Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Galadrian's Wall Campaign

This is a mildly challenging map, but not much in the way of fun.  It's all about gnoll hordes here, with the introduction of Blood Gnolls and Blood Ogres.  Because gnolls and hyenas have such low bounties, the gimmick here is trying to survive all the horde waves when resources are a lot scarcer than what you may have become used to in the final maps of the campaign.  I don't particularly find low resource challenges interesting myself, but YMMV.

Impressions

I've found that as this series has gone on and I've gotten much more used to the heroes, there's less to comment on in the impressions.  Heroes no longer surprise preconceived notions of how good or bad they might be.  To that end this section will probably be a little thinner on through the conclusion.

In the case of this map, it's not terribly hard, so no one does worse than a 'B'.  And again, there really aren't any surprises in who got what grade.  By this point we've pretty well sorted the heroes into upper, middle, and lower tiers.  The upper tier pulls 'A's, the lower tier 'B's, and the middle tier goes either way depending on minor peculiarities of the map and RNG.

Final Grades

• Eridan - B
• Arivan - B
• Catha - B
• Reg'son - A
• Prince Denas - B
• Razz and Rags - B
• Bravebark - A
• Vez'nan - A
• Xin - B
• Phoenix - A
• Durax - A
• Lynn - B
• Bruce - B
• Lilith - B
• Wilbur - A
• Faustus - A

Best Choice

You probably know by now that when it's hordes, it's Phoenix.  Vez'nan and Bravebark also especially distinguished themselves on this map, mostly due to their teleport abilities.  They allow you to be more aggressive in dealing with the Blood Ogres, preventing them from turning more gnolls into Blood Gnolls, which is largely the only real danger on this map.

Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - Galadrian's Wall Campaign 

Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Mid-term Report Card 3

It feels like we just finished our last report card, but given that this section of the campaign is only four maps long I guess it's not surprising.  Let's jump straight to our heroes' GPAs:

• Wilbur - 3.98
• Faustus - 3.98
• Phoenix - 3.98
• Vez'nan - 3.89
• Bravebark - 3.78
• Durax - 3.78
• Reg'son - 3.64
• Lilith - 3.56
• Lynn - 3.51
• Prince Denas - 3.51
• Xin - 3.47
• Bruce - 3.36
• Eridan - 3.31
• Arivan - 3.31
• Catha - 3.24
• Razz and Rags - 3.00

The most notable change this time around was the end of the straight-'A' streak for our top three heroes.  Mactan's Retreat iron proved to be their undoing, where ironically the fact that all three are flying worked against them in their inability to provide crucial blocking.  Still, their GPAs are nothing to sneeze at, and they easily outpace the rest of the field.

Compared with last time there was virtually no movement in the rankings.  Bravebark and Durax, who have been neck and neck the entire time for the 5th and 6th spots, are now tied with each other.  Reg'son improved his GPA by a whopping 0.09 due to some killer performances, but he has a long way to go to catch up to them.

Lilith leap-frogs Lynn and Prince Denas to move up two spots, but our mid-tier heroes are still very tightly packed.  And our bottom tier heroes are what they are.  Their order remains the same, but their GPAs continue to drop precipitously, with Razz and Rags just barely avoiding dropping below 3.00.

I've been rooting for Bruce for some time now, but it's time to accept that he's just not a very good hero.  If you had told me when I started this challenge that Bruce would be straining to keep ahead of Eridan and Arivan in the rankings I would have been shocked.  He seems like he should be a reliable tank like Prince Denas, with perhaps somewhat less survivability in exchange for better DPS, but it's just not playing out that way for some reason.  I'm not entirely sure why, but I will say I've come to realize his Hero Spell is really not that great.  It's not bad, it's just not great.  It's basically a slightly better version of the High Elven Mage's Timelapse, except that the cooldown is much, much worse.  If it had a 30 second cooldown instead it would be much more useful.

