Here theease notes for Update 34: Before the Shadow, released on Tuesday, November 8th, 2022.  

Of Special Note:

Before the Shadow has arrived! 

Before the shadows lengthened in Angmar, forces of evil threaten the safety of the Free Peoples of Middle-earth! Delve into the mysteries of the One Ring as you embark on a perilous journey through Swanfleet and the remnants of the kingdom of Cardolan, encountering new friends and old foes. Adventure with Boromir of Gondor and combat the rise of the villainous Grey Fear before bringing word of the growing threat to Elrond of Rivendell, where a Fellowship of heroes will be formed... 

Adventure through a new early leveling experience, take on old foes, and reunite with old friends. Fight for victory against those who wish to restore the kingdom of Angmar in the latest Lord of the Rings Online expansion, Before the Shadow!

Delvings debut!

Delvings are a new mechanic debuting with Before the Shadow's Missions! To get started, log into the game on any character that has reached the level cap after purchasing Before the Shadow and you’ll receive an item through the in-game mail that begins a quest to start Delving! Speak to any of the new Missions NPCs in Before the Shadow to access Delvings. You can find Before the Shadow Mission NPCs at the Camp in Andrath, Clegur, Herne, Lhan Garan, Tharbad, and South Downs. NOTE: Characters must be at the world’s level cap in order to access the Delving system.

New Starter Instance!

A new starter instance is available to newly-created characters for players who have purchased Before the Shadow! Create a character, Select starting tutorial ‘Before the Shadow', and run the new Instance: Mossward, the Border Village. 

New Skirmish!

A new skirmish is now available to players who have purchased Before the Shadow called "Doom of Caras Gelebren"! Experience the Second Age and the fall of Eregion and aid Celebrimbor in repelling the forces of the Enemy! This Skirmish is available to players level 20-140, and can be played Solo, Duo, Small Fellowship, Fellowship, or Raid. The new Skirmish is accessible via the Instance Join panel once you have completed the general Skirmish Tutorial. To run the Skirmish Tutorial visit any of the Skirmish Captains in Skirmish Camps located throughout Middle-earth. 

Coming Soon - New Scaling Instance! 

A new Fellowship scaling instance will soon be available to players who have purchased Before the Shadow called "Sarch Vorn, the Black Grave"! Explore one of the oldest barrows of Tyrn Gorthad and face off against a powerful foe roused by the passage of the Witch-king of Angmar! This scaling instance is available to players level 20-140, and can be played Solo, Duo, or in a Fellowship. Once you have discovered its entrance in the hills of Cardolan,  Sarch Vorn will be accessible via the Instance Join panel. "Sarch Vorn, the Black Grave" opens through Tier 3 difficulty at noon server time on Thursday December 1st. The deed, "Sarch Vorn, the Black Grave -- Tier 3 -- Leading the Charge" will be available to complete through 3am server time on Thursday February 16th, 2023.

NOTE: All class trait trees have been reset for Update 34. Please re-spend your class trait points and save your preferred specs. 

News and Notes:
The full list of release notes can be found on LOTRO.com: https://www.lotro.com/update-notes/lotro-update-34-release-notes-en

Update 33.1 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 33.1: The Further Adventures of Elladan and Elrohir, release date Wednesday, July 20th, 2022. 

Of Special Note

The Further Adventures of Elladan and Elrohir have arrived! 

Soon after Frodo's rescue from the Ford of Bruinen, the scouts of Rivendell venture forth, seeking news on the Enemy and his servants. Lord Elrond has given his sons, Elladan and Elrohir, a secret errand. Join the twins on their journey from Rivendell to the distant land of Lothlórien!

Players can start Further Adventures by talking to Elrond in his library in Rivendell. Rewards can be exchanged with Celeblír outside the Last Homely House.

Updates from the PvMP Front!

