Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Edit history:

FearfulFerret: 2014-10-21 03:00:12 pm

2014-10-07 06:59:15 pm

For updated info, check out the last page of this thread and the google doc, which you can find here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17_vMoBaqYRf3Awac-SHq2RbZz46aKLf13sz8Uw73A5k

ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS:

Just completed my first run, clocking in at just over 3 hours. I'm sure there are plenty of glitches to be found, and there's tons of routing to do, so let's get on it.

So far, the route consists of doing all the required main quests in each zone until all that's left is the warchiefs, then do the warchiefs. I'm not familiar enough with the second zone to know what the route should be, but my basic outline of the first zone is: hirgon 1, gollum 1, upper-left forge tower, ratbag 1 + lower-left forge, ratbag 2 + lower forge, gollum 2 + lower-right forge, gollum 3, hirgon 2, then warchiefs, then hirgon 3 and 4. I do ratbag 2 before the gollum stuff because it lets you start getting intel on the warchiefs while you're doing the gollum missions. I'm not yet certain about which forge towers are worth lighting and when to light them; in this route I get all but one.

For branding the warchiefs in zone 2, the best strat I've found so far is to do the mandatory mission to brand the first one, then command that warchief to riot one of the other warchiefs, brand that other warchief during the riot, then command either of those warchiefs to riot one of the remaining warchiefs and so on until they're all branded. You never have to brand the bodyguards this way.

Also, if anyone wants to try to find cool speedrun glitches, I would be forever in your debt.

Thread title:

For updated info, check out the last page of this thread and the google doc, which you can find here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17_vMoBaqYRf3Awac-SHq2RbZz46aKLf13sz8Uw73A5k

ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS:

Just completed my first run, clocking in at just over 3 hours. I'm sure there are plenty of glitches to be found, and there's tons of routing to do, so let's get on it.

So far, the route consists of doing all the required main quests in each zone until all that's left is the warchiefs, then do the warchiefs. I'm not familiar enough with the second zone to know what the route should be, but my basic outline of the first zone is: hirgon 1, gollum 1, upper-left forge tower, ratbag 1 + lower-left forge, ratbag 2 + lower forge, gollum 2 + lower-right forge, gollum 3, hirgon 2, then warchiefs, then hirgon 3 and 4. I do ratbag 2 before the gollum stuff because it lets you start getting intel on the warchiefs while you're doing the gollum missions. I'm not yet certain about which forge towers are worth lighting and when to light them; in this route I get all but one.

For branding the warchiefs in zone 2, the best strat I've found so far is to do the mandatory mission to brand the first one, then command that warchief to riot one of the other warchiefs, brand that other warchief during the riot, then command either of those warchiefs to riot one of the remaining warchiefs and so on until they're all branded. You never have to brand the bodyguards this way.

Also, if anyone wants to try to find cool speedrun glitches, I would be forever in your debt.

AMVX

Edit history:

AMVX: 2014-10-08 05:21:57 am

AMVX: 2014-10-08 05:21:26 am

AMVX: 2014-10-08 05:19:35 am

AMVX: 2014-10-08 01:28:50 am

AMVX: 2014-10-08 01:28:01 am

AMVX: 2014-10-08 01:23:08 am

2014-10-08 01:21:50 am

www.twitch.tv/amvx

Hey Ferret, been routing it a bit myself. Going to write down my first draft fairly soon, including skills. Running Batman previously really helped with the combat Smiley

Starting quests for me are Hirgon (Slaver), Gollum 1, Ratbag 1, NW Tower, Ratbag 2 (which drops you right off near the next marker & twr), Ratbag 3, Hirgon 2, Gollum 2. As far as intel goes, I have a decent strat for dropping health quickly so I still need to test it and see if it's worth it.

The main thing that I can see causing some early resets is RNG as far as spawns are concerned; where certain intel/captains appear and what their weaknesses are. Had a reset yesterday when a warchief was immune to stealth and ranged...and was completely combat hardened, so no combat finishers either :/

If you haven't noticed, when you are forced to walk alongside someone (e.g. Ratbag Hirgon) so long as they are walking and not climbing/dropping if you stand near them, Talion auto walks and keeps up with them. Saves some effort.

As far as early skills go, first is the movement, second is critical strikes third is detonate (very useful for Gollum 2) and then death from above.

If you are fast enough as well, you can just keep pushing the cart and never have to shoot the archers as well for the gate mission.

Second area, is Marwen 1, Marwen 2, Marwen 3 (brand Warchief), -start warchiefs here-, Marwen 3 (The Cure), Torvin 1 (Big Game), Torvin 2, (Hunting Partners)....after that, it seems like the quickest way is Torvin 3, The Rescue, -end warchiefs here-, Lord Of Mordor (The Tower) and then final mission, Mordor In Flames.

...I'm worried you've chosen to run this game. What with your habit of demolishing everything you touch Tongue

- PM me here, on Twitch if you want to chat. Or we can set up Skype if that helps Smiley

A bad run is up @ 3:19:13 - http://www.twitch.tv/amvx/b/576023375 this could have easily been sub three, had I 1) not forgotton the NW tower when getting Ratbag missions and 2) didn't stuff up right at the start of the second area and 3) didn't stuff up on the final branded warchief. Not to mention all the little mistakes that were made added up to some time as well. Getting stuck on environment and such.

Hey Ferret, been routing it a bit myself. Going to write down my first draft fairly soon, including skills. Running Batman previously really helped with the combat :)

Starting quests for me are Hirgon (Slaver), Gollum 1, Ratbag 1, NW Tower, Ratbag 2 (which drops you right off near the next marker & twr), Ratbag 3, Hirgon 2, Gollum 2. As far as intel goes, I have a decent strat for dropping health quickly so I still need to test it and see if it's worth it.

