In the New Middle-earth: Shadow of War DLC – Desolation of Mordor – the main protagonist Baranor is even faster and more maneuverable than Talion and Eltariel. Through the use of his Grapple Hook and Kite abilities, he moves very quickly! A Sneak peek at the new Skill Tree Screen too! Let’s dive in!
There are NO STORY SPOILERS in this article! All images I’ve used are taken from the Developer Live Stream from 19th of April.
RELATED► Shadow of War: Desolation of Mordor First Look
The Developers from Monolith revealed more details about the upcoming second Story Expansion to Middle-earth: Shadow of War. Desolation of Mordor will allow you to play as the ranger Baranor, who possesses unique special abilities. Today we’ve got new information on the Grapple Hook and the Kite, plus some new juicy reveals on the New Augments system.
Because Baranor is a mortal human and does not possess a special Ring of Power, he cannot transform into a Wraith like Talion, nor can he use Galadriel’s Light to improve his performance. The brave ranger does have quite a few new tricks up his sleeve, though.
THE GRAPPLE HOOK ABILITY
RELATED► Desolation of Mordor: New Combat Abilities, Numenorean Artifacts, Augments and Torvin
While roaming the new region of Lithlad, Baranor is using a new ability, introduced specially for him with this DLC, called Grapple Hook. It allows him to climb all sorts of walls, objects and obstacles. When the ability can be used on something, a special new icon will appear on your screen. As you move around the world, multiple of these icons will pop in and out. To pick what exactly you want your character to grapple himself to, simply navigate with the camera. Only one hook is visible at any given time, though one wall or a building may have several available in close proximity.
THE KITE AND GLIDING ABILITY
The Grapple and Hook work well in conjunction with the Kite. You already know about Baranor’s special shield tech. The Kite is yet another invention and will save him a lot of time roaming the desert. Important to note, of course, the Kite only moves in a down-facing trajectory. You cannot fly up with it. However, through the use of Augments, the Kite’s performance can be changed.
The Kite can be used to fly off anything – ridges, buildings, walls, cliffs and so on. It hovers nicely into the air for a long time, compensating for Baranor’s inability to tame the wild beasts of Mordor and ride them like Talion does.
Baranor can use his Crossbow while in the air, Gliding with the Kite.
CONCUSSION BOMBS
These are new items Baranor can use – AoE explosives that damage, stun or knock-down enemies. They can be picked up from corpses most of all, but are not available in huge quantities.The default cap is 3 bombs at one time. To use them, target an area and press the shortcut key or button. The explosion is quite fast and deadly. It one-shots grunts in Easy Difficulty Mode, as was demonstrated on the Dev Stream.
TIPS AND TRICKS IN COMBAT
You can perform stealth kills by jumping from the Kite, which utilizes a nice new animation for this attack. Your target will flash in red to let you know which orc you are about to jump to. Also, you can use the Grapple to Hook to something while flying with the Kite. Don’t forget that there is damage from jumping and falling. The Kite comes very handy in this situation too.
Climbing the world in the old fashioned way is still possible, of course. It’s just very slow. The new tools Baranor has in his disposal, actually make his movements even faster and more comfortable than Talion’s and Eltariel’s.
Baranor doesn’t have the “Shadow Strike ability. However, he can fly quickly into the face of his opponent and surprise him using the Kite for a stealthy kill.
The ability to quickly move up using the Grapple Hook ability allows Baranor to escape tough situations much quicker than Talion ever could. Moving upwards has been improved for Shadow of War compared to what it was like in Shadow of Mordor, but the Grapple makes the experience totally different now.
The new Legendary Were-Worms from Tolkien’s lore can appear in random spots around the desert. Their presence is marked with grey-ish circles on the ground. You can force them to appear by shooting at these spots. When a giant were-worm spawns from the ground, it quickly eats whatever is nearby. Thewere-worm’s appearance is usually short, but very deadly for the poor creatures that didn’t run far away in time. The worms are attracted to grog.
If you Grapple towards a low-height object, you will catapult yourself over that object, giving you an extra boost to cover up even more terrain or simply fly over something. This works on the ground as well as in the air. As long as the object is not too high from your current position, you can Grapple to it and jump over it.
