I have a good solution to fixing Spirit
The main issue with the current Spirit is not because she's "OP" or because survivors have no shot at escaping the trial against her. It's because the 1v1 aspect of her game is very unbalanced. Survivor skill is basically negated when facing her. She gives barely any feedback to the survivors to work with which is exactly what makes this killer hated so much.
So what can we do to fix this? I'm thinking that every 1.5 seconds while Spirit is in her power, the Spirit player will get a flash on their screen that indicates that she makes an unsettling breathing noise that can heard from up to 12 meters away from the survivor, it's directional, and the closer the survivor is to the Spirit, the louder the noise is from their POV. She should also be able to move grass and corn and also disturbs crows. I'm pretty sure she used to do that before, but I believe she's bugged to where she doesn't do any of that. I think this will provide a fun, back and forth battle between the killer and survivor without the survivor feeling like they have to make helpless guesses.
Even though that giving her an indication on where she's going and what she's doing is going to fix the "luck based" issue, there still needs to be a higher reward for survivors countering her rather than just wasting 4 seconds of her time. I think that when the Spirit decloaks, 40% of her power should be depleted and this includes her starting up her power without fully charging it. This will punish Spirit more by making a bad read and it will reward survivors for making the right read on her. Some people suggest that Spirit should have fatigue coming out of phase but that will probably gut her imo.
Also, get rid of passive phasing. It looks cool and all, but it isn't healthy and if noobie Spirits rely on this a lot, they aren't gonna do well with her in the long run.
A buff to compensate would be to make her move slightly faster in her power. Maybe move it up from 176% to 180%, it doesn't have to be anything too crazy. Base activation speed can be buffed as well.
I would also like to see some changes to her add ons.
Useless add ons like the Juniper Bonsai and Dried Cherry Blossom that affect her passive phasing currently, should affect the frequency of the breathing noises Spirit makes in her power and also the Blossom can make it where it's quieter.
I'd like to now focus on the Mother-Daughter Ring which is a super broken add on and I have no idea why this hasn't been touched in a while. This add on just needs a nerf, and I think that it should bring the duration of Spirit's power down to 2.5 seconds by default. Combining this with the Yakuyoke Amulet, you got Spirit basically on crack.
Her reappearance add ons which are the Wakizashi Saya and the Katana Tsuba also need to be tweaked. Whenever I used these add ons, I just felt like I get cheap hits that I wouldn't get normally. I like the concept of these add ons where they give Spirit a long lunge, but they are so cheap and there's no downside to using them. What these add ons should do is instead of buffing the reappearance duration, it de-buffs the reappearance duration. I think if these add ons went down this path, it can reward the Spirit player by making a really good read with less reaction time. This way, these add ons become more high risk, high reward. I like add ons and perks that reward players for making good reads and good plays, so if these add ons de-buffed the reappearance duration while still buffing the reappearance movement speed, then I wouldn't feel like getting cheap hits with these add ons anymore.
I’d like to see her have her own chase music as well, but it’s not anything we necessarily need.
I think a rework like this would make Spirit a more balanced killer and would keep her as strong as she currently is. I’m without a doubt a Spirit main and I want to enjoy my favorite killer without feeling guilty. So let’s make this happen devs! I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts about this.
Comments
Nah I’d rather they bring back the spirit bug where when your phasing you hear her breathing that was actually very good even though it was a bug it was a very nice way to show counterplay they should bring it back
Yeah that bug was actually really good. The idea I proposed isn’t that much different from it though, because I did propose an audio cue of Spirit’s current location.
As someone who hates playing against spirit this sounds like just what she needs. Could make her more skill based too as you would have to account for cooldown management and the new sound
That would be too much information, essentially making her power obsolete for mindgames, as well as for sneaking up on survivors because you'll hear a really loud *SIGH* when she's coming your direction.
In any case I wish they'd turn down her breathing. I can hardly hear the default chase music when I'm going against her.
Yeah same. Her skill ceiling is actually pretty high, but the skill floor is pretty low imo. This rework will bring both up.