The nemesis system in Shadow of Mordor is bananas!!

[sageoftruth]

I recall a guy names "(Something) the Friendly". After killing me a number of times, his power had reached 23. The worst part was, I had to kill him four times. Each time, he came back with more scars on his face, and the same power level as before. He'd see me and go, "Oy there! I haven't thanked you yet for these lovely scars you gave me."

 

[OldDirtyCrusty]

Oh damn it you guys, now i want a ps4 and this game so much. It's not the same watching someone play it on youtube. Is it odd that i want to play as an orc? They look great and varied in this game. Creating one, gain power during duells and bully fellow uruks into joining you, feasts for your people and chase pesky, boring rangers daring to enter your domain sounds like a game of it's own to me.

 

[Grimh]

Golm the Dumb, his stupidity all but confirmed
A clean stab through the throat, I left him for dead
Scarred, angry and vengeful, he later returned
His guards swiftly dealt with, I lopped of his head

Yeah he was pretty dumb.

I wasn't too impressed with the nemesis system at first but once you get a little further in it gets real engaging.
I'm coming for you Ratlûg you bastard!

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Actually it needs to be balanced.
A friend of mine did the mistake of dying to a warchief's captain like 4 times in a raw and now to advance the story mission he has to kill that warchief which is guarded by a super captain.

There need to be a system in place to prevent people who are new to the game to screw their game like this.
Non the less it is funny as hell.

Kill the captain first?

If thats still beyond them, the captain will eventually end up in a duel or hunt, and they can probably hinder them (in the hunt, generally by taking out their backup) enough for the other captain/monster to kill them. Eliminating other captains will up the probability of that captain landing in an event.

The captain now is beyond my friend's ability to kill him.

Tricky, but you can basically ignore the existence of the captain and move on with the story unless you are in the second area and he gets promoted to warchief(where you can just use other orcs to kill him). Get above the warchief and use attract to seperate him from the group. The captain might be warchiefs bodyguard but once they start wandering around there is no script to keep them together.

 

[happyninja42]

So I got the game yesterday, and I'm enjoying it. So far the only memorable experience I've had with the Captains, was a ranged captain who jumped me while I was fighting another Captain. The first Captain was fleeing for his life, and I ran him down. The ranged Captain shot me in the back, and put me near death. I succeeded at a "get out of death" move, and charged him. He wasn't able to resist me close quarters, and I was ripping him apart, gleeful in my further Power enhancement....and then a pack a caragor's rushed us and ate my face.

The Captain got a power up for surviving, and moved up in rank, but in his Motives section, it said

"Angry that he did not get the killing blow against Talion, and looks to get the chance again"

I thought that was a nice little touch.


Though I do have one issue with the Weaknesses as written. I had one Captain who had a weakness to stealth attacks. The game specifically said "Will die instantly to stealth kills". Ok then, no problem, sneakiness is my specialty. I creep up on him as he's standing in a ravine all by himself, and stealth attack him.....but he didn't insta-die. He kicked me off at half health, and did the little introduction scene where we cross blades and he says something. I found that kind of annoying, that it retconned his "instant death to stealth" weakness, simply to let him give his introduction.

Anyone else notice this with Captains?

 

[Wan Shi Tong]

Let me tell you the tail of Lugnug the Stout.

There was once a simple Uruk named Lugnug. He was a simple Orc, and was helping his friend, Mushlug become Warchief in a Caragor hunt. Talion came, intending to kill Mushlug, but Lugnug wouldn't let his friend be killed, and managed to kill Talion, him becoming a captain and gaining the title, the Stout. Lugnug always stayed by his friend's side, acting as a bodyguard, all the while getting stronger by hosting feasts and duels.
Eventually Talion came from Mushlug, sneaking into his base and killing his supporters to draw him out. Lugnug stayed by his friend, till Talion descended upon them, dropping down on Mushlug and killing him in one go. Lugnug was angered by this, and charged at Talion, forcing the ranger to flee, but not before burning Lugnug's face.
Lugnug continued his work, rising in power, longing for the day he'd get to kill Talion, and they would meet again, but this time, the Uruk would not be the victor. He was hoasting a feast, one that could only be assumed was to mourn his friend, when Talion attacked. Their blades met, and Lugnug cursed Talion, revealing the burn marks upon his face. Instead of claiming his vengeance, he was knocked unconscious by Talion, who had cut off his arm and left him for dead.
He visited his friend, by the name of Draza the Blacksmith, having a metal claw put on his arm to replace his hand. He was given good chance to test it, as Talion arrived. Once again, he almost felled Talion, but was delayed when a piece of Caragor bait was dropped, attracting the beasts and allowing Talion to escape.
The game of cat and mouse continued, neither managing to kill the other, but Lugnug getting more wounded, his skin turning pale, scars marking his flesh, and his face getting so badly burned he covered it with a burlap sack. One night, Lugnug was on patrol, killing the Ghuls that attacked him, till Talion came. The pair duelled, exchanging blows and cuts till morning, and only one of them stood. Lugnug, had won, and claimed the title of warchief.
This lead Talion to gain strength, becoming more skilled and learning the ability to brand others. He found both of his nemesis's bodyguards, corrupting them before having one of his warchiefs declare a riot on Lugnug. Talion arrived to see the fight begin, activating his sleeper agents and having them strike their former lord in the back.
Lugnug would not bare this insolence, and he cut his foes down one by one, till only the rival warchief, and one of Lugnug's former bodyguards was left. Talion descended now, with the intention of giving Lugnug the demise he deserved. and this time, he would win. He knocked his rival to the ground, the Uruk declaring he had been a worthy foe, and he would take his death well. Talion struck, decapitating Lugnug and sending his head to the floor.