The main thing that I can see causing some early resets is RNG as far as spawns are concerned; where certain intel/captains appear and what their weaknesses are. Had a reset yesterday when a warchief was immune to stealth and ranged...and was completely combat hardened, so no combat finishers either :/

If you haven't noticed, when you are forced to walk alongside someone (e.g. Ratbag Hirgon) so long as they are walking and not climbing/dropping if you stand near them, Talion auto walks and keeps up with them. Saves some effort.

As far as early skills go, first is the movement, second is critical strikes third is detonate (very useful for Gollum 2) and then death from above.

If you are fast enough as well, you can just keep pushing the cart and never have to shoot the archers as well for the gate mission.

Second area, is Marwen 1, Marwen 2, Marwen 3 (brand Warchief), -start warchiefs here-, Marwen 3 (The Cure), Torvin 1 (Big Game), Torvin 2, (Hunting Partners)....after that, it seems like the quickest way is Torvin 3, The Rescue,  -end warchiefs here-, Lord Of Mordor (The Tower) and then final mission, Mordor In Flames.

...I'm worried you've chosen to run this game. What with your habit of demolishing everything you touch :P - PM me here, on Twitch if you want to chat. Or we can set up Skype if that helps :)

A bad run is up @ 3:19:13 - http://www.twitch.tv/amvx/b/576023375 this could have easily been sub three, had I 1) not forgotton the NW tower when getting Ratbag missions and 2) didn't stuff up right at the start of the second area and 3) didn't stuff up on the final branded warchief. Not to mention all the little mistakes that were made added up to some time as well. Getting stuck on environment and such.

Missy

2014-10-08 01:03:51 pm

[grrs internally]

This weekend I'll probably record some of the little things I've found, although there isn't really too much in the way of glitches yet. I completed the first zone in 59 minutes (according to the in game timer for the save slot, not sure if loading times are factored in) due to pretty good luck on runes and Warchief weaknesses - if you can get two chiefs with weakness to instant-stealth finishers, it goes by super quick. There's a rune called "Stand and Fight" for the sword that increases sword damage by 100% when Talion is under 25% health, and if you never upgrade your health you can get bopped by an uruk warrior twice and then start dealing insane damage to a chief. The basic combat pattern I use is wraith stun - flurry (but dont knock them down) - wraith stun - repeat; especially in a crowd of uruks, you're best saving the combat execution for when you can skip past the last chance struggle for a warchief. At around 35% health on the chief, you can finish the wraith stun flurry knockdown, ground execute, then tap Y+B for the combat execution. You only have to deal with the slow-mo style kill this way. Explosions from fires and barrels do not skip the last chance for warchiefs, though, so be mindful of that; if you drop them to the 5% with an explosion, there's no way to skip over the struggle unless theyre able to take ranged damage.

Small bugs I've found, but can be helpful:
-You can walk into an orc if they're moving (and haven't detected you) and deal damage to them, or put them on the ground for a ground execution. The applications for this are very specific. If you have a captain or a warchief walking along the edge of a scaffolding, you can jump down and sneak-run into them as they walk next to the edge BEFORE they jump down and make them take about 20-30% health damage from being knocked down to the area below (rather than letting them jump). This method also instakills most other uruks with the exception of shield bearers. You can try it out yourself to get familiar with it by branding an archer, then waiting a bit until he starts to pace around, when you can start walking into him. This'll usually set them to a stunned state, and when they fall down ready to be ground executed, if they hit the ledge while you're pushing into them they'll just die.
-When being escorted by Gollum in Gollum 2, you can sneak run into him to push him past the uruks escorting slaves at the very start of the mission. If he touches the wall (the one he hides behind as the uruks pass) before you can start pushing him then he won't budge after that. I'll definitely record this, since you can use it to push him into the next area immediately where he'll say something about archers and require you to kill them.
-In Hirgon 1+2, you can run behind him when he's running to slightly increase his speed. This requires you to have the speed boost from the Wraith tree unlocked; just vault over something before he picks up his pace, and you can start pushing him from behind. The routes he takes for Hirgon 1 can probably be shortened if you push him in a straight line towards the objective areas to pick up the poison, but when he's walking you can't move him all that much. I'll work on this as well.

In general, when dealing with random captains while travelling, I take the time to stealth out of their way or deviate away from their path. Having them introduce themselves wastes time and can interrupt your speed boost from vaulting over something. I completely ignored everything and just ran for mission start points, but since I haven't had time to try out the next zone with this save file, I'm not sure if I'll be too weak for it. I assume you only reach, like, tier 3 for abilities by the end of it yeah? I'll post more when I find out more, I'm really hoping there are some more glitches to be found.

This weekend I'll probably record some of the little things I've found, although there isn't really too much in the way of glitches yet.  I completed the first zone in 59 minutes (according to the in game timer for the save slot, not sure if loading times are factored in) due to pretty good luck on runes and Warchief weaknesses - if you can get two chiefs with weakness to instant-stealth finishers, it goes by super quick.  There's a rune called "Stand and Fight" for the sword that increases sword damage by 100% when Talion is under 25% health, and if you never upgrade your health you can get bopped by an uruk warrior twice and then start dealing insane damage to a chief.  The basic combat pattern I use is wraith stun - flurry (but dont knock them down) - wraith stun - repeat; especially in a crowd of uruks, you're best saving the combat execution for when you can skip past the last chance struggle for a warchief.  At around 35% health on the chief, you can finish the wraith stun flurry knockdown, ground execute, then tap Y+B for the combat execution.  You only have to deal with the slow-mo style kill this way.  Explosions from fires and barrels do not skip the last chance for warchiefs, though, so be mindful of that; if you drop them to the 5% with an explosion, there's no way to skip over the struggle unless theyre able to take ranged damage.

