So about The Spirit...
I've read a lot of "Nerf Spirit" and "The Spirit is fine. Don't nerf her." threads yet I seem to still feel like I'm missing exactly why people want to nerf her or why she is fine.
I personally think she is fine, because after playing her (and becoming a Spirit main) for a while, she has a steep learning curve that isn't so easily accessible for most players, very reliant on survivors making sound or scratch marks to use her power (Something most stealth survivors can easily avoid with perks like Spine Chill (which is an underrated perk in my opinion) and Iron Will.), and even when she is chasing after a survivor and using said power, the survivor can juke her making her guess where they exactly went (which I'm finding to become more and more common the higher up the rank I go since I took a break).
Now, that's not to say that Spirit isn't powerful. She most definitely is. Sometimes maybe too powerful with the right addons (I'm looking at you, Beads). I've had rounds of matches where the survivors couldn't even get 1 generator down before all of them die or disconnect.
I hope this screenshot is alright, I didn't blur the names of the survivors because I don't mean this screenshot to reflect negatively on them.
With games like these and add-ons as powerful as her's, I can understand why some survivors want to cry out for her to be nerfed. I would also hate playing against her whenever I play as a survivor.
But I also want to hear everyone's exact reasoning, their personal reasons as to why they want to keep her the way she is/nerf her to an agreeable level. Why do you personally want to change her/keep her the way she is?
I'd like to add for everyone to keep this conversation civil, as this has been a pretty hot topic in the forums lately, and I want to see if there is a compromise to be made in regards to her and her powers.
Comments
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I personaly think spirit is a broken killer, just like freddy. But spirit would require less adjustment than freddy to be balanced so that is good about her.
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What's this steep learning curve you speak of? I found her to be the easiest killer to learn and play at any rank. A lot easier then nurse and pretty much just as efficient at winning chases quickly. She's not inaccessible to most players considering how common she is at every rank. Iron will is easy to counter with stridor, spine chill is pretty good against a newer spirit, decent killers just use their ears.
To answer your final question, she's simply unfun to play against. Nurse you at least can juke because you can tell how the player plays, she gives you information. Spirit is just flat out guess work as survivor.
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When they finally nerf SWF and gen times, then her nerf will be ok
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I've personally had a lot of trouble playing as her when I first got her to the point where I just gave up trying. Only recently when I started giving her another chance that I began being good at playing her. And it didn't come without obstacles. Though I guess that is just my personal experience.
And like I said in my post, she heavily relies on survivors making noise and sound for her power to be effective. Without it she will just randomly guess where you're at and most likely waste her Phase Walk. And correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Iron Will remove any noise and grunts a survivor makes when exhausted or injured? Also Spine Chill is good for any killer in general, it works even when she is phase walking with beads, so you'll have an indication for when she's coming/looking straight at your direction.
Although, I agree she can be unfun to play against if the Spirit player is really really good. Though that doesn't mean she needs to be nerfed outright, that just means the player is doing a good work maximizing her potential as a killer.
And one more thing, she isn't completely guesswork for the survivor either. She also gives information. When she is phasing without beads, you hear her phase walk rushing through the fields. She also moves around corn and grass, though I am not confident about this and I may be wrong. She also has a glint from what I've read in the forums that gives away that she is phase walking. Though I haven't played Survivor and met a Spirit in a while so I can't test it out and prove it myself.
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People say nerf Spirit because Nurse was nerfed and now she is top un nerfed killer. Thats it really.
I never understood the logic of survivors wanting to 1v1 the killers, there is 4 of you.
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I started getting almost consistent 4ks after a few matches. Just use headphones and listen for their injured noises. Don't see much skill there.
Iron will can be completely useless if she has stridor (which most spirits use). Also the general idea of "use x perk to counter something" is dumb. I'm not going to run anti spirit perks just in case I play against her.
She doesn't move the grass or corn while she is phasing. Her shards glow when she is phasing but the effect is very subtle and i'm not even sure it's intentional.
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I feel as if she's fine.
I've went against a Prayer Beads Spirit, and tbh... It was fun.
Yes it was annoying at times, but fun.
It gave me a chill down my spine not knowing when she would show up and that's the spooky part.
She's one of my favorite killers.
She just spices this game up.
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I just don't like prayer beads, and the fact that if I want to "correctly counter" her I need two specific perks out of my build I'm running just to counter one killer. That's my only issues, and I don't think theres a way to fix that and oh well, just please change prayer beads.
