[Snake]

Ghost and Tarnada are slowly making me give up on building on this game, given how optimal those two together are. But either way... The main issues I've seen with Ghost myself will be presented below, with a suggested solution for them.

- Wraithguard should be inflicted with a permanent duration Interference, when summoned on the field.
(It can be healed, thus, it can have an extended utility for an infinite amount of time. Even if you take your time to bap them, if they survive with 1 HP, your Ghost can try to chuck a potion on it, or graft it, or malmelo it, or whatever else. A permanent -30% damage to your enemy? That's /not/ fun to fight against.)

- Blood Spike and Scarlet Twister both have an insane range due to Rising Game. The range bonus should either be halved for both, or just removed completely.
(Ghosts right now fight on the middle of combat, and when they're low on HP. Instead of actually being like Ghosts and savoring the thrill of death for being in the middle of danger. They just are more optimal to run away and then become a Railgan of blood, sniping people from afar for 300~ damage every time, for nothing but a small HP% cost that they can remedy with Rebound/Heals/Potions and keep a steady damage while kiting cowardly.)

- Blood Spike and Scarlet Twister should both inflict or empower Cursed Wounds on the caster for 4 rounds, equal to half of the HP percentage used. (5% for Scarlet Twister, 4% for Blood Spike)
(Again, as said, when a Ghost is paired with ANY healing, it means they'll be able to completely ignore their drawbacks for using skills that should be chained in on key moments, rather than spammed until the enemy stops moving. This should probably help them slow down a little or atleast be a bit vulnerable for using them too much. And no buts anymore on Blood Spike. The HP cost should go up to 8%.)

- Ether Invitation should regain its old condition. "Only be usable when under 25% HP."
(Why was this ever removed... People now tend to build uber-tank ghosts with 1100 HP and just delete people with massive EI hits that inflict Cursed Wounds on top of that. I believe this skill being like this, is the main reason nobody wants to use Vampires or Spirits anymore, given Holy enchant will have a 200% chance to instantly destroy a target vulnerable to it, and leave them unable to even heal back.)

[iStabOreos]

Ghost and Tarnada are slowly making me give up on building on this game, given how optimal those two together are. But either way... The main issues I've seen with Ghost myself will be presented below, with a suggested solution for them.

- Wraithguard should be inflicted with a permanent duration Interference, when summoned on the field.
(It can be healed, thus, it can have an extended utility for an infinite amount of time. Even if you take your time to bap them, if they survive with 1 HP, your Ghost can try to chuck a potion on it, or graft it, or malmelo it, or whatever else. A permanent -30% damage to your enemy? That's /not/ fun to fight against.)

- Blood Spike and Scarlet Twister both have an insane range due to Rising Game. The range bonus should either be halved for both, or just removed completely.
(Ghosts right now fight on the middle of combat, and when they're low on HP. Instead of actually being like Ghosts and savoring the thrill of death for being in the middle of danger. They just are more optimal to run away and then become a Railgan of blood, sniping people from afar for 300~ damage every time, for nothing but a small HP% cost that they can remedy with Rebound/Heals/Potions and keep a steady damage while kiting cowardly.)

- Blood Spike and Scarlet Twister should both inflict or empower Cursed Wounds on the caster for 4 rounds, equal to half of the HP percentage used. (5% for Scarlet Twister, 4% for Blood Spike)
(Again, as said, when a Ghost is paired with ANY healing, it means they'll be able to completely ignore their drawbacks for using skills that should be chained in on key moments, rather than spammed until the enemy stops moving. This should probably help them slow down a little or atleast be a bit vulnerable for using them too much. And no buts anymore on Blood Spike. The HP cost should go up to 8%.)

- Ether Invitation should regain its old condition. "Only be usable when under 25% HP."
(Why was this ever removed... People now tend to build uber-tank ghosts with 1100 HP and just delete people with massive EI hits that inflict Cursed Wounds on top of that. I believe this skill being like this, is the main reason nobody wants to use Vampires or Spirits anymore, given Holy enchant will have a 200% chance to instantly destroy a target vulnerable to it, and leave them unable to even heal back.)

If there was anything that didn't take the words out of my mouth and then some it would be this right here. Holy crap there's only so much we can say before we continue to paddle on that ghost needs a renerf.