Small bugs I've found, but can be helpful:
-You can walk into an orc if they're moving (and haven't detected you) and deal damage to them, or put them on the ground for a ground execution.  The applications for this are very specific.  If you have a captain or a warchief walking along the edge of a scaffolding, you can jump down and sneak-run into them as they walk next to the edge BEFORE they jump down and make them take about 20-30% health damage from being knocked down to the area below (rather than letting them jump).  This method also instakills most other uruks with the exception of shield bearers.  You can try it out yourself to get familiar with it by branding an archer, then waiting a bit until he starts to pace around, when you can start walking into him.  This'll usually set them to a stunned state, and when they fall down ready to be ground executed, if they hit the ledge while you're pushing into them they'll just die.
-When being escorted by Gollum in Gollum 2, you can sneak run into him to push him past the uruks escorting slaves at the very start of the mission.  If he touches the wall (the one he hides behind as the uruks pass) before you can start pushing him then he won't budge after that.  I'll definitely record this, since you can use it to push him into the next area immediately where he'll say something about archers and require you to kill them. 
-In Hirgon 1+2, you can run behind him when he's running to slightly increase his speed.  This requires you to have the speed boost from the Wraith tree unlocked; just vault over something before he picks up his pace, and you can start pushing him from behind.  The routes he takes for Hirgon 1 can probably be shortened if you push him in a straight line towards the objective areas to pick up the poison, but when he's walking you can't move him all that much.  I'll work on this as well.

In general, when dealing with random captains while travelling, I take the time to stealth out of their way or deviate away from their path.  Having them introduce themselves wastes time and can interrupt your speed boost from vaulting over something.   I completely ignored everything and just ran for mission start points, but since I haven't had time to try out the next zone with this save file, I'm not sure if I'll be too weak for it.  I assume you only reach, like, tier 3 for abilities by the end of it yeah?  I'll post more when I find out more, I'm really hoping there are some more glitches to be found.

lillbrorsan

2014-10-08 02:19:36 pm

Truljin @ Twitch

Always been interested in open-world games and did almost start running Kingdoms of Amalur but this game is now instead on my radar, can't wait to see what fun things will be found to lower the time further.

AMVX

Edit history:

AMVX: 2014-10-09 09:08:10 am

AMVX: 2014-10-09 09:06:25 am

2014-10-09 09:05:26 am

www.twitch.tv/amvx

Quote from Missy:

In general, when dealing with random captains while travelling, I take the time to stealth out of their way or deviate away from their path. Having them introduce themselves wastes time and can interrupt your speed boost from vaulting over something. I completely ignored everything and just ran for mission start points, but since I haven't had time to try out the next zone with this save file, I'm not sure if I'll be too weak for it. I assume you only reach, like, tier 3 for abilities by the end of it yeah? I'll post more when I find out more, I'm really hoping there are some more glitches to be found.

Random captains...so much RNG rage just there. Had a couple of decent starts collapse to bad chances.

If you can fight near an edge (i.e. bridge or near a cliff) do so. You can instakill quite quickly by forcing them off the edge to their doom.

A common rune is "flee upon a stealth bow headshot" I cannot emphasize how good that rune is, and it's pretty common for the bow.

In that 3:19 run as well, you'll notice that I get spotted by a Warchief, realise he is combat hardened, and I choose to leave. He had a stealth finisher though. Going back into the mission, he was instantly summoned. So you need to "quickly" reset a Warchief mission, just remember you don't have to do all the prelim crap all over again.

I dunno about 'too weak' for skills - there are only a couple of core skills that are really needed. In my 3:19 above I only got to T3 skills -> I had three skill points left over when I finished the run. This also comes down to RNG about Nemesis and their power levels.

When going after guys in the second area for branding, just "kill" them ASAP. When they go into a blow that would kill them, they collapse and give you the branding chance, so don't bother sorting out them out from the group. Just go to town on them.

[quote="Missy"]In general, when dealing with random captains while travelling, I take the time to stealth out of their way or deviate away from their path.  Having them introduce themselves wastes time and can interrupt your speed boost from vaulting over something.   I completely ignored everything and just ran for mission start points, but since I haven't had time to try out the next zone with this save file, I'm not sure if I'll be too weak for it.  I assume you only reach, like, tier 3 for abilities by the end of it yeah?  I'll post more when I find out more, I'm really hoping there are some more glitches to be found.[/quote]

Random captains...so much RNG rage just there. Had a couple of decent starts collapse to bad chances.

If you can fight near an edge (i.e. bridge or near a cliff) do so. You can instakill quite quickly by forcing them off the edge to their doom.

A common rune is "flee upon a stealth bow headshot" I cannot emphasize how good that rune is, and it's pretty common for the bow.

In that 3:19 run as well, you'll notice that I get spotted by a Warchief, realise he is combat hardened, and I choose to leave. He had a stealth finisher though. Going back into the mission, he was instantly summoned. So you need to "quickly" reset a Warchief mission, just remember you don't have to do all the prelim crap all over again.

I dunno about 'too weak' for skills - there are only a couple of core skills that are really needed. In my 3:19 above I only got to T3 skills -> I had three skill points left over when I finished the run. This also comes down to RNG about Nemesis and their power levels.

When going after guys in the second area for branding, just "kill" them ASAP. When they go into a blow that would kill them, they collapse and give you the branding chance, so don't bother sorting out them out from the group. Just go to town on them.

