The Complete Guide to Fortress Assault & Defense

Orc leveling strategies, Orc strengths and countering them, Fortress defenses, Training Orders, Legendary gear stats and more

Introduction

First of all, no natural fortress is truly impenetrable. The game was designed so that every captain, warchief and overlord has some weakness or trait that can be exploited to turn the odds in your favour. There are many wildcards at your disposal such as Legendary Gear bonuses, Bodyguard/Beast summoning, Elven Rage, Elven Light, Elemental Weapons, Cluster of Spiders etc.

There are ridiculously difficult fortresses due to cheaters in online conquest assault, with orcs that have no weaknesses, having a handful of epic traits, above max level 100 etc. SEE HERE[imgur.com]

In this guide I will cover which traits make the best for warchieves and overlords, how to counter these traits, information on fortress defenses and more.

1.0 Building the Army

1) Reach Max Level

Currently the highest level is 60, the easiest way to achieve this would be to use an XP boost while defending your forts throughout the defense stages in Act IV. Prepare all of your armies in the various regions beforehand so that you don't waste valuable time doing so while the XP boost is ticking (and it ticks whether your game is paused or not). You can get HUGE amounts of XP for these defense missions, upwards of 100k and sometimes around 240k, which equates to 2 or 3 levels per mission.

2) Maxing out your Orcs

This is a tedious process but there are ways around it. One of the things to look out for is that Orcs are likely to betray you after a demotion, which you would need to do in order to send them into the pit fight or on a nemesis mission. It's better not to wander around too much after demoting as they would come out of nowhere and confront you, especially if you kill their blood brother. Definitely watch out for that trait.

• Leveling up one Orc (Training Order) -> Apply Basic Battle Training to raise Orc level by 1
  
  

  Nothing special

• Leveling up one Orc (Pit fight) -> Wait at the pit fight mission start area -> Demote -> Begin Pit Fight with the Orc -> If successful, restart process / If not, dominate enemy Orc and repeat.
  
  

  Alternatively to speed up this process you can purposely send a low level Orc to die in the Champions arena and dominate the winner.
  
  If your Orc is about to lose then press Alt+F4 when the "Killed By" message comes up and restart the game, you will now face a new challenger. If you want to face the same challenger simply back out to the main menu before your Orc is killed and restart.
  
  This is also a good way to farm legendaries.

• Leveling up one Orc (Nemesis mission) -> Send low level Orc against a Max level or higher Orc -> Ensure your Orc completes his objective -> Repeat
  
  

  This method could give 10 - 20 levels of ranking if there is a huge level difference between them. A level 15 facing a level 60 would gain 20 levels. However the Orc you want to be leveled up must not be sent as a reinforcement

• Leveling up one Orc (Dying) -> Die to any random Orc who is not a captain -> If you are max rank he will easily be at least a rank 59 or so -> Dominate -> Repeat
  
  

  You can also level up any other enemy captains that were around when you died to the random orc. If you die to multiple captains they can simultaneously level up and you can dominate them afterwards. Just keep in mind that some higher level captains are more likely to have Iron Will, making your job more tedious. The orc that killed you will sometimes have a chance of being a legendary, and if you kill an orc they will also have a chance to cheat death and return as a legendary.

• Leveling up multiple Orcs (Nemesis missions) -> Send a handful of Orcs on missions against other enemy Orcs -> Advance time 3 times at the Haedir -> Repeat
  
  

  This strategy is somewhat risky, you cant always ensure the outcome you want as you wont be "supervising" your Orcs. They can either be killed, captured or might flee, but sending a reinforcement would be a good deterrent.

  
  

  3) Maxing out your Assault/Defense force

  
  Without any upgrades whatsoever, and all of your Assault/Defense Leaders are maxed out at 60, you will have the maximum base score of 480. When you apply all upgrades for all leaders you will reach the max rating of 570 and as far as I know it doesn't get higher than this. If you see other fortresses at a higher rating it is because they cheated their Orcs past the max rank, some of the Orcs would be level 65 or even up to level 100.
  
