Everything You Need to Know about the Fight Pits in Middle-earth: Shadow of War
Middle-earth: Shadow of War has greatly expanded its Nemesis system, giving you quite a few new options for taking on enemies and training up your allies. One of those options is the Fight Pits, an arena that lets you pit one of your followers against an enemy in 1 vs. 1 combat. You can’t intervene at all in these fights so it’s entirely up to your follower, but we’ll help give you a few pointers on how to succeed in them.
How to Enter the Fight Pits
Each region in Shadow of War, once you reach Act II, has one of these Fight Pits. Once you’ve unlocked the Fight Pits in each region, you can visit them at any time to take part in fights. First off you’ll need to get to Nurnen in Act II and conquer your first fortress, after that an objective will open up nearby that leads to the Fight Pits. Now you can order one of your followers to fight an enemy in the pits, or even fight another follower as well. Keep in mind that if your chosen follower dies in the Fight Pits, they’re gone forever. Unless, of course, they come back from the dead and decide they have a grudge against you. It’s important to note that another way of accessing the Fight Pits is by sending one of your followers to infiltrate a warchief and become their bodyguard. Your follower will have to fight in the pits and win to gain the warchief’s trust, but it’s only a one-off battle.
What You Get From the Fight Pits
The Fight Pits have a number of bonuses, first of which is the ability to train and level up your followers. Each round they win in the pits will reward them with at least one level, if not more, and you’ll also be rewarded a piece of gear. Secondly, it’s a good way to rack up some extra Mirian if you find yourself short on spending money. There are three difficulty levels for each pit, starting with Maggot and scaling up. Each level does, of course, get harder, but the idea is the same in each one. You can choose any of your followers to fight in the pits, except for your Overlord.
How to Win in the Fight Pits
The number one thing you need to do when entering the Fight Pits is inspect your opponents and look at their strengths and weaknesses. Don’t just blindly jump into the fight without doing your research. Essentially you’re going to want to find an opponent that has a weakness you can counter, that one of your followers can exploit. For example, if someone is terrified of Caragors and weak to poison, bring in one of your followers that can summon in Caragors or rides one to start with, or someone that attacks with poison. You’ll also want to keep your enemies’ level in mind, as you don’t want to send one of your followers into battle that’s 5-10 levels below someone. However, it is possible to beat opponents that are higher than your follower’s, if you exploit the right weaknesses and bring the right orc into battle. Keep in mind that by no means do you have to take every battle in the Fight Pits, if you don’t have a follower that can do well against an opponent, just skip the battle and look for another. Just make sure to check for opposing strengths or traits in your followers, and you shouldn’t have any problem in the Fight Pits.
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