Middle-earth™: Shadow of Mordor™: 100% Achievements: A Comprehensive Guide

For Middle-earth™: Shadow of Mordor™, the majority of the achievements are easy to obtain and are clearly marked on the overworld map as you progress the game. The collectables are marked and easy to find, the challenges are easy to accomplish and you shouldn’t have much trouble…until…

A few specific achievements are a pain, one is glitched in the DLC (see the achievement “Hot Flashes”) in the Lord of the Hunt section, and the two “Test of…” trials can be very difficult if you don’t know the best method(s) to completing them. Luckily, that is all available here!

While no achievement is missable, I will urge you to focus on “Hot Flashes” when starting the first of three DLC. If you pass it, I have instructions on how to revert your save to obtain it without losing any progress.

Simply hit Ctrl+F and type in the achievement name for a quick look at how to get that particular achievement. If you have any further questions or need additional help, feel free to post in the comments below and I’ll address them the best that I can.

Let’s get started!

Unlock 2 Bow Rune slots.
Collect enough Mirian from finding collectibles, doing missions and otherwise progressing the game to unlock runes on your sword, dagger and bow. Unlocking two of the four on your bow will unlock this achievement.

Unlock 3 Sword Rune slots.
You’ll have one rune unlocked by default, and has you complete missions, bonus objectives, side quests and defeat enemies, you’ll earn Mirian, this game’s currency more or less.

To unlock extra runes, go to your “Attributes” page and spend the Mirian to unlock it. Do note that there is no achievement for unlocking two runes with the sword, unlike the bow, which has an accompanying one.

Unlock 4 Dagger Rune slots.
Collect enough Mirian from finding collectibles, doing missions and otherwise progressing the game to unlock runes on your sword, dagger and bow. Unlocking all four rune slots for your dagger will unlock this achievement. You do not need to have any abilities or perks assigned to the rune slot for this to count.

Complete an Outcast Rescue Mission, Complete all Outcast Rescue Missions.
There are a total of 24 Outcast Missions for you to complete. They typically involve saving or freeing slaves from the orcs. They appear as you progress the main story, so keep an eye out for them.

You’ll be able to locate them by the hand icons dotting the map. When you complete your first one, you’ll earn this achievement. To have more appear, you’ll need to complete additional outcast sub-missions; the scenarios were you defeat a small group of orcs guarding slaves as they do menial labor around the map. They’ll have the same icon, albeit smaller.

Complete one and one of the freed slaves will give you intel on where to find the next Outcast Rescue Mission.

Get Ratbag promoted to Warchief.
You’ll meet the orc Ratbag early on in your playthrough. You’ll strike a few deals with him and create a symbiotic relationship to help you both obtain various goals. As you progress the story, Ratbag will request assistance helping him become Warchief.

You can find these quests clearly marked on your map; if you don’t see any, you’ll need to progress the main story further before they show up. They’ll be clearly marked once they do. Once Ratbag ascends the ranks to Warchief, you’ll earn this achievement.

Activate all Forge Towers.
There are a total of 12 towers (fast travel-locations) you need to activate: six in the first map and six in the second map. If you advance to the second map prior, you can still go back to clear out this achievement or any others you might still need to accomplish.

The second map becomes available shortly after you defeat The Hammer.

Collect 25% of the Artifacts, Collect 100% of the Artifacts and listen to their memories.
Artifacts are strewn across the land and lend you details to stories of events past that unfolded in the area. You can only collect them in wraith mode, but their location is always visible on the map, making collecting these very straight-forward.

In total, you need to find and collect 42 different artifacts to unlock all of the achievements associated with them.

Unlike Ithildin, which is often found on the sides of walls, rooftops and in other more “out-of-the-way” areas, artifacts are typically going to be located in more commonly traveled areas since they are associated with actually events and characters of lore than scripture needing to be uncovered like Ithildin.

Collect 50% of the Ithildin, Collect 100% of the Ithildin.
Ithildin are scattered around the map, typically in small crevices, high towers, caves and other out-of-the-way locations. They are marked on the map, but you might have to explore the area a bit to locate them. Much like artifacts, with them being marked on the map, collecting them is fairly simple. Remember to use wraith mode to see them, as otherwise they are invisible.

Obtain half of all the Ithildin in the game to unlock this achievement, then collect the rest for the final achievement for finding them all. An example of what you’re looking for:

Successfully complete a Survivalist Challenge, Complete all Survivalist Challenges.
Survivalist missions require you to collect certain plants scattered around the map. While the necessary item(s) change for each challenge, the location of said plants do not. Cross reference what you need with the maps above to find the location of what you seek.

Complete your first survivalist challenge to unlock this achievement; complete them all to unlock the second achievement.

Each section of the map contains only some of the plants and herbs you need to find to complete all your survivalist missions. To view the ones that grow in your area, pause the game and pull up the overworld map.

You’ll see a “Herb” list and subsequent icons for each type in that general location you’re currently at. That tells you what herbs can be found in that particular section of the map. Not every herb can be found in every area, so you’ll have to travel around to see what grows where, but once you do, just use your mini map to locate the required herb(s) you’re seeking.

Successfully complete 4 Hunting Challenges, Complete all Hunting Challenges.
There are ten hunting challenges that require you to find and kill certain creatures. Some as innocuous as a few spiders to things far more deadly. Using the maps above, I’ll detail where you can find each of the listed critters you need to seek out if you need help locating them.