  A couple things to note here:
  
  • Assigning Orc captains as bodyguards to the Warchieves will not increase your rating
  
  
  • You can assign up to 2 bodyguards per Warchief for defense
  
  
  • The rarity of your leaders will not increase their rating. A full fortress of Legendies/Epics/Standards at max level will carry the same max rating of 570 (See below)
  
  
  • You will not lose your Orcs if an enemy conquers your fortress. If you fail to capture an enemy fortress you will lose 25 points from your current ranking and also any Orcs that were killed (unless you have the ability to resurrect them). Or you could just Alt+F4 during any point before the mission ends if you have suffered too many losses.
  
  Comparisons between all rarity types showing that fortress rating does not change
  

2.0 Strengths

In this section I will go through the strengths that would be great for your fortress leaders. To have an Orc at max level isn't everything, there are times when they can be outmatched by lower ranking captains with better traits. This orc is a prime example, with all immunities to the elements but still vulnerable to executions, ranged attacks etc.


You can't control which traits your Orc will have but this list should be a good reference point to ensure that you have a variety of these traits among your defenders.

Strengths highlighted are very good for Overlords and/or Warchieves.

Strength	Strength Type	Advanced Class / Tribe	Epic
Iron Will	Bonuses	Any	No
No Chance	Class Traits	Assassin	No
Agile	Class Traits	Assassin	No
Arrow-Proof	Immunities	Any	No
Decoy	Bonuses	Trickster	No
Unbreakable	Bonuses	Any	No
Warmonger Clash	Class Traits	Berserker	No
Vigilant Against Stealth	Immunities	Any	No
Smoke Bomb	Class Traits	Trickster	No
Death Defying	Bonuses	Any	No
Fast Learner	Class Traits	Slayer	No
Feral Claws	Class Traits	Beastmaster	No
Enraged by Injury	Hates	Tank	No
Dark Strikes	Class Traits	Trickster	No
Machine Hook	Class Traits	Slayer	No
Hail of Bolts	Class Traits	Marksman	No
Enraged by Everything	Hates	Tank	No
Terror Chains	Class Traits	Berserker	No
Sappers	Class Traits	Destroyer	No
War Banners	Class Traits	Commander	No
Immune to Execution	Immunities	Any	No
Determination	Class Traits	Tank	No
Dying Command	Class Traits	Commander	No
Flying Axes	Class Traits	Berserker	No
Olog Strength	Class Traits	Tank	No
Vengeful	Hates	Any	No
Bombs	Bonuses	Destroyer	Yes
Fire/Poison/Curse Warder	Bonuses	Any	Yes
Thick Skin	Bonus	Any	Yes
Throwing Knives	Bonuses	Assassin	Yes
Slayer Counter	Bonuses	Slayer	Yes
Fire/Poision/Curse Master	Bonuses	Any	Yes
Graug Call	Bonuses	Beastmaster	Yes
Gang of Elite Ologs	Bonuses	Tank	Yes
Great Strength	Bonuses	Any	Yes
Mighty Hunters	Bonuses	Hunter	Yes
Fanatical Gang	Bonuses	Any	Yes

Patch v1.11 adds some new traits, this information was taken from the patch notes:

• Tunnel Rat – Orcs can burrow into the ground and summon Ghûls.

• Sniper Shot – Archers can fire from great distances with pinpoint accuracy.

• Tremor – Ologs can pound the earth with tremendous force, staggering nearby threats and heavily damaging structures.

• Gifts of Treasure – Followers can now bring players the gift of a Treasure Orc, providing even more ways to earn Gems and Mirian

2.5 Countering Strengths

Whether finding Orcs to take in as Warchieves during free roam or assaulting another fortress, you are likely to come across Orc traits that require you to adapt.

Iron Will - Sometimes max rank or higher legendary Orcs have the Iron Will trait and cannot be recruited. Shaming then continuously will have a chance to remove this, Worse than Death has a similar effect but will have a higher chance of driving them to being an insane maniac. I was able to recruit a max level legendary with Iron Will by shaming him without Worse than Death until he became a level 25. It may not always be guaranteed to work but its still worth trying if you're farming for legendaries.

