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.

[Archknave]

Note: These last two were going to be posted under the heading STILL CAN'T EVEN because I was frustrated and couldn't finish them. Persistence paid off, though. Here's what I planned (hah!), and what actually worked.

Kill 10 Blinded Enemies within 10 seconds

My Plan: Find gathering of orce with at least 10 within short distance. Doesn't have to be 10 in a small bunch, although that would be great! As long as there is at least two clumps of 5 somewhat close together, I have a chance. Clear out all visible captains. With might full, and all Light Bringer gear equipped, use Elven Star from nearby high place while stealthed (making sure not to equip poison bow) on a clump of orcs. Immediately jump down and stealth kill 4 with focus (I think this will save time because time stops while this is happening). Immediately Light Bolt kill remaining. Immediately rush to other clump and hit Elven Rage w/invisibility perk and try to stealth kill to hit limit.

How it actually worked: For some reason I couldn't get the stealth working well enough from high ground to take care of the first four. Not sure if I for some reason wasn't in stealth mode after the shot, or whether I was interrupted once I landed, or whether them being blinded screwed that up, but that didn't work and I just ended up meleeing them, and what's more I quickly lost my bearings in the clump of lit orcs and couldn't keep going. I also for some reason couldn't get stealth to work consistently with the invisibility from Elven Rage. Probably panic or idiocy on my part. So I abandoned the stealth part. Got a group of maybe 15 orcs to chase me around a set of ruins and jumped up on the wall and hid. Then jumped behind them on the ground. Did Elven Star in the clump of orcs and spammed Light Bolt with chain to kill a bunch, then ran to the middle of the remaining clump and hit Elven Rage and again spammed Light Bolt. Somewhere in the chaos I got my 10 within 10.

Kill 5 Enemies while Cursed before Curse Ends

First, let's figure out curse. I've been cursed before, but I just run around until it's gone and keep fighting. I don't really know what it does. I located a cursed hunter boss about level 30 and let him hit me to see what happens.

!@#$!@! I hate this one. It seems impossible. First of all, when you get cursed you lose all focus. So no easy five headshots, or 4 stealth kills in a row. You also lose all wrath, so no Elven Rage. Finally, to get cursed you need to get hit, which means even if your might was full before, it's not now. Curse also seems to affect your movement somehow, slowing you down a bit (but maybe that's an illusion gameplay mechanic and relatively you're still fine). Also, also... the cloak you are upgrading says you turn invisible when cursed. Well, then! You'd think nobody would be able to hit you, right? (Spoiler: this is not true)

So, I have no access to any area affect skills that will help me except maybe Radiance and Light Blast. And no way to stop or slow time, so the boss that hit me can hit me again, likely killing me.

My Initial Options:

• A pet, like a graug. I wonder if I can get cursed if my mount gets cursed? Need to test it.
  
• Light Blast (perked with longer charge). Maybe I can drop to the edge of a group of at least 5 orcs, with the boss having a clear line of sight to me. Immediately begin charging Light Blast and hope to get hit by curse from boss. Let it go once cursed, hope to light up 5 enemies, spam Light Bolt and maybe I'll get lucky.
  
• Elven Star. Could get might full before engaging boss, find the clump of orcs I'm looking for, use Elven Star on them to light them up from a distance, jump down and get shot and cursed, then spam Light Bolt.

My Plan: Decided to try the Light Blast method, and use Elven Star first to prime the orcs if my might is up for it. Plan to get might full. Equip Light Bringer gear with the exception of cloak, because frost is the one that needs unlocking, and bow because light bow does nothing to help, and fire bow might let me kill with fire explosion if I start running out of time. Full Shield charge so that light explosion occurs when I get hit.