FearfulFerret

2014-10-09 05:44:35 pm

Got a 2:29:45, which I'm pretty happy with. No deaths and some lucky fears on the warchiefs. I used AMVX's route for both zones and managed to get all the warchiefs branded before the rescue mission. The only random rune I used was one that increases melee damage from the back. I used warchief raids on 2 of the zone 2 warchiefs, and the default draw-them-out missions on the other 2.

http://www.twitch.tv/fearfulferret/c/5266515

AMVX

Edit history:

AMVX: 2014-10-10 05:54:27 am

AMVX: 2014-10-10 05:54:17 am

2014-10-10 05:46:48 am

www.twitch.tv/amvx

Nice Ferret! Guessing you loaded it into RAM? I'm going to have to learn K+M controls now....

Also, you have extra runes at the start? What are they from? I pre-order the game on Steam - the others are from pre-ordering from Amazon/GameStop etc? How did you get those, unless you pre-ordered the game from three places? Not sure how I feel if you're using equipment that are massive game changers unavailable to everyone else.

I'm going to watch it now, and edit this post with some strats I have found. The stealth run is faster than him walking in the tutorials. In a similar manner, the 'stealth' section - you can just sprint up to them pretty much. The distance is that short they can't react fast enough.

It is faster to run around the ledge, rather than to climb it. I timed it.

molluskmoth

2014-10-10 06:32:39 am

MoMo

How much time would you say can you save without any new glitches? Think sub 2 is possible already?

FearfulFerret

Edit history:

FearfulFerret: 2014-10-13 07:54:51 pm

FearfulFerret: 2014-10-11 10:36:22 pm

FearfulFerret: 2014-10-11 05:12:33 pm

FearfulFerret: 2014-10-11 03:09:49 pm

2014-10-10 09:16:30 am

I've disabled the extra runes for future runs. I definitely think K+M is better than controller; it makes last chances and aiming with the bow much easier, and you don't have to use claw grip all the time to run around and control the camera. I don't really know what time is possible yet, but it's probably not under 2 hours.

EDIT: Sometimes I get a glitch where enemies are no longer highlighted in wraith mode unless they are behind an obstacle. I think it's triggered by shadow striking to an enemy out of the highlight range. Does anyone know how to fix this once it happens?

EDIT2: I also encourage everyone to disable auto-updates to make sure that if we find any glitches that are later patched out, you won't have to downpatch later.

EDIT3: There's some strange stuff going on in Lithariel 1 (The Cure). There was one time where I cleared out two of the areas, then went to the last camp with the captain and killed all but the captain. Then when the captain and I locked swords for his dialogue, the objective completed, the cutscene played, and I was teleported next to the forge tower and got the mission end thing, and THEN the camera whipped around to where the captain was and played his dialogue, so I never had to defeat him. Then today, the mission softlocked, as the area with the caragor cages never cleared despite killing everyone within. I think this had to do with letting out the caragor in his cage. I know that if you let out the caragor he's considered a mission target, so maybe it made him a mission target but never counted me killing it.

EDIT4: New WR, 2:25:19. http://www.twitch.tv/fearfulferret/c/5292031

I've disabled the extra runes for future runs. I definitely think K+M is better than controller; it makes last chances and aiming with the bow much easier, and you don't have to use claw grip all the time to run around and control the camera. I don't really know what time is possible yet, but it's probably not under 2 hours.

EDIT: Sometimes I get a glitch where enemies are no longer highlighted in wraith mode unless they are behind an obstacle. I think it's triggered by shadow striking to an enemy out of the highlight range. Does anyone know how to fix this once it happens?

EDIT2: I also encourage everyone to disable auto-updates to make sure that if we find any glitches that are later patched out, you won't have to downpatch later.

EDIT3: There's some strange stuff going on in Lithariel 1 (The Cure). There was one time where I cleared out two of the areas, then went to the last camp with the captain and killed all but the captain. Then when the captain and I locked swords for his dialogue, the objective completed, the cutscene played, and I was teleported next to the forge tower and got the mission end thing, and THEN the camera whipped around to where the captain was and played his dialogue, so I never had to defeat him. Then today, the mission softlocked, as the area with the caragor cages never cleared despite killing everyone within. I think this had to do with letting out the caragor in his cage. I know that if you let out the caragor he's considered a mission target, so maybe it made him a mission target but never counted me killing it.

EDIT4: New WR, 2:25:19. http://www.twitch.tv/fearfulferret/c/5292031

Arane_

2014-10-14 02:25:52 pm

Hey, started to work on it after finishing the game 2 times in a row now =3

How long would a 100% take ? There must be some people who are willing to do it :p

The routing in zone 1 is pretty clear ( Just go from end of mission to closest one ) but what's for the 2nd ? You get infos on warchiefs then just straight up tell your dude to riot and brand them ?

Any luck with glitches so far ? Only found you can spin on a barrel infinitely which is really fun but absolutely useless.

ForgottenGlory

Edit history:

ForgottenGlory: 2014-10-15 06:56:35 pm

2014-10-15 06:53:02 pm

100% seems like it would take a long time.

As for Any%, I'm working on a route myself where you don't do the warchiefs after the story missions, I don't know that it's any faster but I'm planning on working on it just to see. I guess the only thing that would determine if it's faster is if the Warchief quest locations are fixed or RNG.

EDIT: I realized I likely sound like I have no idea what I'm talking about since the Warchief missions don't show up until a certain point in the story. I'll see if I can figure out what I mean to say and edit it in.

