I posted this on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/VividKnight/comments/obhgig/what_are_your_witchs_maze_8_tipsobservations_for/

As a person that played games like Slay the spire, TFT, Hearthstone Battlegrounds. The game is fun to play. Lately, I've been messing around a lot and as a result I'm around 50-60% win rate. I'm pretty sure something like over 90 % winrate is possible. I have **pictures of 9 runs that I've won I've done the past couples week in Witch's maze 8** and in an imgur album. Unfortunately there's no run history in vivid knight (I have 17 total wins on record but only recently been screenshotting).

https://imgur.com/a/eKcRU5g

This is in chronological order with the first being one my first victories. Each consecutive victory I've been feeling comfortable branching to other strategies.

The victory screens are full of shields and barriers! Sustaining and defending is with shield is important as one shotting isn't easy to pull off without an incredible relic combo. Only one of the wins here had a exorcism ring, sun amulet, and sun earings which managed to 2 shot the boss.

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**Talking about early game priorities**

**Why is blue and to a much lesser extent iceblade so good for defense?**

* Frost is an *additive* reduction from enemy attacks AND which works after the half damage from shield gem.
* Frost is even better because it works on each instance of multi-attack.

**Defense is great for damage with brown otherwise don't expect this to help you defend as its name would suggest.**

*

* Here is what the devs said about defense calculations:
-Actual defense value calculation formula from defense power
DEF = (200 - DEF) ÷ 200 ÷ (1 + (DEF ÷ 200))

-Actual defense value calculation formula from magic defense (magic defense)
Defense Value = (100 - Magic Defense) ÷ 100 ÷ (1 + (Magical Defense ÷ 100))

- Damage calculation
Damage = ATK x DEF

Take a look at the function as a graph
https://www.desmos.com/calculator/olvyuvoqaw

* This means that on the otherhand debuffs on enemies like exorcism(-30 Magic Res) or pierced(-12, -30, -60 DEF Res) can do astonishing amounts of damage

* There is an enemy with 9999 defense which is a lot more vulnerable to physical attacks than expected, so there is either a cutoff or the formula tapers at a certain point. Needs testing

**Certain events such as doubling money, 3 gems for 100g, sealed gems for a gem only occurs once per run.**

* Being strong enough to take the event when they appear is a big deal early game. The basic idea for the doubling money is to hold money and only being as strong enough to beat the next floor. Also, taking monster rooms before unknown rooms in general. What this means is that, I only take 1 extra unit slot in the end of the first floor and hold the 80 gold until the end of the second floor for the third unit slot

* For the 3 gems event, its best to use the hammer(+10% gold) earlier if possible. Otherwise its easy money.

* If I'm unlucky to get the sealed gems event before all the monster fights, i'd like to have enough tempo to beat monsters without gems anyways. Still, that is hard to set up.
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* When out of mana, **shops and healing gem rooms are transporters**. Its a thing anyone would probably learn from playing the drops of mana game mode, but its worth mentioning here. The strategy is to run around with one unit not in the comp to get the missed routes with gems or to pick up a unit/gem from a shop. Then, go back to a shop or healing gem near the exit to switch back to the comp.

* **The devs say that the proc rate for abilities is 30% but differ slightly for each ability?**

* **Building gold units is a very niche strategy depending on the travelor shop**. I've barely explored this strategy because it requires 270 gold for 9 units when you can be spending 60 gold for a triple you don't NEED to keep in the comp. This isn't TFT, tripling bad units for their symbols is a very good thing. Cycling the tripled units is good for your economy to get more triples and to have more symbols in play.
* redle the blacksmith, flower girl Carnelia, spessar the bard comes to mind as good golden units. Picking up a golden unit is a BIG investment and shouldn't be taken lightly. Does anyone else feel like they have a successful strategy for picking one up?
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**Synergies**

* As a result of frost being so good, Librarian Amethyst and Claude the Watchmen is a very good pickup early in the game. Coincided with an early dancer reno, this can be a defensive engine to beat physical damage bosses.

* Redle the blacksmith has an ability that procs off counter with at 25% chance. Its an odd mechanic, but it procs even when being hit on a barrier or from aoe. Not illusion I'm pretty sure. This means that Redle's ability blazing armor which deals 10 burn and grants barrier 30 at silver can basically solo frontline an early game boss. Give him a try.

* Dancer Reno is a very strong engine, as mentioned before. In the endgame, most of my comps have dancer reno and a frontliner such as green wind chrome for her 20% heal ability. Frontline units take a lot of damage.

* If you have the amulet that gives double action to the front unit or have musco the herald + Fool 4, then Dancer Reno + Court Painter Zircon with some barrier gems is probably one of the best defensive engines.

* I'm not much of a believer on arin the faceless which copies the ability of a back row ally except when planning on getting Fool 4. Getting Fool 4 is an expensive investment which depends on a combination of getting a good relic with Fool and having the economy to spend on units I'd often skip on otherwise. Its a bit of a luxury to get arin when I often need another unit to complete a symbol. The only unit I've used it with is with Musco the herald for more turns, but I can imagine it being good with golden units like redle the blacksmith or spessar the bard. I can also see him being good with claude the watchman for more frost application.

