The reason spirit needs a change...from a killer main
The general consensus about Spirit is that she has no counterplay. However, some people disagree with that, and this post is about proving them wrong, while also making a simple suggestion that won't change the level of power that she has, while simultaneously providing counterplay.
One of the things that people tend to use as a "counter" for her in arguments and discussions are sound mindgames with slow vaults. This actually could be valid counterplay if they changed the thing that I'm about to talk about. There is one reason why this is not counterplay. You make noise while slow vaulting. A Spirit with a good headset will hear you and catch you regardless of if you do this or not.
Another thing is crouching. If you didn't know, crouching lowers your characters moans by a little bit, making you a bit harder to track. However, if you just crouch, your sound radius is smaller, giving her enough time to find you withing her basekit 5 seconds of phasing. Most people know this though, and therefore they crouch inconsistently to make the sound more confusing to track. This works better, but a good Spirit will just stop phasing the second you get quieter, and if she can hear you while crouching, she'll likely be close enough to hit you with her post phase lunge.
People always use IW as a "counter" when arguing about this. Perks are not counterplay.
Some people think that walking to not leave scratch marks will throw her off. It won't. She doesn't track by those, and a good way to prove this is to look at her strongest addon, Mother Daughter Ring.
A lot of people think that this is a counter, which is astonishing imo. Drop every pallet to avoid getting injured, forcing her to guess. The people who suggest this seem to not realize that the number of pallets on a map a finite. You can't afford to waste one every 11 seconds, nor should you be able to. This only works in a competitive setting where the game will be over in 5 minutes at most. This simply isn't possible in normal DBD. You can't do this in solo queue at all, and you have to have one of the most competent and efficient SWFs in the game to do this. And this isn't a viable way to counter her either, because it's a 50/50. If she guesses correctly even once on the first chase, your entire team dies because all of the pallets are gone. It is honestly better to just hold W than to do this.
I'm not going into the standing still mindgame, because it's not that hard to counter. Just wait for maybe 5 seconds, then vault towards her. This will work 9 times out of 10.
Now that I've covered why she has no counterplay, let's talk about how to add counterplay without getting her.
My suggestion for a change is to simply bring back the sound bug where you could hear her breathing in phasewalk. No, this won't be directional. This allows players who pay attention to somewhat know what she's doing, and that allows them to take the appropriate counter, creating counterplay.
I think that this is the perfect way to add counterplay without reducing her power, but I also want to see other suggestions, so if you don't mind, please comment your ideas.
Comments
Mine has the fact that I main killer because people just assume that anyone who wants her nerfed is a survivor main. I'm not. I only have 1k hours on survivor, while I have 6k on killer.
People who pretend to be a different main are a meme, but I'm not going that. I actually like going against her as survivor, as it's a break from normal looping. But she doesn't have counters, and that's an issue. If you read the post, this isn't about nerfing her, it's about providing counterplay, but not making her weaker.
As proof that I'm not a survivor main:
Spirit does NOT need to be gutted. Her lack of counterplay is the only issue, which should be fixed without making her weaker.
Nurse is the most balanced killer in the game. She's only as good as the person playing her, making it a game of skill
So it's ok to you that she doesn't have counterplay, just bc horror movies/games?
This game has not been horror in 5 years, and balancing is much more important.
I am a killer main though.
(Eye roll) 😒
Just because it’s no longer scary doesn’t mean it’s no longer horror. Horror is many sub categories.
You can counter nurse because you can see where she is. Only having one blink would kill her. Any decent survivor will look where she's going, and either keep running or double back, and she can't ever hit them, no matter how good she is.
The second blink is her power, not the first. They can double fatigue time and it won't kill her nearly as much as this would.
lol what's with people accusing you of not being a killer main
(Eye roll)
As I said, balancing is more important. Just because something was OP in other horror games) movies doesn't mean it should be in dbd. That's like saying "Remove looping! It doesn't fit the horror setting!" This mindset is so dumb I can't even take the people who have it seriously.
Also, Cote called it action, not horror, so it has been officially recognized as not horror, but action
Because they can't fathom that a killer main would want to nerf a killer. Same for survivor mains with survivors.
well that's because stridor will make it so that you still make noise even with iron will, stridor will make the 100% breathing go to 150% then the iron will takes it down to 50%, so you are half as quiet with iron will against stridor. stridor doesn't actually increase the killer's hearing of things, it increases the actual volume of the survivor.