Experience the thrill of player versus player combat with new PvMP Options. You can become a monster player after your main character reaches level 2. If you wish to fight on the side of heroes, you can ride your character into the Ettenmoors at level 20, where you will be scaled up to better handle the carnage. Audacity is now essential for survival in the Ettenmoors. As you reach level 140, you will acquire more Audacity and gear to better handle the fight!

For a full list of changes and updates to PvMP in the Ettenmoors, please see the PvMP section.  

News and Notes

The dynamically scaling stats on the following items have been adjusted to be more appropriate across all levels and increase above level 130: "Shields of the Hammerhand", "Earrings of the High Elves", "Earring of the Dead City", and "Fateful Gundabad Earring".

The stats granted by the following traits have been adjusted to be more appropriate across all levels and increase above level 130: "Man of the Fourth Age", "Hobbit-stature", "Fateful Dwarf", "Friend Of Man", "Emissary", "Unwritten Destiny", and "Those Who Remain".

Some player-level based stat progressions were tweaked a bit to smooth out values below level 105.

Events

• Treasure Bugan
  
• The Treasure Bugan’s base spawn chance is now 75%, an increase from 25% - 33%.
  
• The "Theodore Gorse’s Lucky Feather" item has been changed:
  
• Now guarantees that a Treasure Bugan will spawn when used in a qualifying instance.
  
• Still lasts 90 minutes, but expires in real-time.
  
• Can no longer be purchased for "Coins of the Bugan".
  
• Now costs 10 Mithril Coins, an increase from 5.
  
• Daily Quest “Seeking the Treasure Bugans!” has been updated:
  
• Now requires you to slay 3 Treasure Bugans instead of 4.
  
• Now offers the following rewards:
  
• 400 VXP
  
• Picker Box of basic crafting Materials
  
• 1 "Treasure Bugan's Cache", which offers a choice of the following:
  
• "Enhancement Runes" x3, Incomparable
  
• "Sealed Tracery": Incomparable
  
• "Universal Optional Ingredient"
  
• "Universal Solvent"
  
• Picker Box of crafting shards
  
• The once-per-event quest “Thwarting the Treasure Bugans” now offers the following rewards:
  
• 2000 VXP
  
• "Crate of Crafting Materials"
  
• 1 "Treasure Bugan's Cache", which offers a choice of the following:
  
• "Enhancement Runes" x3, Incomparable
  
• "Sealed Tracery", Incomparable
  
• "Universal Optional Ingredient"
  
• "Universal Solvent"
  
• Picker Box of crafting shards
  
• Classes
  
• Brawler
  
• Brawlers now have a visible proficiency skill in the Skills Panel for battle-gauntlets.
  
• 'Fist of the Valar' base damage increased to be more in line with other mettle spenders.
  
• 'Follow Me!' is no longer an attack speed buff, it is now a group combat run-speed buff, increasing speed by 20% for 15s.
  
• 'Come At Me' has several updates:
  
• Now 'fast' rather than 'immediate', to mitigate a skill cancellation issue encountered during periods of lag.
  
• Taunt duration increased [5s->10s].
  
• Base target count increased [5->10].
  
• When 'Bellicose' is utilized, "Come At Me" will now generate Mettle even if no targets are hit.
  
• 'Weather Blows' has several updates:
  
• Now an incoming damage set effect that will no longer stack with other incoming damage buffs. 
  
• Base value has been set to 35%, -6% for trait, -9% for Mettle (Max 20%).
  
• Lasts 15s with a 75s cooldown. 
  
• Note that this still acts as a separate multiplier from standard armor damage mitigation.
  
• The instant heal component has been moved to 'Bracing Guard'.
  
• 'Gut Punch' no longer reduces the target's outgoing damage, but now increases incoming damage by 20% for 20s. The skill has a short cooldown, but a given target cannot be affected by it for 70s after the effect wears off.
  
• 'Innate Strength' buffs use shorter animations [1.5s->1.0s], several other buffs have had their animations shortened or reduced to FX only.
  
• Many Brawler buffs were still using placeholder effect icons, many of these have been replaced with a more diverse set of effect icons for clarity.
  
