How the Hell Will Talion Beat the Balrog?

[gackie]

Seriously, how the hell is this going to work? It took Gandalf, a Maia, 3 days and 3 nights to smite Durin's Bane, and even then, he died. How can a mortal kill a Balrog? I'm pretty sure the only recorded history of this is when Ecthelion swayed Gothmog, the lord of Balrogs into a fountain and extinguished his flame. Perhaps it will be a gimmick fight, ending with us drowning the Balrog? I certainly hope so. Talion slaying a Balrog single-handedly with man-made steel is literally a huge middle finger to the Balrog's sense of threat that was given to us in the Fellowship of the Ring.

[Bryan=0101]

Well we know he fights the Balrog with the help of that spirt who names escapes me. I would love to see it be different batttles and such and thus the Balrog is being weakened. Tho since Talion can come back from the dead I think it should be allowed that you die during the first few encounters or try to escape it and weaken it in the progress.

Than in the other battles you kinda of trap the Balrog so it can't fight you for a bit.

I don't want to see it go down in one battle alteast it's one huge epic battle that it's boring or repitive and not drawn out.

[gackie]

Originally posted by 101=5, bryan=5:

Well we know he fights the Balrog with the help of that spirt who names escapes me. I would love to see it be different batttles and such and thus the Balrog is being weakened. Tho since Talion can come back from the dead I think it should be allowed that you die during the first few encounters or try to escape it and weaken it in the progress.

Than in the other battles you kinda of trap the Balrog so it can't fight you for a bit.

I don't want to see it go down in one battle alteast it's one huge epic battle that it's boring or repitive and not drawn out.

I fail to see how Caranan would help, or why she would help. The lore behind her so far doesn't make much sense. If she is a "Tom Bombadil", why is she fighting Mordor? Tom Bombadil didn't care for the war of the ring, he was beyond the power of the living and wished to tend to the forest. It wasn't his place to help. Aside from that, she's wooden. Balrogs were corrupted by Melkor and twisted into beings of fire and stone. Fire and wood don't match. I heavily doubt that Talion would even be able to come close to killing a Balrog, even if it was within an inch of its life. Gandalf was no mere man, and the fight with the Balrog literally killed him. According to the trailer, we will be fighting it on some kind of frozen lake, so I guess my guess makes sense in a way. I don't think a Balrog would be dumb enough to fight you ontop of its only weakness though. It all seems too video gamey.

[Bryan=0101]

We see an earth drake with talion on it attacking the Balrog.

Keep in mind we Mordor doesn't stay with the lore but nethier does it break the lore. With certain amouts of reasoning it could be "I guess it could have happened".

[gackie]

Originally posted by 101=5, bryan=5:

We see an earth drake with talion on it attacking the Balrog.

Keep in mind we Mordor doesn't stay with the lore but nethier does it break the lore. With certain amouts of reasoning it could be "I guess it could have happened".

There's not keeping with the lore, and that's fine, but when you gimp an immensly powerful character to the point of being a video game boss, it loses all sense of otherwordly threat. He might aswell kill Sauron at this point.

[Lora Grim]

Video games.

[Reverend Belial]

Originally posted by Hat Skeleton!:

I fail to see how Caranan would help, or why she would help. The lore behind her so far doesn't make much sense. If she is a "Tom Bombadil", why is she fighting Mordor? Tom Bombadil didn't care for the war of the ring, he was beyond the power of the living and wished to tend to the forest. It wasn't his place to help. Aside from that, she's wooden. Balrogs were corrupted by Melkor and twisted into beings of fire and stone. Fire and wood don't match. I heavily doubt that Talion would even be able to come close to killing a Balrog, even if it was within an inch of its life. Gandalf was no mere man, and the fight with the Balrog literally killed him. According to the trailer, we will be fighting it on some kind of frozen lake, so I guess my guess makes sense in a way. I don't think a Balrog would be dumb enough to fight you ontop of its only weakness though. It all seems too video gamey.

They're misinterpreting Tom Bombadil, that's why. She's not Tom, she's Treebeard after he saw his friends cut down and burned. She helps Talion because her forest, an extension of herself (literally, if what they say is to be believed), is under threat not only by the Uruks but by the Balrog specifically.

Plus, she reasons that Talion can win because realistically he has attrition on his side (plus the new Ring, which I imagine gives him a significant power boost). No matter how many times he is killed, he will always come back and ultimately he would wear down the Balrog if nothing else (again that's speaking realisitically, not like in-game where enemies probably get their health and defenses back after a death). To quote her directly: "Undeath will beat undeath".

