Middle-earth: Shadow of War

Middle-earth: Shadow of War

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If You Can't Beat Them

If You Can't Beat Them

Recruit an Orc after he's killed you three or more times.

4.1%

How to unlock the If You Can't Beat Them achievement in Middle-earth: Shadow of War - Definitive Guide

***New Update to the game that removed micro-transactions also allows you to turn off "Saviors". In the menus, turn off the setting to "Allow Saviors" and you will have no problem nabbing this anymore. Just follow the guide below. I will cross-out the details you don't need but leave them to show you the original solution and the pain the rest of us went through!***

In Act II, You will quickly gain the ability to dominate Captains from one of the first story missions. Once you have this ability, you can potentially get this achievement.

Let a random orc kill you ONCE to be promoted, and a SECOND time as Captain. There will be a good chance that the THIRD time he kills you he will already be a Warchief or get promoted to one so be ready to perform some requirements to draw him out. Also be aware that when you see him for the 4th time, he will likely be too high of a level to be dominated and added to your army, you will need to dominate him and follow the prompts to Shame him (cn_Y after dominating him, to lower his level), and then you will need to probably find him a 5th time to get this achievement.

ORIGINAL SOLUTION:

Simply letting a Captain kill you a few times and then dominating him would pretty straightforward if it wasn't for the game babying you and having another Orc intervene when you are being killed. One of your dominated Captains or an unknown "Random Savior" will swoop in and kill the Captain who is executing you. This happens much more frequently than you would like when you are trying to die. To combat this, I recommend bumping up the difficulty to Gravewalker. This means the Captain should kill you in one or two hits and you can die very easily from others so be careful. Once you have bumped up the difficulty, let a random orc kill you ONCE to be promoted, and a SECOND time as Captain. There will be a good chance that the THIRD time he kills you he will already be a Warchief or get promoted to one so be ready to perform some requirements to draw him out. Once the orc has killed you 3 times, lets abuse the difficulty settings one more time and set it to Easy just to be sure you have complete control of the situation when you hunt him again. Also be aware that when you see him for the 4th time, he will likely be too high of a level to be dominated and added to your army, you will need to dominate him and follow the prompts to Shame him (cn_Y after dominating him, to lower his level), and then you will need to probably find him a 5th time to get this achievement.

After you pop the achievement by dominating him (cn_B), feel free to put the difficulty back to Normal or whatever mode you like. Please keep in mind that even on Gravewalker, I had my execution by an orc interrupted by a Random Savior, but it was much less likely. I was saved on Normal every time (maybe 8 in a row), and then when I bumped up the difficulty, I was saved on Gravewalker once in around 5 times being executed. Trying to die in a video game should not be this hard!

*If this solution helped you in some way, please vote positively. If you think it needs improvement, please let me know how in a private message or by leaving a comment.*
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10 Jan 2018 05:05

7 Comments
worked great.
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By Khan Garth on 09 Aug 2019 06:39
Just a note> make sure the Orc you want to have kill you 3 times does not have Iron Will as a perk.
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By Chief0fZombies on 19 Jan 2020 16:07
I was confused as to why I didn't unlock this yesterday but I guess I missed the "killing" part. Had an Orc that beat me about 7 times but he would always just walk away and spare me.
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By Neo Yggdrasill on 09 Apr 2021 14:12
I started going for this achievement and didn't know about the savior thing... I only went for this because I accidentally died to an orc and figured might as well keep going... Then the savior came. why didn't he come the first time I accidentally died? lol Thanks for the solution update.
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By Dragonborn Gear on 14 Jul 2021 03:02
Fuck this achievement man.

1st attempt had saviors on by mistake. Saved on 3rd death.
2nd attempt the guy kept setting himself on fire and killed himself on 3rd death
3rd attempt had the same enemy humiliate me 4 times and just will not kill me.

