Some captains invulnerable to everything...what then?

[EbonHawk]

Ambushed by one captain, Latbag the Slave Maker I think his name was. Invulnerable to combat finishers, immune to stealth, immune to ranged, fast-runner, fast-attacker. His One-shot ranged weapon does entire lifepoint damage, fast attack, no vulnerabilities except graugs I think.

Since I can't do any damage to him with finishers or ranged, I have to attack him directly with flurry. Hack-hack-hack-hack-hack-hack-hack-hack about eight times, flurry can't do any damage to him, except for very small amounts. By the time the strike counter turns red, I can't do any damage to him because he's a Combat Master and just deflects any finisher. All 3 Bow, Sword, Dagger legendary weapons are useless against him because he's immune as well.

Can't build up combo to even get to use anything, because if I direct attention to anyone else, then he one-shots me to insta-death; if I concentrate on him, other uruks can get attacks in. Can dodge, but okay, does no damage and Latbag eventually just kills me because I can't get him below half health.

Besides leading him somewhere and trying to damage him indirectly with an explosion or something, is there nothing else that does damage to him? What about Wraith Flash, will it do anything? I didn't think to try it until after I had given up. What about Flaming Arrow? Didn't think to try it, but assumed he was immune to it because he's immune to ranged anyway. Will the flames still damage him? Just seems stupid to have to defeat him by trying to lead him somewhere to get the environment to kill him. For one thing, he's a fast-runner, so I can't get away from him before he one-shots me to death. Shadow strike away from him, he just shoots you when he catches up to you. Can't Shadow Strike him, he's immune. Just seems like a poor design to me; more frustrating than "rewarding".

[EbonHawk]

Originally posted by BlakLite:

If you're feeling REALLY sadistic, you can hold off on killing him, instead subjecting him to a long, drawn-out series of instances that involve injuring him and/or terrifying him. You can become a relentless stalker, plaguing him at every turn. You will become an omnipresent specter, never letting him rest or get comfortable. You will show him how feeble his efforts to best you are! You will show him what a useless speck he is! He is not in control! He is your plaything! AND HE WILL FEEL YOUR FURY!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

....Sorry, got carried away there.

Haha, you gave me chills there for a second. :-)

And, I have pretty much those same thoughts already when I beat one of the tougher ones. I might need some therapy. Want me to book you an double-appointment? ;-)

[mid endian]

this idea has two requirements. first, the captain isn't fearless second, you have wraith burn.

stun, build up a combo, then wraith burn him repeatedly. eventually he'll eventually get terrified, which often let's you use finishers, or grab him and throw off a convenient cliff.

it's even better when the captain has friends. wraith burn them, and if the captain is close to a runner, butcher them with brutalize to spook the captain further and scare him faster. I never get tired of doing this to combat masters.

[EbonHawk]

Originally posted by mid endian:

stun, build up a combo, then wraith burn him repeatedly. eventually he'll eventually get terrified, which often let's you use finishers, or grab him and throw off a convenient cliff.

Finishers wouldn't work because of his Combat Mastery skillz...can't burn him, can't touch him, can't grab him.. you just get a message saying "Combat Master" and he ignores you and throws you back. His icon never turns green, so you can't grab him. IF I can ever get his health down past half way (which took what seemed like 10 minutes of meleeing him repeatedly with hardly any effect) he never runs away. I can grab him for a second before getting the message but I don't think I can throw him anywhere, so I wouldn't be able to use a cliff to get rid of him.

it's even better when the captain has friends. wraith burn them, and if the captain is close to a runner, butcher them with brutalize to spook the captain further and scare him faster. I never get tired of doing this to combat masters.

I'll have to check, but I don't think he ever got scared and he might indeed be Fearless. Will see if I can find him in my Sauron's Army map and post a screenshot....

I haven't played since last night... Time to do some plottin' and plannin'.

[mid endian]

while the captain is immune from wraith burn, it still terrifies him. works better when using it on other orcs nearby. if he's fearless though, then yes it won't matter.

