Can someone teach me how to use Spirit?

Hey there! I'm not what you would call a fanatical Spirit main (don't want to steal @UlvenDagoth 's thing), but I do play her quite a bit. Some might say I am obsessive over her. I can help you out in understanding how Spirit works and why, despite how strong she is, she still needs work and input from you, the player, in order to win a trial.

Lets start with her power:

Yamaoka's Haunting

Yamaoka's Haunting allows the Spirit to move at ‎176 % | 7.04 m/s movement speed for 5 seconds. This allows her power to be used as a way of Map Traversal, or a chase-ending power. The default recovery time inbetween phasing is 15 seconds but if you don't use up all of your power, you can reduce that quite significantly. It takes about 1.5 seconds to activate her power and in that 1.5 seconds you cannot see any survivors, so pay close attention to where they are going before heading into a phase.

So in short, Spirit's power is very very useful in a chase. As it helps her close the gap much more easily than any other killer, not even Nurse (although to be fair, Nurse got a nerf). Your main handicap and drawback for using your power is the inability to see Survivors during a phase walk. And trust me, unless you've played Spirit a lot, you're going to have problems not seeing Survivors during a chase.

Some people might say "Just use Headphones" and while that does help, it still doesn't mitigate the fact that you are not able to see anyone. Add to the fact that now you can't collide with people, survivors that is uninjured or brought Iron Will can try and stand still to fool you into thinking they're no longer there or confuse you into thinking they're somewhere they are not.

This is where faking your phase walk comes in handy. Spirit's whole gimmick is how unpredictable you need to be to go up against her. If as a survivor you do something that any average player can guess you're going to do (Stay at a safe pallet waiting for you to appear again, going to a strong loop the same exact way, expecting her to follow only your scratchmarks) then you're already dead.

The Spirit is a killer that requires a level of prediction and analysis of your opponent. I can't tell you how many times people fall for the same exact trick I did in Sanctum of Wrath with the middle generator.

Faking your phase (Especially around a loop) allows you to take a good look at the survivor and see whether or not they will stand by and not do anything or run away to another safe pallet. You want to gather information on what your opponents will do as that will help you accurately and safely predict what they will do next next time you're in a chase with them.

Faking your phase is also something a lot of survivor players dislike because you don't really know if she is phasing or not, but if you have been playing the Spirit for a while, you will know when she is faking her phase or not. It's easy to guess if you have experience with her.

Remember that when playing Spirit, you're basically telling survivors that you know them. So while they may try to be unpredictable, you should to by changing how you play midgame just to trick them up.

Let's move onto her add-ons now, shall we?

Spirit's add-ons

Most of Spirit's addons can be summed up with how fast you're going in phase walk, how long you stay in it, how quick it is to recharge, and how long it is for you to start phasing.

Let's start with the first one:

The Zōri, Muddy Sports Cap, Dirty Uwabaki, and Mother-Daughter Ring all Slightly/Moderately/Considerably and Tremendously increase your movement speed during a Phase Walk. If you want the hard numbers, these add-ons increase your movement speed by 5%/10%/15%/40%. With Mother-Daughter Ring having a caviat that you are no longer able to see scratch marks during a phase.

I can't urge you enough how powerful these addons are. Even the brown addon. As a Spirit you want to be as fast as possible in order to catch survivors off guard during a chase. So these add-ons are definitely going to save your bacon with how powerful they are.

Of course, these add-ons become more powerful when you combine it with:

The Shiawase Amulet, Kaiun Talisan, and Katsumori Talisman.

These add-ons Slightly/Moderately and Considerably increase the duration of a phase walk. When you read the hard numbers, it may seem underwhelming, but when you use it ingame you'll notice how great it is.

These add-ons increase the duration of a phase walk by 0.5/1/1.5 seconds. That doesn't seem like much but combine that with any phase walk movement speed increasing add-ons and you'll feel the difference straight away.

Not many people know this but these add-ons increases how fast you recover your power as well, but they don't make your recovery any faster than default. So if you're thinking about using these to stay in phase longer and recover faster, think again.

Speaking of Power Recovery add-ons, lets talk about those:

The Origami Crane, Rin's Broken Watch, and Rusty Flute all increase how fast you recover your power. They Slight/Moderately and Considerably increase the Yamaoka Haunting's Recovery Rate.

I'm going to be honest with you, the numbers for these aren't as good as you may think it is. It increases the recovery rate by 0.03/0.05/0.08333. Effectively making the charge rate 0.36333/ 0.38333/0.41666 Charges/second. The only one worth taking in my opinion is Rusty Flute, as the previous two I never really felt a large difference between using it and not using it.

We still have a lot of add-ons to go through, so don't go sleeping on me here just because I gave you numbers that looks like they came right out of a science textbook.

The Gifted Bamboo Comb, White Hair Ribbon and Bloody Hair Brooch all increase how fast you activate Yamaoka's Haunting. They all Slightly/Moderately and Considerably your activation charge speed.

Now, these add-ons recently got nerfed in the recent patch but basically now they increase your activation charge speed by 15/20/30%, and while that may seem like much. It's not as good as the other add-ons as it's only purpose is to make you enter Yamaoka's Haunting faster. Which is not very useful in my opinion.

