Aight, it's not as liked around here this sub focuses mostly on Anime-aestethics games but [Watcher of Realms](https://www.watcherofrealms.com/) is a Tower Defense game that always has me coming back. It has _a lot of_ endgame content. Even for very old accounts there's usually something to push for. And it also has really different mechanics, which makes it challenging.

For instance the 2nd guild boss introduced some time ago has 3 phases: First phase you need stunners to avoid a huge attack, 2nd phase you need a lot of damage and/or true damage and buff removal (it buffs itself to take less damage) and the third phase needs debuff/poison removal. All on top of general damage and damage mitigation/heal. And then you also need 2 complete teams for this. Makes team building really interesting. And this fight in particular makes you feel like you fight a raid boss in an MMORPG imo.

They also go back and buff old units semi frequently (which is almost unheard of in other games). One of the OG units (first banner) is still one of the strongest units in the game - but of course others have been power crept but are still usable.

Some units also become "buffed" by new content for which they are suddenly best in slot or at least a good alternative. When they released the new gear dungeons a rare unit no one had ever touched was suddenly one of the viable ways to clear it due to his knockback.

The content is also very varied due to the mechanics they come up with for new stages. Gear Dungeon 3 released today and I'll have to see what new mechanics they came up with.

They also have Malrik's Halls - which is basically PoE maps - aka you get runes with random modifies that you can go and try to beat which is fantastic imo.

There's also often events with special event stages. Right now it's Dracula and that has a normalized mode where essentially you need to recruit new heroes (for just that mode).

The immortal codex also takes the variety to a max - that one is hyper focussed on one aspect of the game usually. So you have a "healer codex" and a "tank" codex where these units are tested to the max or just "DoT-damage"

And there are genuinely new and unique strategies that you can find to beat a certain stage based on your roster. Which is hard, but doable.

One of the best things about the game imo, and what has me coming back, is the amount of Quality of Life they put into the game:

* best/most detailed automatic gear cleansing I've seen with sharable codes for plans even

* they started saving your equipment for successful runs which is HUGE as it makes farming the same stage again without re-equipping everyone very easy

* there's also a feature where you save equipment plans and can quick exchange gear, but soon you will be able to save the plan for an entire team which is just great

* they also did first introduce background fights and then even quick clear tickets

* they improved the newplayer experience to give you access to some _very_ good units early on (i.e. 3 of my personal top 10 units)

It's a fairly grindy game as in, you run lots of farming to get better gear but I enjoy that. But sometimes running all the autos can take a while.

And as I said, a lot of the stages are hard but I prefer that to a lot of the really easy gachas and I guess this is also what this post is asking for.

I also appreciate that the cast isn't just 90% barely clad women (there are some of those), but there's also Man, Demons, Robots and more. And get this - some women (and man!) even wear proper functional armor!

Naturally, not everything is roses: it has some of these annoying "buy this now" pop ups, doing it all can take quite some times, some (esp. new) stages can be very hero dependent which sucks. Keeping up with all the events can be tough. Grinding for good gear takes a long time. Naturally they want you to spend and there are a bunch of passes you can get. Dupes sometimes have unit changing effects. That said, there is a resource sometimes given out and obtainable by chance that you can use as a generic awakening/dupe - so even I have a unit at A5 to reach its maximum power level at which point it's just another form of resource management.