Command Vengeful Ghost (2024)

Command Vengeful Ghost is a Necromancy ability. It is unlocked from the fourth tier of talents, replacing Conjure Vengeful Ghost when a Vengeful Ghost has been conjured. It allows the player to empower the ghost until it expires. During this time, all attacks by the ghost will apply the Haunted debuff to its target for 4.8 seconds, causing the target to take up to 10% increased damage from all attacks, with the extra damage capped at 20% of the commanding player's ability damage. The extra damage doesn't suffer from the accuracy penalty that the player's attacks usually do; even with low accuracy the full extra damage is added to the attacks. The Haunted debuff does increase the healing capability that the Vengeful Ghost can do.

The Haunted status is not player-specific. Other players' hits, even non-necromancy hitsplats, will benefit from the damage increase on a Haunted target. In these situations, the 20% bonus damage cap is determined by the ability damage of the player who commanded the ghost. Any player-sourced hits are affected by Haunted: poison, reflect damage, typeless hits from the blood reaver's passive effect, god book procs, etc. However, familiar auto-attacks and hits caused by Vengeance are not increased.

Interactions with other abilities[edit | edit source]

Most other Necromancy abilities will deal 10% increased damage to targets affected by Haunted, as only abilities which deal over 200% ability damage in a single hit will reach the cap. This makes Haunted proportionally less effective for hard hitting abilities, and more effective for abilities with multiple smaller hits.

Abilities which always hit under 200% ability damage[edit | edit source]

Abilities with a maximum hit under 200% ability damage will only ever see a 10% increase in damage from the Haunted debuff. These include the basic abilities Touch of Death, Soul Sap, Soul Strike (without the Flanking perk), all Conjured spirits, and the Auto Ability.

Bloat[edit | edit source]

Bloat normally deals a total of 525% average ability damage over a single large hit and 10 subsequent smaller hits over 18 seconds. As none of these hits can be over 200% ability damge, they will all benefit from the full 10% damage increase. However, all the hits are affected individually, so if the target is only Haunted for some of the hits, then only those hits will gain the damage increase.

Volley of Souls[edit | edit source]

While Volley of Souls deals a total of 450% average ability damage with maximum souls (750% with the Soulbound Lantern), each individual hit is only 135% - 165% ability damage. As such, it gets the full benefit of the Haunted debuff.

Vengeful Ghost[edit | edit source]

The Vengeful Ghost itself will deal 10% increased damage. As stated above, this increases the healing that the ghost provides, as does any other effect which increases the damage of a hit.

Abilities which can reach the Haunt damage cap[edit | edit source]

Abilities and special attacks which can hit over 200% ability damage will have proportionally less damage increase from the Haunted debuff.

Death Skulls[edit | edit source]

Despite being one of the strongest Necromancy abilities, Death Skulls does not suffer as much from overcapping the Haunted debuff, as it applies its damage over multiple hits. It can hit the primary target up to 3 times (4 with an Igneous cape), for a total increase of 60% ability damage (80% with an Igneous cape).

Soul Strike[edit | edit source]

Soul strike benefits strongly from the Flanking perk, increasing its damage high enough to reach the Haunted damage cap. Rank 1 in the perk will start to cap damage against the primary target, and rank 3 or higher will start to cap damage against secondary targets.

Split Soul[edit | edit source]

The Haunted debuff indirectly increases the damage that the Split Soul incantation deals. It does not directly add damage to the Split Soul hits, but rather by increasing the damage of the initial hits, the amount of health returned by the Soul Split prayer increases, and thus the Split Soul damage increases as well. How much damage the Haunted debuff adds depends on the damage of the ability as Soul Split has diminishing returns for hits over 2,000 damage. In particular, any non-conjure or command ability (as Soul Split does not work on spirit damage) that deals minor ability damage will also be increased in power by Split Soul more than abilities that deal single large hits, leading to even more power if both are used.

For example, the Bloat damage-over-time hits will in most cases not come close to 2,000 damage required for the diminishing returns, meaning that they get the full 40% damage increase from Split Soul. Combined with the 10% increase in damage from the Haunted debuff, this results in a total of 10% + 40% + 10% * 40% = 54% damage increase.

Graphical updates[edit | edit source]

Update history[edit | edit source]

This information has been compiled as part of the update history project. Some updates may not be included – see here for how to help out!