Tell you what else is not very useful, these next two add-ons:

The Juniper Bonsai and Dried Cherry Blossom are quite unique add-ons, they're unique in a way that you as a killer have no control when to use it.

These two add-ons increases the Passive Phasing frequency slightly (1 second), but only Dried Cherry Blossom increases the Passive Phasing duration slightly (0.25 seconds).

These add-ons, while great and funny for meme builds, is not all that useful if you're trying to play Spirit optimally. They basically increase how much you trigger your passive ability, something that you have no control over. So yeah.

However, there are two add-ons that most people skip on because they don't fully understand what it means:

The Katana Tsuba and the Wakizashi Saya.

These two add-ons were amazingly powerful when combined with pre-nerf Yakuyoke Amulet (more on that later). They basically Slightly and Moderately increases the Yamaoka's Haunting Duration and Reappearance Speed.

These two add-ons allows you to increase your lunge distance when coming out of a phase. And it's powerful because of that (even after it was nerfed).

They increase the reappearance duration by 0.2/0.3 seconds and increase the movement speed by 5/10%.

If you haven't played Spirit pre-nerf with the Wakizashi Saya and Yakuyoke Amulet combo, I feel genuinely sorry for you. Because that combo was nigh unstoppable. I don't think I've lost a single game with those two add-ons combined pre-nerf. It was THAT good.

Of course, we're not done yet. Lets finally talk about her special add-ons:

The Yakuyoke Amulet, Prayer Beads Bracelet and Father's Glasses all have interesting effects attached to them that you can use.

Let's start with the biggest upset ever since she got nerfed, the Yakuyoke Amulet.

The Yakuyoke Amulet now:

• Tremendously increases Yamaoka's Haunting duration.
• Moderately increases Yamaoka's Haunting Power Recovery rate.
• Moderately decreases Yamaoka's Haunting Movement speed.

The two hard numbers for the Duration and Power Recovery is already shown above, but the one you want to pay attention to is the Yamaoka's Haunting Movement speed.

The nerf they did to the movement speed basically kills anyone to use this add-on for any reason. It reduces the Phase Walk Movement speed by 15 % to 6.38 m/s or 159.5 %. And despite how it may seem, 159.5% is not as fast as you may think.

It may be fast if you know where to look for, but you don't. You're restricted to sound only during a Phase Walk. So you need to be fast for a reason. As it helps you close the gap between what you think is the source of the sound and you. Never use this add-on. Ever. I heavily recommend against using it.

Now, time to talk about the one thing everyone hated pre-Spirit nerf. The Prayer Beads Bracelet.

Prayer Beads now allows every survivor in the map (outside her Terror Radius) to hear her phasing sound as if she is right next to them.

If you can't guess, this is basically an improved version of the Iridescent Button. Unless you're going against a SWF group, this add-on is powerful for stall potential. It keeps survivors guessing whether or not you are going to appear right before them. And with that, it allows you to play unpredictably as well. Keep them on their toes and make them afraid to touch another gen ever again.

Some people think this is a nerf, in my opinion it's a buff. I recommend using it if you want to have some fun messing with survivors.

Now, finally. We can talk about the final and last add-on. The Father's Glasses.

This add-on allows you to see the blood of injured survivors as if you are using Bloodhound during a Phase Walk. Combine that with the Mother-Daughter Ring and you have an add-on combo that is as brutal as Rin's father the night he murdered his family.

This add-ons gives you so much information that scratchmarks do not give you. However it's only useful in conjunction with the Mother-Daughter Ring, as anything other than that is not really worth getting in my opinion. Use this combo if you feel like doing some stress relief after a day of hard and sweaty matches.

And that's about it for her add-ons.

But of course I'm not done until l talk about the best perks to use on her.

perks to use

Perks are based around your playstyle, but the best combination I found so far are:

• BBQ & Chili (Information & BP Perk)
• Discordance (Information Perk)
• Sloppy Butcher (Healing Stall Perk)
• Pop Goes The Weasel (Gen Stall Perk)

BBQ & Chili and Discordance is a no brainer. With your 110% movement speed out of a phase, you need to always know where survivors are at at all times. BBQ & Chili + Discordance allows you to always be in a chase and have no downtime whatsoever. As a killer in general, you always want to do something. Anything to keep the survivors busy.

Sloppy Butcher is useful for two reasons:

1. It's useful because it helps keep survivors injured for longer, effectively stopping them from doing gens.
2. It's useful because injured survivors are easy prey when you use a phase walk.

So I heavily recommend using it.

As for Pop Goes The Weasel, it's a much more consistent and useful gen stalling perk compared to Ruin. Which is why I use it. 20 seconds taken away from a Gen Progress is going to save you a lot of headaches in high ranks.

I think that's about all the advice I can give you when playing as The Spirit. I hope the huge textwall I wrote here is useful and beneficial for you and your games.

I personally wish more people play Spirit not because she's strong, but because of how unique she is as a killer and how much you can learn going against her just by playing a couple of matches in high ranks as her.

The stigma that all Spirit players are newbies are not necessarily true. Yes she may carry someone to high ranks that doesn't deserve to be there, but if you find her to be fun like I do, I say keep playing her. There's nothing wrong with wanting to play a killer the devs designed to be a part of the game.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you to have a great time in the fog!