Seriously people. Madlee and x1x2 has proposed the most reasonable suggestion.
Fix the healing devo first and/or health reg or whatever, then release FG, then let ppl play SR, defeat new super bosses, whatever, wait for feedback, then see if ghoul really need a Nerf.
Just stop this pointless discussion about nerfing ghoul.
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There’s no issue with other T1 devotions when Ghoul will get nerfed. If no one wants it to get nerfed, tell Crate to buff all other T1 devotions. I bet they’ll say “no”, because it takes way too much time to sit down, think about every single one and implement appropriate adjustments. After they buff all T1 devotions, they’ll need to look at T2, and in the end there’d be an issue where everything is overtuned and needs to be nerfed, so we’ll get back to the same spot where we’re currently at, where one constellation will be picked on every build because it has everything a character would want in one take.
I’ve been saying Ghoul is super good since the first time I’ve picked it, and when I mentioned it once here, that Ghoulish Hunger is super good, everyone said it’s shit, then a Crucible player said it’s quite good, and suddenly, after no changes, this constellation became good in general, everyone kept saying it’s good. Ghoulish Hunger grants literally 3 most wanted stats in the game, if you think that’s fine, then you probably don’t know what you’re doing at all.
Believe it or not, I also don’t want GH to be nerfed, because it’s super cheesy and literally overtuned and all builds can use it, but, for fuck sake, this game is not about picking the same shit on every character. Nex and Ortus was broken as fuck and still everyone said “NO THAT’S FINE!” I said right after the buffs to it that it’ll be OP (don’t know if it was here, though) and everyone said “nope”.
Sit down and count how many of your builds use the same constellations, at least 70% of them will. I don’t remember the last time I was picking Red Affinities and thought “I don’t need Ghoul”, I only say so on builds that have no WD in their main attack, and still end up using it sometimes because physical resist.
People are just too afraid/lazy to re-build their toons if a particular thing doesn’t fit the build anymore. No offense, but I think Mad_lee is one of them because he only plays Crucible and always pushes his builds to the limit and picks everything that’s strong or OP and then tries to convince people that the stuff he picked is not OP. This is not how a game should be played, something is overpicked, it’s OP, no matter how you look at it. There’s nothing like “everything else but this is weak”, it’s basically lying to yourself.
There is much things I don’t want to be nerfed, like literally GH, because it’s too strong and everything can use it, but I also want to play and see builds that use different stuff. How many times have you seen a build that DOESN’T use the same devotions? 1? 2? Or when a new player makes something and they just pick stuff they like because they don’t understand the game.
You keep spewing your theories in every thread and don’t read what you reply to. I didn’t say balance isn’t important. I rephrased other players who said that nerfs to Ghoul won’t achieve it. And I certainly didn’t say anything about Malakor or Dying God.
Ghoul is needed where it is in this game at this moment by very many builds even if it offends your devotion tier sensibilities. If you don’t see it maybe try some crucible already.
Yet some still insist…
Seriously though, I don’t think Ghoul needs a nerf. Atleast not in the current state of things. Buff the other stuff first and then see if anything needs a nerf rather than make things worse just for the hell of it.
Crucible is not and will never be the main game. If something is just good in Crucible, it’s most likely OP in the main Campaign. This is the main reason this game is hard to balance, or rather hard to appeal to everyone, because people want it to be balanced for Crucible and don’t care at all about the main game, which is inappropriate.
The fact most of players play Crucible doesn’t mean Crate has to show the middle finger to the main campaign and focus on Crucible. Crate wants the main game to be the main game and I doubt they’d rather listen to an experienced Crucible player than to an experienced main game player.
