I have a question: The "secret secret" on Chapter 7 (Good) doesn't work?
Whenever i go back beyond aspects channeling the thing, and try to enter the cave with runes, the runes just vanish, and nothing happenes; I've thought okay, maybe that's something that opens later in the mission, but no - currently nuked the light blue naga camp and just staring at closed doors.
Am i missing something?...
UPDT: Nevermind, the gate becomes attack-able after you defeat both naga bases. That was a nice hour spent of trying to figure out non-existing puzzle
UPDT 2: Well, that was an ending and a half.
Overall the storyline seems to be few grades above what it was before - at least for "good path". Wonderful.
On the gameplay side, all boss encounters were better than before; Base building missions - at least on Hard - range between "enraging" and "that was great".
Should go more on the details about that last part.
Chapter 3. I think it is the worst base-building mission in the campaign.
You are facing full-fledged Highborne faction (with only air unit being inaccessible), and two very powerful heroes on top of that.
While you can rely only for Archers and melee Sentinel units. Forgor the name. Thing is, both of these two units are... squishy. Archers especially (which later is mitigated by superb Lunar Archer upgrade, very good). And neither of your two heroes at that point can't hold a candle to Karthranis and Illidan.
What's maddening is that you have the solution - you start with a singular, fully upgraded Druid of Claw... which you can't build.
But hey, you can do the side-quest and get absolutely useless Furbolgs. I'm not sure what place in proverbial rock-paper-scissors they supposed to take. It just the unit that doesn't need to exist and feels tacked on. Unlike almost everything that was done to basic units - strictly upsides.
Don't know what to say. That sucked. That is the only mission i'm as of yet unable to do without loosing an actual unit (or ancient) on Hard.
Chapter 4. It had this "barely holding together" feeling to it with all these bugs - but i really, really liked the mission on it's own design.
Had to utilize "invisible elf force field" cheese at the "channel the thing to stop corrupted wildlife" part of the mission. That was neat.
You finally have access to Big Bad Bears. Even so, the Satyr faction has absolutely no chill - giving a frontline unit both manaburn AND fireball was a mistake. Utilizing AoE silence is a must, as well as some pull tricks, because every base just sits on 100 supply of "hello there" which beelines towards you the moment you hurt any of it's units. Even so, painful but mostly due to bugs. Had to half-restart mission, but made it out deathless.
Also also, very like Tyrande's toolset in this campaign. Always hated that vanilla Tyrande has no actual abilities. Glad to see ALL of her abilities being fun. Owls were unexpected MVPs of this run.
Chapter 5. First "micro-dungeon" with neat legendary hidden behind stealth detection. It somewhat made me paranoid and i've continued to use the gem of true seeing until the rest of campaign, but that's just me-issue.
Exploration part was great, as well as all the little things around it.
Base-building segment was... uncertain. Deathless ruleset kinda ruins the premise of the mission - you don't have to constantly switch your base placement, if you can't loose any unit you've built. But once again, me-problem.
Green's camp was a menace tho. Can't really go there because barrage of not-gargoyles will chew through you in an instant. As was mentioned above, had to resort to two drops - Tyrande+Furion in one, both use their ulti; 4 ballistae from the other side, nuking production (which thankfully Satyr faction can't rebuild).
Chapter 6. Wonderful dungeon-crawl. Felt sad for poor Warden. I adore this type of hero, and seeing her having critical strike as an additional skill reminded me of ye old days. It is also the first chapter where we can truly see the Exile in it's full glory. Scary, scary demonic thing.
Chapter 7. Aside from me being stupid with (see above), it was wonderful. A little dungeon, dreaded escort quest done right, interesting side-quest with unexpected result (firstly, i thought that those 3 tokens will be combined into something, but nope, just used as keys; secondly, how that quest ends). Unexpected, yet compelling.
Base building segment is one of the best. Naga is always a fun opponent - and you made it better. At the same time, with generously given access to both Chimerae and Mountain Giants, as well as three stacked heroes, it was just pure joy. Not too easy, not too difficult. Sweet spot.
Kinda felt sad that even in this campaign Hippogryph Riders have no place to exist, being extremely outclassed by Chimerae the moment they are introduced. I wonder if there's a way to preserve Hippogryph's anti-air attack while retaining Archer's attack as either anti-ground or some kind of "shoot while moving" type of deal. I'm rambling, let's move on.
Chapter 8. Surprisingly hard and tight in terms of timing solo-mission. Without saying much, it was spectacular. Especially with how Nozdormu reacts to being corrupted. Stellar stuff.
Chapter 9. The final (so far), base-building mission with, again, very tight boss fight in the end.
Aside from me absolutely hating your guts for giving one of enemy heroes apparently endless Doom ultimate, and the other - Charm that affects Dryads for some reason (but doesn't effects Mountain Giants? Weeeeird)...
It was great three-fold mission. Protect very meek Highborne (who get 1 gold per tick, i would too be meek at 10% income, jesus), protect YOURSELF, and attack either Satyr camps or launch an attack on 1/3 Demon Camp. Unlike Satyr faction, Demons were pretty much ideal in terms of their toolset. Hard defensive structures, good units, great casters, and supported by powerful 15lvl hero each. I think green (Jaraxxus' forces) was the most powerful.
Illidan's forces do nothing in this mission, at least on hard. Wet noodles. But that is fine, because i've got the power of Giants and Weird-Two-Headed-Dragons on my side. Ironically, Satyrs, despite not being "proper bases", still were more hard to deal with in deathless ruleset. Those shrines are really goddamn powerful.
Very much enjoyed little interaction when i've moved Furion too close to the fountain. Got a chuckle out of me.
In the end, i have only one question - does Evil Path has any differences from 1.4?
I mean, the story changed significantly. The inclusion of Exiled One raises some questions for that path, as interludes are common between evil and good paths.
IIRC, in 1.4 all dreadlords die during the "portal goes boom" incident, but i'm not sure that would happen' now.