Having finished up my Impossible Hero Challenge for Frontiers (report card still to come!), I didn't feel I could set the game down without also making some posts for the two endless levels, especially since Frontiers is the only game in the series for which endless levels are available on the Steam version. However, unlike my Impossible Hero Challenge I have no intention of trying to do them with every hero. My report card may not be out yet, but I don't think anyone's going to be shocked if I tip my hand and say that Bonehart came out as the best hero, and as such he's the one I'm using for these levels.
It's not just that he's the best hero for the endless maps because he's the most powerful hero overall, it's that his abilities are absolutely ideal for them. When you're facing enemies that appear in absurd numbers with exponentially growing health, you need some serious DPS, and Bonehart is able to bring it with his Unstable Disease ability. As a reminder, this ability causes infected enemies to deal 90 damage in an area when they die, as well as then infect those enemies caught in the AoE. On maps like this with huge numbers of enemies AoE is king, you can get some serious chain reactions going due to this ability. It also can help tremendously with the bosses, as if you can get several lesser enemies to die within range of the boss they each will deal 90 damage to him.
In both cases we manage to get to the wave 60 bosses before dying. The wave 60 bosses are pretty much impossible to kill without using items like the frost wand to slow them down. As such, once they spawn it's just a matter of how many more waves you can call while stalling them before they reach the exit. We managed wave 63 on Ruins of Nas'de and 64 on Temple of Evil. Even if you could kill the bosses, the waves starting around 60 are to the point where even a maxed out optimized build struggles to kill them all, and I doubt it would be possible to get to 70 anyway.
Speaking of optimized builds, there's room for a lot of experimentation with these maps. There are multiple different ways of surviving to wave 60, and it's fun trying out different strategies. I will say that it's the flying enemies that are the biggest challenge on both maps. Both of them feature both Giant Wasps and Giant Wasp Queens, and the Temple of Evil also has Poukai and Poukai Riders. If it weren't for these the optimal strategy would probably just be DWAARP spam. As it is, you still need an AoE heavy solution while still having enough DPS to take down the flyers. This obviously suggests Mechas as a solution, with Wasp Missiles to take them down, but trying to go all-in with Mechas has its own drawbacks. For instance, on Ruins of Nas'de, I found that trying to do an all-Mecha build made me too vulnerable to Sand Wraiths - the Missiles would exclusively target the Mummies in front of them, allowing them to get all the way to the exit.
In any case I'm pleased with my performances. Right now I'm not feeling any motivation to try these levels with different parameters - different heroes, easy mode, etc. - so I think this is going to be it for Frontiers. I'm planning to get back to Vengeance next and finish the latest DLC campaign, then I'll need to do the whole game again with the hero the DLC added.
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