Professional/pro player tips? please give me good tips for combat/playing SoM

[Lycosa]

Hey guys so I think I am a decent played and i've gotten to the poin in this game, Shadow of Mordor... Middle Earth.

I am now at the point where you gotta kill the WarChiefs. and in general kill some of the captais/warchiefs or whatever ''bosses''. Some are actually EASY to kill but many of them I find difficult to kill.


Can you give me great combat advice and how to kill warchiefs/captains with ease? the targets that you choose. I know that there are strengths, weaknesses when you've got Intel on them. You have to use their weakness so it's not hard as hell to kill them? I think its kinda difficult.

Especially when a warchied or captain is in a stronghold, and there's SO MANY other Uruks there!!!! too many. The fights take hella long, or I die, because there is 10-30 uruks at me. lmao... I can handle a few but not tens of them.


Please, your best advice for this game? I love it, one of the best 2014 games.

[mid endian]

use the shadow strike you pick up to stop orcs from lighting the beacon. it's also useful on ranged orcs like crossbow and hunter.

if you can exploit an warchief weakness early on, go after them directly. remember that you lack many of the high tier abilities at this point. avoid random skirmishes with captains in strongholds.

and of course, don't die. death by warchief will only make the game harder for you as those weaknesses can get removed when they level off your corpse.

[Doc]

Fire arrows on explosives seem drastically underexploited, but they make almost every combat incredibly simple.
Many orcs have a Fear of fire; this will trigger their fear, removing any of their invulnerabilities (meaning you can now shoot arrows or attack them, despite Invulnerable to Ranged or Combat Mastery) making it incredibly easy to kill them.
Moreover, when the initial explosion goes off, most followers will be killed, while the captains themselves will be knocked on the ground, and in many cases, already grabbable, fear of fire or not.
Even the captains who have a Hate of fire will take large amounts of damage and be knocked over, allowing you to rush them for a quick kill, and then deal with the remainder on your own time.
The DoT effects are also quite high; there are a lot of times I've run into a Warchief with 3 followers, used a fire arrow on an explosive, and found 3 captains kneeling and waiting for me to kill them (because at >17 power rating, they more often than not have Battle Hardened, requiring you to finish them).
Lastly, this is incredible for rune farming, because after killing the warchief, one of his bodyguards will promote to warchief, while still having the same health and stats until he flees, allowing you to kill up to 4 warchiefs in a row, for mad rune drops.

[Lycosa]

Originally posted by Doc:

Fire arrows on explosives seem drastically underexploited, but they make almost every combat incredibly simple.
Many orcs have a Fear of fire; this will trigger their fear, removing any of their invulnerabilities (meaning you can now shoot arrows or attack them, despite Invulnerable to Ranged or Combat Mastery) making it incredibly easy to kill them.
Moreover, when the initial explosion goes off, most followers will be killed, while the captains themselves will be knocked on the ground, and in many cases, already grabbable, fear of fire or not.
Even the captains who have a Hate of fire will take large amounts of damage and be knocked over, allowing you to rush them for a quick kill, and then deal with the remainder on your own time.
The DoT effects are also quite high; there are a lot of times I've run into a Warchief with 3 followers, used a fire arrow on an explosive, and found 3 captains kneeling and waiting for me to kill them (because at >17 power rating, they more often than not have Battle Hardened, requiring you to finish them).
Lastly, this is incredible for rune farming, because after killing the warchief, one of his bodyguards will promote to warchief, while still having the same health and stats until he flees, allowing you to kill up to 4 warchiefs in a row, for mad rune drops.

Yeah well I've found shooting the firepits good, that has been pretty nice.

BTW I hate when enemies flee, cuz they can be hard to catch, and some enemies have strength;faster than normal. but yeah

[Doc]

Originally posted by Kanye West {twitch.tv/matuka125}:

Yeah well I've found shooting the firepits good, that has been pretty nice.

BTW I hate when enemies flee, cuz they can be hard to catch, and some enemies have strength;faster than normal. but yeah

Shooting the firepits with normal arrows is one thing; fire arrows are another entirely.
The DoT is stronger and lasts longer with fire arrows; there's more immediate damage done, and the area of effect is wider. This is most visible insofar as normal arrows into an explosive don't actually kill shields, whereas fire arrows do.

Note that when enemies flee, you can take advantage of Shadow Strike to get near them; even if they're Immune to Ranged, you'll still close the distance, and will be able to grab them.
If they're Feared or Terrified, even if they have Immune to Ranged, you can also use Pin In Place to stop them from running, and catch them at your leisure.

[Lycosa]

Originally posted by Doc:

Originally posted by Kanye West {twitch.tv/matuka125}:

Yeah well I've found shooting the firepits good, that has been pretty nice.

BTW I hate when enemies flee, cuz they can be hard to catch, and some enemies have strength;faster than normal. but yeah

Shooting the firepits with normal arrows is one thing; fire arrows are another entirely.
The DoT is stronger and lasts longer with fire arrows; there's more immediate damage done, and the area of effect is wider. This is most visible insofar as normal arrows into an explosive don't actually kill shields, whereas fire arrows do.

Note that when enemies flee, you can take advantage of Shadow Strike to get near them; even if they're Immune to Ranged, you'll still close the distance, and will be able to grab them.
If they're Feared or Terrified, even if they have Immune to Ranged, you can also use Pin In Place to stop them from running, and catch them at your leisure.