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I play spirit when I want more relaxing games as killer. She’s too easy to master.
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Bad players think everything is over powered or weak because it give them an excuse to play poorly, I think Spirit is very balanced and amazing to play against, the ultra rare add ons make her way more powerful but that is why they exist, changes her play style and means you have to think up new strats to counter it, sometimes cases are made for things that are actually unfair, but they are oftentimes drowned out by the bad players begging for a nerf or a buff to this or that, thats why some things get tweaked to fix the wrong problems lol
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I think making Prayer Beads an ultra-rare with something like slower recharge on the power would be fine. I honestly don't find Spirit that impossible to face, it's just about recognising she isn't a killer you can just beat by looping 1v1 for 3 gens or more. If she finds you she will take you down sooner or later, your best option is to not get found and survs have plenty stealth options.
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I feel like that is something everyone is agreeing on is that Prayer Beads are a little too broken.
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I don't want her directly nerfed. I want her reworked/changed in a way which requires more skill and less guessing aka flipping a coin mechanic. I don't mind how strong spirit by itself is because I never had issues dealing with a nurse (besides omegablink + ebony + potatoe mates). She is just boring to verse and it doesn't feel like a pvp game anymore fighting against a good Spirit.
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No, rarity isn't a measurement for balance. Look at ebonys or syringes. Just because it's the highest rarity doesn't mean it's balanced.
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Beads aren't the only OP add-on she has though, duration and recovery ones are pretty OP too, other than that I think she's okay base kit but her add-ons are in need of a rework.
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I am a spirit main also and I can tell you that she is fine. Her base kit is fine, her ability is fine. The only thing that might need a change are her addons. I use the activation charge and speed addons usually, and I almost never use beads.
If they change her basekit or how her power works, I most certainly will uninstall DBD. They don't need to change her.
They changed Freddy because he was weak and very difficult to play. They won't change spirit like that because she is not weak. She does require some skill in order to do well with her, she is not the easiest killer to learn.
People complain all the time that she has no counterplay. She does, it's just not the same as any other killer.
She doesn't need an added visual queue for when she is phasing, because she has one! her hair stands up and the glass on her body glitters.
Do not change the spirit.
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As survivor main I actually enjoy playing against Spirits but I do have some slight problems, First actually knowing when she's phase walking can be difficult to tell aside from her hair going up straight or her glowing glass shards when idle (Unless of course she's wearing different skins that can almost make it hard to tell like the recently released blight skin) so maybe make the idle animation more obvious?
Second I feel her being able to hear audio while on top of having collision with phase walking is kind of obsured to me, I don't mind it if they didn't but I like for collision to be disabled while phase walking as it actually forces you to listen closely.
Third for me and what seems to be most people's big issue is her add ons, recover and speed in particular are quiet strong even the yellow versions, and Prayer Beads can be nearly impossible to counter without running perks like Quick & Quiet, Dance With Me, Iron Will or just gen tapping as to not get grabbed which in the beginning of a match you wouldn't know if she's running it.
I'm not sure how they would go about with just Prayer Beads but as long they don't make it a trash and worthless very rare add on (I'm talking to you Frank's Mixtape) then I be more comfortable with facing spirits who do use add ons.
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when you stop larping, then maybe we can talk about that
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The only thing I will ever complain about when it comes to DBD is it's frequency of not punishing risky play. I've personally enjoyed most Spirit games I've played against. I'm technically a survivor main I guess, so take that as you will.
But back to the topic at hand.
The only issue she has in my opinion, is risk of play. And that is solely due to her ability cooldown. A Spirit who uses their perk in a chase is taking a risk. Loss of sight is a small factor for an experienced Spirit, so if she uses her ability, it should completely reset it's charge. Being able to briefly phase and miss and then phase two seconds later is much too safe. Punish her for her mistake as equally as survivors are punished for theirs. I think nerfing the function of her ability would take away her uniqueness, and I believe her strength is moreso in pressure over chasing.
That's just my two cents. I would hate to see the Spirit get nerfed into the ground, but I do feel she is MUCH too safe with the handicap she currently has.
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I can agree with that, it would allow survivors to make distance between her and them when she comes out of a phase walk. It isn't a huge nerf, but I would say it's a needed one.