As for the Balrog not fighting on top of a weakness, that's also quite literally what Durin's Bane did. The idiot stepped onto the most narrow strip of land anyone's ever seen despite being like ten tons of molten lava and ash, and while he did manage to nab Gandalf on the way down there was really no guarantee that that would work and he could have quite probably just killed himself from the fall.

And, finally, her help might not be physical (or at least not HER physical help anyway). The Drake and Graug both breathed/threw poison, which for all we know might have some effect on a Balrog since they are living creatures and who knows how they react to things. Maybe the help won't be direct at all, and she just either gives you a power boost or directs you towards some artifact or something to help you instead (Sword of Balrog Slaying +5 or something).

[Box]

Just like any other boss - Quick Time Events

[gackie]

Originally posted by Reverend Belial:

Originally posted by Hat Skeleton!:

I fail to see how Caranan would help, or why she would help. The lore behind her so far doesn't make much sense. If she is a "Tom Bombadil", why is she fighting Mordor? Tom Bombadil didn't care for the war of the ring, he was beyond the power of the living and wished to tend to the forest. It wasn't his place to help. Aside from that, she's wooden. Balrogs were corrupted by Melkor and twisted into beings of fire and stone. Fire and wood don't match. I heavily doubt that Talion would even be able to come close to killing a Balrog, even if it was within an inch of its life. Gandalf was no mere man, and the fight with the Balrog literally killed him. According to the trailer, we will be fighting it on some kind of frozen lake, so I guess my guess makes sense in a way. I don't think a Balrog would be dumb enough to fight you ontop of its only weakness though. It all seems too video gamey.

They're misinterpreting Tom Bombadil, that's why. She's not Tom, she's Treebeard after he saw his friends cut down and burned. She helps Talion because her forest, an extension of herself (literally, if what they say is to be believed), is under threat not only by the Uruks but by the Balrog specifically.

Plus, she reasons that Talion can win because realistically he has attrition on his side (plus the new Ring, which I imagine gives him a significant power boost). No matter how many times he is killed, he will always come back and ultimately he would wear down the Balrog if nothing else (again that's speaking realisitically, not like in-game where enemies probably get their health and defenses back after a death). To quote her directly: "Undeath will beat undeath".

As for the Balrog not fighting on top of a weakness, that's also quite literally what Durin's Bane did. The idiot stepped onto the most narrow strip of land anyone's ever seen despite being like ten tons of molten lava and ash, and while he did manage to nab Gandalf on the way down there was really no guarantee that that would work and he could have quite probably just killed himself from the fall.

And, finally, her help might not be physical (or at least not HER physical help anyway). The Drake and Graug both breathed/threw poison, which for all we know might have some effect on a Balrog since they are living creatures and who knows how they react to things. Maybe the help won't be direct at all, and she just either gives you a power boost or directs you towards some artifact or something to help you instead (Sword of Balrog Slaying +5 or something).

To be fair on Durin's Bane, nobody had supposedly ever been to the bottom of the chasm before, and it seems like Durin's Bane was somewhat resistant to the effects of water. If Gothmog was killed by water, then it seems like Durin's Bane came prepared, because he transformed into a snake-like being while in the water "a thing of slime". I just think that fighting 1 foot above water is a bit more silly than fighting 50,000 feet above water that you probably didn't know was there.

I dunno, Balrogs are stone and fire, I don't feel like poison would do good against that. If anything, what you said, about the Balrog Slayer +5 (does that upgrade with Demon Titanite?) is probably gonna be the case but I believe it will also have some kind of gimmick involving us attempting to drown it. It makes sense, but I just don't see Balrogs as being that dumb. Plus, they're made of fire, and ice probably isn't the best place for a fire creature to be.

[gackie]

Originally posted by Zolombo:

Just like any other boss - Quick Time Events

I hope not. Balrogs are legendary creatures. They atleast deserve some kind of drawn out strategy.

[gackie]

Originally posted by MasterOfTheRings:

as my forerunners already pointed out, there is discrepancy between the actual creation of Tolkien and the game. But even with that in mind you can find explanations for things that will happen in the game that can be explained on the basis of the original lore. The only concern for me is that the devs do/did not realize that.

as for your question. Like all Ainur the spirits that would later become Balrogs were of different strength. It is most likely that the strongest of those who followed Melkor to Arda would become his guard. But amongst them were those of lesser power than others. So to speak: The Balrog the fellowship encounter could have been one of the stronger. We have no real information given by Tolkien, but he could have been a lieutenant or something alike. Depending on his escape (either he ran off early in the last battle or he was able to survive because of his strenght and then went into hiding) this theory can be supported if it is tha later. Of course you could say: what happend then to the Balrog we will encounter. He was proably one who ran off right at the beginning? IDK, but if you want to explain the difference between those two there are many references in Tolkiens work to do so.

