6. Class-Specific DuelingI’m going to start off with casters, because they are what the ghost is built for. The videos are there solely for didactic reasons, so you may find them slightly "dumbed down" and slow.
Sorceresses All Types:
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnhHJIKMW2wGhost vs. Sorc is the same no matter what build they are. Teleport to close in using a semi-circle or spiral pattern, until you are in range to namelock. Lay 1-2 traps and mindblast them until they’re stunned, then quickly teleport in and start whirling. If your whirls are short enough, the MB stun swirly + whirlwind hits will be enough to block/lock stun. The WoF is there to help you keep the sorc in place until you start your whirls. If the sorc casts blizz or meteor over itself, stun them and then shoot blade fury until the blizz/meteor wears off, or just MB them out of the blizz/meteor. You’ll be amazed at how effective just the blade fury is.
NecromancersBone:
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqd-B9OBTeMUse the same strategy as sorcs. You *may* want to use BoS to counter the effect the golem slow has on your trap laying speed. Vita necs will go down pretty easily, as no block with MB/WW will stun them like mad. Block necs will be a little more trouble. Make sure you have trap stun supplementing your WW stun, as block necs may be able to get out of your WW if there are no traps helping you keep them in place. Defensive necs will be hard to get the stun, but if you drive them into corners you will be able to get them. Use corners and range to your advantage, as your attacks are instantaneous, instead of projectiles-based, which take time to get to the target.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii4P911TzuEYou may also want to try and utilize your secondary melee attack here, as when you teleport on a necro with shadow stacked on top of you, any spirits that had you locked will pass through you. With this technique, after you trap/MB the necro, CL tele on top of the necro and attack with your secondary melee skill, set to the left mouse button. Using the left button allows you to CL very quickly if the necro manages to tele out. If you see the necro start to counter it by walk/running away, whirl along with his movement. At the very least, using this strategy will force the necro to run and lower his block and defense. The combination of these two attacks when dueling a necro is extremely effective. The video above illustrates this tactic.
Summon (with or without poison nova):
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07vEqL9AE1wThese necs will be very annoying to duel, but their damage is very low so its still not that bad of a duel. The great thing is that MB and WoF are splash attacks. If you namelock the necro, you will stun the entire pack. Once you stun the necro + minions, you can MB the necro until you push him away from his minions. Once that happens, tele and WW and focus on just him. He’ll go down much sooner than his summons. Just make sure the nec stays stunned or you’ll have to separate him from his minions again.
DruidsWind:
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1YidRRJxBIGhosts are very good against the druid because druids have low FHR and cast, and the WoF and MB counter their short range attacks well. However, they are still dangerous if they catch you before you can stun them. Make sure that when you are pursuing them, your traps are close enough to you so that they can fire back at you if the druid jumps on you. Basically what that ends up looking like is the ghost teleporting so that the druid is on screen, placing a trap between the druid and the ghost, and then MBing the druid until the WoF hits. That way, if the druid jumps on you before you achieve stun, the WoF can still fire backwards and protect you. This duel is the same as vs. any other caster. The oak will be basically immune to you in NM, but it shouldn’t matter if the stun is done correctly. If the druid is a max block druid, reapply the traps. Druids may be able to tank/out damage you if you whirl without stun helping you keep them from shooting tornados.
Fire Elemental:
These should be just giant punching bags. You probably won’t even need WoF for this duel. Just namelock MB, tele and then WW.
Melee:
If the druid is purely melee, if WW perpendicularly away from the druid as it runs after you. That way, the WW will hit but they will not. It’s kind of a useless duel, but it happens anyway.
AmazonsBow:
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3Khdgro_qMThese are very easy. The ghost is anti-caster, but as a result, also totally anti-zon. Don’t bother with more than 1 WoF here either. Circle in with tele, corner namelock with MB and go straight into short WWs. The zon will have low life and poison res, and should get block/dodged locked pretty easily. If the zon manages to desync out of your WW, just MB while they’re running away and repeat. Make sure your whirls are short and that you’re constantly applying pressure via MB, so that they don’t have time to pull out the bow and throw a few arrows your way. They shouldn’t be much of a problem.
