The 100% Complete Guide to Spirit Effects in Smash Ultimate Amiibo Training

How to train a Spirits amiibo, from start to finish

By JoKe07, Spirits Informer and Guest Contributor

What’s the purpose of this guide?

Welcome. I’m JoKe07, a trainer who’s been in the Spirits scene for over a year now, as well as being a Spirits Informer. I know a ton about Spirits, which is why I’ll be explaining how you should be training your Spirits amiibo, from start to finish. I’ll be touching on nearly every aspect of Spirits in a series called “The Definitive Spirits Series”. The Series is a collection of guides dedicated to teaching you everything you need to know about Spirits. This Guide, The Definitive Spirits Guide, is the “start” of the series, and it teaches you how to train a Spirits amiibo.

As you may know, there are 2 main ways to train an amiibo; being Spirits (adding Spirits to your amiibo) and Vanilla (not adding any Spirits to your amiibo). Since you’re likely here for the former, let me explain a few things about Spirits before you start. I’ll start with how you should be training a Spirits amiibo, then link the rest of The Definitive Spirits Series, which teaches you about various aspects of Spirits amiibo training. One of those guides is a Spirit Effect Tier List, which is helpful if you want to know more about various Spirit Effects and their usefulness. 

So, what should one be doing differently when training a Spirits amiibo?

I’ll be assuming you’ve beat World of Light, and bought or farmed enough Spirits to have a healthy collection of them. If you haven’t, I strongly recommend you do as many of the better Spirits are hidden in World of Light or in the DLC Spirit boards.

1. First, you need to understand the different kinds of spirits. There are 2 different kinds, Primary Spirits and Support Spirits. Primary Spirits give raw stats to your amiibo that boost Attack and Defense, and Support Spirits give special effects ranging from Attack Buffs to Healing to Speed Increases. Support Spirits are the core of this complex equation, and many amiibo are built specifically around certain Support Spirits.
2. Even if you plan to edit Spirits on, you always want to put the Spirits on first, starting with your support Spirits and then adding Primary Spirits. There’s 2 reasons for this. First off, adding Spirits directly changes amiibo move values (like how often it jumps or uses dash attack); so if you give Spirits to a fully trained amiibo, you’ll be randomizing how it plays. But if you edit Spirits on, this won’t happen. However, the second reason for adding Spirits before training is that amiibo actually play slightly differently with Spirits, so even if you edit Spirits on after training, the amiibo will play a bit differently. Better to add Spirits at level 1 and fix it later than to screw over your hard effort at level 50.
3. Now onto Support Spirits. Support Spirits are what give the amiibo special effects, ranging from healing to items to damage output. Generally, you either wanna play to your strengths or fix your greatest weaknesses, instead of just adding random Spirits. You have exactly 3 Support Slots to work with. Most Spirits only cost 1 Slot, but some cost 2 or even 3. I made a Tier List with every Support Spirit on it, excluding Hazard Spirits (they don’t do anything useful) and Final Smash Spirits (that’s a whole new meta). You can find that Tier List at the bottom of the page, accompanied with a Guide explaining all of them. If you’re new to amiibo training, I’d recommend you check it out. There’s a lot of misconceptions about Spirit Effects, and that Tier List clears them up. Also, be wary of banned Spirits. The Spirits that are commonly banned from every competitive Spirits tournament are Armor Knight, Super Armor, Slow Super Armor, Great Autoheal, and Autoheal (and usually Instadrop). Why are they banned? Go read the Tier List Guide to find out, silly.
4. Once you’ve equipped your Support Spirits, next are Primary Spirits. Primary Spirits are the Spirits that give your amiibo Attack and Defense stats, which essentially turn your amiibo from a fair sparring partner into a beefcake gigachad that 2-shots you with any move and only loses to other Spirited amiibo. You get a total of 4200 stats to work around with (if you use all 3 support slots). You should aim for 2100 Attack & 2100 Defense for stats, as it’s the most balanced and effective mathematically. Until relatively recently, the stats were unbalanced and Max Defense amiibo were optimal. However, Nintendo thankfully fixed this, making 2100 / 2100 the best option. If you can’t get exactly 2100 / 2100, it’s ok. Just try to get as close to balanced as possible. If you don’t equip any Support Spirits, you’ll get slightly more stats. 5000 stats for 3 empty slots, 4800 for 2 empty slots, and 4500 for 1 empty slot. However, Support Spirits will give you bonuses that are almost always better than an empty slot. Also, the effects on Primary Spirits do not translate into amiibo. The Support Spirits are the only Spirits that give special effects.
5. In addition to giving you ridiculous stats, Primary Spirits also give you one of 4 different types. These 4 types are Neutral, Attack, Defense, and Grab. Always go for Neutral. If you choose one of the other 3, you can get countered easily. Attack Type amiibo do 1.3x more damage and take .85x damage against Grab Type amiibo, Grab Type amiibo do better against Defense Type amiibo, and Defense Type amiibo do better against Attack Type amiibo. Neutral can’t be countered, so it’s the most versatile by far.
6. Once you’ve added all your Spirits, congrats! It’s time to train your amiibo. You could check out a guide on how to train whatever amiibo you’re training, or train it on your own. From here it’s all up to you. If you’ve never trained a Spirits amiibo (or any amiibo, for that matter), don’t worry.  The process is easy. Train it to around level 30 with learning on, ideally as the same character you’re training. Use the moves you want it to use, and let it hit you with the moves you want it you use. I’d also recommend equipping a weak Spirit team so that you don’t get rocked by your amiibo right out of the gate. Once they hit level 30, turn learning off and level it up all the way to 50. Once it’s level 50, watch it play against a CPU for a bit. If it’s doing what you want, great! Your amiibo is fully trained. If not, turn learning back on and train them a bit more until your amiibo plays desirably. You might even need to reset the amiibo in extreme cases. Just make sure you don’t change the Spirits after you’ve fully trained it, or you’ll be in a big puddle of regret. 

So, as a quick overview:

• Put Spirits on first.
• Use the Tier List to find what Support Spirits to give your amiibo
• Your Primary Spirit should ideally give 2100/2100 stats and be Neutral Type (Zacian & Zamazenta, Arceus, Galeem, and Dharkon give this)
• Once it has Support Spirits & the maximum amount of stats, you’re ready to train the amiibo.

Now, onto the Spirit Effect Tier List. If you don’t understand it at first glance, that’s fine. It’ll make sense once you read the Tier List guide.

The higher a Spirit is on this Tier List, the more generally useful it becomes. Also, certain Spirits are higher than others just because more characters can use them.

Another quick note about Spirits; most Spirits have what are called “diminishing returns”. This means that if you use 2 of the same Spirit, the second Spirit has less of an effect than normal. For example, if you equip 1 PSI Up, you get a 1.1x increase to PSI (PSI Up increased it by 10%). But if you equip 2 PSI Ups, you get a 1.18x increase to PSI (The first PSI Up increased it by 10%, but the second PSI Up increased it by 8%). This means that you should never use more than 2 of the same Spirit, as you’ll get a much lower multiplier than equipping something else. But without further ado, allow me to introduce the never-seen before Spirit Effect Tier List!

The Spirit Effect Tier List, which is fully explained in the Guide below.

The rest of The Definitive Spirits Series can be found in the guides below.

The Definitive Spirits Tier List

If you don’t know what that above Tier List means, don’t worry. The Definitive Spirits Tier List explains it all. This Guide is broad, but packed with info. It’s a good place to go if you want a rundown of every Spirit, or are just looking for something fancy to add to your amiibo.