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Spirit's Power Tweaks
First I want to say that I main spirit. Solely because I love Japanese horror and regardless of her strength or how the community saw her I was set on maining Spirit since her announcement. I will also say that she is too strong still and to easy to learn so I've come up with some changes to Spirit in order to make her ability less unpredictable for survivors.
Initially my thought was to have Spirit's husk glow ominously when she is actually phasing. Though thats a small part of the annoyance going against her. Its that you dont know how to play against her while she is phasing. So then I though about Spirit leaving afterimages at certain intervals during her phasing kinda like spirits passive phasing. After every lets say 2 seconds of phasing Spirit's husk will move to wherever her current location is. That way if she is cutting you off or trailing you it would be a bit more obvious.
I would like to hear anyone else's thoughts on possible Spirit tweaks.
Edit: Seeing the comments it seems that too many people are here under the notion that she is either absolutely fine the way she is and even was or she is fairly easy to evade. If you are going to comment please watch the videos below so you can be a bit more educated on the issue I am raising here.
Comments
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Spirit is fine, she is strong but not unbeatable. Killers should make you struggle to escape, besides I for one don't find her unfun to vs.
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Thank you for summarizing the essay I was about to type.
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The spirit is wrong, how is it possible that a killer that can be almost as effective as the nurse can learn it so quickly?
Play the nurse one weekend and you will still be mean to her.
Play the spirit one weekend and already kill anyone with thousands of hours.
The spirit does not need to learn to do mindgames, you just stand still.
Spirit = Play this game in easy mode.
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Killers are supposed to be the power role, there’s nothing wrong with spirit and you can mind game her. It’s just a different kind of mind game.
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Exactly, she really isn't busted like people make her out to be... and at least she has COUNTERPLAY (unlike Nurse)... not to mention that Spine Chill and Iron Will are great counters to Spirit.
I think if more people played against good Nurses, there would be far more complaints against her than Spirit. I myself am a red rank Nurse main, and I know how helpless one feels when playing against a good Nurse.
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Standing still is also a mindgame.
Its so easy to counter standing still except if you are cornered. Otherwise just walk in a direction where she wouldnt expect you to go and also take a route where she cant hit you that easily for the case if she just stands still.
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Honestly i suck with spirit lol and ive been trying to play her all day.
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Well actually a good Nurse and good Spirit arent the same thing. Nurse right now is probably the most balanced killer the devs will ever make. She is extremely imposing and her pressure is unmatched but difficult to learn and still can be ran around. I can maintain a chase against Nurse far better than almost anyone I ever played with because there is actually a method to her madness. As a skilled survivor when I first realize what killer im going up against I immediately know how to evade them during chases but with spirit I cant tactfully evade her. Unless I "skillfully" run iron will im screwed. Im at rank 1 and against a good Spirit I'll do just as good as a rank 20 in a chase. That just doesnt make sense to me.
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Also I in no way suggested to nerf Spirit into the ground. I only mentioned TWEAKS so it feels like im using my skill as an experienced survivor a bit more. Literally everything I've seen commented would still apply if either or both of my suggestions were implemented into the game.
"Spirit is fine, she is strong but not unbeatable. Killers should make you struggle to escape, besides I for one don't find her unfun to vs."
^would still apply if my tweaks were implemented
"Killers are supposed to be the power role,"
^would still apply if my tweaks were implemented
"there’s nothing wrong with spirit and you can mind game her. It’s just a different kind of mind game."
^even more so if my tweaks were implemented
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So you think the spirit has more counterplay than the nurse? Can you elaborate?
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Of course!
To begin, Nurse technically has zero counters (except rushing gens to end the game as fast as possible, and a good Nurse can snowball easily and stop that). There are no perks that actually counter Nurse, unlike Spine Chill and Iron Will to counter Spirit. Dead Hard really isn't even a counter to Nurse, because it only buys you a little bit more time, or none at all (Nurse can wait after a blink and lunge-attack further than Dead Hard's range).
