Flesh-eating undead who can be found in Veteran or Champion-level dungeons, Ghouls are often accompanied by Gargoyles, Maggots or Cultists. They have fairly high protection and health, and can cause bleed and stun along with respectable health and stress damage - not a foe to be underestimated. In particular, watch out for their "Howl" ability, which gives Horror to the entire formation, drops the light level, and has a chance of inflicting The Worries on anyone it hits.
Ghouls are most likely to open combat with a Rend, if they can, but after that will typically use Skull Toss and Howl. In general, they will prioritize marked targets (3x/4x more likely to target them on Veteran/Champion, respectively), and additionally will use Skull Toss on already-stressed heroes (2x/4x).
Ghouls are ruthless and difficult enemies who primarily rely on being hard to kill quickly, while they stack as much stress as possible. Between stress resist debuffs, high crit chances, and the chance to inflict The Worries (for +30% stress), they can easily stack a huge amount of stress or even an Affliction on their own within a few turns, not even considering anyone the Ghoul might be accompanied by.
Skull Toss is a dangerous attack for any backline hero, who tend to have lower health and are much more vulnerable to a crit and stun. If possible, consider guarding to prevent key heroes (such as backline healers like a Vestal or stunners like a Plague Doctor) from being stunned for a turn.
Ghouls' resistances are relatively low, save for stun and move - stunning them on the first round is still sometimes viable with the right setup, giving you time to eliminate their allies, then focus fire on the Ghoul to kill it as quickly as possible. Unlike other Unholy opponents, they're also vulnerable to bleed, and stacking it on them will help end the fight that much faster.
When the game was originally released the Ghoul's Rend caused Bleed, while Slavering Ghoul and Insatiable Ghoul's caused Blight.
This page was last edited on 28 March 2019, at 19:08.