Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

The previous solutions are good but after trying for several hours I figured some stuff out.
The Captain must be level 20 before he becomes a war chief. If the captain is less than 20 when he becomes War chief like lvl 17 and you let him kill you to make him 20 he becomes a legendary war chief and will only drop epic runes.

My suggestion is to assist a captain in getting to level 20 before he is war chief. Make sure to interrogate an Uruk for his weaknesses. The captain should be a war chiefs bodyguard. Challenge his master and kill any other bodyguards during the battle to ensure your lvl 20 capt. takes the war chiefs place.

Now your lvl. 20 Capt. Is war chief his title should be ELITE WAR CHIEF you just need to find his mission on the map start it and let him kill you. Now he's your revenge target, as soon as you spawn head back and your capt. should be ready for battle as soon as you start the mission. Kill him making sure to use his weakness (vulnerable to ranged attacks was my chiefs weakness) . Once he's finished he should drop the lvl 25 rune.

Lvl. 20 Captain bonus+2 war chief bonus+1 revenge bonus +1 knowing weakness bonus + 1 exploiting weakness bonus=25

GET THE CAPTAIN TO 20 BEFORE HE TAKES THE WAR CHIEF POSITION. DONT USE DEATH THREAT

The rest of the solutions are great at explaining the levels and gaining the necessary additions to get a level 25 ruin. I would just like to add one thing.

After trying for awhile I checked gamefaqs and someone mentioned having the bodyguard kill the chief to ensure the death threat doesn't mean you'll get an epic.

I got this immediately after by letting a lvl 20 captain become warchief then let him kill me, send a death threat and of course knowing his weaknesses. I branded his three bodyguards and activated them to do the deed. Done.

Edit: Andreka0 made this great video that explains everything perfectly.
Edit2: Just realized that many reference me as baddkar but I have changed to mentoc (my late cousin's gt)

I tried the other solutions but they didn't work for me. What I did do though was very similar to the others. I leveled up a captain to 20. Gain the intel on him. I let him kill me for the revenge bonus. I also exploited his fear/hate during that fight which happened to be fear of defeat (at low health he gets mad and starts to heal).

I then went after him again and branded him. Next I went for the war chief that he was a bodyguard for. I killed the war chief and my branded captain took his place. I then summoned my captain, now war chief, by going to the mission marker on the map. I grabbed him, dominated him, gained intel on some random orc and then killed him. This worked on my first try and dropped a level 25 rune.

TL;DR

Before War Chief:

Level 20 captain. +20
Intel on him. +1
Let him kill you for revenge. +1
Fear/Hate exploited during that fight. +1
After doing the above, brand him and make him become a war chief.

After War Chief:

Dominate and kill him as War chief. +2

Here is what I did - hope this helps:

Step 1: Pick a captain with a relatively easy weakness to exploit. I personally feel vulnerable to ranged is the best and easiest because one shot and your guy dead. Vulnerable to combat finishers is also good because when combined with 'Storm of Urfael' ability it makes killing the target much easier.

Step 2: Gather intel on your chosen captain. You have to do this so that you get the 'knowing weakness' bonus point when you kill him.

Step 3: Help raise the captain to level 20. I simply did this by letting him kill me over and over until he hit 20. You MUST let him kill you at least once so that you get the revenge kill bonus point when you do kill him. It is also best to let him kill you before he becomes a warchief because if he does so after, he becomes legendary which increases the chance his drop will be epic. It does NOT mean he will automatically drop epic as other solutions state. But why give him a higher percentage at doing so?!?

Step 4: Now get him to become a warchief. I did this by killing off other war chiefs until he was promoted into an open slot.

Step 5: Kill him using his weakness. This will result in a level 25 rune because of the following math:
+20 for level
+2 for warchief
+1 for knowing weakness
+1 for revenge
+1 for exploiting weakness

NOTES: You can also get bonus points for activating his hate or fear but those points do not stack. They will however help if you do not manage to exploit the weakness.

