Legends of Kingdom Rush Hero Challenge - Bravebark, Zapper, Witch Doctor

This is the final party composition for this challenge.  Based on what came before, I had a good feeling that we wouldn't end this challenge on a sour note, and indeed, the combination of a solid melee character in Bravebark, an S tier controller like the Zapper, and a magic user who turns out to be better than I initially thought gets work done as well as any of the other parties.

I wouldn't rank Bravebark as the best melee character, but he is still a solid tank who can also put out some solid damage.  One of his best attributes is that most of his abilities are not full actions.  As I've said before, melee characters need a lot more mobility than what they get, and saddling them with a bunch of full action abilities is just pouring salt in the wound.  Now the flip side to that is that Bravebark's shtick is supposed to be rooting himself, which enables several epic abilities.  I can see the idea the devs had was that Bravebark would wade into the thick of battle, root himself, then deal epic damage to enemies that swarm him while his regeneration ability kept him alive, allowing other party members to do their thing while he tanks.  However, it simply does not work out that way.  Having more than two enemies wailing on you in melee is a death sentence for most any character in this game, and his +2 regeneration (only below 6 health!) isn't going to keep him alive for squat.  He still gets good work done though ignoring the rooting mechanic.

As for the Zapper, I would honestly rate him as the best character in the whole game.  He is the king of control, and controlling enemies is largely what this game is about.  With two stunning abilities and an absolutely ludicrous rooting ability in Magnetic Trap he controls the battlefield completely.  Couple that with a basic attack that does 4 magic damage with a range of 4 and he is clutch beyond belief.  I raved about the Bombardier in the last entry, but she's honestly a little rough at level 1.  The Zapper has no such problems, being able to take down all lesser enemies at good range right from the get-go when starting an adventure.  When he is in the party I pretty much always promote him to rank 3 before any other character.  Magnetic Trap is just flat out unfair.

And on the reverse side of things, we have the Witch Doctor.  Now my experience with this challenge is that he's not as bad as I initially believed.  He's largely a heal bot, but in-battle healing is rarely needed in this game and out-of-battle healing sources are usually abundant, so his usefulness is limited.  He's especially rough at level 1.  With a range of 3 he can't attack 2 movement enemies with impunity like the Zapper, and if he moves he loses a point of damage.  However, he does get good damage and range bonuses as he ranks up, and at rank 3 he can do some pretty good work, sniping casters on the back line with ease.  But are you really going to make getting him to rank 3 a priority over other characters?  His abilities at ranks 2 and 3 are very underwhelming, so you're largely ranking him up just to get him a good basic attack.  In this playthrough I often did, just because rank 3 doesn't do much for Bravebark and can be skipped if necessary.  Still, while I'm still debating his final ranking, he's definitely near the bottom overall.

Legends of Kingdom Rush Hero Challenge - Bravebark, Zapper, Witch Doctor

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 8. Carmine Mines Campaign

At long last we have grades!  Not terribly exciting ones, unfortunately, and I've been preparing myself that this is how things would get started.  I had to give Raelyn and Torres 'B's for this one.  Earning an 'A' doesn't necessarily mean completely dominating a map, but it does mean there needs to be a certain smoothness to completing it with that hero.  It shouldn't require too much effort on the hero's part (and there is a bit of a bell curve here that's dependent on the overall difficulty of the map) and there shouldn't be any moments where things really get dicey.  Unfortunately I just couldn't quite say that for these two heroes, and as I said, I've been expecting it.

Raelyn and Torres are primarily geared towards tanking.  Raelyn is especially so, and it's really her only skill - even her hero spell just calls up another tank that's comparable to her.  I believe the intention with Torres was to be a bit of a jack of all trades - decent tanking, stalling, and DPS ability.  Unfortunately he definitely came out a undertuned, and his DPS is bad enough tanking and stalling are really all he's good for.

Unfortunately this map asks a little more of the heroes than simple tanking.  There are no major enemies to tank, first of all (unless you let some Priests turn into Abominations), and the waves are much more mob-oriented.  And while both of them have some AoE-related capabilities, it's not quite enough here.  And of course their slow as molasses movement speeds are quite a hindrance when you're trying to move them back and forth to deal with the Taskmasters so you can free the elves.

As I said, I'd been expecting Raelyn and/or Torres to pick up the first 'B'.  Who will be third?  My guess right now is either Grimson or Nyru, but we'll see.  I'm not sure if we'll see grades in the heroic mode, but I'm hopeful we'll at least start to have grades in campaign mode from here on out.

