Healing and death of the main character | Combat Middle-earth: SoM Guide
Last update: 11 May 2016
Health management, in Middle Earth: The Shadow of Mordor, is a bit different than in the case of the other games of this type so, I recommend that you take interest in the hints provided in this chapter. First of all, you need to know that your character's health bar cannot regenerate spontaneously when you are fighting. In this case, regeneration is possible only thanks to collecting small plants scattered throughout the game world. One of such plants has been shown in the above screenshot. It is possible to locate such plants, thanks to the readings of the minimap and it becomes even easier, after you activate the Wraith mode, when they become clearly visible against the surroundings.
Try to regenerate Talion's health each time before a battle and/or mission, thanks to which you will stand a greater chance of succeeding. Right after you start a fight, it may become more difficult to locate a plant, especially if you are dealing with agile monsters that do not let you get too far away from them. What is even more, in some missions, the mission is failed after you "escape" from the battlefield, because you cannot step outside of the predetermined fighting area.
Note - you can make the health bar permanently longer, thanks to obtaining attributes connected with it. To learn more, see the chapter entitled Character Development.
Being at the brink of dying does not necessarily mean that you lose, because you can avoid the ultimate failure. This can be obtained by completing a minigame, which you need to do, if you want to avoid death. You need to, in the predetermined time window, align the cursor with the circle that appears on the screen (before the red bar fills up) and press the specified key/button. Of course, after you do that, you need to make sure that you get away from the nearby enemies, quickly (including the one that dealt to Talion the most recent blow), because you can, otherwise, deplete the entire health bar again.
If you failed to escape death, Talion returns to the nearest forge tower that you unlocked. The important piece of information is that dying does not have any grave consequences, such as losing your equipment or of some of your experience points. The only exception may be the necessity to restart the battle against orcs that you were involved in, at the moment of dying.
Note - in some cases, you may even want to die, because this , may strengthen the member of Sauron's army that you were fighting with, before dying. After the monster becomes stronger, he progresses to a higher level, thanks to which he drops more valuable loot, after dying. To learn more about using the "impunity" of dying, to your advantage, see the chapter entitled Sauron's Army.