This is what developers do when they hate you. It's clear that Ironhide is pissed about how everyone trashes on Vengeance as being the worst Kingdom Rush game and that it's too easy. First they punished us with The Ancient Ghosts iron mode, which contained only units with high magic resistance. Even though it cost me my first 'F' in any of my Impossible Hero Challenge series, it was still okay since only three heroes exclusively do magic damage, so the other heroes were mostly fine. But here they up the ante by throwing War Elephant after War Elephant at us but giving us no towers that deal any sort of magic damage, leaving the majority of our heroes who only deal physical damage flapping in the wind.
Well, challenge accepted and defeated, Ironhide. I managed to complete the map with every hero, avoiding any more 'F's, although it was for certain one of the hardest challenges to date in my Kingdom Rush series.
The key here is to go all-in with Arrow Storm on Elite Harassers. While it's still physical damage, the sheer number of arrows the Harassers put out can eventually take down a War Elephant. With virtually flawless micro and good RNG the Harassers can kill all the Elephants even if your hero is unable to contribute any damage themselves, and many of them can't.
That's the key though - virtually flawless micro AND good RNG. The biggest part of this map is constantly moving the Harassers between the top and bottom lanes to target the Elephants. This is almost an entire job in itself, and if you're not constantly on top of it it's a loss, since this is the only way to win with most heroes. If your hero can't contribute damage to the Elephants, then they need to be moving around the map dealing with the other mobs to keep them from distracting the Harassers from their main job. All in all it's probably the most intense and demanding map in the entire franchise, and how desperately I want a hotkey for changing the rally point on barracks.
But as said, even with the best micro you still need a hefty dose of RNG, and boy is that reflected in the grades. I can't tell you how many times I lost because an Elephant escaped with less than 100 health left. When it comes to level design there's a difference between crafting an extremely challenging map that pushes players to their absolute limits and just designing a giant middle finger to the players, and unfortunately this map is the latter.
Impressions
So I checked and this is actually not the worst grades we've ever had in an Impossible Hero Challenge. We ended up with 6 'D's, which ties the number from Beheader's Seat iron in Origins, but the rest of the grades for that map were still worse than the rest of the grades here. Still, like Beheader's Seat iron and The Ancient Ghosts iron, this is a map that will go down in infamy to be sure.
Starting at the top, we do have six 'A's (there were only three on Beheader's Seat). Not surprisingly the three dragons earn 'A's. Eiskalt does true damage and Dianyun does magical damage, so they can contribute very well to taking down the Elephants. Murglun's basic attack does physical damage, but her secondary ability Magma Blood deals true damage, so we can have her constantly hover over an Elephant, dealing damage to it while she can still use her other attacks on mobs that get near. In addition, her hero spell can't outright kill an Elephant, but it does do massive damage to it.
Doom Tank and Jack both earn 'A's as well, as they do explosive damage which ignores half of armor. That may not sound like much, but it does get the job done. While Jack's DPS with Explosive Head is a lot less than Doom Tank's, his ability to teleport is priceless on this kind of map.
Finally Asra brings in the last 'A', which is certainly a rarity for her. But her Quiver of Sorrows ability is at long last actually useful in the game, reducing the armor of Elephants to the point the Harassers can trivially bring them down. It helps that Onyx Arrows does magical damage as well.
Surprisingly two of the three heroes who deal magic damage only earn 'B's here. Oloch shouldn't be terribly shocking, since he is by far the worst piece of trash in any Kingdom Rush game. Honestly though his damage against the War Elephants is okay, but what really hurts him is the fact that War Elephants preferentially target heroes when they're in range with their arrows. With his low health pool he's constantly having to retreat from them, reducing how much he can really help. And while Mortemis can heal himself with his basic attack, it still quite can't keep up with the Elephants' damage, so he's in a similar situation. Combined with the fact that both of them are slow as molasses on a map where high mobility is really needed they both fall into the 'B' category.
And then we get to the physical damage heroes. Beresad earns a 'C', saving himself from the mortal embarrassment of a dragon earning a 'D'. His ability to at least target the War Elephants and do some damage to them combined with his hero spell which deals true damage elevate him slightly above the bottom of the barrel.
Finally we have the 'D' club, consisting of Veruk, Margosa, Tramin, Jigou, Jun'pai, and Grosh. You would think Tramin would join Doom Tank and Jack O'Lanter due to his AoE explosive damage as well, but his basic attacks simply do not seem to make a difference here. I feel pretty certain that Tramin is broken actually after the most recent updates. There are multiple times when I've witnessed Rocket Barrage deal no damage to an enemy, and I wouldn't be surprised if his basic is broken too and no longer dealing explosive damage.
As for the others, they simply can contribute virtually nothing to attacking the Elephants. Jun'pai can hit them with his basic attack and hero spell, but the damage is so small as to be completely negligible. The only thing Veruk has is his Warmongers' ability to target them, but again the damage is so worthless they're better used against the regular mobs. Margosa's bat deals true damage, but not enough to actually make a difference. Finally Jigou and Grosh can only hit them with their hero spells (and Jigou's Ice Ball), but again these abilities are better saved for the other mobs.
So the only thing these heroes can do is try to take out the other mobs that appear so the Harassers have as few distractions as possible, but even doing so it still takes good RNG for them to get the win, and that is of course our definition of a 'D'.
Final Grades
- Veruk - D
- Asra - A
- Oloch - B
- Margosa - D
- Mortemis - B
- Tramin - D
- Jigou - D
- Beresad - C
- Doom Tank SG-11 - A
- Jun'pai - D
- Eiskalt - A
- Murglun - A
- Dianyun - A
- Jack O'Lantern - A
- Grosh - D
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