You’re actually one of those players that think Crucible is the main game, apparently, because you told me to play Crucible, as if my PC would handle it and I would care about an arena that is only playable if you pick everything that’s OP on one character or squeeze your characters beyond the limits. Crucible is nothing but a race, who has a better character is a “better player”, which is absurd and retarded. How much time do Crucible players spend on making one character? 10 hours only to squeez it to death, it’s literally hardcore playing and not trying to have fun but trying to be the best. People who play Main Campaign want to have fun, they make a character that they like and don’t care if it’s weak, if it’s too strong they report it and want it too be weaker, while Crucible players do the opposite, something’s too strong, they don’t report it but defend it, something’s okay or weak, report it to buff it and make it top tier or OP. There are some people who actually don’t talk about game balance at all and play Crucible, because they prefer to have fun and rather build something effective and don’t squeeze the characters beyond limits.
So if you want to talk about balance, play the main campaign instead of Crucible. You can give a hint that this and that is strong in Crucible, explain how something performs, but do not talk about balancing stuff around Crucible, because you only mislead Crate to balance the game the wrong way.
Now, I’m not that knowledgable about Crucible meta…or about the endgame, if I’m being honest, but here are a few things I think could be improved for non-WD casters regarding Devotions :
Dryad could use a buff : Dryad’s Blessing is interesting, because it can either be used in conjonction to a spammed spell, or on a CD ability. That being said, the heal itself is kinda on the weak side, especially considering that it’s an “On attack” proc, which means it directly competes with a lot of other offensive procs, and it’s also a yellow affinity devotion. Maybe it’s overkill, but I’d just double the healing numbers, just to give a strong healing option if you forfeit an 'on Attack" proc for it.
Scales of Ulcaman is awesome…but Tip the Scales is weird, in the sense that it’s a Vitality proc in a universal devotion. More over, it’s a yellow affinity devotion, Vitality feels kinda out of place. I’d suggest adding flat Elemental damage to the proc, of roughly the same amount than Vitality, to open up its use to a lot of other builds.
Behemoth and Tree of Life’s proc kinda compete for the same identity, aka regular healing with an healing regen buff. Healing rain also provide Energy regen so there is that, but they’re quite similar mechanically. I think I’d rather have Giant Blood being ZE regen proc, with its duration extended to 20 seconds.
Anyway, that’s my 2cent.
Ghoul isn’t OP in Main Campaign. It isn’t even necessary. It is “nice to have”, especially in SC (HC may be different).
What’s the purpose of a T1 Constellation?
Grab some Goodies and get points to get the deeper devotions. Is there another T1 Constellation where you have to invest 5 points to get only 3? I don’t know any. So, if you have to invest 5 points to get GH (as proposed) this is a heavy investion. In any other Constellation you would get 5 points.
Well, Dryad! Another argument to buff Dryad, yay! 
That’s what I want to see viable for all casters without weapon damage.
With Tree of life you can even reach 3k regen.
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/qNYYE87N
Oh yeah gonna get those sick double rare greens first then you can do viable caster without wpn dmg
None of those m.i.s are double rare affixes and the boots can be a regular crafted boot if you can’t afford the resources for the yellow recipe. Plus the pants and offhand add zero health regen.
Also the m.i.s used are beyond easy to farm as they all drop from easy to get to and easy to kill bosses.
So…what I’m gathering from this thread is that Ghoul isn’t ‘OP.’
What really needs fixing is its counterpart - dryad.
Give adcth a competitive counterpart, not a nerf. <---- yes?
I would like it. Make different nodes of Dryad a little bit stronger (including Procc), have a look at Giant’s Blood and Wayward Soul…no need to nerf Ghoul.
nope, Ghoul is OP. Just because Dryiad suck don`t change Ghoul oupiness. :eek:
3
/10 chars
That’s because there’s like four of you who play pets. 
Ghoul is OP for a t1 but not OP in context. The problem is not Ghoul but why so many chars need it, starting with melee but really casters too.
It’s a symptom of a deeper issue that got worse as the game advanced each xpac.
And we all know these issues .