How it actually worked:

1st try: Welp. Ran around, found a clump of orcs with the boss nearby. Got a bit hurried and couldn't get Elven Star off (probably because might was fluctuating), so just tried Light Blast alone. Ran to the edge of the orcs and made sure the boss had a line of sight to me. Stood there charging Light Blast and he hit me. Along with shield explosion, it devastated that clump of orcs, like brought about 8 of them completely to the ground, blinded. Yay! Problem was the boss didn't throw the spear to curse me. Instead, I must have let him get too close, because he leaped to get right next to me and spear thrusted me to curse. It one shotted me and, as I was spamming Light Bolt to kill the blinded orcs, the circle came up for last chance and I hit the wrong button and died. So, hey! The boss went from level 30 to level 53! Cool!

But still, this looks like it will work, if I can just live past the first hit.

2nd try: Boss moved and was in an isolated place, difficult to get a group of orcs around. Finally got about 8 of them to chase me up to him. This time I got cursed, got off the Light Blast, began spamming Light Bolt. Got about three kills before he hit me again and took me to last chance. I won the challenge, but couldn't even get one more Light Bolt off before he hit me again, finishing me off. I don't think this is going to work. But hey, now he's level 54 and became epic! Invisibility, if it's working, doesn't prevent him from hitting me again. This sucks.

3rd try: Got sick of trying by my lonesome, went to get a graug. Confronted the boss and a pile of orcs and started fighting to keep the graug alive, waiting to see if I got cursed. This was confusing, because it seemed like the graug got cursed by himself while I was fine (saw the animation around his head), but at some point I got hit and cursed my own self. Unfortunately, when that happened it immediately knocked me off the graug. Again, couldn't get five kills on my lonesome before the curse wore off.

NOW WHAT:

Back to the drawing board. I'm thinking of mounting a graug, riding it up to the boss, but jumping off before getting hit? Reason being that I don't think I get hit as much by the boss while on the graug, I think he hits the graug mostly. If I am cursed then immediately mount the graug, I might be able to kill five orcs before the curse wears off if there are enough around. Dunno if I have time to a) ride the graug, and b) get two good graug pounds in before the curse wears off.

Another option is that this particular boss has curse bombs (he got them from killing me twice, leveling up and going epic! You're welcome!). I wonder if I was on the graug and got hit by a curse bomb instead of a spear, if I would get cursed but stay on the graug? I think if I can stay on the graug while cursed I can do this. Sounds like I'm relying on luck, which isn't my strong suit.

Next try: Boss is now socially distancing in a cave with hardly any orcs. Rode graug right up to him, jumped off, got cursed, mounted the graug quickly. Killed the orcs nearby, but there were only two of them. Good test. This could work if it happened in a group, assuming they didn't kill me to death while I waited to get cursed. Problem with my boss is he seems to prefer isolation. He doesn't call any help, and doesn't like populated areas. Hard to have enough orcs around to kill.

How I finally got it: Couldn't get the boss out of the isolated cave, and couldn't get orcs to come in. Fine. Picked a new poison crossbow boss level 29 in a fortress. Took a graug in to see him. No problem with him having enough orcs to kill. In fact, I was pretty much swarmed while he stayed at a distance. I jumped off the graug but couldn't stay close in order to re-mount due to the volume of orcs and various ramps that blocked boss's line of sight. He kept shooting his own guys and I couldn't get cursed. Finally ran around enough to make line of sight for him, and ran the orcs next to a quad-stack of grog. Got cursed, hit the grog stack with an arrow. Pure chaos. Tried to headshot as many orcs as possible in all the chaos. Not sure what was going on, some were dying in the fire, I know I got at least two with headshots with no focus, but then the boss shot me again at the same time a grunt savage axed me a question. Was still spamming headshots when the last chance circle came up, so the grunt killed me. But lo and behold, when I respawned, somehow I had gotten it!!!

---

Anyway, there are a few things you can do to make these a bit easier. Interference by non-targets plays a big part. If you are going to be trying a challenge in a certain area, scan the area in wraith vision for captains other than your target and take them out before you start. This won't eliminate the occasional random surprise of an ambush, but it does stop the known guy 100 yards away from coming over to see what all the ruckus is and joining the fray. I usually also stealth kill archers and ologs nearby to cut down on the potential annoyance factor.

