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[nenjin]

Combat opens up a little bit as you unlock more abilities. But then it narrows again as Orc Captains start picking up immunities and many of those attacks don't work or straight up drive a Captain berzerk. When combat is at its absolute worst, almost nothing you do can harm some orc captains and you have to start getting creative to kill them, like using monsters, environmental hazards, minions and so forth. Personally I like getting stuck in and fighting off 50 guys at once. But using your summonable guys does make fights a lot easier.

Also if you're even halfway competent at the game, normal difficulty is probably too easy for you, and Nemesis might be more appropriate. In some ways what SoW's combat is about is not taking damage, instead of dealing it. Because you can build up might pretty easily by smacking the occasional guy, then hit them with Elven Light and smoke half of the foot soldier orcs and leave the captain ripe for getting pulled apart. But let that captain hit you with one of their bigger attacks...and prepare to lose 50% of your life.

I dunno, after 100+ hours in game, there's just so many ways to approach combat I never felt like I didn't have options that were fun to use. Only the occasional captain is like "hurr hurr can't hit me with normal attacks, special attacks, ranged or elements. Hurr hurr hurr." So then you bust out the glaive and just keep smacking him with the charged attack until he dies. Or call up your best captain to stomp his guts out and/or provide a distraction so you can attack from behind.

[Retropunch]

I've got...mixed feelings about it. I've played through the first three areas and it's pretty fun - the orc captains are really well done, and you get some amazing stories build up - honestly one of the most impressive feats I've seen in game development in recent years. I actually built up an attachment to some of my orcs, and when I accidentally sent the brother of one of my long time captain's mad, who then took revenge by swapping sides in a siege it was pretty incredible.

However, the combat can be really annoying at times - I'll be trying to dominate a captain, and then an arrow/random follower will run out and hit me. I'll then have to fight off all the grunts and accidentally end up killing the captain I was supposed to be dominating. Or one of my summons will kill the captain, or the captain will run off.

This sounds like a minor thing, but in a game just about combat, it way more frustrating  than it should be. I've enjoyed it, but ran out of steam faster than I should due to getting annoyed so often with combat.

[nenjin]

It's the same basic problem I had in SoM too. I experienced it a bit in SoW in the beginning and was dreading that it would end up the same way.....

But a couple things save it from that.

1. Harder higher level orcs are just much harder to kill trivially. They have way more health so a stray arrow won't finish them. They have last chances so you get at least one grace sword strike for most.

2. The Faster Domination talent makes it a breeze to dominate them. I ended up leaving this talent OFF both because I wanted the other options and....honestly, I wanted the challenge. It felt cheap and easy to use Faster Domination. Which....

3. Makes Shadow Dominate the cheapest and easiest way to do it. As long as you have some focus to slow down time, two arrows and they aren't ranged immune....they're your's.

So I understand the feeling but for me it went away mid game. There will always be the occasional frustrating domination attempt, but by and large you get more than enough tools you need to deal with it.

They also fixed Blood Brother so literally ever other new orc that shows up in a region isn't bound to one of your guys. That shit was the most annoying part playing the game around release.

[lordcooper]

Did they ever make significant changes to the difficulty settings?

At release I found normal an absolute cakewalk and the step above that an exercise in frustration.  It was either no deaths at all or constant deaths.

[nenjin]

I think they added two? difficulties above Nemesis. Gravewalker and one other. Gravewalker is basically Nemesis+, and then the last difficulty enemy damage goes up again, so grunts can one shot you sometimes, but your damage goes up as well so guys dont take quite as long to kill.

Nemesis felt a little frustrating at first but honestly it's where I think most people should start the game.

And tbf, Shadow of War is just kind of like that. Either you're not getting touched by most stuff or some combination of traits and guys is bringing you to your knees.

Still the only real deaths I ever take are from No-Chancers. If I get at least one Last Chance I'm usually not dying.

[Kagus]

Still the only real deaths I ever take are from No-Chancers.

I still hear that little song snippet in my head whenever I read that.

[nenjin]

So I circled back around to this game.

I've been sitting at the last siege of the Shadow War forever, just putzing around leveling up my guys. Hit the level cap a while ago and, still procrastinating horribly, have been going region to region leveling all my captains up to 80.

I've also started a complete purge of the ranks. Anyone with a meaningful weakness has to go, even guys that have been with me from literally the start of the game. The only weaknesses I tolerate are Beast Fodder, because even without Beast Slayer, most beasts get taken apart in one or two attacks by level 80 orcs. I can also live with Vulnerable to Stealth, since against players it is rarely useful more than once, and Online Conquests aren't exactly stealth and time-friendly events. If they've got both, they have to have at least two Epic traits. Anything else, they get vaped in the Garrison. It's actually not too onerous. By the time orcs are getting generated around level 70, I'd say 40% of them they get rolled with no weaknesses.

In replacing the marketplace, they made it so most Training buffs can now be bought with Mirrian. You can upgrade normal captains to Epic or Legendary, at a very hefty Mirrian cost. You can enchant their weapons, give them gangs or give them a few select Epic traits. The trade off, besides the rather exorbitant Mirrian cost, is that they can only ever have 1 Epic trait at a time (2 if you upgrade them to Legendary), so it's still possible to get better Captains generated by the game, who might roll with 2 to 3 Epic traits, than the ones you can build yourself. There's also plenty of traits you either can't buy your way to, or have severe RNG trying to roll up on your own. So it's gotten nice and flexible. If you find a normal Captain who just tickles your fancy, you can pay to make him a badass now. It's a pretty substantial Mirrian sink too, so it's nice that it continues to have value long after the end of the game.

I've also got a little side project. I'm recruiting every Assassin I can that has no Weaknesses. I'm going to upgrade them all to Legendary and outfit them with all the goodies, then populate a whole region just with them. It should be on the order of 26 Assassins or something like that. I'm hoping they roll really rare traits like Necromancer and Great Strength and Endless Rage too. I don't know if anyone even plays the Online Conquest mode anymore, but if someone does and manages to get to Level 80, I want them absolutely get wrekt when they try to take one of my fortresses.