Final Grades

• Vesper - A
• Raelyn - B
• Nyru - A
• Torres - B
• Anya - A
• Grimson - A
• Broden - A
• Therien - A
• Onagro - A
• Warhead - A
• Lumenir - A
• Kosmyr - A

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 8. Carmine Mines Campaign

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 7. Bleak Valley Iron

<Sigh>, another iron mode, another disappointment.  Again we're given a barracks and a DPS tower, and if there's a simpler way of signaling "Just use standard choke point tactics" I don't know what it is.  And the level is trivially beaten by doing that because what else could you do with those towers?  Maybe if there had been no barracks and some large enemies on the level, then the trick could have been that you needed the Ballista upgrade that caused the final shot to stun the target, giving your towers enough time to DPS them down.  That at least would have been something to figure out.  As it is, another easy 'A' for everyone.

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 7. Bleak Valley Iron

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 7. Bleak Valley Heroic

Raelyn is truly squeaking by with her 'A's at this point.  You may recall that last time I nearly gave her a 'B', and I was all set to for this map.  Now when I'm recording for this challenge, I do all the Linerean heroes first, then the Dark Army ones, with Raelyn being the first Dark Army hero.  That's why you'll notice a slight change in my build plan with the Dark Army heroes.  Raelyn can do nothing to help with the Corrupted Stalkers of course, and so I was having a lot of trouble with them in wave 6.  It was because of this I was going to give her a 'B', but then I realized that the Stalkers are the only enemy that goes down the left path in wave 6, so I could sell the barracks and replace it with another Archer tower.  This is the optimal strategy for any hero, even if they have a ranged attack that can help with the Stalkers, and it makes things trivial again, so once again I relented and everyone gets 'A's.  As usual I don't have much hope for iron mode providing grades, so we'll see when we get into the next map.

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 7. Bleak Valley Heroic

Legends of Kingdom Rush Hero Challenge - Reg'son, Sorceress, Bombardier

It's been a while since we've had Legends of Kingdom Rush content, but I'm happy to get back to it.  There's a lot going on right now with my Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge, Skyrim, the new Vengeance DLC, and the upcoming Alliance update, but moving Skyrim to Tuesdays / Thursdays has freed up enough margin to get this one rolling again as well.  I'm pretty close to finishing my planned content for it, so I want to do a strong push to get it all done and off my plate.  We have one more party comp after this one, then I want to put out some achievement videos and a no damage playthrough.  After that I think I'll pretty much be done, and I can pour the margin that frees up back into either Skyrim to get it back on a daily schedule or the new Vengeance DLC, I haven't decided which.

When I was putting together my party comps I deliberately saved both the Bombardier and the Zapper for the melee heroes.  I've made my feelings on melee characters clear in previous posts, and while that stance has softened slightly as I've done this challenge, they still just don't compare to ranged characters.  The two artillery characters, though, are S tier material, so I considered it the safe play to pair them with the melee heroes.  I also saved the two low-damage magical characters as well, figuring it would result in a balanced party overall.

We'll see about Bravebark, but for Reg'son I feel like the end result was quite reasonable.  Reg'son is definitely the best of the melee characters (while this is slightly premature in that I haven't done the series for Bravebark yet, I find it highly doubtful he is going to change this opinion).  He has the mobility that other melee characters so sorely need, and he has somewhat of a high risk, high reward playstyle that I like.  His mobility tempts you to send him deep into enemy territory to get those ranged enemies in the back, but will his kill-based health regen be enough to keep him alive back there?  Will Vicious Lunge land you on that one square out of six that would be total disaster?  Will he survive the next round to make that Eldritch Fury gambit pay off?  This is the kind of RNG-based gameplay that is enjoyable, when you have the choice to take a risk or to play it safe, versus just having RNG thrust upon you (*cough*dice encounters*cough*).

As for the Bombardier, she is the absolute queen of AoE damage in the game.  It's imperative to level her up as soon as possible, but once you do her solid damage output coupled with incredible range allow her to rain death all over the battlefield.  It's also a blast (pun intended) to manipulate enemies with her Big Badaboom! ability.  I've been reflecting on this, and while predictable enemy AI is usually a big negative in a game, in this game it works because it becomes part of the strategy.  It's tremendous fun to bait the next enemy in the turn order to come over and whack the bomb so that it damages not only itself but two other adjacent enemies.

As for the Sorceress, she is definitely more of a support character.  Her low damage output really hinders her viability, and her curse ability doesn't really make up for it.  If the curse did +2 damage instead it would probably make her much more valuable.  Her summoned Golem, who itself has a stun, is her best ability by far, but it's really hard justifying getting her to level 3 over Reg'son and the Bombardier on adventures where you can only get a couple of characters that high.

