Want to get the edge over your opponents in the newest mobile game set in Middle-Earth? Well, you can make that easy with the aid of our LotR Rise to War Guides. In this Guide, we take a detailed look at how to improve your favorite Rise to War Commander and the best ways to get even more.
Table of Contents
Rise to War Commander Background
Fans of the movies and literature may recognize a lot of the commanders from Tolkien’s source material. Whilst the Rise to War devs did a great job reflecting their personality in their perks and abilities. You must leave your book knowledge behind and put aside your biases.
Rise to War Commanders should be solely judged on how useful they are to your Kingdom. We will cover all you need to know about developing a great Rise to War Commander in the coming sections.
However, before we get started ensure you have mastered the basics first. To do that, head over to our LotR Rise to War Beginner’s Guide. Additionally, we have detailed guides relating to the in-game Factions and their unique strengths, a guide to resources, and a breakdown of how seasons work!
How to Unlock Commanders in LotR Rise to War
There are a huge number of Rise to War Commanders to unlock in the game. You’ll need a robust variety of them if you want a truly multi-purpose army. The good thing is that unlocking is a rather simple procedure, and you can even get your hands on a good few of them very quickly.
In essence, you must gain the commander’s respect before they will join you. This can be done by giving them gifts or by completing Tavern Tips on their behalf. Lastly, for the spending players, you can also gain a Rise to War Commander through the game’s gacha mechanic.
Rise to War Commander Gifts
To get started with gifts, you need to go to the Tavern as outlined in the steps below:
- Navigate to the Tavern by clicking the horse icon in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
- Tap “Recruit Commander” while on the Tavern screen.
- Here you will see a map with some recognizable faces from Middle Earth – these are the Rise to War Commanders you can recruit.
- To recruit a Rise to War Commander, you must gift them items to gain their respect. Selecting one of the commanders will allow you to do this and also show how much respect you have already gained.
- Once you have met the required respect level, the commander will join your ranks.
Gifts can be obtained in the game through Mathom Chests, by completing Tavern Tasks, and by taking part in Events.
Rise to War Commander Tips
Another vital method of gaining Commander Respect is by completing Tavern Tasks. Not only will this reward you with gift items, but also on occasion reward you with respect for a specific commander.
Making sure you are completing all your tasks every day is hugely important if you want to recruit commanders as fast as possible. This is especially true for free-to-play players.
Rise to War Commander Gacha
Rarer Rise to War Commanders are often unlocked using the gacha mechanic of the game. To access the chests containing the high-end Commanders of The Lord of the Rings: Rise to War follow these simple steps:
- Navigate to the Mathom Shop by clicking on the Mathom Chest icon in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
- Here you will have a choice of several different chests. Clicking on them will give details on the specific drops.
- You’ll need to spend Mathom Medals to open these chests. Mathom Medals can be earned via in-game activities, bought for gems, or bought in packs for real money.
- At this stage, the outcome is completely dependent on a game of chance! You might get powerful weapons to increase your Commander’s stats, you might get random Commanders outright, or you can get respect items to gift to a Commander of your choice.
For more details on how the Mathom House works, check out our detailed LotR: Rise to War Mathom House Guide.
Rise to War Commander Rarity
Rise to War Commanders come in 3 different rarity levels. The higher the tier level, the more powerful the commander will be, and thus the more respect you must gain from them in order to recruit them.
The respect required for each Tier level is summarized in the table below:
| Tier | Respect |
|---|---|
| 1 | 800 |
| 2 | 3,000 |
| 3 | 9,000 |
Please note that Commanders from Tier 2 and 3 have very little overlap in the gifts you can give them. Essentially making one type of gift suitable for just one Commander.
Rise to War Commander Respect Level
Once you have unlocked a Rise to War Commander, you can continue to earn their respect. This will see their respect level increase from a starting level of 0. As this level increases, the commander will gain access to new features.
The new benefits gained by a commander at each Respect Level milestone are summarized below:
| Respect Level | Benefit |
|---|---|
| 1 | Unlocks accessory slot. |
| 3 | Unlocks 3rd title. |
| 5 | Unlocks 4th title. |
| 10 | Unlocks unique equipment quests. |
Respect Level is therefore very important and you should continue to feed gifts to your stronger commanders. You should focus on the 3-4 strongest, rarest, or most suitable commanders for your army.
