Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 11. Canyon Plateau Heroic

When I first started trying this map I initially thought it was pretty hard.  But as I continued to record more heroes I realized that the grades I was handing out weren't really reflecting that.  It took me a bit to realize that it's not actually that hard, but it is tricky.  This is the kind of map that needs lots of practice so that you know exactly how to build as well as where and when to deploy resources like reinforcements and hero spells.

A good example is in wave 4.  When you see a Crystal Golem coming you might panic and want to upgrade the right-side Paladins.  But really a level 2 Paladins with full hero and reinforcement support can deal with it.  The real priority is making sure you have two level 4 Archers on the left side before the Corrupted Stalkers arrive in wave 5.

And speaking of Stalkers, while the first reinforcements of wave 5 need to be placed somewhat back towards the left-side exit, the second set need to be placed forward on the path so they can target the Tamed Stalker to ensure you get enough DPS on it.  Your Archers can take care of the Corrupted Stalkers (along with help sometimes from the exit teleporters), so you can't panic and put them at the exit when they're really needed elsewhere.

The same goes for wave 6.  The waves of Acolytes and Glarelings on the left side seem intimidating, but your Paladins can take care of them by themselves.  Your reinforcements are much more needed on the right side to deal with the Abominations.  If anything does slip through on the left side, the Archers will take care of it.

That's what I mean by this map being tricky - you need to know these little things about the limits of what the build can accomplish so you can most effectively use your limited resources.  Once you know all the tricks then it really isn't that hard.

Impressions

The grades reflect this fact, with the lowest grades being 'B+'s by Vesper, Raelyn, and Torres.  They did perfectly fine, but their performance (usually judged by how they dealt with the waves from the right in stage 6) just wasn't quite up to 'A' standards.  Everyone else pads their GPAs with various 'A's.

Final Grades

• Vesper - B+
• Raelyn - B+
• Nyru - A
• Torres - B+
• Anya - A-
• Grimson - A
• Broden - A+
• Therien - A
• Onagro - A
• Warhead - A-
• Lumenir - A
• Kosmyr - A-

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 10. Temple Courtyard Heroic

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 11. Canyon Plateau Campaign

Campaign modes continue to be pleasant challenges - just hard enough to be interesting without being a real struggle, as mostly evidenced by the grades below.  This is one map though where the flying enemies make all the difference.  Everything else is pretty manageable, but the game is constantly trying to get a Corrupted Stalker or Void Blinker to slip through your defenses.

I've seen people complain about the amount of flying enemies in this game, and I'm still formulating my own thoughts on the matter.  In previous games flying enemies weren't generally that hard.  They had low hit points and were mostly there just to keep you honest against only building artillery (and even then you could often still get away with doing it in the original and Frontiers).  But here it feels like Ironhide really upped the design of the flying enemies to make them more of a legitimate threat in their own right.  Void Blinkers move fast and have relatively high hit points for a flying unit.  You're usually relying on their stunning attack to keep them in one place long enough for your towers to take them down, but usually the devs like to send them along right when it would also be a really bad time to have your choke point blockers stunned, so they're really well designed from that perspective.  Tamed Stalkers are obviously DPS checks - do you have enough ranged and/or magical DPS to take them down? - but again, they often come through when other enemies are around to distract your towers from focus-firing them.  Ultimately I'm still trying to decide if the flying enemies in the game fall on the "well-designed challenge" end of the spectrum or the "frustratingly difficult" side of the spectrum.

Impressions

Grades are pretty decent here.  Raelyn earns the only 'C', and it's becoming clear at this point that Torres' grades are rising significantly post-buff, so she's sadly heading straight for last place in the rankings all by herself.  Doubly sad is the fact that Anya is really starting to fall behind as well.  She'll definitely finish above Raelyn, but at this point she's in strong competition for second-to-last.

At the other end our 'A' crew is mostly the usual suspects, although Nyru earns a rare 'A-' here.  Lumenir also raised her game for this one and gets an 'A+' for tearing it up along with Broden.  Something about her abilities just really clicks well with this map, and she performed amazingly well.

