Shadow of War Best Weapons - How to Get the Best Weapons, How to Use and Upgrade Gem Stones

In this Shadow of War best weapons guide, we'll be walking you through how to get the best weapons in Shadow of War, as well as how to both find and upgrade the various Gem Stones you can come across while exploring the world.

Shadow of War Best Weapons

The more powerful Talion gets, the better weapons you'll want to equip him with, in order to deal the most damage to enemy Orc Captains, Warchiefs, or Overlords you encounter. Firstly, you'll always want to make sure you have the best weapons in Shadow of War that Talion can equip at any time.

This means that you should try and seek out gear items that are the closest to Talion's level. Weapons and armor items that are a considerably lower level than Talion are going to be less useful for him, and you can always dismantle unwanted gear for Mirian in your inventory screen.

How to Get the Best Weapons in Shadow of War

If you're seeking out the best weapons in Shadow of War, then you need to know about the item rarity scale. From least to most powerful, there's common, rare, epic, and legendary gear for you to find out in the open world.

Basically, the more powerful an enemy, the more likely they are to drop a more powerful weapon for Talion to equip. For example if you see an enemy Captain that's a few levels higher than Talion, they'll be more likely to drop powerful gear than a lower level Captain would.

Similarly, an Epic Captain has a better chance of rewarding you with Epic or Legendary gear when killed, and you can always check to see if you're near any powerful Captains when you're out in the open world of Shadow of War by using Wraith Vision with the left shoulder button.

Shadow of War Gem Stones Guide - Upgrade Your Weapons in Shadow of War

Another aspect of gear in Shadow of War are the Gem Stones, which are dropped by both common enemies and Captains alike when killed. To equip a Gem Stone to your sword, bow, dagger, cloak, or chest armor piece, you'll have to go into the inventory screen and first unlock the Gem Stone slot for each item, which each costs 1,000 Mirian.

Once you've unlocked the Gem Stone slot for an item, you can then equip either a red, green, or white Gem Stone to Talion's items, each of which provides a different statistical boost. For example, a red Gem Stone equipped on a sword will increase its damage output, while a white Gem Stone equipped to a piece of armor will increase the amount of XP that Talion gains.

How to Upgrade Gem Stones in Shadow of War

As we previously mentioned, finding Shadow of War Gem Stones happens purely by chance, as literally any enemy within the game can drop any type of Gem Stone. However, once you've acquired enough Gem Stones of one particular type, you can then fuse them together to upgrade them to the next level.

To upgrade a certain type of Gem Stone, you need to save up three of them. So, once you've saved up three red Gem Stones, you can them fuse the three of them together to create a single, more powerful red Gem Stone, with an increased statistical bonus. If the base level red Gem Stone granted a weapon damage bonus of 5%, then the upgraded version of the red Gem Stone would increase weapon damage by 10%.

It doesn't' end with a single upgrade however, as you once you've upgraded the red Gem Stones enough times you have three upgraded versions, you can fuse all three of the upgraded version together to create a single, even more powerful Gem Stone. There are a total of five levels to Shadow of War Gem Stone upgrades, so you'll need to save up a lot if you're going to upgrade any to the very highest level.

If you need anything else to do with Shadow of War, why not head over to our guides on how to beat the Frozen Flame Balrog boss fight, or our complete guide to the Shadow Wars endgame mode.