As I mentioned in my update post a while back, I really should have done a report card after completing the main campaign. My S.O.P. for these challenges has generally been to do a report card at that point, and then again after each bonus campaign. And while I have the data to go back and present the grades as they were at the end of the campaign, at this point I think it's just better to give all the grades through the end of the first bonus campaign, Undying Fury. A single three-map campaign generally doesn't shake things up too much anyway.
As a reminder, we use a scale of 'A' = 4, 'B' = 3, etc. Of course new to this challenge is that I started adding pluses and minuses to the grades. I decided that pluses and minuses would be worth 0.25 in terms of adjusting the base grade. This allows them to have a measurable impact on the grade, while still maintaining a solid separation between the grade tiers (e.g., there's still a difference of 0.5 between an 'A-' at 3.75 and a 'B+' at 3.25).
Without further ado then, here are the GPAs in descending order:
- Bonehart - 4.21
- Broden - 4.20
- Kosmyr - 4.04
- Lumenir - 3.85
- Therien - 3.44
- Warhead - 3.41
- Anya - 3.23
- Nyru - 3.21
- Onagro - 3.21
- Stregi - 3.20
- Vesper - 3.02
- Torres - 2.88
- Grimson - 2.88
- Raelyn - 2.42
Surprising no one, Bonehart and Broden stand head and shoulders above the competition, with Bonehart edging Broden out by a mere 0.01 and Kosmyr as the only other hero to finish in 'A' territory. I like how these grades delineate the heroes into three distinct tiers. You have the top performers in Bonehart through Lumenir, then a distinct drop before getting to a well-defined middle tier in Therien through Stregi, and finally a bottom tier from Vesper on down.
It also shouldn't be a surprise that Raelyn takes the bottom spot by a wide margin. She is the epitome of a one-trick pony, and as the trick is just tanking, it's not a very good trick. There's just not a lot you can do with a hero with horrible DPS and no other tools.
Originally when I started this series I though that Torres would be the bottom hero - or at least compete with Raelyn for that dubious distinction. However, he got a pretty decent buff in an update fairly early in the series. While his grades in videos prior to the buff technically could have been a little higher with his improved kit, I lack the motivation to go back and do them over again. After all, it only affected maps in the first half of the series which are pretty easy to begin with. He might tack on a few hundredths of a point to his GPA, but I highly doubt it would be anywhere near enough to leapfrog Vesper above him.
As for our new heroes, they ended up pretty much where I though they would when I started using them. Bonehart rocketed to the top with his insane AoE DPS, and Stregi is clinging to the bottom of the mid tier.
Now that we're into the bonus campaigns and the difficulty has gone up, GPAs really have nowhere to go but down. The story will be all about who runs into a rough patch and plummets faster than everyone else. If I had to make a guess as to the hero most likely to do so, my money would be on Warhead. I can just see him really struggling more as the difficulty ratchets up, and while he has a decent lead on Anya at the moment, it's not out of the question that he could drop below her if he starts racking up 'C's with regularity. But that's why we do these challenges, so I hope you'll stay with me for the rest of Alliance.
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