Arena Counters | Bombadil Tips

In this early phase of LOTR Heroes of Middle Earth, Arena is the most important game feature. The progression is closely linked with your standing there because it is the only Gems farming spot (aside from Daily Objectives’ granted amount of Gems).

With enough Gems, no one is out of reach, even though Gold and Character Experience (the other 2 most important resources) cannot be accumulated with Gems by any means.

So, if you want to farm the most substantial characters and improve their gear fastest, it is imperative that you have acceptable Arena Standing that suits your needs. Obviously, you can simply buy Gems and get done with it.

But, if you think about it thoroughly your motive for spending on Gems is to own the Arena in the first place. About Arena mechanics and rewards you can read our Arena article. Here, I will try to help you improve your Arena winning percentage by suggesting suitable counters for the most used Arena Defenses currently.

The article is meant to give you names of the most often Arena Defenses at the time along with their hard counter(s) and explanation(s) of how to always beat them.

When you join our Discord you can actively participate in creating this page by sharing your experiences with or by asking for counters that are not already mentioned. Thank you in advance!

Rangers+Elladan/Arwen; Halbarad+1 Ranger/Ironhide + 3 Rivendell (except Elrond)

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According to most of the CCs and some of our friends from Top Alliance in Sigma Cluster (including the Admin of some Server Shards – supposedly 1 and 3) this is the Arena Meta at the moment which should be farmed by everyone including new players. You can find our opinion for that claim in our other articles, but lest speak about the counter.

The counter for those synergies is actually pretty easy – it is the recent Arena Meta Defense (Lady Eowyn, Eomer, Eothain, Ugluk, and Ironhide).

Depending on the enemy setup tactic is extremely easy. Early focus on Halbarad in full, Blind on Elrohir, and Disable on Arwen in the second turn. Depending on Halbarad’s strength and your DPS he will initiate the fight with either Healing or Taunt. If he starts with Taunt it is unlikely that you will be in a position to place Disable on Arwen if your Ironhide doesn’t clear it with the special but even if that happens it will not change much in the end because as soon as you kill Halbarad everything is almost over to the point that you can easily turn on auto-combat.

Possible punch-ups vary between 15%-25% depending on the enemy setup. The only real threat is that Mirie is in the enemy team and that she initiates a fight with Eagle Eye on Elrohir. If that is so he will successfully execute his ultimate regardless of Blind on him. Depending on Elrohir’s strength his ultimate in the second turn can one-shot Eothain making things difficult and preventing you to put a mass Counter-attack on your team.

I must say though that I won with a 1.2k punch-up even in that situation.

3 Rohirims (Eomer, Eothain, Lady Eowyn)+Strider+Ironhide

Ugluk, Eothain, Lady Eowyn, Strider, Ironhide – the strategy is simple. Use Ugluk’s Blind on Ironhide before Eothain places Provoke(s). After that, just place Disrupt on Eowyn (with Eowyn) and on Eomer (with Ugluk).

You could Disrupt Eothain so he cannot use AOE that will grant Counters to his team. But, Eomer would then simply remove Strider’s bleeds which you’d don’t want (it matters !).

At that point, it is important to just avoid using Ironhide’s ultimate, so he doesn’t receive a full combo of counterattacks along with Eothain’s expose. He already used the special in the first turn to clear the first Boons and it is okay.

He can wait to use ultimate in the third turn (more enemies will be near death and the effect will be greater). Because of Blind, enemy Ironhide wasted his special without doing anything and all your Boons will remain a turn longer.

After placing initial Banes in the way I described your dps Focus should be on Eomer because he is the main threat. His assist mechanics provides an insane difference in damage output compared to those who don’t use him.

For this, setup to work, some conditions must be fulfilled – Ugluk Leader’s ability should be on Level 4 and he has to be the leader. The reason for that is the passive Focus he gains from leader ability – he must land his debuffs for this to work.

Also, it would be good that Eothain’s special ability is on level 4 to make sure your Eowyn will play before an enemy counterpart in the second turn. If enemy Eowyn places Disrupt in the third turn -it doesn’t matter, you already use all your cooldowns and she will just waste it. Possible punch-up; 500-1000 power as long as Bane(s) are placed.

3-5 Isengard members + Ironhide/Strider/Eowyn/…

Eomer, Eothain, Lady Eowyn, Ironhide, Strider/Wilfwyn – countering Isengard’s synergy controlled by AI is not too hard even with considerable punch up. Everything you need to do is focus all DPS on Dunhar.

He will heal them in the meantime but that doesn’t matter, just continue hitting him. You must open with Eothain’s special ability because you need that Speed Advantage, especially if you are against full Isengard synergy (Morzha buffs up to random 3 allies with Haste and you need to counter that, so Eothen can use his AOE before Ironhide in case he is the one with Haste).

If you are using Strider, it is best to open with his special Fire attack, for multiple reasons. For example, AOE damage will be negated by Dunhar’s healing and you will cause more damage to Dunhar allowing yourself to kill him in fewer turns.

Not only that Dunhar passively grants Defensive to most injured ally every turn, but he also heals Isengard forces with each attack because his focus allows him to place Banes from all 3 abilities.