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I feel that not too many survivors (players in general) haven't noticed the visuals yet..... and shes been out for over a year, I find it funny actually because I see all these threads of "no counterplay" and o just ask myself, what else do these people want?... the team can't make her to obvious...
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I just able to unlock Nurse calling for Spirit. Im at rank 15 (because I dont hook kill so I dont pip) but able to dominate 4 survivors with rank 11-13.
Had so much fun with Spirit + Nurse calling.
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Soooooo, I'm going to take this concept and generalize it a little more... Mind you I am a survivor main, but my killer main friends can often relate to what I have to say so I'm hoping you all can see where I'm coming from as well. I would also like to add these aren't just my thoughts, these are thoughts of my friends as well, including some of the killer main ones.
Okay, so. There are a bunch of different killers and survivors in the game, however killers have unique ablilities and survivors don't, sure it could be argued that some survivors are inherently quieter/louder than others, and some can blend in to their environment better than others, but that's really the end of it. Really what I'm trying to get at here is, there is a "survivor meta" that is typically a general group of perks that are considered good for survivors to run that will counter MOST killer based metas, however there is pretty much a different "killer meta" for each killer. We as survivors can only do our best in setting ourselves up for success by generalizing all our perks to try to make them all work with every killer. Unfortunately the perks that work against most other killers are, most of the time, sub-par against a spirit (and a few other killers I won't be mentioning due to the fact this is a spirit based thread). And one perk that makes her absolutely unstoppable is strider. Strider takes the survivors only counter to a spirit's phase and laughs in its face, throw beads and some tracking perks on top of that and it gets crazy. Now I WILL say that spine chill (Wich is a perk I ALWAYS run) is Handy, but it doesn't always work in your favor, sure it's *cool* to phase over to a gen and yank someone off of it, but a good spirit usually gets out of phase before getting all the way to a gen, this actually puts MORE pressure on an experienced survivor, because if they have spine chill they've probably moved already but you coming out of phase earlier actually gives you an advantage for a couple reasons, you won't have to worry about coming out of phase and missing a grab (and therefore wasting time) allowing a survivor to get some distance, also a good survivor won't run from the gen if they know you're coming, they will opt to walk. Coming out of phase earlier gives you the advantage to see a larger area around the gen, meaning, if the survivor accidentally walked tward you that's an easy down and if they walked away from you you may have just saved enough time by breaking out of phase a little early to see them turn around a corner.
Also when people say spirit is boring to play against I usually assume they're talking about a certain type of popular spirit play-style. The "stay by the hook and come back immediately when someone is taken off" play-style. This play-style can be used by a few other killers as well, but usually isn't as effective as it is on spirit. The direct counter to this would normally be borrowed time, but with phase, it's pretty useless. I'm not saying this isn't a valid way to play the game, I'm just saying, I play dbd to have fun. As a survivor if the killer wants to just meme around or something, that's fine with me, I love it! It gives me a break from the salt. If a killer wants to play a fairly normal round patrolling gens, also fine that's still usually fun (even if there is a little post game salt), but staying around the hook, downing the same survivor hook after hook (also known as tunneling/camping) until they're out of the game then moving on to another survivor and doing the same thing is just frustrating, it makes DBD as a whole feel boring. And in the off chance I DO play killer I am usually a "let one live to tell the tale" kind of killer, I usually find it makes for a good post-game chat and is a good way to make friends in the dbd community. Not saying you have to play that way, I'm just saying that's how I prefer it.
Given all this info I'm sure you can see why it's sometimes frustrating to play against a spirit, and I can full on admit to killing myself on purpose against someone who utilizes some of the above mentioned tactics, but the only thing I can do is apologise for wanting to have fun while playing the game. I usually try to prioritize fun to everything else, for instance if I'm playing in a swf and we absolutely stomp the killer, I will usually be fine with letting the killer kill me even if I could have easily escaped, and some of my normal swf team sees that as okay as well. I believe in the past bhvr has stated that In a fair match the killer should get a 66% kill rate on average.... That means getting a 2-3 kill game pretty consistently. If I die in a match I usually just chalk it up to being part of the 66% and move on with my life. No there is also a certain group of killers who play this game who think you NEED to get a 4k every game, they're usually the people who make the game not fun as they will do anything to get it.