They are as follows:

Challenge №1
“3 Ungol Spiders”
Found around various campsites, you’ll find these spiders all over the place. A great place to get them quickly, though, is the cave in the northeastern part of The Black Road map. You’ll find tons of them, making this first challenge go fast.

Challenge №2
“5 Flying Creatures”
Found around the whole map, you’ll need to use your bow and snipe five creatures from the sky. A great place for this was in the southeastern section of The Black Road; you can find tons there.

Challenge №3
“3 Caragor”
You’ll encounter this early on when you track down Gollum in the cave during the second main story mission. From that point onward, they will dot the landscape; kill any three to complete this challenge.

Challenge №4
“4 Rats”
I found the best places for finding these to be orc strongholds. They seemed to roam around fairly frequent, making finding just four of them simple.

Challenge №5
“8 Ghuls”
You can complete this using the same cave as shown below for the bats. There’s a sword challenge (also shown below) that has you entering said cave to dispose of dozens of Ghuls as part of it. If you’ve already done the first four challenges, you can knock them both out at once.

If not, you can return here at night to find more to fight, or come across them at night around the landscape.

Challenge №6
“4 Bats”
I found the quickest way to completing this one is, well, caves. There’s one right by a fast travel location, making it extremely easy to knock this one out as soon as you get it. The cave I used was here:

Challenge №7
“1 Graug”
You’l probably want to wait on killing one of these massive creatures until later in the game when you have some decent runes, upgraded abilities and more health.

They are extremely strong, can often stunlock you with ground attacks and are surprisingly nimble for their bulky size. There are two recommended methods to killing them. A well placed arrow shot into their head will temporarily stun them, allowing you to dish out some damage.

The other is using the ability “Shadow Mount” (once you have it unlocked) to dominate the Graug, then choosing the option to kill it. If you have this hunt active, but haven’t done the Torvin’s side quest where you learn to ride a Graug, then you can earn this through his teaching since he’ll have you kill a lesser Graug as practice.

Challenge №8
“1 Dire Caragor”
You won’t find these until you enter the second map and advance the main plot for a bit. Caragors have smaller claw icons on the map, while dire caragors is much larger. When attacking them, you’ll notice they will have a visable health bar above them and can take several execution attacks before going down.

Visably, they look very similar to regular caragors.

Challenge №9
“1 Ghûl Matron”
The best way to find a Ghûl Matron is to wait until nightfall. You’ll have to scour the land to find a ghûl mound as shown below, but once you do, attack some of the ghûls near it. Once they start to flee, leave them alone and wait. Another batch will appear.

Do this about 3-5 times and a larger, pale ghûl will appear; this is a Ghûl Matron. One or two spawn at a time; kill one of them to complete this hunting challenge.

Challenge №10
“1 Horned Graug”
The last hunting challenge is to kill a graug. The easiest way to do this, I found, is to travel to this tower, forward time until it is daylight (they don’t seem to spawn in the night) and you’ll see one just off in the nearby field in the green circled area below.

From there, you can shadow mount the graug using your bow (if you have that ability) and then simply choose to execute the mount and you’ll complete this final hunting challenge. You did them all!

You’ll find various challenges scattered around the land called Azkâr, Acharn, & Urfael Challenges respectively, which require you to use a specific weapon type and your honed skills to complete a main objective and an optional secondary one.

Dotted around the map, you’ll find this bow icon indicating a challenge. Complete the primary objective to complete the challenge. The secondary bonus is recommended, but not required in order to complete the challenge.

Additionally, you will see ones for your dagger and sword. There are a total of 30 spread across your three weapons; ten apiece.

Successfully doing one per weapon will net you an achievement for each, and then one for completing all ten of each respective weapon in your arsenal. For the first completed challenge of the three weapon types, you’ll unlock the following with a bow, knife and sword respectively:

Complete a Bow Mission and begin growing the legend of Azkâr, Complete a Dagger Mission and begin growing the legend of Acharn & Complete a Sword Mission and begin growing the legend of Urfael.

Complete all Azkâr Legend Missions, Complete all Acharn Legend Missions, & Complete all Urfael Legend Missions.
Completing all ten of the challenges for each weapon type will net you the final achievement for these challenges. If you can’t find any new missions, work on progressing the main story; this will allow both new weapon challenges to appear as well as other side quests for other achievements.

Use Strike From Above while at least 60 feet above your target.
There are a plethora of locations to accomplish this achievement; you need to be at least 60 feet above your target and use your “Strike From Above” attack to dive, enter wraith form, then kill them.

You can earn this by using either the stealth kill or brutalize attack if you have it unlocked. You only need to do this to a singular target to earn this achievement.

Simply as an example, I earned this achievement inside the Uruk Hollow Stronghold early on in the game from the high perch located below.

Attract caragors with bait 5 times.
You’ll be introduced to to these cuddly little creatures early on in the game. Once introduced through the main story, you’ll start to see them dotted around the landscape, attacking whatever they find indiscriminately, from orcs to humans to you as well.

You can find plenty of them caged in the various strongholds spread across the map. Shoot down the meat carcass to lure them there and watch them ravage the orcs, or tame one for some extra fun. Do this five times to unlock this achievement.

Make 20 uruks flee by dropping Morgai Fly nests.
Found around strongholds, you can often find these gross nests of Morgai flies hanging around. They don’t hurt you or the orcs per se, but they can make them flee in fear if you shoot them down with a well placed arrow.

Over the course of your playthrough, force at least 20 orcs to flee in terror from these critters. That equates to knocking down only a handful of nests.

