Witch annotated playthrough - Shocks & Spears

Witch episode 4, annotated with strategy and tactical explanations to better understand this character.

This run relied heavily on Electric Shock and Magic Spear, and Lightning Bolt in the end.

Floor 1

Two easy fights, I went for the puppy first.
What's in the chest behind him?
Meh... Nudge is not my favorite, but it works well with frost. I'll wait and see what I am offered on level-up before I choose where to write it in my spellbook. Let's kill the slime, but before killing him, I want to lose enough hp to charge Crystal Ball before leveling up.

No Ice Shard. Well, Nudge can work with Electric Shock, let's give that a try. Nudge won't give me 6s, and I won't have anything to do with 1s, so it is out of question to remove Cauldron right now. Because I chose Electric Shock, I will probably choose Doppeldice later, which will give me something to do with 1s and 3s anyway. I like to put Doppeldice on 2 or 4 (for reasons I'll explain later). I also want to be able to conjure Electric Shock often, because it is going to be my main source of damage, so I want to choose a number I can get easily. With Nudge, anything below 6 is fine, with Doppeldice, 2, 4 and 6s are good. I'll put it in 2 then, and keep 4 for Doppeldice. (This was my reasoning then, but choosing Duplicate and put Electric Shock on 4, 5 or 6 would have been fine. I just like Doppeldice more, but it really works with Duplicate too. I think Duplicate works better with Nudge too.).

Where should I put Nudge? I probably won't keep it after I get Doppeldice, so it can sit in a place that I will overwrite later. Also, I probably won't need to conjure it too often, so I'll put it in 6 (In retrospect, this was a bad decision. I would have had much better use for Nudge on 5, and Hall of Mirrors would have been fine on 6. Having Nudge on 5 would have made my spellbook much more reliable. You will see in the battle screenshots that my 5s were very useless until I got Lightning Bolt, which is very late in the game...)

The next chest contained Magic Missile. I feel good having another source of damage, it will make things more reliable until I get Doppeldice. Also, some enemies tend to not be bothered at all by Shock (they have more dice than equipment, or more equipment than I can reliably shock), so Magic Missile will prove more useful in those fights. I put it in 3, so then 1 and 3 can cast something not too useless, and 2, 4 and 6s are for damage. My spellbook looks like this:

On to the next floor!

Floor 2

Pirate, Sneezy and Marshmallow. Shock is decent against all three. Especially Pirate, if I can shock two pieces of his equipment, he will only use one action per turn. I have my Crystal Ball ready, this is the end of my first turn:

I prepared Electric Shock, because I wanted to be sure I can shock him as much as possible. Thanks to Crystal Ball, I could conjure Cauldron, Electric Shock and Magic Missile. I had two 4s for my Electric Shocks, I used Cauldron on a 5 and a I threw a 1 at him.

He used only one action, I am down 3 hp and a burning die. I rerolled something with Cauldron (I forgot what), I have two 4s for my Electric Shocks, which will pin him down one more turn, and I threw the last die.

I got no even at all on turn three, he is 3 hp from death. This is where I begin to realize that Nudge on 6 was not a great idea. Those dice I threw at him were probably 5s, 3s or 1s. They would have been much more useful as a Nudge.

Anyway he dies the next turn, but took a little too much health...

The chest behind him is the guaranteed Hall of Mirrors. I put that in 5. That will be something to use my 5s on. (This was not such a great idea, because I generally don't want to use Hall of Mirrors all the time. In the later floors, I will bite my hand for this poor decision. I think Hall of Mirrors sits great on a number you are using to do damage, like 6, or 5 with Ice Shard, because in general, when you use it, you focus on doing so the first few turns, delaying damage, with the goal of doing more damage later with the dice you generated. In retrospect, putting Nudge on 5 and Hall of Mirrors on 6 would have been much more efficient. Moreover, with Doppeldice, Hall of Mirrors can be prepared just fine, so it being on 6 does not slow you down.)


Against Sneezy now. Sneezy has 33% chance of dealing his maximum of 18 dmg each turn. I don't have freeze, so I am a little scared; let's eat those apples. (After the fight, I think I underestimated the power of Shock against him. It is not as strong as freeze, but it caps his max damage quite well. I would have been fine with just one apple, because I also had Crystal Ball ready.)

