Ugh, this map was hard in every respect - hard to perfect the build plan, hard to perfect the micro, and, because of all the other difficulties, hard to grade as well.
I usually don't go into too much detail on the map strategy in these posts, as I feel the videos mostly speak for themselves in that regard, but I feel this map deserves it. The design here is downright evil.
First, you have the issue that many of the enemies you face have high armor - Twilight Harassers, Twilight Avengers, and Satyr Hoplites. This tempts you to go heavy on magic towers in your build plan, but the problem comes in wave 5, when - along with a Bandersnatch of course - you get several spiders. If you solely have magic towers then you're going to be in a world of hurt, because you need to take the spiders out as quickly as possible so they don't distract from taking care of the Bandersnatch.
The key is to realize that the armored enemies only ever come from the right side of the map - never the top lane. Thus, instead of building our two chokepoints on the exit lanes as in the campaign mode, the second chokepoint goes in the middle of the map where the two lanes from the right converge. This allows you to build a ranged tower up top to take care of the top lane and a magic tower at the second chokepoint for all the armor. It also has the side benefit of stalling enemies longer within the range of the gnome house, giving a greater chance of a bunny polymorph, which can really help out.
Figuring all that out took a lot of work on my part, but that's the easiest part of this map. The next difficulty comes in wave 3 with the mushrooms. The key here is you absolutely cannot let the Fungus Breeders turn any Boomshrooms into Munchshrooms. Holding off the hordes of Munchshrooms is hard enough as it is - any extra and it's probably game over. And as tempting as it is to use Thunderbolt, you can't use it too late as you need it for the next wave.
And yet that's not even the hardest part of the map. The hardest part is wave 4, where three sets of Gloomies come from both lanes on the right. They come too close together to Thunderbolt all three of them, and you only get a Venom Vine on the bottom path. The only viable solution I found here was to Thunderbolt the first set once they converge, then use reinforcements on the top right lane and the Venom Vine on the bottom right lane for the second set, then call the next wave early to use Thunderbolt again on the final set. Sounds easy, but there's a lot that can go wrong. It's very easy to get bad RNG on the second set of Gloomies, and despite your best efforts too many survive. This is to say nothing of the Redcaps and Twilight Avengers you'll be dealing with, which can easily plow through your defenses since you're committing your reinforcements elsewhere to dealing with the Gloomies. Then you have the issue that when you call the next wave early, you immediately get a Bandersnatch when your blockers are probably already in bad shape from the Avengers and Redcaps.
The bottom line is that your micro needs to be near perfect on this map, and even with an ideal hero you still need some good RNG - or at least not bad RNG. That makes grading the heroes a difficult job, since our 'D' grade by definition is needing good RNG to get through the map. If I wanted to really be a stickler, I would only give out 'A's and 'D's for this map, but I felt the situation was more subtle than that. Having a hero whose Hero Spell is a backup for dealing with the Gloomies is a big deal, and even for some heroes who don't, their overall abilities are so good at dealing with the other elements of the map that they free you up to play really good micro.
Impressions
Our usual 'A' students show up here. With Vez'nan I even had a couple of misplays during my recording and he still managed to get the job done. Lynn has the honor of joining them for this map as well. Fate Sealed does wonders on Gloomy packs, and of course she can tank both mushrooms and Bandersnatches very well.
Durax is a good example of the kind of hero I talked about above. Even though his Hero Spell can't affect the Gloomies, his ability to be multiple places at once provides the blocking you so desperately need to make sure you're playing your reinforcements and Venom Vine well in dealing with the Gloomies.
Reg'son is another example. I really wanted to give him an 'A' for this map, but couldn't quite justify it. Vindicator is useless against Gloomies, but it works wonders against the Avengers and Bandersnatch discussed above. And of course he's amazing at dealing with all the mushrooms. The net effect is that he drastically lowers the amount of RNG you need with the map. Ultimately however he's just not quite as good as our 'A' students.
Razz and Rags end up wearing the dunce cap by themselves again here. They just don't have the DPS or survivability to handle the enemy mix on this map, and opportunities to put Changeling to really good use are few. You're going to need the gnome house to turn a few enemies into bunnies for you, as well as just really great RNG all around otherwise.
Final Grades
- Eridan - C
- Arivan - B
- Catha - B
- Reg'son - B
- Prince Denas - B
- Razz and Rags - D
- Bravebark - C
- Vez'nan - A
- Xin - C
- Phoenix - A
- Durax - B
- Lynn - A
- Bruce - C
- Lilith - C
- Wilbur - A
- Faustus - A
Best Choice
As always, Phoenix's AoE abilities come to the rescue. They make short work of both mushrooms and Gloomies, as well as all the other enemies, which frees up your blockers to take on Bandersnatches undistracted.