Arrow-Proof - Being invulnerable to ranged attacks also makes them immune to dagger throws. These types are usually still vulnerable to a certain element or combat executions, and explosions. In this case you can use the Elven Light ability with either the poison, fire or frost upgrade, depends on the target. You can take this a step further and then combine this with a different element that he is vulnerable to with your sword or dagger, if he is then vulnerable to combat execution or stealth respectively. If up against an Orc with a defender shield you will have to do this ability from behind his shield. An arrow-proof target is also invulnerable to a Mighty Shot near their feet even if they are vulnerable to the element.

Immune to Execution - Unlike Shadow of Mordor you will be unable to execute targets if you are in the unlimited execution mode. One option is to spam sword attacks in rage mode. If you have no Wrath then rely on ranged and stealth. Trial and error with different elements, frost is often overlooked. If the Orc is also Arrow-Proof then you will need to start using your environment to your advantage. Grog barrels, Caragor/Ghul/Spider bait and Fire/Poision pits are common in outposts.

Fast Learner - An Orc with this strength will be very adaptive to any move you do repetitively. They can easily become Vault-Breakers and Immune to Execution if done 2-3 times in a row. With this in mind you need to exploit their weakness sparingly, or at the very least you can alternate between how you attack them. As far as I know they shouldn't become Arrow-Proof if you attack with ranged repeatedly but its worth trying. It's also not likely that they would adapt to elemental damage on the fly.

Smoke Bombs - This ability would impede alot of your close quarters combat, especially if paired with the Agile trait. A ranged approach would be more suitable for dealing with these Orcs as they can easily disorient you and any friendly Orcs in the vicinity. The smoke bomb will cancel your attack and leave you vulnerable to enemy damage, not to mention this cannot be blocked or dodged. Its also worth noting that Orcs with this ability that are retreating will periodically drop smoke bombs to cover their escape. If you decide to chase them, stick to the rooftops or run in a zig zag pattern.

Determination - If left unattended to the Orc will begin to slowly heal himself back to full health. This can easily be interrupted by attacking, or vaulting over him. If getting swarmed by multiple Orcs, it's likely that he will take the chance to heal. Always keep an eye on him.

Vault-Breaker - Orcs with shields are sometimes likely to be vault-breakers. One of the ways around this is to pin his leg if he's not arrow proof and simply run around him and attack from the back. Or alteratively summon bodyguards/caragors/spiders etc so that he will become preoccupied with them leaving him vulnerable to your attacks. Hands down the best ability to face a Vault-Breaker is Waters of Lorien, which enables you to dash through/past enemies, this makes killing Defenders and Ologs a whole lot easier.

3.0 Fortress Upgrades

My preferred upgrades. I tend to go for Ologs rather than Sappers even though Sappers are more efficient than Ologs, this is because Ologs stick around longer as opposed to being kamikazed at the gate. Regardless the first upgrade really shouldn't matter if you are manually taking control of a Graug at the beginning of the siege, which can do a better and faster job than them anyway. When you storm through the front door, the Ologs usually funnel straight into the fortress and essentially bypass any poison/fire damage from side walls. Metal walls as a defense upgrade is a no-brainer. In my opinion this should always be paired with Iron gates because it protects both outside/inside fortress doors, also it is usually faster to storm straight through a gate rather than using a side wall.

Cursed siege beasts usually remain unchanged for me but can and should be adapted to the weakness of the Warchieves you are facing for maximum effectiveness. Again a graug is a must for taking a fortress as quickly as possible, I don't see the drake and spiders being as useful as they won't last as long as compared to a graug. However their fire and poision damage are still an asset, being terrified of spiders is also a common weakness. As I mentioned before the cursed siege beast is a very good choice as a defender, as it can drain both health and wrath at a moderate speed crippling your attacker and spreading fear among Orcs. For the attackers this could be countered with an Enraged by Curse trait for assault leaders or gear that can reduce the length of elemental damage. Your choice of archers wouldn't really affect much during your siege but personally I would pick a farsight archer over an elemental archer, the archer that can spot the enemy before he can be spotted would usually have the upper hand.

