So I had heard about this level's reputation from the Kingdom Rush Reddit for some time, so I came in prepared for quite the challenge, and I was not disappointed. Not only do we have to go with two heroes again, but now we have to get the second hero's hero spell involved as well.
Once again the real game is keeping the Glarelings from spawning Flesh Behemoths. The barracks strategy we used last time doesn't quite cut it here - we need firepower that can attack mobs heading down the left and right lanes as well. On the left side there are Void Blinkers that need dealt with, and on the right we need to deal with the constantly spawned Glarelings from the Mindless Husks, lest they distract our Eldritch Channeler at the bottom from the threats coming from the left.
The solution I found is two Royal Archers on either side, but here's where it gets tricky. When the Glarelings start heading for the crater, the Archers usually can kill them all before they get there, but it's a close thing. With some bad RNG on damage rolls one or two might slip through, and over the course of the map that can add up to spawning a Behemoth. It's not the end of the world if it happens, and in a few videos you can see one spawns at the end and I manage to deal with it, but it drastically lowers the chances of success.
That's where the hero spells come in. You'll notice a pattern in most of the videos that I reserve them almost exclusively for the Glarelings. They usually come in two back-to-back waves. I like to use the Linerean hero spell on the first wave - when doing Dark Army heroes I had Vesper's Arrow Storm always at hand to completely wipe them out. Then on the second wave I use the Dark Army hero spell on the right hand side, because usually along with the Glarelings there are some other tough customers like Noxious Spitters at the same time. The Ominous Curse effect from the hero spell then slows the Glarelings, giving the Archers more time to ensure they all die.
There's a lot of other micro that goes into this map as well. For example, heroes without a ranged attack need to head to left side about a third of the way through the map so that they can stall the Void Blinkers while the Archers DPS them down. You'll also notice that this is a rare map where I use the Linerean reinforcements instead of the Dark Archers. Here the stalling power of the Linereans is far more what's needed than a ranged attack for once.
All in all this was indeed a challenging map that really stretched me, but at the same time I'm glad to be past it.
Impressions
The difficulty is certainly reflected in the grades here, as we have four heroes in the 'C' tier, and a lot of 'B-'s that were close as well. The big thing to note here is that non-blocking heroes (flying heroes plus Onagro) really take a hit. Some blocking at the lower exit is really required of all heroes, as the Eldritch Channelers are doing all the work here. Often it's stalling the Bladeclaw Horrors long enough until Mutation Hex comes off cooldown. For non-blockers, I usually had to use reinforcments to get the job done, as the Wraiths aren't good blockers to begin with and there's just no gold to invest in upgrading them. However, using reinforcements here instead of where they're normally need in the upper right throws things off there, sometimes causing the situation to get out of hand for a little bit. In particular, Kosmyr only earns an 'A-', and Lumenir earns a very uncharacteristic 'B'. Broden still earns an 'A', but that's because he's Broden.
The final item of note is that I ended up using Vesper with the Dark Army heroes instead of Nyru like I did in heroic mode. For whatever reason the roles reversed here, and while Vesper just wasn't working in heroic, Nyru just wasn't working here.
Final Grades
- Vesper - C-
- Raelyn - C-
- Nyru - C
- Torres - C
- Anya - B-
- Grimson - B-
- Broden - A
- Therien - A-
- Onagro - B-
- Warhead - B
- Lumenir - B
- Kosmyr - A-
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