Fuck this poorly designed achievement
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By Bloodkitty on 06 Feb 2022 04:57
@Dragonborn Gear, because the saviour feature isn't meant to be a "no death" setting, but rather a nice chance surprise when you think all is lost.
Of course for those purposefully trying to die for this cheeve, it has the opposite effect
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By thatNoseyParker on 16 Oct 2022 23:07
I tried getting killed by a leftover level 10 captain at the endgame, hoping he wouldn't upgrade to max level from 10. But he did. He also broke my sword, and it made him not appear in a vendetta mission. He just appeared roaming on the map. He taunted me about the sword. Annoying thing: he would also run away from me randomly instead of killing me, even if I didn't attack him, because he was supposed to be keeping me from getting my sword back. So I had to break him and make him fight me to the death to get him to kill me again. Didn't get my sword back when I finally recuited him. Not sure if I could go kill him now and get it, but this was my last achievement.
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By TheBigBB on 02 Jan 2019 09:00
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Pretty self-explanatory. You can't dominate an orc until Act II, but you can have them kill you any time. After killing you, they get significantly stronger, so you might have to humiliate him after he's killed you all three times.

Also, I'm not sure how the game determines whether the orc will humiliate you or kill you, but it seems that each orc is predisposed toward one or the other. If you get down to your last chance and the orc chooses to humiliate you rather than kill you, then they'll most likely keep doing the same thing every time. Find an orc who chooses to kill you outright rather than trying to get one to change its tune.
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16 Oct 2017 01:44

16 Comments
This achievement is such a pain in the arse. I keep getting to the third death and then a captain in my army decides to kill him.
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By SolaceConquest on 18 Oct 2017 20:35
I have done this twice now. Let the orc kill me 3 or 4 times then shame them because they're too high level then dominate. No achievement. This is annoying.

Edit: TA says i've unlocked it but it refuses to unlock on my xbox. I've even tried forcing it.
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By jayhawk3 on 19 Oct 2017 06:20
You can't force it, the app is glitchy with most games, especially so with this one.
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By SolaceConquest on 19 Oct 2017 22:25
jayhawk3 I had the same problem with the master forger achievement. Just hard reset my Xbox and then deleted my profile and redownloaded it and it worked.
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By GSR CAOR on 23 Oct 2017 16:33
Yeah this achievement really is a pain in the ass, I was about to let the orc kill me a third time and one of my follows came and killed him with a head shot after he downed me
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By Valnor2 on 26 Oct 2017 00:12
To add to aGundamDownHere's solution, this achievement will still pop if the captain you are using cheats death and kills you again.

In my case, I let him kill me twice but on the third go, I was saved by my one of my own captains. He eventually cheated death and appeared before me again where I let him kill me. I dominated him afterwards and the achievement popped.
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By xSPx Mclovin on 29 Oct 2017 23:47
I found a Captain who has a "No Chance" skill. Killed me 3 times fast, but at this point he was 61 so could not dominate, so Shamed (with Worse than death), leveled to 49 and finally got dominated and the Achievement POPPED! :)

