Welcome to the Shadow of War DOs and DONTs Beginners Guide – a guide to help new players get the most out of the game with minimum mistakes!
Monolith’s Shadow of War is a massive game, one that will require at least 40-50 hours of your time to complete. Even longer if you aim for 100% achievements. If you have played the previous title from 3 years ago – Shadow of Mordor, you will find yourself in familiar universe.
Most of the controls and the way the game and characters function is the same or very similar. It wont take you long to get used to it. However, if you are a new player and about to make your first steps into the game, be warned – there are quite a lot of things that you could do wrong. Nothing is fatal or wasted, of course.
Follow this guide to make your first steps with Shadow of War easier and be prepared to face the real challenges later on.
Without further delay, here is the Beginners Guide with DOs and DONTs for Middle-earth: Shadow of War!
DO test your game if it runs on higher graphical settings than what it recommends for you. My hardware is quite powerful and yet Shadow of War auto-configured itself to run at the lowest preset. I, obviously, knew it’s a bug or a mistake, so I cranked it all up to maximum. The game runs very smooth and has no FPS issues or lag spikes.
However, if you experience any trouble, check out the Middle-earth: Shadow of War Problems and Fixes post for a solution to your problems.
DO start the game in Normal or even Easy difficulty mode. It is recommended for beginners and players who haven’t played Shadow of Mordor. You can switch the difficulty at any given time, but just be warned – the Nemesis mode is for more experienced and trained players.
It requires your full attention to the smallest details, like your Skill Tree Build, the environment, weak and strong sides of your opponents and more.
DON’T rush to reach the EndGame (Act IV). Start slow, enjoy the game as it leads you from a very heavy cinematic story telling Act I, into a more complex Act II to the epic conclusion of the story in Act III and… the grind fest, which is Act IV.
Be mindful, there is a special bonus cinematic revealing Talion’s true fate at the end of Act IV. Of course, I have it available here, if you don’t want to wait or don’t mind spoilers.
DO the story first. The story missions in Shadow of War are for the most part interesting, entertaining and even challenging.
The boss fights are also fun. The game adapts to your personal level and will most of the time match your current level to the level of the content you are playing, when it comes to story missions.
Each main mission can be repeated multiple times, but you will only get the rewards for it only once. Story isn’t the strongest feature of the game, but I personally enjoyed it a lot. At times I found myself just rushing to the next mission starting point just to see what happens to this or that character. Spoiler alert! You do not want to miss the Balrog moments :)))
DON’T bother gathering any special and unique sets early on. Shadow of War has several different tiers and types of gear.
The most interesting and worth talking about are, of course, the Legendary sets. They drop from Orc Captains, as rewards for completing quests or by hunting achievements. These items can level up with you, meaning when you loot it at level 15, you will be able to upgrade it several times to level cap (60). However, most of those are not so special or needed at low levels.
During the progression of the game in Act I and II, Talion is still not fully developed and also not facing any unbeatable challenges at this time. There’s no need for you to aim to get the full set of this or that item.
Well, if you love the appearance and are determined to get it, nobody can stop it. I’m just warning you that for most of the players it will turn out to be a needless grind.
When you get to Act IV and beyond, you will have the opportunity to find and complete all of your favorite Legendary Gear sets without the need to level them up (because you will already be high level).
DO save your Mirian. It is extremely valuable in Act IV and this is where you will actually really need it. Mirian is used to purchase upgrades and unlocks as well as for managing your Fortress Assaults and Siege Defenses. You will be doing a lot of the last 2 in the EndGame. Do yourself a favor and don’t spend anything unless you think you really need to.
DON’T buy any items from the InGame Market place for real money. In fact, don’t buy anything in the early game. Talion levels up pretty fast in Act I and Act II. Any gear you loot will soon become obsolete, any Orcs you recruit or purchase will soon become weak and useless (unless you spend time leveling them up via the Nemesis missions).
DO explore all of the Haedir Towers and find out all possible hidden achievements and places of interest. It will make your life easier when you know where you can find certain items or missions.
DO take at least a brief look at the strengths and weaknesses of the captains, warchiefs and overlords before you fight them. It is important to know if you can leap over them, poke them with arrows, bend their will at the end of the duel and recruit them and so on. Each of their strengths is always displayed when you inspect them. To learn their weaknesses, however, you would need to use Intelligence or interrogate a Worm Uruk from the Open World.
DON’T do all side quests early on. Most of the rewards you will get will become unusable very soon. The Nemesis missions are generated on a random basis and even if you let a captured Follower of yours die, don’t cry a river for him. There are plenty of orcs in Mordor and many of them will be more than happy to fill in the blank spots in your army.
DON’T worry about picking a wrong Skill upgrade. During the game you will earn more skill points than you need, potentially possible to unlock 100% all skills in the skill tree. The skill tree is designed to allow you to switch between builds quickly, but not quick enough.
Some times you would face a captain, who is immune to your favorite attack or combo and force you to switch. Sadly, this happens not with the click of a button, but with you going through the pause menu, to the Character screen and manually switching one or more of the Skill Upgrades, based on what you have unlocked.
In the style of this guide, let me finish with DO subscribe to my YouTube channel for more Shadow of War Content and DON’T forget to turn on the bell icon. Also sign up to receive Notifications for new posts on VULKK.com and be sure to browse through the quickly growing list of Guides for the game.