Complete a Vendetta Mission.
As you may know, when an orc kills you, whether it be a regular grunt, a captain, Warchief and so on, they become stronger and can be promoted within Sauron’s army.

Dying to one of these warriors can, sometimes, spring up a Vendetta Mission, which only appears if you’re previously died to one of them.

To earn this achievement, you’ll have to find the icon as shown and defeat that particular orc that is marked. Defeating them will earn you this achievement. Do note, not every orc that kills you will summon a vendetta mission, so you may have to wait a while and check the map regularly until one appears.

Poison a Captain at his own Feast.
These missions won’t appear until you’ve gone on the main mission involving the act of poisoning the grog of some orcs and killing them with poison from special plants found in the area. Once you go through the mission of gathering the plants and the secondary one of actually poisoning the orcs, these will appear on the map and allow you to earn this achievement.

You can complete the feast missions other ways as well, so make sure the captain stays alive until he samples the poisoned grog. The captain does not need to die from the poison; he just needs to be injured from it. Once he drinks the grog, you can kill him any way you please.

Free 5 caragors from cages.
Once caragors are introduced into the game, you can find them caged inside the various orc strongholds and, less often, dotted in spots around the map. Simply shoot the cage with an arrow to release the caragor. They do not need to do anything to have it count, and shooting anywhere on the cage will release them.

There are some quests that have you releasing them as part of an objective, so earning this achievement will come without any extra effort needed.

Use the Detonate ability to burn 50 uruks.
First, you’ll need to research the ability “Detonate” before you can start chipping away at this achievement. It’ll be in the first row of abilities to learn, so you’ll have a chance to unlock it early in your playthrough.

Once you do, shoot an arrow at any orc bonfire, grog barrel or explosive barrels to set orcs on fire and detonate the containers. You need to burn 50 orcs to unlock this achievement; the orcs that get caught on fire do not need to die from the fire or the explosion for it to count. Also, grappling an orc and throwing him into bonfires does not count either.

Kill all 5 Warchiefs before any uruk take their place.\
There are two ways to get this. One way in the earlier portion of the game, prior to defeating The Hammer by eliminating the first five Warchiefs that are present in the beginning of your playthrough, or afterwards in the later stages of the game.

Early Game – Before Killing The Hammer
While working on Ratbag’s story arc to help him become Warchief, you’ll have to kill five Warchiefs before any new ones take their place through promotions, the passage of time or from killing you and moving up the ranks. Start by gathering intelligence from specific orcs marked with a green icon.

You can interrogate them for information directly towards any one Warchief to identify them or learn their strengths and weaknesses for future combat. Do this for all five of them. Alternatively, you can locate and eliminate high ranking orcs (captains) for information as well. Any captain can be interrogated for information on Warchiefs.

Now, I left all five alive until the point in the story where you kill a Warchief as part of Ratbag’s side quest. Once Ratbag becomes the Warchief, you’ll want to work on this achievement to the end With Ratbag in place, you have one down and four to go.

Now, you need to draw out the remaining Warchiefs. Target their respective captains to draw them out.

You can fight the Warchief directly, but if you do their loyal captains will be present and make the fight more difficult.

View Sauron’s army and you should see a white line connecting a Warchief and several captains – those are the ones you should kill prior to draw them out and help tip the fight in your favor. If you have the Warchief identified, you can still see what captain is loyal to them, even if the captain is unknown to you. That way, once you learn the intel needed, you can apply it to the appropriate captain.

Late Game – After Killing The Hammer
After you defeat The Hammer, you can either rinse and repeat the same as above (minus the part about Ratbag) to dispose of all five War Chiefs, or you can do it using your new “Branding” ability.

Eliminate the bodyguards of two Warchiefs, then draw them out and kill them.
At any point in time, this can be accomplished by drawing out any Warchief of your choosing; when they arrive on scene, you need to kill all of their marked bodyguards before you kill the Warchief.

Do this on two different occasions to unlock this achievement.

Issue a Death Threat, and then successfully kill the target.
In order to issue a death threat, you’ll first need to learn the ability. Typically, you won’t learn this ability until after you defeat The Hammer and move onto the second map.

Once you have it, wraith grab an orc (any will do) and you’ll see a new option that will allow you to issue a death threat.

You will be prompted to pick a member of Sauron’s army (anyone you like) and they will have a red “X” above them from then on. Now you just need to mark them (so you know where they are) and go kill them for this achievement.

Kill the Great White Graug.
The Great White Graug is part of Torvin’s quest line and the very last quest you do with him before continuing on your journey. The fight isn’t too difficult; every time the graug charges you, a well placed arrow to the head will cause him to stumble.

Dodge his fall and attack him to deal a huge amount of damage before he recovers. When the ghûls appear, dispatch them quickly so the graug replenishes its health as little as possible. Either kill them with your sword, or shoot the graug in the head so he drops them.

If you prevent the graug from regenerating too much health from snacking on the ghûls, you can kill it in four attack cycles. Once you leave the cave, you’ll be awarded this achievement.

Perform an Execution on a flaming Berserker.
Hands down, the most frustrating achievement in the game (in my opinion). So, first things first. You’ll need to unlock the ability that lowers your execution combo to just five consecutive hits instead of eight (Ability: Blade Master), as well as the ability to withstand one hit without your execution ability being reset (Ability: Resilience).
This allows you to have a little more breathing room in case of errors. It definitely helped me get it.

