Middle-earth: Shadow of War How to Rank Up in Online Conquest

Online Conquest is a new game mode in Middle Earth Shadow of War.

First of all, you must have captured the fortress in Núrnen to unlock the online conquests. This is part of the Act 2 main story.

You can then see your online rank in the pause menu under “Online” (between Market and Guide). Then press X (PS4) / A (Xbox One) to see your rating.

To rank up, you don’t play online at all. The online rank is based on your OFFLINE army strength. This means the combined power of your siege teams (attack) and fortress teams (defense). It counts the strength of all your region armies together.  Only the Orcs you’ve assigned to the siege or defense teams affect the rank. Unassigned captains don’t improve your rating.

How to Increase Army Strength:

• First you must assign recruited Orcs to your attack / defense teams. To do this, open the Pause Menu > Army > R1 (PS4) / RB (XB1). You can only assign a defense teams to regions where you have captured the fortress. You unlock all of this in Act 2 after capturing the Núrnen Fortress.
• Capture all Fotresses in the game.
• Assign only the highest level Orcs to your attack / defense teams. The higher their level, the more rating points they give towards your rank.
• Fastest way to increase the level of your Orcs is to reach the highest character level yourself, then advance time at fast travel points to make new Orcs spawn that are higher level. You can also rank up Orcs at Fighting Pits (but they have to survive and win). Putting up two of your followers against each other gurantees that one of them will level up. The Orcs in your army can never have a higher level than your own. So getting to a high character level should be your main priority. Focus on story missions to level up quickly.
• Purchase the most expensive siege and defense upgrades for every fortress. Upgrades give a big boost to your score! Start with the cheap ones and buy the expensive stuff during the endgame.
• You have 6 siege slots and 7 defense slots. Fill them all with Orcs and Upgrades. Each filled slot gives a huge increase in army rating.
• Reach character level 45 to unlock the sixth siege slot and complete all fight pits (Story Act 4) to unlock the seventh defense slot.
• During Story Act 4 (Shadow Wars) you’ll have to upgrade all your fortresses and play lots of siege / defense missions. You’ll gain ranks very quickly during that part, you will easily reach online rank 5 or higher during that chapter.
• You can reassign overlords in the army overview by pressing Triangle (PS4) / Y (XB1) on them. Then command them to reposition with another Orc who is a higher level.
• Open Gold War Chests in the Market to get good upgrades for your army. You also unlock War Chests by playing Online Conquest and from doing daily challenges (found in the quest menu). Online Conquests are marked on your map.

All Online Ranks

There are 10 conquest ranks. Here is a list of all ranks including their required army strength:

1. Man at Arms: 0-999
2. Knight: 1000-1499
3. Sergeant: 1500-1999
4. Second Captain: 2000-2499
5. Captain: 2500-2999
6. Guard of the Tower: 3000-3499
7. Ranger: 3500-3999
8. General: 4000-4499
9. Lord Commander: 4500-4999
10. Steward: 5000

What Ranking Up is good for:

When you play Online Conquest you always earn points based on how quickly you captured the enemy fortress. Getting 1000 points will get you a War Chest. The War Chests contain useful upgrades for yourself and your army.

Ranking up makes it so you earn more points per match, as seen in the screenshot above. With each rank you get +10% more points per match, vastly improving the rate at which you earn War Chests.