Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 26. Replication Chamber Heroic

We follow up a challenging campaign mode with what is honestly a pretty trivial heroic mode.  Now, you probably wouldn't think that from looking at the grades below, but I label it trivial because it admits a one hero solution, which has become fairly rare in the bonus and DLC levels (as you would hope).  My standard operating procedure when starting a new map is to do with with Nyru and Grimson.  I cakewalked my way through on the first try, and that's when I knew I could do single-hero.

It's not a trivial matter with a single hero, to be sure.  This map plays the same game as campaign mode, where the Darksteel Hulks on the bottom lane are more about using up your reinforcements when you really need them on the top right lane.  Things can get pretty hairy up there between the waves of Shielders and Hammerers.

Impressions

This is a tale of two maps, as unlike campaign mode where we had a pretty good distribution from top to bottom, here it's feast or famine.  There are six heroes in 'A' tier, six in 'C' tier, and only three in between with 'B's.  I like to call this the 'boob distribution', the reason why being left as an exercise for the reader.

Despite earning a rare 'B' in campaign mode, Streggi falls back down to her usual 'C' here.  I'm realizing with her that it's all about how much pressure the enemy cadence puts on the cooldown of her hero spell.  In campaign mode, every time the enemy broke through and needed to be pushed back her hero spell was available, but on this map the pressure is much greater, and those instances where you need it come faster than the cooldown.

Anya flirts with greatness here again, earning a rare 'A-'.  Similar to Streggi, Anya just needs maps where the stars align properly for her to perform well, which apparently they do here.  I have no doubt that next map she'll be back to her normal dismal performance though.

The rest of the grades hold no surprises.  I'm looking forward to getting done with this DLC, as it hasn't been my favorite.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 26. Replication Chamber Heroic

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 26. Replication Chamber Campaign

We have another campaign mode that's not exactly my favorite.  This one is especially frustrating because I just know in my gut that there's a better build for this.  I'm pretty sure it involves Cannoneers, but at this point I just don't have it in me to go back and try again.

The issue is that you need lots of ranged physical DPS for the "boss" fight, as the deformed clones have significant magic resistance until you take down their shield.  That usually means relying heavily on Royal Archers (which are also needed to deal with Drones), but I think I've made my feelings on the Archers known in previous posts.  And they certainly do you no favors in dealing with the waves of Darksteel Hammerers.

Surprisingly the Darksteel Hulks are not that big of a threat.  Linerean reinforcements can stall them indefinitely while towers DPS them down.  The real danger with them is that you then no longer have reinforcements to help with the chaos going on on the upper right exit lane, and believe me there's plenty of chaos throughout the level.

Impressions

We have a very nice distribution from the top all the way to the bottom.  The flying hero chads all earn 'A+'s as usual, while down at the bottom Vesper was an absolute nightmare, earning a 'D'.  His low physical DPS is a perfect mismatch for the enemies here, making completion with him a crapshoot.

The rest of the heroes fill out the middle about what you would expect.  Stregi does a little better than normal with a 'B', as this is one of the maps where her hero spell does quite well in managing the hordes, continually moving mobs back into range of the Tricannon to finish them off efficiently.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 26. Replication Chamber Campaign

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 25. Colossal Core Iron

This map is a cheeky little thing, because the key realization in strategy is that the bonus Rocket Gunners you get are a hindrance, not a help, and need to be sold immediately for extra cash and to free up the back build point.  I don't know, maybe Ironhide had a build solution in mind that does legitimately use them, but I found things much easier to just get rid of them to go more all-in on Elven Stargazers.

I didn't find the Arborean Emissaries useful here either.  Instead it's all about getting to the Stargazers' Even Horizon ability to manage the end of the map, continuously teleporting enemies backwards on the path until they're all taken down.  It gets dicey plenty of times, and there are multiple points where you're sure you've lost, but you just have to trust that the teleport will kick in at just the right time.

Impressions

Nothing terribly surprising here.  Raelyn yet again wins the dunce cap with the sole 'C' tier performance, but otherwise grades are pretty strong all around.  Mostly all that's asked of your hero is additional DPS to bring the mobs down.  Onagro does end up on the lower end, however, for his mobility issues, lack of blocking, and physical DPS.  I'm not sure what happened with Nyru here, but it was a struggle to complete the map with here.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 25. Colossal Core Iron

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 25. Colossal Core Heroic

We finally again have a heroic mode where I feel they decently beefed up the difficulty from campaign mode, and I appreciate it, even if it makes this map quite the challenge.  Everything is mostly manageable until the end, but then surviving the seemingly endless waves of Darksteel Fists and Brute Welders becomes quite difficulty.

I eschew the Cannoneers for this mode, going back to a more standard setup of a Tricannon to deal with large numbers and Arcane Wizards to finish off larger mobs.  I did try to replicate my strategy from campaign mode originally, but was not happy with the results.  I still feel like there is a better strategy that would keep the end of the map from being such a wild, chaotic mess, but I haven't found it yet.

Speaking of the end of the map, there's unfortunately a decent degree of RNG involved in the wins on these maps.  Part of the strategy for this map is trying to manage to fist pounds, and the last one that occurs really needs to kill two Brute Wielders either on the top or the bottom path, or else it's probably a loss with anything but a top-tier hero.  That's part of the reason for the barracks to the right - they do delay the mobs, helping prevent an overrun on the left side, but it also baits the fists into targeting them, trying to catch the Brutes with them.  Besides that you also have RNG such as which tower gets disabled by a Brute when killed.  If it hits your Tricannon that's a major loss and can cost the win.  I hate relying on RNG, but I just don't know if there's a build that can sufficiently control for it.