Yes, the nemesis system is awesome.

You're a monster, how could you not spare Lugnug?

I have a strict policy that any uruk that survives an encounter with me is strong enough to be in my army, and any Captain with honour in death is spared from it.

Poor Lugnug, so young, so innocent, living his life the best way he knew how, using the cards he was dealt. That is until halisme the ranger came and ruined his life by killing his friend in dishonourable combat, and only being able to kill the brave warchief Lugnug in the most cowardly way possible. Typical, it seems, that humans lack the decency and respect needed to give their foes a good death.

Rest well Lugnug, you are gone forever, but never forgotten.

 

[Frankster]

It was in this game I discovered the true monster was me all along...

Let me tell you the story of Stakuga the Timid, a humble legendary warchief. Could be instakilled by stealth attacks, fear of fire and fear of carogs or w/e those mounted beasts are called.
I left this warchief last because I saw his weaknesses and laughed, I could pretty much kill him any time I wanted and decided to focus on the other warchiefs first since I expected the last warchief left alive to be boosted in some way and besides, I could "farm" this warchief by constantly sending death threats if he was that easy.

Now the way I play my ranger is that of a sneaky hit and run cowardly fighter. Popping up, stealth killing orcs, branding others and using environmental hazards as much as possible before retreating and hiding.
It's true that I got a lot of cowardly comments and orcs laughing at the "courage of men" but the average orc was also terrified of my ranger and I'd spy their conversations where they warned each other about how "there's something about the ranger that makes the bravest of uruk hai terrified, don't fall for his tricks!" or "that rangers been turning so many of our boyz against us it's getting hard to know who to fight!".

As I culled the warchiefs, slaughtered captains and left the few survivors branded under my control I started sending a message, a "death threat" to Stakuga the timid.
It's then that I noticed he got some new traits: "Afraid of betrayal" and "Afraid of the Grave walker". Clearly my work had bore fruit and this orc would be even easier to kill then I thought. Heck even his motive was now "worried about the next time the grave walker is sighted".

Due to my death threat he took on some new bodyguards...All of which were branded by me.

So I got one of them to initiate a betrayal and lure Stakuga away from his fortress (I'm a sneaky bastard who fights on my terms after all). Stakuga arrived alone to meet with his 3 (branded) bodyguards asking "Why do you want to see me away from my boys?" before recoiling in horror as the trap was sprung.

He immediately ran away before I could get there myself and outran me (I didn't pick up the elven swiftness skill, usually if I want speed I just mount a beast so running isn't my characters forte).

Ok Stakuga next time. So I got the same branded orcs to become his bodyguards again (I don't understand the logic either) and pulled the exact same trick. Only this time I saw spawned a bit closer so was able to at least get close enough for him to notice me.
Stakuga screamed in terror as he saw my ranger and kept running.

Goddamnit Stakuga. By this point I was losing patience so decided to just go ambush him myself despite my usual policy of avoiding a head on confrontation.
"Oh no! The demon!" he wailed as he sighted my ranger again before once again running away... This time I could have caught up with him seeing as there was some beasts in cages I could have used, but the appearance of one of the few remaining non branded captains distracted me and I decided to kill that dude instead. By this point I had a policy of "no orc captain that isn't branded by me can live" and I did not want any loose ends. The armies of Mordor will serve me entirely or not at all.

Deciding to deal with Stakuga once and for all I sought him out once more and repeated an assault on his fortress.
"Why can't you leave me alone?!?" he cried before running away from the safety of the fort straight into the wilderness where his army would not follow. I jumped on a beast and caught up to him. This is when I started feeling remorse.