Now, the next part is up for debate. I executed six flaming Beserkers before this achievement was given. Four were with “epic” runes attached to my weapons and two were with no “epic” runes attached. Some have claimed having “epic” runes causes the achievement to be glitched, while some say if you’re too quick or slow on executing the Beserker, he’ll “die” mid execution action, so, while you killed him, the game registers the fire death prior to the execution.

It’s tough to say, but in general, I unequipped all my “epic” runes and, lured a Beserker (try to bring one or two regular orcs as fodder), refrained from doing any damage to him, put five quickshot arrows into the regular orc, grabbed the Beserker, threw him into a nearby bonfire, jumped over said fire and performed the execution as shown above.

This achievement was a nightmare and took me several hours to get.

Capitalize on a Warchief’s Fear.
This achievement actually has nothing to do with Graugs; it just has a peculiar name. First, you want to learn the weaknesses of some of the War Chiefs in Sauron’s army. The easiest ones I felt were a fear of either Caragors or fire, but any fear will, in reality, work just fine.

I did fire for example. Engage a Warchief by luring them out into combat, bring said Warchief near a fire source, such as a campfire, grog barrel (single or stack) or use your fire arrows to light them on fire. Once the cutscene plays that says they are in “Fear of [insert method here]”, they will flee combat.

Quickly track them down and kill them before they can escape. You can kill them using any method as long as you first scare them prior.

Start a Riot by commanding a Warchief to attack another Warchief.
Once you learn the technique “Branding”, which allows you to control orcs, captains and even Warchiefs, you’ll need to find any one Warchief, cause enough damage to where they fall to one knee, then instead of killing them, the option “Dominate” will be available. Select this, then select “Command” and if you hover over another Warchief and select “Riot”.

You don’t actually have to participate in a riot for it to unlock. If you’re at the end of the story, participating in said riot and having a Warchief die during the commotion is fine (even if you still need to brand all five Warchiefs), as a new Warchief will immediately replace the one that died; it won’t hinder your main story mission.

Acquire a level 25 Rune.
There are two types of runes: Epic and Regular. Epic runes do not have levels and, thus, cannot fulfill this achievement. What that means is, you can, but it isn’t recommended, to use the death threat option to increase the rune quality, as this just makes epic runes drop more frequently. Does it work if you issued a death threat? Yes, but the chance is significantly lower, but not impossible.

Instead, here is what I did, though there are other ways of obtaining a rune of this quality. First, I found a random orc and died, causing them to become a captain in Sauron’s army. Next, I worked on getting the Captain promoted to Warchief (alternatively, you can skip this part and work directly with a Warchief; pick the one with the highest level). You want a level 20 orc.

Once my orc captain became a Warchief, I located an orc that could provide me some information (weaknesses) of my target Warchief. I found a Warchief with a weakness to betrayal, fire or caragors to work for me; we want something easy to exploit.

Next, die to this Warchief enough to bring them to level 20 (ignore this part if they already are). Once they are, hunt down the Warchief and die to him to open up the change for revenge. An easy-to-remember method is:

• Know their weaknesses +1 Rune Point
• Exploit a Fear or Hatred +1 Rune Point
• Get Vengeance for being killed +1 Rune Point
• Warchief Kill +2 Rune Points

Dispatch the Warchief for a chance to earn the level 25 rune. This is not a guarantee, so it may take a few tries to have the rune drop.

***Note*** – Some users claim having the Warchief die by alternate means (not your blade) either by burning to death, being eaten by a caragor, or dying to a branded orc will increase the chances as well, however, I did not test this theory.

Brand all 5 Warchiefs.
There’s two schools of thought for this achievement. You can either kill off the bodyguards/supporters of each Warchief to isolate them, then weaken them and brand them directly, or you can brand the next-in-line for a promotion and kill off the Warchief.

If the captain that is in line to become Warchief is promoted while being branded, it will count towards the achievement.

Liberate 30 slaves in 180 seconds while riding a caragor.
For this one, I highly recommend starting on the second map in the main story. While there are other areas you can accomplish this achievement, this route seemed teeming with slaves to free in a fairly short distance.

You will see the people that need rescuing by theirvery tiny black arrows on the mini map.

Contrary to what it might seem, this isn’t an outcast mission, but freeing random groups of slaves that dot the landscape. There is a bit of luck to having enough spawn close by, so it might take a couple runs to get the achievement.

First, I started at this save point and traveled this general route along the river:
From atop the tower, you should be able to shadow mount (if you have the ability) a caragor from the tower with your bow. Next, you need to stay on your caragor; jumping off with reset the counter so don’t do that.

The green line is roughly the route I went to find enough slaves to free. You need to kill the orcs overseeing the slaves performing manual labor. Once they either thank you for freeing them and start running away, you can move on to the next group.

Some tips I learned while doing this:

• Do this only during the day.
• The slaves are only here on the main game campaign. They do not show up in the “Lord of the Hunt” DLC.
• There is no counter for how many slaves you’ve freed or a timer, so, if you can, set one on your phone to track your time.
• If you have any runes that replenish your arrows when you fire one, I highly recommend equipping it. You’ll be much quicker at freeing the slaves by just killing the orcs with a well-placed headshot than with your sword.

Brand 5 Bodyguards of a Warchief, turning them against him in combat.
To get this started, pick a Warchief that already has the most established bodyguards. This means, if you hover over a Warchief, how many links (lines) to other captains does he have. The closer to five the better, but you can technically do it with any number. The lower the number, though, the longer it will take to set this up.

If you brand a captain already loyal to that Warchief, then that captain is already set up and can be ignored for now. If the captain you brand isn’t already loyal (no line connecting them to the Warchief) in the army menu, then you need to complete the “Power Struggle” mission that comes up with them.