On the other hand, we do not know exactly how a Balrog comes to be. So another possibility is that the Balrog we encounter was of another spirit in the early days and later, after the fall of Morgoth found a way to transform into a Balrog, but since it was "second hand" knowledge so to speak, the transformation left him weaker and therefore it is easier for Talion to kill him.

There is a third possibilty as well, given that Celebrimbor is not only a Noldor, but a descendant of Feanor, and as it is know, those of his blood are amongst the greatest creators amongst the mortals. And since the way how Balrogs are and perceived by the world, and due to a possible involvment in their becoming by Melkor, the greatest creator besides Eru himself, Celebrimbor might have insight on how a Balrog is made, what the essence of his being is, so to speak, and therefor he and Talion have a advantage against a Balrog Gandalf had not.

As said, all of the above are possible explanations based on lore so as you can see the possibilty to fight a Balrog is given, even in a way that would not contradict lore if implemented/explained properly.

Gothmog was the Balrog lieutennant. Shortly after the Balrogs defeated Ungoliant, Durin's Bane somehow was burried beneath Moria, and when he was unearthed, he wiped out the entire population. One Balrog versus hundreds of thousands of Dwarves. Guess who won? Like I said, they can change the lore, but nerfing the hell out of storyline characters is sad. Balrogs were very powerful beings. If Talion can easily be killed in just a few hits by an average Orc, what are his chances against a God? Unless they pull something serious out, like any of the examples you gave, then the fight against the Balrog is gonna be dissapointing. Balrogs aren't "made". They always existed, they were simply twisted by the magic of Melkor. If they have it as some kind of multiple stage (very long) or gimmick fight involving us needing to drown him, then it will be less dissappointing. I just hope we don't flat out kill a Balrog.

[gackie]

Originally posted by MasterOfTheRings:

Well I have to disagree with you in one point. Balrogs did not "always exist". Everything in Tolkines universe is created, save Eru himself. He was, is and will be. The Ainur then came to be and after Eru had shown them the creation of their music, he made the world be and Arda was. And since the Ainur are spirits and not bound to the world, and Balrogs did not exist without the world, the were made, out of those spirits that followed Melkor.

I think the reason why the devs did include a Balrog was because, well they are human after all and they wanted to make something out of the game they created and I think there is no arguing that a Balrog is an impressive foe. It is sad though that there are not more informations on them. I myself pictured them always different than who they were portrayed in the movies. So if there were to be more informations one could come up with a strategy on how to fight them. After all the host of the Valar did fight them in the last battle. And certainly before as well.

But you have to remember two things as well: first not the Balrogs were the most firce enemy of the host. It was the dragons who nearly drove them back. So this means that a Balrog is something one can handle [in theory]. And second Gandalf is two things: mortal, bound by flesh, and he was not a warrior. We have little information about his life as Olorin, but I assume he never had any part in the great wars of the ancient times. Thus it is likely that he did not encounter a Balrog before. Elves on the other hand know them very well. Which gives Celebrimbor and thus us another advantage over Gandalf.

Gandalf was still beyond the power of men. He battled that thing for 3 days. The fall into the chasm should have killed him but it didn't. Gandalf knew what a Balrog was, so he clearly had encountered some before. You can't just have a video game boss made out of something that powerful, unless you make the person your playing as more powerful. This is what's leading me to believe it will be a gimmick fight. It does take place on a frozen lake, so why else would it be set there?

[DarkHenrik]

there is allways the possibility that they might pay homage towards the old Balrog fight, possibly by first having the battle happen on the top of the ice, then the Balrog breaks the ice and it and Talion/Celebrimbor fall into a cave system or someting under them and a second phase is then started. The Balrog boss does not have to have just one phase you all know.

[gackie]

Originally posted by DarkHenrik:

there is allways the possibility that they might pay homage towards the old Balrog fight, possibly by first having the battle happen on the top of the ice, then the Balrog breaks the ice and it and Talion/Celebrimbor fall into a cave system or someting under them and a second phase is then started. The Balrog boss does not have to have just one phase you all know.

Balrogs seem to be fairly helpless if they can't escape water quickly.

[Laptop]

The same way Batman beats up all his enemies...

with his fists.

[Firerodan16]

Fight Fire with Fire?


I mean....we have a Ice elemental Effect.........maybe it will Involve Talion having to use a Ice Graug or something like that to attempt to take on the Balrog.Fight Brute and Elemental Strength with more Brute and Elemental Strength.