What has this orc ever done to me? By all account he was a well spoken orc and I had never seen him so much as say a mean thing to anybody or even mistreat a slave, he was surprisingly docile in every interaction with other orcs that I'd seen him with.
And here he was running away yet again absolutely terrified, hardly the model of terrifying merciless war chief.

Why was I pursuing him with such fervor? Was it because I made a death threat against him and he would drop a legendary rune or w/e? My ranger was late game by this point and was a combat monster and all the runes I had were either amplifying my rangers fear factor in various ways or restoring hp upon stealth kills/kills (so the idea is I can hit and run ad infinitum even in the most populated orc fortress) so I didn't really need anything else.

By this point I was riding side by side with him, wondering what to do with this orc. Up to now it hadn't occurred to me that I could brand a warchief (why else go to the trouble of playing orc politics if you could just brand the warchief directly?) but I decided to try it. So hopped of the beast and grabbed Stakuga with no resistance.

And successfully dominated his mind to serve me, though his terrified expression during the process further filled me with remorse. As his unconscious body dropped to the floor, my ranger (metaphorically) went on his knees and realized how far he had fallen. If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
What had I become?

 

[Fasckira]

Currently on the "Kill 4 Warchiefs" bit; first 3 I took care of in no time as all three were vulnerable to stealth. Literally walked in, brought them out and stealthed them.

4th guy however... fuck this guy. Only vulnerable to explosions or flurry combos, but he resides in an area where there are no explosives and to summon him you basically have to stir up the whole camp (kill 20 in 2 minutes) by which point the place is mobbed. Going to attempt him again tonight - vengeance will be mine, in this life or the next.

 

[gxs]

The good thing about the system is that orcs remember their encounters with you and adapt to them which can lead to some really funny situations.

I had a guy (I didn't bother with his name) that ran away from me the first time I've encountered him. So basically I started with a random orc without any special attributes. When he fled he remembered that I jumped over him and back stabbed him so when he returned he adapted and became immune to stealth and jumping moves. I threw a few arrows at him but me being early into the game meant that I had only a few shots before he got away again due to the number of other orcs. He returned the third time now immune to everything I could throw at him so I ran away. And guess what... He gained the stalking ability. Now he was hunting me.

And you know the best part of the system. He had a fear of Caragors and jumped out of the bush (bastard was stalking me) just when I was riding on one. He jumped out and said "Huh I finally have you" only to see my beast. He was eaten before he ran away and I've never seen him since. He's probably Caragor poop by now.

 

[Req]

4th guy however... fuck this guy. Only vulnerable to explosions or flurry combos, but he resides in an area where there are no explosives and to summon him you basically have to stir up the whole camp (kill 20 in 2 minutes) by which point the place is mobbed. Going to attempt him again tonight - vengeance will be mine, in this life or the next.

I had someone similar(20 kills without being hit), releasing caragors worked for me, and I imagine it will for you too. Their kills count towards yours, and just two of them can take a lot of uruks down very quickly. Mix in a few stealth and bow kills and you should be able to draw him out without being swarmed.

 

[Fasckira]

4th guy however... fuck this guy. Only vulnerable to explosions or flurry combos, but he resides in an area where there are no explosives and to summon him you basically have to stir up the whole camp (kill 20 in 2 minutes) by which point the place is mobbed. Going to attempt him again tonight - vengeance will be mine, in this life or the next.

I had someone similar(20 kills without being hit), releasing caragors worked for me, and I imagine it will for you too. Their kills count towards yours, and just two of them can take a lot of uruks down very quickly. Mix in a few stealth and bow kills and you should be able to draw him out without being swarmed.

Cheers for the idea, hadn't though about that... there was indeed a caragor locked up along one of the ledges that I wasted on the first attempt, hopefully on reload tonight its there again!

 

[happyninja42]

The Tale of Borgha the Shield:

I was working my way through the ranks of the Captains, looking for a weakness against one of the Warchiefs. I found one, in the form of his rival, Borgha the Shield. I knew nothing of this Borgha, only that he would strike fear into the heart of my target, and that was good enough for me. I made my way to his last known location, and began my hunt for him.

I couldn't spot him directly, as I was preoccupied by a large force of Uruk in the way. I decided to shift the odds of the battle, and released a few caragor into the mix. This had the desired effect, but also an unexpected one. The din of battle that night was pierced by a high pitched squeal of fear, and Borgha made himself known to me, by his cowardly ways. Seeing the caragor, he fled in terror, and upon sight of him, I gave chase. He managed to elude my capture at first, but I returned with more caragor the next night, and brought him down. As he lay quivering in terror at my feet, I burned his mind to my will, and bid him set himself up as the bodyguard to his Warchief rival.