[Lewdcifer]

I've some suggestions to offer myself, some that I've discussed with a number of people and would like to share in this thread.

• Blood Spike: Damage reduction, reduce maximum possible range.
  Blood Spike has become one of Ghost's main skills, due to its great damage and its range being able to cover a large portion of the map under the correct conditions. As such, and since Duelists usually have high Scaled Weapon Attack due to two-hand bonuses, reducing its damage from 100% Elemental ATK to 70% Elemental ATK would make it on par with other similar skills. As for its range, imposing a proper limitation would amend various issues with the skill; a maximum range of 7 is the proposal.
  .
  
• Scarlet Twister: Damage reduction, reduce its maximum possible area.
  Scarlet Twister is one of Ghost's main skills as well, albeit less common. Some of its most notable features are its great damage, the area it can cover, and its strong pull. Reducing its damage from 115% Elemental ATK to a value no greater than 90%, and making the maximum area it can cover be 6 tiles would greatly help with the issues this skill has.
  .
  
• Gravestone: Made destroyable by non-basic attacks.
  One of the main issues with Gravestone is that anyone seeking to clear it has to move in and attack it, essentially dedicating one of their turns for this. A Duelist can gain a large advantage in the momentum race, and as such, it is sometimes impossible to make a Wraithguard vulnerable unless you have some form of push and/or pull. Making Gravestone be destroyable by any attack would amend this issue and by extension improve the chances of others against Ghost.
  .
  
• Ether Invitation: Reverted to its previous version, before the Ghost revamp. If not; limitations.
  Ether Invitation, before it was changed in the Ghost revamp, used to be an auto-hit for the concept of not being able to raise damage through a Critical, but otherwise functioned as a Basic Attack. The skill could be reverted to function like this, which would greatly assist with how strong the skill can become under the correct conditions. However, if this idea is rejected, then the skill should be made so that it can't be used unless the target has Claret Call on them. Additionally, and although up for discussion, imposing a cap on any of its variables could suffice.
  

[Akame]

I agree with everything stated in the opening post. Ghosts currently are just that good at the moment. Though, even with the these changes I feel like kiting and long-ranged spell spamming with Twister and Spike won't change too much.

I think Wraithguard could use more looking at in that case. I feel like if someone gets too far away from their Wraithguard without being accompanied by a gravestone, like outside of 7 range for example, the reduction should be reduced by only 15% to discourage running away and sniping. I'm also in-part bringing this up due to the massive reductions of the combination of Wraithguard and Shared Pain can bring. It's ridiculous.

I like Lewdcifer's suggestions as well!

[Senna]

Blood Spike: Damage reduction, reduce maximum possible range.
Blood Spike has become one of Ghost's main skills, due to its great damage and its range being able to cover a large portion of the map under the correct conditions. As such, and since Duelists usually have high Scaled Weapon Attack due to two-hand bonuses, reducing its damage from 100% Elemental ATK to 70% Elemental ATK would make it on par with other similar skills. As for its range, imposing a proper limitation would amend various issues with the skill; a maximum range of 7 is the proposal.

This has senna approval--Drop it to range 6 and THEN you have the 100% approval.

Scarlet Twister: Damage reduction, reduce its maximum possible area.
Scarlet Twister is one of Ghost's main skills as well, albeit less common. Some of its most notable features are its great damage, the area it can cover, and its strong pull. Reducing its damage from 115% Elemental ATK to a value no greater than 90%, and making the maximum area it can cover be 6 tiles would greatly help with the issues this skill has.

This seems a bit more balanced, yeah. It's only really strong because it can lolgroup people with the pull for a cheap Bloodspike while doing like 200-400 to everyone it hits in total for that round. If the pulling force and the range can be reduce so it isn't the size of a max setting sun, that would be great.

- Wraithguard should be inflicted with a permanent duration Interference, when summoned on the field.
(It can be healed, thus, it can have an extended utility for an infinite amount of time. Even if you take your time to bap them, if they survive with 1 HP, your Ghost can try to chuck a potion on it, or graft it, or malmelo it, or whatever else. A permanent -30% damage to your enemy? That's /not/ fun to fight against.)

YES, PLEASE, LOL. It's so annoying when they can lolheal, buff and so on to the wraithguard, making it much harder to kill. And if you ignore it, that's like a free 30% reduction onto of the damage they're already reducing, that's no fun man.