This table shows comparisons between defenses and the time taken to breach them, sorted from longest to quickest. These were tested with all other defenses disabled so that they would not interfere with the process too much, because of this these figures will not be absolute as there are alot more variables in a real match of online assault. However they can still be used as a reference point.

Defender	Attacker	Time taken to breach	Hits	Player Controlled
No wall upgrades + Spikes	Mounted Cavalry	46 seconds	N/A	No
No wall upgrades + Spikes	Sappers	12 seconds	7-8 sappers	No
No wall upgrades + Spikes	Olog Hai	10 seconds	9 hits	No
No wall upgrades + Spikes	Graug	3 seconds	3 hits for both front door and side wall	Yes
Metal walls + Spikes	Mounted Cavalry	50 seconds	N/A	No
Metal walls + Spikes	None	57 seconds	N/A	No
Metal walls + Spikes	Sappers	15 seconds	7-8 sappers	No
Metal walls + Spikes	Olog Hai	60 seconds for front door, ~90 seconds for side wall (varies)	-	No
Metal walls + Spikes	Graug	3 seconds for front door, 22 seconds for side wall	3 for front, 15 for side	Yes
Iron gates	Graug	5 seconds	5 hits	Yes
Iron gates	Sappers	15 seconds	7-8 sappers	No

A good strategy of fortress defense is to equip your defenders with different elemental weapons types (Fire, Poision, Curse). Usually a warchief is immune to the damage type he deals and if he is not, he might be immune to one or more different elemental types which is still an asset. Some high level Orcs have weaknesses such as being terrified of X, you can use this to your advantage and combine this with another warchief that is enraged by cowards.

3.5 Training Orders

A handy list of all of the available Training Orders that you can apply to your followers.

Training Order	Type	Description
Archer Recruitment	Basic	Grants a Follower an Archer gang
Battle Training	Basic	Raise a Follower's level by 1
Poison Training	Basic	Grants a Follower a Poison Weapon
Reassignment Orders	Basic	Send a Follower to the Garrison (Market)
Mount Training	Basic	Grants a Follower a caragor mount
Defender Recruitment	Basic	Grants a Follower a Defender Gang
War Training	Basic	Raises a Follower's level by 5
Fire Training	Basic	Grants a Follower a Fire Weapon.
Olog Recruitment	Basic	Grants a Follower an Olog Gang
Warrior Recruitment	Basic	Grants a Follower a Warrior Gang
Hunter Recruitment	Basic	Grants a Follower a Hunter Gang
Savage Recruitment	Basic	Grants a Follower a Savage Gang
Curse Training	Basic	Grants a Follower a Curse Weapon
Epic Training : Poison Master	Advanced	Grants a Follower a boost to poison damage dealt by himself and nearby allies
Epic Training : Fire Warder	Advanced	Grants a Follower resistance to fire damage dealt by himself and nearby allies
Epic Training : Dire Mount	Advanced	Grants a Follower a Dire Caragor mount
Epic Training : Fire Master	Advanced	Grants a Follower a boost to fire damage dealt by himself and nearby allies
Epic Training : Curse Master	Advanced	Grants a Follower a boost to curse damage dealt by himself and nearby allies
Epic Training : Mighty Warriors	Advanced	Grants a Follower a boost to the effectiveness of nearby Warriors
Epic Training : Great Strength	Advanced	Grants a Follower greatly increased damage
Epic Training : Elite Recruitment	Advanced	Grants a Follower an elite gang that inherits some of his traits
Epic Training : Champion	Advanced	Grants a Follower a champion trait based on their class
Epic Training : Mighty Ologs	Advanced	Grants a Follower a boost to the effectiveness of nearby Ologs
Epic Training : Poison Warder	Advanced	Grants a Follower a resistance to poison damage dealt to himself and nearby allies
Epic Training : Mighty Defenders	Advanced	Grants a Follower a boost to the effectiveness of nearby Defenders
Legendary Training	Advanced	Upgrades a Follower to Legendary
Epic Training : Thick Skinned	Advanced	Grants a Follower greatly increased health
Epic Training : Curse Warder	Advanced	Grants a Follower resistance to curse damage dealt to himself and nearby allies
Epic Training : Mighty Hunters	Advanced	Grants a Follower a boost to the effectiveness of nearby Hunters
Epic Training : Mighty Archers	Advanced	Grants a Follower a boost to the effectiveness of nearby Archers
Epic Training : Mighty Savages	Advanced	Grants a Follower a boost to the effectiveness of nearby Savages

