How to effectively play Rin Yamaoka; a guide for The Spirit

A semi-detailed guide on how to learn and effectively play The Spirit as a new player.

Introduction to the spirit

The spirit, while regarded to some as low tier, is actually an extremely viable and borderline uncounterable killer in the hands of a good player. Learning her is the hard part, as she plays much differently than any other killer than the game, and plays somewhat similar to nurse in that you really don't have to worry about most of the tools survivors have to escape you. When you're playing the spirit, it's pretty important to have a good headset, because your ears are what's going to land you kills 90% of the time. Scratch marks are heavily delayed and not reliable in a close range chase either, so having good sound is even more important.

General strategies

When playing the spirit, you typically want a survivor to drop a pallet ASAP, you can usually force them to do so by swinging through it once you know they're near it. Don't worry so much about being stunned, as once the pallet is down, it's now a tool for YOU to use, and is more harmful for the survivors than they realize.The trick to being a good spirit is to NOT break pallets while in a chase, which may sound counterintuitive, but you'll understand why once I go into further detail.

The only pallets you'll actually want to break whilst chasing are extremely safe pallets, like the shack pallet and a few long loops, although even those can be mindgamed by a good spirit. When a survivor isn't injured and you feel like you need to start phasing to catch up with them, you'll need to listen carefully for their foostep sounds, isolate them and focus so that you can accurately track them. Once you get really good at picking up on what's a footstep and what's not, you pretty much won't need to use your vision to find survivors. After you land the first hit, the hard part is over, providing they aren't running iron will. Injured survivors are LOUD, and you can easily tell where they are without being able to see them. This is when leaving pallets down is important, as you'll be able to clearly hear which side of the pallet they are on, and swing into them preemptively.

Zoning areas and knowing where all the pallets are down is extremely important, as well as clearing out pallets after you've already won a chase and hooked the survivor. Once you get more used to tracking and zoning survivors, leaving pallets down isn't a terrible thing, and the time used for breaking pallets could be used better going into other chases and downing other survivors. Being fast and accurate is the most important thing when playing the spirit, and the skill ceiling is very high. Newer spirit players can spend much too long on chases because of poor tracking skills, but experienced players can end chases almost as quick as skilled nurse players.

Weaknesses and miscellanious details

By far the biggest weakness of the spirit is her cooldown, but you can deal with it in multiple ways and skilled players will almost never have to rely on a cooldown to secure a kill. She is also a 110 movement speed killer, which seems bad at a surface level, but most of the time when you're in a chase you will be moving at a much higher speed due to her phasing, and with addons she has almost the same speed as the hillbilly but with much better control over your movement and your attacks. Getting close to a survivor, then using your power very briefly to get a hit is great because it secures more points, as well as gives your power back almost instantly due to the short duration used. Always try to use her power in short bursts during a chase, and only use up the full meter if you're chasing over long distance or if you're going towards a generator that's far away. The spirit is very good at map coverage and can push people off gens very effectively, and when combined with certain perks can be very deadly and scary to play against.

Addons and perks

As a player trying to learn the spirit, you shouldn't try to rely on addons too much. Her purple addons are incredibly strong, but eventually you'll run out and then you won't have a great idea on how she plays sans addons. If you learn while using lower addons, then move up to purples once you have a good idea on how to play her, you'll be unstoppable. My favorite addon combination currently is "Bloody hair brooch" and "Dirty uwabaki." Charge time just feels really nice to use and it's great for mindgaming, and uwabaki is great for movement speed because it really helps you catch up to someone if they leave a pallet and try to run to the next safe area. My favorite perks to run on her are "BBQ, Hex: Ruin, Remember me, and Pop goes the weasel." Another good setup can be made by replacing BBQ and Ruin with Spirit fury and Enduring. Pop goes the weasel tends to be the focus of all my builds, as it's extremely effective at slowing generators and in my opinion is better than ruin as it can't be countered by breaking a totem.

Final thoughts

Learning the spirit can be a daunting task. She's much different from other killers and as such you have to learn in a completely new way, but the payoff is definitely worth it. This is my first steam guide, and first iteration of my guide on the spirit, which I will most definitely expand later and bring in rankings of perks, addons, and more detailed explanations on how to counter swf groups and other tools survivors have to use against you, so stay tuned if you're interested, and if you have any questions feel free to add me and ask a question, or leave one in the comments and I'll try to get back to you. Enjoy the haunting!

[Ü]

Its the most OP killer rn

[Sardaukar]

Good guide, helped me on my way of learning Spirit ! And now made my own guide aswell. Personaly Irun Whispers+Agitation+Sloppy Butcher+Fire Up for more map control via speed and pressure.

[Mom]

As a player that never reached rank 1 killer before, i got it in around 30 hours.. i started at rank 17 it is quite a strong killer imo

[エミリア]

running stridor is a good option too

[Lexi]

10/10 guide

[Thing of Chaos]

Nice Summing it up! 10/10 guide

[Horus Caulfield]

I mean, you really didn't say anything new and intuitive besides the simple mechanics most killers play. You did say a strategy or two, but it was left without much of a good understanding.

[eplixc]

krunsj?

[xannalice]

It's impossible to run from her

[RIA RIA]

Nice guide