FearfulFerret

2014-10-15 07:04:28 pm

Warchief quest locations are RNG, though there are a fixed number of spots where they appear (on the boundaries of strongholds, for the most part). If intel is in your path anytime after Ratbag 2, grab it and get intel on a warchief. Get intel on all the warchiefs in the first area, then skip the one that has the worst combination of location, attributes, and mission condition. If a warchief mission is nearby when you're going between main quests, it's worth getting. By default you'll want to wait until after all the main missions before going after warchiefs since you'll have the most info about which warchief to skip and how to approach killing them, but if one is on your way before that, it's worth doing.

As for zone 2, you'll probably need to brand at least one warchief the hard way, since you can't issue a command to the warchief you brand as part of the Marwen missions without going to his mission afterwards. I typically end up doing the default way to get to any warchiefs that have a fear (since they will show up in strongholds, where it's easily to fear them with burning/caragor/mogwai flies) and raid any warchiefs without a fear, since that's the easiest way to brand them in combat.

For clarity, the "default way" is to do the mission on the main map that requires you to kill 5 uruks in 45 seconds / release 3 caragors /etc., and raiding is when you issue a command to a branded warchief to attack another warchief. In a raid, you can either brand that warchief directly, or kill him and then brand the bodyguard that was promoted to warchief before he can run away.

Warchief quest locations are RNG, though there are a fixed number of spots where they appear (on the boundaries of strongholds, for the most part). If intel is in your path anytime after Ratbag 2, grab it and get intel on a warchief. Get intel on all the warchiefs in the first area, then skip the one that has the worst combination of location, attributes, and mission condition. If a warchief mission is nearby when you're going between main quests, it's worth getting. By default you'll want to wait until after all the main missions before going after warchiefs since you'll have the most info about which warchief to skip and how to approach killing them, but if one is on your way before that, it's worth doing.

As for zone 2, you'll probably need to brand at least one warchief the hard way, since you can't issue a command to the warchief you brand as part of the Marwen missions without going to his mission afterwards. I typically end up doing the default way to get to any warchiefs that have a fear (since they will show up in strongholds, where it's easily to fear them with burning/caragor/mogwai flies) and raid any warchiefs without a fear, since that's the easiest way to brand them in combat.

For clarity, the "default way" is to do the mission on the main map that requires you to kill 5 uruks in 45 seconds / release 3 caragors /etc., and raiding is when you issue a command to a branded warchief to attack another warchief. In a raid, you can either brand that warchief directly, or kill him and then brand the bodyguard that was promoted to warchief before he can run away.

ForgottenGlory

2014-10-15 07:34:09 pm

Your post reminded me of what I was trying to say, Fearful. I was trying to say that doing the Warchief quests closest to the story quests you have to do after Ratbag 3 might be faster.

Raiding seems a lot easier though and you're probably correct since Raids skip the whole preliminary bit you have to do for each Warchief quest.

Guess the only thing left to do is practice, if there's any interest I'll be streaming and if people want to watch you're more than welcome to find me under the same username on Twitch.

octozor

2014-10-15 08:27:20 pm

Something to mention about the raids, if you for some reason brand a bodyguard before killing the warchief then the branded bodyguard WILL be the warchief.

ForgottenGlory

2014-10-15 09:12:04 pm

Good tip. I just did a practice run up to the first group of Warchiefs and I think some notes that may work better:

Gollum 2 should probably come before Ratbag 2. I don't know if it's just that I'm bad at the game or what, but it seems to me that having Wraith Flash is incredibly handy and can be useful in Ratbag 2. I died probably four times to either just not paying attention or getting interrupted trying to interrogate the first Twin guy. Wraith Flash makes dealing with large groups of enemies a lot easier, so I think that may be helpful in that situation.

Detonate is extremely powerful. It took the first Warchief from half health to dead in one explosion. Definitely a must-get ability.

I skipped getting the first Forge Tower in the route, and honestly I think that's a mistake. Being able to fast travel is so useful. It may be faster to just run to missions that are close, but being forced to trek across the whole map is not fun at all.

I stopped the run just after killing the first Warchief, I was way too far behind after dying so many times on Ratbag 2.

Good tip. I just did a practice run up to the first group of Warchiefs and I think some notes that may work better:

Gollum 2 should probably come before Ratbag 2. I don't know if it's just that I'm bad at the game or what, but it seems to me that having Wraith Flash is incredibly handy and can be useful in Ratbag 2. I died probably four times to either just not paying attention or getting interrupted trying to interrogate the first Twin guy. Wraith Flash makes dealing with large groups of enemies a lot easier, so I think that may be helpful in that situation.

Detonate is extremely powerful. It took the first Warchief from half health to dead in one explosion. Definitely a must-get ability.

I skipped getting the first Forge Tower in the route, and honestly I think that's a mistake. Being able to fast travel is so useful. It may be faster to just run to missions that are close, but being forced to trek across the whole map is not fun at all.

I stopped the run just after killing the first Warchief, I was way too far behind after dying so many times on Ratbag 2.

octozor

2014-10-15 09:35:37 pm

Wraith flash will not give you enough time to grab the warchief 9 times out of 10, or enough time to finish him off, using a combat finisher is far better, and since (I believe) Tarz is set, we never have to worry about immune to combat finishers.

FearfulFerret

2014-10-15 11:40:02 pm

I haven't tried using wraith flash much, but it doesn't seem great. My strat for Brogg is to shoot the three far archers and three grunts near Brogg, then climb to the near archer, drain him twice, use elf-shot to kill the remaining orcs, then interrogate Brogg. I don't know of a good way to interrogate him without just killing everyone else first.

ForgottenGlory

2014-10-16 01:13:09 am

It's not about using Wraith Flash to get enough time to interrogate him, it's a faster way to kill large groups of enemies - especially when surrounded.