TLDR; the spirit (and her popular builds) are pretty hard to counter by the survivor via perks. Good survivors usually rely on spine chill to "see" her coming, so find ways to play around that. Spirit is only boring when played a certain way (just my opinion) however, the play-style that makes her boring is a fairly popular one. We should be focusing on having fun while playing this game, after all it's not like it's an e-sport (that is targeted at both survivor and killer mains).
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Which is why I also suggested the additional power recharge time. Why I suggested it should be ultra-rare is because the effect it has is akin to something that should be locked to that rarity, and because it'd reduce the times it gets found on the bloodweb.
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Broken hitbox kinda like The dDemogorgon
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A fair chunk of people mention bringing perks to counter spirit, or for stealth gameplay. Problem is, as much as I always try to make it work, survivor stealth is unfortunately bad. There are way too many different ways for stealth builds to be hard-countered, and that sucks. Hell, a large number of survivors see BBQ alone as enough of a reason to abandon stealth.
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but use distortion oh wait it only has 3 tokens
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bbq alone makes it even easier to stealth though imo, after the first time seeing that they obviously have it (bee line to you). Then you can use it to your advantage: survivor gets downed run x direction then go y if you aren't at a gen already and if you are then you usually have a locker nearby. Or if your gen is about to be done use it even further to your advantage: they'll come for you definitely still being there yet you sneak off nearly right next to them at times
I agree with you on the hard counter till the next update though (mirror mikey) :D
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Personally, I am over killers getting the short end of the stick in this game. I understand that beyond the balance of the game, the game is about making money for the developers. In that regard, more people play survivor than killer, and so the happier the survivors are, the more money the game makes.
Even still, every now and then the survivors need to have a hard as hell killer to go against. Like a boss in a normal game. So leaving a few killers strong should be kept alive. It keeps the game interesting. If you have to fight the boss every time you play, that could get annoying, but it isn't like that in my experience.
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I don’t really have a strong opinion one way or the other. Personally I find her boring to go against and if I really want want to ######### on survivors she is my go to killer. I’m not even good as killer and can 4K with her without a single perk or addon (not me flexing just haven’t leveled her past P1 Level 1). People saying “just use x perk 4head” are idiots. You have no clue if you’re going up against spirit. And she is one hundred percent guess work. Does she need a nerf? Eh no. Then again I didn’t think Nurse needed one either.
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So never basically. Clever choice of words
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Most people say that you can just use head phones and track survivors, ez no skill.
A) doesn't that apply to all killers?
B) some people, including myself have hearing impairment so audio-location is not a thing.
Off topic I'd love a perk or killer that gave visual ques to sound direction. Being deaf in the left ear, Everything sounds like it's coming from the right. Everything.
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Do you want dbd to be an unbalanced bully simulator?
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your line of "some games I will down all 4 survivors without 1 gen being done" this just happens sometimes, look at Tru3 he would sometimes do that WITH PRE REWORKED FREDDY, it just happens RARELY. not depending on the killer to say but the survivors themselves
she is balanced, there is plenty of counters to her power, spine chill, iron will, fixated, etc etc etc. the problem people have is that since 90% of the killer roster are M1 killers, they use M1 killer tactics, looping, etc. when in truth she is a M2 killer, like nurse. that is why people also complain about nurse. they don't change their tactics that much to combat M2 killers, still running in a straight line for pallets and loops that work for M1 killers, not so much for M2 killers. she has tells when she is phasing if you are paying attention. she is a 110% movement speed killer at base so she should have a very strong power to compensate. windows still screw her over when phasing. etc etc etc. she has plenty of counters but a lot f people who complain just don't ant to learn/use them
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She's good as she is. She can end chases very quickly and counterplay is heavily supported by specific perks. That's what a good killer is about.
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I hate going up against the spirit they're so powerful but it doesn't mean they need a Nerf I swear most people on forms a bunch of whiners without good reasons.
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Yo this is exactly why I stopped playing this game 2 months now I'm tired of all the game not working and glitching out I'm honestly done until they actually fix the whole game I can't keep my rank 4 from losing pips I am so done with this game they can't fix anything and they cannot do anything right but yet they still want to send out chapters and constantly do cosmetics sick and tired of it until then I'm not playing it as long as it takes for them to get stuff right.