Cauldron that 1 and let's cast Crystal Ball right away (I should have used Crystal Ball first as good practice but I have nothing else to use my 1s for anyway, so it did not matter.):

I conjured another Cauldron and rerolled two 5s. It gave me a 6 and a 3. I use the 3 to conjure Magic Missile. I could have used both 6s on damage and throw the 5 (I think this would have been better; he would be down to 12 hp. Also, I would have kept both Cauldrons and it would have given me a real chance at killing him next turn.), but I used the 5 to conjure Hall of Mirrors and a 6 to cast it.

He rolled a 2. Phew, it's only 9 dmg. Next turn now:

Thanks to Hall of Mirrors, I have 4 dice, and 9 hp was exactly what I needed for Crystal Ball. I don't think I can kill him with those 4 dice (I could if I had left him with 12 hp and a little bit of luck with the Cauldrons. Having Crystal Ball ready for the next fight would have been quite valuable). I am afraid Sneezy can kill me next turn, so let's use it:

I rerolled something, probably a 5. I have enough to kill him now! 6 on Electric Shock, 4 on Magic Missile, 3 to conjure and the other 4 to cast another Magic Missile, and throw the two remaining dice.

I level-up.

What is an upgraded slot useful for in my current setup? Hall of Mirrors is good, but I don't think I need it too much right now, then when I'll get Doppeldice, preparing both is even better than casting Hall of Mirrors on an upgraded slot. What about Magic Missile? +40% dmg is very good, but Magic Missile already conflicts too much with Electric Shock, I don't plan to keep it very long, also it is in an awkward number right now so I don't want to make it a cornerstone of my spellbook. Nudge is excellent when upgraded, but I already did not use it at all, and on that 6, it is very awkward to use... Electric Shock does not get much better upgraded and Cauldron is fine as is. Well, I don't feel an upgraded slot helps me much right now. I'd better see my opponents dead as soon as possible. Also, I really want to be able to prepare both Doppeldice and Hall of Mirrors, so let's take a prepared slot.

Let's have a look at the shop:

Both Magic Shield and Magic Dagger would be lovely in the 5. Too bad I put Hall of Mirrors there... I don't feel like getting rid of it. I don't plan on taking Duplicate, and there are fights that really need Hall of Mirrors... What about putting them in 3? A Magic Shield on the board would be useful to discard those 5s. But I don't think it is too wise to remove Magic Missile now, I need offense (Honestly it was probably better to get Magic Shield, but its price was also a thing to consider. I could not have healed later if I bought it. Would have it saved me enough hp for that to not matter? I can't say). Magic Dagger is tempting, but it is not as good when you don't have an upgraded slot. 2 dmg does not cut the mustard, compared to 1 if you simply throw the dice. Magic Key is simply too much to ask from my evens. Maybe if I replace Magic Missile with Magic Key and put Magic Shield on 1? This would be great defensively, because Magic Key gives lots of 1s, and give odds by pairs. But what if I get frozen to hell. No more Cauldron to boot things up. This is a little scary. Well, let's leave it that way and move on to the next floor.

Floor 3

Before coming to the third floor, I felt confident and went to kill that Marshmallow, but played sloppily, and here I am with only 19, but at least Crystal Ball is ready... This is a mediocre start of a floor. (I should have ignored the Marshmallow. Even if I had played well, it was not worth.)

Luckily, Stereohead is weak to Shock, let's start with him. Maybe we can gain more hp than we lost with this apple behind him. I came in with a Cauldron (Nudge would have been a more reliable choice here) and an Electric Shock. I really want to Shock him each turn, because then he can only use one attack each turn. Luckily, the Crystal Ball gave me the perfect roll, 6 on the Electric Shock, 2 to conjure it and 6 to cast it again, 3 for a Magic Missile and 4 to cast it, then Cauldron and throw for the one-turn kill. That was lucky.

Vacuum can hit hard, max of 12 per turn. It is tanky too, so I won't be able to kill him in one or two turns. But if I shock him twice, he will only be able to use one attack. So let's prepare two Electric Shocks, eat that apple and go:

Ugh. Bad roll for me. I use the 4 on an Electric Shock, and throw the two 3s.

