Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor - The Bear and Badger

Paul the sparky

@Panty

Yeah did the first hunting one last night. Poised above the start of the second for when I next play it.

I've decided to crack on with the story then get stuck into the nemisissesesesssesss I encounter along the way, as trying to off high level mo fos without all the tools is folly.

mistercrayon

Beat this last night. The end two out of three bits (the middle one is okay) are really fucking dreadful. Luckily this bit only lasts an hour or so.

fullspectrum

Oh. Killed my 4-chiefs and got to the second area which is unMordorian as fuck. Was hoping for a tavern somewhere, no luck.

Verecocha

fullspectrum wrote:

Oh. Killed my 4-chiefs and got to the second area which is unMordorian as fuck. Was hoping for a tavern somewhere, no luck.

Did the same yesterday, hoping its still a good way away from the ending as I am enjoying it!

pantyfire

Do you get to just go back into the world and tool around fighting the nemesis system after completion?

mistercrayon

Yep

pantyfire

Ace, thanks.

pantyfire

I'm a bit sad.
I've got all artifacts, all Ithildin pieces, all weapons challenges done (something I very rarely do) and I only have 1 power up left to unlock. I don't want this to end, I've been enjoying it too much, I still have a couple of story missions to go by the looks of it.

Chief

I've decided to run through the story now, just hit a few side missions and whatnot. Not that I'm not enjoying it, it's more that it's a futile job to try killing all the captains. Plus, I keep getting distracted and fancy actually making some proper progress.

Subbax

Yeah, as soon as I could I went on my merry, murderous way and clean up about 6 of them. I then died to a punk and he got promoted, along with all the other shit that was loitering so the board pretty much refilled.

I don't think it's possible to get to a state where there's a breather but that kinda makes sense seeing as they're an army of orcs.

Chief

It does make perfect sense. It makes it even more of a kick in the teeth when you die, seeing all those dead orcs replaced and undoing all your murderous work.

mistercrayon

Or coming back to life!

I think it is possible to wipe everyone out.

fullspectrum

Finished. Brand makes everything a bit easy, even if the whole game is about combat empowerment it. Cheapens it a little so not sure if I'll mop everything up.

Verecocha

fullspectrum wrote:

Finished. Brand makes everything a bit easy, even if the whole game is about combat empowerment it. Cheapens it a little so not sure if I'll mop everything up.

Yeah feel like the ultimate badass but it does make it all very easy, mopping up most stuff now before the end game begins. Though I'm not sure how far off I am.

Verecocha

All done, think I've mopped up most of the achievements I want too, brilliant game, not without its faults but absolutely loved it.

Paul the sparky

Going to get on it tonight hopefully. Gonna hunt me some orc.

Verecocha

Paul the sparky wrote:

Going to get on it tonight hopefully. Gonna hunt me some orc.

The end game is actually pretty good, just non stop combat,wraps up nicely too.

Syph79

Took out the first 4 War Chiefs today. I was dying all the time and the nemesis system was screwing me over, but then it clicked and I kicked some ass. Yay me.

Paul the sparky

Good on you.

Do runes stack or should I just dismantle the lesser rune?

Paul the sparky

It's just given me a vendetta mission to avenge Verecocha, the fucker is level 20 so I thought he'd be a tough 'un, yet his weakness is stealth finishers?! We must get different versions of these bad guys in our own game.

Verecocha

Paul the sparky wrote:

It's just given me a vendetta mission to avenge Verecocha, the fucker is level 20 so I thought he'd be a tough 'un, yet his weakness is stealth finishers?! We must get different versions of these bad guys in our own game.

Yeah I've no idea how it works. Though sometimes I'd be banging my head against a brick wall with a 'combat master wondering what the hell to do then realised it was a simple stealth kill. All too easy those.

pantyfire

I can't bring myself to finish this off, I'm enjoying it too much.

Paul the sparky

Oh fuck this brand the archers mission. They've managed to get this far while hiding the weaknesses of the game and concentrating on what it does well only to do the opposite now.

Pro Tip: this game is shit at stealth, the AI is poor and trying to climb or run along walls quickly ends in disaster more often than not. Don't put all three together with an instant fail condition you ridiculous cunts.

pantyfire

The stealth is pants but I absolutely breezed that mission.

TheDJR

He's probably missed an obvious weak spot.

pantyfire

Arrow blink into a immediate stealth drain for a couple of them. Drain from above for the rest.

Paul the sparky

Stealth drain on an archer in a tower alerting some fucker. Twice. Said tower was in the middle of the camp and the highest archer there. As we all know, orcs can't look up, so I'm confused as to how anyone saw me.

Even more confused as there's an archer that I brand in plain sight of his mate who is about 10' above us as I brand him. The spotted indicator goes from full yellow to half full red, then I duck into a hedge and Magoo the Orc forgets I was there. There was no yellow phase on the central archer guy, just a ridiculous instant fail. Utter horseshit.

Breezing the mission isn't the point, I breezed it myself after the two bizarre insta-fails. The point is that instant fail stealth wank, along with inconsistent AI, should have died with Ass Crud the first. In fact there was a timed mission following a cutscene in there too, down with that shite as well.

pantyfire

Im with you on insta fails and timed objectives, the latter in particular I hate.

yourfavouriteuncle

I really like this but seem to keep fucking up and it's putting me off. I might have a couple of encounters that I manage pretty well and then I'll stumble on a random encounter with two guys then suddenly end up surrounded by about a million. I'll then die and restart only to bump into another imposo-mission. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Clearly I'm not so good at most games but am I trying to progress in the wrong way? I don't mind starting again as I'm not very far at all. General tips on how to build and progress from the off would be great please.

pantyfire

Erm, you need to do the first story missions until you get to the 'Kill 4 warchiefs' one, this will give you a decent amount of starting powers.
While getting to that point I hunted down all the artefacts and ithildin pieces while doing the hunting/gathering missions that I could. These little missions will give you decent amounts of cash to buy the permanent weapon and health upgrades.
I would suggest going for the first health upgrade straight away and after that I went for the arrows and focus and then unlocked some rune slots for you sword/bow/dagger.

Play to your early strengths. If you come across a captain that can be killed by stealth or a single arrow during the early game then take advantage of that, get some easy runes to buff health or focus and do as much 'other' stuff as you can to unlock the better abilities.

The arrow teleport and the arrow teleport kill abilities are excellent, they are very good for getting across strongholds quickly and unseen, I often teleport to the bad guy (uses two arrows) then instantly drain him till he dies, you get all your arrows back, you are usually in a better position and its bad ass.

You can open a new tier of abilities by killing captains and you dont need to buy everything in one tier before moving to the next. Some are decent and some wont suit your playstyle.
For instance, I steered clear of the throw daggers perk and the running barge perks until right at the very end. While I found the vault and stun perks very useful at the beggining.

The most important thing is... RUN AWAY. You often get swamped in the early game and they will destroy you.
But the orcs are as thick as shit, you can vault over one, run to a wall and climb up it. Dangle yourself over the other side and they will lose sight of you, you can then watch as half of them drift away bored or stalk them and get a stealth kill or a brutalise from above kill (which will scare some of them crowd away, thereby thinning it out for you) on YOUR terms.

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