We are kicking this series off with a dark, yet fiery bang! This is the Dark Lord of Mordor himself: Sauron. Towering over other guardians with his colossal and terrifying mace, the Dark Lord is not to be trifled with, and in your hands, if used correctly, can dominate the battlefields of Middle-Earth with ease.

What to do

Sauron fits within the warrior class of guardian, as you might expect. When playing as Sauron you want him near the front of the fight, set to deal as much damage as possible. Stay somewhat close to a defender, so long as there’s someone to help take some of the attention away from you as you’ll be a huge target once spotted by the enemy, they will know you’re there to bring plenty of hurt, so do what you can to let them stop you. Despite his massive size, Sauron can die just as any other guardian so keep him close to the bulk of the fight, but do not be afraid to let other teammates take some of the heat for a while. Stay close to your defenders and let strikers act as support.

If defenders can take some of the fire from you, strikers can deal damage alongside you from a distance. One good strategy is to allow a striker damage an enemy guardian for you, then jump in using the Shadow Walk ability (you’ll learn about this later) so you can get up close. Then, use your basic attacks to whittle down their remaining health, especially if you have a potion or command that increases your damage or attack speed. Melee attacks are Sauron’s bread and butter, you’ll rely on it a lot to deal most of the damage and send enemy guardians to their doom. Your abilities are best used to increase damage with your mace, whether you are freezing them to the spot or dashing towards them, you’ll want to swing that mace like there’s no tomorrow.

Where to be

As said before, Sauron is a warrior and thus his job is to hurt enemy guardians… a lot. This being said, Sauron can be used for any number of purposes. If you’re passing a shrine, there’s no harm in sparing a few seconds to capture it if you’re not direly needed elsewhere. But if you want to help your team, then Sauron should be where the majority of the fighting is. If a bulk of your soldiers get close enough to a tower to distract it, send him in and use his basic attack to begin its downfall. Should enemy guardians be an issue rather than towers, the same approach can be applied.

Consider the nearby area; do you have any guardian allies nearby? If so ask them to distract an enemy guardian so you can charge in and send them plummeting to their death before they know what hits them. If you can get an ally to use a stun ability to keep an enemy grounded, then you can have them in your grasp ripe for the slaughter.

Abilities

Might of Barad-Dur

His abilities do nothing to ease the aura of terror oozing from every plate of his petrifying armor. Might of Barad-Dur allows him to sweep a large area attack in front of him, dealing moderate ability damage whilst pushing back enemy guardians. This works well to get some space from guardians you wish to keep at a distance, or to push soldiers away from your tower briefly.

Shadow Walk

Coupled with the aforementioned ability, Shadow Walk is perfect for escaping situations that are quickly spiralling out of your control. After launching your enemy guardians away with Might of Barad-Dur, Shadow Walk allows Sauron to quickly dash to a direction of your choice, also enabling stealth so that Sauron can skulk away in to the shadows to regain health before striking again. Of course you could use it for attack rather than defense. Hide in a bush, wait for someone to walk by and then jump out at them, this can prove risky though.

Dark Lord’s Reach

Dark Lord’s Reach is possibly the most vital for taking out a lone enemy guardian. If you catch an enemy guardian within its target area, it not only causes some considerable damage, but also roots them to the spot, disallowing them movement for a short time. This could be all the time you need to inflict the last few killing blows, as they have no hope of running to escape, especially if you combine something like the adrenaline command.

The Lidless Eye

The final ability only unlocked after reaching level five is The Lidless Eye. This acts as a support power over the whole battle, but can also work as a perfect finishing move. Using this reveals every enemy guardian in the game whilst inflicting ability damage to him or her over a few seconds. Once the damage subsides, they are very briefly stricken with fear. This is good for when you and your allies are charging into a few guardians and wish to pour on additional damage. It also works for taking out a guardian one on one as they slink away with their few scraps of health remaining. The Lidless Eye overcomes them as it consumes their final moments of life before hurling them into oblivion (also known as the respawn screen).

Loadouts

With Sauron being a damage dealer you have two main options when it comes to your gem loadouts. The first is the tank-ish option. Load up with green relics and gems that focus on increasing max health and health regeneration and Sauron can act as the damage absorbing and reflecting sponge, taking pain almost as much as he gives it. This does, of course, mean that you’re sacrificing potential damage-dealing, but it could be worth it by staying alive longer giving your teammates less to worry about as you take all the enemy attention as they desperately attempt to bring you down.

Your other main option for gems and relics is to focus on increasing your basic damage, attack speed and such with red gems. This gives you the potential to be a glass hammer that can charge into most situations and kill, kill, kill before you’re taken down in a blaze of glory. This would be excellent for eliminating enemy soldiers as you cleave through hordes of them with your mace before they even get a chance to hit you, but against towers there’s a good chance if you simply run in unprepared they could take you down alarmingly quickly. There’s a balance here with enemy guardians but strongly depends on the situation at the time: are they wounded? Do you have allies nearby? Do you have potions to spare? Consider all of these options if you take the glass hammer route.

You could attempt to achieve a balance which could also work, it is entirely up to you and how you wish to play but picking one or the other can drastically mix up your game place, so it’s worth consulting with your teammates and your own experience before you make crazy decisions. Potions follow the same route, with you wanting to focus on either max health/healing, basic attacks/attack speed or again trying to reach a balance, taking one of each, for example.

For commands, you again want to try and focus your attention on healing yourself/your allies or increasing your damage. This of course depends on your rank to unlock the differing tier of commands. Smite or adrenaline help increase your damage output whilst heal and healing totem can prove incredibly useful for you and your teammates in terms of staying alive. Just because you’re the Dark Lord of Mordor doesn’t mean you can’t assist your teammates!

Sauron is the master of all things dark and nasty in Middle-Earth and thus you should use him as such. Stride into situations and strut out victorious with a blood-drenched mace. Just don’t forget to use your commands and potions, communicate with your team mates and don’t be afraid to run away from a quickly deteriorating situation. It’s better to sit back and heal for a little bit rather than spend twice that amount of time respawning.

Even Sauron can die in battle.