Kingdom Rush Vengeance (Steam) Impossible Hero Challenge - Grosh

Since the Primal Ravage DLC for Vengeance contained a new hero, of course I felt obligated to go back and do every map with him as well.  The final map of that series, The Original World, went out today on my channel, so it's time to give him a writeup.

New heroes tend to be on the more powerful end of the spectrum, obviously, to help drive demand for the DLC.  Thus we got Dianyun with Dragon's Power, who joined the original three dragons at the top of the rankings.  This hero is not a dragon, but rather a...mammoth...thing?  I'm not exactly sure what Grosh is supposed to be, but from the beginning, looking at his stats and abilities, I felt certain he would be an upper-mid tier hero at the least.

It turns out my instincts were correct.  Overall he finishes with a 3.86 GPA, putting him 6th overall in the hero rankings behind Eiskalt, Murglun, Dianyun, Beresad, and Doom Tank SG-11, but slightly ahead of Jack O'Lantern.  And this helps me greatly with the worries I've had in this series about the grading being subjective, because this is exactly where I feel like he should fall based on my experience with him.  If I were choosing a hero I'd rather have Doom Tank than him, but I'd also rather have him than Jack O'Lantern.

Grosh breezed through the main campaign with all 'A's like most all the other heroes.  The only non-'A' grades he took were a 'B' on Magincia Shores Campaign, a 'B' on Pond of the Sage Campaign, a 'B' on City of Rivers Iron, and a 'C' on Lost Passage Iron.  All of these grades are very understandable.  Most heroes with physical DPS struggle in the Subaquatic Menace campaign, largely due to the excessive numbers of Anurian Wardens with their high armor.  A lot of heroes took 'B's or worse on City of Rivers Iron because of its cheap gimmick which nullifies most hero abilities.  In Grosh's case, his hero spell is the only thing that was able to contribute.  And finally Lost Passage Iron is the hardest but also the most garbage map in the entire game.  It's a tremendously hard map to begin with because of it's gimmicks, and heroes without the ability to target flying enemies are at a severe disadvantage.

So what's my overall impression of Grosh?  I think the best word to describe him is "solid".  He's not overpowered like the dragons where he can breeze through any content, but he is a powerful hero who provides consistent performance - as evidenced by the fact that two of his non-'A's came on what I consider gimmick maps.  Let's break down his abilities to see why he works.

Whirlwind is a standout ability, giving him some AoE capability.  It's really needed too, as honestly the DPS on his basic attack isn't that awesome.  But when every fourth attack hits all enemies in range with 75 bonus damage, it turns him into a reliable damage machine.

Fissure is one of those abilities that always seemed to come in clutch for me.  Just when my chokepoint would start to get overwhelmed, it seemed like he would invariably bust it out, seriously damaging his current target and turning back all other enemies in fear.  1.5 seconds of fear might not seem like much, but since they move 10% faster, it then takes them 1.65 seconds to get back to where they were originally, creating an overall stall of 3.15 seconds.  That's enough for two extra hits from a Spectral Mausoleum, or five from Bone Flingers, and it really makes a difference.

Frenzy is a terrific ability since it provides both survivability and increased DPS.  As such, it's beneficial to deliberately try to trigger it.  Eight seconds is often enough time for him to finish dealing with the current enemy who's taking down his health (especially with the extra DPS), and since abilities start cooling down as soon as they are used, he only has to survive another 32 seconds before it's available again.  This ability prevents a lot of downtime, either from him dying or having to move him out of the way to heal.

As for Legacy, I've made my feelings about on-death abilities clear in previous posts, but this one's not that bad as they go.  It lasts nearly as long as Grosh's respawn timer, and the slow and damage it does are nothing to be sneezed at.  Is it better than just having Grosh alive in the first place?  No, but it's a sight better than most of the other on-death abilities we've had in the franchise.

Finally his hero spell, Original Terror, is kind of like Grosh himself - solid, but not overpowered.  I will say one thing about Vengeance hero spells - they're generally very well tuned to be as powerful as the hero themselves.  Eiskalt and Murglun are overpowered and so are their spells, while on the other end Oloch is trash and so is his spell.  Thus its appropriate that Grosh's spell ranks just about the same as he does.  In fact I would rank it 6th overall just like Grosh himself, behind Margosa's and ahead of Mortemis'.

Speaking of rankings, I put out my final report card before the Primal Ravage DLC came out, so the grades and rankings there do not reflect it.  Six of the nine maps in the DLC came out worthy of grades, so how did this change the rankings overall?  Let's look at the new final GPAs:

1. Eiskalt - 4.00
2. Murglun - 4.00
3. Beresad - 3.97
4. Dianyun - 3.97
5. Doom Tank SG-11 - 3.97
6. Grosh - 3.86
7. Jack O'Lantern - 3.81
8. Tramin - 3.54
9. Margosa - 3.42
10. Jigou - 3.41
11. Jun'pai - 3.41
12. Mortemis - 3.05
13. Asra - 3.00
14. Veruk - 2.78
15. Oloch - 2.38

I'll spare you doing the manual comparison yourself and give you the breakdown of the changes.  Nothing changed for the original top five heroes, who maintain both their same GPAs and rankings.  Grosh now comes in at 6th place.  As for places 7-15, most every GPA went down by a small amount - generally by 0.1 or less.  Several of the maps were challenging, and Lost Passage in particular dished out a lot of 'B's, 'C's, and even some 'D's.

But did it affect the overall rankings?  Yes, in fact.  Jun'pai moved up to now tie Jigou for 10th place as a result of improving his GPA a bit while Jigou's fell a bit.  But we have an actual swap for 12th and 13th place, as Mortemis moved up ahead of Asra.  I didn't plan it that way, but I consider it appropriate that the three free-on-mobile heroes are now at the bottom of the rankings.

And with that I am finally done with Vengeance for good.  I'll be putting out a new Road Ahead post sometime soon, as I've been thinking a lot lately about where I want to go from here having finally put this game to bed.