Blade of Galadriel Gear Challenges - Love and Hate

[Archknave]

Picked SoW up recently when on sale.

I got into Act III in the main game, and then set it aside to play the Blade of Galadriel, which I really like. I've gotten through all the gear quests and am working on the gear challenges.

The detail-oriented thoroughness-freak in me loves that every time I get a new piece of gear there's some weird thing I can do to make it better. It's like a new puzzle to figure out every play session.

Some of these challenges, though... I played on Normal difficulty. I wonder if higher difficulty increases the target numbers of some challenges?

Here are the ones I had the most trouble with:

Kill Blinded Captain with Execution

Doesn't sound that hard, right?

My Plan: Target a captain susceptible to both light and execution, whittle his health down, then when he's almost dead, light him up then execute him.

How it actually worked: Argh, it took me like 10 tries. On the first guy, I got him down, lit him up, then my might which was full a second ago somehow dropped a little and I couldn't execute. Gah! Tried, again and DID IT!! YES! Except... he cheated death and didn't die. Ugh. Then he got killed by the Graug that came over to see what was happening. Next night did it again on a different captain and forgot to have the right piece of gear equipped (story of my gaming life). Tried it and failed several times when I thought "one more hit will have him where I want him, and..." <smack> DEAD. ARGH! I am an idiot sometimes. Loads of relief when it finally triggered. This plan works, just needs a non-idiot at the helm.

Kill Captain on Fire

This should not be hard at all.

My Plan: Target a captain susceptible to fire and ranged, whittle his health down, then set him on fire and immediately execute him.

How it actually worked: Supreme frustration! Several times I thought I did it and didn't get credit. I guess they died of the fire before I could kill them...? At least three times I thought it should have worked and didn't. Finally triggered. Good riddance. The plan works, eventually.

Kill Captain with Stealth while Invisible

Invisibility is not really in the main game (at least I don't remember it). It is present in BoG through certain gear perks and skills.

My Plan: Probably Elven Rage would be the sure bet (turns you invisible on demand), but I also had a piece of gear that turns you invisible with a brutalizing kill, and my wrath was low and I didn't want to wait for it to fill up. Decided to try brutalizing near a captain.

How it actually worked: Frustrated myself because (duh) if I did the brutalize anywhere near the captain, he sees it and you can't stealth him. Finally got it by brutalizing an archer way up above him so he couldn't see, then stealthing the captain who was on the ground. Not as hard as I thought. The plan is fine.

Kill 7 frozen enemies within 10 seconds

My plan: Try to use pinning, perfect counter, and stun to freeze then kill.

How it actually worked: It didn't. Frustrating to no end. Made innumerable attempts, but could never combine the freezing with the kills and get them all within the time limit. I think it might have worked if I could have gotten a mix of the wimpiest grunts, but no! I could never find a group of orcs without defenders, hunters, olags or some stray captain that would mess things up.

(p.s. I think this might be why one of the ice gear pieces increases elf shot by 4 - if you only have 12 shots, you can pin 6 and quickshot 6 and that's... not enough. Maybe that's what they want you to do. I didn't have the patience to keep trying.)

I read accounts online of people saying they could use the light blast to AoE freeze people with certain gear. They are full of it, or are mistaking the Talion saga with Eltariel. I never found that gear, and I have all of it.

How I finally got it: Finally got this one using a frost graug in Seregost. I kept fast traveling to the fort around the lake with two graug and checked both caves until I got the frost graug, then jammed him to the fort and let them raise the beacon. Stay alive long enough to get surrounded and then breathed on a batch, smashed them, breathed on another and smashed, and got it. Yay! Initial plan may work, but is very hard. Graug plan is better but takes a long time to find the right graug.

Kill Graug while mounted on a Drake

My Plan: Find a drake, attack it, mount it, look for a graug and kill it.

How it actually worked: This is not hard, just rare. I can go a whole evening and not see a single drake. But I got lucky, one was strafing Seregost fort, right where the two graug caves are. Even got him to drop to ground via headshot (which sometimes doesn't happen and he dies in the sky). The Graug went down quickly under sustained flame breath. Got it on my first try. This is a fine plan.

Poison 10 Enemies within 10 seconds

My Plan: My original plan was to use the poison explosion granted by the bow with Elven Star, but while looking for something else I read a forum post by someone that said each stab of a brutalize kill with the poison dagger counts as one poisoned enemy. This seems much easier so I made that my plan.

