You can tell Flower Fairy improved her balancing and editing skills this time because this campaign is fairer and easier than the previous two whilst still being challenging. I didn't even get the combined items and it was still rather easy.
I played on Normal difficulty, and Kel'Thuzad ended up being my strongest hero.
I noticed that trees take longer to fall which makes harvesting lumber on the long missions less of a nuisance later on. Also, your starting gold mines have got more gold. These were issues in the first two instalments and they got fixed here.
You can still get kind of overwhelmed on the RTS missions, but the AI waves are a bit more balanced and spread out in their timings which gives you time to breathe and prepare. Your heroes are OP and can hold their own much better than the previous campaigns' characters.
Kel'Thuzad ends up being the most powerful guy if you give him damage items and an orb of corruption. You can easily take out the town hall in enemy bases along with the workers with his Death & Decay ultimate.
As always, take the time to explore the maps for creep camps. They contain really valuable loot.
Chapter 1:
Easy. Prioritise the Shade to explore ahead and everything should go smooth. Good idea to make Frostmourne an item Arthas carries.
Chapter 2:
Something I noticed throughout the campaign is that, on RTS missions, the attack waves seem to target Arthas rather than your base, so if you happen to be attacking a base with Arthas, it is likely that another enemy wave will attack your army from behind and forgo your base.
I attacked the red base to the north as soon as I got a good amount of fiends. Mass fiends are tanky enough if you burrow them when hurt. The Lich deals the most damage overall.
Chapter 3:
That Dark Blue Ring on the north-eastern side of the map before you enter the ruins makes your hero really tanky. Go get it.
Overall easy bossfight, got it on the first try.
Chapter 4:
For this mission, I used Mass Fiends, some Banshees and Obsidian Statues for healing. Kel'Thuzad is OP in this campaign so he can dish out a lot of damage. Had to wing it a bit when attacking the enemy because the other waves would cross paths with me. Lots of micro. The final boss took me two armies to kill. This mission was 1 hr and 15 minutes long.
Also, that troll hero was worshipping the animal god, but suddenly decides to kill it and take its power? Why couldn't he do it earlier like you were always more powerful than it

?
Chapter 5:
For this one, I made one huge army then assaulted the base just south of the humans to the north, like the second to last one up there. It was micro intensive but you can take out all the enemy waves that attack you once you disembark. Anub'arak's ultimate is key here. Then I kind of just powered through it and set up an expo at that base's gold mine.
Interlude and Chapter 6:
I just remembered that Malfurion was always late to class and that's why he joined Maiev on the first campaign? Cuz he was a bad student too?
I lost on my first run, so I did the optional quest ASAP to get those skeletons. Gathered some units whilst at it and attacked Sylvanas' base to the north first before the Humans and Night Elves came. You get a good amount of time before they start attacking so you can take out Sylvanas first. I used the Lich's ultimate to destroy town halls quickly.
There's some good loot worth checking around the map.
Chapter 7:
Interesting to have an RPG mission where you are attacked by waves like in RTS. You can take out the waves of night elves with just your heroes though.
I died to Furion once and when I tried to reload the save, it wouldn't load. So it's best to keep some saves before you destroy the brown base at least. Also, that's for being late to class, Furion.
Chapter 8:
I guess I did this one the hard way, but it was doable. Later, I saw someone on YouTube do a playthrough of it and they attacked the workers and guards at their bases first before the timer ran out. Again, Lich's ultimate to take out town halls.
Chapter 9:
Boy, this was a long one. Lich is perfect for taking down the town halls and deals a lot of damage. Abominations with the biological evolution upgrade are really good. Also, had to surround Varian at the end so he couldn't keep advancing, and actually killed most of the waves at that chokepoint where the entrance to Northshire is closest to your base. They were all stuck there.
You don't have to take out all those towers guarding the entrances to finish the quest, only the bases.
You can get a granite golem north of the optional quest treasure camp.
Only Varian managed to get close to the Lich on my run, I don't know where the other heroes went.
Chapter 10:
Tough mission but doable. Compared to the other campaigns, the timing on the waves in this one seemed fairer. I took out the bases to the south first. There is a camp of Magnataurs on the southeast side of the map with a very good item. I used upgraded Abominations again because of their fortified armour, and Fiends and Statues. Lich's ultimate for the town halls.
Benedictus is so strong.
Chapter 11:
Obelisks and TFT finale vibes.
I built a Ziggurat just outside my base down the ramp, and the huge enemy wave that was coming retreated after destroying it, so there's that.
The waves seem to target wherever Arthas is because my base was never directly attacked by any of them.
I used biological evolution abominations, Mass Fiends and Statues.
The optional quests are worth it: a magic immunity item with stats, damage and brilliance aura, and the fountain which gives your allies plus 50% hp.
The obelisks' teleport ability is very useful. You can attack a base, and if you get overwhelmed by another wave, you can just teleport your army away on the spot.
Epilogue:
So Arthas doesn't fuse with the Lich King, but takes its power for himself and still becomes the Lich King. S.S.D.D.
Aftermath:
Would you believe it? It's more drama.
It seems like the aftermath explains why Summer Flower stopped going by that nickname. And the troll netizen gets brought up again.
Honestly, I know these aftermaths are all way too off-topic and non-game related... but I'm all for it, dawg.
Anyway, this was another great campaign by Flower Fairy. You can tell she learnt from many balance and design mistakes in the previous campaigns and applied the fixes to this one. Kudos to Tulee for the translation.
Rating 5/5
Played on patch 1.26 with no issues aside from the Malfurion save one.