4.0 Wildcards

1. Ringwraith

After finishing Act III you will get a new ability called Ringwraith. This ability alone is enough to pretty much shred almost any Overlord in their throne room. Because this ability heavily depends on Wrath, it's also a good idea for your Warchieves and Siege Beasts to use cursed weapons to counter this. You will have exactly 17 seconds to spam strikes / executions along with a group of undead Gondorians. As it depletes you will raise undead orcs to fight along side you. This ability alone can turn the tables quickly and is a great help for getting gold ratings. You can take out an overlord in under 10 seconds SEE HERE. For overlords with dual wielding axes or with shields, you will still need to attack from behind.

2.Skill Tree

These are my preferred skills to use, always remember that your skills can be changed on the fly to adapt to enemy element weaknesses. Abilities such as Mighty Shot, Elven Light can both change their element damage types.

• You can get creative and set different elements to different abilities, summoning a Cluster of Spiders for poison damage + terrifying orcs (if they have the trait), Mighty Shot with an explosive fire arrow, then combined with an Elven Light ice blast.

• Combine Quiver of Souls with Shadow Stun, this allows you to travel long distances while always replenishing elf shot as you go.

• Combine Consume increases Wrath with Enrage Followers (uses wrath) to get have more ferocious orcs during combat.

• Combine Domination with Mindbreaker for increased domination speed. If you want to Shadow Dominate but don't have the ability, combine Dominate with Shadow Stun then use Ground Drain on the target.

• If you use the Domination skill and had to sacrifice the Quiver of Souls upgrade then you can opt to use Rain of Arrows in the combat tree to give elf shot on well timed counters.

• You can also summon graugs/caragors in the throne room to take advantage of an Overlord's beast fodder weakness.

• Bypass manual drain on captains by using Shadow Dominate at the cost of 2 elf shot. Alternatively you can gain elf shot/health with a manual drain, use Bright Lord's Wrath to receive max health per drain + some Wrath.

3. Gear Loadouts

(Click to enlarge)

Adaptive[imgur.com] This is my preferred loadout to use for any situation, you will have 3 Element types at your disposal when you do critical hits (Poison [50%], Fire [50%], Curse [25%]). If you're in a tricky situation you can use uncharged headshots with the bow/hammer as it will give you a 100% chance for crits per hit, then let the elements do their work. You can take this a step further and combine this with a hammer that causes explosive damage for charged shots, and switch your Elven Light to an ice blast to cover all the elements. Last but not least this build comes with legendary gear bonus, combining the Dagger of Vengeance and the Rune of Vengeance, this will allow you to perform attacks requiring might by using 40% of your max health. If you combine this with top tier life gems and armor you can combat execute/mighty shot about 3 times before needing to go drain for some health. If that wasn't enough the Dagger alone will give you an additional use of might as it will fully charge your might meter on a quickthrow to a single target, SEE HERE[media.giphy.com].

Adaptive 2[imgur.com] Similar to the above but with a few changes. No curse damage but instead you will take 76% less damage from enraged enemies while also getting 255 health per captain killed (very useful for assaulting fortresses). Also reduces duration of fire by 80% and increases duration of poison by 91%. Same legendary gear bonus applies. Also I should mention if you are ever low on health you can combine ground drain with a shadow stun, shoulder/slide tackle, or regular drain. You will get full health from both enemies and friendlies (combined with the Rune of Vengeance) so this makes you harder to kill. You can get a full might bar in about 70 seconds if you have Consume Increases Wrath and you use that with the insta might Dagger, Consume 3 enemies at a time, Drain to refill health then repeat. It will take around 7 Consumes to reach a full bar of Wrath.