Impressions

Despite the difficulty the grades aren't all that bad, with only Grimson ending up in 'C' tier.  Unfortunately it's a function of the RNG - when it doesn't break your way, you just lose, but when it does, things feel...well not easy, but at least not so hard.

The one surprise in the grades is Stregi earning an 'A-' for her performance - especially when none of the other bottom-half heroes earned 'A's.  The reason is that this map is perfect for her hero spell.  It allows her to make one of the lanes at the end "safe" by constantly teleporting and sleeping the mobs on it, allowing you to devote all your resources to taking care of the other lane first, which is a huge plus.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 25. Colossal Core Heroic

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 25. Colossal Core Campaign

Ugh.  Not my favorite map of the game.  Better than Temple of the Fallen to be sure, not by a lot.  I talk a lot about this blog that a game's difficulty always lies on a spectrum with fun at one end and frustrating at the other, and this one is definitely a registered member of the Frustrating party.

It's all about the flying mobs, as is the case with so many Alliance maps that fall in the frustrating category.  It's very easy for a Flying Sentry or a Tinkerer's Drone to slip by your defenses, and there were a lot of restarts when recording these videos - even with the most powerful heroes.  I don't think that means that the strategies I'm showing are not reproduceable, but rather this is one of those maps where your micro has to absolutely be on point.  Proper positioning of heroes, reinforcements, and the Cannoneers is crucial to make sure the Sentries get taken down properly.

This level is one of those tales of two maps.  I originally tried an all-Cannoneer build and was reasonably successful, but there were so many restarts in getting a hero over the finish line that I just felt like there had to be a better way.  Thus I settled on starting with two Cannoneers and finishing out with Arcane Wizards.  I would rather have gone with a Tricannon build, but the Sentries appear so early you have to have towers that can deal with them, and the Cannoneer's dual ranged and AoE attacks (with Incendiary Ammo) make them rather ideal for the mob variety here.

At the very least I am glad I managed a solo hero solution.  Throw in a second hero - especially one that can hit flying enemies - and this map becomes easy.  Heck, it might even move back towards the fun side of the spectrum.  But as always my priority is trying to grade the heroes on their individual merits.

Impressions

The most obvious thing about the grades is that I did not give anyone an 'A+' this time around - not even Bonehart or Broden.  Even with those powerful heroes things can go awry, and you still have to be ultra-careful with calling waves early.  This is definitely one of those maps where if you early-call a wave at the wrong time you can get the snowball effect - you end up early-calling the next wave because you desperately need your cooldowns refreshed, but then you simply end up getting overrun by all the mobs.

You'll also notice that for all my discussion about the difficulty spectrum above, no one lands in the 'C' tier.  It's not that this map is really super hard.  Difficulty is by itself a spectrum from easy to hard, obviously, but then for a given level of difficulty, a map will then lie on a spectrum of fun to frustrating.  The truth is this level is just middling in terms of its difficulty, but for that difficulty it is extremely frustrating.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 25. Colossal Core Campaign

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 24. Frantic Assembly Iron

We get an interesting iron mode this time around, where one of the required towers is the new Cannoneer Squad introduced with the DLC.  To be honest I had actually forgotten that a new tower came with the DLC, and that since it's a paid DLC I could use it in my videos.  Well thankfully we're forced to use it here, because it turns out it's pretty powerful.

Now let me caveat that a little bit: it's a powerful tower - when fully upgraded.  This is one of those towers kind of like the Eldritch Channeler.  The Channeler is honestly probably not worthwhile to build unless you prioritize also giving it Power Overflow.  So it is with this tower - you really need to go all-in with both of its abilities.  It's expensive, but the payoff is pretty worth it.  Once fully upgraded you have a tower that does over 100 ranged DPS, plus some pretty insane AoE damage with Incendiary Ammo, and of course can block up to five mobs.  That's quite a lot, and I found the best solution for this map was to commit to them fully, building out as many of them I could.  The results speak for themselves - the Cannoneers were so powerful I was able to do this map with solo heroes.

Impressions

While the Cannoneers are powerful, this map is still pretty easy, as evidenced by the fact that grades are high despite having only one hero.  Nothing surprising here - Vesper and Raelyn land at the bottom with 'B-'s, while everyone else pads their GPA some more with pretty good grades.  Even Grimson earns a very rare 'A-'.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 24. Frantic Assembly Iron

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 24. Frantic Assembly Heroic

Once again we get a heroic mode that is just a redux version of campaign mode, where it feels just like the campaign, only shorter.  I'm really disappointed in this and feel heroic and iron modes are one of the most disappointing things about both Vengeance and Alliance.  In the original Kingdom Rush heroic modes were hard.  They were also creative.  Despite using the same group of enemies, they didn't feel like the waves from campaign mode, and usually you needed an entirely different build to deal with the challenge.  These days when I tackle a new heroic mode I by default start with the build from campaign mode, and more often than not that gets the job done with perhaps just a little tweaking.

Here the tweak is that I forgo Tricannons to just build more Arcane Wizards.  I'm sure I could have made Tricannons work, but I felt I got better results at the end of the map with two more Wizards with Disintegrate.  In any case I still can't escape the feeling I'm just playing campaign mode over.

Impressions

Nothing remarkable here, and grades even improve slightly over campaign mode because somehow they managed to make heroic mode easier.  Raelyn lifts herself out of 'C' tier, Warhead earns yet another 'A', and everything else is as you would expect.

Final Grades

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

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 24. Frantic Assembly Heroic