* Musco the herald is at its best proccing for regen, getting forest for some damage, and increasing the output for units that want extra actions such as heavies. Probably makes him the best support late game.

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**Speaking about specific bosses in a vacuum is kind of hard (first set of bosses):**

* **Bomb Tree+:** This tree kills a lot of runs. Bomb Tree is the one boss you really really want to consider getting a golden unit from a travelor shop because his 250% magic damage (which becomes 112 damage) on 3 enemies is VERY hard to mitigate. If I am not lucky enough to get magician(purple hat symbol) to get illusion on all my allies or have the illusion gem it is very hard to survive with shield gems. A bad series of back to back turns from the tree can wipe me out fast. Bankrolling or getting a bunch of strong sustain is my easy answer, but that is all run dependent. It is notable that bomb tree is the lowest hp boss at 1920 hp, so a bunch of sun relics/symbols with either pierced/exorcism with court painter zircon can kill the boss very quickly, bypassing these defensive requirements

* **Jeweleater+:** Stack frost to 30 and shield the attack ability, other than that, damage race

* **Jewelcrab+:** Get blue 3 and get redle to stack armor off of the boss minions. shield the big attacks. Alternatively, quickly clear all the boss minions and stack frost, and shield the big attacks. single healers are pretty good for this boss.

* **Gunse Mushroom+:** Stack frost to 32 (his attack will go up though) and shield the attack ability. have enough damage for the 6 shrooms afterwards

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**(B6f to B8f)** First thing to say is that there are some dangerous monsters here. The combinations of earth spirits, thunder spirits, and fire spirits destroys no damage comps. Having a physical damage aoe or backline threat is essential.

**Bosses:**

* First is **Magitech Golem+:** This boss is another run killer. 132x3 magic damage to all enemies on the fourth turn is nuts! If I see that I will face this boss, from the start of the run I'm prioritizing to get at least magician 3 (purple hat symbol) to hopefully get 2-3 illusion on all my units on that fated moment. That and stacking barriers. While facing the boss, its quite important clear the boss minions quickly so they don't use up the illusions on my units, too. After surviving the initial onslaught from the boss, its not that bad.

* **Sharkman+ and Shark Champion+:** Stack Frost to 48 and shield the shark champion hits, also shielding the shark man with a solid frontliner that can take some more damage. having 100% uptime with shield gem is pretty important. This is where Dancer Reno and Claude the watchmen is a especially great combo for an extra 16 frost per turn on each. I usually manage to kill the shark champion first because I have brown, but rarely I have to be wary to focus on killing shark champ first if my damage is from something like shock/burn/gems. This boss punishes lack of frost unless... I can one shot the boss with some sun and bombfruit. 3250 hp on each is not that much for a boss.

* **Grey Sherbird+:** Now the boss is the one that's freezing my units 30 per turn and actually SCALES 20 attack per turn. That amount of freeze basically nullifies all the physical damage from my units. This is where brown and yellow, or Magic damage from abilities/forest comes into play. usually getting around 40 frost per turn on this boss gives me enough time to wittle down the 9600 hp. Sherbird can get scary if skimping on damage.

* **Flame Emperor+:** Damage Race. She burns 15 on all units. this boss has combo 2, so having some frost for the boss's 47 attack hits is not bad. As with Magitech Golem, I focus on getting Magician 3 to get some illusion going. What usually happens is that the "Flare" abilities 370% Magic damage (173 damage) will be proccing the illusions stacking on my units one by one. Still, having a good uptime on shield and a solid frontline is important. Haven't had much trouble with this boss.
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**(B9f to B12f)**
The monsters punishes a lack of a strong frontline, but otherwise its not that bad with some frost per turn.

Statcheck!

* **Death+:** Survive a bunch of turns! Health from green starts to matter here and stuff like shock/burn is useless on this boss. Not much to say. Usually spike damage is enough, along with having frost + shield gems as per usual.

* **Portly Ghost+:** Damage vs minion tank Race! Kill it as fast as possible. I have been relying on brown spike armor to wittle down the boss despite the ghost summons.

* **Gold Dragon+:** Like Death+ green starts to matter here and surviving the onslaught of the first 2 turns with shield is important. I've usually had enough damage to deal with this boss, albeit with quite a few units very low health or dead afterwards.

* **Black Witch:** OBSTRUCT(Negate next gem use and +20 ATK) IS VERY SCARY. This ability is why I think Dancer Reno + Court Painter Zircon to be able to use a mirror+ shield gem on the obstruct turn is kind of a big deal. A bad turn can wipe my units. Without that, I do tank the hit with a green 5/7 comp a lot of the time and have enough damage to make it through. It does get close, a lot closer than I would like.

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There isn't so much discussion about the game, so I wanted to talk about the game as far as my experience goes, even if its very anecdotal. Its hard to go much more into specifics except by playing a specific game itself or streaming which I'm not that interested in.

Mostly only japanese people are streaming the game on twitch, but a guy like https://www.twitch.tv/moriwo played the game a decent bit which I enjoyed watching his streams of playing the game.

These are all the thoughts I have at the moment, but what are your takes from playing Witch's Maze 8?