Fire[imgur.com] (Credits to [BP] Greenbeard for this buld) -

Originally posted by Greenbeard:

You light everything on fire, While on fire you take less damage and recover more health than you lose. Melee attacks also inflict poison, Stealth attacks set targets on fire.
Enemies stay 100% longer on fire and charged ranged attacks create explosions.

Poison[imgur.com] A poison only build, also reduces fire duration by 80% while increasing poison duration by 91%. Sword and bow have a 50% chance of applying poison for a critical hit, Sword will also apply poison for 10 seconds after performing an execution on a captian. Quickthrow applies poison every 20 seconds as well as 25% chance enemies explode when killed.

Fatedodger[imgur.com] Enter stealth for a short period after a successful last chance. This comes in handy against Orcs that are immune to executions and ranged attacks and even vault-breakers. After you get up you will have time to do at least 3 stealth executions or more if you have the Wraith Chain upgrade which lets you stealth kill an additional target for each one you kill. The flipside of this is that you need to be extra cautious of enemy traits, especially No Chance.

5.0 Legendary Gear (Talion)

With this section you can take a look at the stats of the legendary gear at Lvl 60 as well as the set bonuses for each. Keep in mind that you may find different variations to the legendaries you see here which means you may have different gear attributes, depending on the orc that dropped the gear (elemental weapon that he used.. etc).

*** 12/12 sets listed ***

Click to enlarge

1. Outlaw (DLC)

2. Slaughter (DLC)

3. Bright Lord

4. Vendetta

5. Feral

6. Mystic

7. Marauder

8. Machine

9. Warmonger

10. Dark

11. Terror

12. Ringwraith (Spoilers)

6.0 Legendary Gear (Eltariel)

The Blade of Galadriel expansion adds 5 new legendary sets for Eltariel. The base rank of these pieces start at Level 30 and can only be upgraded to Level 35.

*** 5/5 sets listed ***

Click to enlarge

1. Fire Chaser

2. Serpent Tamer

3. Ice Stalker

4. Beast Hunter

5. Light Bringer

7.0 Conclusion

If you would like to see the funniest Orcs I came across in this game check this out here

If you would like to see how I normally assault a fortress check this video here.

I hope you learned something from reading this guide, if I have anything incorrect or you have something to add post it in the comments and I might put it in at some point. It took days to gather this information and format it properly so please remember to rate it if you found it was helpful and share it with your friends. Be sure to check out the rest of my guides here.

[Cathartic]

Would you be able to update this by chance?

[k❤tty]

Yeah, I wish you were me when I got kicked in the arse from tank fortress masters that are un crawlable and arrow proof. Yeah I looked the odds to get fire in your arse in that hall, thanks!

[Karuma_420-ChiDor1]

I'm just saying now the max is 80 for players and 85 for orcs

[doof__warrior]

I would say some orcs that have only one weakness aren't from cheating, there are some orcs that can only be damaged by one thing and nothing else.

[Tabby3456]

Am i the only one that thinks the kings mask and cloak is the diffinitive cloak

being able to summon gondorian soliders is more helpful than you think

[Serg]

I found an "Obsessed" attacking my fort. Higher level than max for reasons x to y so I shame him to pick him up later. Upon shaming the guy he vanished into the npc limbo of neverland, never to be seen again. 10/10 would implement again.

[El P4pi]

very good, thank's this guide

[Herzog]

legal

[8bit]

They might since they technically lose 5 levels when they get resurrected, they can either lose a trait or a bonus, its not definite, so it can go either way

[Krypt]

Also I got an unrelated question, what happens if I revive a captain that was fire-immune? does it lose immunity and gain flammable weakness? Does the immunity stay?