Middle Earth: Shadow of War

Unseul · 11 Jan 2019 at 11:31

Just had a wonderful bit of a story start to play out in my game.

Send a captain to try and murder another, but he ends up going up against 2 of them, since they were having their own supply raid going on. Manage to convert the first one, start to clear out a few more grunts, turn around to see my ordered captain getting a bolt through his skull from the 2nd captain. I leap over and smash the crossbow guy, see he's too high a level and shamed him. Poor fella lost his mind and became deranged, ran away yelling "Look out!". Figure I'll have a quick look around to make sure there's no treasure left about, and get ambushed...

Turns out the guy who's mind I broke had a blood brother, who was none too happy with the fact his brother is now a dribbling, deranged orc. I was already weak, and he hit me hard, I didn't realise I was doing the Last chance check, thought I'd just got stunned, so screwed it up and got killed... the guy promotes to the Avenger and becomes epic...

Can't be having that! Hunted him down and thought I'd give recruiting him and his brother a go, just had to shame him first. So, after a big fight with lots of grunts and another captain (christ it's annoying that they love fighting in areas with alarms!) I manage to get hold of him and shame him. Off he tootles. He's not too far, so I go looking for him again. Run into a different captain on the way, who I manage to recruit (had to use last chance), and suddenly get ambushed. Turns out the Avenger has taken off all his armour, covered himself in white paint handmarks, and stuck nails through half his flesh, he's now the Unashamed, hasn't lost any levels, but has become legendary! I'm already battered, I know I've used last chance, and I'm surrounded by grunts. I manage to get him to 1 hit off dead, I'd honestly thought I'd beaten him with my last execute so relax for a second, turns out that was wrong... he hits me down, and finishes me off. The git. Revenge will come though, in time, perhaps Bruz was right though, and I need to start using my bodyguard (though to be honest, I'd rather not, since I'm afraid they'll just get killed).

So a blood brother getting revenge due to a shame derange, has become immune to shaming

.

V F · 11 Jan 2019 at 11:42

Unseul said:
I'm now intrigued as to how my follower will turn out, he was basically insane in the nemesis forge, just made soft noises and clicked his teeth together, so I'm hoping for a maniac!

They were creepy!

Unseul · 14 Jan 2019 at 13:03

Just and got ambushed, the guy ran off but whilst chasing him i came across the deranged blood brother hiding in a cave. Fairly straightforward victory however i think after watching a few videos I've gone a bit soft...

I want to be a good master and the good guy of the story, and shaming and potentially deranging orcs doesn't fit that. So I'm going to try and not use shame. Death or recruitment. Now I've killed his blood brother, i look forward to the Unashamed coming to try and kill me for it.

AHarvey · 15 Jan 2019 at 10:16

taken 2 fortresses, it's getting a little samey and easy now if I'm honest

Unseul · 15 Jan 2019 at 10:53

AHarvey said:
taken 2 fortresses, it's getting a little samey and easy now if I'm honest

What difficulty are you playing? Think my next step might be to brutal, but right now Nemesis is feeling about right, still dying, but it feels like I could be doing more to avoid it, which is exactly where you want to be I guess.

AHarvey · 15 Jan 2019 at 11:50

Unseul said:
What difficulty are you playing? Think my next step might be to brutal, but right now Nemesis is feeling about right, still dying, but it feels like I could be doing more to avoid it, which is exactly where you want to be I guess.

I think I chose the middle of the 3 options so may bump it up if I can. i've hit level 31 and managed to recruit a captain last night without fighting at all. Dropped a fly nest, scared him, stealth drain and he was mine.

I am struggling to spend skill points too now, not a lot I need, saving some for the drake but that's it.

Unseul · 15 Jan 2019 at 12:13

I've been picky with skills too, always try and keep one in reserve but only level 19.

Have you been dying at all? I think if i didn't have captains killing me and developing a story, it wouldn't be as interesting.

AHarvey · 16 Jan 2019 at 07:42

Unseul said:
Have you been dying at all? I think if i didn't have captains killing me and developing a story, it wouldn't be as interesting.

I was now and then up to about level 21, from then, I think I've died twice.

Once you start unlocking the blocking skill that results in death etc it's really easy to blast through crowds.

