I'm frustrated with Spirit...
So either i'm just bad but i have problems with her even when playing with meta perks. I have probably around 500h just on her (~3k in total) and i can track survivors fairly well (grass, breathing, i know about the tricks like backtracking and walking) but since they can hear me it feels like they hold all the cards in their hands while i have to guess in a lot of situations, especially with smart survivor who have Iron Will. I think i'm playing at relatively high mmr (i play against a lot of "comp players" and streamers) and i play only with brown and yellow add ons (i dont like the new gimmicky ones).
I'm not saying she's bad, other killers have a lot more problems but in aftergame chat you still hear about the "S+ tier" killer she allegedly is. I think Nurse and Blight are far stronger now and what i've seen in tournaments is that Spirits get clapped a lot more than Blights for example.
I feel like i have to resort to proxy camping because she has no map pressure, using her power for traversal makes you 110% in the next chase and this is soooo punishing against good survivors! they run you for a while because the hit+stun you would have got on that pallet with 115% is just a stun on a 110% killer. I even started using Brutal Strength on her because pallets are your new enemies, since survivors can hear you and will throw everything to start the 50/50 mindgame which is mostly in their favour since they can hear from which side you're approaching.
Any self proclaimed high tier spirit players (maybe even comp) who can give me some hi-level play tipps besides "use good headphones"?
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In general - The new counterplay makes me more inclined to play her now. Her prior iteration was so one sided it felt like shooting fish in barrels. Like outplaying cause I waited at a pallet wasn’t really fun.
Now I still smash teams with her but the cheesy parts of her game are gone and I couldn’t be happier.
To OP - Don’t sleep on her greens and purples addons. They do more damage than gimmicks.
I would not recommend Brutal Strength. If a chase perk is wanted, I’d highly recommend STBFL. Also playing around pallets is still a viable option with Spirit.
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It is the Twilight Zone, fam. People are just stuck in their ways, she is not good. There is no advice anyone can give you. You are already an experienced Spirit. You probably know better than they do what she is capable of.
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I'm by no means a Spirit expert, but one thing you can try is using the fact that they can hear you to your advantage by faking one direction and then moving another, sort of like faking movement with the red stain and then backtracking at various loops. If the survivors hear you coming one way around the loop they'll react by going in a certain direction, so if you feint and go back they may not realize in time that you backtracked and will run right into you.
Of course if the survivor isn't trying to listen for you then that feint makes no difference at all, it's basically going to be a coin toss what they do.
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Yeah, she's not the OP killer she was, but some people still push that narrative. The addition of directional sound was a real game changer for her, and now I have to get a lot more creative when playing Spirit. The big advantage she used to have is tha were was little way of knowing when she was phasing, but that has been mitigated a ton. She's still good, but not worth of the instant DCs you used to see.
IMO, a lot of her power now is tied to add ons, and until you build up a bit of a war chest of her best items, it might be kind of hit or miss.
Of course I play at a disadvantage in that I can only hear out of one ear, so a lot of her sound based play doesn't work that well for me.
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She only works with good addons now, don't play her without those.
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The important thing is to lean into her speed. No matter how good a survivor is, it doesn't matter because you are bloodlust 15. It may also be good to play against spirit so you understand more accurately how your movements affect the distribution of sound for survivors. Ultimately, knowing that the survivors know gives you another avenue with which to mind game. Its still a fairly new mechanic, so even playing with spirit for 500 hours its fine if you still need to practice.
Furthermore, I've found that sight is actually more valuable than some make it out to be for spirit. As, when you come out of your phase, survivors are actually brought into your vision with red/orange embers which makes them very easy to track.
Personally my favorite build with spirit is BBQ, Pain Resonance, Retribution, and Plaything. Pain resonance can be replaced with Pentimento if you would prefer more aura reading from Retribution. There is so much aura reading and tracking in this build that it allows you to keep an eye on the macro game while still focusing on what Spirit is good at, the chase.
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yea that ember is nice, it shows you survivors you wouldnt have spotted otherwise. Plaything and Retribution sounds like a nice combo, i will try that out, i was focussing on gen regression (corrupt, pop, deadlock OR corrupt, pop, pain resonance + x) because i had 3 games in a row were gen speed was just insane, but sometimes its just because of some toolboxes or so. When survivors split up around a bigger map i feel very helpless but that could just be a general dbd thing.
yea i try that on pallets and windows very often but they often have enough time to react because if you dont play with double speed or speed and duration youre just not fast enough to backtrack (the exception being very unsave filler pallets)
i've seen some insane comp spirits even after her nerf but i feel that the Stridor nerf also hurt her a lot, i had games with 4 iron will's were you basically just phase around and hope for the best. If you miss a phase, survivors can just hold W to the next pallet because you're 110%, that's so annoying and punishing (against good players who can loop). You will down them eventually when your power comes back, but that costs so much time and compared to other chase killers she feels much more punishing now.
i tried that and 8 stacks is nice for sure, but not being able to chase the obsession is annoying and when i'm out of power it doesn't make that much of a difference with 110%. But the same goes for brutal strength which is mostly just a "quality of life" perk. I will try it again.