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I as your oppenent do not care if you have fun... I care about my fun.... I know that survivors don't give a shiet if I'm attempting to learn a new killer and therefore I'm struggling in red ranks.... I know that a camping killer doesn't give a shiet about my fun while I'm on the hook,
FUN! is different for everyone... I enjoy the competitive side of the game more then the memes and theres most likely someone who enjoys the memes more then competing.... so there is no way! That the team can please everyone with each product that they put out, its impossible to do... spirit is definitely more on the competitive side of things which is what attracts me to her so much, I love being being able to compete with the best teams.
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Def agree with that one. I was playing spirit for the first time yesterday and I was hitting things that made no sense on my end.
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I want a balanced and fair game, i know that killer mains can't stand actually playing killers that require effort or skill but it would be better for the game if spirit and freddy got adjusted.
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As most people think, she's kinda functionally broken. She has no window vault icon at all, making got tier mind games, has no sound when phasing when I'm the terror radius, which is really unfair, has arguably the best add ons and most broken, and is the least fun killer to go against. I have more fun against legion. Spirits are unfun and mostly sweatier then they should be. Atleast that's my opinion. I'd love to hear counter arguments. (And before you say "oh entitled survivor" I play both, however I play more killer then survivor. Probably a 70% killer, 30% survivor.)
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Counter arguments have been outlined in this thread and many others centering on Spirit.
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I enjoy playing against her, she is difficult to escape but I like that - cake killers are boring, I like a challenge - i'm no #########
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I think what it comes down to with Spirit is that, almost like Nurse, she is able to completely ignore the basic game mechanics to a certain degree. That’s really frustrating to play against. The obvious advice is to get good and run better perks, but in the right hands she just feels completely unbeatable. I also disagree with the notion that she takes a lot of skill to play. She’s one of the easiest killers to consistently do very well with.
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The only 2 changes needed to spirit is... prayer beads needs to be an ultra rare (it is stronger than her ultra rares imo) and she shouldn't have collision while phasing.. that's it.. no nerfs to her base kit... she can be looped but you don't loop her the same way you do other killers. More mindgames than mindless loops. (Scratch mark jukes, window jukes, walking away from a loop while she phases. You have to keep mixing it up and be unpredictable tho and iron will and dead hard help ).
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If there's a DC in a match, it doesn't count because that's just people being crybabies and not wanting to play against a killer. That's literally saying them, "I don't know counterplay, so I'm just gonna quit."
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I appreciate this thread, btw. Love when people are civil or open to hear people out. I loved Spirit when she came out, because she genuinely is an interesting character lore and mechanically wise. Her power is amazing. I think why no one complained before is because everybody was a baby on her, so it was easy just to do the "run forward and go backwards" type of juke. That or everyone has grown to stop being immersed and running is simply not helpful. I think I used Urban Evasion a lot when Spirit came out.
Now I run nothing but healing perks or occasionally a Dead Hard or Sprint Burst. I feel even Ironwill cannot truly buy me enough time to get away from Spirit. Maybe I will have to try Spine Chills sometime. What I try doing when I go versus a Spirit is run to a loop and begin making scratch marks like I'm going to begin looping a tile and then walk away from the tile just a tad if I can. Sometimes she gets out of phase fast and I have no time to return or go to the next tile, sometimes my hitbox reveals me and I feel like that's the biggest thing of all.
She already has sight (grass at least) and sound (breathing and groaning) to help her get us. She also has speed to catch up (I believe - correct me if I'm wrong because maybe her speed is the same). Some maps also have smaller loops, and she could probably phase around the whole loop with enough time to run into me and just hit me. I'm not sure if that's exactly what the Spirit is doing, but feels like it sometimes. I know Spirit isn't a braindead killer either. It does come with practice and skill to get better at, but I wonder if some people cheese Spirit by searching that hitbox. I could be wrong. Maybe it's not as obvious as I imagined.
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I'd like to just take away her collision with survivors. Just do that by itself and see how it plays out.
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I'm not a fan of the Spirit's power.
In simple terms, it's very hard to juke a Spirit when she can track you but you can't track her.
Once a Spirit gains enough experience tracking survivors then most of the counter play from survivors is gone. Even if you make yourself harder to track, a good Spirit will still catch you. At least that's my experience so far.
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In all honesty I don't know why people are complaining about prayer beads so much, sure it makes a gen grabbing spirit build but it's only really useful if you use your phasing as a mobility tool, it won't help in chases because your terror radius has a build in silencer.
It basicly makes spirit into (mobility wise) a very fast wraith who's entirely invisible who can't see survivors, with a cool down.
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