How it actually worked: Equipped the poison dagger. Welp, you don't get 10 stabs with a single brutalize. So you need two brutalizes, but you can't brutalize anyone who sees you brutalize someone else. This reminded me of the stealth/invis kill I did before. So I went into an enemy fortress, found a high point above rooftops, brutalized a lone archer on a rooftop so that no one else saw, then quickly ran to the edge and brutalized a poor sap on the ground. Worked like a charm. Good plan.

Kill Captain While Poisoned

My Plan: Find a captain with a poison weapon susceptible to ranged, whittle his health down, let him hit me, shoot him in the head.

How it actually worked: This is the worst. Everything bad happened. Sometimes they poison me but I can't kill them before the poison runs out. Or they poison me and some hunter or archer gets lucky and I die. Or... surprise! Ambush by a boss nearby screws everything up! I swear the ambush thing happened to me three times in one session, and on one of those tries I got two ambushes on the same boss. Ugh. I have fought poisoned captains down to nothing, let them hit me with their poison weapons and then kill them only to realize I wasn't actually poisoned. This seems to be the biggest problem. The elf hardly ever gets poisoned! And if she does, it seems to last like 3 seconds, at least when I'm fighting a boss. But hey, if a spider catches me on the road, THAT lasts for 10 seconds and I almost die. My second-to-last try I stood right on top of a poison geyser and then one-shotted the boss after the eruption, but whoops! Didn't get poisoned.

(p.s. I know that I can tell if I'm poisoned because my health meter turns green. If things are nice and calm, this is fine. Thing is, sometimes I only have a split-second to try the shot because I'm surrounded by bad guys and probably poisoned, and one more hit will kill me, and I'm just hoping the meter hasn't caught up with reality. I mentioned I was an idiot, right?)

How I finally got it: Found a place with a spider egg nest on the side of a building. Fought a boss and got him down to almost nothing. Lured him around the building on the side away from the spider nest, then went stealthy and left him there, went over the roof of the building back to the nest to where I could see him, but where the wall shielded him from the spider nest, because I just knew if he was nearby the spiders would kill him and I'd lose it. Shot the spider nest, waited to get poisoned and immediately head shotted him and got it. The latter plan was easiest for me (worked on the first try), but with a little luck and less panic the initial plan would probably work as well.

Blind 10 Enemies who are Poisoned

This one kinda sucks, but at least it's cumulative so you can gather 1 or 2 at a time and won't lose them to a time limit.

My Plan: Quickest way is probably to use the poison explosion from Elven Star (with poison bow mod). But since it's not timed and you don't lose them, I just thought I'd do it with grog. Poison grog, hide then run up and blind anyone poisoned.

How it actually worked: I found a place with three grog barrels within short running distance of each other. Poisoned them one at a time, then hid close by. If orcs are nearby, eventually they will come over and have some. Usually only one or two at a time. You have a very short period of time between when they become poisoned and when they die, so you need to get the timing down of how to run over quickly and light them up before they die. I could usually get 1 or 2 at a time. Then kill everyone who didn't get poisoned, then go on to the next one. Then go back to the first one. Sometimes I needed to re-poison the grog from a distance to get them to take notice. Easily done with poison tendril that the elf has as a default skill. Took maybe 15 minutes total once I got it down. Plan is fine. If you're in a hurry, the Elven Star is probably quicker.

Kill Drake while Mounted on a Graug

My Plan: See a drake, freak out, try to find a graug and kill it (the drake) with the bow.

How it actually worked: @#$&! I DID THIS! I just didn't get credit. Saw a drake in the distance, went tearing after it. It's torching an orc village, and I got lucky they had a graug in a cage! Broke it free, used half my elf shot getting it down to dominate. I hop aboard. Except the drake is flying away! Fortunately the orcs have it down to below half, and I have 6 elf shot left. Pew pew and YES! Killed it just before it left the horizon, and... NOOOOO!!! In my haste I forgot to equip the right item. I suck.

Anyway, the plan is fine. If you have a decently upgraded bow, you can do enough damage with 5 or 6 arrows to take out a drake. This one won't be hard unless you're out of elf shot and have none around. And if you happen to find an elemental graug, you can throw rocks at the drake with full might.

[Christina]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.