Typically, that involves something like your captain defeating another, or going on a successful hunt and surviving. Regardless of what you need to do, make sure your branded captain completes it; once they do, they’ll be promoted and assigned the bodyguard of that Warchief.

Once you have all five branded, locate the Warchief and do the mission to draw them out into the open. Once they are, hit “Up” on the D-pad and it will trigger all of the branded bodyguards to attack them. Once you do, this achievement should trigger.

The achievement here is a little temperamental. First, you need to find a marker (the two red skulls together) indicating a power struggle. Next, it has to be for a recruitment event.

If you don’t have any, go to any tower and fast forward time; this will resolve some of the current power struggle events and give you new ones. Scroll over them to find one. If there isn’t, rinse and repeat this until there is one on the map. They seemed to be fairly uncommon, so you’ll have to do this several times unless you get lucky.

Recruitment missions in strongholds are a nightmare. The event involves a captain approaching several different orc groups and trying to bring them under his rule. They reject him, fight him and you need to dispatch them so they don’t kill the captain.

Basically, let him introduce himself, they say “No, go away” and you kill them all. Once the captain is the only one left, break line-of-sight so he moves on. He should approach 2-3 different groups. Once the game says the recruitment is “Resolved”, kill him to unlock this achievement.

***Note*** – Doing this in a stronghold seems to be glitched due to the constant flow of new orcs. The captain seems stuck constantly trying to recruit new orcs that come on scene in what felt like an endless loop. I highly recommend doing one outside of a stronghold for this very reason.

After an uruk kills you to become a Captain, help him become a Warchief, then kill him.
During your playtime in the main campaign, have any random orc kill you so they are promoted to captain. I’d recommend not doing it to an orc with a heavy weapon and shield, as they can be immune to more combat tactics than other orcs.

Once the orc becomes a captain, track them down and brand them. Have them become a Warchief’s bodyguard by helping them through whatever event they need to do to show their strength and competency. After they become the Warchief’s bodyguard, track them down once more on the map and command them to betray their Warchief.

Defeat the Warchief so your bodyguard replaces him, then kill him to unlock this achievement.

Begin a new hunt with Torvin.
When you first start this section of the DLC, Torvin will meet with you and take you on a quick tutorial mission about using and controlling caragaths. At the end of the mission, you’ll unlock this achievement.

Kill a Caragath with an Execution.
You can do this achievement in two areas. If you are still on the very beginning tutorial mission (see above achievement “A Short Introduction”), then you’ll have a caragath at your disposal.

If you go into stealth, you’ll have the option to kill your mount. Selecting it will cause you, to, well, kill said mount and unlock this achievement.

Its just a nice way to earn this right away and save you the trouble of taming another.

You’ll fail the tutorial mission, but it will pick up right before you stealth kill the orcs training the captured caragaths.

If you’ve already done this mission, simply tame any wandering caragath you find and perform the same execution to unlock this achievement.

Use a Wretched Graug’s Projectile Vomit on an Uruk Captain or Warchief, Eat a captain with a Wretched Graug.
I would recommend doing both of these in one attempt. While not necessary, it can save you some time and energy. First, you’ll need to either tame a graug, or enter a mission that gives you one to save time. I did it during one of the “Blazing Steed” missions.

Locate a captain either by tracking one you already have intelligence on, or find one in the wild; a good bet is going to any of the strongholds. For “Wretched Retch”, hit the captain with your projectile vomit attack; some players have said it took several attacks to unlock.

I had to hit the captain twice; I believe it needs to be a direct hit and not from the splash damage, so aim carefully. Next, weaken him, use your grab attack and consume the captain to get the second achievement. Two for one!

Complete 25 Caragath Stealth Kills.
Once you learn how to dominate caragaths, simply stealth up, and kill, any 25 orcs during your playthrough. This one is pretty self-explanatory.

Bait 10 Ghûl mounds.
Once you learn how to bait mounds to spawn ghûls, you just need to trigger a total of ten mounds by shooting them with your bow. I recommend branding a caragath and running around in wraith mode to highlight them. It shouldn’t take very long at all.

Have 20 Branded Ghûls at one time.
There is a specific main story mission where you learn to brand ghûls from Torvin; try to keep them alive and bait the vary mounds he brings you to and you should be able to earn this achievement during the short mission. It wants you to brand 45 different ghûls, so you have plenty of margin for error before it is over.

If you didn’t earn this, you’ll have to roam around and bait various ghûl locations until you reach the mark. It isn’t hard either way.

To unlock this ability, you’ll need to work your way through all the bestiary missions (white icon with three claw marks). As you advance the story with Torvin, additional ones will appear.

The final one is with you, a caragath, and your new ability that allows you to engulf the animal in wraith fire. This ability allows you to light enemies on fire that your caragath comes into contact with.

To activate it, stealth kill three different orcs, then [R3] + [L3] on your controller (check key bindings if you’re using a keyboard) to activate it. Doing so just once, which you’ll do during this mission anyway, will unlock this achievement.

Have a dominated Caragath, Wretched Graug and Spitter Ghûl simultaneously.
This achievement is tricky if you don’t know where to look. Below it a map of where I went to accomplish this one. You’ll travel to the western-most tower, head over to the swamp area and brand a caragath there (one always spawns).

Next, travel to the cave to confirm the graug is asleep in there; for me, it was there every time, so it looks like it is a permanent spawn point for the beast. East and a tad bit south, you should find a nearby ghûl mound.