So, while Nurse can go through pallets, windows AND floors (Saloon, The Game, Hawkins), Spirit already loses in that aspect. She still has to mind windows, pallets, and can't teleport though floors or obstacles. Spirit is also hard-countered by Iron Will, since she mostly relies on hearing to catch Survivors with her power, and Spine Chill also lets you know if Spirit is heading in your direction while she's phasing. And yes, Stridor works well with Spirit, but it still is hard to play against Iron Wills with Stridor.
Also, Nurse's power only takes 3 seconds per blink to recharge (1.5 seconds with double recharge addons!), while Spirit's power takes a whopping 15 seconds to recharge (and if I calculated correctly, it can only be lowered to 10.7 seconds with double recharge addons). Also, Spirit's power can only be used once the meter is full, while Nurse doesn't have to have both blinks ready to use her power.
And finally, map pressure. Nurse is a 3.85 speed Killer, but can take range + recharge speed addons to help her traverse maps more efficiently (I myself don't use range addons but I can see how they would help), while Spirit is a 4.4 speed Killer with a power that can help her traverse the map, but takes forever to recharge... unlike Nurse's blinks. Not to mention that Spirit's power gives audio cues throughout her phasing, letting you know how close she is to you. Nurse does give audio cues when she blinks, but it doesn't matter too much when she just blinks on top of your location. Plus, Nurse always has vision when using her power, and Spirit does not.
The reason that people say Nurse is not as powerful as Spirit is because most Nurse players are bad. The times that I've played against good Nurses have been brutal, and they wipe my entire team in minutes. I played against a red rank Nurse on Fractured Cowshed who decimated my team with ease, using a recharge addon and range addon, and all of the tricks that people claim to work had no effect. Run towards her? She'd just cut the blink short and hit you anyway. Make distance? She'd use one blink for positioning and then the second blink to land on top of you. There was no counterplay possible. I also played against a decent Nurse on the Chapel, and even though she wasn't great at Nurse, she was using double recharge addons and was able to catch you just by spam blinking.
As I said before, I'm a red rank Nurse main and I actually play Nurse just to have an easy game, because Survivors really can't do anything when you use Nurse's blinks properly. I used to pick Nurse against SWF teams just so I couldn't be bullied! I've also played quite a bit of Spirit in red rank, and, honestly, the only reason that Survivors die so easily to Spirit is because they're extremely predictable. They don't use structures and windows, they run out in the open for no reason, and they don't even try to mindgame when Spirit is using her power. I think that if more people would actually dedicate the time to learning how to play against a Spirit, they would have better games against her.
I would also like to mention that you can hear Spirit's footsteps while she's phasing, and they're loud as heck... 😛
Sorry for the wall of text, but I really did want to elaborate as to how Spirit has more counterplay!
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ah ok see when you said counterplay I was thinking only in terms of a chase since that was the area of Spirit I wanted to be tweaked. Of course overall Nurse is a much better killer but lets say you have a Nurse and a Spirit no perks in a chase with a survior with no perks. When a nurse blinks its extremely clear with her inhale to the point you dont even need to look behind you to know she is about to blink. In this postion the distance that nurse can blink is steadily increasing and she cannot fake this. When she does blink its in a straight line with a second blink to make up for the first if need be. In practice its extremely effective but vs a very good survivor they can break line of sight and play around your blink since you can actually see were nurse is blinking (the red stain and blur before she appears). With Spirit you dont know when she is starting to phase or not only after. She is 110 base speed so she can land a hit without having to use her power or she can use her power for short bursts and gain it back like nothing (which is how i like to land my initial hits). The most important thing is when she lands that hit. Against a good Spirit if you dont have iron will you're dead, chase over. I just do not see a scenario where a survvior can continue looping a Spirit after she has landed a hit for more than a singel use of her power. Even if Nurse gets the hit there is no guarantee that on her next blink she will down the survivor, not even the second. Also the thing you said about Spirits footstep confuses me. You NEVER want to be glad you can hear Spirit's footsteps. that is an indication that she is very close to you. Survivors cant react fast enough to counter play her and you dont know what direction she is coming from.
I consider myself a good survivor and I can take any nurse for a spin to some degree, but I have been easily "outplayed" by Spirits in green ranks.