Final Grades

• Vesper - B+
• Raelyn - C
• Nyru - A-
• Torres - B+
• Anya - B
• Grimson - B
• Broden - A+
• Therien - B+
• Onagro - A
• Warhead - A-
• Lumenir - A+
• Kosmyr - A

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 11. Canyon Plateau Campaign

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 10. Temple Courtyard Iron

Things continue to be on the upswing, as we again have an interesting and challenging iron mode.  We're given no blocking towers except a couple of pre-existing barracks.  However, the lower barracks cannot cover both the bottom exit and the lower right exit at the same time, and there is no blocking for enemies coming from the upper right entrance at all.  Using the Village People secret on this level is pretty much a must, as they can then cover the upper right.  However, this is a unique level where having Linerean heroes really gives a huge advantage.  The Village People do not regenerate health at all, but they can still be healed by Blessing of Vitality.  When I started the map I started with Torres and Nyru.  Then when I got through them I tried Raelyn and suddenly wondered why the Village People weren't holding down the fort like they had for the first two heroes.  It took me a minute to realize the facts above, that they don't regenerate but that Blessing of Vitality was healing them, keeping them going.  For Dark Army heroes you then have to use reinforcements on the earlier enemies coming from the upper right in order to save the People for the end of the map, at a time when they're sorely needed elsewhere.  

Impressions

Raelyn leads the way in the Linerean / Dark Army dichotomy on this map with a 'C-'.  Her slow movement and low DPS really make her struggle here.  Similarly Ongaro earns a very rare 'C'.  His slow movement does him no favors, but more importantly his inability to block coupled with physical damage means he is very non-optimal for dealing with the Crystal Golems.

The siblings Grimson and Therien make it out with decent grades in the 'B' tier.  Grimson's high mobility and AoE hero spell give him better agency in dealing with the hordes, even if he's not great at tanking the Crystal Golems.  As for Therien...well, something weird happened on this map.  She was doing fine until the end when two Crystal Golems spawn, then things were starting to break down.  In desperation I had to have her tank the Golem on the lower right path for a moment to try to buy some time, but then she...just didn't take damage.  He wasn't even attacking her.  It was like her melee attack was stun-locking him or something.  I tried googling to see if anyone else had noticed this behavior, but came up empty.  I'm assuming it's a bug, but I also wasn't going to retry the whole map because of it.

Warhead and Kosmyr have the tools to end in the 'A' tier, and as for the Linerean heroes, you can see they did pretty well all things considered.  In my Alliance review I talked about what a game changer Blessing of Vitality was, and this map so far is the best demonstration of that.  Healing and respawning all units is borderline overpowered on a map like this where keeping enough warm bodies at each choke point to block is the primary challenge.

Final Grades

• Vesper - B
• Raelyn - C-
• Nyru - B
• Torres - B-
• Anya - B+
• Grimson - B
• Broden - A+
• Therien - B+
• Onagro - C
• Warhead - A-
• Lumenir - A
• Kosmyr - A

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 10. Temple Courtyard Iron

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 10. Temple Courtyard Heroic

We have another heroic mode that's technically a disappointment, but on the whole I still found it fun overall.  It's a disappointment for two reasons.  First, it's far easier than campaign mode, which the grades below will attest to.  Second, I really don't like maps where Archer spam is the best solution.  It's a personal thing, but I just don't like the Archer tower in this game for some reason, and I rather resent needing to use it on occasion.  But you can't argue that it gets the job done.

Impressions

This map falls just shy of being a trivial all-'A' affair, with the worst grades being 'B+'s.  I just couldn't justify the performance of some of the bottom tier heroes as being 'A'-worthy.  Shockingly Torres actually earns an 'A' for this one.  This was my first time to use him post-update, and I want to say that I can feel the difference.  Now I don't see him rocketing up the rankings - he's still probably going to be bottom 3 at least - but I appreciate he no longer feels like the worst hero.  Now it's Raelyn's turn in the hot seat, to compete not to end up in that bottom spot.