The most common failure for me is being an idiot. By that I mean two things:

1. Not having the correct gear equipped for the upgrade when you do it (I know this sounds idiotic, but some gear pieces are really helpful in all fights, so I often make the decision to use the wrong piece of upgrade gear because it will help me with the boss or with crowd control, counting on myself to remember to switch it out before the killing blow. And sometimes I even remember to do that!)
   
2. Overkill. On the ones where you need to get the captain low on health, taking that one extra hit and killing them before you're ready. I've done both of these too many times to count.

Good luck!

[Pandora]

Ty i guess, for the effort of writing all this and for the advices. Ended this Dlc but no one will bother with this thread so...
But fun, how your plans never turn the good way. You are a light for this day.

[Archknave]

I dunno, there are still a few posts a day from people like me who didn't get it when it came out.

UPDATE: This one did not work:

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: It didn't. Was flipping between areas where I knew there was a graug using fast travel, scanning for drakes. Found one! Jammed to the graug, dominated it, ran out, drake strafed me, had all the bonuses for beast damage, three arrow shots wasted the drake in midair. HAD THE CORRECT GEAR EQUIPPED. DID NOT GET CREDIT.

Ugh. I think I might have to bring it down to the ground and bash it with the graug? Not fair!

[Pandora]

Guess you should try this, while shooting a drake bait. Forgot if Eltariel Dlc has the drake bait in Gorgoroth or somewhere. Who knows, maybe Graugs have an execution for grounded Drake?
Seems cara can do it but Graugs... never tried.

[Archknave]

Origineel geplaatst door Pandora:

Guess you should try this, while shooting a drake bait. Forgot if Eltariel Dlc has the drake bait in Gorgoroth or somewhere. Who knows, maybe Graugs have an execution for grounded Drake?
Seems cara can do it but Graugs... never tried.

Thanks, but if you read any of the above, you know I'm an idiot and whatever goes wrong is most likely my fault.

Tried it again after reading elsewhere that someone missed it just like I did and suspected arrows didn't work, but later got it by arrow. I figured I probably did something wrong. I now know just exactly what.

This time I was paying more attention. I was using four pieces of Caragor gear to get the insta-dominate for mounts. That way I just need to snag a caragor with maybe two bow shots, then ride it to the graug cave and insta-dominate the graug, saving all the rest of my elf shot for the drake.

I didn't think this would be a problem with the drake because you have to pretty much get right next to graugs and caragors to insta-dominate them. Well, turns out the distance for insta-dominating a drake is way longer than that. Makes sense because they're flying, I guess...? The next time I tried it, I saw the drake get dominated mid-shot. And you don't get credit for this challenge by killing a dominated pet.

[Archknave]

Origineel geplaatst door Pandora:

Guess you should try this, while shooting a drake bait. Forgot if Eltariel Dlc has the drake bait in Gorgoroth or somewhere. Who knows, maybe Graugs have an execution for grounded Drake?
Seems cara can do it but Graugs... never tried.

Will also address drake bait. Sounds lovely. Never seen it in any fortress or outpost while playing BoG. Would be nice! I'm stuck with fast traveling for now.

No overlord in my BoG game is from the Feral tribe. I understand drake bait is more likely to appear if that's the case. One area does have a second-in-command that is Feral. Dunno if it's worth it at this point to try and force a coup (or if you even can in BoG). I only need one drake to finish this out now that I know what NOT to do, shouldn't take long.

[Archknave]

Final word: I got it, but not without drama.

Rolled up another drake, this time made sure I didn't have the Caragor gear set equipped. Jumped down and found a caragor to mount. Zipped over to the graug cave, equipped the Caragor gear at the mouth of his cave for a quick insta-domination, unequipped set again, then headed out to get my upgrade.