I am at the point where I just run through a camp, dominate any green npcs for info and run off, don't need to worry about dying etc. Use the intel to plan attacks and off we go.

You get some interesting fights such as 2 enemy captains fighting, I was going to convert them both and then a 3rd enemy captain turns up as an ambush. Turned all 3 in the end.

When I do die it seems to be due to getting stick in the landscape/building and I can't get away. pita.

V F · 16 Jan 2019 at 09:30

AHarvey said:
I was now and then up to about level 21, from then, I think I've died twice.

Once you start unlocking the blocking skill that results in death etc it's really easy to blast through crowds.

I am at the point where I just run through a camp, dominate any green npcs for info and run off, don't need to worry about dying etc. Use the intel to plan attacks and off we go.

You get some interesting fights such as 2 enemy captains fighting, I was going to convert them both and then a 3rd enemy captain turns up as an ambush. Turned all 3 in the end.

When I do die it seems to be due to getting stick in the landscape/building and I can't get away. pita.

The exact same annoying stuff in the first game. Clinging to stuff you don't want to.

Unseul · 16 Jan 2019 at 10:15

AHarvey said:
I was now and then up to about level 21, from then, I think I've died twice.

Once you start unlocking the blocking skill that results in death etc it's really easy to blast through crowds.

I am at the point where I just run through a camp, dominate any green npcs for info and run off, don't need to worry about dying etc. Use the intel to plan attacks and off we go.

You get some interesting fights such as 2 enemy captains fighting, I was going to convert them both and then a 3rd enemy captain turns up as an ambush. Turned all 3 in the end.

When I do die it seems to be due to getting stick in the landscape/building and I can't get away. pita.

I've got the execution counter, but still found that ologs and shield guys made things tricky. I've now upped my elven light with poison, which does seem to really help with clearing crowds (think I'll switch back to might for counters as that's the case).

Getting stuck is a pita, though I've got better at avoiding it now. What difficulty are you playing on? I suspect if I get to the situation you're in, where clearing out is too easy, I'll jump upto brutal, or back to gravewalker.

Fun thing, I did the 1st fort assault, killed the unashamed guy

, though I guess he may be back. Interestingly, I went back to one of the older locations, got ambushed by the Machine, who was even more metallic since I last killed him, and I see that the assassin that was killing me for fun when I had gravewalker on, and who I finally killed after a couple of tries on nemesis (he has no chance), is now called the Survivor, and is the overlord! He's magically regenerated a hand though, but not yet his foot, so he's on a pegleg.

AHarvey · 16 Jan 2019 at 11:39

Unseul said:
I've got the execution counter, but still found that ologs and shield guys made things tricky. I've now upped my elven light with poison, which does seem to really help with clearing crowds (think I'll switch back to might for counters as that's the case).

Getting stuck is a pita, though I've got better at avoiding it now. What difficulty are you playing on? I suspect if I get to the situation you're in, where clearing out is too easy, I'll jump upto brutal, or back to gravewalker.

Fun thing, I did the 1st fort assault, killed the unashamed guy , though I guess he may be back. Interestingly, I went back to one of the older locations, got ambushed by the Machine, who was even more metallic since I last killed him, and I see that the assassin that was killing me for fun when I had gravewalker on, and who I finally killed after a couple of tries on nemesis (he has no chance), is now called the Survivor, and is the overlord! He's magically regenerated a hand though, but not yet his foot, so he's on a pegleg.

I've also got the ice vault skill and the 5 phantom knife throw one. Ice Vault is great for the shield bearers and the knives have a 40% chance of burn so it can wipe people groups out quite well. The main sword can add poison and I've the skill where people's heads can explode when hit with an arrow.

I've had a few people regen on me after death, one was a massive oleg captain who's head I had taken off. It had been stapled back on second time round

lol

Unseul · 16 Jan 2019 at 11:56

AHarvey said:
I've also got the ice vault skill and the 5 phantom knife throw one. Ice Vault is great for the shield bearers and the knives have a 40% chance of burn so it can wipe people groups out quite well. The main sword can add poison and I've the skill where people's heads can explode when hit with an arrow.

I've had a few people regen on me after death, one was a massive oleg captain who's head I had taken off. It had been stapled back on second time round lol

Nice, just got the ice vault, but find when I'm surrounded by enemies, I can miss the trigger that a shield guy is about to attack and try and counter it. It's on me of course, but a wide variety of opponents, even if just grunts, makes things taxing.

