Race balance: Ghoul

[bpat]

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?

Ghoul's Gnaw is anything but boring, but it just sucks so much that no one uses it. Gnaw could be the funnest talent ever and I will wouldn't run it aside from in joke builds unless it was viable. It's fun to play races that do cool stuff and feel powerful at the same time. Some examples of thing that are weak but cool are Dreamscape and Fearscape (just used to wait out cooldowns and debuffs), Gravity, Ice, Storm, all invisibility talents, and Lichform (actually most of the Necromancer class is weak but cool). I like playing Thalore because Nature's Pride is an awesome talent that instantly summons two Treants to tank for you and CC your enemies. I like playing Shalore because Timeless enables some great combos and also works as a cleanse when I'm in trouble. I hate playing Ghoul because it Leaps up to its enemies, Retches to heal like 40 health a turn and have a tiny chance to purge something, then dies because it spent 2.4 turns doing next to nothing. I hate playing Skeleton because its active racials scale terribly and have stupid cooldowns, and it has no way of dealing with stuns aside from Heat Beam Runes and that's only if you get lucky and it doesn't remove something else you don't care about. Racials should be fun and good, because it's no fun using stuff that sucks.

[HousePet]

Well you didn't have to waste turns using Retch.

[bpat]

Well you didn't have to waste turns using Retch.

It's a waste of a turn because it's bad lol. This thread's goal is to make it and the other Ghoul talents not bad anymore.

[HousePet]

I haven't tested much since the talents got buffed, but I still think Gnaw is the only one that needs changing at the moment.

I just want a sustain that give me a chance of a free bite attack in melee.

I don't think Retch is bad. It is better than Bathe in Light but weaker than Cleansing Flame (but cleansing flame is a bit OP). It just seems bad because it is a combination of three(or four, if you are a necromancer) weak effects.

[bpat]

I haven't tested much since the talents got buffed, but I still think Gnaw is the only one that needs changing at the moment.

I just want a sustain that give me a chance of a free bite attack in melee.

I don't think Retch is bad. It is better than Bathe in Light but weaker than Cleansing Flame (but cleansing flame is a bit OP). It just seems bad because it is a combination of three(or four, if you are a necromancer) weak effects.

All four talents need big buffs for Ghoul to even be mid-tier. You are severely underestimating how strong Infusions are compared to Runes and Ghoul desperately needs something to fill the void of Regeneration, Movement, and Wild Infusions. My OP describes the many issues they have and why they need fixing, but I'll summarize it quickly here.

Their passive talent effects almost nothing except on Madness, and when Ghoul's get doubleturned they can still get instakilled easily. Ghoulish Leap has a longer cooldown than it should and Ghoul needs a way to deal with pin and Retch is not a solution because 27% chance is too low, you'd be better off just wearing Prox's Halfling Foot the whole game. Also Ghoulish Leap into doubleturn is a very real issue. Retch is very underpowered and that is not okay since the race can't use Healing, Regeneration, or Wild Infusions. The healing is laughably low and the cleanse is unreliable on both you and enemies. The only redeeming part is its long duration, but if you're forced out of it then its cooldown is a huge issue. Being slightly better than Bathe in Light when it's literally your only source of healing on some classes is simply not enough, it tries to do a bunch of things (heal, damage, remove buffs, remove debuffs) and is bad at all of them. With my change it would only be bad at damage, and that is okay because you're not in it for the damage. Amazingly Retch is actually the least bad of Ghoul's racials, but that is saying very little and it is probably still worse than any of Halfling's four racials. Gnaw is so bad even Reavers can't use it effectively, I don't think this one needs and discussion on why it's bad.

Honestly my changes will probably make Ghoul mid-tier at best unless Gnaw or the lifesteal from Retch turn out to be significantly better than I predict they will be.

I wouldn't mind getting a free instant attack with Gnaw, but randomness is not the way to do it since you will definitely want to control who it hits and when it hits much more than you would for a regular attack like from Corrupted Strength.

[Davion Fuxa]

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.