Really the only complaint I have with this party is that it can have a rough start.  I didn't think about it at the time when I was planning the parties, but I included two characters who only do 2 damage at rank 1 (technically the Sorceress does 2-3, but when planning your moves you always have to assume it's only going to be 2 unless you're forced into a situation where you have to gamble).  Once you get your first XP orb you can give it to the Bombardier which gets her up to 4 damage, after which things get a lot smoother, but if you have bad luck pulling some tough encounters early on things can definitely go south quickly.  I had to restart more than one attempt on some of the adventures due to this.  Still, once you get over that rank 1 hurdle this party generally rolls pretty easily afterwards.

Legends of Kingdom Rush Hero Challenge - Reg'son, Sorceress, Bombardier

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 7. Bleak Valley Campaign

Act 2 starts out on a bit of a mixed note.  I almost gave out the first grade here.  This map isn't particularly hard, as evidenced that it can be dealt with just by spamming archers everywhere - and let me just say that I really dislike maps where the solution is archer spam.  The only real challenge is through the beginning of wave 4.  Your hero and reinforcements need to contribute enough to keep things under control until your towers get sufficiently upgraded, after which the map largely becomes self working.  The hardest part is when the Corrupted Stalkers from wave 4 start appearing from the left right behind a large stream of Acolytes.  Once you get through this it's largely gravy, although you may have to do a bit of work towards the end with the Twisted Sisters and the Nightmares they spawn.

Raelyn is a good hero, but this one tricky part at the beginning of wave 4 really hits her in her weak spot.  She literally has nothing she can contribute against the Stalkers, and she struggles to take down the Acolytes quickly enough so that the archers can focus on them.  I ended up having to alter my build plan a little, focusing on upgrading the towers along the path the Stalkers take first in order to have the firepower to deal with them.  For this reason I contemplated giving her a 'B', but I relented, as it's a minor build adjustment and things go back to being pretty easy once you make it.  Still, it raises my hopes that we're not far from real grades now.  We'll see what heroic mode can cook up.

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 7. Bleak Valley Campaign

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 6. The Wildebeast Den Iron

We have another trivial iron mode, sadly, and this one straddles the line between still being fun versus just being tedious.  In all honesty the best build is probably just going all in with Royal Archers and ignoring Demon Pits, but if I had done that there's no question this one would have slipped into tedious territory.  Demon Pits are at least a fun tower to use - the animations are brilliant and it's fun watching demons blow up and stun enemies.  I'm surprised we haven't seen any premium towers in iron challenges yet, but we'll see what act 2 brings.

Speaking of acts, we've now obviously completed act 1, and I must say I'm feeling somewhat disappointed.  In my review I put that my initial impression of the game was that they had addressed some of the difficulty and pacing issues of Vengeance based on my experience doing my Veteran walkthrough, which of course was starting with level 1 heroes and no upgrades.  While I do feel the pacing of this game is better (although some of these heroic and iron modes do overstay their welcome in terms of length), as of now in this challenge I'm not feeling like they really have upped the difficulty now that I'm on Impossible with level 10 heroes.  I'm still reserving final judgment, as we do have two more acts to get through, and I desperately hope I'm wrong.

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 6. The Wildebeast Den Iron

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 6. The Wildebeast Den Heroic

Unfortunately I simply didn't enjoy this one as much as campaign mode.  As was the case in Vengeance and has been so far in Alliance, heroic mode just felt like a step backward from campaign mode.  While both were trivial, campaign was at least engaging.  Part of that was the pacing - campaign mode moved along at a fairly brisk pace, averaging less than a minute between waves.  Here heroic mode stretches six waves over 9 minutes.  I won't say it quite gets into tedious territory like Ravaged Outskirts iron did, but it certainly got incredibly boring long before I was finished recording all the heroes.  But we keep hope alive that things will pick up in act 2.

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 6. The Wildebeast Den Heroic

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 6. The Wildebeast Den Campaign

Sadly there are no grades to be had here like I had been hoping, and of course I'm not holding out hope we'll find them in heroic or iron mode either.  Still, this level is an exercise in contrast.  Whereas I ranted about the previous iron mode being boring and tedious to play, I really enjoyed this level, even though it's similarly easy.  Why the difference?  I'm not sure I can explain completely, but part of it is just player choice.  In the iron mode we spammed Arcane Wizards because that was literally the only thing we could do.  Here there is a little bit of thought required to put together a build plan of diverse towers that can handle the different kinds of enemies - hordes of small mobs, flying mobs, and of course the big boy mobs.  Levels like this feel like putting together a well-designed machine.  Playing the level then feels like watching it run, and there's something immensely satisfying about that.  As Hannibal would say, "I love it when a plan comes together."