[BlakLite]

Even if a Captain has Combat Master, you can still build up your Hit Streak by whaling on him anyway. However, I just thought of something that I haven't tested: does Combat Master grant immunity to Wraith Flash? Unlike Wraith Burn, which kills stunned enemies and frightens non-stunned ones, Wraith Flash deals damage in a radius. If that can deal damage to the Nemesis, then you should still be able to use it to weaken him enough to grab him. The Fearless trait doesn't stop Nemeses from being weakened and then grabbed.

[EbonHawk]

Not sure, will report when I know. It's go time.

[obliviondoll]

Wraith Flurry attacks don't do much damage to a Combat Master, but it's enough to mitigate an enemy's health regen. Wraith Flash works on EVERYONE, no matter their immunities, but it also does a fairly small amount of damage. I don't know if this is further reduced on Combat Masters, but it's still damage.

Also, if you're using branded enemies, you're not MEANT to be in the middle of the fray facing the captain. Set them loose on him, and stay back. Avoid taking his attacks (and therefore avoid being one-shotted) and just keep sending more into the fray until they wear him down.

Sometimes enemies can retreat without being panicked - in this case, they retain their immunity to ranged, but shadow strike can still be used to catch up as they flee. It doesn't hurt the enemy, but it still moves you in closer. You can also shadow strike an enemy near the target if there are some, to keep close without breaking combo.

[EbonHawk]

Went to launch the game and it just loaded and loaded and loaded...waited a few minutes to make sure, but I finally had to kill it through Task Manager. Went to launch game again and it took forever, but finally loaded up...and wanted me to go through the setup process again. Picking gamma settings, etc, like I had never played. So, I immediately exited out and tried again...same thing, and it was like I had never played. All progress gone, story mode reset to beginning. So I exited again and copied over my last save because I've been keeping manual backups for things like this....

The only game I can find with the aforementioned uber-Captain Insano in it has him already dead. I don't remember killing him, but there's a rune in my bow collection that says "Broken Mind Lvl 19, Killed: Latbag Slave-Maker, 44% Chance to Recover +4 Elf Shot on Drain or Brand".

I ... don't ... remember ... killing ... him. I got frustrated last night and went to bed after going after him a second time and dying again to the same one-shot ranged killer where he targeted me in a whole host of allies and enemies and I "died" three times with one of those Last Chance Finishers coming up each time. Even if I "hung back" and let my horde attack him, he just focused on me and shot me dead. And then I went to bed. No one else has access to my PC (that I know of). Nobody plays on it when I'm gone to work, pretty sure I'd know.

"Broken Mind" How fitting. ... I think I may have a broken mind, or maybe I had a stroke or something. None of the last five saved game files has "Latbag Slave-Maker" in my Sauron's Army screen. I've checked. Believe me, I've checked. I have spent 2 hours poring over this and gone through all my recent saved game files from the last 4 days and nowhere is he mentioned in anything except the most recent one, and he's dead in it ("Killed: Latbag Slave-Maker") and the only mention is that one rune. I usually archive my saved games once every evening, when I close the game out and go to bed.

I'm stumped...and a little concerned about my sanity. This is insane. I'm just guessing that the game randomly generated this uber-Captain, then somehow flagged him as dead when I restarted the game after it crashed. Not sure, but all I know is I'm giving up on this and going on with my life.

Thanks for all the help, but I think I'll just repress this negative memory and move on and hope the game doesn't decide I need another nightmare headache to have to deal with. Wow.

[EbonHawk]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=457349741
And here's a screenshot of him, the only proof I have that he ever existed... :-( so at least you guys know I wasn't making him up.

I'm at a loss as to what might have happened, and I think I want to go sob in the corner for awhile now. :-(

[obliviondoll]

I hope nobody minds me saying this, but this has turned into my favourite thread on this forum now.

It's just... wow. I'm sorry. But at the same time, I'm sure you've learned things which will be useful to you in future gameplay. And you will find more enemies to enjoy/fear/destroy.