Also, DO NOT use death threat because it increases, by 40%, the chance of an epic drop.

Also, if you have any runes equipped that increase epic drop chance - unequal them for obvious reasons.

This may take a while to get. Finding the right captain and building him up can take time. Also if you are unlucky, you may get an epic drop even though you do things right. Then you have to start over which is a huge HUGE pain.

Before I start my guide I want to say thanks to demoniam360, and baddkar, as I used both of their guides to create mine. There are a few differences, and if everything is done correctly you will end up with a level 26 rune. (You still get the achievement, and if you mess one of the steps up you will still get a level 25, so this solution is a bit more forgiving.)

If you'd prefer a video I made one that will be at the bottom of this solution. It is only 3:14 and it covers all of the points that will be in the text guide.

Here is the Rune Level breakdown:
+20 For a Level 20 Uruk
+2 Warchief
+1 Vengeance (Revenge Kill)
+1 Knowing Weaknesses (Intel)
+1 Death Threat
+1 Exploit Fear/Hate

Step 1: Find a worm or a dominated Warchief and gather intel on a few Warchiefs. Try to find one who has easily exploited weaknesses. If there isn't one, then find a bodyguard who has some, and kill the Warchief he works for to make him the new Warchief. Make sure not to brand the bodyguard.

Step 2: Make sure the Warchief you chose is level 20. The way I did this is just letting him kill me over and over until he reaches level 20. If the Warchief you chose is already level 20, then make sure you let him kill you at least once so he will become a revenge target.
(I've seen a few times on this site that he needs to be titled ELITE WARCHIEF, but mine was a LEGENDARY WARCHIEF and I still got it as you can see in the video)

Step 3: After your Warchief is level 20, you need to brand his bodyguards. Just make them your target in the Sauron's Army screen, and you will be able to find them quickly. If the Warchief you chose doesn't have any bodyguards, then brand some random captains and command them to "Initiate" as the Warchief's bodyguards.

Step 4: Once his bodyguards are branded, you need to brand another captain and have him issue a Death Threat to the Warchief.

Step 5: Now that you have all of the prerequisite steps completed, you can now fight the Warchief. Try to exploit some of his weaknesses or fears during this fight. MAKE SURE you let the branded bodyguards deliver the final blow, because if you are the one who kills him he will most likely drop an Epic Rune because of the Death Threat. However, if his bodyguards deliver the killing blow he will not drop an Epic, and will instead drop a level 25 or 26 depending on how many steps you did correctly.

I hope this guide helps some people get this achievement! Let me know if you run in to any problems with it!

Straight to the point version:

1) Let a Uruk kill you and make sure to have intel on that Uruk.

2) Have that Uruk elevated to becoming a war chief while making sure that his Power level is at 20. This can be done by continuing to let him kill you over and over until his Power has reached 20.

3) Brand 4 bodyguards for that Uruk Warchief. Initiate a betrayal on the Uruk Warchief from the "Sauron's Army" screen with one of the bodyguards. This will create a new mission on the map. Set a death threat on the Uruk Warchief with another bodyguard.

4) Go to the new betrayal mission created that was mentioned in step 3 and start it. Once the mission starts, hold UP on the D-pad to command the bodyguards to attack the Warchief.

5) Watch and let them kill the Warchief. You can assist, but DO NOT KILL the Warchief. Let them Kill him. Making sure that the bodyguards kill the Warchief ensures that you'll get a level 25 rune and not the epic rune.

Here's an easier way I've discovered to get level 25 runes. First you must farm epic runes. From my hours and hours of farming, I've found there are 22 Epic Sword Runes, 9 Epic Bow Runes, and 12 Epic Dagger Runes, for a total of 43 Epic Runes droppable in the game. It's easier to accomplish Epic rune farming if you have the Season Pass and play the Challenge trials. Pick Test of Speed, death threat every Warchief and kill them all. Just be careful not to kill 5 captains, or else the Test will complete itself. Repeat this until they stop dropping Epic runes. If you don't have the season pass, you might have gotten the Test of Power trial map as a bonus code for people who bought new copies of the first run edition of the game. Same thing applies, but they'll be a little tougher. If you don't have either, just do it in the story mode. It'll take longer, but you'll gain experience while doing so since no experience is gained in the challenge maps (only runes).

