The other thing that irks me is the appearance. It's just a bunch of wooden spikes with a mess in the middle. Not the least bit intimidating, but looks really annoying. The other ghouls can be scary if they get you out of nowhere, but I don't have the same feeling coming from the Impaler.
As for balancing, maybe they can have it so it uses one wooden spike, and have the spike circle as an item that regenerates in some manner. I'd still much rather have a better looking ghoul first, but whatever. Gee, now that I can actually use GIMP, maybe I should suggest that Ghoul idea I posted when I first signed in.
I think that first post of mine has been deleted, though... don't know.