Then again, as we saw in my practice run today I'm terrible with the bow and arrow, so maybe I just need to learn the Mouse and Keyboard for the game. I'm gonna keep practicing though. Currently I have my route as follows though, if anyone is curious:

Prologue
Entering Mordor
Hirgon 1
Gollum 1
Ratbag 1 + SW Tower
Gollum 2
Ratbag 2
Gollum 3
Hirgon 2
Warchief Group 1
Hirgon 3 + Hammer
Marwen 1
Marwen 2
Lithariel 1
Torvin 1
Torvin 2
Torvin 3
Lithariel 2
Warchief Group 2
Lord of Mordor
Mordor In Flames

Drunkenshoe

2014-10-16 11:36:50 am

I tried to come up with fast strats for main missions but so far not a lot of useful things besides maybe Torvin 2: You can trigger getting the Caragor pretty early as long as you are not "leaving the mission area" but if you get the caragor you need to wait for Torvin to catch up. Then you can trigger the Graug sequence earlier by getting to the ledge early but thats already known. Killing the Uruks speeds up the sneaking up part and those Uruks are conveniently sitting at a camp fire which you can just shoot . I will look for more in the future though.

PenAgain

Edit history:

PenAgain: 2014-10-17 03:11:53 pm

2014-10-17 01:40:07 pm

New to running this game (and speedrunning in general), but I recently posted on reddit.com/r/speedrun my pb/wr (for now) and I think there are few things I've found to save some decent time on the runs (although I imagine a lot of you will have found these as well).
My current order that I feel flows pretty well is:

Prologue
Entering Mordor
Hirgon 1
Gollum 1
NW tower --> Ratbag 1 (SW tower during)
Ratbag 2
Ratbag 3
Gollum 2
Gollum 3
Hirgon 2
Warchief hunt (collecting intel from any point after ratbag 2 when it is close)
Hirgon 3
Hammer
Marwen 1 (East tower at the start)
Marwen 2 (Can collect NE tower during the timed run to the execution, but it's a tower that I find I don't always have to use - depends on Warchief mission locations)
Central tower --> Marwen 3
Torvin 1
Torvin 2
Torvin 3
NW Tower --> Marwen 4
Warchief hunt (collecting intel and doing warchief missions earlier if the route takes you straight past them/it is convenient)
Lord of Mordor
Mordor in Flames

General tip: If you use a controller to play the game (like me) then you can use the mouse to use the towers to fast travel as it is quite significantly faster if you swap briefly to travel

Mission specific tips:

Ratbag 2 - You don't need to 'identify' the captain in question (wraith vision, etc), just release the caragor from the cage and go fight him

Gollum 3 - This one isn't really a tip for the mission as it is relatively straight forward, but I like to do this slightly earlier than some others I've seen run it because I find the shadow strike ability really useful in a lot of situations at basically all points in the game to avoid jumping down from a tower or just running more than necessary

Hirgon 2 - Would love to know which order people poison the grog in because I've been thinking about it for a while and can't fully decide on a route. At the moment I'm doing the one under the bridge, climbing up to the top for that one and then running to the other 3

Hammer - I've found a pretty effective way to fight him quickly is to simply attack him normally 3 times, roll away as he attacks you, shoot him in the head with the bow and then attack him a few more times until you can use a combat finisher on him. Really efficient cycle I think to take him down with little effort and doesn't require you to hit any of the uruks around him.

Marwen 1 - You don't need to be in the green circle on the map to locate the ghuls tracks - just run towards the cave as soon as you reach the cart until it asks you to locate the tracks. Just turn on wraith vision and it counts from wherever you are (Usually when I'm on the rope over the top of the caragors is when I get asked to locate the tracks)

Marwen 2 - Can grab the NE tower while running to the execution, but I've honestly only found this tower to be situationally useful. Making use of the exploding barrels and morgal flies saves loads of time here.

Central Tower --> Marwen 3 - A couple of things that may already be well know are that if you jump from the tower at the right angle you can land directly into the misson and don't need to wait for the landing animation from the jump. Also the group of uruks on your left as you face the stronghold from the starting point are all sitting around a fire that you can just shoot from where you start. If you're lucky it wipes out all of the uruks there straight away and you only have the other 2 sections to worry about

Torvin 1 - When folllowing Torvin and he starts talking about the hunt being his mistress - DON'T climb up the ladder with him and follow him. Hug the edge and just walk along the bottom, the caragors will spawn early and you can run straight at them skipping some dialogue and the small camera focus on the caragor during which you can't jump off the ledge. Also elf shot saves a lot of time throughout this mission

Marwen 4 - Again it would be cool to hear which uruks people brand, but I think I've found a pretty quick route personally. Shadow strike to the two uruks above the main entrance to the stronghold and brand them, directly across there are another 2 on top of the main structure in the area - brand them, then there are 2 below you that you can quickly drop down to and brand. Finishes you right where you need to be to activate the cutscene and feels pretty quick in general. Also when carrying Lithariel I've found the best bet is to use the bonfire on the penultimate wave and the morgal flies on the last wave of uruks as it can make that section go by pretty quickly and deals with those two waves nicely.

Warchief hunt - One thing I learned on my pb that I need to test more thoroughly, but seemed really really useful (or I guess just fortunate and situational to save a run that messed up slightly) was that you can brand the bodyguard of one warchief if another seperate warchief gets killed in a riot and then they will ALSO be promoted to warchief - it doesn't have to necessarily be the bodyguard of the warchief you killed. Saved me a lot of time when I wasn't paying attention and my branded warchief died in a riot. None of the bodyguards got promoted around me and I just branded a bodyguard of a different warchief, advanced the time, and there you go! Free branded warchief!