Final Grades

• Vesper - B+
• Raelyn - B+
• Nyru - B+
• Torres - A
• Anya - B+
• Grimson - B+
• Broden - A+
• Therien - A-
• Onagro - A
• Warhead - A-
• Lumenir - A
• Kosmyr - A+

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 10. Temple Courtyard Heroic

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 10. Temple Courtyard Campaign

This map ended up being surprising.  I was expecting it to be harder than Wicked Crossing based on what I remembered from doing my Veteran walkthrough, but I feel it was actually a little easier.  We were able to insta-call every wave with every hero, which is always a good sign.  Also good is that the map continues to be the enjoyable kind of hard

It's worth noting that the Undying Fury mini campaign came out while I was in the middle of recording for this map, and along with it some balance changes.  In particular I had already recorded Torres (he's the first character I do), and he gets a lot of love in the patch - on paper at least.  It remains to be seen what kind of difference it will truly make, as I simply did not feel like re-recording his video.  Might it have bumped up his grade a little bit?  Possibly, but I don't think it's going to impact his final ranking in any significant way, so we'll wait until heroic mode to try the changes out.

Impressions

Alliance is already settling into a top row vs. bottom row dichotomy of heroes just like Vengeance did.  The first six heroes are all on the struggle bus, while Broden kicks off a series of top performers.  Most of the grades are not surprising in the least, except that I had to give Anya a C+.  I'm really frustrated by this, as I love her character and kit design, but her DPS is just waaaay too low.  I have a sinking feeling that we're looking at a Lynn situation all over again.

It's worth taking a moment to reflect on the heroes, now that we're a little over halfway through the series.  It's very apparent how things are going to shake out in the final rankings.  Broden and Kosmyr are going to be neck and neck for the top spot.  I'm picking Broden to edge out the big K, but I could very well be wrong.  Meanwhile, on the other end Torres and Raelyn are duking it out for the bottom spot, but for totally different reasons.  Torres has a good kit but is under-tuned, while Raelyn is reasonably powerful (for a free hero) but over-specialized.  Based on what I'm seeing on paper at least, this balance patch might actually give Torres the edge going forward, but we'll see.

Final Grades

• Vesper - B
• Raelyn - C
• Nyru - B
• Torres - B-
• Anya - C+
• Grimson - B
• Broden - A+
• Therien - A
• Onagro - A-
• Warhead - A
• Lumenir - A
• Kosmyr - A+

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 10. Temple Courtyard Campaign

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 9. Wicked Crossing Iron

Finally, it took us nearly half the game, but we at last arrive at an iron mode worth playing!  Wicked Crossing truly is a turning point in the game all around it seems.  For once we don't have an iron mode with a set of towers with a braindead obvious solution.  With both flying enemies, hordes of lesser enemies, and a few big enemies thrown into the mix, the ratio of Arcane Wizards to Demon Pits is not immediately obvious and takes some trial and error to get right.  Also an issue is how to deal with the Nightmares appearing on the lower path.  Unlike campaign and iron mode, here it's definitely non-optimal to let them transform into Bound Nightmares.

All in all this was quite a worthy challenge, and one that I really struggled with with the bottom-tier heroes.  And not only was it hard, but it also managed to find the sweet spot of fun as well.  Now fun is a subjective measure for each person, but I personally found it here, which is what helped me to keep persevering in the beginning when I was really struggling, trying to figure out to handle this map with Torres.

Impressions

What we have here is a map that very neatly divides the heroes into three tiers.  Raelyn and Torres fill out the bottom with 'C-'s.  It was very hard to complete the map with them - as hard as it can be without having to rely on good RNG, which is what a 'C-' is under this grading system.

Above them we have Vesper, Nyru, Anya, and Grimson with 'B's.  I did give Anya a 'B+' as I felt her performance did stand out compared to the others, but it definitely did not approach that of the 'A'-tier heroes.

And speaking of the 'A'-tier, three heroes earn standout 'A+'s for their effort.  Broden and Kosmyr are of course not surprising, and I've already realized these two will be duking it out pretty much uncontested for the #1 ranking.  However, Onagro really had a strong showing here.  Mobility to be able to support both lanes is what elevated the performance of heroes like Nyru and Grimson into the 'B' tier, but despite having none, Onago simply tore up the bottom lane by himself, freeing up resources to be poured into the top lane so that he didn't have to be there personally, leading to an overall outstanding performance.