I wouldn't mind getting a free instant attack with Gnaw, but randomness is not the way to do it since you will definitely want to control who it hits and when it hits much more than you would for a regular attack like from Corrupted Strength.

I suppose if we think a random Corrupted Strength styled Gnaw isn't powerful enough - we could just eliminate the cooldown entirely and just make it possible every turn. Mainly, the reason I'm sort of suggesting this is around thematic reasons which I hope can be retained as much as possible. IE, with a random occurring Gnaw you are just attempting to bite enemies as much as possible to disease them when in combat; which would help boost up their offensive power.

Obviously, going this route, the talent shouldn't be based off weapon damage, and since you would be infecting everything around you a lot the chance to raise friendly ghouls shouldn't always occur.

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.

I don't think Retch should lifesteal from enemy Undead, and personally I think it is fine if the Retch heals them (or theirs heals you); though I wouldn't be against it not effecting enemy Undead.

[HousePet]

I think people are overestimating how powerful infusions are compared to spending a category point on another category.
Yes runes are less useful at keeping you alive, but nothing is forcing you to use your category points for more runes.
Undead already get more life than everyone else. You need to take everything into account, not just runes versus infusions.

They do have Ghoulish Leap, which is comparable to a movement infusion.

And I never said that the free attacks from Gnaw should be randomly targeted. Just randomly triggered.

Looking at the numbers of the current Ghoul talents:
These numbers could do with being upgraded to the new scaling functions. Lots of it only scales off raw talent level.
Ghoul (the talent) looks fine, but should scale with effective level and could scale a little higher.
Ghoulish Leap isn't bad, except the description...
Retch... I take back earlier comments about it being better than Bathe in Light, as it appears it can't crit (and for no apparent reason won't hit you if you have Spellcraft or get a lucky luck roll?). I'd up the damage/heal and dispel chance by 50% at least.
Gnaw: Probably still wouldn't use if it did double its current damage.

As for your suggestions:
Ghoul (the talent): That seems a bit too powerful. Borfast will be unkillable.
Ghoulish Leap/Retch: Does it really need that much pin curing? Being immune to poison, cut and very resistant to stunning means that you won't need a cure as much and it is less likely to cure the wrong thing.
Retch healing: Unless there are 12 enemies nearby, this does less healing. Check Nourishing Moss.
Gnaw: You shouldn't just bypass immunities like that.

[overgoat]

I was playing around with ghouls a bit recently and noticed that the resiliency ability from the base Ghoul talent appears to calculate after all other damage reduction. If that check were to be moved first that would be a minor change but would prove a pretty substantial buff and make ghouls quite tanky.

[dadito]

How about making gnaw a passive kinda like flexible combat? Give it a scaling with talent level proc chance to bite and infect an enemy, then give it a active component at level 5 which lets you rise up to x ghouls instantly from enemies that died with the debuff on (not too many i guess)

[Zeyphor]

How about making gnaw a passive kinda like flexible combat? Give it a scaling with talent level proc chance to bite and infect an enemy, then give it a active component at level 5 which lets you rise up to x ghouls instantly from enemies that died with the debuff on (not too many i guess)

I'd go along with that if gnaw didn't do a % of weapon damage and just did damage equal to physical power(if an accuracy check is passed) then tried to apply the disease

[grobblewobble]

This thread deserves a bump. Ghouls desperately need to be improved. They get two very bad penalties compared to other races: no infusions, and double turns for the monsters. They're clearly and easily the worst race, let's please do something about it.

[Sheila]

I'm pretty okay with these changes they won't be as good as living races either way, but they'll receive some very much-needed love to their kit's weaknesses while keeping their identity and strengths.
Gnaw is something that should be usable, a ton of things in the game are disease immune, that's why epidemic exists and allows the rest of the plague tree to work reliably, I think that would be a good change to gnaw. Sounds like it'll be both fun and useful like this.
Ghoulish leap does seem too strong at a glance but it's honestly needed, an escape shouldn't cause you to get double turned because it's too slow! It's still worse than a mov infusion.
I like damage smearing mechanics like the one you proposed for Ghoul, as they're reliable without becoming mindless, a bit worried about the numbers, but can't say how much feels right atm.
Lifesteal on retch sounds exciting, but I can't help but feel like it would make more sense on Gnaw, but that's already overloaded so this is fine

I also notice that this thread was made before embers released, however.
Would you say that that with the inclusion of tinkers ghouls are in a slightly better place than they were now or no? Would you make any changes to your proposed buffs with this in mind?
At the end of the day I think it's okay for undead racials to be powerful and point sinks, since that seems to be almost a thematic case among all of them, and runes are inferior to infusions in every way so this is what they get in return.

