Deogen

Deogen
Strength	Always knows where players are during a hunt Moves at a high speed with no player nearby
Abilities	Can produce a unique response through the Spirit Box
Weakness(es)	Significantly slows down when near its target Has a lower hunt sanity threshold
Evidence

„Sometimes surrounded by an endless fog, Deogen have been eluding ghost hunters for years.
These ghosts have been reported to find even the most hidden prey, before stalking them into exhaustion.”

—The Journal

The Deogen is a type of ghost in Phasmophobia. It has a talent for quickly rushing down players during a hunt no matter where they are, but is slow to approach when closing in for the kill.

Behaviour

Ability

If the player asks any question through the Spirit Box while standing within 1 metre of the Deogen, it has a 33% chance with each question to produce a unique response of constant heavy bull-like breathing, instead of a regular response.

Hunt

The Deogen's hunt sanity threshold is 40%, instead of the usual 50%.

During a hunt, the Deogen always has line-of-sight with all players on the map; in other words, it does not use the "roaming" mechanic. When the hunt begins, the Deogen will pick the nearest player (by straight-line distance) to move towards. It will occasionally "refresh" and repick the nearest target throughout the hunt. One can also use Incense to stun the Deogen temporarily and force it to change its target when the smudge effect runs out.

When the Deogen is chasing a player, its speed is based on its pathfinding distance to the target player and has three thresholds: above 6 meters, between 6 and 2.5 meters and below 2.5 meters.

• > 6m: 3 m/s
• Between 2.5 - 6m: Assumed speed gradient between 0.4 - 3 m/s
• < 2.5m: 0.4 m/s

If the Deogen is smudged or is otherwise not chasing any player, its speed will remain at its current speed, or 1.6 m/s if its current speed is greater than 3 m/s. Otherwise, the Deogen does not alter its speed based on line-of-sight while chasing a player.

During a hunt, the Deogen flickers and is on average invisible for shorter and visible for longer compared to most other ghosts:

Ghost	Visibility length (s)	Invisibility length (s)	Total per-flicker length (s)
Deogen*	0.20 - 0.30	0.01? - 0.40	0.30 - 0.60
Standard ghost	0.08 - 0.30	0.10 - 0.92	0.30 - 1.00

*Note: values for Deogen are measured values and may not be accurate.

Strengths and weaknesses

These are the strengths and weaknesses as listed in the journal:

Strength: Deogens constantly sense the living. You can run but you can't hide.

Weakness: Deogens require a lot of energy to form and will move very slowly when approaching its victim.

Evidence

• Spirit Box
• Ghost Writing
• D.O.T.S. Projector

On difficulties with only 1 or 2 evidences (e.g. Nightmare), the Deogen always has Spirit Box as one of its pieces of evidence due to its unique response.

Strategies

Hunt

If you have not ruled the Deogen out, it is best to choose a hiding spot which you can easily leave before the Deogen corners you, or have Incense prepared. Once a Deogen is close enough to the player for its weakness to kick in, it becomes the slowest ghost in the game. Provided players do not accidentally trap themselves in a tight space with no way out, surviving a Deogen is trivial as it is impossible for it to catch up to its targets so long as they keep moving, as it becomes extremely slow, much slower than the player's default movement speed, and can be extremely easily looped; on bigger maps such as Sunny Meadows or Brownstone High School, the player might not even have to loop it, and can simply walk around the map and lead it on a tour (as long as they don't accidentally go into a dead end).

It is worth noting that when the Deogen is stunned with smudge sticks, it will maintain the speed at it was at when affected; in most cases, the Deogen will be moving at its minimum speed, meaning that the Deogen will only roam a very short distance before being able to chase players again.

When playing in multiplayer, keep server lag in mind; if you misjudge the ghost's server-side position and move away too late, it may kill you. To avoid this, try not to cut it too close with looping and moving around the ghost especially if your connection is poor, and stay a moderate distance away; Since the Deogen only switches targets periodically and not in real time based on distance, avoid having players stand behind each other to prevent the Deogen from rushing into another player to reach its target, because the Deogen can kill non-targets unlike the Banshee.

Identification

The most straightforward form of identification is for the ghost to hunt and reveal its dramatically different hunting behaviour; if it approaches the nearest player at high speeds and slows down drastically as it approaches, then it is a Deogen. Note that a "young" Thaye, a Revenant that has detected someone, and a Hantu when the power has been out for a while and room temperatures are at their lowest, may move at similar speeds, but without slowing down drastically (if at all); mistaking them for a Deogen can be deadly. A non-hunt way would be to constantly track the ghost and look for the signature heavy breathing through the spirit box, though this will be more tedious, especially in large rooms. The easiest way to do this is using a Tier III Motion Sensor; because the spherical radius of the sensor is only slightly larger than the distance required to obtain heavy breathing, using the Spirit Box on top of the Motion Sensor when it triggers has a good chance of producing the unique Deogen response.

Miscellaneous

Deogens are among the easiest ghosts to take a ghost photo of, partly due to being invisible for shorter and visible for longer, and partly due to their hunt mechanics making them easily looped, giving players plenty of time to snap a photo; keep a photo camera handy if needed.

If the player has to temporarily step away from an ongoing game for whatever reason, remember to move outside the investigation area before stepping away; staying in a hiding spot will not work against a Deogen, which will find and kill the player when it starts hunting.

Trivia

• "Deogen" is a ghost from the Flemish (Belgian) late 18-century tale called De Ogen (Dutch for "the eyes", pronounced /de'oːɣən/). The tale is about a strange yellow-eyed fog haunting the Sonian Forest which likes to stalk its victims at night, moving slowly when being looked at and fast while being turned away from.
• Because the Deogen always has line-of-sight with all players, most "safe spots" that take advantage of a lack of line-of-sight will not work, resulting in death. In fact, this may also result in the Deogen killing players through walls that are sufficiently thin.
• The Deogen cannot be the ghost selected for the contract if the lobby's host is below Prestige 0 Level 30. This is due to the Deogen's hunt mechanics being so drastically different from other ghosts that new players still learning the hunt mechanics would be too confused by it.
  • The Mimic can still, however, imitate the Deogen before Prestige 0 Level 30.

History

Early Access
0.6.2.0	Added Deogen.
0.6.2.1	Updated Deogen weakness description to stop some confusion.
0.9.0	The Deogen no longer has an increased chance to interact with the D.O.T.S. Projector or the Ghost Writing Book.