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Please tweak all killers and all game mechanics, not only Spirit.
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Saying x perk does not mean it is a counter. Stridor negates iron will. Spine chill that's cool I guess but then again you have speed addons and when you are injured it wont matter because they will go and pinpoint your location. Also if I said genrushing is fine just run ruin I'd get shot down by killers.
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Well there is definitely a lot of things that could be changed that could make the game better overall but there needs to be a good enough reason to do so. I still dont agree with the Hillbilly change and even though the new ruin isnt bad I still prefer old ruin. Ironically during the chainsaw bois rework they touched everything except BBQ & Chili even though I find it to be on of the most overused killer perks in the game behind ruin.
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Here's the issue with your idea
......." oh there she is " -pallet on her face -
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Yes that is indeed a counter play to the second suggestion. You can definitely just camp the pallet when you see her after images getting close to you. Though you are assuming survivor can react fast enough to her to be able to do so. Are we also pretending that survviors dont either try to time a pallet drop or camp the pallet while Spirit is phasing currently? Maybe the afterimages should appear every 3 or 4 seconds so at short loop or certain mazes were she can break line of sight she still can quickly out maneuver surviors. Though the main point of the discussion wasnt to force my own ideas on the community and devs as being the sure fix for Spirit. I've heard many people say that spirit (in chase) is somewhat problematic and for understandable reasons. I mainly wanted to see if anyone actually has any good ideas to change her chase experience.
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If you reveal her location she gets destroyed..her ptb made that very clear..plus survivors can already slice her power with perks as is..the issue is every argument is against her 1v1..and what is this game? A 1v4...people don't seem to be able to comprehend that
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You do realize that the killer doesn't chase all 4 survivors simultaneously right? A killer interacts with one survivor until they leave them down them or hook them and then they move on to the next for the most part. I dont know how many times i have to say this but i did not suggest to nerf her into the ground. Based on how strongly you feel about the minor changes I suggest you must reeeaaally hate the new Billy right? I think its better to just reword my question to: If Spirit were to be changed what changes would you be happy with?
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she needs a visual tell when she is using her power in front of you nothing more nothing less
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Spirit specializes in one thing. She makes Survivors second-guess themselves. I haven't ever had a problem versing Spirit's for this reason. So long as you commit, you can out mindgame her. Put on Spine Chill if you really want, it will tell you where she is looking. If she is still looking at you, but she hasn't moved, she is phasing.
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Started playing as spirit, done well so far, she is strong but still prone to losing to coordinating survivors. She's perfectly fine imo, for and against her.
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sry but i can't believe that. Most of the good spirit i verse are not even close to the levels of the good nurses i faced. I've seen only a few Spirits heavily dominating a game. Maybe its the region (i'm in mid europe). Most Spirits i faced in green/purple ranks are mediocre, most are boosted and don't know basic killer stuff. I was one of them back then, i got with her to like rank 8 easily, then hit a wall and actually started to improve my game in general and playing other killers. I think she really shines when you have some experience with basic M1 killers and with playing survivor, you will know better how survivors run tiles and stuff. Back then i just faced the ground, watched the scratchmarks and followed them, if i couldn't hear them. Now i don't really need the marks as much anymore, because most survivors run predictable routes. And even now i loose a fair amount of games with her.
So let's say Spirit gets a tell-tale sign. Why do people think it would be easier against her? I'm sure killers would find a way to play with that sign, and use it against you. Like you can play with Wraith's bell if using the Bone Clapper add on (you hear it all over the map in the same volume). "Standing still" is a meme and only bad survivors will vault into you. I'm barely standing still when playing her, only when i have no other option because my power is off and i'm standing at a pallet. It never works against good survivors.
Stridor is actually a hindrance when facing survivors without iron will. It's hard to pinpoint your exact location because your moans are everywhere. I only use it because Iron Will is so popular. And even then, it's still very quiet (50% of normal loudness) and if the survivor has a head start it's very possible to lose the Spirit.
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Her power is: You don't see me, you don't know where I am so bet... but true I control the bet because she can hear you and I have good headsets.