- Ether Invitation should regain its old condition. "Only be usable when under 25% HP."
(Why was this ever removed... People now tend to build uber-tank ghosts with 1100 HP and just delete people with massive EI hits that inflict Cursed Wounds on top of that. I believe this skill being like this, is the main reason nobody wants to use Vampires or Spirits anymore, given Holy enchant will have a 200% chance to instantly destroy a target vulnerable to it, and leave them unable to even heal back.)

Yeah, limit it to low HP only, make the victim unmarkable for like three-four rounds and everyone who they took CC for two rounds so they dontlollastchance after using it because the risk factor when you want to use it is almost none existing lol.

Gravestone: Made destroyable by non-basic attacks.
One of the main issues with Gravestone is that anyone seeking to clear it has to move in and attack it, essentially dedicating one of their turns for this. A Duelist can gain a large advantage in the momentum race, and as such, it is sometimes impossible to make a Wraithguard vulnerable unless you have some form of push and/or pull. Making Gravestone be destroyable by any attack would amend this issue and by extension improve the chances of others against Ghost.

What I would suggest for Gravestone is let autohits, AOE and basic attacks be able to break it. Just stuff like tiles and whatnot gets negated by it. But if we're gonna do that, let's give it like, a hit count, whereas it needs to take 2-3 hits to break while giving the skill a good enough CD so they don't just lolrenew it. Pretty much balancing it out so it isn't completely useless.

[FaeLenx]

Maybe get rid of Scarlet Twister and Blood Spike applying Claret Call? Right now, it's a great way to apply it to a large amount of people and then just rebound for a huge amount of health. In a group fight, it's rather oppressive. If you're doing a solo fight and you're a build that has adds or summons, it's basically a hard counter from a class that already does a large amount of damage.

[Raigen.Convict]

Scarlet twister and Blood Spike need 3 round CDs. Wraithguard needs interference and if we make gravestones damageable by anything it needs more hp to be fair. What we also need is for red rain to apply 2 stacks of claret per round so it gets use over the spells sometimes too. I also would like to see claret work for guns.

[Kameron8]

Four or five people trying to push for different, specific changes to the class makes the contents of this thread pretty unactionable. It would be best to instead fall back to structuring the points of frustration and excess power (ratios on spells/skills, wraithguard, EI, synergies, etc) than to continue making detailed suggestions. Seeing as I also suggested changes, I'll try and summarize the points from my first post as succinctly as I can, and trim out the more controversial pieces, as well as those that aren't as important:

• The damage and range on autohits, especially the magic damage AoE spells, are much too high for their cost. This issue is accentuated by the fact that it forces people to build both Defense and Resistance to mitigate extreme spikes of damage from a Ghost. (Much like Eclair, but without the cooldown.)
  
• The fire-and-forget survivability offered by using Wraithguard before players have engaged one another is too efficient of a defensive tool. With proper positioning, even directly targeting it can be a momentum deficient trade. Failing to kill it after making this attempt can result in Gravestone immune-ing the 10 health spirit, exacerbating the issue. Excess damage absorption all but assures you're adding over 300 temporary health to your character by using this skill.
  
• Ether Invitation scaling the missing health damage with %increases like Criticals, Hunted, 1 vs 1, etc, makes the ability too powerful given that it no longer has any restrictions or damage limitations. Last chance no longer halts the use of this skill since Claret Call is not required, the cooldown is tiny, and the damage is enormous.
  

A lot of my qualms in the original post mention Duelist in general, but I won't draw that into this summary. There is room to argue that items like Tarnada, Bloody Palms, and Thunderhooves play a large role in creating these issues, but that needs to be its own discussion to avoid convoluted idea mixing.

I by no means want to imply I dislike the other suggested ideas. It just gets too hard to follow the main point of the thread, when half of it is different ideas of reworked skills. I'd rather have Dev make his own changes to address the issues themselves, than for the thread to die because there was too much noise to make proper sense of.

[Snake]

I agree there.

Now all that's left is to let the Big Boss address those issues individually and pick the best solution. I have nothing else to add here but a sharp nod and a pray for hope that Ghost will stop being so 'must' to the point there's no real way to win fights if you're not being a Ghost.

[MakeshiftWalrus]

I agree with Kameron8's points. I think this is where we need to begin addressing the current power issue of Ghost.