Hey peeps, just beat Witch Maze 5 and decided to write this guide out for this fun game.
RIP Dragon Poker ENG, it was by the same devs.

Very first thing that you might gloss over:

YOU KEEP SYMBOLS PERMANENTLY FOR THE RUN AFTER UPGRADING A HERO TO SILVER STAR (combine 3 of the same hero), EVEN IF YOU SELL THEM. KEEP CYCLING AND SELLING SILVER STARRED HEROES OUT TO COMPLETE SYMBOL SETS.

Okay with that out of the way, sustain is key in this game. No point having mad damage if the bosses just burst you down in one round. Some bosses have enrage (increase their own Attack skill) that ramp up quickly (Grey Sherbird, the ice penguin), some have periodic enrage (Gold Dragon, Final Boss). However, if you can keep yourself topped up, you're generally good to kill the boss before it ramps up to unmanageable levels.

Without further ado, here is my symbol guide:

High priority defensive symbols:

Green - No-brainer. You can even beat the game with 0 starred heroes. Realistically you can have Green 2. After an update nerfed it, Green level 2 still gives you around 20 extra HP per unlocked symbol.

Shield - Temporary HP that keeps stacking until you get hit. Keeps you from getting chipped away gradually. Get this to level 2 as soon as you can. 2 Bronzes have Shield (King's Spearman & Claude) so it's not too hard to get to symbol level 2.

Plum Crest - Heal every time you act. Getting to level 1 isn't that hard since you need 1 Bronze and 1 Silver (Kokuyo and Kogyoku). Getting to level 2 may be a bit tricky since the 3rd symbol is on a Gold (Handmaiden Morion). Consider taking an equip which gives you 1 symbol because at level 2 you regen 20 HP every time you take an action, which is great.


Medium priority defensive symbols:

Blue/Chariot - Does Freeze, which reduces enemy Phys damage by a flat amount. Useful early game and for boss Phys damage attacks.

White - Heal every time you use a skill. Not as reliable as Plum.

Wheel of Fortune/Star - Realistically you can get 2 symbols each to reach level 1, don't break your back trying to get 4 symbols to reach level 2.


Low priority defensive symbols:

Magician - Illusion might seem good on paper (negate 1 hit, whoo), but some endgame mobs like Sootsprites and the final boss attacks multihit (x4, x3 & x5), which strip away your stacks quickly. Better to focus on the High priority symbols.

You also need some deeps, so here are the following for offensive symbols:

High priority offensive symbols:

Moonlight - Flat % damage increase, applied every turn. What's not to like?

Sun - Increases Gem damage by %. If you boost it enough, you can oneshot even lategame mobs with attack gems. Best combined with Moonlight.


Medium priority offensive symbols:

Brown - Bosses just kill themselves on your Spikes. Good with high Def heroes.

Justice - Just plain physical damage that ramps up.


Lower priority offensive symbols:

Red - Burn is ok early game, then drops off hard later when all enemies have HP in excess of 1k HP.

Yellow - Shock does flat armor ignoring damage. Good if you have heroes that do multiattacks (Rubela). Usually you'll just use Shock gems on bosses to build up stacks anyway since the symbol effect is preemptive and never increases during the fight.

Purple - Increases Magic Damage by %. Your source of Magic Damage is with some hero skills and some attack gems. Most of your damage is done by whacking dudes in melee, so eh.

Hanged Man - Deals Pierced, which reduces enemy Physical Def by a flat amount. Okay, but Moonlight is better.

Forest - Never saw Magic Bullet working so I can't really recommend it.

And finally, misc symbols:

Medium priority misc symbols:

Orange - Getting 1 level is enough for start of battle procs.

Pink - Faster gem regen is good.


Low priority misc symbols:

Fool - Getting 4 symbols is crazy hard. I never got it. I imagine it would be quite good once you do, though.

Tower - Paralyze is near-useless. Don't bother.

Symbols done, now for general tips:

- Completing a key symbol level is much more important than the stats of the hero/equip you're planning to replace, since it's more powerful most of the time. Exercise your own discretion.
- Only a few heroes are worth keeping for their skills, you can rotate and sell most of them once you get them to Silver. The only one I'd keep is Labla the Astrologer, his gem cooldown skill is useful.
- All Gold Heroes are good, you can't really go wrong with any of them. The only kinda crappy one is Thunder Lion Topaz. I'd say Moon Knight Lune, King's Sword Rubela and Peridot the Inventor are the top ones.
- Healer-wise, I think the Bronze ones are the best (Spessar the Bard, Forest Mage Sphene). Silver ones are gimmicky and you just need flat heals most of the time.
- Shield gems are important, have 3 at least. Any kind will do.
- For attack gems, Mushroom Bombs are surprisingly good, especially if you have a Sunlight build. Just weaken the first guy, toss one and you wipe the whole mob.
- Generally it's better to have gems that attack the back since they have the most annoying mobs. Single target ones are good for bosses.
- You only need Forest Medicine for one boss - The Flame Emperor. If you don't have it you'll just burn to death if you don't have enough extra HP via Green or burst him down fast.
- Mana Fonts and Healing pots are good if you want to explore more and potentially nab more chests/top up after a boss.
- The rest of the items are gimmicky at best, pick them at your discretion.