Kingdom Rush Origins (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Duredhel Outskirts Iron

16 heroes.  22 maps.  3 modes.  1,056 videos.  And with that, we have completed this series!  More than anything I'm pleased that I never had to hand out any 'F's along the way, but was in fact able to complete every map with every hero.  There were 'D's of course - oh, were there 'D's - but I'm happy to prove that you can beat the entire game on impossible difficulty with any hero.  The final report card will be in a separate blog post as normal, so for now let's just deal with this iron mode.

This final iron mode was more tricky than hard.  It took a lot of doing to find the right build that worked for every hero, and I ended up backtracking quite a bit.  I started with Razz as usual and got through with him without too much difficulty, surprisingly enough.  So then I started working backwards through the list as normal.  I struggled a bit with Faustus and initially assigned him a 'B'.  That was my first warning sign that something was wrong.  Then I got to Lilith and Bruce and really struggled with them.  Shockingly, Razz's abilities proved very valuable on this map and covered up some weaknesses with the build.  So then I switched to Prince Denas, who has been a consistent bottom-performer lately, and worked with him until I found the build that I demonstrate in the videos.  I pretty much always was trying the "bazillion archer towers" approach, but it was a matter of figuring out exactly how many to build and upgrade that took so much work.

Impressions

I initially started this section to call out highlights (or lowlights, as the case may be) of hero performance and to make notes as I learned how best to use each hero.  After using each hero 66 times I pretty much know each one of them inside and out now.  Despite it being a somewhat different and tricky map, there are no surprises in the grades.  Eridan, Prince Denas, and Razz and Rags come in at the bottom with 'C's, as they have for the last several maps now, while Arivan, Catha, Xin, and Bruce earn the 'B's.

At times I've been worried that my knowledge of the heroes' cumulative performance has affected my ability to grade objectively.  E.g., because I've given Eridan a lot of 'C's in the past and expect it of him, I'm more likely to grade his performance as a 'C' when maybe it was objectively more of a 'B'.  And while I have certainly agonized over grades before, here things were fairly clear cut.  There's no mistaking that "it took four tries to win and was still really hard" feeling that accompanies a 'C'.

Final Grades

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

Best Choice

For our final Best Choice award, I'm declaring it a four-way tie.  Reg'son, Bravebark, and Vez'nan take the top choice because of their insta-kill abilities which eliminate the Twilight Avengers - the only real danger to this massive archer build to take out the Screechers and Blood Servants.  Phoenix joins them because she's Phoenix, and that's all the explanation long time readers will need.

Kingdom Rush Origins Impossible Hero Challenge - Duredhel Outskirts Iron