Yeah true the amount of times I've been called a killer main or a fake survivor main for thinking the decisive nerf is ok is insane
It's a really dumb mindset honestly. Not everyone is blinded by the side that they main. Sorry that happened to you, because that is VERY annoying
It's still a major nerf if you take away her second blink. I have around 5k hours on Nurse, and I've been playing her since she came out. Even the best Nurse in the world can not one blink a survivor unless that survivor is bad.
Rank doesn't mean skill, it means you know how to pip. For survivors that is literally just doing gens, and for a lot of killers, it's playing Legion.
This post isn't a rework, it's a simple change to add counterplay without making her weaker.
I find her fun to go against too.
But she has no counterplay. No, I don't camp pallets. Your brain has nothing to do with it. She knows where you are, you don't know where she is. That's a problem.
If you had read the post, you would know that I'm not trying to nerf her, just to add counterplay.
Sad, but not surprising.
I completely understand this. I don't play her for the same reason.
The breathing is from a little while away so you can do something. Although I do agree that it isn't a lot.
But the window to close her second blink is far too large. Especially with addons. I've had situations where I should have been able to get out, she used a max first blink and I was on the opposite side of shack, yet she had time to charge a blink far enough to reach the other side and then hit me with a lunge. Well, excuse me, I already outplayed her by faking her first blink out, 10 meters for a second blink within 1 second is too big of a window.
And I do think Nurses can one blink survivors if you lower all the penalties they added to her to "compensate" for the second blink. Less fatique and faster charge speed would still be essentially 2 blinks, just that there is a forced pause inbetween.
And rank DOES mean skill. Knowing how to consistently pip from rank 20 to rank 1 takes skill. Being able to consistently pip requires skill. You cant just hop on the game and become rank 1 without developing your skill. I never even implied that the skill needed to reach rank 1 meant the same as skill needed to be a high tier player. Those are different skill requirements. Skill in games is a mix of decision making and game knowledge. It's not VR, the highest real life skill you can apply is mouse precision and fast button presses. You need decision making and game knowledge to reach rank 1, thus, reaching rank 1 requires skill. Meaning that rank DOES mean something. I have repeated it multiple times, so I will repeat it again: I never said it took a lot of skill. Rank 1-4 players are, outside inactive players, always better than those in lower ranks. Doesnt mean they're not potatoes, just that they arent baked potatoes.
About rank, I agree with this. That's a very good point.
About Nurse, you couldn't be further from the truth. She only has one addon that extends her second blink, and it's actually really bad for reasons I'm not going into rn. It's called pocket watch. Yes, that situation is kind of unfair, but not as unfair as nerfing Nurse that much. The reason why only being able to one blink would kill her is because all you have to do is watch where she's going and not go there. It's harder to do this with her second blink, as you will likely have broken LOS. However, it's not impossible to outplay a Nurse, even if she is using her second blink. You have to play against her like you play her. Get a feel for her playstyle and you'll last a while in chase.
If they implemented that nerf, it would essentially make Nurse only playable on PC, where you can flick with her. That's completely unfair for every console Nurse main.
And no, she can't one blink decent survivors.
Even if she had NO fatigue, she still couldn't. It's just too easy to counter.
Most high tier nurses do not only use one Blink...
Show me a video then. of the top 0.1% Nurse versing a 0.1% swf team. one blinking them 100% of the time, I'll wait.
And again. nurse does take skill to learn. more than 50 hours. Do you know how to flick blink? Do you know how to Short cancel a blink? Do you know how to Predict Blink? Etc
Gen slowdowns are a MUST. you will NEVER. EVER. Win against a Effective Swf as Spirit / Nurse even. It's been proven that so many times. and it's sad how people are blind to Not see that truth,
Rank still doesn't take into factor. What if the survivors did terribly? What if they got carried in a swf? What if they just got carried in soloQ and still pipped up? Your argument into rank doesn't make sense whatsoever... And to stay in green ranks. doesn't really take much. you can just be looping the killer or helping the survivors w/o touching a single gen and what not,
And the Skill celling to reach rank 1 IN GENERAL. doesn't take much skill in-fact... i can argue this point all day..
Welcome to Console. they still don't care for it...as much as i hate seeing it,
Especially coming from a pc user,
You'd think people would realize that now...