My problem is that at most I will have played that killer 2 or 3 times this year and I can assure you that I will do a minimum of 3k (or 4k with slugged) if I use it at this time, 100% guaranteed (I have very good headsets, obviously).
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Im not taking anything away from Nurse she is amazing but her chase ability is linear and there are visual and audio tells of where and when she is blinking as well as a split second while she is blinking where you can react to the location she will land. That is a lot easier to play around than the Spirits power. Also dont downplay standing still. It can be used to get good players out of a strong position because if you stand still they wont or they do then you quickly phase over to them and whack em. Spirit is the killer with the least amount of tells that factor into an educated decision that could by you some time. I'd personally play against a Nurse with 1000 hours than a Spirit and i mean this only in terms of when Im getting chased.
I also dont like how stridor works for people who dont run iron will. I kinda wish they would change it so that it increases the sounds of survivor footsteps and it'd be much much better, maybe even too good.
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I main her as well and while I love her, I think she needs some tweaks.
Mother Daughter rings down side should be that she can't hear sounds while phasing. That would be a justified downside to a mega 75 percent increase in speed while phasing.
She should have louder footsteps while phasing. Her footsteps are currently one of the ways that good survivors track a phasing spirit. This should be easier for all survivors.
And really that's it. The louder footsteps would give perceptive survivors exactly what they need to be able to counter her.
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i originally thought your post was like a year old. I haven't been killed by a nurse that wasn't running NOED in a very, very long time. Nurse was absolutely wrecked. They haven't made a map since I started playing that isn't very difficult for her to chase survivors.
I have seen players who are good at nurse still get 0ks. Nurse got destroyed in her rework and by dedicated servers. She is in such a bad state that I roll her dailys. Everytime I've tried to go back in a play as her I've regretted it. Its so difficult to play as nurse, its so unfun to play as nurse, I expect NOED on every nurse player, she still has her own tier, but she went from the strongest killer to the weakest killer in the game. I don't know what your post is trying to say about her because its not true. Its not true statistically, its not true anecdoteally. I have not met this mythical god like nurse main that 4ks. And that's in about 800 hours of gameplay since her rework. Not 1 godlike nurse. its not true, there is no unicorn.
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This. Also I'm a nurse main as well.
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Her power is, I move faster and can be juked easier, I cannot vault but you can't see where I am. You can hear, use Spine Chill, or watch crows.
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Actually no the overheat was altered until it only affects campers for the most part, and his new addons are strong and expand his playstyles after their buffs...before I hated it and rightly so it was poorly presented.
As for me..i think a compromise change is the fairest solution , when her phase begins her husk will flicker much like her passive phasing..it'll do this for a moment and then stop..this allows survivors to better gauge her positioning but leaves her gameplay intact, and can be played around by spirit herself with good positioning
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This. I play nurse just bc I like going against her and assume other people do too. I usually feel guilty for playing her like I used to tho- infectious slugging and one hook everyone to death. Now I just use recharge and wooden horse.(for some reason my weapon loves trees lmao) but yeah, a good nurse has no counterplay, and that's ok. Shes the hardest killer to play and she absolutely SHOULD be the strongest. I say spirits the second strongest, but that isn't ok. She isnt hard to learn at all. I don't think thats very fair.
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I like that suggestion too. Although I really think you are speaking out of hindsight bias because if I were to come on the forums before the billy change saying billy needs a overheat mechanic and we need to completely overhaul every one of his addons you would probably say im stupid and that billy doesnt need a change. Again I have to stress that I am not referring to changing Spirits add ons or her actually ability. Im just asking for a tell or two.
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I agree with everything you said except that "nurse has no counterplay". Like iron will + urban, lockers, q&q, deadhard, buildings, indoor maps isnt a thing. I will say that I think most people dont know how to play against her is because they've rarely ever played against a good nurse and they expect the nurse they see to be bad.
