New player: Should I pump Spirit for the Guardian bonuses?

[June-pie]

^^^^

I don't have all the spirits yet. Fennekin seems like a very good starter, but I've already put some points into Spirit to experiment with the earlier GS's, the later GS's though want a lot more.

And you know what they say about the Sunk Cost Fallacy: ALWAYS throw good money after bad, it's just the right thing to do, I mean, you've already got up to 16 Spirit, you just gonna stop? I mean, come on, you're almost there.

But really though, what do?

[wulfster42]

I have not finished the game yet, but so far I have really liked the wolf spirit and the bull spirit, and pretty much chnage back and forth between them.

Bull works great vs all non-boss fights and against human bosses. He knocks down humans allowing you to run up and hit em on the ground for big damage. Makes taking out all revenants cake once you have 6 summong guardian spirits.

I like wolf both cause I like wolves...lol....and because he sets bosses on fire, and most of em have been weak to fire (so you do alot of damage in living weapon). There may be a better spirit for specific boss fights, but at least so far it has worked fine for me.

I think 16 is enough to get all the abilities from the bull (may have even been lower), but maybe not since I believe that is what I have ....16 spirit.

I imagine once you get into higher difficulties etc, you have so many points it just makes sense to get spirit up high enough to use everything anyway.

[critter]

You can always respec via a consumable sold in the smithy. If I remember right 16 spirit will get you full bonuses for almost every spirit in the base game except maybe the peacock(Pretty much the end of base game)?? It's been a bit since I've looked.

[Deostades]

36 Spirit is needed to unlock all extra abilities across all Guardian Spirits, but by no means do you need to go that high.

The real draw of Spirit is that it increases Living Weapon time and Damage. If you're running a LW build (which many, but by no means all, do), you'll want 99 Spirit in the later difficulties.

For your first playthrough, though? I'd say just keep trying what feels fun. Books of Reincarnation (which ... huh, BreastPhysics mentioned) are relatively cheap and plentiful, and never run out (there are not a finite amount of them).

For Guardian Spirits, Kato is universally agreed to be the best overall in the higher difficutlies, with Fuse-ushi (the bull) being up there as well. There are no bad GS, just niches and roles that suit them best.

[June-pie]

Is there any drawback to using my Books of Reincarnation?

[puzzlefox]

Originally posted by June-pie:

Is there any drawback to using my Books of Reincarnation?

the only drawback is having to take the time to re-buy all the skills with the skill points. It's a pain since there are so many to spend. Then you gotta go back into the shrine and re-apply all your jutsu as well. Then you gotta go in and re-customize all your skills.

spirit also affects the rate at which your LW recharges. GS bond is the attribute that affects that. That is basically how people can get LW to go on forever. Extraction talisman mainly, but also amrita absorbed from killing things. The higher your spirit is, the more your LW guage recharges from absorbing amrita by those means.