Javazons:
Treat these like a caster as well. WoF + MB to stun, then WW them. If the javazon FC’s, then don’t bother with traps. Just MB from far away, tele and WW. Make sure you stay on them or they’ll hit you with more CS. If you need to, you can put on Tgods or something of that sort, but you’ll be able to tank more hits than other characters from the full RES and clawblock. They shouldn’t be able to shoot anymore after you start whirling.
PaladinsHammerdins:
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIUlcKZlYUEHere, you’ll want to practice hit and run, utilizing your open wounds for damage. Basically, dueling a hammerdin will be achieving stun lock to stop the hammer spam for a few instants, long enough for you to tele in and make a quick WW pass. When I say WW pass, I mean a short-medium length whirl southward, so you dodge the hammers that come out as you teleport/whirl (hammers come from the 9 o'clock position on paladins and continue to travel clockwise from there). Don’t DoD here. Just get out of hammer range. If you catch them charging, whirl in the direction they are charging, so you make use of the lowered block when they run/charge along with your whirl. To counter tele/hammers, have 1-2 traps nearby at all times, as once you get the MB swirly the paladin, the traps will be able to cover you from tele/hammers and other short range passes/attacks.
What I do now vs. hammerdins is to teleport offensively (but stay out of hammer range), place 1-2 traps under me for protection, then MB the hammerdin. If the hammerdin starts to charge, teleport and WW with the charge. Otherwise, start laying traps + MB, and wait either for them to charge or for the traps to start firing before you tele whirl. Just remember that both hammerdins and ghosts are short range attackers, so you can/have to wait for the right time to attack. There’s no rush in these duels, since the hammers will not hit you if you keep your distance. If you find the paladin is just trying to out-spam you by just standing in one place and spamming hammers, you can use your secondary melee attack here as well. After you do your short whirl to the south, if you see the hammerdin still standing there spamming, you can attack him with your melee skill from the south. Because the range on the claws is very short, you be able to hit the paladin from below while the hammers curve around you. Just make sure you teleport/whirl away when you see the paladin shift positions.
There’s also the option of a widowmaker here, especially if the paladin is pure hammer. Be very careful on bow switch, especially if the hammerdin equips a charge weapon, as you will have no claw block to protect you.
Liberators:
Keep in mind that they can deal damage with charge. Play with the same strategy as vs. hammerdins, but if you ever see the paladin charge at you, WW perpendicularly away like you would against a zealot/smiter/druid. Hammer damage on a Lib will be lower, but still will deal very good damage.
Mages:
Same strategy as with hammerdin. The FoH will not pose much of a threat if you’re mind blasting them constantly. Most mages actually have very little DR, so they will be easier than full fledged hammerdins.
Zealots:
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgaxcr1N0wIThese can actually be hard if you try and DoD them. They have insane defense and AR, and with your relatively low AR and defense, you may fall victim. Just do short clip WW’s or blade fury if they shift zeal, or whirl perpendicularly away if they come after you.
Smiters:
Grief smite is extremely strong. If the paladin is a pure smite, this duel is very simple. You can WW perpendicularly away from the smiter, so that the smites won't hit but your WW's will. If they shift smite, shoot blade furies to get them to move, or use the time to apply traps + MB. Make sure you have a complete stun lock before you tele in them though, because grief smite hurts. However, once you hit the first time, open wounds will trigger, and the smiter will not sit in MB spam. Just remember that if you try and DoD, the Grief smite will out damage you.
V/T’s:
Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=TWnCcoOnLBQYou’ll have to use hit and run here again. You can't treat them as a pure smiter because the FoH can hit you while you WW away. However, because the V\T’s FoH isn’t spammable, you'll have more time to apply the stun. Lay 2 traps under the smiter or under you, and MB. After they’re stunned, teleport and to another medium length WW, but this time to the north. Namelock teleport puts you slightly to the north of the target, so if you WW north right away after teleport, you should be right out of range as the smite goes off. Rinse and repeat. This will be another hard duel.