We'll keep going in the hope of finding grades in act 2.  In the meantime here's the playlist:

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 6. The Wildebeast Den Campaign

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 5. Ravaged Outskirts Iron

It's one thing for an iron mode to be trivial.  It's another for it to have the ill grace to be boring as well.  That's the sin unfortunately committed by this level.  We get two towers - Paladins and Arcane Wizards.  What else is there to possibly do except put a couple of Paladins at each exit, then spam Arcane Wizards as much as possible?  Well, actually there is something they could have done.  They could have arranged the mobs so that you needed to rely on the Wizards' Disintegrate ability - probably on the Rhinos - in some way.  That would at least have given us a map requiring a little bit of thought.  Instead, we get a thoroughly trivial map that takes a tooth-grindingly tedious 9 minutes to get through.

Don't get me wrong, I still love this game and the Kingdom Rush franchise.  But as I said in my post on Legends of Kingdom Rush, I'm hardest on the games I love because I so desperately want them to be better.  Anyway, here's hoping we encounter something interesting in the first boss level.

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 5. Ravaged Outskirts Iron

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 5. Ravaged Outskirts Heroic

The string of disappointing heroic modes continues, unfortunately.  This one is fairly comparable to campaign mode in terms of difficulty, but that's the problem.  Heroic modes should always be a test that truly stretches you, but so far that has not remotely happened.  At least the build plan gets altered a bit for this one.  A single Tricannon is sufficient for the bottom exit, and a few Rocket Gunners around the left exit takes care of all the flying enemies coming that way.  But what really gets my goat is that the level has the audacity to be 9 minutes long - and that's insta-calling every wave.  If you're going to stretch 6 waves out over 9 minutes they at least need to be interesting.  Oh well, we press on.

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 5. Ravaged Outskirts Heroic

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 5. Ravaged Outskirts Campaign

Another campaign mode down, and while there are no grades for it again, like Emerald Treetops I at least feel like the map made me work for it.  You hero does need to lane dance between exits to support both choke points for most of the map, and you'll need to intelligently place reinforcements depending on how much heat is coming in to each one.  It's not hard by any means, but at least there is a little bit of thought and effort required.

We bust out the Rocket Gunners and Eldritch Channeler to take care of this one.  The Gunners are going to become my go-to physical damage tower for these challenges.  I've been working on my spreadsheet for the game, and while technically the Ballista Outpost has slightly better gold efficiency, its special abilities are largely stinkers compared to the awesome special abilities of the Gunners - one of which is a very useful AoE.  And while I haven't finished all the magic towers just yet, the Channelers' awesomeness is patently obvious once you've used them a bit, so we throw them in to deal with the high armor enemies.

I don't have much hope for heroic or iron mode after what I've seen so far, so I'm placing my hopes that the boss level will provide us some grade-worthy challenge.

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 5. Ravaged Outskirts Campaign

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 4. Emerald Treetops Iron

We continue inching closer to grades with this iron mode.  There's certainly nothing hard about it - the Tricannon is ideal for a level like this, and the Ballista Outpost is completely superfluous with its inclusion.  The only semi-challenge is not having a melee tower for blocking.  Of course we could use the Arborean towers unique to the map, but that would make things ultra-trivial, so we do everything without them to make things at least a tiny bit interesting.  In doing so we see a few heroes like Torres have a moment or two of weakness.  I'm really hoping we'll see grades by the boss level like I said a few posts ago, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 4. Emerald Treetops Iron

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 4. Emerald Treetops Heroic

Once more we have a heroic mode that is certainly not any more difficult than campaign mode, and possibly even a little easier, which continues to confirm my fears that Ironhide has unfortunately not done anything to address the issues with heroic and iron mode from Vengeance.  I hope I'll be proven wrong as we get to harder levels, but for now it's once again all 'A's for all the heroes.

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 4. Emerald Treetops Heroic

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 4. Emerald Treetops Campaign

We're finally starting to make some progress with this map.  No, there are no grades for this one, but it's the first time I at least felt like I actually had to work slightly, as opposed to just throwing any old towers out there and they work as they do on the first three maps.  Your choke point composition on this one does need a bit of thought, otherwise you can get overrun by the enemies in the final waves, but it's nothing that the application of a little AoE can't handle.

Also, as I said all the heroes earn 'A's here, but at the same time this was the first map where I felt like I could really start to feel the difference in power levels between the heroes.  Sure, Torres can take care of the level no problem, but Kosmyr didn't even let any enemies get to the choke point until wave 7.  Now I didn't have to be so aggressive with the heroes to win - I could have let all of them hang back at the choke point - but it felt good to exercise them and see what they could really do.  I'm also appreciating the fact that almost every hero feels fun to use.  At the very least none of them feel like a chore to get through like some of the heroes in Vengeance did.

So my hopes are high that we're not far away from grades at this point.  Certainly I expect to have them by the first boss level, but we'll see.

Kingdom Rush Alliance Impossible Hero Challenge - 4. Emerald Treetops Campaign