Uhuh, oh yes, thank you for the advice... True, true...

Just played some SoM (shadow of mordor) and I was able to kill a few captains, 2.... i planned them good. I dont have fire arrows yet, dunno how to get them yet, not that far into the game i guess.

[Doc]

Oh, sorry, I assumed you were fairly deep into the game.
You get Shadow Strike as a reward for a mission fairly early in the game; Pin In Place is either a tier 1 or 2 ability; Fire Arrows are a Tier 4 ability.

[Lycosa]

Originally posted by Doc:

Oh, sorry, I assumed you were fairly deep into the game.
You get Shadow Strike as a reward for a mission fairly early in the game; Pin In Place is either a tier 1 or 2 ability; Fire Arrows are a Tier 4 ability.

Oh, okay. I already have Pin in Place and Shadow Strike =). Only dont have fire arrows, yep.

[Blaze]

I don't mean to be an ass I really don't just hear me out.

This game isn't really that hard. The whole concept of stealth and being careful and whatnot is not really needed. It really isn't, especially in a stronghold. A mass amounts of captains and a warcheif in a stronghold are completely easy to take care of. A lot of players I know are so worried and scared of rushing in there that they always think its harder than it really is.

2 things you have to remember and learn how to do.

1) Do not button mash. AT ALL. Take your time, be patient. It's not all about how fast you can mash that button. Button mashing is very bad for this game.

2) Learn how to read when to counter. Once you get about over half way through the game I would turn off combat prompts. It actually hurts you more than help. I've talked my friends into playing this way and they all agree it made the game a lot easier because instead of watching the screen for the *counter prompt* they started paying attention to everything around them.

3) This is a branch off of 1. Learn how to hit those critical strikes. They are very important in staying alive and being an unstoppable killing machine.

If you use all of those 3 things together you won't ever die. Especially if you get that rune that gives you full health at a combo of 30*.

Example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ4L43wH_H8

[Blaze]

With the right runes of course, but honestly you only need like 2 in the whole game. Pin in place, focus recharge from stealth and all that useless.

[mid endian]

where the person from the OP is at right now, many of those higher tier moves aren't available yet.

but when you unlock the last tier, two abilities you'll want is the second finisher (forget the name) and wraith burn. when your combo meter reaches 16, you can combo a wraith flash and wraith burn together, and watch the orcs fall over dead. I've even set fire on a warchief and two bodyguards doing this combo. often remaining orcs will flee, increasing your survival even more.

my friends often ignore another secondary effect from the dispatch ability, that lets you kill orcs under your control. for one, they're great for getting that crossed swords and head to appear in the nemesis screen, where those orcs shouldn't be comming back from death to haunt you again. second, instead of using the dispatch button, start aiming with your bow, then dispatch orcs one by one. every time you do that you gain health. in a stronghold on full alert, you can recover your heath from orcs you control doing this, and make death even harder to achieve. the late game abilities are so OP, it's ridiculous.

[Inardesco]

There is a difference in late game and mid game. OP is, I assume, in the first half of the game where Ratbag has just been promoted to warchief and Talion has to get rid of 4 others.

The video shows the game at the completed stage (I think) because of the move set available.

Killing the warchiefs can be a drag. I tried a warchief yesterday with 2 followers, only to find out that several other captains wandered the same area. Resulting in 4 uruk captains + warchief without any grog/fire/meatsacks/morgai nests around. That combined with hard hitting, poison tipped, uruk hunters is no treat! Ah well, the stronger the warchief, the better the reward!

The best way, when you have grog/fire/caragor/morgai flies is to use them in phases. Don't use 'm all at once since some captains may call for reinforcement (or have a gang following them through death threat) so you'll want some back ups. Keep track of the weaknesses/fears of the various captains/warchief so you won't waste anything on them (like combat finisher/immune to ranged).
Also, don't be shy to make a hot battle a cold one. Getting back into stealth can give you an increasing advantage over a large group. First of all you can dispatch any captains that are vulnerable to stealth finishers. Second of all if you brutalize your target you will scare the crap out of some uruks, which will flee and thirdly You get the jump on them, meaning you decide where you fight them.

All in all, it's a matter of luck and practice. One moment the entire place is swarming with Uruk captains, the other moment there's only his follower. Just keep at it, you can't "die" anyway so the more risk, the more the reward!

[Lycosa]

Yep it's exactly that point in the game where you are with RatBag hahahaha!!!! My completion percentage is about 33%!! in the saved games place, you can see how much percentage. mine is about 33%.

Yep... the game is cool and all. the difficulty is pretty balanced, not too easy but not too difficult either, maybe. depends on your luck too.

Yeah, you get like critical strikes and more dmg if you hit the attack button at a good rhythm/pace, not just smashing the button 24/7... Every time the sword hits the opponent, then put another strike.

[Inardesco]

Make sure you do the side missions (Gollum/Ithildin/Artifacts/Outcasts) before tackling the warchief "problem". You'll end up fighting some of the captains along the way, giving you runes that could prove usefull + upping your power and giving you points to spend. Personally I've waited for the 4th power rank which gives Death Threat before I targeted the warchiefs.