That's about all I have for now (sorry if you knew it all and sorry for the wall of text), but I'll be streaming soon at www.twitch.tv/penagain with commentary once I get my internet sorted Smiley

Gonna try and work on seeing if I can find some sequence breaks for a while now.

EDIT: A couple of other things I've found out:
While the NPCs who you have to walk next to don't have hitboxes while they're walking, when they're in combat they do and you can move them with sword swings. Only place I've found this to be useful is in Ratbag 1 after you kill the ambush he is hittable for a few seconds after all of the uruk are dead - you can hit him in the direction he is going to walk, but this saves like a second at most. Still - might be useful somewhere else.
You can skip the Hammer dialogue after you defeat him (is not your vengeance sweet or whatever he says) and just go straight to the QTE. Not entirely sure what I did to do this because I was kinda just mashing buttons to see what would happen. Again though, only really a couple of seconds saved here, but if it's doable on the Hammer then it might also be doable on normal uruk captains and warchiefs? Not sure yet, but gonna try some stuff.

New to running this game (and speedrunning in general), but I recently posted on reddit.com/r/speedrun my pb/wr (for now) and I think there are few things I've found to save some decent time on the runs (although I imagine a lot of you will have found these as well).
My current order that I feel flows pretty well is:

Prologue
Entering Mordor
Hirgon 1
Gollum 1
NW tower --> Ratbag 1 (SW tower during)
Ratbag 2
Ratbag 3
Gollum 2
Gollum 3
Hirgon 2
Warchief hunt (collecting intel from any point after ratbag 2 when it is close)
Hirgon 3
Hammer
Marwen 1 (East tower at the start)
Marwen 2 (Can collect NE tower during the timed run to the execution, but it's a tower that I find I don't always have to use - depends on Warchief mission locations)
Central tower --> Marwen 3
Torvin 1
Torvin 2
Torvin 3
NW Tower --> Marwen 4
Warchief hunt (collecting intel and doing warchief missions earlier if the route takes you straight past them/it is convenient)
Lord of Mordor
Mordor in Flames

General tip: If you use a controller to play the game (like me) then you can use the mouse to use the towers to fast travel as it is quite significantly faster if you swap briefly to travel

Mission specific tips:

Ratbag 2 - You don't need to 'identify' the captain in question (wraith vision, etc), just release the caragor from the cage and go fight him

Gollum 3 - This one isn't really a tip for the mission as it is relatively straight forward, but I like to do this slightly earlier than some others I've seen run it because I find the shadow strike ability really useful in a lot of situations at basically all points in the game to avoid jumping down from a tower or just running more than necessary

Hirgon 2 - Would love to know which order people poison the grog in because I've been thinking about it for a while and can't fully decide on a route. At the moment I'm doing the one under the bridge, climbing up to the top for that one and then running to the other 3

Hammer - I've found a pretty effective way to fight him quickly is to simply attack him normally 3 times, roll away as he attacks you, shoot him in the head with the bow and then attack him a few more times until you can use a combat finisher on him. Really efficient cycle I think to take him down with little effort and doesn't require you to hit any of the uruks around him.

Marwen 1 - You don't need to be in the green circle on the map to locate the ghuls tracks - just run towards the cave as soon as you reach the cart until it asks you to locate the tracks. Just turn on wraith vision and it counts from wherever you are (Usually when I'm on the rope over the top of the caragors is when I get asked to locate the tracks)

Marwen 2 - Can grab the NE tower while running to the execution, but I've honestly only found this tower to be situationally useful. Making use of the exploding barrels and morgal flies saves loads of time here.

Central Tower --> Marwen 3 - A couple of things that may already be well know are that if you jump from the tower at the right angle you can land directly into the misson and don't need to wait for the landing animation from the jump. Also the group of uruks on your left as you face the stronghold from the starting point are all sitting around a fire that you can just shoot from where you start. If you're lucky it wipes out all of the uruks there straight away and you only have the other 2 sections to worry about

Torvin 1 - When folllowing Torvin and he starts talking about the hunt being his mistress - DON'T climb up the ladder with him and follow him. Hug the edge and just walk along the bottom, the caragors will spawn early and you can run straight at them skipping some dialogue and the small camera focus on the caragor during which you can't jump off the ledge. Also elf shot saves a lot of time throughout this mission

Marwen 4 - Again it would be cool to hear which uruks people brand, but I think I've found a pretty quick route personally. Shadow strike to the two uruks above the main entrance to the stronghold and brand them, directly across there are another 2 on top of the main structure in the area - brand them, then there are 2 below you that you can quickly drop down to and brand. Finishes you right where you need to be to activate the cutscene and feels pretty quick in general. Also when carrying Lithariel I've found the best bet is to use the bonfire on the penultimate wave and the morgal flies on the last wave of uruks as it can make that section go by pretty quickly and deals with those two waves nicely.

Warchief hunt - One thing I learned on my pb that I need to test more thoroughly, but seemed really really useful (or I guess just fortunate and situational to save a run that messed up slightly) was that you can brand the bodyguard of one warchief if another seperate warchief gets killed in a riot and then they will ALSO be promoted to warchief - it doesn't have to necessarily be the bodyguard of the warchief you killed. Saved me a lot of time when I wasn't paying attention and my branded warchief died in a riot. None of the bodyguards got promoted around me and I just branded a bodyguard of a different warchief, advanced the time, and there you go! Free branded warchief!

