. Also surprised at how low Halfling was rated. Do we have any data to support such an assessment, or is this just opinion?

Pretty sure when it comes to ranking what is best or not, it is all opinionated. I mean bpat rated Yeek pretty high - that Life Rating of 7 alone would personally make me think otherwise for it being that high.

[bpat]

While I'm not sure about the race rankings, I can certainly agree that the Undead are definitely around the bottom of the list and could use some improvement. I see a bit of an issue of keeping Retch connected to Constitution though - but that's more of an issue with the Constitution stat needing a buff then Retch being connected to it.

As an aside though, maybe Gnaw could be changed so that it could be a sort of Sustain ability instead of an Active one. Maybe you could turn it on and whenever you are adjacent to enemies, you Gnaw at them at no turn cost. Then Gnaw goes on Cooldown.

Retch scaling with Con shouldn't matter that much since ideally you'd be lifestealing enough even with low Con. You're right that Con needs a buff but I think that belongs in a separate thread. Maybe it could scale with Con or Magic, whichever is higher?

I thought about making Gnaw instant, but then we'd probably have to remove the weapon attack part of it because it would be very abusable in certain cases. I don't really see the point of making it a sustain instead of instant active though.

I didn't really want this thread to turn into a discussion of my race rankings, but since it kinda did I'll address them and hopefully we can move forward. It's not a perfect list but it's definitely close enough and some claims about it being inaccurate are likely because anything can work on Normal and Nightmare and some of the better races are harder to use than others (specifically Shalore, Ogre, Yeek, and Cornac) while some of the mid-low tier ones are relatively easy to play (especially Halfling).

If we can judge intent from earlier versions, Yeeks are intended to be the challenge race. If the undead are worse either yeeks should be nerfed or the undead buffed until that's no longer true. Or both.

Nothing with an instant summon and passive global speed can be considered a challenge race. If you want to be challenged, then play a higher difficulty. Nightmare isn't even hard anymore so it can give the feel of a relative challenge from normal.

I find Skeletons quite good with their bonus heal and shield talents. I'm quite surprised by them being placed at the bottom of a race ranking. Also surprised at how low Halfling was rated. Do we have any data to support such an assessment, or is this just opinion?

Skeleton's actives have horrible cooldowns making the race very fragile when they are on cooldown. It doesn't help that they aren't instant unlike other races' panic buttons (instant summon, instant cleanse, instant teleport, etc). Reducing status duration is good but it doesn't matter when things like stun, confuse, and pin often need to be removed immediately which Skeleton cannot do without bad Runes like Heat Beam or class talents (which are rarely instant). Skeleton is okay on Normal where nothing will break your shield but beyond that they are very poor.

Halfling is rated lower than Cornac because category points are very good and offer build flexibility, but really Cornac is super situational and can be anywhere from amazing (Archmage) to trash (Skirmisher). Some categories that are generally great include Hexes, Light, Survival, Harmony, and Vile Life which can be worth more than Halfling racials on some classes. Halfling's racials are all good but worse than stuff like instant summons and instant teleports. The last racial is especially great but careful use of Movement Infusions makes it unnecessary. It is a great race for beginners and it is completely viable, it just doesn't have anything that makes it stand out above the rest of the races like Timeless, Writ Large, or Nature's Pride.

This list isn't just from my experience but from the collective experience of myself and several other experienced players who are familiar with Insane and Madness, though I do not play on Madness myself. Most of the opinions I took into account are of people better at this game than I am.

Edit:

I find Skeletons quite good with their bonus heal and shield talents. I'm quite surprised by them being placed at the bottom of a race ranking. Also surprised at how low Halfling was rated. Do we have any data to support such an assessment, or is this just opinion?

Pretty sure when it comes to ranking what is best or not, it is all opinionated. I mean bpat rated Yeek pretty high - that Life Rating of 7 alone would personally make me think otherwise for it being that high.

This is true, a lot of it comes down to personal opinion (I believe Cornac is weaker than I indicated in my OP but others who are as good or better than me at this game value category points more than I do), but I believe a lot of the disagreements are due to people playing races suboptimally. Yeek can seem weak at first, but instant summons and global speed are more than enough to make up for the low life rating. However, Yeek requires a very careful playstyle compared to races like Halfling and it requires clever use of Wayist (tanking projectiles, swapping positions when dazed, body blocking to escape, blocking a hallway).

[Davion Fuxa]

I'm fine with letting the idea of race ranking die - that seems like a non issue, I'd rather see Races that are less fun to play made fun to play. Yeeks are fun to play regardless of whether they are challenging or not - Ghouls and Skeletons are not all that fun to play

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In regards to Retch, making it scale with Constitution or Magic would likely be a good idea. Whether you would be stealing enough life or not, this I assume would be in regards to situations where you are surrounded or just against a single enemy (such as a Lone Boss or a Unique), or against a lot of undead enemies (which you wouldn't Life Steal from), or other situations. I think it would likely be that any help to boost Retch would be desirable when in less then desirable situations for using Retch.