Final Grades

• Vesper - B
• Raelyn - C-
• Nyru - B
• Torres - C-
• Anya - B+
• Grimson - B
• Broden - A+
• Therien - A
• Onagro - A+
• Warhead - A
• Lumenir - A
• Kosmyr - A+

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 9. Wicked Crossing Iron

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 9. Wicked Crossing Heroic

If you've ever followed my Impossible Hero Challenges at all, you know how the system works - we give heroes grades of A-F based on their performance on a map, with 'A' meaning their an ideal hero to take on the level with, 'F' meaning I wasn't able to complete the map with them, and the other grades representing shades of performance in between.

If you've really followed these series, then you also know that I've resisted the urge ever since my original Origins series to add plusses and minuses to the grades.  In general it's already hard enough to try to assign grades on a five point scale (four really, since 'F' represents an objective measurement) in a consistent manner that seeks to be as objective as possible.

Well, this entry makes history, because at long last I'm breaking down and doing it.  There are a couple of reasons.  First, this map in particular is one of those were I feel there really are distinguishable degrees of difference in performance between heroes in the same letter tier.  Nowhere is that more apparent than the 'A' tier.  Therien and Kosmyr may both earn 'A's, but they are not the same thing.

The second reason has to do with what I know is eventually coming.  Eventually I'm going to get to maps that I simply can't complete with a hero solo.  Now as I said at the beginning of this challenge, I'm not simply going to hand out 'F's for that, since the game is not designed around using a single hero to begin with.  So in some cases I'm going to have to bring in the other hero and/or their hero spell to some degree.  Obviously I'm going to have to deduct from a hero's grade if that happens, but it's in this case that the four point scale just isn't granular enough.  On one hero I might need to use the second hero spell a single time, while with another I might have to do it multiple times, or even bring the second hero into the fight for a bit.  Just docking a full letter grade for each of these situations wouldn't be appropriate, so I'm bringing in the plusses and minuses in anticipation of needing this level of detail in assigning grades.

That said, onto this map.  Yet again we have a pretty challenging affair, but we get through it with a very similar strategy to campaign mode.  However, if memory serves me right, this is the first time on a map where we haven't insta-called every wave - at least on most of the heroes, so thankfully we can say they actually increased the difficulty on this one compared to campaign mode.

Impressions

Grades here improve somewhat over campaign mode.  Raelyn is the lone 'C', and honestly her performance isn't that much worse than the 'B'-tier heroes, so I gave her a 'C+' to reflect that.

Vesper, Torres, and Nyru repeat their 'B's from campaign mode, which shouldn't be surprising.  Joining them on the cusp are Anya and Grimson.  Grimson had a very uneven performance.  Early on he was tearing it up surprisingly well, and I thought he was on track for an 'A', but then at certain points in the playthrough he really struggled, so overall his performance rounds out at a 'B+'.  Anya's performance was more consistent than Grimson's, but ultimately I couldn't justify giving her an 'A'.  She gets a 'B+' as well as I feel she does stand above the rest of the 'B' crew.

With the 'B' and 'C' heroes I could not consistently insta-call next waves.  However, with the 'A-' heroes I mostly could, except possibly on the first couple of waves.  The minus is there to distinguish them for this though.

Warhead earns an unadorned 'A', and honestly it's a reflection of his hero spell as much as anything else.  His hero spell is amazing on maps like this were you have long lines of enemies like Acolytes appearing in waves.  It completely one-shots them, which frees up pressure on your choke point so much that it almost doesn't even matter that Warhead's personal DPS is lackluster.

And of course finally we have Broden and Kosmyr, who absolutely tore it up.  As with Vengeance I feel like I'm not going to do a Best Choice award for this series, as in almost every case I feel it's going to come down to these two, and even then it will probably be a toss up.  I reserve the right to change my mind down the road, but I would honestly be surprised if I did.

Final Grades

• Vesper - B
• Raelyn - C+
• Nyru - B
• Torres - B
• Anya - B+
• Grimson - B+
• Broden - A+
• Therien - A-
• Onagro - A-
• Warhead - A
• Lumenir - A-
• Kosmyr - A+

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 9. Wicked Crossing Heroic