LotR Rise to War Commander Titles
As mentioned above, Titles are unlocked as you increase the Respect Level of your commanders. They are the major abilities of your commanders and can bring huge buffs to your army.
Rise to War Commander Titles often relate to the specialty of the commander. For some commanders, this might be buffs to a certain type of unit (Bad men, Uruk-hai, elves, dwarfs) and for others, it might relate to unique effects applied to Commander attacks (poison, madness, fire damage).
These Golden Titles often dictate what type of army will work best with each commander. Indeed, you don’t want a dwarf buffing commander commanding an army that… doesn’t have any dwarfs.
Each Gold Title has 15 levels. Skill points can be allocated to these as you level your commander or increase their respect. In addition, each time you unlock a new Gold Title, you will gain access to additional Blue Skills for the Commander.
LotR Rise to War Commander Skills
Compared to Gold Titles, these skills are much tamer in terms of their impact on your army. They are often more generic with many Rise to War Commanders having the same ones. For example, increase commander physical damage by x% or increase commander poison damage by x%.
The number of new Blue Skills unlocked for the Commander will depend on the Respect Level at which the corresponding Title was unlocked. This is summarized below.
| Respect Level | Titles | Skills |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 2 | 4 |
| 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 5 | 1 | 2 |
Please note that each skill will have 7 levels that can have skill points allocated.
LotR Rise to War Commander Stats
All Rise to War Commanders have the four following statistics that empower them:
- Might – increases damage dealt by your commander and their army in battle.
- Focus – empowers burn, poison, and focus-based skills damage. Also reduces damage sustained by your army.
- Speed – affects turn order in battle, and increases your in-battle army speed.
- Command – increase the number of troops they can have in their army.
It goes without saying that you should prioritize stats related to your abilities. If your commander has physical damage-based skills then you want to equip them with weapons that give more might. If your commander has burn, poison, and focus-based attacks then instead go for Focus. You get the idea, it’s very intuitive.
Rise to War Commander Items
Speaking of weapons, and other items. Let’s review your Commander’s possible equipment. It’s broken down into 4 different categories:
- Hand slot
- Armour slot
- Head slot
- Accessory slot (unlocked at respect level 1)
Each piece of equipment will empower your commander’s statistics, might empower certain types of units, and might even give you special abilities.
Weapons are pretty simple, they focus on increasing destructive power. They often feature attack increases to either race (evil men, elves, dwarfs), or unit type (mounted units, archers, melee units). Helmets and armor follow suit but focus on defense.
The most varied category are the accessories since they usually add a pretty significant buff to your army. For example the “Worn-out Smoking Pipe” accessory makes your army recover HP every 2 rounds in the battle. Or “Drums of Moria” which increases the sieging potential of dwarves.
Once a piece of equipment is equipped, the commander has to become familiar with it (i.e., gain experience with it through battle). Whilst learning, the equipment’s stats are halved. If you unequip the item, the commander will have to become refamiliarized with it, so only unequip if you’re sure you want to change!
Level your Rise to War Commanders Fast
There are a couple of different ways to make your commander level up. Leveling up has some amazing benefits:
- They gain 1 skill point to freely distribute on their skill tree.
- Their stats increase making their attack power, and the army serving them more dangerous.
- One of the said stats is the “Command” statistic, which allows them to have more units in their army.
While the Commander itself, the quality of their items, and the build you created by focusing on certain skills do matter. Almost all PvP battles come down to “who can throw more bodies at the problem”. Therefore increasing a commander’s level is crucial to defeating other factions.
There are a few best ways to level your Rise to War Commanders which can be summarized as follows:
- March and conquer new tiles – the most exp per Commander stamina spent.
- Perform “mock battles” on already conquered tiles – this rewards less exp at the same stamina cost.
- Send your Commanders on missions via “Tips” in the Tavern – rewards the least exp for the time investment, but it doesn’t cost any stamina.
The strength of the tile directly dictates how much exp your Commander gains from conquering it, and performing a mock battle there. I recommend that you train your low-level Commander via tips, but once they get to level 15-20 start capturing high-level tiles or performing mock battles instead.
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