How to Use Spirits with Amiibo Figures in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Super Smash Bros Ultimate - Ryu and Samus

Back in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U/3DS, you could feed your amiibo figures various items to power them up and grant them special abilities (I once turned Donkey Kong into a fire flower-spamming bastard). In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, however, feeding has been replaced with a Spirit system. I spent some time digging into the Spirit system, and it’s far deeper than it seems at a glance. In fact, it can seem downright overwhelming at first.

So I’ve created a guide to using Spirits with amiibo figures in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Hopefully this will round out that learning curve a little bit.

The Basics

First off, I have to warn you that if your figure player (FP) inherits a Spirit, you will lose that Spirit forever. You’ll want to be careful about which Spirits you use here, because you’ll never get them back. If you end up inheriting Pauline, for example, you’ll have to redo the infamous Pauline fight, which is brutal. On top of that, you’ll have to replay World of Light to have access to that fight. (Unless, of course, you’re lucky enough to have Pauline pop on the Spirit Board, and you also happen to be lucky enough to beat that fight on the first try and to get through the Spirit-freeing minigame afterward. World of Light is probably the easiest way to get Pauline, actually.)

Super Smash Bros Ultimate - Pauline

Alright, so if you’re okay with sacrificing your Spirits, you can move onto the next step.

You’ll need to scan an amiibo figure using the amiibo menu (which is an option in the Games & More section of the main menu). The FP should appear on the screen. Here, if you press the R button, a tab displaying that FP’s stats should drop down.

So what do all these stats mean? Well, first up is an icon representing your FP’s “type.” If you’ve done any Spirit battles, this should be familiar. The types are Attack, Shield, Grab, and Balanced. The Ryu FP in the image below is Balanced.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate - Ryu Amiibo

Next to the type is the FP’s personality. The FP above has a “Cool” personality, but there are dozens of personality types in the game. I’ll get more into those later on.

Next, there are Attack and Defense stats, represented by a boxing glove icon and a shield icon respectively, and below that you’ll see three slots for support perks. Once again, if you’ve done any Spirit battles, this should all be familiar. And in case you’re wondering, the Support skills for your FP are the same ones that you’d get on your player character in a Spirit battle, so those can be things like “Zap-Floor Immunity” and “Easier Dodging.”

If you haven’t fed any Spirits to your amiibo yet, your Attack and Defense stats will be at 0, even if your FP is at level 50. (This seems to be more evidence that, just like in Smash 4FP level is completely arbitrary.)

Leveling Up

From here, you’ll want to select the “Level Up” option. That should bring you to the following screen.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate - Ryu Amiibo

Here, you have a list of all of your available Spirits, and this is where you can begin inheriting the ones you’d like. Note that there are two separate collections: Primary and Support. Primary Spirits determine your type and personality type, while Support Spirits add your perks.

Oh, and if you inherit a Spirit before your FP hits level 50, you’ll also gain some XP from the inheritance. However, FPs level up extremely quickly just from fighting in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, so you shouldn’t get too caught up in leveling your FPs via Spirits.

Primary Spirits

Both Primary and Support Spirits will boost your Attack and Defense stats, but Primaries seem to have a bigger effect. Your stats max out at 5,000 between Attack and Defense. Hypothetically, this means you could have 5,000 Attack and 0 Defense, but as one stat climbs higher, its growth seems reduced while the reduction of the opposite stat seems to increase. In practice, it might not be possible to sink all 5,000 points into one stat.

So do these stats actually make a noticeable difference? I ran an experiment with my Ryu amiibo to find out.

First, I scanned the amiibo and leveled the FP up to 50. I then brought him to the game’s Training feature and pit him against Mario. I kept some notes about how much damage Ryu’s attacks were doing.

Then I went back to the amiibo menu and let Ryu inherit enough Spirits to max out his Attack and Defense stats. I also changed his type from Balanced to Attack (which you can see in the image below — notice the red sword icon above his stats).

Super Smash Bros Ultimate - Ryu Amiibo

I brought him back to Training, pit him against Mario again, and made note of his damage numbers. The difference was considerable.

With no Spirits inherited, Ryu’s Hadouken dealt 13.6% damage, while the
Shakunetsu Hadouken (fireball) dealt 14.6%. His side-smash kick did 31.3%. Later, when his stats were maxed, his Hadouken delt 24.1%, His Shakunetsu Hadouken dealt 25.9%, and his side-smash kick dealt a whopping 61.8%. (I should point out here that he got a little bit of a charge on his kick the second time, which I’m sure affected the damage output of the kick a little bit.