Shadow mount the caragath first, then “park” it somewhere by the arrow shown. Nothing should disturb it, so it will just sit there. Next, head over to the ghûl mound. Before triggering the horde, remove any nearby caragaths or orcs that might interrupt or kill the ghûls. Build up your combo so you can wraith brand all the ghûls nearby, making sure you get at least one spitter.

Make your way immediately to the cave, bring out your bow and shadow mount the graug as quickly as you can to control all three at once.

Kill a Graug by dispatching your Ghûls on him.
What a pain. So, there is a mission where you first learn to wraith brand ghûls. At the end, Trovin will show you how they fair against a graug. Before they kill the graug, dispatch your ghûls by hitting down on the D-pad. They will explode, killing the graug and unlocking this achievement.

This can be done during the mission “Hypocritical Oat”. If you didn’t do it during, you still can, but it can be a massive thorn in your side to get it to work. Here is what I did…

Start at this save tower:

Jump down and look towards the stronghold and shoot down the hanging graug bait here to trigger a graug every time. He’ll spawn near the base, but not actually inside it. See the picture below:
Next, I lured a few nearby orcs to the graug to work in some damage; we want the graug weak, but not dead. Once about half the health was gone from said graug, I triggered the first nest of ghûls, used an orc to build up my combo and mass branded as many ghûls as I could.

Shoot two arrows into the graug’s face to stun it. Your ghûls will latch onto the beast and deal damage. With enough on them, hit down on your D-pad to explode all of the littler critters, killing the graug. You can kill it with as few as two if its health is low enough, but the more the better.

Defeat all the Beastmaster Warchiefs.
At the end of the DLC, your last mission with Torvin will be to kill the final Beastmaster Warchief. You can’t fight him until you’ve defeated the other four, but, once you do, this achievement will unlock. You can still go back to unlock any missing achievements within this DLC, so don’t worry if you have some remaining still.

Catch a Ghûl Matron on fire during the Lord of the Hunt campaign.
Unequivocally, the worst achievement in the game. Why? It’s broken. During the Lord of the Hunt DLC, Torvin will teach you to bait ghûl nests. This mission is called “Matrons Rising” and is the only time they spawn in the whole DLC.

This means, once you complete it, you cannot spawn a ghûl matron. Now, you can in the main game, sure, but lighting one on fire with a fire arrow does not earn you an achievement. I lit a dozen or so on fire to test it out: no achievement.

This must be done during this mission and only during this mission. Luckily, it is in the very beginning of the DLC. If you haven’t started the DLC yet, do this mission right after the tutorial introduction with Torvin and the caragaths. Simply bait the nests and when you spot a matron (larger, paler, spiky ghûl than the rest), charge up your bow either with arrow shots to the regular ghûls, or via your sword, then shoot a fire arrow into the matron. That’s it! Achievement earned!

If you have passed this, do not fret; you can still earn it easily. You need to reset the Lord of the Hunt campaign. Go to your save file:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\[STEAM_ID]\241930\remote

The [STEAM_ID] is unique to your account, so it will be different for everyone. Inside the “remote” folder is a single file: your save file. Make a copy and place it elsewhere like your desktop. Reload the game, go to the Lord of the Hunt campaign and select to restart the DLC. It will start over, allowing you to quickly enter the mission with the matron ghûls to earn this achievement.

Once you’re done, replace the save file with your copied one to restore your original progress.

Challenge the Dark Lord in Mordor.
This achievement will unlock at the end of the tutorial opening when you first start this campaign.

Shadow Brand 20 Uruks.
Sneak up to any orc and use your stealth brand ability on them. Do this 20 times to unlock this achievement. Several of the missions require this or have it as a bonus objective, so you’ll probably obtain it without going for it specifically.

Wraith Flash Dominate 50 Uruks.
When you build up your power through hit combos, your sword will glow with fire and you can use your wraith flash brand ability. The higher your hit combo, the more effective the ability will be and the larger the radius.

There’s a multitude of missions that require this ability, so getting to 50 in total through the whole campaign will come naturally as you progress.

Brand 20 Uruks in 60 seconds.
There’s two situations I’d recommend doing this under. Once you complete the tutorial mission when starting this DLC, you’ll enter free roam. Head to the tower in the Southern Udun Pass (south east corner of the map) and enter the mission ” Press the Advantage”. This requires you to maintain 10+ branded orcs for two minutes to complete it.

If the number drops below, the timer resets, giving you, essentially, an infinite wave of orcs to work with since they keep coming until you’ve done the challenge. If you have over ten and the timer is almost up, simply kill all branded orcs (down on the D-pad) to reset the clock.

I’d recommend starting with the One Ring power to spam wraith brands, then finish with combo-charged ones if you still need a few. The challenge even has a counter for how many you have so you can always maintain a rough count of what you still need.

Alternatively, if you have surpassed this mission, head to any stronghold with your One Ring fully charged and have an orc trigger the alarm. Gather as many as you can around you and repeat the same as above.

Stealth Brand a Captain, Brand a Captain while in combat.
I recommend doing these two simultaneously if you can; it’s actually extremely easy this way. First, find some orcs that can get you some intel on any captain roaming about.

Repeat until you find a captain that is vulnerable to stealth finishers. This will allow us to find them and brand them without issue. The hunt begins!

Next, locate the captain on the battlefield and engage him in combat in an area that you can escape nearby to break line-of-sight, preferably someplace up high. Once the captain’s state goes from red (engaging you) to yellow (searching for you), jump down on him or sneak up behind him and shadow brand him.