Now after you've gotten most/all of the Epic Runes, or you just wanted to skip that part and try your luck to see if you can get a Death Threatened Warchief to not drop an epic rune, here's what you should know.

These are the rune level modifiers:

Vengeance (+1): Killing a Captain/Warchief that had previously killed you. This is represented with a red upside triangle over the Uruk's head in the Sauron's Army screen.

Death Threat (+1): By branding any orc, you can have them send Death Threats to any Captain. By branding a Captain or Warchief, they can send Death Threats to any other Captain or Warchief. Sending a Death Threat raises that Uruk's level by 5, and they will have more orcs around them, so they will be a bit more difficult to kill. You can only send one death threat to each Uruk, so you can't continuously send them Death Threats to have them quickly reach the max Uruk level of 20, sadly enough. Also, Death Threats significantly increases the chance of an Epic Rune being dropped.

War Chief (+2): If you kill a Warchief, the rune they drop is automatically given a +2 level bonus.

Fear/Hate Exploited (+1): If the Captain/Warchief has a Fear or Hate, exploit it and the rune will get an extra level boost. Usually the hardest to achieve since orcs lose Fears/Hates as they level up.

Knowing Weakness (+1): If you Gain Intel on a Captain/Warchief, then you'll learn their weakness and gain an extra level for the rune they drop.

The one you should ignore is the Fear/Hate exploited, since orcs can lose those traits while leveling up. So here are the steps to get a level 25 rune.

1. Gain Intel on all Uruks. [+1 Rune Level]
1a. Find an Uruk with a Vulnerability you wish to exploit to guarantee the type of Rune given.
2. Let him kill you to get the Vengeance bonus. [+1 Rune Level]
3. Send him a Death Threat to give him a +5 level boost and get the Death Threat Bonus. [+1 Rune Level]
4. Raise him to level 20 by helping him in his missions or having him kill you multiple times. My strategy is usually to brand a Captain I don't care for and have him attack the Captain I'm raising. Then during the mission, I Dispatch my branded Captain and the one I'm raising gains a level easily.
5. Make him Warchief. [+2 Rune Levels]
6. Start his mission and then kill him, or kill him with his vulnerability (if he has one) to guarantee the rune type dropped.

And there you go! A level 25 rune for the taking, if you've gotten most/all of the Epic runes.

Hopefully this helps people! Also, the max level a rune can be is 26 if you manage to do all level modifiers, but they literally are the exact same attributes as a level 25 rune. For some reason, the level 26 stat modifier acts as a level 25, so the only reason to get a level 26 rune is for bragging rights.

After hours apon hours of trying to get this last achievement and utilizing every solution, I continued to get epic runes.
I was trying to avoid having to spend more time getting this achievement by leveling up and branding the Body Guards of the Warchief and then having them kill the War Chief. I know doing this will in fact ensure the Warchief dropping a Level 25 rune.
I instead decided to brand a Caragor during the Warchief battle at kill him with the Caragor. It worked since I didn't kill him ,the Caragor did, just like it would work with the branded Body Guards killing him. I tried this again on a different account and work first try again.

So to summarize...

-Level up a Captain/Body Guard to Level 20 then get them promoted to Warchief
-Get Intel to show weakness/fear/hate +1
-Let Warchief kill you if you didn't when he was a captain. Revenge +1
-Exploit Fear/Hatred(I picked a uruk with fear of fire before I leveled him up) +1
-Death of the Warchief with branded Caragor +2


During the fight with the Warchief , shoot down the bait to attract the Caragor.
Brand the caragor. shoot your arrow at the fire or explosive or whatever the fear you your chief has. Attack the Warchief with the caragor until the Warchief is dead.

