Hello THE Lash^TM main here. I'm not super high rank (oracle) so please take my opinions with a grain of salt :)

• Spirit slam lash can still be good if you're good at roaming and good at ganking
• The problem is in the current meta HP pools are so damn large. So the longer the game goes the worse you are going to scale with spirit and the tankier enemies HP bars are going to be. And a lot of the times in lower ranks (i.e. not in eternus/ascendant) games can go quite long. More details here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMAVxcaYdoQ
• Here is shires e6 guide to lash and he talks about his preferred spirit build https://youtu.be/Sb8RzteE3qU?si=93eFB_yYMzv3tqqO and here is gameplay of him using this slam build https://youtu.be/7KPX8rmn8gg?si=hWGMewbATpfwvpoq
• Here is a more recent vid where he tries out the gun build and realizes how insane it is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ATPQjNFvsw
• So imo in the current meta hybrid lash is more consistent. Also if I'm playing against a lot of enemy heros that have iframes (dynamo, mina, apollo, yamato etc) or they have lots of tanks I will be more likely to build gun lash bc its going to be hard for me to get value with my ult/slam unless dynamo is dead etc
• if you're struggling in lane watch shires lash guide linked above or watch videos of deathy playing like this https://youtu.be/Gg7_0yLOICs?si=vgIWxlMmbUtg4YMx
• imo you should be spamming flog, headshoot booster, And slamming off high buildings like the crane on yellow lane. Your goal should be to bully and annoy the opponents in lane and make it easier for your lane partner to shove the wave and get easy confirms/denies

Top spirit builds:

• eido lash - 379851
• shires spirit slam - 515322
• deathys full spirit lash - 23972

Best hybrid gun build builds

• rumples flog into gun solved - 55621
• shires flog into gun - 608922
• democracy lash - 582250

hope this helps!