Maybe I've missed them, but there don't seem to have been many, if any, forum threads about Ghost Rider since his rework went live. I thought I'd start one to talk it through; and see what the communities' thoughts are.
I've been a Ghost Rider fan for a long time. He was my first ever 5* Ascension, before Quake/Magik, and I've used him constantly for Questing as a 5* and 6*. Like, up to last week I was questing with him, because I love the champ. He was versatile, adaptable, if a bit slow and dependent on Blade synergy.
So, I wanted to share my thoughts about the new build. He's certainly different. But is he better? It's a mixed picture...
First off, the new animations are awesome - full marks there, guys!
The damage is modestly better, but actually, not a lot: If you want to see a head-to-head between old and new GR, here's Alison Edits showing us that it's not all that different:
https://youtu.be/5oXkNZNQU5g?si=N5GKC-keSbBQc-ZK Personally, I've been testing out a 5/65 Ascended Sig 200 Ghost Rider. I've got a Level 16 Mystic collective, for reference; which makes direct pre-buff/post-buff comparisons difficult.
So, in a standard 5-judgement rotation against WS, the SP2+ degens take off 25% of Winter Soldier's health: that's around 137,500 damage total. It's respectable, for a six-star, but it's far from impressive.
However, it
is Degen damage and it's a Passive, so it bypasses the defenses/resistances if 98% of champs in the game, and will go absolutely nuts on Power Shield... Those are good things.
If you're in a hurry (BGs), a relatively fast MLLLL, MLLLM, Hvy-SP1--Strk-SP2 rotation will do around 280,000 damage in 50 seconds. Translate that to a 7*r4 champion, and you're probably looking at around 410-420,000 for a quick rotation.
Buff controlThe buff control is different; and I guess I'll get used to it. I actually found the old Fate Seal on SP1 very useful, and the switch to Hinder/Atrophy is going to significantly alter how and where it'll be useful. But overall, he's a bit more versatile this way; and there's still Damnation, if you need to completely remove buffs. It's certainly not significantly worse; and helps you cope with champs/nodes where Fate Seal won't work. So, a modest improvement here too, then?
Reliability This is the by far the area that has improved most: GR's second major failing (after damage) was his unreliable judgements. They're now 100% reliable, and importantly: they're all now Passive effects instead of debuffs (which could be shrugged off, reduced by Endurance, etc). These two changes are genuinely hugely impactful in a wide range of battles.
SustainabilityThe regeneration has been nerfed to the ground. No two ways about it: Ghost Rider used to be able to heal up from nothing to full health with careful play, and now he can barely manage to recover chip damage.
In a typical fight, I'd estimate that his health recovery has dropped by over 90%.
Remember that 137,500 damage I quoted to Winter Soldier? The 2% Genesis passive translates that into a pitiful 2750 health recovery for Ghost Rider.
Just, at that level of regeneration - why even bother?
From my testing, if you attack for the entire run-time of the Genesis passive, you will still only see GR recover at most around 3% of his health from the full Genesis effect. Yes, it'll be more effective against Villains if Awakened, although still
dramatically less good than it used to be.
How good did it used to be? Well, if you didn't know, pre-buff Ghost Rider would recover 2.5% of his health
on every single hit, during Life Steal. So,
12.5% health per five-hit combo. And you could easily do that for 18-25 seconds, giving you so much health recovery that we all knew it was inevitable it would need Tuned Down. I get that. But this is surely cut more than it needed to be...the new 2% Genesis effect recovers less health
in total than he previously gained
on just two hits!
That's a
crippling reduction...
Power ControlOkay, so what about Power Control? Well, sad to say, it's
also significantly worse: less than half as good it used to be; although as noted above, it is a bit more reliable and it acts via Passives instead of debuffs. However:
- The old SP2 would power drain for 2-8 seconds, removing from 18% to 72% of the opponent's Power.
- The new Heavy Steal will last 4-13 seconds, stealing 8.3% to 27% of the opponent's Power very,
very slowly (about 2% Power per second, rather than 9% per second, if you want to know).
I mean, yes: you get to Steal the power, which is better (especially Vs Cosmic opponents who punish or are immune to Power Drain); but to be honest, the gain you get is so slow that you don't really notice it happening...
The old SP3 Damnation Power Lock was the icing on GR's cake: the Damnation would give you a period of Power Lock lasting up to 16 seconds if you landed an SP1 en route.
The new Special-3 Damnation has the same effects, but it's a Passive and it
doesn't appear to get longer with Judgements; even though the text on his Spotlight suggests that it should: "
Inflict a Damnation Passive that deals 3082 Direct Damage over 12 seconds, and then convert all Judgments into additional Damnations..."The base duration of 12 seconds is much better than the old base duration (4s); but it's 25% less than you used to get if you actually used the old version properly. That's quite a cut, considering that this is supposed to be an improved version of Ghost Rider.
So, less Power removal, and a shorter Power Lock: no question, Power Control is something that he's substantially
less good at, than he used to be
So, in a nutshell:The good things -
1: A modest damage increase
2: Bleed swapped for degeneration and a fairly weak Incinerate
3: Debuffs are now Passives
4: Reliability is much improved
5: Hinder + Atrophy will be helpful against some threats, although the old Fate Seal was pretty decent, anyway.
6: You can reset Judgements with either SP3 or SP2, which is good on nodes where you can't get to three bars of Power.
The really quite bad things:1: A substantial reduction in Power Control
2: An enormous reduction in Health Recovery/Sustainability.
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Overall? This version of Ghost Rider is somewhat better, even if the rework has probably only taken him from a D- champ to a B- champ, at best.
He's significantly better at handling modern cosmic opponents (and Skill debuff-shruggers). Aside from those opponents though, it's a little disappointing, because this Ghost Rider is dramatically
less good at the two things he used to be really good at.
The regeneration changes are particularly frustrating, because it's
exactly the same change that Kabam implemented (and we
all hated) when they 'buffed' Classic Guillotine a few years back; turning her sporadic but potent Life Steal into a weedy
Genesis-before-they-called-it-Genesis effect. After some outcry, Kabam reluctantly boosted it from a weedy 2% to a slightly less weedy 3%...
Different tuning on the Genesis passive and the Power Steal would go a long way.
So what about you guys, what are your thoughts on the rework? Is he better, worse, or just different? Do you see a place for 'new' Ghost Rider in your teams?