He rolled two 5s, and he's almost back to full health! But I have Crystal Ball ready now.
I missed a screenshot here, but I first tried if the blinded dice were evens on the Electric Shocks, then I would Cauldron them and try again. In the end, I was able to hit him with two Shocks and set up a board of two Electric Shocks and two Cauldrons, which would reliably help me to achieve two Shocks per turn.
Fortunately for me, his AI was kind of bad because it prioritized blinding over life steal. I think I would have died otherwise.
Finally on turn 4 I have the killing blow, but not without using Crystal Ball again:

Two 6s on Electric Shocks and throw the other dice.


For my level-up, I choose Doppeldice. It really fits my spellbook right now. Also, I have nothing on 4 and Doppeldice on 4 is very nice once you have an upgraded slot. It allows you to turn a 5 into two 6s: Doppeldice+ on the 5 gives you 6 and 4. Use the 4 to conjure Doppeldice+ again and use it on the 6 to get two 6s! I don't have an Upgraded Slot now, but I will probably next level. Also, before I have an upgraded slot, I probably won't conjure a Doppeldice, I will keep it prepared, so it being on 4 does not slow my damage.


Next chest contains Magic Spear. It is a spell that I have not used much yet, but this would be a very nice upgrade of my Magic Missile for enemies that are not affected by Shock (including that upcoming Fireman). Also, I don't really need Nudge anymore now that I have Doppeldice. Well, I don't see myself conjuring a double dice spell so often, but preparing it is excellent value. I just went for a second prepared slot, so Magic Spear really fits my spellbook. I put it on 6. (Again, it would have been lovely on 5, with Hall of Mirrors on 6... I could have used those 5s to conjure it and cast it for the final blow.)

I take a look at the shop next:

Silver Cauldron is good, but does not fit my spellbook at all right now. Catastrophe is just a bad spell, and without an upgraded slot it is even worse. An apple for sale is nice though, if the next fight hurts too much.

Fireman has twice as many dice as equipment, so Shock does nothing on him. So I'll go for the Magic Spear-Doppeldice combo:

3 becomes a 6 with Doppeldice, then goes to Magic Spear. 4 gets another Doppeldice on the board, which is used on the 1 to make a 2, which I use to conjure an Electric Shock.
On his turn, he hits me with a 4 and a 6. Crystal Ball is ready:

3 become a 6, deals 10 dmg; burning 6 to Electric Shock, then throw for 6, he is down to 5 hp. I'll simply have to throw him his burning dice. Actually he only hit for 2 the next turn. This was lucky.

I bought the apple, ate the one lying on the ground and went to the chest. It is Counter Spell:

Well, having some more defense would not be bad. Also that would be something to do with my 5s. A number of enemies get powerful abilities on 5s. I really don't need Magic Missile anymore anyway, so let's give it a try before I enter the next floor.

Floor 4

Oooh, Loud Bird! But it's an avoidable fight. This fight is dreaded on the forums, and for a reason, but it is absolutely doable. Because this is a playthrough for the Internet, I will fight it, but on a normal run, I would only fight Bully and move on. For this fight, I need a lot of setup to make sure I can kill him despite Silence and Dodge. So I prepare Hall of Mirrors and Doppeldice. I want at least 6-7 dice before I start hitting him. Fortunately, he does not hit too hard, so I have a few turns. Let's go:

Ugh, no 3 nor 6. Let's try a Cauldron. Still nothing good... Well at least I can throw an Electric Shock at him. (Starting a fight against Loud Bird without Crystal Ball ready was a bold idea. I would lose health on purpose against another opponent to have it ready.)

Because of Shock, he can only use two abilities, He chose Squawk! and his weakening one. I was lucky that neither Hall of Mirrors, nor Doppeldice was weaken. Cannot be unlucky each time! I turn the 3 into a 6 and start the Hall of Mirrors machine. I shock him again with the 2. What should I do with the 5? I could conjure another Hall of Mirrors on the Electric Shock, to amplify the ramp-up phase, but I want to have 3 Electric Shocks after I am done with Hall of Mirrors, so it's not a bad idea to keep it around. In the end I threw the 5. (Another possibly good play here would have been to break the silence and use Crystal Ball. If lucky, this would have possibly led to two uses of Hall of Mirrors.)

He did not roll a double, so no silence this turn. Let's make a good use of it. First, let's Crystal Ball:

Forget about the weakened Hall of Mirrors, 5 to conjure it again and a doppeled 3 to cast it. Repeat with the two 5s and the two 6s. That's it! We can start to go to town on him. It took us 11 hp to setup, not bad. I used the final 2 to replace Hall of Mirrors with an Electric Shock.