Level 25 rune is yours guaranteed!

This achievement can be completed in The Bright Lord DLC where lvl 25 runes are much easier to obtain.

All solutions are already very good.

My contribution is that if you mark several bodyguards and let them kill the WarChief, the chance of not dropping epic rune is almost zero.

In my video, i explained in Portuguese only, but in the end you can see the 2 bodyguards of Warchief and I command them to kill the warchief!
________________________________________________________________
Para quem fala Português, assista o vídeo que você vai conseguir entender.
Vamos listar em português o que faz dropar a runa 25:

+20 pelo level (É só morrer, que eles vão subindo de level)
+2 por ser um chefe (Deixa um bloco do chefe vazio que quando você morrer, automaticamente quando você morrer pro Capitão que está subindo ele vai virar chefe)
+1 por conhecer suas fraquezas
+1 por vingança (Por último de tudo, deixe o chefe te matar para gerar a vingança)
+1 por explorar uma fraqueza ( No meu caso no vídeo o Chefe tinha medo de Caragor, então quando apareceu um, ele saiu correndo, ficou em verde o simbolo dele e eu fui atrasando ele para os guarda-costas matarem ele que eu havia comandado.)

Vejam o vídeo clicando no link do vídeo :)

After reading all the solutions here presented I decided to unlock this achievement along with Stinking Rebels. That's because a lot of people stated that letting branded orcs kill the Warchief will avoid getting an Epic Rune...

I can confirm that considering I had a Legendary Warchief with a Death Threath upon him and got the level 25 rune anyway...

First of all, chose a Warchief that's at least level 15. Gain intel on him and check his weakness and fears. If they're hard ones to exploit, you can chose another Warchief or just let him kill you so the bonus for revenge will replace the bonus for exploiting fears/weakness. Don't bother making the Warchief gain levels. When you place a Death Threath, the Orc targeted will gain 5 levels automatically.

Now you have to brand Captains and send them to initiate as bodyguards for the Warchief you chose. Have 5 Captains becoming his bodyguards. All of them must be branded. Before facing the Warchief, place a Death Threath on him...

Ok, now, during the battle, you'll avoid at all cost killing yourself the Warchief. Use his weakness/fears and just stall him so your branded bodyguards can do the job. You can hit the Warchief, but the finishing blow can not come from you. Since you have 5 Captains attacking him, the fight wont take long. If you could not exploit his weakness/fears, don't worry. You'll still get the bonus for knowing them and the bonus for revenge will compensate it.

After the Warchief falls, he'll drop a rune level 25 or 26, depending on how many actions you took:

Level 20 bonus: +20
Warchief kill: +2
Intel on him: +1
Revenge bonus: +1
Exploiting Fears: +1
Death Threath: +1

And you'll get the Stinking Rebels achievement as soon as your branded bodyguards start to fight the Warchief...

Hey I've tried to get this achevement for some time now and all other solutions told me to make the warchief a elite warchief whis is done by leveling a captain to level 20 before making him warchief i'm here to tell you dont do that you only have a small chance that the rune WONT be an epic rune! If he is a legendary warchief he has a much greater chance of dropping regular runes! How I accomplished it was finding a level 13-18 captain, killing a warchief, preferably one that is the one you are going afters master. Kill him make sure the captain survives as to become warchief then he will attempt to escape, let him escape then go after him again this time let HIM kill you and only him as to get the extra point for revenge. Then go kill him now make sure you can exploit a fear/anger of his this is another point.
After killing him you should get the rune. Now make sure he is level 20 when you kill him. Then get the point for revenge,point for knowing his weakness,point for exploiting his weakness/fear,and 2 points for him being warchief.