Except... the drake is totally gone. Wha...? These things usually lay waste to the orcs for 5 - 10 minutes before finally dropping. It's only taken me maybe 20 seconds from traveling in to mounting the graug, and the drake is gone. I run around the whole region on my graug, but nope. It's not anywhere. Completely, totally gone.

!@#$!@! What happened?? I retrace my steps to where I first saw the drake spawn. Hey, there is a captain over there. But he's only level 27. No real threat... Check out his stats. Beast Slayer. Oh. Well, $#!@!.

Killed him. He has a blood brother. Killed him. Start fast traveling again. Next time I get to this same region, there's a new captain that shows up. ALSO A BEAST SLAYER. Friggin' one-shotted him with poison stealth.

No new captains show up for the next five or so tries. Then a drake pops. Then I get on my graug, then I get my kill, the upgrade takes, and everything is finally good.

[Pandora]

The longest hunt ever. You had your meal, Graug. No need to annoy my ghulies now.
Congrats, i guess. So the Graug has a special execution for Drake? I never tried.

[GDSpectra]

Yes, Pandora, a Graug and even a Caragor has special execution moves on Drakes, the former being that he just bites its head off (yikes).

As for challenges, I've tried both Normal and Nemesis version of BoG ... and those don't seem to change at all, at least on my side.

[Pandora]

Saw Cara doing it on sieges but no Graugs. Maybe will do a siege just to see xd. People love drake in defense-_-.

Didnt even bother with challenges in BoG, just used my usual swordman only style and the light if it was really needed. More troublesome fight was this Snowflake guy or whatever is his title, but like always i forgot i had this elf lover as bodyguard, could have made things easier xd.

Lol your profil. People will think we are alt accounts or split personalities xd.

[Archknave]

Origineel geplaatst door GDSpectra:

Yes, Pandora, a Graug and even a Caragor has special execution moves on Drakes, the former being that he just bites its head off (yikes).

As for challenges, I've tried both Normal and Nemesis version of BoG ... and those don't seem to change at all, at least on my side.

That's good to hear. What does the difficulty increase actually do? Increase health on baddies? Add more baddies?

[Pandora]

Only made it in Nemesis so not sure but if its like the main story the enemies hit a bit faster, can adapt faster and deals more damage and can take more. Not sure for more baddies thing, but i doubt it.

[Helmsman-Rustler A. A. Joy]

Thank you for posting this! It's been fun to read through. I just recently got into the game and am almost at the end of the Eltariel DLC. The last of these challenges which I need to do is to kill 5 enemies while cursed. Right now, my big problem is finding a captain who can curse me! Intel is rare, so I'm just switching between areas and riding around on a caragor looking for intel and wild bosses. So far no luck.

Annoyingly, I put this challenge on the back-burner after trying it for the first time yesterday: when I set my mind to it then, I immediately found some intel which uncovered a captain with a cursed weapon! I went to fight him, but he kept using other attacks which did not curse me - very annoying. And then I guess he pissed off another captain, because they ran up and killed him for me.

And now I'm all alone with no one to curse me.

[Helmsman-Rustler A. A. Joy]

Okay - shortly after this I returned to Cirith Ungol, still in hope of finding a captain who could curse me. I walked a short way into the zone and the same curse captain who got killed during my previous attempt showed up! He cheated death!

So after some trial and error, I managed to gather a group of grunts near him, finally got him to curse me, and detonated a stack of grog barrels to win the challenge.

And his reward is that I let him live this time :)

[Lord Farquad]

Origineel geplaatst door Helmsman-Rustler A. A. Joy:

Okay - shortly after this I returned to Cirith Ungol, still in hope of finding a captain who could curse me. I walked a short way into the zone and the same curse captain who got killed during my previous attempt showed up! He cheated death!

So after some trial and error, I managed to gather a group of grunts near him, finally got him to curse me, and detonated a stack of grog barrels to win the challenge.

And his reward is that I let him live this time :)

dude. this thread is 4 years old.