Our goal now is to shock him three times per turn. Because his AI favors Squawk!, if he rolls a double, it will be the only attack he'll use. We don't care really much about silence with seven dice!
Cauldron a 5, replace Cauldron with Electric Shock, use all three with 6, 4 and 1*2=2. Throw the remaining dice. Repeat until he is dead.


Behind his dead corpse, we find Rat. Not useful at all for our current strategy.

Bully is our next fight. Let's eat that apple, we are now at 20 hp. He can kill us in two turns. This is scary... Shock does almost nothing to him, unless you can hit him four times per turn, which is unlikely. So I would rather burst him down with Magic Spear. I have Crystal Ball ready from my previous fight.

Good roll! This is 6 to Magic Spear, 2 to conjure Electric Shock and 6 to cast it. Then 5 for Hall of Mirrors and 6 to cast it, and throw the remaining 4.

Ouch! He rolled 5 and 6... I'm dead next turn if I don't kill him. What's good though is that I have Crystal Ball again. OK that's fine. Magic Spear really deals a lot of damage... 6 to Magic Spear, 3 to Doppeldice then 6 to Electric Shock, and 2 to conjure and 4 to cast Electric Shock. Done!


This is the guaranteed store that sells two-dice elemental spells. It also sells hp. I cannot buy both the apple and a spell. Unless I kill that last enemy for +1 gold and I can buy the Shock one. I would rather have Blizzard right now, because it shuts down a good number of enemies on floor 5, and several bosses too. But if I do, I will be going to the next floor with about 10 hp. I may not survive the next fight... Wisp is not too hard to kill though. With 3 Shocks, he will only use 1 attack each turn. I can probably survive 4 turns of this if I buy the apple. Then I'll be full health and I can still buy Lightning Bolt. OK let's do it.

I forgot to record the fight with Wisp, but it went as expected. I prepared Electric Shock and Doppeldice. Even with only two Shocks, if they hit both Burning Lights, he will only attack once. I did not take too much damage. Using Burning dice, I could hurt myself to pop the limit break. And before the kill to level-up, I inflict as much damage as possible to myself.


For my second level-up, I want an Upgraded Slot: Doppeldice+ is a fantastic tool to generate 6s for Magic Spear, and to give me more dice in general. Lightning Bolt+ and Counter Spell both benefit significantly from an upgraded slot. It is nice to have for Cauldron too. With my setup, Hall of Mirrors don't really need it, but it will benefit from it without doubt. I will probably never use it for Magic Spear, but who knows? Still, I believe that an Upgraded Slot is the right call.


I replace Electric Shock with Lightning Bolt. If I had bought Blizzard, I would have probably put it on Counter Spell, but I want to keep Counter Spell as a mean of defense. Despite Shock, this is the only defensive spell I have.

I've seen everything here, It is time to leave this floor.

Floor 5

Rhino Beetle can only attack once per turn if I can shock his two pieces of equipment. Because his health is high, I still took some 18 damage or so. The strategy here is: prepare Lightning Bolt and Doppeldice. As soon as you can conjure Lightning Bolt, conjure it on the upgraded slot. Then Lightning Bolt each turn with your strongest attacks. Get Counter Spell and another Doppeldice on the board to make sure you hit big numbers and hope you can counter 4s or 3s.

The following fight is Paper Knight. Exact same strategy here. I took a little bit less damage, I think I got hit only once.


The shop has an apple for sale. Slime Ball does not fit my spellbook, and Burning Light won't bring me more damage than Magic Spear or Lightning Bolt.

With the apple from the shop and those laying on the ground, I get close to full health. For fun, I wanted to be a little bit greedy and try to kill the last two enemies. I feel that Rat King can be the most dangerous if I roll bad and he rolls good. I go for him first.

6 to Magic Spear, 5 to Hall of Mirrors+ and 2 to cast it. For the next turns, I was lucky on his rolls, but still ended up with 14 hp lost. I conjured Lightning Bolt on the Upgraded Slot to cap his poison at 4 per turn.


two 2s and a 5. Not too bad, I can set up my board: Hall of Mirrors+ and a second Doppeldice.

