Hey duders. I picked up Shadow of Mordor during MS's Black Friday sale and I've been enjoying it quite a bit. I've gotten to the 4 Warchiefs mission, and now I'm just getting destroyed. To give a better sense of where I'm at:

• Finished the early Gollum missions (up to the point where your ghost realizes who he is)
• Have not finished the poison-all-the-Uruks mission (I gave it like 4 real shots and after the 5th time of the instant-fail on being caught I said fuck it)
• Finished a handful of the challenge missions

What tends to happen is I get into combat, and I go from facing 5-8 bad guys (including whatever named Uruk I'm trying to take on) to suddenly being swarmed by 12-16, with a significant chance of 1-2 more named bad guys showing up. At that point, I'm about 40 seconds from being murdered. I was never amazing at the Arkham games combat but I did well enough that I beat Arkham Asylum and City. I feel like I'm missing some core concept or something that will make the game less of a ballbuster. So I'm coming to you fine folk. Any suggestions to make combat more manageable and/or some easily missed stealth tactic that can help with the poison mission?

Once you unlock a few particular skills you end up being pretty OP, but don't be afraid to run away early on if things get out of hand, especially if you're in one of those fortress areas where they just keep coming. What I liked to do was start running and shoot arrows at any campfires or cages or beehives to distract enemies while I got away and headed to the nearest healing herb.

Also just like Batman, don't forget to make liberal use of the jump/roll. Leaping over enemies is a good way to get out of trouble and you can keep your combo going.

It's almost never in your advantage to face enemies in open combat within a fortress. This is one of the few things that I didn't like that much about Shadow of Mordor: even by the end of the game, where I could easily get hitstreaks of 40+ and was essentially invincible due to health regen on Combat Drain (basically a full heal every 1-2 hits), charging into a fortress to do battle was still pretty pointless; Uruks will spawn indefinitely faster than you can kill them. Generally, you'll want to focus single-mindedly on achieving your goal, remaining undetected if possible, rather than being distracted by combat. Warchief is vulnerable to stealth? Merc him from a bush. Ranged? Refill your Elf-shot, then unload six to ten headshots into him before going in for the kill. Combat? Focus on attacking him, rather than his cronies (just counter when necessary), and when your killstreak is charged, spend your executions on him to do a decent chunk of damage. If you can cause them to flee, let them run outside the fortress while you tail them - once they're out in the open away from their troops, tackle them and kill/interrogate them. As Zeik said, don't be afraid to run from a bad situation; if multiple warchiefs are pursuing you, if you can get them to follow you into an open area (or activate fears so that a few of them run away), they'll be much easier to deal with. And exploiting the environmental stuff is great too; the bees in particular are pretty effective at clearing out large swarms of troops.

Also, you definitely want to get as much intel as possible and opportunistically pick off Warchiefs that are easy to kill to get runes. I found the health regen on Combat Drain runes to be some of the most useful, as well as the ones that slow Focus drain or otherwise make it easy to pick off tons of Uruks with your bow before charging in. You should also do the side missions when possible to get Power, which unlocks some really awesome abilities that make you much more survivable. Generally speaking, doing side stuff is pretty easy and worth your while. Even the plant-collecting quests, which don't really help you that much, are kind of a fun way to wander around the world and possibly stumble across something cool. I remember I was just looking for a plant or something one time, and two Warchiefs randomly got mauled by Caragors nearby. Hilarious, and I got two free runes!

The mission you reference was indeed one of the hardest in the game, since it actually requires remaining undetected. The hardest part is poisoning the bridge barrel, where there are lots of Uruks roaming around (and they seem to spawn infinitely). I did the more remote barrels first (where you can stealth kill the guard and just poison the barrel easily), and then shot the Caragor cage to make a distraction. After the Uruks killed the Caragor, I quickly picked off any survivors with my bow, and then ran in to poison the barrel before they respawned.

Been a little while since I played, but I can think of a few things off the top of my head:

1. As mentioned above, if combat is too overwhelming, running is always an option.

2. A couple of health upgrades go a long way, and can help you out if you feel like you are dying in only a couple of hits. It doesn't take too long to explore enough to find money for the initial upgrades.

3. I can't remember well enough to know exactly where you are in the story, but if you haven't started to encounter any special enemy types yet (shield dudes, spear dudes, etc.), then try being patient and countering. The basic mooks don't require any special dodges or tactics, so you can actually fend off quite a horde if you focus on countering.

4. Particularly in strongholds, there are usually several options for distraction/thinning the horde. Look for the fly-nests or a Caragor cage, since those tend to send a lot of enemies running.

5. For the named dudes, knowledge is everything. If you have an opportunity to interrogate a worm to get intel, do it. If you know their fears, you can often get them to run away from you, which in turn sometimes causes a cascade of panic in the lower-level guys.

Finding intel is good to get into the practice of it early too, as you won't have a prayer against the late-game warchiefs unless you know their weaknesses.

Upgrade as much as you can and if there is more than 10 guys, you should probably run, especially if one of them is a Captain. Also, combat in this game is hard most of the time anyways.

Just try to remember it's only a game of Rock Paper Scissors.

You need to think clearly about:

- when to attack
- when to dodge
- when to stun
- when to counter
- when to run the hell away!

That's really all. Try to not get overwhelmed and always ask yourself the above questions until you can memorize your actions vs any unit type.

Stunning upgrades are well worth it I think. Pretty much the only ones I got and they make a really big difference. Same with upgrades that increase your multiplier faster. More multiplier means more executions.

Execute everyone, all the time.