So after using these guides and going 8/8 with getting epics I decided to try something. I went ahead and followed the guides minus the tips that say brand the captain you want to make a war chief. I left him as an enemy then branded 5 captains and made them his body guards. I placed a death threat on him then called him in. Activated his branded body guards and he died very quickly. Boom. Dropped a level 26 rune first try. Looks to me like you can't get epics when a branded uruk does the deed.

Ok, so I had some issues with this one, and it seems that hitting a lvl 25 rune can be a very precise endeavor......

Here is what I did:

STEP 1: Find a captain that has some fears/weaknesses to exploit.
Unfortunately, I found that being vulnerable to stealth combo finishers did not do the trick for me . Just got a lvl 23 rune when everything was said and done...

Having multiple fears helped me out quite a bit. I ended up finding a captain who was affraid of burns and vulnerable to combo finishers (+ when combo meter goes red).

STEP 2: Let that Captain kill you.
Fairly straight forward - just find him and let him take you out. I found simply searching for him instead of doing a specific mission to draw him out was easier.

STEP 3: Get him to level 20.
This can be done in multiple ways. Either you can take the more hands on approach and brand the guy, and then direct him to kill other orcs/uruks, or you can simply advance time and hope he gets there on his own. At any rate, you should brand him at this point anyway (because of the next step), so the former option is most likely the way to go.

STEP 4: Line your selected Captain up with a Warchief under your control.
If you do not have any Warchief's on your payroll, then now is the time. Once that is done, line your Captain up with him (make him his body guard - another mission) by commanding him ( while Dominating with ) to go through the initiation.

It is easier if you make your Captain the only Captain under your Warchief, but it is not necessary. You will just have more work in the next step .

STEP 5: Call out, and kill, your Warchief.
Once your have a Warchief under your command, you will see a blue icon on your map with his name called "Beck and Call". This is a very simple mission where you just call out your Warchief. Once he appears, he will have all the Captain's under his command with him, and for the most part they will just stand around waiting.

If you have multiple Captains under your Warchief, then you will need to eliminate all of the Captain except the one you will be using for this achievement. This ensures that your Captain becomes a Warchief.

Then it is simply killing your Warchief. Easiest method is to dominate him, get some intel on a random Captain/Warchief, and then killing him ( after dominating). DO NOT USE THE DISMISS ABILITY, or you will kill your Captain as well.

STEP 6: Kill your Captain turned Warchief exploiting his fears/weaknesses
Your new Warchief will try to run after his former master goes down. Grab him () and drag him to some place where you can seriously exploit his fears/weaknesses without being bothered by others. If he fears caragors, then drag him to some of those beasts. As I stated earlier, the one I chose feared burning, so I simply dragged him to a fire pit, and threw him into it . Once he was on fire, I saw the "Fear of Burning" animation.

But it doesn't have to be fire, it could be anything. Like I said, caragor's work. Those flies will work to. Anything that will cause him to run in fear.

Next, I chased him down, and stun locked him with . As I said earlier, my Captain was vulnerable to combo finishers (+), so I would smack the crap out of him, then hit him with a finisher. Doing that a couple of times did the trick, and he dropped a level 25 rune .

Below are some things I tried and found not to be reliable:

A.) A single vulnerablility or weakness was just not enough. I needed to exploit one of each to get the rune for the achievement.

B.) The "Vulnerable to Stealth Finishers" did not get me there either, no matter what other fears I exploited. I am not sure why to be honest...

C.) Using the Death Threat ability was a waste of time. I tried that twice and just got Epic runes after both attempts (hence why that step is not on this list).

D.) Not branding your Captain turning Warchief will not get you there either. Tried that a few times and fell short by a single level (24 runes = kick in the pants).

E.) YOU need to be the one to kill your Warchief for this rune. I had a platoon of orc's invade one of my attempts, and a little archer bastard stole my thunder, and gave me a crap rune. Not cool. It is just easier to isolate yourself with your victim rather than expose yourself to someone else taking the kill shot.

Questions, corrections and neg vote justifications below.