[e1337ist]

I'm not personally a fan of skills that offer a small raise in base stats. The numbers can be useful in the early game for prerequisites, but if it's a stat you need you probably have enough of it anyway, and the bonus per level is small enough that it can be pretty easily substituted with gear. In the late game, 11 in a stat is relatively negligible compared to other things you can get out of five generic points. Finally the bonus is almost invisible in an encounter so you don't really even get to enjoy it. I like your change to Ghoul, but I'd like the talent as a whole more if it were slightly rebalanced without the stat modifier, even if the difference to the percentage is marginal.

I also really like the thought of Retch scaling with your higher of two stats (even though I thought it was kinda cheesy when Grace of the Eternals did it)! I've got to say though, that while I'm not sure what stat bodily fluids would scale with, it doesn't really seem like a magical action. Even though I just trash talked it in the paragraph above, the stat increase on Ghoul seems to imply that the race's primary stats are Str and Con, so I think it would keep with the theme for Retch to scale with either of the two.

[Parcae2]

I play Ghoul almost exclusively, on Madness/Adventure. I've gotten them to Briagh's Lair twice, once as a Paradox Mage (before Tinker but also before the Contingency nerf) and once as a Demonologist (using Tinker).

They're a severely underappreciated race. They're not powerful by any means, especially compared to options like Shalore and Ogre, but they do have some things going for them. Their killer feature is the "limits damage to 50% of health" feature, which is worthless on lower difficulties but really shines on Madness because it means you can't die from spike damage. I got very used to combat log messages like "220 damage (550 resilience)." Also, Retch is of limited use as a heal but very useful for getting rid of things like Vitality on opponents. Then they have a few nice small things to round out the race, notably Leap and 50% stunres. Any tinker ghoul can reach 100% stunres with nothing but the racial resistance and Grounding Strap, which frees up a couple of equipment slots.

The limitations of the race add challenges, but not insuperable ones. 20% global speed is something that many classes can compensate for. It's even technically possible to get Windtouched Speed on a Ghoul, I think, in spite of the Equilibrium requirements, although I haven't done much testing because it's obviously unintended behavior. In any case, if you can't survive a double turn every once in a while, you're going to have a heck of a time dealing with randboss bees and the like.

Losing infusions hurts more. Healing infusions I can take or leave - they can be helpful, but there are other sources of healing. Wild infusions aren't as big a deal if you pick up Tinker talents. Losing Heroism hurts the most - the tinker equivalent isn't anything like as good. Having Heroism on a ghoul would be severely imbalanced, though, because Resilience only checks your max life, not any sources of negative life you might have.

The short version is that, for me, their limitations make them interesting. They're nothing like as awful as Skeleton, which has nothing whatsoever to recommend it and should be fixed first. Ghouls are mid-tier for me, stronger than Skeleton or even Yeek but weaker than Shalore or Ogre - but that's an indication that Shalore and Ogre need to be nerfed, not that Ghouls need to be buffed.

That said, Gnaw really is awful and needs to be fixed.

[Frumple]

I really just want to see gnaw turn into a passive or sustain, m'self. Just let it be something they get for free when they whack someone. I'd call it particularly fair given the global malus, really.

And yeah, tinkers helps both undead races quite a bit. Debuff cleanse and whatnot is what they miss more than just about anything, and salves do that better than just about anything as well. That said, I'm not entirely sure balancing around a DLC is the best of ideas with a race that's in the base game. If they're tuned for the use of tinkers, they're probably not going to be in the best place for all the folks that don't have access to embers, heh.