Of these, as in the Arkham games, dodging is far and away the most important. A fair amount of the enemies in this game don't let you dodge, but you can control your dodge with the left thumbstick. There's no shame in running to spare your own life, and no further shame in running just far enough to clamber up a spire and begin raining ghost-arrows on the enemies you can weed out.

Get comfortable using your environment. Breaking line of sight is so helpful.

More importantly--this part of the game, where you're tasked with wiping out the first four Warchiefs, is a serious roadblock. It's a substantial step up in difficulty from what you've seen thus far, and, ironically, just past this is the point where you'll receive some powers that make the rest of the game kind of a joke. I wouldn't go after the Warchiefs nearest the southern part of the map until you're good and ready, or at least until you've thinned out their ranks of bodyguards.

Play through the main quest more and you'll get a power that makes the game a cakewalk. You don't even have to be good at combat at a certain point, just smart about the encounters you arrange and with whom.

Run! You can run and get some health back from plants or hide and stealth kill some stragglers. Sometimes an assault just doesn't work out and you're better off running away so the encounter resets.

@fish_face_mcgee: i had a tough time with this and the batman arkham games but it usually comes down to using all of your abilities at your disposal. For me, the thing i had to get past in this game in particular was learning that the combat encounters sometimes are not over as quickly and decisively as i wanted them to be and learning to manage the crowd until i could get to the point where i won the fight.

1. At all costs, keep your combo going so you can execute enemies and thin the crowd.

2. Prioritize your enemies based on the weapons they carry and how they're going to affect your ability to keep your combo up. Shield guys, orcs with spears, berserkers, caragors, archers, and Warchiefs/Captains all have potential to cause problems for your combo meter and you should focus on identifying their positions in the crowd and if possible dealing with these threats first.

3. Use your arrows to pull off a string of headshots from slow mo to thin a crowd.

4. Dodging is a must, especially once you unlock the ability to stun people you dodge roll over, then it almost becomes like a free combo starter because you can immediately flurry kill the stunned target most times.

5. Get the double execution unlock ASAP. once this is unlocked, you can pull of 2 execution moves per x8 combo tier. Awesome for thinning crowds especially when coupled with the stun>flurry kill.

6. No shame in running away if you're out of options and the crowd is unmanagable. Plus sometimes this can work to get your target back to a stealth killable state and the crowd around them will have dissipated .

Edit: i also found a pretty good video clip of a dude that's using the attack/counter method pretty well and thought it'd be easier to explain what he's doing right.

So first, notice that he's only hitting each orc 1-3 times each until they're knocked back or he needs to counter another attacker. Batman and Shadow are more about tapping the attack or counter button intentionally rather than hammering on them like a beat 'em up. Second, notice that when he has the oppotunity for a ground execution, he tries for it but he sometimes needs to counter another attacker and does. While this does cancel the execution and allow that orc to get back up, it's better to counter and save the combo meter than to push for the ground execution and still get hit and lose both. Last, while he uses the combo executions (red number that appears every 8 hits from the last combo execution) he hesitates a little long in some cases to use it. While this isn't necessarily "wrong" it's not using one of the most effective tools you have for crowd management in a timely manner. Once you trigger the combo execution command, you are pretty much invincible while that animation plays out. I often use these as soon as i get them because 1. it's an easy way to thin the crowd and 2. the combo excution meter only starts counting again after you've used the previous one so it does you no good to build a 40x combo if you've only used your combo meter once. in that time, you could ideally have used up to 5 execution moves if you timed them right. Sorry for the wall of text, i just really like the combat in Batman and Shadow of Mordor. Good Luck!

@dudeglove: I have an urge to punch that man in the face.

@dudeglove: I totally agree that you become way too powerful later on in the game effectively breaking the nemesis system since nothing can kill you, and that video is a much better demonstration of that rather than 15 minutes of some guy making an ass of himself. This game is a ton of fun but having to let the enemies kill you just to see the main and the best feature in the game is dumb, I have no idea why there is no difficulty option. Some sort of extreme difficulty that toughens up the enemies and restricts your abilities would make it a lot more fun and engaging.

It's possible you might have the wrong mindset while fighting. Instead of focusing on killing dudes and occasionally dodging/blocking, look at the combat system in this game as constantly dodging enemy attacks while occasionally dealing damage.

Try this exercise: go into a group of enemies and make it your mission to take and deal no damage for a minute. Dodge, jump over dudes, stun, throw knives - use every possible technique to avoid damage, but do not deal any damage at all.

This is so you will focus on the key to this game's combat system: crowd control. Once you understand how to fight without taking damage, every 8 hits (5 with the upgrade) execute one enemy (combo brand at the later stages). Also, counter their attacks. Repeat until all enemies are dead.

After that you can throw in some regular safe slashes between dodges to increase your execute rate.

Always execute ranged enemies first because they are your biggest threat.

When you don't see the encounters as 'kill dudes first, dodge second' and instead go with the 'dodge first, kill dudes second' approach you the game is pretty much a cakewalk and all you have to worry about are ranged attackers and captains who have some specific resistances to regular combat moves.

Slight tangent here but that would have to be one of the WORST videos demonstrating gameplay I have EVER seen. He doesn't have to love the game, but man ... talk about no insight. Just whining and whining. He's upgraded his bow to have 12 shots and has unlocked the double execution but DIDN'T KNOW you could break shields? Moron.

Anyway, as for OP's point -- Mordor is meant to be hard early on. You'll struggle a lot, but when you unlock the ability to execute at a lower hit combo level you'll start to get better. And trust me, later on you get some abilities that can shift the tide of battle in ways you don't expect early on.