With all those dice blinded, I first try to use Magic Spear with all of them. Then I tried to conjure a random spell, it's Magic Spear! And again, another 6! Where will I put this Magic Spear? Why not try it on the upgraded slot? +40% dmg is nice. (Well, actually all this play was quite bad. I should have continued spamming Hall of Mirrors+ each turn, it would have made the fight much more reliable.)

Well, I can't see my dice at all. I try all of them on Magic Spear+, but none works. I try them on Doppeldice and still no luck. I try to random conjure and find a Hall of Mirrors... Well, do I replace Magic Spear+? That's tempting, but no, I will use Magic Spear+ at least once in my life! (This was a bad decision, a typical case of stubbornness.)

Thanks to Crystal Ball, I can finally use Magic Spear+, and also Magic Spear... Oh, no... I forgot about the curse. The fight did not last too long after that. I was able to conjure a Counter Spell that I used on blind dice, which make the fight last longer... But in the end, I killed it! (This fight was very poorly handled. I should really have used Hall of Mirrors more. I should even have prepared it. Not unlike Loud Bird, Kraken is easily defeated if you can throw a lot of things each turn and don't care about a die being destroyed by the curse. Shock would have made him useless too.)


Another Upgraded Slot seems the right call to me. It can be very good if I can lock 2, or even 4 dice each turn against some bosses, like Madison, Drake or Aoife.

Who will be my boss?

Floor 6

I'm glad I did not take Blizzard, because it would have been less potent against him. Shock is fine though. And if I can shock 6 times each turn, I am literally invincible. Well, for that, I need at least 7 dice, so let's start with a Hall of Mirrors machine.

Try the blinded for a 6, Cauldron them and try again, and out of spite try them on Doppeldice, 1/3 chance it is a 3... it works! Then those 5s and 2s get even more plays of Hall of Mirrors+, and those two dice go into Lightning Bolt. I have already 7 dice, two more uses of Hall of Mirrors, because they are already on the board, and I start to fill my board with Lightning Bolts. He is already almost useless:

The next turns speak for themselves:



The end!

[Wonky Phsicks]

I prefer putting odd dice spells on even numbers and vice versa so that you don't have to waste the dice needed to cast the spell when bringing it out from the spell book and try to avoid putting anything requiring a 6 on the last spell slot.

With illuminate on this build, having a spell in the same slot as the casting dice (odds for odd spells, evens for even spells, and 6s for magic mirror and such) would make more sense but I got illuminate after duplicate and replaced duplicate with healing

[Wonky Phsicks]

I had a good run with the following setup:

1 Cauldron
2 Illuminate (the one where you would get 2 of the same dice next turn)
3 Magic Mirror
4 Magic Shield
5 Healing
6 Blizzard

I had 2 upgraded slots.

I usually would spam magic mirror with illuminate and the upgraded slots with magic mirror and the other would switch between magic shield and healing.

Damage is either dealt by blizzard or just throwing dice.

Drawback to this build is low damage and poison, since shields don't protect against poison.

Technically this build can generate gobs of dice, shields, and healing so you can have sky high limits on dice and shields. (Note: Either above 36 or 42 dice, any additional dice will overlap the top most row so you need to shuffle dice around to see all of them.)

[Dactarium]

Ty JTO4 worked for me first try with your setup

[JTO4]

What worked for me after 10+ hours of trying:
My setup:
1 - Cauldron
2 - Inferno (I think I had magic missile here for a while)
3 - Doppeldice
4 - Ice shard
5 - Nudge
6 - Hall Of Mirrors
Mid-late game I had Ice Shard and HOM prepared.

Went straight through each level. The only enemy I fought even though I didn't have to was Marshmallow, since I was about to level up and I had a good freeze setup.
My last enemy before the boss made me level up with Crystal Ball ready for the boss - which was extremely lucky to be Aoife. I picked an extra dice and started the fight rolling a 6, which enabled me to snowball the fight to victory.

Good luck to anybody who tries this unfun run.

[ieToastie]

I had a run very similar to this one, except I relied heavily on ice type damage instead (ice shard, blizzard). Of course the boss I was given was also Scathach, completely negating anything useful the freeze was able to do.


I ended up losing that run.

[Tebok]

Interesting approach to a guide and pretty helpful, thank you!

I would love to see though a condensed guide to spell slots, I always seem to plonk mine in the wrong spots.