Borgha obeyed, and in an effort to overcome his fear, set himself up for a beast hunt challenge to prove himself. And he picked his greatest terror, the caragors. He stood firm against the charging beast, smashing his spear against his shield in defiance, and as the beast leapt for him, I brought it low with an arrow.

Borgha, emboldened by his victory, overcame his weakness to caragor, and claimed his place as a bodyguard to the Warchief. My personal opinion on the intelligence of a Warchief who sets up his greatest fear as his bodyguard aside, I took advantage of this, and bent the minds of the other bodyguards to my will. Then, I infiltrated the Warchief's camp and struck. The battle was going well, but the chaos prevented me from catching the Warchief before he fled, however I killed another Captain that came to his aid in the process.

My pawns all still alive and in place but one, will move again this night at my behest. The Warchief's will shall break before my gaze, and I will turn his forces to my own.

 

[Barock34]

Gham the slaughterer, came back about 3 - 4 times, by the end had a bag in his head, a head that i removed

Noruk the Biter, came back, killed me 3 times, died permanently, despite me wanting him to return.

those are simpler stories compared to the tale of Nazkuga the Slippery, and Mormog the whiner.

when i learned of the nemesis system i asked myself: " if i can get any random orc to join the system by letting him kill me...can i keep letting him kill me and make him feel powerful, only to then crush him?". to my honest surprise, there is actually an achievment for that in steam. and so i decided i would look for a perfect subject for my experiment, however when hunting a captain a wrong button push on a last chance led to Nazkuga, an archer, killing me. since he had already killed me i decided i would not only use him, but test the limits of the system. i started to set him on fire on every combat we had, afterwards i'd let him kill me. time after time no weakness or hatred was born. until one day i accdentally killed him with an arrow explosion, i was devasted, i roamed Udun for about 20 minutes hoping he'd show up, but nothing. i started looking for a new specimen, one with a normal weapon, a commmon grunt, more simple then a crossbow archer. i found a good looking(as good looking as orcs are) bald slightly pinkskinned grunt with minimal armor, after dispatching his patrol group i just stood there, after coming back to life i gained intel and was surprised to see he gained a poisonous weapon, making future confrontations go by faster. He was already afraid of fire so i went on the next check on my list: ranged, on every combat i'd fill him up with uncharged arrow shots, he barely felt it before killing me. After a few turns his tile "the Whiner" made sense, he wasn't afraid of my return, or angry, he was BORED! by the time i got to the main mission to kill warchiefs he had become a bodyguard, so his boss was the only chief i faced with a bodyguard at his side, to summon him i had to cause a lot of ruckus, there were at least 60 orcs in that stronghold, luckylly, the warchief was instakilled by a brutalize from above. after killing the spoiler character at the end of the Udun plotline i was very happy to see Mormog becoming chieftain, but i wasnt done: i wanted him to become legendary, and level 20. my struggle still continues, since it is very difficult to choose who the killing bow goes to with a bunch of shieldbearers and berserkers around. I also still havent managed to get him to be neither weak or immune to arrows, and i am afraid to test combat finishers and stealth attacks, afraid of losing another test subject that is.

I am currently taking a break after finishing the story and all side missions. but i will soon return to get any remaining achievments, test new theories gained from this thread (testing how damaged i can make a battle-hardened captain get is top priority, hoping to make one lose an arm and get a claw in its place), and finally kill the Whiner, finally taking revenge, and completing my experiment. Now that i have brand i could claim him, but after several declarations of boredom, revenge shall taste so sweet.

Oh i almos forgot, there is also Pug the Greedy! Bastard kept coming back in Nurnem, ended up becoming my personal nemesis, and for those that don't know, your nemesis shows up during the games last mission, you fight agaisnt him with your branded warchiefs, so if you want a specific orc to be your "last"(in story) captain kill then you gotta make'em your personal nemesis before that.

 

[BillTheGifter]

Shadow of Mordor so far. Is shaping up to be an excellent game. I'm not far into to it (Just passed the first main quest mission) But so far the nemesis system looks awesome.

 

[Dandark]

I really like how you feel like your forming relationships with these randomly generated characters that adapt to you. I haven't finished it yet but there is one orc that I've had my eye on.

Uggo the flame bearer was a low level captain who had flaming armour and fought with a lit torch that had spikes on it, he remains the only orc I've seen to have this kind of equipment.
The first time I encounter him I kill him by throwing him into a campfire because I couldn't resist.