Before it, several tries went wrong, someone always came and saved me at the QTE, even I hit nothing/wrong, and kill the enemy...
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By Renattooo on 11 Nov 2017 15:17
I just wanted to add that if your target has leveled up too much from killing you that you can't recruit him, the achievement will still unlock if you shame your target to reduce his level and then dominate him.
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By Greenshell48 on 12 Dec 2017 00:17
I got this without even trying just playing through on Nemesis difficulty. Just got randomly lucky.
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By SubtleEel4 on 17 Dec 2017 23:25
three in a row now, the third time they are about to kill me an orc jumps in and saves me. It isn't even one of my orcs, cuz i made sure not to have one, since they actively jump in to save me on the maps where i have minions. It literally claims the orc as "random saviour" or some shit like that. this is seriously getting annoying as hell
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By Decaying Dead on 01 Jan 2018 04:13
I have the same problem as @Decaying Dead, where every time I get to the third death, some random orc jumps in as my saviour, and immediately kills the other orc. :( Does anyone know a way around this issue?
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By PrecedentStatue on 02 Jan 2018 03:42
Try Nemesis difficulty or harder. I've died almost 60 times, maybe saved less than 10 times. The higher difficulty setting may make it less likely that you get saved. Like I said, I got this naturally just playing without even meaning to on Nemesis difficulty.
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By SubtleEel4 on 02 Jan 2018 05:03
Just got this, after he killed me the third time, I found him and shamed him. He ended up going batshit insane and leveled from 42 to 65 and became a complete lunatic. I had to track him down and shame him two more times but it was fuckin hilarious. Everytime I ran into him, he wouldn't speak. He just made unintelligible noises like "BOOO WOOOOO BWEW BOOO WOOOOO!" I felt bad turning him into a vegetable. But I got my achievement tho. And I made his crazy ass Overlord of Seregoth.
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By The SCHWARTZ 00 on 09 Feb 2018 22:10
I haven't had all the difficulties mention. I let a simple orc the honor to kill me, He got promoted to a captain, I let him killing me 2 more time, then I had to humiliate him once because he was to strong, after that I made him one of mine, I also promoted him as chief and got 2 achievements in about half an hour.
No one try to save me, I removed the bodyguard before trying this one and I cleaned up the area a bit before facing him so no one would bother while fighting. I also want to point out that the fortress was already mine, so the captain couldn't be promoted any more.
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By Poia on 30 Mar 2018 20:00
Honestly, the fact that the random orcs that I got to kill me so I could knock out several cheevos at a time having IRON WILL pisses me off so much.
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By peoplezdude on 10 May 2018 01:56
I've got a good idea ,lets make an achievement that requires you to play like you're really bad at the game and on top of that add the truly random nature of the nemesis system to make it even more annoying.roll

Edit: I got it in the end which required around 15 or 16 intentional deaths - saviours & humiliations messed up the majority.My advice is to start working on this straight away and as soon as you get the dominate skill in Act 2 get that Captain & dominate his ass.......well not his ass but you know what I meanredfacewinklaugh
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By Assassin Corvo on 05 Nov 2017 14:41
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The previous solutions give a lot of good advice, but this achievement just got a lot easier since the latest update that mainly included the removal of the market. The update also included a new setting in the game options called "allow saviors". Untick the checkbox there and you won't have any more trouble getting "saved" before someone kills you.

As others already stated you just have to wait until Act II, where you get the ability to dominate captains. Just get killed by a random orc and find him again. He will be promoted to captain. There is a high chance that he gets promoted to warchief when he kills you again, so you have to lure him out and shame him to decrease his level. If you don't do that he might just become overlord, making the whole process very difficult to handle. Get through a few cycles of getting killed and shaming the guy afterwards until you got killed three times.

After having been killed for the third time the captain/warchief may have a higher level than you have, so dominating him is not possible anymore since you need to have at least the same or a higher level to be able to this. If that happens to you too you have to level up a bit before you start the last quest to dominate him. Leveling up also got easier with the patch, because killing random captains now provides a lot more XP than before.
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18 Jul 2018 08:18

2 Comments
Thank you!!!! Wish I knew this for "Life of the Party"!!! Got my ass saved SOOO many times, lol!
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By Warboy925 on 23 Jul 2018 20:17
You're welcome, I guessed that this new option justifies a separate solution, because there were so many changes in that update that it's easy to overlook it :)
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By Jimbo LaFleur on 24 Jul 2018 08:24

To unlock this achievement you will need to dominate an Orc that has killed you at least three times. You will first need to find an Orc and let them kill you. Once you have done that, that Orc will advance in level and if they weren't a Captain beforehand, they will now become one. Then you need to find them again and let them kill you again, then a third time after that. Be careful when you're trying to have them kill you that it is that one Orc that delivers the killing blow or else it will be another Orc that claims the kill. Keep running into them and try to stay away from any other Orcs in the area.

Once you have been killed by the same Orc three times, find him for a fourth time and then beat him until he is broken, then dominate and recruit him. Be sure to check the details of the Orc before proceeding, you don't want an Orc that has either 'Iron Will' or 'Unbreakable' traits as you cannot then dominate and recruit them. As soon as you recruit them the achievement will unlock.