That's about all I have for now (sorry if you knew it all and sorry for the wall of text), but I'll be streaming soon at www.twitch.tv/penagain with commentary once I get my internet sorted :)

Gonna try and work on seeing if I can find some sequence breaks for a while now.

EDIT: A couple of other things I've found out:
While the NPCs who you have to walk next to don't have hitboxes while they're walking, when they're in combat they do and you can move them with sword swings. Only place I've found this to be useful is in Ratbag 1 after you kill the ambush he is hittable for a few seconds after all of the uruk are dead - you can hit him in the direction he is going to walk, but this saves like a second at most. Still - might be useful somewhere else.
You can skip the Hammer dialogue after you defeat him (is not your vengeance sweet or whatever he says) and just go straight to the QTE. Not entirely sure what I did to do this because I was kinda just mashing buttons to see what would happen. Again though, only really a couple of seconds saved here, but if it's doable on the Hammer then it might also be doable on normal uruk captains and warchiefs? Not sure yet, but gonna try some stuff.

FearfulFerret

2014-10-17 06:52:31 pm

It always surprises me to see people using controller. Bow shots and last chances are so much easier with m+k! Anyway...

Nice run. You did a lot of cool stuff that I'll test again my own strats to see what's faster. However, the Orc Slayer rune you equip near the start is preorder DLC, and in the interests of fairness I think we should just agree not to use DLC runes in WR attempts so nobody is at a disadvantage.

PenAgain

Edit history:

PenAgain: 2014-10-17 06:58:31 pm

2014-10-17 06:57:13 pm

Yeah I did the run before I was linked to this thread and even realised that - I have disabled the rune and won't use it for any future runs or recordings or whatever. I would use m+k, but when I played it first time round casually I just used the controller because it felt like that kind of game and then I got used to it, haha Tongue

EDIT: Oh yeah I've also fixed the shitty video issues for future runs/recording so it'll be actually watchable

FearfulFerret

2014-10-17 08:57:08 pm

Quote from PenAgain:

Oh yeah I've also fixed the shitty video issues for future runs/recording so it'll be actually watchable

You're the first person who plays with controller that seems to be accurate with the bow, but literally none of your headshots actually show in the video Tongue

PenAgain

2014-10-18 04:50:13 pm

So I've still not found any sequence breaks (I really have no idea how and where these might be possible because all of the missions are instanced and seperate), BUT I've got another little time save that has probably already been found by some, but saves a fair amount of time:
When you're killing uruks to get them to join grublik and make him a bodyguard (Marwen 2 I think? Maybe 3?) just run ahead of him and kill all of the uruks that are standing around where he is going to run. He'll turn up to a bunch of dead uruks, cheer a bit and then go on to the next group - you don't have to wait to find out which ones you're supposed to kill to get the others to join. Just kill them all. You can't go too far ahead, though, as he does need you to be close enough to trigger him moving on. Also take advantage of the group of branded uruks when you've done 3/3 groups and use wraith vision to see if any of them have intel. You have to wait around here anyway so you might as well use the oppurtunity to get some free intel. I've found you can have intel on 5/5 of the warchiefs in the second area before you even finish this mission.

Also: In my previous post I talk about a random branded bodyguard being promoted to warchief after a completely seperate, but already branded, warchief died in a riot - while this did happen, it looks like I got incredibly lucky and this isn't actually consistent so definitely don't rely on it. As someone else said, though, it is consistent if you brand a bodyguard of the actual warchief that dies that they will always be promoted. Kind of hard for me to put into words haha Tongue

Apologies.

So I've still not found any sequence breaks (I really have no idea how and where these might be possible because all of the missions are instanced and seperate), BUT I've got another little time save that has probably already been found by some, but saves a fair amount of time:
When you're killing uruks to get them to join grublik and make him a bodyguard (Marwen 2 I think? Maybe 3?) just run ahead of him and kill all of the uruks that are standing around where he is going to run. He'll turn up to a bunch of dead uruks, cheer a bit and then go on to the next group - you don't have to wait to find out which ones you're supposed to kill to get the others to join. Just kill them all. You can't go too far ahead, though, as he does need you to be close enough to trigger him moving on. Also take advantage of the group of branded uruks when you've done 3/3 groups and use wraith vision to see if any of them have intel. You have to wait around here anyway so you might as well use the oppurtunity to get some free intel. I've found you can have intel on 5/5 of the warchiefs in the second area before you even finish this mission.

Also: In my previous post I talk about a random branded bodyguard being promoted to warchief after a completely seperate, but already branded, warchief died in a riot - while this did happen, it looks like I got incredibly lucky and this isn't actually consistent so definitely don't rely on it. As someone else said, though, it is consistent if you brand a bodyguard of the actual warchief that dies that they will always be promoted. Kind of hard for me to put into words haha :P Apologies.

ForgottenGlory

Edit history:

ForgottenGlory: 2014-10-18 08:53:12 pm

ForgottenGlory: 2014-10-18 08:24:21 pm

2014-10-18 07:20:26 pm

Nice run PenAgain. I'm curious, what controller and controller settings are you using? I'm using an X360 for PC controller and I have so many problems with the bow not moving smoothly/accurately. I'd be interested to hear what you're using.

EDIT 1: So I just started a practice run. Played up until I killed Mogg the Other Twin and then deleted the save to start another run. When I started the second run, I had all of my abilities and all of the Forge Towers I'd unlocked during the first run through. I have no idea what's behind this glitch, but it's weird.

EDIT 2: I appear to have permanently corrupted that save slot somehow. No matter what I do it saves previous progress in the form of abilities and Forge Towers activated. I don't think there's any speedrunning application of this glitch except that you're able to start the game with Elven Swiftness and other abilities.