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i only come to these threads now to see the spirit mains stammer about
edit; i used to be one before i took off training wheels
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As I said I main Spirit solely based on her aesthetic. I dont care what "tier" she would be considered. Also if by "training wheels" you mean stridor then its fine that you stopped playing her. You do you
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By training wheels I mean i quit playing her entirely, she doesn't promote learning how to actually loop and mind game which nearly all other killers must do, she doesn't promote healthy game design in her lack of feedback and she is mindlessly easy to end chases as.
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Who is still falling for this? I see this referenced a lot with her, that can not possibly still be working. If she stands still walk your way to the next loop and keep and eye on her.
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I am not saying she is not powerful, or fairly ez to learn. Just when she is standing still start making your way to the next loop. If you are injured, she will hear you either way. If not, then you can still take a hit and maybe make it to the next loop.
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I forgot dh existed, actually. I run stridor a lot. I've never actually had someone sneak by me. Lockers aren't reliable unless the nurse is stupid. And I got my adept on midwich. Good nurses have one counterplay, and it's dead hard. A one time use perk. Her counterplay isn't even good considering how bad dead hard is at avoiding hits. The rest are dependant on the nurse being bad. At least you didn't say run at her when shes blinking lmao
as I said I'm a nurse main. Ez 4k. Or go against a good nurse as survivor. Gg we lost. I have never seen any counterplay to her. Dh just makes it take around 5 more seconds to down you. But that's fine. Learning her means having to deal with bully survivors, and depip every match.
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ah ok that's completely understandable.
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im sorry but saying that the only counter play to a good nurse is dead hard is just wrong. Line of sight is so important for her. You keep saying a good nurse this and that but you fail to mention playing against a good survivor. This whole time you havent factored in the skill of the survivor. Once again I have to say this, PERKS ARE NOT SKILL. I am talking about the players ability to learn and adapt to a killer using the environment to their advantage.
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Billy didn't need changes really..but his addons were debatable..I'm content because they didn't just make him worse for the sake of being worse..and I'd only say an idea is bad if its bad..I'm open to debates on these things otherwise I wouldn't be here
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No problem. Im glad you joined in to discuss your thoughts on this topic. I just called out a common bias, we all have our own.
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I suppose
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SPIRIT IS FINE! DON'T TOUCH HER!
Red Rank Survivor Main here who also likes to play Spirt as killer.
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And why should I give up a really good loop just because she stands still?
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there’s nothing wrong with her i don't get 4k or 3k with her every time she good but anyone can beat her.
I also love Japanese horror
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one hundred percent, I feel that people who don't want to learn something new are the ones who have an issue with her. She is definitely beatable and there is counter play. Just not the same as most killers. Which is good because every killer should be unique in their own way. all spirit needed was a change of add ons and she got that so its all good on this end. I even though she was fine with her original vault animation. I truly think its just stubborn survivors who don't want to adapt .
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Adapt? Till this day I dont know what to properly do against her. Also you are saying she was fine when she could run into the survviors model and had no tell to when she was vaulting? Also I dont mind learning something knew but what am I learning from Spirit while im getting chased?
Based on the comment you quoted and your response you seem to value the killer side more. Though because of your bias it invalidates your argument. I can just flip it around and say oh stubborn killer mains just dont want to lose a strong killer who has unfair advantages during a chase and they dont want to learn to outsmart the survivor on even terms. By even terms I mean the killer and survivor being able to read each other during a chase.
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I play both sides equally but I don't really play as her. The vault animation wasn't hard to figure out if she was vaulting or not. And sure maybe the collision was a needed change but like I said not much else was needed. Her addons that were changed were about it. How can you assume a bias???? Yes she's strong very strong at that, but killers are truly meant to make things difficult. Are you expecting to run every killer for a very long time??? All you need to do is get in their head they are human just like you and can be counter played. You figure her out and use her weaknesses against her. Whether it be tracking or her trying to predict you. its 50/50 but there is still counter play out there. The goal is to stay up as long as possible because eventually you're going to get caught right? You cannot be predictable. The original ways of reading killers isnt going to work on her. focus on her stain not her. Update: Just 4 escaped a rank 2 spirit and had little to no issue in chase. With her you need to think outside the box
Post edited by ill_Boston_lli on0
