Stardander School for Witches Beginner’s Battle and Combat Guide

This guide covers the basics of battle, all of the spells you can learn, and their value in combat.

Battle Basics

• Every turn, you can cast as many spells as you have mana for. You can do this by dragging a memorized spell to the target, or selecting a spell (either memorized or in the spells list).
• The health, mana, barriers and pact bar will all flash to show a preview of the spell. In the above picture, it shows that the strike will damage about half the health of the armapod, and if it is a critical hit, it will nearly kill it. The preview does not account for spells missing.
• Many spells have options if you select the spell – hover over options for tooltips. Most spells can be multi-cast (using hits/count). In the screenshot below, I am choosing to cast 6 fire-element strikes.

• The boxes next to enemies/characters are their buffs and debuffs. Hover over them for a tooltip about what they do. The dots above the health bar are barriers – they each take a hit to be broken, and must all be broken before you can deal any damage.
• It’s natural to want to cast as many spells as you can each turn, but sometimes the right strategy is to end your turn doing nothing – saving up mana for the next turn. This is because often it takes a lot of mana to breach the enemy’s defenses (barriers, or clearing illusions with sense), so it’s better to get more hits in after breaching the defenses once, then having to break their defenses every turn.
• You get to choose 3 witches to send out into battles, so having the witches choose complimentary spells to balance each other out will make battles much easier. You can choose the classes your allies will take with the strategize option in the great hall.

I made a short video showcasing the basics of battle (especially the new quickcast feature) that you can watch here:

Spells

You gain spells after passing the first, third, fifth and seventh level of classes. You can see all the spells in the encyclopedia, and it’s not a bad idea to plan out which classes to focus on to get the spells you want. You can also see what spell unlocks next in the knowledge tab when studying for classes.

You will get more knowledge when studying depending on your personality points. However, you can often study with a friend, which lets you use their personality points to study and can help you learn spells outside your element.

• Projection and Protection are increased by Fire/Bravery.
• Transmutation and Channeling are increased by Water/Intelligence.
• Telepathy and Spirit are increased by Earth/Kindness.
• Illusion and Summoning are increased by Air/Creativity.

Projection

• Strike – Each hit can clear 1 barrier, or damage fae.
• Elemental Strikes – lets you set the element of strikes – and all fae have elemental strengths and weaknesses.
• Wave – Hits all enemies once, and cannot be dodged. Usually, you want to pick off one enemy at a time with Strike (as it multiple hits to breach defenses), but against multiple enemies relying on Shadows/Decoy, this can be worth it as it cannot miss.
• Strike Mastery – This adds a Type option to Strikes – you can hover over them to read descriptions of them all. I usually do Homing strikes, as like with Wave, they cannot miss.

Protection

• Barrier – You can cast up to 7 barriers per witch (shown as dots above her health), and each barrier completely blocks one attack.
• Elemental Barriers – Lets you set an element for your barriers. If the barrier is broken by an attack by that element (check the enemy’s type), you will recover 7+personality mana, making barriers almost free to cast. By seeing what enemies are targeting you, how many attacks they will do (visible in the encyclopedia if you have sensed them), you can completely block all damage and recover most or all of the mana needed to make the barriers. Keep in mind that enemies can miss, and if the barrier isn’t broken, you recover no mana from it.
• Fortification – Places a buff on any witch that reduces damage taken (including by poison) for the rest of the battle. This can quickly add up with many stacks to an impenetrable defense.
• Barrier Mastery – Lets you cast barriers on allied witches. Useful as only one witch needs to know barrier with barrier mastery, and all witches will get the benefit of elemental barriers.