In regards to Gnaw, I was thinking it might be cool if it sort of acted like the Corrupted Strength talent - which is actually a Passive (my mistake). Essentially each turn you are adjacent to an enemy and commit an offensive action, you Gnaw at the target. It might be wise to make it so that it is a percentage chance of occurring, but I think it would be a nice change to the talent.

[bpat]

I'm fine with letting the idea of race ranking die - that seems like a non issue, I'd rather see Races that are less fun to play made fun to play. Yeeks are fun to play regardless of whether they are challenging or not - Ghouls and Skeletons are not all that fun to play

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In regards to Retch, making it scale with Constitution or Magic would likely be a good idea. Whether you would be stealing enough life or not, this I assume would be in regards to situations where you are surrounded or just against a single enemy (such as a Lone Boss or a Unique), or against a lot of undead enemies (which you wouldn't Life Steal from), or other situations. I think it would likely be that any help to boost Retch would be desirable when in less then desirable situations for using Retch.

In regards to Gnaw, I was thinking it might be cool if it sort of acted like the Corrupted Strength talent - which is actually a Passive (my mistake). Essentially each turn you are adjacent to an enemy and commit an offensive action, you Gnaw at the target. It might be wise to make it so that it is a percentage chance of occurring, but I think it would be a nice change to the talent.

You would lifesteal from Undead, otherwise fighting them would be dreadful if your class can't heal. Only difference is they get the base heal per turn instead of taking damage like living foes. Heck, I'd be fine with changing it to only heal Undead allies and damage all other creatures if that's what people think is best.

The Corrupted Strength idea for Gnaw is interesting. I don't think it should be a percent chance though because that kind of RNG isn't very fun; I'd rather it be something the player can rely on in their battle plan. Giving it a cooldown and having it be a Corrupted Strength type thing would be neat, but I'm not sure this is better than making it instant without the weapon damage or making it take a turn but do the attack. It's an idea worth exploring though.

[HousePet]

I thought that was the case.
How different races perform in Insane and Madness difficulty where you generally need some sort of cheese to do well, such as Timeless abuse, should not be used to justify changes to game balance.

[bpat]

I thought that was the case.
How different races perform in Insane and Madness difficulty where you generally need some sort of cheese to do well, such as Timeless abuse, should not be used to justify changes to game balance.

Shibari can probably explain this better than I can, but the strength of the races is actually the same on all difficulties, it's just that you can get away with stuff (greedy/careless play) on Normal that you can't on Insane. Yeek is stronger than Halfling on Normal too, it's just harder to play. I am not trying to say that the game should be balanced around Insane/Madness, but rather that how a race or class performs on Insane/Madness is a better way to evaluate how strong it is than how it performs on Normal/Nightmare, because in this patch it's not hard for a careful player to win with something like an Antimagic Shalore Wyrmic on Nightmare. Heck, back in 1.1, someone beat Normal with an Antimagic Arcane Blade, and tomisgo beat Nightmare with a 2h Bulwark and Sun Paladin before the Sun Paladin rework.

Also you absolutely do not need cheese to succeed on Insane and you haven't had to since version 1.1 (though you probably do on Madness), Archmage has always been able to beat Insane without using any cheeses thanks to it's great defense and Insane is currently winnable without cheese on probably all the classes. I haven't beaten it yet this patch but I just cleared Reknor as a Thalore Doomed with about 10 class talent points and one category point unspent (the other category point went to an Inscription slot at level 32 when I realized I was about to get my third without spending any, my class points are just 1/5/5/5 Force of Will and 5/5/5/1 Shadows). All I do in combat is bump attack with Gestures and use Willful Strike, Blast, Unseen Force, and Psychic Lobotomy from Aletta's Diadem. I have done no digging or any other cheese, I don't use any active items aside from a shielding belt and Aletta's Diadem. My racials were 1/0/0/0 until just before level 24, now they're 1/1/1/1 and I haven't done anything abusive with Nature's Pride like the zigzag tunnel strategy. Insane is totally beatable but it's just not fun to try with races that have nothing major going for them like Ghoul and Higher, it's just making the game harder for yourself.

[HousePet]

Lol, Archmage and the current Doomed aren't exactly weak classes.

But anyway, actual stats to backup any claims of a race being weaker/stronger than others is really needed for any claims.

Insane is totally beatable but it's just not fun to try with races that have nothing major going for them like Ghoul and Higher, it's just making the game harder for yourself.

This statement is perhaps the best in the thread so far. The issue isn't really that the race is weak, but that the racials are boring?