You're right about the first part, i was maining her in my early dbd times, then dropped her because i was annoyed of people ragequitting or onsulting me for playing her, i mained Wraith then but it gets boring after a while and now i decided to main her again because downing someone feels more rewarding now, like i actually earned it.
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Theres not really much you can do against a good tool box + a large map. Thats just a general problem DBD has for any killer so I wouldn't beat yourself up too badly on those losses. Personally I think the strongest form of gen pressure is by chasing and downing survivors, theres really nothing that slows the game down more than that. Which is why I pick Pain Resonance since it gives you some gen regression, yes but more importantly it gives you macro information of where survivors are concentrating their effort.
Unfortunately in my experience the game doesn't even really start until theres already only 2-3 gens left anyway, maybe thats just me but you are basically giving up at least 1 gen for 1 hook in the early game unless you get lucky. If you are finding yourself having trouble building pressure you can also swap BBQ out for Lethal Pursuer. I just personally prefer the sustained bursts of aura reading from BBQ (also BP).
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Isn´t @TheGannMan the one to ask for Spirit?
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OK, so I'm not an expert on anything DBD by a long shot, but she is definitely my strongest killer (favorite is plague though). She carried me to red rank 1 for the third time in a row (when I start struggling with the other fun killers I go back to her and she gets things done), so I will relate some things that help me do well with her.
The first and definitely most important one, which has already been told, but I can't overstate, is that your true strength is the combination of overwhelming speed and the ability to strike right out of phase. It doesn't matter what the survivors know if you just pop at strike range, there is no counterplay. It doesn't matter what they know if they simply can't get away fast enough. You are gonna catch them.
The second one is to realize that they can't see you. Sure they might know you're standing right at the other side a pallet or loop, but they don't know when you're striking. Minds games before phasing are nice, but mind games during phasing is what gets me hits on experienced players. One thing that often works is that when I know they are waiting at the pallet I stop just out of range for a moment, bid my time then I quickly step in, phase out and quick strike (no lunge).
Abuse your lack of window animation, when they vault step in front of the window and as soon as they look away phase, then move to the other side, they will probably try to mind game assuming you are bidding your time for a vault. But you're not.
Chase perks help a ton to create extremely unsafe zones. Resilient, spirit fury and bamboozle are all excellent additions to her ability to catch up with survivors and I like to throw in either pop or pain resonance, because slowdown. With this mentality, identify early a 4 or 5 Gen situation and work to make the area unsafe by removing pallets. Gyms an loops become deadzones when the pallet is gone and the window is blocked so they are forced to abandon the tile. But you're spirit. They won't make it to the next one. Bonus points if you leave some pallets for a nice spirit fury freebie.
This is from the top of my head. Definitely don't let people discourage you from her. I'm by no means a great player, but even I can do well with her. She is my consistent win.
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after the nerf she is just trash, survivors don't even need iron will anymore, unless you got ring
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yeah but he's currently banned; give it half a month for him to return and he can help give some more tips
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I played comp Spirit quite a bit and have watched a ton. The big thing with Spirit against really good players is to not go for super long phases where you're going to have to make a read and land a hit right as your power is running out. Especially post nerf when they have the directional audio on the phase. They only have to make one adjustment at a 50/50 if you don't have time to mindgame it with your audio.
Here's a video of probably the best Spirit in comp right now from last Friday. Starts at 1:07:37 if the timestamp doesn't work.
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I havent touched her in a while but is her audio omni directional or just directional because ive seen some survivors do strange things if i walk backwards towards them like my red stain is noticable and they make strange plays. Sorry if my question is a dumb one i just dont play against enough spirits anymore to answer this one myself
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Survivors can track you as well, but you still hold the advantage due to her immense speed in chases. Use small phasing to catch on to survivors and perform mind games while phasing in small/mid-sized loops especially if they have to commit to animations such as rushed vaults.
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For one you need to abuse the directional audio to mindgame. If you use your power while the survivor is across from you on the end of a loop they can't actually tell if you're going left/right and on any short loop it becomes a free hit most of the time since you can move to each side rather quickly. If you want to turn your brain off just use the cherry blossom since you know exactly where they are and you can brute force loops.
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