Kutsao

“

Shapeless like water.

”

Kutsao the Monk is a hero in Kingdom Rush: Frontiers, unlocked by paying $2.99 as an in-app purchase. He is unlocked at Emberspike Depths on the Steam version. He is a fast attacker.

Skills

SNAKE STYLE (active) (cooldown: 15 seconds) (2/2/2 hero points):

Attack that causes crippling pain, dealing 40/60/80 physical damage and causing its victim to deal 20% / 40% / 60% less damage on every attack, except instant kill attacks.

DRAGON STYLE (active) (cooldown: 18 seconds) (3/3/3 hero points):

Kutsao transforms his Chi into a flaming dragon, dealing 25-75 / 40-120 / 80-160 True Damage to enemies around him.

TIGER STYLE (active) (cooldown: 10 seconds) (1/1/1 hero point):

Focusing his Chi, Kutsao performs an armor-piercing attack, dealing 30/50/70 True Damage to one enemy.

LEOPARD STYLE (active) (cooldown: 12 seconds) (2/2/2 hero points):

Unleashes 3/5/7 lightning fast attacks on multiple targets, dealing 10/12/14 to 30/36/42 True Damage to each.

CRANE STYLE (passive) (2/2/2 hero points):

Gives Kutsao a 20%/40%/60% dodge chance and the ability to counterattack for 20/40/60 damage.

Stats

Level	HP	Melee Damage	Armor	Respawn
5	300	16-24	none	18s
6	320	18-26	none	18s
7	340	19-29	none	18s
8	360	21-31	none	18s
9	380	22-34	none	18s
10	400	24-36	none	18s

Tips and Tricks

Kutsao is an unarmored but fast melee hero adept at hurting a limited number of enemies. He can hold his own against most enemies while dealing good damage over a short period of time; however Kutsao loses much effectiveness when overran with strong, armored enemies, or targeted by ranged foes.

• Snake Style is Kutsao's signature attack, having the unique effect of lowering the attack damage of the victim. This skill is perfect to counter giants, such as Saurian Brutes, Abominations, Bloodshells and Bluegales, taking away one of their major strengths and allowing soldiers to hold them off longer.
  • If you attempt to use this skill against Saurian Brutes, timing is crucial: Wait until the skill is ready, then deploy a few soldiers or Reinforcements in to make the Saurian Brute wastes its deadly triple-swing, before sending Kutsao in, let him use the skill and quickly retreat to avoid taking damage.
  • Versus Bloodshells, due to the crabs' lack of an area attack, simply tank Kutsao against them until he use Snake Style.
• Dragon Style is a powerful attack, however its AOE is fairly small, necessitating you to group enemies densely together to maximize its effect. Keep Kutsao near a barricade of Barracks should do the trick.
  • This can hit flying enemies as well.
• Tiger Style pierces armor, but the damage done is fairly low compared to its cooldown, thus Kutsao still does not fare well against heavily armored enemies, such as Immortals, Earth Shamans, Saurian Myrmidons and Bloodshells. Do not expect Kutsao to inflict much more than a scratch on these enemies.
• Leopard Style, similar to Dante's Akimbo Style, besides being able to hurt multiple foes, can also deal a lot of damage to a single target. Keep the desired enemy isolated when Kutsao uses Leopard Style, so that all of the attacks will be directed at the victim, most regular enemies should be heavily wound,ed if not outright killed.
  • When an enemy is being attacked by Leopard Style, it is immobilized completely (Exept for the Steam version). Use this to your advantage to slow down enemies too powerful to block.
• Crane Style is very similar to Assassins' ability to dodge: Kutsao takes no damage when it is active, and returns a blow. This skill allows Kutsao to survive in the face of many stronger enemies, despite his low durability. Beware, area attacks cannot be dodged, so take note of enemies capable of dealing area damage, and do not tank with Kutsao against them. A list of such enemies can be found in the Strategy section of the Knights Templar page.

Kutsao is a hero that needs micromanaging to exploit his full potential - such as moving to Brutes to use Snake Style on them and then retreating. Always pay attention to Kutsao on the battlefield, first to extract more of his powerful and unique skills, second to avoid him taking too much damage, as he is not very durable.

When Kutsao is performing his combo attacks, he will not move where you tell him to, thus keep watch of incoming danger and retreat Kutsao early to avoid an easy death.

Quotes

• "Shapeless like water."
• "Fear is the mind killer."
• "The obstacle is the path."
• "There is no spoon."
• (upon death) "I am nothing?"

Trivia

• "Fear is the mind killer"
  • The start of a litany against fear used by the Bene Gesserit, a political and religious force in the series Dune by Frank Herbert. The litany is used to focus the mind in a time of peril. The full quote is "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.".
• "Shapeless like water"
  • A quote made by famous martial artist Bruce Lee. The full quote is "You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend."
• "The obstacle is the path"
  • A Zen proverb. The obstacle isn’t something standing in our way. It’s the way itself.
• "There is no spoon."
  • A quote made by the (erroneously named) character Spoon Boy from the 1999 film The Matrix.

Gallery

Snake Style

Dragon Style

Tiger Style

Leopard Style

Crane Style

Dragon Style

Leopard Style

"The obstacle is the path."

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Heroes
Kingdom Rush
Kingdom Rush: Frontiers
Kingdom Rush: Origins
Kingdom Rush: Vengeance