Since he is still alert and looking for you (yellow skull over him), it counts towards “in combat” even though you two aren’t actually fighting anymore.

If he is vulnerable to stealth finishers, this counts towards that weakness, giving you the ability to do it without lowering his health or anything. Once you brand him, you”ll unlock both achievements at once. Do note, you can do “A New Master” in the main game, but not “From Shadow to Sahdow”, so I’d recommend this method to save some time and frustration.

Build all the Forge Towers in Udun.
Complete all four challenges located at each of the four destroyed towers marked on the map. Once you rebuild them, you’ll earn this achievement.

Maximize the power of the Ring by completing all of the One Ring missions.
As you progress the campaign, four different One Ring missions will appear; completing these will extend the time use can use the One Ring and its abilities.

Each mission is unlocked by restoring its respective tower in the area, so restore all four towers to reveal the location of these missions. Complete all four to unlock this achievement.

The One Ring has returned to it’s Maker.
Once you brand all five Warchiefs of Sauron, you’ll unlock the final battle between you two. Before attempting it, make sure you’ve done all the One Ring side quests to build up its power (and earn the achievement), as concluding the fight with Sauron will end the campaign.

Once the battle ends, you’ll earn this achievement and complete The Bright Lord DLC.

Complete all objectives in the Test of the Wild.
Alright, so I highly recommend saving the “Test of the Wild” achievement and the “Lord of the Ring” achievement until the end of your achievement run for a few reasons. They are under strict time limits and require you to have the map layout remembered, key areas known and being able to use your abilities to their fullest.

Let’s break down what you need to do. The main objectives are to:

• Kill 5 Beastmaster Warchiefs
• Kill 20 Captains

• Kill 10 Captains with Monsters
• Earn 13,000+ points
• Complete in 40 minutes

You must complete all primary and secondary achievements. It can be tough, but here is how I went about doing it; I got it on my third try and had a few minutes to increase my score before finishing off the last captain with 31 seconds to spare.

To start, you’ll always spawn in the southeast corner of the map on that tower. Your first task is to find orcs (preferably smaller groups) and use them to reveal the location of all 20 captains. If you happen to find one with an intel icon (green icon shown), use it to reveal a Warchief. Try to find Ûgakûga Graug Rider or Zûgor Beast Butcher, or Kugor Beast Hunter as they are the most potent at dealing with riots. For my run, I always went for Kugor Beast Hunter.

When gathering intel, remember to grab them [RB] and gain intelligence [X] on all 20 captains. Try to find one nearby intel orc; use the intel on the left-most Warchief. I can’t confirm it is every time, but for every playthrough I did, Kugor Beast Hunter was on the far left of Sauron’s army.

You should have all captains revealed by at least the 9:00 minute mark; if you stick to smaller orc groups, get good respawns for them and can be quick enough, you can do it in under 5:00.

Next, you’re going to want a Graug. Fast travel to the starting location and shoot down the Graug meat lure to spawn one next to the meat. Don’t let it die. Shadow tame it. Time to ride into battle!
Now, either work clockwise or counter clockwise to find the 10 captains you need to eat with the Graug. Minimize backtracking as much as possible. Go to Sauron’s army and mark the closet captain. Use Wraith Vision to find the captain (they glow red). Bring your Graug around and position the captain on the left side of the Graug, as they will grab the left-most enemy and eat them.

Devour the captain, open the menu, mark your next one that is in your path and continue until you have at least ten captains consumed. If you have several nearby, use the opportunity to eat them as well; if you can get around 15 captains without bleeding too much time, you’ll be in great shape. I would roughly say, complete this by around the 20:00 mark.

One issue I found, is that if you have multiple captains in the upper portion of the northeastern stronghold, there is only one footpath the Graug can take and there is an archway that blocks it from getting to (the Graug is too tall/wide). When I had several there, I simply restarted. The area is here:

Now, locate Kugor, complete the pre-requisite to bring him out and brand him. Again, every time I brought him out, his primary weakness was “shadow strikes”, which means you can shadow brand him at full health. If he isn’t, fire off some arrow volleys into him to weaken him, then brand him.

Next, grab hold of him, dominate him, then select (Y) to command him to riot against the next Warchief. Don’t worry, he can even if the Warchief is unknown. It will reveal him once you do. Fast travel to the nearest tower and make your way to the riot. Enter it. Your goal should be to kill all the bodyguards prior to the Warchief. Not only will this help build up the 20 captains, but it will also save time having to track them down later. Hopefully they bring a bunch, but every Warchief has some in tow.

As soon as your branded orc wins the riot, grab them and command them to, once again, riot the next Warchief in line. Rinse and repeat this until the four un-branded Warchiefs are dead. Now, dispatch your branded Warchief and his horde (Down on D-Pad). All 5 Warchiefs are dead.

Now, quickly make your way around the map and mop up any remaining captains, but leave one alive. You need to make sure you are around the 12,000 point mark before killing the last one. This will ensure once you kill him, you will be over because as soon as you kill the final captain, the trial abruptly ends automatically.

• Minimize walking/running. To travel, try taming a caragor as needed, or using your bow to shadow strike orcs as a means of instant teleportation.
• When you’re done with the caragors, kill them; they are worth 100 points in the wild and 150 points when killing your branded ones.
• Do not enter power struggles to kill captains while using a Graug: you will lose it. Only enter riots when you’re working on Warchiefs.
• Despite what others mention, there is no need to get off the Graug when killing captains. You can easily kill the 10+ needed; no need to engage in melee combat.
• The game timer is paused when in the menu/Sauron’s army page, so use that to get your bearings and plan your next move.

