[Belegorn]

True, but many of his enemies were on a whole other level, being Elves and Dúnedain. Sauron himself was not quite on the level of his master. I'm just watching Full-Metal Alchemist and I think the Dúnedain were sort of like King Bradleys, and of course the Elves generally were like them, except of course the exceptional ones. I mean in the end he was put down by two of the elite of their respective kindreds so I do not see him so much out of their league as to just be strolling in among his enemies, at least at this point in history, and expecting to walk away relatively unscathed.

Remember when Isildur and his 200 or so Men were ambushed by over 2000 Orcs and they still almost wiped them out. They were horribly outnumbered. It took about 5-6 together to take out one Dúnedain, but their methods it seemed involved sacrifice because they needed to try and hold them down to get at them, almost a recklessness. I do think perhaps Sauron had something to help him deal with his enemies weapons, to mitigate their impact to some degree. He also had that heat with which he took out Gil-galad.

He was a master of wolves, I'm not sure about this, but did he make much use of them in the 2nd Age? I'm not so sure. I know some of the Orcs under Saruman used Wargs & the like, but I'd think Sauron would keep such powerful creatures around to strengthen his forces. I can certainly see Sauron going at it with just his own physical tools. It seems for the most part that warriors of note, or at least the famous people/beings tend to have their weapons mentioned. Morgoth did, as did the Balrogs, and various Elves and Men. I suppose Sauron sort of went at it like the dragons did.