Well, that was...a lot, in more than one sense of the word. First of all I'm referring to the length of the level, because holy cow. Most of my videos were pushing if not exceeding the 30 minute mark, which I think is a new record for Kingdom Rush (I'd check for sure, but YouTube does not allow you to sort videos by length for some strange reason). Second I'm referring to the difficulty of the level itself, as they definitely bring the heat on this one. And though I'm utterly exhausted at the end of it all, it was exhausting in a good way.
Despite not being terribly impressed with the rest of the campaign, it at least finishes strong on this boss level. I'll even go so far as to say that this is the first map in Alliance that's given me vibes similar to the Pirate Kings DLC for Vengeance. That DLC is fantastic, and this is the closest they've come so far to recapturing the feel of it. We'll see if they can maintain that through the next two paid DLCs and the other free elite campaign.
As always, the Winged Croks are the biggest threat here, although here at least I felt the challenge was reasonable instead of just frustrating. The waves coming from the top left are the most difficult, as there are really only two good build points that can solidly DPS them before they get to the exit, with a couple of other build points that can briefly hit them as they pass by. One of them is the bonus tower in the top left. You'll notice that I don't really control for RNG on which tower I got, with one exception. The only tower you can't get is the Tricannon. This is one of the two build points that can really DPS the Winged Croks, so you have to have a tower that can target flyers. The best option is honestly Royal Archers, with Arcane Wizards close behind. Eldritch Channelers are acceptable if one or both of your heroes has a ranged attack that can help bring the Winged Croks down.
You'll notice also that I don't really try to control for RNG on the boss's tower disabling ability. Throughout most of the heroes I just accepted that I was going to have to pay to free the tower most every time he used his ability. It wasn't until I got to the last two heroes (Raelyn and Torres, the two hardest to complete the map with) that I switched the build plan to building out level 1 of every planned tower at the beginning to try to bait the boss into targeting an unimportant tower.
I like the Abominor fight itself, even if he is pretty easy. It's just too easy to stall him almost indefinitely throughout his first three phases and let your towers whack on him. They should have reduced the time on the animation where he eats a blocker so that he could make more consistent progress. Even once he gets to his fourth and final phase where he can't be blocked he still moves so very slowly that it's just not a problem to DPS him down, even if there are other distracting mobs on the field. Still, he has terrific animations and is a lot more fun to fight than Navira.
Impressions
There are certain maps which just especially highlight heroes whose DPS is lacking and this map definitely did it for both Stregi and Warhead. While they didn't have the worst grade (Torres takes that honor with a 'C-'), man do you feel the struggle while playing with them. This is one of those maps where your heroes are constantly needed to hurry up and finish what they're currently working on in order to get to the next hotspot before it spirals out of control, and it was definitely difficult to do that here with them.
I think this map also highlights the duality of Stregi's hero spell. On the one hand it was clutch in situations where a Hyrda or Tankzard was getting too close to the exit (which happened a lot because her DPS sucks), but on the other there are a lot of situations where it just doesn't really do anything for you. This is especially true in the early game where I was trying to keep waves confined to the top half of the map. Using it there just sends mobs back to the entrance where towers can't hit them, which is almost counterproductive. Yes it buys you time, but it's time you can't really afford, as like I mentioned this is a very time sensitive map where you need to quickly burn down the current mobs so you can prep for the next group.
On the flip side, Onagro impressed yet again this map. Like in the previous map, I was worried his lack of mobility and blocking would be a severe hindrance, but he honestly kind of tore it up. This is definitely a map that rewards heroes with AoE hero spells though, so he obviously benefitted greatly from that.
Finally, you'll notice in Torres' video that I got the speed glitch on him fairly early on. This was completely accidental, but while it is a glitch, I had no desire to start over. This map is already so long and it's hard enough to do with Torres (since neither he nor either of the free Dark Army heroes have a ranged attack) that I just rolled with it. I definitely think it is doable with him without the speed glitch, but I also doubt that it would drop him down to a 'D'.
Final Grades
- Vesper - B
- Raelyn - C
- Nyru - B
- Torres - C-
- Anya - C+
- Grimson - B
- Broden - A+
- Therien - B+
- Onagro - A-
- Warhead - C+
- Lumenir - A
- Kosmyr - A+
- Stregi - C
- Bonehart - A+
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