If you've ever followed my Impossible Hero Challenges at all, you know how the system works - we give heroes grades of A-F based on their performance on a map, with 'A' meaning their an ideal hero to take on the level with, 'F' meaning I wasn't able to complete the map with them, and the other grades representing shades of performance in between.
If you've really followed these series, then you also know that I've resisted the urge ever since my original Origins series to add plusses and minuses to the grades. In general it's already hard enough to try to assign grades on a five point scale (four really, since 'F' represents an objective measurement) in a consistent manner that seeks to be as objective as possible.
Well, this entry makes history, because at long last I'm breaking down and doing it. There are a couple of reasons. First, this map in particular is one of those were I feel there really are distinguishable degrees of difference in performance between heroes in the same letter tier. Nowhere is that more apparent than the 'A' tier. Therien and Kosmyr may both earn 'A's, but they are not the same thing.
The second reason has to do with what I know is eventually coming. Eventually I'm going to get to maps that I simply can't complete with a hero solo. Now as I said at the beginning of this challenge, I'm not simply going to hand out 'F's for that, since the game is not designed around using a single hero to begin with. So in some cases I'm going to have to bring in the other hero and/or their hero spell to some degree. Obviously I'm going to have to deduct from a hero's grade if that happens, but it's in this case that the four point scale just isn't granular enough. On one hero I might need to use the second hero spell a single time, while with another I might have to do it multiple times, or even bring the second hero into the fight for a bit. Just docking a full letter grade for each of these situations wouldn't be appropriate, so I'm bringing in the plusses and minuses in anticipation of needing this level of detail in assigning grades.
That said, onto this map. Yet again we have a pretty challenging affair, but we get through it with a very similar strategy to campaign mode. However, if memory serves me right, this is the first time on a map where we haven't insta-called every wave - at least on most of the heroes, so thankfully we can say they actually increased the difficulty on this one compared to campaign mode.
Impressions
Grades here improve somewhat over campaign mode. Raelyn is the lone 'C', and honestly her performance isn't that much worse than the 'B'-tier heroes, so I gave her a 'C+' to reflect that.
Vesper, Torres, and Nyru repeat their 'B's from campaign mode, which shouldn't be surprising. Joining them on the cusp are Anya and Grimson. Grimson had a very uneven performance. Early on he was tearing it up surprisingly well, and I thought he was on track for an 'A', but then at certain points in the playthrough he really struggled, so overall his performance rounds out at a 'B+'. Anya's performance was more consistent than Grimson's, but ultimately I couldn't justify giving her an 'A'. She gets a 'B+' as well as I feel she does stand above the rest of the 'B' crew.
With the 'B' and 'C' heroes I could not consistently insta-call next waves. However, with the 'A-' heroes I mostly could, except possibly on the first couple of waves. The minus is there to distinguish them for this though.
Warhead earns an unadorned 'A', and honestly it's a reflection of his hero spell as much as anything else. His hero spell is amazing on maps like this were you have long lines of enemies like Acolytes appearing in waves. It completely one-shots them, which frees up pressure on your choke point so much that it almost doesn't even matter that Warhead's personal DPS is lackluster.
And of course finally we have Broden and Kosmyr, who absolutely tore it up. As with Vengeance I feel like I'm not going to do a Best Choice award for this series, as in almost every case I feel it's going to come down to these two, and even then it will probably be a toss up. I reserve the right to change my mind down the road, but I would honestly be surprised if I did.
Final Grades
- Vesper - B
- Raelyn - C+
- Nyru - B
- Torres - B
- Anya - B+
- Grimson - B+
- Broden - A+
- Therien - A-
- Onagro - A-
- Warhead - A
- Lumenir - A-
- Kosmyr - A+
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