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Find any random orc and allow him to kill you. Now find this Orc again and allow him to kill you a further 2 times, at this point he may be promoted to Warchief if there are open slots.
A few things to be mindful of when attempting this, remove any bodyguards assigned to you and consider killing off your followers, some of them may have traits that ambush the enemy orc which will complicate things when they are trying to kill you. Additionally when you are about to be killed a random Orc may appear and instantly kill your attacker, this orc cannot be killed but the chances of him appearing seem to be very low, I have only encountered him once during my entire playthrough.
Nevertheless once the same orc has killed you 3 times, seek him out again and dominate him, which will unlock the trophy.
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It's possible)
1. You let an orc kill you, an ordinary one, maybe in a crowd, maybe one on one - whatever you like. Attack him a couple of times, after killing him he will get some kind of coolness, or like me, he will become supreme. (So ​​that your mysterious saviors cannot kill him with one blow later...)
2. Let's go after him, he is already the captain, here try to stay one on one, using the chance to fight back past.
3. Next, he has already become a leader for me, we fight again, take advantage of the chance (we press the wrong button) and voila: three kills!
We go after him again - we disgrace him and then we recruit him. Depending on the level of your hero, of course, you may have to dishonor again. And the trophy is yours!
BUT!!!
Along the way, we get the “ Sworn Enemy ” trophy ( Fight the same orc in the sworn enemy quests three times without killing him .). This is now a very important orc in your army, take care of him))
Further on in the game we make him the ruler of the fortress as soon as it is possible in the game and... voila another trophy - “ Up the Career Ladder ” ( Help an ordinary soldier become a ruler ).
All this can be done in Chapter 2 at the very beginning, as soon as you have returned your ring.
As they say, three in one shot.
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17 Jan 2018 17:42

2 Comments
To prevent your allies from saving you from death, you can disable the help of allies in the game settings, this will be the lowest point.
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By Denisptasha on 28 Oct 2019 21:25
A lot of running around and non-guaranteed moments. It’s not a fact that the desired orc will not be killed between your deaths and resurrection. It is even more likely that your supporters will ruin it. I did it in Minas Morgul in the second act - I had no supporters there - they didn’t interfere and everything was at hand - the khedirs were conveniently located and the space was convenient for searching for a victim.

And not the first time - by mistake he killed the first candidate, the second candidate was killed “out of nowhere” by Bruz. It might be worth pursuing this trophy after Bruz's quest line.
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By Father-the-cat on 13 Feb 2024 10:38
To make it easier, kill all the orcs (so as not to interfere) except the one you need and just let yourself be hacked to death. Don't attack him at all! After the first kill, he will become a captain-leader and if he is not attacked, he will not acquire resistance to methods of killing and it will be easier to fight to subdue him.
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13 Oct 2017 08:41

3 Comments
You can climb a higher tower and, using shadow attraction, pull the captain towards you so that ordinary mobs do not interfere or run as long as possible; in fortresses there are tall houses or towers that orcs cannot climb.
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By zZzSINzZz on 19 Oct 2017 08:51
Backing up your save to the cloud or to a flash drive will help you. There are too many opportunities to lose progress on the trophy - the orc can start disgracing you, the orc can be killed by a one-shot by your supporter at the moment when he executes you, etc.
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By AAB-r86 on 17 Oct 2017 07:27
I made the achievement very easy. Forced an ordinary orc to kill me (1 kill), the orc was an ordinary one, with a club, he was given a level higher than mine (it will not be possible to recruit). Then he tracked him down, climbed onto a tower or platform, pulled him towards him, forced him to kill himself again (2nd murder) and then did the same thing only it was in a mountainous area, but the ghostly attraction was successful (3rd murder). Now it was necessary to reset the level, I also tracked him down, climbed the tower, pulled him up, beat him, lowered the level. Fortunately, after lowering the level, the orc was somewhere nearby, so standing on one tower I humiliated the orc 3 times and then recruited him. All this took about 15-20 minutes at most. I thought the achievement was difficult, but the main thing was the mechanism. Performed at 60 (maximum level).
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By StalkerLegend on 04 Nov 2017 14:16
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