Waiting on the pull skill, then I can just isolate captains more easily

.

strumpusplunket · 16 Jan 2019 at 17:45

AHarvey said:
I've also got the ice vault skill and the 5 phantom knife throw one. Ice Vault is great for the shield bearers and the knives have a 40% chance of burn so it can wipe people groups out quite well. The main sword can add poison and I've the skill where people's heads can explode when hit with an arrow.

I've had a few people regen on me after death, one was a massive oleg captain who's head I had taken off. It had been stapled back on second time round lol

The fan of knives skill really becomes game-changing when (if) you can find a dagger that generates might on throw. With a set-up like that and ceaseless might, you can generate might before combat (I liked secret might for this, you can get full might en route to something really easily by chaining stealth kills). You can then enter combat with full might, do two executions, eleven light blasts, mighty shots, whatever, then throw a fan of daggers into a crowd (or up close to a captain so they all hit) and get full might to do it all over again. It's a bit broken tbf.

Unseul said:
Nice, just got the ice vault, but find when I'm surrounded by enemies, I can miss the trigger that a shield guy is about to attack and try and counter it. It's on me of course, but a wide variety of opponents, even if just grunts, makes things taxing.

Waiting on the pull skill, then I can just isolate captains more easily .

Except the ones that are arrow-proof!

I always hated that ability over any other!

Morve · 16 Jan 2019 at 23:34

This is next on my list, when i clear Far cry 5, the first game was great.

Unseul · 17 Jan 2019 at 18:21

Although I used up a last chance, I managed to basically fight 3 captains (admittedly 2 of them fought each other a bit), and hordes of orcs (2 commanders I believe), even recruiting 2 of the captains (the third was killed by another captain). Makes me think I may need to try Brutal soon, albeit I'm still quite low level, dealing with lower level folks. Saw a video recently comparing how hard Gravewalker is to Nemesis, it's basically as big a difference between easy and nemesis, you'll die about 3-4 times faster in gravewalker (faster attacks, less time to react, more damage), and plenty of one shot potential from captains.

AHarvey · 21 Jan 2019 at 21:49

Flak the Machine

I've taken his head off twice
Cut him in half once
Chopped both arms off at least 4 times

And still, he keeps coming back for more. Level 43 legendary so I've just shamed him down to lvl 36 to see if that helps get rid of him

ACT 4, is there anything after this or is this rinse and repeat fortress stuff?

Unseul · 23 Jan 2019 at 17:59

The Machine ones are awesome, the entire point of them is they keep getting put back together

.

Anyone want to put forward an opinion on how many orcs you need to successfully take a fort in the single player? A few bodygurds? A warchief or two? Or just go barrelling in and kill every orc and orc captain by yourself?

strumpusplunket · 24 Jan 2019 at 08:09

Unseul said:
The Machine ones are awesome, the entire point of them is they keep getting put back together .

Anyone want to put forward an opinion on how many orcs you need to successfully take a fort in the single player? A few bodygurds? A warchief or two? Or just go barrelling in and kill every orc and orc captain by yourself?

I always took out all the fortresses' warchiefs because... well, why wouldn't you?

There aren't many forts to take in the SP campaign, and it felt more fun converting warchiefs' bodyguards, setting up betrayals, etc. Having said that, I found all of the conquests then were exceptionally easy, so I'd imagine if you wanted to you could get away with just filling out your assault team. You could always recruit enemy captains during the siege as you fight your way through. Recruiting rather than killing made both assaults and defences pretty straightforward for me, tbh. It doesn't take long to turn the tide completely.

AHarvey · 24 Jan 2019 at 13:42

Recruit their bodyguards, send them in to spy on the warchiefs.

Kill warchief with their help later on. Replace warchief with one of your own.

No fortress defences. Can take it in under 3 minutes and be fighting the main guy

Unseul · 24 Jan 2019 at 18:34

Thing is, I like the convenience of having all my enemies in one place to fight, and not having to dash about doing the various missions and hunts etc. Think I'll just pick up all the orcs I can whilst exploring a region for artifacts and memories etc, and just take on whatevers left.

I recruited 2 captains mid fortress assault last time.