Our Best Choice awards went to a small crowd this time around, with Wilbur taking three, Phoenix taking three, and Reg'son taking a whopping four, including a clean sweep of the Mactans' Retreat map.  Reg'son is serious business and not to be overlooked.  While I'm not sure he'll be able to move up any more places unless Bravebark or Durax have serious drops, I stand by my assertion in a recent post that Vindicator is the best Hero Spell in the game.  He may not be the best all-around hero, but when he is the best choice for a map, he is decisively the best choice.

All this talk of Bruce's and Reg'son's Hero Spells makes me realize I need to do a ranking of Hero Spells when this is all over.  Someone remind me to do that.

The iron modes continue to ramp up the difficulty, with The Ascent iron and Mactans' Retreat iron tying at 2.88 for hardest map - the same score as The Unseelie Court Heroic from the last section.  We thankfully only had one trivial all-'A' map in Arcane Quarters campaign mode, and I stand by my assertion that it will truly be the last one.

We now enter the final phase of the game with the bonus maps.  There are eight total, divided into three mini-campaigns.  Given how many there are and how hard I know they'll be, that's a lot of opportunity to shake up the rankings one last time before we give our final report card.  I'm excited but also anxious.  I've only done these maps one time each on my Impossible Mode Walkthrough, but I remember they were all quite difficult.  Will I be able to finish with every hero, or am I going to finally have to hand out some 'F's?  There's only one way to find out, so join me as we take the plunge.

Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Shrine of Elynie Iron

And we have yet again another really difficult map, but you wouldn't know it by the grades.  Again it's all about getting the build right, which took me a while.  I started by trying to set up the usual choke points like I did in campaign and heroic, but I was having a hard time even with Wilbur, so I knew that wouldn't cut it when it came to doing Razz.

I like when the game forces you to think outside the box, and it did in this case.  I realized that no enemies ever come down the right side path, and the only enemies that use the teleporter in the lower center are the two Arachnomancers near the end.  That's when I came up with setting up two choke points in the center of the map where the paths from the two top teleporters converge.  It allowed me to build just three Wild Maguses instead of four, giving me the extra gold to get my Forest Keepers up and going with Ancient Oak Spears, which are crucial to taking down the Twilight Golems at the end.

Impressions

The end result of all this theorycrafting is that no one did worse than a 'B', which just meant the hero struggled a bit more than others.  Again, no real surprises in who got what, with the sole exception of Vez'nan.  Vez'nan really struggled to control the Driders, which rather shocked me.  They have no magic resistance, so between his already good DPS and abilities I figured he wouldn't have trouble like some other heroes did with never-ending Drider chains, where one Drider kills a unit, turning it into another Drider who does the same, etc.  But yet he did.  I even had to do the map twice with him as the first time I had an accidental leak and I had the same problem both times.  Could just be bad RNG twice in a row, but as it stands, it was definitely a 'B' performance.

Final Grades

• Eridan - B
• Arivan - B
• Catha - B
• Reg'son - A
• Prince Denas - A
• Razz and Rags - B
• Bravebark - A
• Vez'nan - B
• Xin - A
• Phoenix - A
• Durax - A
• Lynn - B
• Bruce - B
• Lilith - B
• Wilbur - A
• Faustus - A

Best Choice

Wilbur returns to the top spot after a brief vacation yet again, as his ridiculous true damage DPS is just what you need on this map.  Reg'son and Phoenix both made strong cases for themselves as well.

Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - Shrine of Elynie Iron

Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Shrine of Elynie Heroic

This is another of what I call "self-working" maps, where the map itself is challenging, but only in regards to getting the right build plan.  Once that is down, hero performance is mostly the same.

Don't get me wrong, this is a hard map, and it took me quite some time to develop the right build strategy.  If you're wondering why I'm still having to develop strategies after having done all these maps twice already on veteran and impossible mode, keep in mind I'm using the best hero in those videos, so the build doesn't have to be perfect when the hero's strengths can make up for it.  But here I'm having to develop a strategy that can work for every hero, and for our bottom-tier heroes like Razz that means the build has to do most of the work.

Impressions

Because it's self-working, there's not much to say.  The grades are very 'A'-heavy, befitting a map where hero performance doesn't matter quite as much.  It still matters of course, which is why Razz and Rags managed to pull a 'C' (get used to hearing that).  Other than that there's not much else to say.

