Team Tactics vs... Ghouls

Good evening.

Recently, I participated in a team working our way through Nova Praetoria and Imperial City.

It started out fine. PPD, Clockwork, Resistance, Syndicate... all were summarily defeated without much issue (save for a couple of occasions where the team got split.)

Then we fought the Ghouls. And promptly got curb-stomped.

We figured it was just a luck of the draw thing. The RNG hating all of us or liking the ghouls that time. A fluke. We regathered, psyched ourselves up, and went back in.

We died faster the second time.

We finally managed to get the first group down on the third try. The next group wiped us out with little effort.

That was the point we started losing people. After two more spectacular failures to move beyond the first area, we were down to 3 people, and the leader decided to go to a different mission (one without Ghouls in it...)

In retrospect, I can understand the issue. We approached the ghouls like they were everything else, had one person (a brute in this case) trying to hold the agro, while everyone else hit the group with everything they had.

Only, every time a ghoul dies, the ghouls around it get healed up. AoE attacks were basically counter productive, as one falls, and the rest go back to nearly full (if not all the way to full.)

So, has anyone worked out a good way to deal with Ghouls in a group?

I'm afraid this is pure theory-crafting, rather than personal experience. Take it as you will.

How about having one member of the team call targets? Everyone could target through them with single target attacks. The boss chappies (I forget the name) get dropped first, then the Painted Ones, then you can mop up.

I guess the best way to deal with ghouls would have to be focused fire, in a perfect world, everyone would just focus their ST attacks through the tank//brute//whatever is taking the alpha.

The problem is this game is so focused on AOE devestation that it just doesnt happen(I myself am extremely guilty, love my AoE's)

But I have never really had to many problems with ghouls, with the exeption of one or two teams. They can hit hard but if you are being careful not to pull more then you can handle you should be more or less ok.

I for one, love the ghouls, idk why I am not usually a fan of the Undead(ish) Genre, but they suprised me. This is all just my point of view, other people might have better ideas, but this is more or less how i see the Ghouls, sorry i didnt give you an indepth way to deal with them.

New groups require new thinking. What about knockback? Get the near dead away and they die alone unable to be comfort food for their bros.

I've also heard that confused Ghouls heal players instead.

Single-target Immobs work great to scatter the pack enough to deny them death-heals. If you can coordinate AoE spikes that are fatal to more than a few of the ghouls, that is also helpful as your own personal alpha strike.

In the one group scenario I was in with Ghouls I was on my TA/A defender, another player was a /Devices blaster, and we had someone else with an immobilize, I forget who. We really didn't have any trouble with the Ghouls but I think it was due to our ability to thin the herd with the first salvo and then pick apart the rest as they separated.

I prefer to kill Pointed Ones first...since they have a "Marked for Death" power that basically creates a taunt aura on you...

If the team was mostly single target based, I can see why you were having problems, not to mention their brawl has a stun attached to it.

Having an electric/ dom or troller along is nice too if they have [Static Field]. That sleep does wonders for keeping the ghouls quiet and stopping the damage.
[Jolting Chain] also stops the incoming damage for a while.

Without an AOE hold or soft-hold, spamming ST holds on as many as possible, as fast as possible, helps limit things.


This is specific primary advice from the character with which I have had the most team interactions with ghouls. I am sure similar lines of thought work for other sets (some of the immob & KB thoughts above, for instance).

Ghouls really require integrated team work in a different way. They are fun, but certainly no chumps.
edit: and oh, yes, getting called out by a Painted One on a team sucks.

Pretty much, what they said. Ghouls have brilliant anti-herding code built in and it's also wonderfully gruesome in-character.

Was it Macarthur who's plan for the Korean war was "Drive them all the way back to Moscow and nuke them in one place?" If you're going to AOE them, you have to AOE them ALL to death at once. Which is, as you've noticed, kinda hard.

The tactics for ghouls are kinda like the tactics for those Nemesis groups of like five lieutenants. Do it smart or take the big hits.

One of the best things to use against ghouls is knockback. Scatter them all over the map. Bring a stormie. Or two stormies. You just have to think outside the box we've all gotten stuck in.

Strikes me as good game design.

Ghouls can be really easy or a nightmare depending on your tactics and team composition. If you lack significant mitigation then you'll need to use care not to pull too many of them at once; running through with a group of 3 scrappers with my SG we had to take them a few at a time. Yeah, the death heal can be a problem, but it isn't a huge one in most situations.

We had a run with an Elec/Rad controller, Elec/Elec dominator and my Ice/Rad corrupter that was sheer awesome, the two Elec's would run around and gather up the aggro cap of Ghouls and herd them together, the sleep field and whatever their end drain power is called would drain the entire group dry in 2 seconds (both the 'troller and dom stacking their drain patch) and I'd drop Rain of Ice and Frost Breath along with the Rad debuffs. We would drop the entire herd in very short order with no issues at all and go out for more. The death heal was mostly a non-issue; no worse than the Freakshow's dull pain to overcome.

All in all I've found Ghouls to be one of the better designed of the new mobs; they're MUCH better than the overpowered clocks or especially the Destroyers. Ghouls aren't overpowered in themselves, it's their numbers that make them dangerous. Either limit the numbers you have to deal with at a time or have some method of mitigating their effects. Absent a means of dealing with their numbers though and you'll have problems. These aren't a typical "run in and kill" enemy group.

I've actually found the ghouls a nice change of pace.

Where at most levels a scrapper can handle just about any mob, until now.

I quickly learned old tactics weren't gonna cut it with these guys, and had to come up with a whole new way to deal with these guys.

And yes Nemesis Staff is definitely one way to handle them as is any knockback power. I usually hit one with the staff, and get there attention. Change target to the one that is going to get to me first and start on that one, when the others arrive staff is usually back up I kill off the one I'm beating on rinse and repeat. But not all tactics work well for everybody. I don't run up on these guy because of the ones that drop down from the ceiling and bam you have 3 more.

As they say different strokes for different folks.