To reiterate that:

  • The Hadouken went from 13.6% to 24.1%.
  • The Shakunetsu Hadouken went from 14.6% to 25.9%.
  • The side-smash kick went from 31.3% to 61.8%.

That’s no small change.

Support Skills

Support Spirits give you skills. You’ll want to choose your skills carefully, as many of them are pretty worthless for your FP. While skills like “Lava-Floor Immunity” are great for World of Light, your FP shouldn’t encounter any lava floors, so equipping it is a waste of two precious skill slots.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate - Rosalina Amiibo

But there are some skills that can come in handy. Here are a just few:

  • Fast Final Smash Meter
  • Critical-Health Healing
  • Critical-Health Defense
  • Item Gravitation
  • Screw Attack Equipped
  • Made of Metal

If you want to re-create the Fire-Flower-Spamming Donkey Kong I mentioned in the first paragraph of this article, you can use the Fire Flower Spirit, which imbues the FP with the same ability that made my old Donkey Kong amiibo FP such a nightmare to fight against.

Now, I’ve said this before, but I’ll mention this one last time: If you inherit a skill from a Spirit, you lose that Spirit forever.

There’s one last thing I should point out about Support Spirits. Your FP has three skill slots, and some skills take up two or three slots. If you try to overfill your skill slots, you will be asked to remove a skill in order to equip the new one.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate - FP Perks

Types

Your basic type is a rock-paper-scissors style gamble. Shield beats Attack, Attack beats Grab, and Grab beats Shield. This suggests that a Shield-type FP should have an advantage over an Attack-type FP, though I’m not sure how much impact this actually has. If you’re worried about it at all, you can simply choose a Balanced type.

Personality type (Cool, Enthusiastic, etc.) affects how the FP will act. An Enthusiastic FP, for example, will be a bit more aggressive than a Cool one. At least, as far as I’ve been able to tell.

I’ve been able to confirm 10 possible personality types. However, each character only has access to a smaller pool of those 10 personality types. For example, Mega Man could be Cool, Enthusiastic, or Logical, while Isabelle could be Cool, Enthusiastic, Laid Back, or Normal.

This means that the personality type absorbed from a particular Spirit will vary from character to character. Note the the Flying Man Spirit will imbue Mega Man with the Enthusiastic personality type…

Super Smash Bros Ultimate - Spirits

… while that same Spirit will instead give Ryu the Versatile personality type.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate - Ryu Amiibo

Here’s a complete list of amiibo FP personality types I’ve been able to confirm:

  • Cautious
  • Cool
  • Enthusiastic
  • Laid Back
  • Light
  • Normal
  • Realistic
  • Reckless
  • Show-Off
  • Versatile
Super Smash Bros Ultimate - Poltergust 5000

Acquiring Spirits

So how do you acquire Spirits in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate? Well, there are a several different ways to get them, but I’ll just explain the two best ones (and a third bonus one).

The absolute best way to get tons of Spirits very quickly is to play through the World of Light campaign. You’ll build a massive army of the things within your first few hours. Plus, all of your Spirits carry over from World of Light to the rest of the game and vice versa. This means you can create a new save, grind the first few dozen spirits, then start a new save and grind those same Spirits over again. This allows you to get multiple copies of each Spirit, which makes sacrificing them an easier pill to swallow.

The second best way to get Spirits is the Spirit Board

Super Smash Bros Ultimate - Spirit Board

This is a great way to get “throwaway” Spirits, because the Novice-level fights are a  breeze. However, Ace-level fights can be tricky, and Legend-level fights can be downright brutal. Plus, even if you win the battle, there is still a minigame where you have to shoot a laser through a gap in a spinning circle. You’ll get the hang of it with some practice, but it can be pretty frustrating to lose a Spirit you really wanted because your timing was a little bit off.

There is another way to get Spirits: by scanning amiibo figures. Non-Smash amiibo figures can each be scanned once for a one-time payout, and sometimes this payout will be a free Spirit (see my enormous list of what each figure grants you). Smash amiibo figures, however, can be scanned as often as you like, and they give you gifts whenever they’ve made progress.

And that’s your guide to using Spirits with amiibo figures. Hopefully, you’ll find it to be a valuable resource in your Smash Bros. adventures.

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