Hopefully, this is enough information to obtain a time below the requirements. If so, congratulations!
Here was mine; I farmed points (looks like I did too many) right before killing the last captain.

Complete all objectives in the Test of The Ring.

First, if you have not done “The Bright Lord” campaign, do that first. Any upgrades to the One Ring and your runes will carry over. If you have done it already, then let’s get started.

• Kill 5 Beastmaster Warchiefs
• Kill 12 Captains

• Have 8 branded War Chiefs or Captains
• Brand 50 grunts (regular orcs)
• Complete in 60 minutes

Right when you spawn, check the map for a “Beast Hunt” mission. There are three missions to pick in the beginning; if one isn’t a “Beast Hunt”, I simply restarted. Next, summon your branded orcs, then dominate them until you have all 20 captains revealed. This should take roughly 5:00.

Now, travel to the “Beast Hunt” mission. You want to have one of these because when the beast arrives, its always a Graug. Shadow Brand the Graug, then eat the captain to end the “Beast Hunt”. One down!

If you have already done the Test of the Wild achievement, you’ll recognize this tactic: eat captains with your lovely Graug. With all 20 captains revealed, plot either a clockwise or counterclockwise course around the map and consume the 11 captains (12 total) needed. Try not to lose the Graug, as traveling the map and having to fight each captain alone will bleed too much time. I lost my Graug with one captain remaing of the dozen needed, but still managed to have plenty of time leftover, so losing it isn’t always a lost run.

Make sure to not eat more than 12, but if you accidentally kill an extra one (I did), die to any regular orc and have them promote to captain. I would recommend only doing this at the end of dealing with captains as an as-needed basis.

In the Test of the Ring, you don’t have access to the riot missions and will have to engage the Beastmaster Warchiefs, so you’ll have to engage them directly. Before you do that, make your way to the eight remaining captains and brand them as needed, making sure to select “Gain Intel” on each Beastmaster Warchief before “Dismissing” the captain.

This will make the Beastmaster Warchiefs easier to handle without their captains wailing on you while you try to brand them all simultaneously. Now, select whatever Beastmaster Warchief you want and check their weaknesses prior to engaging them. Since we have no riots, we’ll have to do whatever task is required to draw them out. Hopefully you get easy ones, but, regardless, complete them quickly.

By the time you have just the Beastmaster Warchiefs remaining, I’d put your time at around 30:00 – 40:00, which gives us plenty of time to kill them all. Rinse and repeat drawing out each respective Beastmaster Warchief. Once you kill the final one, the Test of the Ring will immediately end.

• Minimize walking/running. To travel, use your bow to shadow strike orcs as a means of instant teleportation if you don’t have your Graug to travel on.
• Use the One Ring ability to quickly dispose of Beastmaster Warchiefs. Even if the Warchief has the ability “Combat Master” to block executions, they cannot block them while the ring is active.
• Do not enter power struggles to kill captains while using a Graug: you will lose it.
• You need to brand 50 orcs, which you should be doing as you complete your mission; you probably will have it by the time you’re done anyway, but use this to also charge your ring’s power and thin herds of orcs when you have a large mob against you.
• I felt this one was far easier than the Test of the Wild and leaves a lot of room for mistakes by comparison. Don’t restart after small, trivial mistakes.
• The One Ring’s ability negates the “Combat Master” ability.

Hopefully, this is enough information to obtain a time below the requirements. If so, congratulations!

Get a Level 30 Rune in Test of the Ring.
I would ignore this while you’re doing the “Lord of the Ring” achievement and do this on a separate run. This is much easier than it sounds; you can get this in one try. Just follow these easy step-by-step instructions for a level 30 rune:

• Go to any of the starting power struggles that appear (there will always be three). Pick any of them.
• Dominate the captain there and use them to reveal a Warchief. Any Warchief works, as there are no specifics.
• Go to the Warchief’s location, complete the pre-requisite to bring them out and let them kill you. They must have the killing blow.
• Go to “Sauron’s Army” and look to see if that captain has any bodyguards. Hopefully they have none, but if they do, kill them all but one. The one leftover you need to brand and issue a “Death Threat” to the Warchief.
• Find the “Unfinished Business” mission that appears because of your death at the hands of the Warchief and start it. Let your branded captains/orcs kill the Warchief. You are okay to injure them, but the killing blow cannot come from you.
• Pick up your level 30 rune. Yay!

For those wondering the exact point breakdown, here are the bonuses you earn for each of the described above, which increased the rune’s level to 30.

Make an uruk yours.
Main story achievement; this achievement will come as you progress the story (first achievement you’ll earn).

Discover some of the Wraith’s past.
Main story achievement; you’ll earn this as you progress the main plot.

Witness the creation of The Rings of Power.
Main story achievement; you’ll earn this as you progress the main plot.

Destroy the Monument Gate and topple the statue of Sauron.
Main story achievement; you’ll earn this as you progress the main plot.

Kill The Hammer.
Main story achievement; you’ll earn this as you progress the main plot.

Lift Lady Marwen’s curse.
Main story achievement; you’ll earn this as you progress the main plot.

Save Lithariel’s life.
Main story achievement; you’ll earn this as you progress the main plot.

Kill The Tower.
Main story achievement; you’ll earn this as you progress the main plot.

Kill The Black Hand.
Main story achievement; you’ll earn this as you progress the main plot.

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