In this (and other) articles I speak of “corpses”. Be mindful that this term has a wider meaning in Lithlad as corpses will be all over the place and not all of them will be because of your actions. So, always be on the look out for random old corpses laying around. They drop Augments, Supplies and other random goodies.
THE AUGMENTS SYSTEM
Augments are a new way to improve your character’s gear and they are stackable. This means you can equip more than one augment that boosts the same stat and the bonuses will stack. Augments drop from captains, treasure orcs and corpses. When you obtain a new Augment, you can find it in the appropriate category for the item this Augment afects. There are Augments for all of Baranor’s Gear : Sword, Dagger, Shield, Crossbow and Armor.
The Augments are part of the In-Game progression, meaning they DISAPPEAR when you die. Each time you respawn, you will lose your Augments and will be able to find random new ones as you journey through Lithlad.
Augments are separated into three Tiers: Common, Epic and Legendary. It has been confirmed that there are 25 Legendary Augments. Here are all the Augments that were shown in the Developer Live Stream from 19th of April. Note, there are a lot more! The tiers are easy to tell by the color of the Augments – commons are in white, Epics are in orange and Legendaries are in Purple.
- Sword: Dwarven Whetstone: adds +10 Melee Damage
- Sword: Coated Chain (Epic): Cyclone causes a Fire explosion
- Dagger: Barbed Blade: adds +50 Stealth Damage
- Dagger: Heavy Blade (Epic): adds +50% Damage from Stealth attacks performed while Gliding
- Crossbow: Tighter Gearing: adds +15 Ranged Damage on Steel, Fire and Poison Bolts
- Shield: Reinforced Plating: Take +5% less Damage (boosting your Defense percentage)
- Armor: Dwarven Jointwork: adds +25 Focus
- Time and a Half (Legendary): Picking up Coins increases damage by 1% per Coin gained for 20 seconds
Augments can be dismantled for Coins – the new currency Baranor will be using in Lithlad to purchase goods and services as well as hire Mercenaries.
SKILL TREE SCREEN SNEAK PEEK
The new Skill system has not been revealed yet, but during the live stream, we got a random quick screenshot of it. In the screenshot above we see four categories of skills:
- Torvin – abilities and upgrades given by Torvin. Three abilities are visible with three upgrades each. 12 Skill Points in total.
- Serka – four main abilities with two and three upgrades available for each one. 18 Skill Points in total.
- Capacity – three main abilities with two or three upgrades available to each. 10 Skill Points in total.
- Legacy Skills – abilities carried over from the Base Game.
LEARN MORE ► Desolation of Mordor: Baranor Skill Tree Guide
Here is a list of the Legacy Skills that Baranor will be able to use in the DLC (based on icons, not confirmed yet!):
- Execution
- Perfect Counter
- Critical Strike
- Ground Finisher
- Retaliation
- Elven Agility
- Brutalize
- Bursting Arrow
- Freeze Pin
- Treasure Hunter
RELATED► Shadow of War All Skills and Upgrades: The Ultimate Beginners Guide
MISC AND Q&A
Here are some more Misc updates and Q&A for the upcoming DLC:
- Hired Mercenaries cannot be spies.
- Augment bonuses can go past 100%.
- When you die, your Mercenaries Recruits reset as well.
- Your Ability Upgrades will stay after you get killed, they do not reset.
- Baranor cannot dominate orcs. He can’t ride Caragors either.
- There appears to be a way to advance time in Liuthlad too. Night time is available.
- There are Outposts Missions in Lithlad. These will reset if you die.
- Idril is not dead, but she is busy elsewhere.
- This DLC focuses on Baranor. Talion has a very minor role, but it is not revealed what yet.
- There are changes coming to the base game with this DLC. Free stuff too. More info on that in the coming weeks.
- Intel can still be picked up from maps. There are no more Intel Orcs (they don’t work like that in the DLC).
- You can recruit multiple bodyguards (mercenaries) at a time to walk around with you.
- A NEW trailer might be coming soon.
The Desolation of Mordor DLC releases on 8th of May.