1)Unavoidable Burst dmg. Check all new nemesises - they all charge right intro your face and , well, burst you down. Most of them do so with a bunch of debuffs that are strain-out unfair:
455 Reduced target’s Defensive Ability for 3 Seconds
18% Reduction to Enemy’s Health
60% Slow target for 3 Seconds
18-26% Reduction to Enemy’s Health
1480 Bleeding Damage over 5 Seconds
40% Slow target for 3 Seconds
20% Reduction to Enemy’s Health
200% of Attack Damage converted to Health
64% Reduced target’s Damage for 3 Seconds
Stun target for 2.1 Seconds
30% Slower target Movement for 5 Seconds
36 Reduced target’s Resistances for 3 Seconds
Just look at this madness.
2)Lack of alternative to ADCTH. Only runefiltrator can live w/o any ADCTh, but , well its a freaking runefiltrator with tons of dmg/defense and 2 healing skills
3)Unfairness for CC effects. Player CC resists are capped at 80% and there is nothing you can do to increase it. All new big nasty nemesises are immune to everything and ignore any form of CC outside of path-blocking .
So yeah, there is nothing you can do outside of clever terrain abuse with a kitting caster or build a freacking tank filled with ADCTH and brace content.
On Dryad:
1)Nerfing ghoul while buffing dryad would screw over most damage types.
It give yellow which is useless for most builds except piercing and physical builds. If it is changed it to a more universal devotion that every build should be able to use it should at least give blue or green in addition to or as replacement for the yellow.
2)Even if you double the healing it won’t do much good for the more fragile builds. If you have incoming damage in thousand per sec even a 20% heal won’t much good if you have only 10-11K health. Perhaps if it offered a large amount of health regen in addition to a general buff for health regen it could work. The DoT duration reduction could also be changed to something more desirable like slow and/or stun resist.
3)Casters and melee builds without lots of wps generally lack skills on which to bind offensive devotions too. For my spellbinder AAR and cold spellbreaker PB build I can just about fit the all the on attack devotions in and simply do not have the room for another one.
On Ghoul: I would be against a ghoul nerf currently.
Disclaimer: I only speak from my own experience both in the campaign and crucible but due only having played limited amounts of builds(For example I have yet to play a pet build or a build fully focused on Retaliation) I might have missed something.
1)It is very expensive for a T1 devotion costing 5 and giving only 3 so it should give a good return for such an investment.
2)The CC immunity + charge attacks + the wide use of CC by both mobs and bosses make avoiding damage near impossible thus making it a necessity for all auto attack builds and spam/channeling casters to be able to face tank.
3)Auto attack builds and spam/channeling casters without lots of armor + physical resit and some form of damage absorb(preferably both flat and %) and 15K+ HP suffer from large amounts of unavoidable damage that cannot be fixed by any other practical way then life steal. Regular mobs deal insignificant damage to things like Forcewave Octavius tacticians but can deal hundreds of HP damage even with high investment in defensive’s stats and skills to more fragile builds like Deathguard reapers and Dagallon purifiers. For enemies like nemesises the damage numbers are in the thousands.
4)Add to this that there are enemies like the Reaper of the lost that can debuff your physical resists by more then 50% and DA by 420 while doing huge chunks of physical damage.
Frankly I see no other practical way to survive in melee combat with the more fragile builds then to leech lots of health and by extension the necessity of ghoul.
tl;dr: A lack of ways to avoid damage + too large damage spikes(in particular physical damage) makes alternatives to health leach unfeasible in most cases and makes ghoul a necessarily evil.
What the heck is this bullshit you are spewing about me, mate? I’ve said it thousand of times, I HATE playing Crucible. The only reason I play it is to test the builds I create and to make the best builds possible. There is no other way to min-max your build to perfection other then to test it in the most challenging area available.
Also lol at the “people are lazy to re-build” comment. Look at my build guides (about 20 of them). I’ve been updating them and adjusting to every patch. I largely contributed to putting Spellbreakers back on the map after Shadow Strike got nerfed again, I have the only viable DEE Witch Hunter build and I even made the endgame build for Defilers for pete’s sake.
This kind of ignorance in assumptions you make is mildly infuriating.