Final Grades

• Eridan - A
• Arivan - B
• Catha - B
• Reg'son - A
• Prince Denas - B
• Razz and Rags - C
• Bravebark - A
• Vez'nan - A
• Xin - A
• Phoenix - A
• Durax - A
• Lynn - B
• Bruce - B
• Lilith - A
• Wilbur - A
• Faustus - A

Best Choice

As I was working through my recordings, I originally had Wilbur and Phoenix tied for Best Choice.  Then I did Reg'son.  Wow, he utterly trivialized this map!  Having done about two-thirds of the game, I'm going to go ahead and say that Vindicator is the best Hero Spell in the game.  Yes, it's slightly situational in that it doesn't do much good on pure horde maps (like Royal Gardens iron), but it is so otherwise just so much more powerful than any other Hero Spell out there.

This map tries to intimidate you by throwing a Twilight Golem at you right out of the gate, but what does it matter when you can instantly delete it?  And the fact that you can instantly defeat enemies means you instantly get their reward gold, meaning you can get ahead in your build plan over other heroes who might take a minute and a half to get rid of the golem.  And given that Reg'son is no slacker in all his other abilities, he definitely is a top tier hero.

Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - Shrine of Elynie Heroic

Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Shrine of Elynie Campaign

The final campaign mode of the campaign is reasonably challenging but ultimately not that difficult.  It took me a little while to figure out the best build for non-optimal characters, which involved going all-in on Arcane Archers with Burst Arrows on non-choke point spots.  The archers provide physical DPS against the Spider Goddess, who has medium magic resistance, but the Burst Arrows provide area damage to thin out the hordes both leading up to and during the final boss fight.  I originally also spent the tons of money you earn in the last phase or two on Slumber Arrows as well, because I thought, why not?  But I realized that it's better to save up money to replace the towers the boss destroys so DPS output doesn't go down.

Once you have the right build down, it's largely the same outcome regardless of hero.  There's a little lane dancing that needs to be done in the first few waves until both choke points are strong enough to take care of themselves.  After that it's fairly smooth sailing, although there is just enough difficulty here to separate our heroes into different grades.

Impressions

The maps lately unfortunately haven't been that interesting in terms of our heroes' performances.  There aren't any surprises really in the 'A's versus the 'B's, although I was happy to be able to give both Eridan and Reg'son 'A's for this map.  Eridan's physical DPS and Hero Spell do well on a very spider-heavy map, and Vindicator taking down the big enemies that make for some of the tougher parts of the map - as well as doing great work on the boss - made Reg'son a very strong contender for Best Choice.

Unsurprisingly, Razz and Rags pull the only 'C' yet again.  There are some great opportunities to use Changeling on this map, but ultimately the ultra low DPS proves to be their undoing yet again.

Final Grades

• Eridan - A
• Arivan - B
• Catha - B
• Reg'son - A
• Prince Denas - B
• Razz and Rags - C
• Bravebark - A
• Vez'nan - A
• Xin - A
• Phoenix - A
• Durax - A
• Lynn - B
• Bruce - B
• Lilith - A
• Wilbur - A
• Faustus - A

Best Choice

Reg'son made a strong case for Best Choice on this map, but ultimately with it being very much a 'horde' map, Phoenix's AoE again earns her a top spot.

Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - Shrine of Elynie Campaign

Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Mactans' Retreat Iron

I'm not going to say this map broke us, but...well, you'll see in the grades.  It's a dark day, and one I knew was coming, but that doesn't make it any easier to bear.  No, we didn't hand out our first 'F', but it feels just as bad.

This is one of those iron modes - very short, but extremely intense from start to finish.  Your play has to be near perfect almost regardless of which hero you're using, because you need every possible advantage to keep up.  Delaying a reinforcement or an upgrade by even a second can have disastrous consequences.  Heck, even though the magic tower I built for the Twilight Golem could barely scratch the spiders, just getting a teleport on one of them proved to be extremely beneficial.