But people still want her gutted / nerfed / killed off. Like why... just leave her alone
I can win against an effective SWF as Nurse with no slowdown, but I also have 5k hours on just her. You don't necessarily NEED slowdown to win as her, as long as you're experienced enough.
Taking away info from both sides is worse than simply adding it to one side imo
Mm...like i said.
Show me a video of going against the Best Effective swf team. against your Nurse or the Best Nurse in general.
I'll wait, =D
I almost never play against effective players.
Although I'm rank 1 at all times, because, well, Nurse main, I usually get survivors that don't deserve their rank. It's super easy to get to red ranks, and I haven't played against good players in a while.
If you mean a tournament SWF, that would likely be a 2k, not a 4k. Slowdown has pretty much no effect on them, so I would be running a slugging build.
Anything under this is always a 4k. Considering the fact that I have to handicap myself to not end the game in 2 minutes, I will always 4k anything under a tournament SWF. By handicap I mean never running add-ons unless they hinder me, and not slugging as much as I would typically like. Oh, and never running slowdown other than Corrupt, which is to start early chases, not to slow down my early game, and Thanatophobia, just in case I get a map like Hawkins or Lerys where I have to try harder than normal. And I still win without trying. If I ever feel like I might get less than a 3k, I'll just stop handicapping myself and win no matter what.
Also, the best SWF would be in tournaments, which I don't partake in for a multitude of reasons. The only time you'll go against them is when you choose to by playing tournament dbd.
But removing it makes her into a guessing game that requires no skill from either side.
at least its actually strong addon and worthy of being ultra-rare unlike most of the ultra-rares in the game for killers
You can still get them in pub matches.
Which rarely happens but it still happens.
But you're still saying you can 2k to 4k reguardless as Nurse with no slowdowns and i stil wanna see the proof behind it =D.
The major problem with SIpirit are her add ons in my opinion as they can make her slow or super fast. Im considering a Spirit with stridor, and a Survivor with Iron WIll( if you dont consider Iron Will a counter play, you reply to me and I can come wit an other argument if I can think about). Spirit will probably take the fist hit and use the strifor to track you down, so lets think about something, You are a survivor at a jungle Gym, you are injured with Iron WIll against a SPirit with Stridor, you crouch to make less noise and the spirit comes out of the phase 5 meters away from you, you have your perks( Iron Will, DH and other 2 perks that I dont need to specify), you have a window and a pallet, the window is at your side and the pallet is 10 meters away, but Spirit came out of phase expecting you to be near the window, you can run a little bit and use DH to get to the pallet.
Okay, that occasional.
Lets think about an other situation, you were runnning at the starting of the game( Spirit with stridor and you have the same build as last game) you just started hearing the woosh from spirit, you have a few options here, as you were running and spirit is at phase, she probably saw your scratch marks, so the best option here is to start running to a jungle gym( even if its far away) and take the first hit, as Spirit had to use her phase at the starting of the game, she now has to start walking to recover, she had 1 second~ of her phase remaining, what means that she will have to wait 12 seconds~ to get her phase back, with the little sprint burst, you are already near the jungle gym, now you have a few options to use. Go to the pallet, go to the window or crouch near one of those( not to say if you want to double back, thats something that me as a Spirit main, would say that is the worst idea as she can just be standing still trying t oget a vision of where you are, if you double back, then she knows where you are, so If I was this spirit, I would make the long way from outside of the jungle gym and catch the guy that probably ran to the pallet and just droped it, if you choose the option to crouch, then My phase will be probably gone and you bought even more time to run without having to use DH, obviously this is a bet.
On the last 2 situations, you had the Idea that the spirit probably had the yellow speed and the brown speed as add ons judging by the time she took to get to you when she started to phae, she took 4 seconds~ to get something like 30 meters~( as she took the time to get half way to the jugle gym and she took the long way to the pallet, Im taking that infos more of my style of playing( I usually dont use add ons better then yellow to train comps), if w consider the more add ons or no add ons, it has infinite ways to get that situation going as they can focus on speed, duration( if you use short bursts its better then the recovery add ons), entering phase speed, there are tons of things that get impossible to have a good info abut her add ons, so it depends very much on luck and the hearing of spirit, as she got out of the phase in the first situation because she was not hearing something considerable and at the second situation, she couldnt get any further with her phase, I think you could get that her add ons are great part of the problem, if not I can make some more situations without survivor perks and a spirit with stridor and add ons.
