How to Catch Spirits in Witchspire: Familiars Guide

Q: What incense should you use to improve bonding chances?

Incense is a temporary consumable buff that raises your bonding chance for a short window after you use it. Burn it right before you land the killing blow so the buff is active when the energy ball appears. Simple Spirit Incense lasts the longest at 20 seconds, making it the most forgiving option when you're still learning fight timing. The higher-rarity incenses trade duration for a stronger bonus, so they reward precise play. Check the Witchspire Ritual Candles and fast travel guide if you need help crafting the candle components required for these recipes.

Spirits, also called Familiars, are one of the most rewarding systems in Witchspire. These creature companions fight alongside you, slot into crafting stations to speed up production, and some are flat-out required to run certain machines at all. The sooner you understand how catching works and which Familiars to prioritize, the faster everything else in the game opens up.

How do you catch Spirits in Witchspire?

Spirits roam the world freely. You'll find them wandering open areas, inside portals and dungeons, and even in corruption zones. Catching one is not as simple as walking up to it, though. The process involves a luck-based step that trips up a lot of new players.

Here's the full sequence:

Defeat the Spirit in combat.
After it dies, its energy rises into the air. Whether it stays behind as a catchable ball is RNG.
If the energy coalesces into a floating ball on the battlefield, the Spirit is ready to bond.
Walk up to the ball and press F.
The Spirit is now a Familiar in your collection.

tip

The Luck stat appears to improve the odds of a Spirit leaving behind its energy ball after death. Prioritizing Luck upgrades early gives you more catching opportunities per run.

Spirit energy ready to bond

The RNG element means you will not catch every Spirit you kill, especially at first. That's where incense comes in.

What incense should you use to improve bonding chances?

Incense is a temporary consumable buff that raises your bonding chance for a short window after you use it. Burn it right before you land the killing blow so the buff is active when the energy ball appears.

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Simple Spirit Incense lasts the longest at 20 seconds, making it the most forgiving option when you're still learning fight timing. The higher-rarity incenses trade duration for a stronger bonus, so they reward precise play. Check the Witchspire Ritual Candles and fast travel guide if you need help crafting the candle components required for these recipes.

warning

The buff timer starts the moment you use the incense, not when the Spirit dies. Use it as late as possible in the fight to maximize the active window when the energy ball appears.

How do you equip and manage Familiars?

Once you have Familiars, managing them happens through your Inventory menu. There are three dedicated Spirit slots at the bottom of this screen, and you can swap them around freely as long as you're standing near a Hearth.

Open the Inventory menu with Tab.
The three circles at the bottom are your active Spirit slots.
To add a Spirit, drag and drop it into an empty slot.
To remove one, press the minus button near the upper-left of its circle.
To swap an active Spirit for a different one, use the rotation button at the top of its circle.

important

You can only change your equipped Spirits while standing near a Hearth. Heading into a dungeon without the right loadout means you're stuck with it until you return.

Familiar equip slots in inventory

Which Familiars speed up crafting stations?

This is where the system gets genuinely deep. Many crafting benches accept a Familiar to speed up their output, and some machines won't function at all without the right Spirit assigned. To slot a Familiar into a station, build it near a Hearth, interact with it using F, then click the round button at the top of the station's menu and select from your available Familiars.

Familiars that speed up production

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Familiars required to operate stations

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The Sawmill, Spinner, Windmill, Forester's Hut, Miner's Cabin, and Stove all have hard requirements. Without the correct Familiar assigned, those stations simply won't run. Prioritize tracking down Lety for the Sawmill and Lambloof for the Spinner early, since both feed into wood and fiber production chains that most other crafting depends on.

Which starting Familiar should you pick?

At the start of Witchspire, you choose one of four Spirits as your first companion. None of these starters appear on the first island, but you can find all four out in the world later, so the choice isn't permanent. It does shape your early combat feel, though.

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If you're planning a wand-focused build, Fien or Bril are the natural picks. Melee players will get more mileage out of Quol or Locto. That said, since you can find all four starters in the wild eventually, the real decision is which element you want synergizing with your combat style from the very first session.

For a broader look at early game priorities beyond just Familiars, the Witchspire beginner's guide covers resources, Luminary Shrines, and the flight unlock in one place.

tip

Starter Familiars are not exclusive to the starting choice. All four can be found in the open world, so don't stress too much about picking the "wrong" one.

Choosing your first Familiar

Building your Familiar roster

The most efficient approach is to focus on two tracks simultaneously: catching combat-useful Familiars for your active slots, and hunting down the specific creatures your crafting stations require. Timberline Basin and The Trampling Grounds are worth visiting early since they hold several of the required station Familiars. Third Island and the Desert Location come later but hold some of the most useful speed-boosting creatures.

For a deeper breakdown of the full Familiar system including rarities and bonding tips, the Witchspire Familiars guide covers everything in detail. You can also browse the full Witchspire strategy guides collection for help with every other system in the game.