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For comparison you have the inventor which is only one star below, but is much, much stronger with a free special equipment use every turn. Witch has to take time to setup, and most of their attacks are weak. That's why so many complaints come from the witch; their kit is so limited that you have to play a very specific way, and even then it's not great. In the binding of isaac terms, I see them as the bluebaby or the keeper of this game; not good, but likely on purpose.
I honestly don't think she will ever be good or play smoothly, the creator really seems to enjoy her mechanics and the majority do not. I also dislike her but respect the fact that it's the developers vision, not mine. I love the rest of the game though.
Witch gets:
* Reuseable Two Handed Sword with an upside
* Some of the best healing items in the game in PU
* Reuseable Life Drain (which every character would love to have)
* The easiest access to status effects out of everyone
This latest patch has made her trivial!
> Witch has to take time to setup
prepared spells
On my other witch runs I pretty much relied on hall of mirrors + healing stall strats to make it out of every fight with full hp.
The witch buff definitely helped a ton, for me it seems easier to do a variety of builds successfully now.
Feel free to not bother reading this if you're not interested in a lot of trivial details. I'm recounting my run because I'm relieved to finally be done with it and having this info out there may help someone who is struggling with the Bonus Round. I wish there were more guides and commentated runs for Witch 6 to help me figure out what wasn't working for me, so I figure any bit helps.
Started with Flower Pot and Infliction.
Spellbook:
1 Cold Snap
2 Snapdragon
3 Duplicate
4 Mirror Cauldron
5 Blue Ocean
6 Lightning Bolt (bought from floor 5 shop, replacing Equinox)
I took prepared slot first, then extra dice, then upgraded slot.
Rules : Lady Luck, Pirate, Snowman, Poison Jar, Kraken
End boss: Madison
My spellbook didn't have much in the way of damage mitigation. That was partially intentional, I was going for pure damage output, but RNG didn't give me much in the way of healing or shielding either. If I lost more than half my health in a fight, I quit out to title screen and started again with a new seed, unless I was going to full heal on a level up. I used limit break as soon as it was available. If I was about to end the fight, I would hold the limit break for the next fight and use it on turn 1.
Cold Snap and Snapdragon were my first spells obtained. I put Cold Snap on 1 because it's 5 damage for any odd dice, and with the frequency that 1's come up, that's a much better use than slotting them into another spell to do 1 damage. Odd dice would become my main damage output, far preferable to relying on RNG to roll high for "any" dice damage slots. This also negates the effects of enemies with Freeze. With Snapdragon on 2, I could output a measly 3 damage with any dice, ideally my evens, but more importantly get 2 mana to synergize with my Cold Snaps for endless freezing. With three CS on the board and a Snapdragon, I could output 15 damage freezing 3 enemy dice with only 3 dice. This obliterates most of the Floor 2 and 3 enemies.
Having Pirate as my first rule meant I could get in extra damage, duplicate an extra 2 dice, or reroll with mirror cauldron, depending on what I prepared for that battle. Snowman for the second rule was exactly what I wanted for Cold Snap, giving me the option of either casting it right away, or putting another CS on the board every turn. The drawback was I was unlikely to get 6's as a result, so I built my strategy around getting low dice.
The other spells I just happened across as the level up rewards or chests. I did not use Blue Ocean much at all, and never used it for healing. Mirror Cauldron came in handy in a few fights, but I never went out of my way to create extra dice. I think the most extra dice I had in a fight was +2. Bronze Cauldron would have been an adequate alternative. I did use Duplicate as a prepared slot for some fights on floors 4 and 5. I did not use rolled dice (3's) to put Duplicate on the board, instead those went into Cold Snap. I initially got Equinox and put it on 6, knowing that I was unlikely to get 6's with the snowman rule in effect. I never used it, and replaced it with Lightning Bolt from the Floor 5 shop. Putting LB on 6 does go against the logic of "don't put a spell on the dice you need to cast it", but my plan was to prepare it, not rely on rolling 6's. I used limit breaks to try for high dice to load into Duplicate and then LB.
The remaining rules Poison Jar came up as the alternative to Wisp, and Kraken came up as the alternative to Cornelius. I had no damage mitigation, so I didn't want to lose 10 max HP. Poison Jar was not a bad rule for this run, since I dispatched Dire Wolf and Rat King quickly. Kraken is a wonderful rule, one of my favorites, because it is countered by a calculator ;)
Bit of a caveat: Three or four of the enemies glitched out due to the Pirate rule. Because they had a "re-equip the first item" rule active, the AI couldn't make a decision and passed on their first turn without using any dice. This gave me a free turn to set up, meaning I was ahead on damage output and HP for the rest of the fight.
I imagine someone will say "telling people exactly what you had doesn't help them because they're not going to get the same spells and enemies." That's true, but my intention is to get more information of what works, so the community can build more detailed guides and better advice for players struggling with Witch 4 / 6. The specifics I've written here are less important than outlining a base strategy, some parts can be replaced depending on RNG. I didn't need Blue Ocean, for example, and Lightning Bolt could have been any of the high damage late game spells. I practically ignored the mana mechanic entirely. I had what I needed to win the run by the end of Floor 3, after that I only needed good luck on the rules.
I only have a few wins on Witch 4/6, so I'm not going to pretend to be an expert, but I'll say this: I lost a lot of runs focusing on creating extra dice or damage mitigation, going very slowly and doing chip damage. I wasted a lot of time trying to save doomed runs by quitting to the title screen to fight again and again because I had low HP at the start of a fight. I've been frustrated by the current state of these episodes that are glaringly, obviously different from the rest of the entire game. I've been aggravated by the nebulous, unhelpful advice of "try something different!" and "witch is the most powerful character!".
tl;dr
My advice for players who are struggling with the Witch is
1) Abuse the quit to title screen meta if you take too much damage. You'll want to be near full health going into every fight, or at least half when your next fight will level you up.
2) Put a damage spell on 1 so you can cast it after being frozen. Don't be afraid to give up your cauldron.
3) There's a limited number of enemies, learn them all. Don't hope you won't run into so-and-so, you will. Know what status effects you'll face ahead of time. Try to avoid the most damaging status effects like thorns until you're going to level up.
4) Some spells are practically useless when you're hit with shock, weaken, or freeze, others are less so. Learn what the bad ones are and stay away, or try not to use them against those enemies.
5) Some rules are not bad by themselves, but certain rule combinations are run enders. You can choose "a different rule" to see what it is and quit out before the animation ends if it's worse than the first choice.
6) In my experience, a DPT race is better than slowly ramping up with shields, healing, or dice maniplulation.
You keep seeing screen shots of witch having her screen filled with dice, but are you really willing do to that setup each fight?