Comprehensive Guide to Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle Earth Gear

How-To 

Ever since upgrading gear was possible there have been a slew of new gear that you can win and it’s been fun attempting to acquire all the new gear and see what benefits they provide. And I was recently asked about a comprehensive guide to the Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle Earth gear. Gear is of course used to provide buffs to heroes, and equipping the right gear for the right situation can make the difference between a victory and a loss. Before I get to that it’s necessary to mention the recent update that directly impacts heroes, and a recent event that gave the opportunity to win complete gear sets in addition to great prizes. Here’s the list of changes for the 10.3 update:

• Introduces Legendary Heroes – Epic heroes can command an additional amount of tactical troops with normal troop limit
• Legendary Heroes can be further upgraded with books and legendary pages
• Chat has been enhanced

Being able to add tactical troops as separate from normal troop limit is a huge change, and this comes with a visual update on the troop select screen as there’s a limit for normal troops but an additional bar segment that can only be filled with tactical troops. And a new category as been added in the Sage’s Tower on the Relics tab called Hero. This keeps track of how many Legendary Pages you’ve acquired to upgrade your heroes to their new versions. I haven’t acquired any Legendary Pages yet so I’ll have to post an update once that becomes available to me.

Now, I’ve written guides on how to construct and how to upgrade gear, and so this one will get in-depth with the actual boosts the different equipment provides. Again, gear can either be a sword, shield, cloak, amulet or ring. Currently I do not own every piece of gear available so the table will be updated as more becomes available to me but it will be enough to at the very least give a general understanding of the benefits of gear. So here are all the main buffs and debuffs related to gear:

• Life – increases Life of all troops
• Attack – Increases Attack stat for all troops
• Speed – Increases marching speed of troops
• Load – Increases total load of troops
• Troop Limit – Increases hero’s overall troop limit
• Foe LF – Reduces Life of enemy troops
• Foe ATK – Reduces Attack stat for enemy troops

All of the changes to these stats from buffs and debuffs are by percentages, and different gear affect different troop types in unique ways. Also when legendary gear is equipped to a specific hero, additional buffs and debuffs are activated. Calculating the percentage increase for a particular buff is the stat number divided by 100 for one piece of gear, and when multiple pieces of gear affect the same stat the percentages are just added together. For example, a sword that has 600 Life increases life for all troops by 6%, and if you add a cloak that has 100 Life, the total increase is 7% (6%+1%).  Of course you don’t have to calculate this yourself since you can equip and unequip gear as much as you like to just see the results, and the below screen can be found by selecting your Great Hall then the Heroes tab, select a hero and then Details.

You can create Miner’s Gear (Amulet, Shield, Ring or Cloak) and Trader’s Gear (Shield, Amulet, Shield, Ring or Cloak), and the latter occasionally has additional attributes that can be unlocked by enhancing. So one Trader’s Weapon might have an additional attribute that increases attack while another has one that increases speed. Both types of gear can be equipped to heroes on any level while some gear has a minimum required level before it can be equipped. It’s good to mix and match based on your style of play so  you get the best results. Without further ado, here’s a list of gear with Speed, Load,  Foe LF, and Foe ATK as percentages, and numbers in gold representing buff from enhancement or an enhancement can increase that number:

Miner's Amulet

Miner's Shield

Miner's Ring

Miner's Cloak

Trader's Weapon

Trader's Amulet

Trader's Shield

Trader's Ring

Trader's Cloak

Wartorn Champion's Band

Mystic King's Eye

Mystic King's Sabre

Mystic King's Targe

Mystic King's Strand

Mystic King's Mantle

Nomad's Rider's Dagger

Nomad's Rider's Pendant

Nomad's Rider's Guard

Nomad's Rider's Circlet

Nomad's Rider's Shawl

Artisan's Amulet

Beheader Sword

Axe Thrower's Weapon

Cursed Watcher's Buckler

Cursed Watcher's Loop

Cursed Watcher's Disguise

The Spirit

Mark of the Void

Tower of the Void Shield

Amulet of the Elven Elder

Adorned Ring

Defender of the Ainulindale

Smaug's Pilfered Weapon

Smaug's Pilfered Cloak

Smaug's Tooth

The Veil

Radagast's Staff

*Enhancement Unlocks are 2%,1%,2%, 8%

Again, this list will be updated as I acquire more gear. Do you have additional gear that you don’t see on the list? Let me know.