Partially this is because there's a lot of RNG involved in this map.  The spiders that hatch and drop from above get random placements, so you can't know ahead of time how many you'll get on either exit lane.  There's really no time for lane switching on this map, even with a teleporting hero, so you really have to commit your hero to one side for the fight (the left being the best).  But that means that it's possible to get bad RNG and get an excess of spiders heading to the other exit and not have the DPS to deal with them.  It can happen even when using our Best Choice hero below.

Impressions

Let's just cut right to it: our straight-'A' honor roll's streak finally has come to an end.  Yes, even Wilbur walks away with a 'B' for this one.  They're DPS may be great and true, but it's remarkably their flying ability that largely took them down here.  The ability to block - even if it's just a temporary body-block by Vez'nan - is huge on this map, and being down one blocker makes a big difference.  They still get 'B's because their DPS is still amazing, but it's just not enough.  I even gave Faustus a 'C' initially, because this is a hard map to get good work out of Dragon Rage, but after I had finished everyone else and had maximum experience with the map I went back and retried him.  The extra experience made a difference, and I moved him up to a 'B'.

Though this map is quite tough, most heroes wound up with a 'B' - most everyone's abilities work well on this map, and it's largely just a matter of playing really well.  I ended up only handing out 'C's to Eridan and Arivan, as their low DPS really catches up to them here.  Razz and Rags unsurprisingly pull yet another 'D', as their atrocious DPS combined with a lack of opportunities to use Changeling make them extremely RNG dependent to get a win.

Truly it was really the outstanding performance of our two 'A' stars that consigned everyone else to no better than a 'B'.  Reg'son and Durax are the way to go on this map.  Reg'son's Vindicator means you don't have to worry about the Twilight Golem at all, and instead of devoting resources to building a magic tower you can upgrade your ranged towers faster, which is amazingly helpful.  It also frees you to use Thunderbolt on the Twilight Harassers instead, which usually has the benefit of damaging other enemies on the screen at a very opportune time.  Finally you can get a second Vindicator on the last Twilight Heretic, making the final cleanup a breeze.

Durax does so well because Crystallites means you can guard both exit lanes simultaneously, reducing the chance of RNG problems described above.  If you're wondering why I pause for several seconds before calling the first wave, remember that your hero's abilities start cooling down as soon as the map loads.  So I wait a while to get through the cooldown of Crystallites (50 seconds) so that he can use it as soon as the first wave starts.  In addition, Sapphire Fangs does great work when used solo against the Twilight Golem, reducing the amount of work the Wild Magus has to do and alleviating pressure on the right side.

Final Grades

• Eridan - C
• Arivan - C
• Catha - B
• Reg'son - A
• Prince Denas - B
• Razz and Rags - D
• Bravebark - B
• Vez'nan - B
• Xin - B
• Phoenix - B
• Durax - A
• Lynn - B
• Bruce - B
• Lilith - B
• Wilbur - B
• Faustus - B

Best Choice

Reg'son completes his sweep of Mactans' Retreat with a win here by a country mile.  In fact, he distinguished himself so much I almost gave Durax a 'B' anyway.  I relented, but if Durax is an 'A', then Reg'son is a perfect 100.

Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - Mactans' Retreat Iron

Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Mactan's Retreat Heroic

This map was hard, but only in the sense that it required a good build strategy and a fair amount of practice.  Once you have those down your choice of hero doesn't matter too much.  Now granted, it did take me quite a bit of work to perfect my build and micro, so I don't want to undersell it, but in terms of our heroes we ended up only handing out 'A's and 'B's.

Impressions

There's really not much to say, as this is one of those maps that just isn't very hero-dependent.  There weren't really any surprises in the grades - the usual top tier heroes got 'A's, the bottom tier got 'B's, and the middle tier of heroes went either way probably influenced by RNG more than anything.

Final Grades

• Eridan - B
• Arivan - B
• Catha - B
• Reg'son - A
• Prince Denas - A
• Razz and Rags - B
• Bravebark - A
• Vez'nan - A
• Xin - B
• Phoenix - A
• Durax - A
• Lynn - B
• Bruce - B
• Lilith - A
• Wilbur - A
• Faustus - A

Best Choice

I'm giving this to Reg'son again, as his kit just works so well here.  Having Vindicator to take out the Twilight Golems and the occasional other tough enemy like a Heretic frees up your use of Thunderbolt so much compared to other heroes where it has to be used at specific times and places to manage the waves.

Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - Mactans' Retreat Heroic 

Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Mactans' Retreat Campaign

So, as I think I mentioned in a recent post, whenever I upload a new playlist and publish this blog entry, it's usually a couple of weeks after I actually record it.  As I write this I'm in the process of making my recordings for the Galadrian's Wall map.  That's how it's been for this whole series - I'm three to four maps ahead in my recording versus what I'm uploading.  Now usually I go ahead and write my blog post right after I finish my recordings, but for this playlist it looks like I forgot to.  So at this point I really don't remember anything I might have want to have said about it.

I do have the grades, because I always record those as I go.  Clearly we had a pretty easy map, with only five 'B's, so there probably wasn't much to say anyway in terms of impressions.  So we'll skip that section and just go straight to the grades.

Final Grades

• Eridan - B
• Arivan - B
• Catha - B
• Reg'son - A
• Prince Denas - A
• Razz and Rags - B
• Bravebark - A
• Vez'nan - A
• Xin - A
• Phoenix - A
• Durax - A
• Lynn - A
• Bruce - B
• Lilith - A
• Wilbur - A
• Faustus - A

Best Choice

Like the grades, I also record my Best Choice as I go, so I have that as well.  Reg'son takes the top spot.  While I might not remember the specifics, I can assure you it was due to Vindicator.

Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - Mactans' Retreat Campaign

Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Arcane Quarters Iron

This is a fun map.  It's different, much in the way that Unseelie Court iron was different, but yet it's not really hard, as Beresad can basically win the whole map for you.  After the challenge of the hard mode it's a nice, relaxing time watching spiders explode by the hundreds.

Impressions

The grading was a little different this time around.  As said, Beresad can win the map for you, so the only real question is if a hero is good enough to win without Beresad.  So I assigned 'A's to non-Beresad heroes and everyone else got 'B's.

Not surprisingly our usual honor roll trio pulled out 'A's here.  Vez'nan joined them as well, even though his basic attack does virtually nothing to spiders due to magic resistance.  Magic Shackles and Soul Burn still got some work done, but the real key was proper use of Dark Pact.  As with Royal Gardens iron, the demon can absolutely mow down hordes of enemies with its true damage AoE attack.  Proper timing of his Hero Spell and Thunderbolt ensured a Beresad-less win.

I hesitated a little on giving Lilith her 'A'.  While I did finish without using Beresad, it's only because I got really good RNG and got rain of fire instead of fallen angels on her Hero Spell every time.  Fallen angels would not have cleared out the packs of spiders like rain of fire.  Because of the RNG element I almost gave her a 'B' instead, but I erred on the side of generosity.  'A's are going to become scarcer and scarcer as we continue on, so I like to hand them out while I can.

Speaking of which, I was pleased to be able to give Eridan an 'A' for this map as well.  Arrow Storm, with its large physical AoE damage, is the perfect antidote to a tightly packed group of spiders.  Now I'll admit it wasn't easy to get him his 'A', and it did take a few tries.  The timing of Thunderbolts and Arrow Storms has to be very precise so they come off cooldown again the next time you really need them, and it's only that Thunderbolt at the very end of the map that nets him the win.  Still, Eridan doesn't exactly pull in many 'A's, so it's nice to be able to give him one.

But the best surprise of all on this map was Razz and Rags - yes, Razz and Rags - earning a non-trivial 'A'.  Finally we have a map that plays to his strengths.  There are some incredible opportunities to use Changeling for once, and careful management of the cooldown of Hammer Time helped take down the thickest waves of spiders. 

Final Grades

• Eridan - A
• Arivan - B
• Catha - B
• Reg'son - B
• Prince Denas - B
• Razz and Rags - A
• Bravebark - B
• Vez'nan - A
• Xin - B
• Phoenix - A
• Durax - B
• Lynn - B
• Bruce - B
• Lilith - A
• Wilbur - A
• Faustus - A

Best Choice

Phoenix, of course.

Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - Arcane Quarters Iron