How to Play Ghostly — TFT Set 11: Inkborn Fables
Welcome to our TFT trait guide series, where I’ll be covering the Ghostly trait and how to play it. I’ll be covering how Ghostly works, analyzing each champion, and go through some potential team comps.
Ghostly is a fairly unique trait coming to Inkborn Fables. The trait helps your entire team deal more damage while also increasing the survivability of your units. The comp also has two strong 4-cost units, making it fairly easy to build around.
Let’s get right into the guide.
If you haven’t checked out all of the Set 11 information yet, check out out Set 11 Reveal Page!
How Ghostly Works
Ghostly Trait Bonus
Upon dealing or taking damage 5 times, Ghostly units send 2 spectres to haunt nearby enemies and heal 4.5% max Health every 2 seconds. Haunted enemies take bonus damage for each spectre on them, and pass spectres on death.
- (2) 5% per spectre
- (4) 10% per spectre
- (6) 16% per spectre
- (8) 32% per spectre
Champions: Caitlyn (1), Aatrox (2), Shen (2), Illaoi (3), Kayn (4), Morgana (4)
The Ghostly trait counts whenever a unit deals or takes damage, similar to Titan’s Resolve. At a count of 5, spectres will come out, making enemies take bonus damage.
Bonus Damage is a great source of damage scaling, as not many items or traits grant bonus damage. This bonus damage also applies to every unit on your team, regardless of if they’re Ghostly or not.
Spectres can only haunt one enemy unit at a time, but this is still a very strong source of damage amplification.
Ghostly Synergy
Here’s a list of the traits you can branch into from the Ghostly units:
- Sniper (Caitlyn)
- Bruiser (Aatrox)
- Inkshadow (Aatrox)
- Behemoth (Shen)
- Arcanist (Illaoi)
- Warden (Illaoi)
- Reaper (Kayn)
- Sage (Morgana)
There aren’t any overlapping classes within Ghostly, but there are two 3-trait units in Aatrox and Illaoi. This makes the trait quite flexible as you can always pivot to other comps depending on your game.
The most notable thing about the Ghostly trait is that Kayn and Morgana are both damage based 4-cost units. Usually, if a trait has two 4-costs, one will be damage based while the other is a tank.
Because of this, Ghostly comps should have an easy time itemizing as you have one 4-cost for AD/AP items respectively.
Ghostly Champions
Let’s briefly go over each Champion in the Ghostly trait and what you can do with them. To check the updated stats and ability values, be sure to check each Champion Page.
Caitlyn (1) – Ghostly + Sniper
[Link to Champion Page]
Caitlyn is returning with her signature Headshot ability. While she may or may not have reroll carry potential, her ability is still very impactful early game.
If you have a weak board but have a Caitlyn 2, you can still burst some enemy units with her ability, reducing the HP you take in the early game.
Aatrox (2) – Ghostly + Inkshadow + Bruiser
[Link to Champion Page]
Aatrox is a frontline Ghostly unit with the Bruiser trait. None of the Ghostly units share a frontline trait, but his Inkshadow trait does give you some flexibility in the mid game.
A notable unit to consider is Senna, who is also an Inkshadow and a Sniper. This core of 3 units gives you Ghostly (2), Sniper (2), and Inkshadow (2/3).
Shen (2) – Ghostly + Behemoth
[Link to Champion Page]
Shen is the next 2-cost unit and his defensive trait is Behemoth. While you don’t have as much flexibility as Aatrox, there’s still other low-cost units you can look to build toward in the mid game.
For example, Thresh is a 3-cost Fated/Behemoth that can pair with Aphelios who is Fated/Sniper. This can be a mid game alternative to running Senna/Aatrox depending on what you hit.
Illaoi (3) – Ghostly + Arcanist + Warden
[Link to Champion Page]
Illaoi is the sole 3-cost unit for Ghostly, and she also has 3 traits. Warden is another defensive trait, and Arcanist an offensive one.
Arcanist 2 grants AP to the entire team, so it’s not a bad idea to splash it in as well with like a Lissandra. Amumu is an interesting choice in this case as well as he is both Warden and Porcelain.
Kayn (4) – Ghostly + Reaper
[Link to Champion Page]
Moving onto Kayn, his entire kit is focused on just dealing more damage. As a melee carry, this can make him quite squishy, but sometimes a good defense is an even better offense.