AssassinsGhosts:
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8d-LEzn0b8This is an amazingly flashy duel, but its pretty simple when you break it down. If you boil all the graphics down, it ends up being very similar to BvB as Sins that are whirling cannot be stunned. The main objective is to catch/stun the other sin when they aren’t whirling, by MB namelocking and short whirling right away. Other than that there isn’t too much strategy that’s worth mentioning, except to watch your opponent’s life. If you feel open wounds will be able to kill the other sin, duct tape down MB and just keep the sin away while you wait for MB + OW to finish her off. The most effective defense vs. a ghost is to be whirling when you sense the other ghost teleporting, to keep from being caught off guard, or at least exchanging blow for blow. As is the same with other same-class duels, the strategies are just something you have to test and try out for yourself. You may find a use for Blade Fury after dueling a few times.
Lightning Trappers:
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYo8hBjraR4This will be a hard duel. You might want to use BoS here to increase your whirlwind speed if you have max Lightning resistance without Fade. LS has longer range, and will claw block you if they hit, so you'll have to be very careful. Use the corners, and float around the outside of their traps, laying a few WoF from the corners of your screen to force the trapper to move from the traps. Once you get them to move far enough from the traps to get a MB lock, cast a few and tele-whirl. If you have MB swirly on them and your whirls are small enough, you can stun lock them with just WW. If you DoD or whirl perpendicular to the trap shot direction, you’ll be able to dodge all the LS while you hit them. If they manage to get away, or you see that you’re in a bad position, don’t be afraid to teleport out and make some more distance before you take another pass. You can also WW out of traps, since you are unstunnable when you are whirling. The open wounds will deal very good damage while you retreat momentarily.
You can also put on a widowmaker on as a second switch, which will force the trapper to be relatively offensive; making it much easier. Give yourself some distance, lay some traps at points you predict the trapper would teleport, and shoot GA's. If the trapper comes after you, try and land an MB on her. If the trapper gets stunned, switch to claw and go in for some whirls. Don't be afraid to keep your distance if you have a widowmaker, but just remember that WW is much stronger, so always switch to WW if the situation is right.
Hybrids:
These sins are actually pretty tough to beat. Hybrids that duel ghosts will most likely end up being a camping trapper that just WW’s away from you when you try and attack. Here you’ll just have to apply more damage than they do. The traps will be slightly weaker than pure trappers, and they won’t constantly apply MB, so the duel may be easier in some sense. Just try and quickly teleport in, and go straight after them with WW. Keep whirling after them and use the WW to dodge the traps while going after the other assassin. Just keep in mind that your WW out-damages theirs, so anytime both of you guys are whirling at each other, it’s a winning situation.
Fire Trappers/Bombers:
These will be extremely easy. Claw block will block the WoF + fire blasts, plus you won’t get your WW stopped by the WoF+MB. You get the picture.
BarbsWhirlwind:
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM9yTfeWnaQThese are the bane of your existence. They have more damage, more life, more AR, and more DEF. Your best hope is to go prebuff high level venom and slap on your Bramble/Fort setup and Angelics. You will be able to defeat the bad barbs, but any barb with equipment equal to yours will give you quite a lot of trouble. Physical damage ghosts will fair better here than poison ones, but the gear must be quite good before winning will be a possibility. You can try to hit and run with OW, but most likely they’ll trigger OW on you too, and with your lower life, it’ll just work against you. That’s just how it is. Ghosts have to have a weakness somewhere right?
As with the trapper, you also have the option to slap on a widowmaker here and switch things up. Throw WoF on the floor around you, and keep moving. If you Nef your widowmaker, you'll have a much better chance. Don't worry about fully stunning the barb with MB, just cast it on him once in a while whenever you see him without a swirly (the shadow will help with that as well). Lay down traps and fire arrows, and keep your shadow stack up. The most important thing here is to stay mobile and to never let the barb have a chance to get a good whirl on you. Dodging his NL's will be a much better tactic than trying to stun him completely before firing arrows. This is one of those duels where you'll need to just wear him down. Just make sure to watch out for desync whirls.
Team DuelingGhosts are often underestimated in team duels. It's true that the damage output isn't very high, but the ghost is extremely good at what it does: stunning and killing casters. Stick to what you're good at and let your teammates take care of what you can't handle. In a team duel environment, it's even harder for your opponent to dodge your WoF's. You can stun an entire team if you micro well, and let your teammates kill them as you hold them all at bay. Act mainly as a stunner, but help out killing the fast casters and druids. Again, to reiterate, whirling is a great source of stun as well. Dodge the barbs. Team dueling is just all about finding your niche.