Middle-Earth: Shadow of War’s gear system is very straightforward when it comes to how the game handles upgrades for your gear and weapons. As you play through Shadow of War, you’ll be able to complete things called Upgrade Challenges, which will be specific to each piece of gear or weapon that you want to upgrade in the game. Some of these challenges will be more difficult to complete, however, they are very well worth doing if you want to more effective and upgrade your gear in Shadow of War.
Upgrade Your Gear
As we said above, upgrading your gear in Middle-Earth: Shadow of War is very easy to do, and you’ll have multiple categories that you can upgrade over time, as you play through the game. Players can upgrade their Bow, Dagger, Armor, Cloak, and Sword. As we stated, each weapon or gear type has its own Upgrade Challenges, and you can move your cursor over the item you want to upgrade to see what the Upgrade Challenge is, as well as what the bonus will be once you complete it.
Take a set of Level 10 Rare Armor that you’ve acquired. When you mouse over the item in your inventory, you might see that it requires you to use a Ranged Weapon to kill a Captain. Completing this challenge will unlock the bonus for the item, which in this case might be something like a bonus that replenishes your Elf-Shot each time you kill a Captain. If you complete the Upgrade Challenge successfully, then you’ll unlock the bonus that the item bestows upon you.
Now that you know what the bonus is for the Upgrade Challenge, you can find a Captain in your current region that is weak to Ranged Attacks. This will increase your chances to kill that Captain with your Ranged Attacks, making it much easier to complete the challenge.
The amount of Upgrade Challenges available for your particular item all depend on its rarity and tier. For example, items like Rare, Epic, or Legendary gear often offer more Upgrade Challenges that players can complete to unlock additional bonuses for their gear. Of course, there is a bit of complexity here, though, as you will want to make sure you are using upgrades that make sense for your current playstyle.
For example, say you’re running gear and weapons with multiple upgrades available. From here you can select upgrades that make sense for your playstyle. So, if you’re running a stealth build, then you’ll want to equip your weapons with upgrades and bonuses that make sense for that playstyle. This will create the best build available for your playstyle, allowing you to easily cater the game’s different combat situations to your playstyle.
Now that you know about the upgrade system in Shadow of War, as well as how to upgrade your gear, be sure to head back over to our Shadow of War guide for even more helpful guides like how to fast travel and more.