He eventually comes back with his face covered in burn scars and tells me that he hadn't been able to lie down for a week after the burns I gave him and he is now resolved to do the same to me. I defeat him in combat again quite easily but I have never killed him a second time. He isn't cowardly, he will rush into combat with me bravely but he knows when to retreat.

He always retreats when he gets to half health and manages to do it as im preoccupied with other orcs. He is also really fast, as in he runs nearly as fast as I do while in wraith speed mode. He also kept getting stronger by defeating other orcs and even used me to increase his power as I attempted to kill him during a duel but only for him to flee as soon as I killed his opponent.

Eventually I left for the second area and when I came back later he had become a warchief!
Im actually kinda disappointed because I wanted to brand him and make him my own warchief but now i'll have to kill him. Im hoping he's gotten strong enough that he may be able to kill me so that my relationship with him continues but I've gotten incredibly strong so I don't see it happening.

 

[Barock34]

Hi, i have yet to continue my experiments, because i decided to do them all in Udun, and before i go there i want to have the whole Nurnem set branded, but i can't. when i was doing side and main missions there i only ever got intel on warchiefs and bodyguards, to brand'em, so now i have an unidentified dead body on the second row, and NO ONE takes over it. i tried skipping time a bunch, i tried to power level one of the bottom row captains by commanding him against unbranded captains on the first row, the ONLY thing i haven't tried, because i only thought of it now, is to travel to udun and run a few of my experiments then coming back, but i don't like the feeling of leaving this like that. in a slightly related note: is there a way to un-mark targets, i don't want to leave nurnem with a target mark on one of my branded captains, i have one of them marked, and i want that gone without having to go sacrifice a lamb and brand a dummy, unless that helps me replace the dead silhouette. i don't know how to post pictures here so i'll link it to facebook, please don't add me. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10204319549302347&set=a.2721898300143.133637.1637640596&type=1

 

[Blitsie]

There's currently this one absolutely useless archer captain that keeps popping up and trying to take me out, only to end with his ass handed to him on a silver platter, its hilarious. So far every encounter was:

Pitched with group, face made friends with my blade and didn't end well for him.

Ambushed me, still as useless as ever but with some facial scars now, got interrogated and neck broken.

STILL returned later, with explosive arrows this time and blue eyes and lots of scars from the interrogation. Caragor made swift work of him before he could pull out his bow.

Again he ambushes me, can't shoot for shit still and has bag tied to his face with rope to keep it from falling apart. Stabbed in the face. (hehehehe)

Ambushes me while I'm busy taking out another captain (when will he learn?), he talks with a heavy lisp now and I think he picked up some brain damage. Still failed to behead him and got a blade through the torso instead.

Waiting for his next arrival now, gotta hand it to him though, he's one determined bastard.

 

[Gruntletheold]

I keep seeing people talk about captains coming back all the time. I was hoping to build relationships like this myself.

But so far I've only ever had one come back and he was pretty fun, though I can't remember his name since I killed him too easily. So far I've pretty much finished everything and just messing with the nemesis system, but it appears as if I am not getting the full results.

Throughout my entire time I've just had the one and he was swiftly beheaded. Am I just breezing through the captains too fast or something? I've let them kill me to see what happens when I kill them....nothing. I wondered if it was tied to epic rune chances and so since I had them all it would not make a captain return, so I deleted some but that has made no difference.

I've deliberately avoided beheading and instead kill them by any other means, often throwing them off cliffs because that's always amusing to me and the one time a captain came back was when I killed him like that. I think in many areas the game is too easy, (sorry that comes off as bragging I mean that I find it so after playing Arkham games), so far I've turned off prompts and all hints which has increased the fun a lot more and makes ranged very deadly.

But I just thought that the captains could keep up the pressure, yet they were never dangerous from the start. Which isn't to say I didn't die occasionally, of course I did, but it is far rarer than I would have hoped and I don't want to just let them kill me in order to see if they come back I was hoping for a more fluid experience of the system than this.

Having to consciously make bad decisions and avoid easy routes to victory can be hard. For example if a captain runs away and he is immune to ranged I can still jump after him with the shadow strike skills, which seems silly really as it allows me to instantly catch up and then pummel them in melee or stealth. If they are immune to the triage of normal attacks, then branding the orcs around them usually works far too easily, or exploiting a fear of course, or getting one low enough with an environmental then grabbing him till his friends kill him or I throw him for a tumble.

Any ideas? Or should I just start again and see if it's different?

ps: Im playing on PC.