Is There Counter Play To Spirit?

FIEND8LOODED

Playing against Spirit isn't fun to me since it feels like a random guessing game of whether I'll go down or not when she uses her power. I keep running the loop, I get downed, I run the other way, I get downed, I walk away calmly, I get downed. I've tried everything I can think of and nothing works. Am I doing something wrong?

SunderMun

Don't bleed or moan...also avoid grass. And don't run, she can hear that too. Stand still. Biggest mindgame of them all. ;)

FireHazard

@Tombstone218

Besides the memes above, your best option when facing The Spirit is to run perks like Iron Will to avoid making noise while being injured, and also to counter the perk that most Spirits use, Stridor.

When facing the Spirit during her phase walk, you simply need to focus on what routes she might take during this phase walk. Walking while she phases and not going into grass is your best option when facing her phase walk, but you can also try walking directly into her main route to walk right through her, since her collision was removed in the nerf.

Also, if you decide to run against The Spirit than don't walk or run in grass, it just gives The Spirit another indication of where you're so she can jump out of her phase walk and hit you.

WRussoW

Yes, just do gens. I had played as the Spirit on the Swamp, I was hooking people every 30-40 seconds but I managed to get only 1 kill by the end. I immediately found survivors each time after hooking someone but that didn't really matter. Oh, by the way, they weren't using toolboxes and one of them even had No Mither.

FireHazard

@WRussoW said:

Yes, just do gens. I had played as the Spirit on the Swamp, I was hooking people every 30-40 seconds but I managed to get only 1 kill by the end. I immediately found survivors each time after hooking someone but that didn't really matter. Oh, by the way, they weren't using toolboxes and one of them even had No Mither.

I assume this is some low-key shade that's being thrown to the gen times that the current meta has?

I can agree that gen times go by fairly quick if you spend too much time on one survivor, but I mostly blame the maps for causing this issue. even the most optimal games have been kind of hard as of late, so I can't say i'm having no issues with it.

Hopefully we'll see something develop from this issue soon, but right now it's kind of hard to adapt to the Post-Ruin change, that i'll admit.

NuclearBurrito

The key thing you need to realize is that there is no 1 thing you can do.

The Spirit's power lets her cover most options Survivors can have in any given moment. However she can't cover all of them at once, and unlike with most Killers she denies information from herself giving you room to do the unexpected.

Of course Spirit's are playing these mindgames constantly and thus will have gotten really good at predicting people. So you need to take that into account when trying to juke them.

@NuclearBurrito said:

Any time you mindgame someone there are always a few prerequisites:

1 - There is no dominant option for either side. That is to say, the Killer can't guarantee a hit and the Survivor can't guarantee a long loop. In this case they will take the dominant option regardless of what the other side does.

2 - At least 1 side has unreliable information on the other - Basically LoS is broken. Alternatively there could be multiple options that can be taken fast enough that the other side can't react. Basically a prediction is required

3 - The other side (relative to the one with unreliable information) is aware of the first 2 things - You cannot do a mindgame on accident. Suspecting a mindgame when the other person does not and messing up because of it is referred to as "outplaying yourself".

That being said. Lets look at one of the most common mindgames, the red glow mindgame at a loop:

Level 0 - The Killer has a red stain. If he rounds a corner the Survivor will know in advance. This gives the Survivor a better idea of where the Killer is going to be.

Level 1 - The Killer is able to walk backwards in order to hide his/her red stain. This can make the other survivor think they are going in the opposite direction.

Level 2 - A Survivor who sees the red glow disappear can note that there is a red glow mindgame and go towards the glow.

Level 3 - A Killer going against a good survivor can turn around and change direction to catch a Survivor that suspects a mindgame off guard.

Level 4 - A Survivor that suspects a level 3 Killer can go where there is no glow in order to avoid a hit

Level 5 - A Killer that suspects a level 4 Survivor can instead moonwalk anyways in order to mix it up.

And so on. This goes on forever.

Effectively this makes any and all red glow mindgames a guessing game. The only difference between this and a non-mindgame guessing game is that this has unequal odds. The Killer is more likely to get a hit by moonwalking compared to turning around or walking forward normally, and a Survivor is more likely to avoid a hit by avoiding the red glow. This is because there are more people who don't think about the mindgame than people that do.

This applies to literally every mindgame. It is inherent to mindgames in general. You can't guarantee a result so you have to guess what the other person guessed, who is guessing what you guess and so on. This isn't random per say, there are often inherent costs to making a given guess compared to another guess (for example if the Survivor can either go to a window or a pallet, and the Killer can cut off one of them in time but needs to predict it, the Survivor would rather go to the window in order to save the pallet for later), however ultimately both sides are always making a guess.

^ Read that thread in it's entirety. Not just the OP.