I’m new to Spirits amiibo training!…what do I do?

First, read this piece all the way through and make sure you understand it completely, so that you’re completely filled in on the very basic gist of amiibo training.

I recommend that you have already beaten World of Light 100% so that you are not lacking in spirits and shops, as some important spirits are only obtainable through unlockable shops.

Before you start adding spirits to your amiibo, you’ll need to know a few things.

If you learn something from the Amiibo Doctor website, be sure to show your support and purchase an amiibo to start training! This Amazon Affiliate link redirects to… Link… because he’s a good way to start amiibo training!

1. Apply spirits to your amiibo before training them. Adding a spirit to an amiibo makes it behave like a completely different amiibo, so we don’t want to waste training.
2. The stat caps for amiibo are based on the number of effects applied. It goes 5000, 4800, 4500, 4200 for zero, one, two and three effects, respectively. Most trainers have three effects on their amiibo because the few hundred stat points are less effective than the extra effect slots.
3. Primary spirits are used to apply stats and typing, and support spirits are used to apply effects. Most trainers use Neutral typing to avoid the Attack-Defense-Grab triangle.
4. The effects that are currently banned in the amiibo scene are Super Armor, Slow Super Armor, Armor Knight, Great Autoheal, and Autoheal. If you’re participating in a setting with no formal effect bans, then consider using Super Armor or Armor Knight (if you can get your hands on their spirits) to crush your opponents. These five effects are that overpowered.

Now that you’ve digested the lower-level premises of applying Spirits to amiibo, let’s discuss how you’ll go about actually doing this. Unlike vanilla amiibo, we’re going to include the spirits addition into our training regimen. This will be somewhat different from the article listed above.

1. At level 1, apply all of the spirits you ever intend on giving your amiibo. You’ll need to know ahead of time what you want their stat and effects loadout to be. Ideally, you’ll accentuate your character’s strengths or limit their weaknesses. For example, a Ness might want PSI Attack Up. Even if you plan to hex edit the effects on, you’ll still need to put them on now so as to avoid screwing with the training later on.
2. Train your amiibo to level 50 with learning On. As before, use the moves you want them to use. While you train them, you ought to have spirit teams that have roughly the same loadout that your amiibo have, to make it easier for you.
3. After they hit level 50, turn their learning off and have them fight other amiibo. If they’re playing the way you want them to, then keep it off. If not, turn it back on and train them a bit differently. Repeat until the amiibo behaves as desired.

At this point, you’re done with training. Now you enter tournaments, but this is where the metagame gets tricky.

The spirits meta died about a month or two after the release of Ultimate, because it was incredibly centralized on Super Armor and Armor Knight, and 0/4200 Defense-based loadouts. This is still the case. With very few exceptions, when no restrictions are in play the best amiibo are defense-based and have either Super Armor or Armor Knight with one extra slot filled. If you want to research which spirits give which effects, you can find a complete list here, or consult the following list for the major five effects:

• Super Armor – Gold Mario
• Armor Knight – Halberd
• Great Autoheal – Celebi
• Autoheal – Meloetta, Elise, Roll
• Slow Super Armor – Regigigas, Polar Bear, Walhart

Gold Mario – Can only be summoned using Super Mushroom, Fire Flower and Metal Mario spirits. Super Mushroom and Fire Flower can be purchased from Timmy and Tommy’s, while Metal Mario must be fought via the Spirit Board.

Halberd – Can only be obtained by buying from Funky Kong’s shop on rare occasions. Typically costs 15,000 SP. Obtaining Halberd is entirely a grind, and requires you to check the shop every time you turn on the game or every few matches. It’s the only way to get Halberd on an amiibo – the Black Knight spirit is a Primary, so it won’t work.

Celebi – Obtainable through World of Light, the Spirit Board or the normal Shop. Shouldn’t be that hard to find if you’re looking.

That’s pretty much it! While there’s some specific information for spirits training that may prove useful, this page has pretty well armed you with what you need to know!