Her add-ons are a part of the problem, but the main problem is that you have no idea what she's doing, while she has every idea what you're doing.
I am a R1 spirit main and I partially agree with the post, the thing is that spirit has ton of good add ons that make a small difference betwwen them, like the mother daughter ring 2 entering phase add ons, it makes a small difference that might not be noticed in the middle of the match, that can make you drop a pallet earlier then necessary or latter then necessary, so you might take a free hit, or you might use a pallet without being necessary as she might be able to get the long way.
These are pretty much all me not trying. I do have slowdown in some of these though.
Nurse has the most skill in both sides. Her entire gameplay is reading playstyles and working through bugs. Nurse isn't even close to a guessing game. Everyone knows that good Nurses will NEVER predict.
What you described is a glorified guessing game that STILL has no counterplay. Congratulations, you just made Spirit worse without providing any counterplay!
Not exactly, she has an idea of what you are doing, she know partially your localization, thats more then necessary.
The other thing is that how would you nerf the spirit without touching her add ons and completely breaking her game style? You would make her not be able to hear you when in phase? The only way to nerf her without changing her entire character would be changing the effect of her add ons or the % of her add ons, they are 80% of the problem that actually can be fixed without making her completely garbage.
Some people think that she should not hear survivors during chase or have a reduced audition during chase, I disagree with that as if people had a way to deduce what add ons she is using, it would be already better then it is now, as it would be a counterplay, and Im not saying that this is gonna be a counterplay to the r20 dwight, the r20 dwight probably doesnt know how perks work. Obviously thats my opinion
Let's just skip to the biggest bit:
"My suggestion for a change is to simply bring back the sound bug where you could hear her breathing in phasewalk. No, this won't be directional. This allows players who pay attention to somewhat know what she's doing, and that allows them to take the appropriate counter, creating counterplay.
I think that this is the perfect way to add counterplay without reducing her power, but I also want to see other suggestions, so if you don't mind, please comment your ideas."
And then because of this, Spirit can never get injures because Survivors always know exactly what she's doing, therefore she can't get downs quickly enough, making her drop multiple tiers because she can't get the necessary under 20 second downs that is required against competent teams. This definitely 100% reduces her power because the fact that Survivors can't track her easily is how she counters loops. It's not the speed, it's specifically the invisibility that causes this.
This is something that people who suggest Spirit nerfs almost always never understand. "COUNTERPLAY" goes both ways, just admit that you only care if there's no counterplay for one side.
Excuse me? Honey, I'm a killer main. Anyways, as I said, the sound won't be directional. They won't know exactly what she's doing, they'll just have an idea
That's not what my suggestion was and you know it.
Somewhat knowing what she's doing while phasing provides the ability to counter her. It makes it into an actual mindgame.
I never said that. Read the post before commenting.
Also, her add-ons do need changes. Pretty much all of them do. She needs an addin pass as well, but this is centered around her base power more than anything.
That's about what I expected. "I'm a Killer main therefore my opinion is more valid!" like this doesn't make you immune to being Survivor biased or making bad suggestions like a bunch of Killer players.
An idea is more than enough to always be positioned correctly. If you do this, then you need to buff her so she always has a idea on where the Survivor is. Fair's fair.
I read your post, what I was talking in my reply is that Spirit cant be changed without making her garbage excluding changing her add ons, her add ons are the major problem in my point of view.
She does always have an idea where the survivor is. And that idea is directional, unlike this.
And you're right, but I'm not survivor biased. I'm just not blinded towards unbalanced killers like other killer mains.
That is not true. Sure, she'll be a but weaker because you can actually DO something against her, but that doesn't make her garbage.
Add-ons aren't what make her have no counterplay.
Um... no she doesn't? The Survivor doesn't make noise when stationary if they aren't injured. They make noise when running, but they become near silent if they just walk.
No, you are biased, you proposed a major nerf that solely favors Survivors without giving Spirit anything in return for giving her a consistent way to shut down her power repeatedly and make her a 110% M1 Killer.
Then how about they don't hear the noise while healthy?
I'm not biased at all. I just want her to have counterplay, and I have literally shut down EVERY over the top nerf suggestions for her.
Don't forget that the volume increase/decrease also works for tracking Killers with the heartbeat, you can consistently know where the Killer is if you can hear the heartbeat at places like shack. "Small" changes like this are actually massive and can be used to consistently prevent Spirit from getting ANYTHING with her power.