[EbonHawk]

I have definitely learned a lesson from all this. But, I still find myself unprepared sometimes when I get surprised by a captain that I didn't expect somewhere, especially when I thought I had scouted the area out and then bam, they're right on top of you. Some of my favorite kills have come when I didn't expect one, see the little white skull and red arc that indicates a captain, and I've just spotted them as they're running up to me and they get distracted by a close-by enemy and I just stab the F out of them (F is my finishing move key ;-P) and I take them down in one shot because they're not prepared and I one-shot them. Mwahahahaha!!! Have to laugh maniacally when that happens.

But, Wraith Flash does do more damage to some of the invulnerable Combat Masters and I've already scared off a couple of those. Never thought to toss some of my opponents off of a ledge...that's a nice battle-changer right there when you start tossing them one by one off of a cliff. I still have a bit of difficulty with fast-runners that take off in the middle of a stronghold and break line-of-sight constantly while I'm trying (in vain) to line up some Shadow Strikes on either them or uruks that seem to never be in the spots I need them to be in. "'Scuse me, sir? Yes, you, the uruk with the misshapen head and caragor fur growing out of your butt...can you move about 25 paces that way, please? No, okay. Have an arrow between your bulbous eyes, you freak! Zot!" Yep, they never cooperate. :-)

Never did get to test out if the Invulnerable to Ranged ability stops Shadow Strike from working or not. But it's on my to-do list.

Everyone's input has been very helpful. Learned a lot of stuff I either never encountered in the game or somehow missed.

Speaking of which, someone mentioned using Brutalize in the middle of a skirmish..but I thought it could only be used from stealth. Was I wrong?

[obliviondoll]

Originally posted by EbonHawk:

Never did get to test out if the Invulnerable to Ranged ability stops Shadow Strike from working or not. But it's on my to-do list.

You definitely can use shadow strike, but it does no damage against an enemy who's invulnerable to ranged. You'll teleport over to them, and they'll counter your strike just like a combat master does with your finishers.

Speaking of which, someone mentioned using Brutalize in the middle of a skirmish..but I thought it could only be used from stealth. Was I wrong?

You can only use it on fleeing enemies. Get them to panic and try to run, and you can run in close, go into stealth mode and brutalise. It'll panic more enemies, and you can repeat for a chain of fleeing uruks.

[EbonHawk]

Ok, awesome. I still learn new stuff in this game every day. Kind of like the Batman Arkhams, you can use a core set of familiar and comfortable moves and combos to defeat about 98% of the enemies in the game. Then there are those few that require planning thinking and using a wider range of skills. Sadly, my brain struggles to recall some of those more obscure moves when I actually need them in a pinch. I blame on loud music and fast cars of my youth.

[mid endian]

yup. combo wraith burn a few times and you'll see runners. pin one, butcher it next to the captain, pin another runner, brutalize, then finish off terrified captain in whatever way you prefer.

I like throwing off cliff cause sometimes combat master sticks, but they can avoid being chucked over an abyss for some reason 😈

[BlakLite]

Originally posted by EbonHawk:

Speaking of which, someone mentioned using Brutalize in the middle of a skirmish..but I thought it could only be used from stealth. Was I wrong?

I was the one who mentioned Brutalizing, but I did not say that you can use it during a skirmish. I said that you can use it from stealth to initiate a skirmish, but not during one.

Originally posted by mid endian:

yup. combo wraith burn a few times and you'll see runners. pin one, butcher it next to the captain, pin another runner, brutalize, then finish off terrified captain in whatever way you prefer.

I like throwing off cliff cause sometimes combat master sticks, but they can avoid being chucked over an abyss for some reason 😈

I'm pretty sure Wraith Burn won't work on a Nemesis with the Fearless trait, as its description says that he will never flee.

You know what's even more fun than chucking an Uruk off of a cliff? Maneuvering him to the edge, shanking him repeatedly until you slit his throat, then watching him slump over the edge.