Telepathy

• Sense – Unlocks the encyclopedia and stats of the target enemy. It also clears all illusions on that enemy. If an enemy has Shadows or Decoy, you definitely want to clear it with Sense before striking, as both increase the number of misses you’ll get.
• Farspeak – Lets you talk to enemy fae. Depending on your dialogue choice, this may increase their hearts and make them easier to pact (sometimes with additional effects). Learning what options do what for each fae can make it much easier and more efficient to pact them.
• Rally – Boosts the strength of one witch. This increases their damage, healing and pact strength for the rest of the battle. Like with fortify, this can quickly add up with many stacks.
• Sense Mastery – This upgrades sense to affect all enemies at once, and makes you immune to illusions (without having to cast anything). You’ll never miss because of shadows or get confused again!

Spirit

• Pact – Increases a pact bar – when it hits 100%, pact will make that enemy a familiar. Injured enemies have a lower maximum needed to hit 100%. As a familiar, it will no longer fight you, and instead can be used to perform an ability for the pact holder every turn (the ability varies by fae, but they are all useful). Familiars can be transferred to other witches during navigation for 1 time interval.
• Link – Increases the mana regeneration of a witch by 10 each turn for the rest of the battle. It costs 20 mana, so 2 turns after you cast it you’ve broken even, it’ll keep generating more mana after that – so definitely useful for longer battles.
• Sever – Decreases the mana generation of an enemy by 10 each turn. The value of this depends on the enemy and what it uses its mana for – but it will lower the number of barriers and spells the enemy can cast each turn. Keep in mind that enemies will have at least 7 mana regeneration per turn no matter how many stacks of sever.
• Elemental Pact – Lets you choose the element of each Pact – choosing the element of the enemy will greatly increase its effect.

Transmutation

• Cultivation – Lets you grow plants in the greenhouse. This has no value in combat.
• Potions – Lets you use plants to craft potions, which have a variety of one-time use effects in battle. Potions can often turn the tide of a losing battle.
• Enchantment – Lets you use plants to enchant witches, giving them permanent powerups that can help in every battle.
• Cultivation Mastery – Lets you grow more dangerous plants in the greenhouse. Again, no value in combat, but increases the number of potions and enchantments you can make.

Channeling

• Heal – Heals an ally. While simple, it can save you in a pinch so don’t forget about it.
• Restore – Transfers mana to another witch. It no longer matters if this witch knows no good spells, she can be used as a battery to power her allies.
• Synergy – Adds your personality stats to another witch. This powers up elemental spells, and can be a lot more powerful that it appears at a glance.
• Healing Mastery – Healing now removes all debuffs. Never again will you be scared of enemies who rely on debuffs.

Summoning

• Light – Makes one enemy more likely to miss for one turn (for all its attacks). Useful if you’re feeling lucky, or in a pinch.
• Attract – Makes all enemies target a witch of your choice this turn. This makes it easy to control the battle and make sure the witch getting attacked is the one who has the protection magic to deal with it.
• Summon Fae – Has a chance to summon a random fae from the shadow realm as a familiar. The chance increases the more mana you use to summon. While this relies on chance, it can let you easily fill out your familiars with powerful options.
• Elemental Summon – lets you choose an element when summoning. You will be more likely to summon fae of that element, reducing the randomness.

Illusion

Keep in mind, all illusions have no effect on enemies that can see through illusions (razorbeaks and Apex only).

• Intimidate – This is similar to Attract, except instead of changing enemy targets this turn, it makes it more likely for enemies to target you on all future turns. For longer battles, this can save a lot of mana over Attract, as with 4 or so stacks of Intimidate, enemies will almost always target you. It also makes non-combat spells more likely to target you – allowing you to control who the enemies will put debuffs on.
• Shadows – Similar to Light, except instead of making one enemy more likely to miss, it makes all allies less likely to be hit.
• Confuse – Next turn adds a 40% chance for the enemy to be confused and deal damage to itself equal to its mana (and costing all of its mana). If you’re lucky, this is great, as not only does it take unblockable damage, but with no mana it won’t be able to do much that turn.
• Decoy – The first hit an enemy makes on you will hit an illusory decoy and deal no damage – for every enemy and every turn. This greatly reduces the number of hits you take, and can also evade special attacks like poison sting.