And, most importantly, his special will prevent healing granted by Eomer (this healing is usually underestimated but it makes the final difference between a win or loses – each turn Eomer can get Assistance grants a greater chance to win).

If you are using Wilfwyn instead Strider, her turns must be specific. She should open with ultimate against Dunhar, the she should use special only if she is forced to attack Ugluk with Provoke, and all basic attacks should be against Mauhur, Strider, or Ironhide (depending who is closest to death).

If Ironhide is on the opposite side, he will be at a disadvantage as soon as he cast his ultimate in the second turn and gets punished by everyone buffed with Eothain’s counter-attack boon.

For this to work, Lady Eowyn has to be the leader, and Eomer’s passive must be maximized depending on your progression. Isengard depends on Banes and Rohirims excels in cleansing Banes. Possible punch-up; 500-1500 power as long as Eomer’s assistance chance is at least 75%.

Nurraz, Gruhur the Brute, Robel, Bolg, Tordok

Grimulurz, Ironhide, Rokma, Wubete, Shagrat – The only way to deal with this fully p2w opponent efficiently is to use their strength against them. Boost their weakness even further and quickly eliminate the one that buffs them and makes them stronger.

Bleed and Poison are Banes that make damage according to the maximum HP of the targets. Gruhur and Bolg are in the top 5 in that category, while Tordok is a little lower but has incredible armor.

Tordok is 19th compared to the whole roster when we talk about HP, but his Armor is second to none (guess what – both Bleed and Poison are not affected by Armor damage reduction).

So, the idea is to quickly eliminate Nurraz before Tordok taunts and then to use the superior Speed of your setup to easily eliminate the remaining threats.

Turn rotation should go like this:

Grimlurz opens with a special to get a counter,

Norraz buffs 3 members of the team with Defensive, and cleanses Banes (you cannot place any Banes before he plays, so it will not affect you),

If the enemy has Robel this will be the turning point of the battle because he will do AOE and reduce the turn matter of all members of your team by 10%. This would be a winning move against almost anyone but Mordor’s crew, because they are the only ones who can passively increase their Turn meter by hitting enemies with Bane(s)

Even with a reduced Turn Meter Shagrat does AOE and place Poison on everyone just to be followed by Rokma with his special (must be Level 4) that will place Burning on all. With the Speed Meter decreased by 10%, Rokma will have 132.3 Speed which will still allow him to play before Bolg (132 Speed) and then he will place AOE against 5 targets with Poison.

Not only that he will place another Bane per enemy, but he will also trigger Shagrat’s leader ability increasing the speed of Allies by up to 12% (Shagrath Leader Ability Lvl 4; 5 targets with Bane will be hit) totally negating Robel’s speed reduction.

That will allow Ironhide to still play before Bolg and to safely remove their defenses while hitting all targets again who will have at least 1 bane on themselves which will further increase the turn matter of all allies but most importantly Wubette’s.

At that moment, Nurraz will most likely still be alive but barely. You must decide either to use Ironhide basic or his special because it is very important that you kill Nurraz while you still can (Depending on the situation, it will be not mandatory to use his AOE immediately because all protective Boons on the enemy team will be already removed by two recent AOEs).

It is not 100% sure that Wubette will have enough speed to play before Bolg but if that happens, you can turn on auto-combat immediately because she will do another AOE, place Slow on everyone, and possibly kill Nurraz after which everything is over ( up to 3k punch up is possible if that happens).

Keep in mind that Ironhide’s basic inflicts more damage only if he is below 50% HP. So, even though there will be no Boons to clear you should use his special if you are not sure that you will kill Nurraz (in punch-ups).

After that, it is their turn. Bolg will Disable someone. Everything is good as long as he doesn’t target Wubete (there is only a 20% chance for that) while playing before her

But, even if you are unlucky and he targets her, that will open some other possibilities (Wubete Resistance is almost the lowest in the roster so there is no way for her to Resist). If Wubete can use her abilities the battle is already decided because once she places Mass Slow on the enemy team everything will be over.

Tordok’s Taunt will be ineffective. And, Gruhur’s Expose on the entire team will mean nothing because all members of your team will play before them at least once (with each turn Sagrath is adding Turn Speed). In short, some of the members of your team will play for the third time before some of the enemies play the second.

For all this, to work, Wubbete must be at least the same level of improvement as Bolg and Tordok and she needs her ultimate on level 4. Also, Shagrath’s Leader ability must be on level 4 as well.

Also, all your AOEs need to be strong enough so Nurraz is dead when his turns come – if Nurraz uses his ultimate and summons another Troll with provoke- you will lose. Possible punch-up; 300-1000 power as long as all Bane(s) are delivered on the enemy and Roble’s ultimate is not on level 6.

If Robel’s ultimate is maximized, Bolg will play before Rokma and you will be no longer in control of the match-up. There is a long way until characters have their ABilities on Level 6, so …

Conclusion

With each passing day, new Arena Defenses are being tested by the community and every Defense that becomes common and often will be instantly added to the page along with the best possible counter!