His Reaper trait allows hit ability to crit, and his ability gives his crits more damage and turns them into AoE attacks. If his AoE crit only hits one enemy, that hit will then deal even more damage.
Kayn is a very powerful damage unit, but will need some survivability through traits or items to keep him alive as a melee carry.
Morgana (4) – Ghostly + Sage
[Link to Champion Page]
Morgana is an AoE magic damage dealer, and as mentioned, she synergizes with Kayn by utilizing AP items. Having these two units makes it easy to itemize as you have two strong units to hold different items.
Her ability also chills, providing some utility by debuffing enemy Attack Speed. Furthermore, her Sage trait provides even more utility. Sage will grant front row units Omnivamp, which is great for Kayn. Backline units will gain AP, which is great for Morgana and other backline units you might run.
Ghostly Best Augments
For this section, I’ll be covering some Augments that particularly synergize with the trait. Lots of Augments are universal, like economy based Augments or item Augments, but I’ll try to cover particular synergies to look out for.
The set has yet to come out on PBE yet, so I’ll only take a look at the trait specific Augments. I’ll definitely be back to add more as we learn more.
You can check out the full list of Augments here.
Ghostly Crest
Gain a Ghostly Emblem and a Shen.
As with all traits, having an Emblem to reach a higher tier can be very impactful. However, the Ghostly Emblem also has additional benefit.
By having an extra Ghostly unit, you’re also sending out more Spectres, increasing the damage of your entire team. The Ghostly Emblem is also an Emblem you can place on just about any unit. You can put it on a backline unit to attack 5 times, or a frontline to take damage quickly.
Although, you likely would prefer it to be on a frontline unit to make use of the bonus Health on the Emblem and the healing provided from the Ghostly trait.
Because of this, you can save item slots on your carry units, putting the Emblem on other frontliners to send out Spectres quickly.
Haunted House
Enemies that die while haunted by Ghostly pass 1 extra spectre to a nearby enemy. Gain a Caitlyn and a Shen.
The Ghostly specific Augment leans more into the Spectre ability. As you taken down haunted units, more will spawn, letting you take down the remaining enemies easier.
While the trait will be stronger with more Ghostly units, it’s still solid even with only 2 Ghostly units. With 2 Ghostly units, you only summon 4 spectres, but the Augment will summon more for you.
Basically, the less Ghostly units you have, the bigger of an increase you’re getting from this Augment. However, with more Ghostly units, you’ll still be summoning more spectres overall.
Just make sure to try and focus fire down the unit being haunted to get the spectres rolling.
Ghostly Team Comps
With the meta settled for the most part, here are some of the standout Ghostly comps.
As the player base plays more and more games, stronger meta comps will definitely rise up or old comps may be nerfed. Be sure to stay up to date on the current meta at our TFT Team Comp Tier List.
Ghostly Vertical
[Link to Full Guide]
This first comp is a reroll Ghostly comp focusing on Senna, Shen, and Aatrox as reroll targets. If you find a good amount of copies in the mid game, you can commit to rerolling at level 6 to 3-star these units.
Otherwise, you can simply level up normally and decide to play around the 4-cost carrys instead.
Zyra Reroll
[Link to Full Guide]
This next comp is a newer addition to the meta, using Zyra as the main carry along with the Ghostly trait. Zyra’s Sage trait provides a lot of backline AP, which is beneficial for units like Morgana and Zoe.
Aatrox and Shen are two strong tanks to reroll for, and this comp is a nice alternative to Senna reroll if you have more AP items or find more Zyra copies.
Kayn Morgana Carry
[Link to Full Guide]
This next comp uses Kayn and Morgana as the main carrys and surrounds them with Heavenly units. The Heavenly trait will buff up Kayn and Morgana, letting them carry easily.
Wukong is a third carry for the late game, but the 2 Ghostly units are the main damage dealers.
Shen Reroll Carry
[Link to Full Guide]
This last comp uses Shen as the main carry with the “Ethereal Blades” Augment. This is a Shen Hero Augment that makes him ranged and his ability deals True Damage.
This turns Shen from a tank into your backline DPS carry.
The rest of the comp simply adds Behemoth and Ghostly units to stall for a long as possible for Shen to take down the enemy team.
Thanks for reading! Be sure to check out our meta team comps page, or head to our Team Builder to try and come up with your own comps.
