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Middle-earth Shadow of War: How to Dominate

This article is over 7 years old and may contain outdated information

How To Dominate in Middle-earth: Shadow of War

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Shadow of War’s Orcs are an integral part of the game, and building your own personal army is half of what makes the game so entertaining. But there’s a special process that goes into making wayward enemy Orcs loyal to you and your cause. You’ll need to fight off Orcs, break them down, and then use a skill called Dominate to bend them to your will. From there, you can have them join your army or choose one of several actions for them to carry out, up to killing them. But you want to enjoy your time with the Orcs, so dominate them and make sure they get added to your squad, as it were.

First of all, you need to acquire the ability to be able to dominate grunts. It will be automatically unlocked as you progress through the game. When you get the ability you’ll be able to start fighting against Orcs until you “break” them, which is denoted by a green icon that appears above their head. Once an Orc is broken, this means they have a very low level of health and are susceptible to your bidding. You will now see an option to Dominate the Orc and subjugate them or choose another action to take.

For instance, you can opt to Dominate the Orc once it is broken, which allows you to Shame them and lower their level. Instead you can recruit them if they’re at or below Talion’s level. Further, you can choose to stay and fight, which essentially cancels the Domination move.

Some Orcs cannot be Dominated, such as those with the Iron Will perk. This may be removed in some instances by breaking the Orc and Shaming them, which lowers their level. Each time you Shame an Orc with Iron Will it has a chance of removing the Iron Will perk. It’s a process that may be repeated several times until you achieve the desired result.

For more on Shadow of War, be sure to check out our wiki.


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Brittany Vincent
Brittany Vincent is the former News Editor at Twinfinite who covered all the video games industry's goings on between June 2017 and August 2018. She's been covering video games, anime and tech for over a decade for publications like Otaku USA, G4, Maxim, Engadget, Playboy and more. Fueled by horror, rainbow-sugar-pixel-rushes, and video games, she’s a freelancer who survives on surrealism and ultraviolence. When she’s not writing, watching anime or gaming, she’s searching for the perfect successor to visual novel Saya no Uta.