• Most Brawler group buffs now have a radius of [10->15m].
  
• Most Brawler group buffs will now affect raid members.
  
• 'Vulnerability' has had its base debuff increased [1%->3%]. Item set bonuses to the effect have been increased similarly.
  
• 'Brash Invitation' has had its range increased [25->40m].
  
• The 'Iron Will' skill was redundant to "Weather Blows". It has been replaced by "The Best Defence". This skill buffs the fellowship's damage by 30% for 15s, and has a 120s CD.
  
• "Strong Jaw and Nimble Feet" no longer refer to "Iron Will".
  
• Using 'The Best Defence' now overwrites previous active instances.
  
• The 'Armour of Nature's Striker' 2-set bonus has been changed to +5% Melee Damage.
  
• Other Brawler's 'Share Innate Strength' skills should no longer overwrite your own.
  
• Champion
  
• The 'Hiddenhoard Storm' 4-set bonus buff "Increased Critical Ratings" duration should no longer be affected by the "Great Cleave Duration" tracery.
  
• Lore-master
  
• Pets can no longer be renamed many times in a short period of time.
  
• Blue-line capstone trait set bonus 'Tutelage of the Brown Wizard' no longer references 'Sic 'Em'.
  
• 'Essence of the Beast' no longer affects 'Sic 'Em', now reduces cooldown of 'A Murder of Crows' by 5 seconds on procs.
  
• Hunter
  
• The 'Upshot Damage' tracery no longer erroneously double-applies to devastating hits.

PvMP

• Beginning at level 20, all Free People classes can ride into the Ettenmoors. 
  
• Free People players entering the Ettenmoors from level 20 through 129 will scale to 140 and have 25 Audacity until level 120, then that Audacity is reduced by 1 rank until level 130 where it reaches 0.
  
• Four new tasks have been added to the Ettenmoors for Free Peoples and Monster Player players, including a base task to defeat five members of the opposition and three meta tasks to complete the base task a number of times for a greater reward.
  
• To obtain these tasks you must purchase the Task Starter from barter vendors at Glân Vraig for Free Peoples and Gramsfoot for Monster Players.
  
• The "Commendations" cap has been increased to 20,000.
  
• Monster Players
  
• All monster player classes are free to all players and available once a player completes a new player experience or increases a Free Peoples character level to two within the game world.
  
• In an effort to provide newly minted monster players with more survivability in the Ettenmoors, we've made changes to the starting skill loadouts for Monster Player characters.
  
• We have reduced the rank necessary to obtain all monster player skills. All monster players complete their kits at Rank 5.
  
• Acquiring the rank gated appearances remain in place.
  
• Acquiring the first map to Gramsfoot is a necessity in Monster Play - the map is now rewarded on a revised version of the new player quest taking place almost entirely in Gramsfoot.
  
• All Corruption trait slots are now available to Monster Players without an added LOTRO Point cost.
  
• Reduced the cost to slot all monster skills, corruptions, appearances, and racial abilities.
  
• Audacity - Audacity has been revised to improve PvMP player experience.  
  
• Audacity now has 36 levels.
  
• Monster Players gain Audacity by spending 'Commendations' into the virtue.
  
• Free Peoples gain Audacity by spending gold and 'Commendations' to acquire armor and jewelry with Audacity.
  
• Audacity gear for Free Peoples is bound by rank.
  
• Crowd Control has been reduced to 5% at Rank 1 and scales to 60% reduction at Rank 36.
  
• A new item, 'Tincture of Audacity', is available from barter vendors for Monster Players and Free Peoples.
  
• The benefit is 5 Audacity potions which can stack up to 10 with duration of 60 minutes each.
  
• Sold in stacks of 1, 5, and 10. Cost is 200, 1000, and 2000 'Commendations' respectively or 10, 35, 70 Mithril Coins.
  
• Audacity follows a linear progression track along three axis:
  
• Crowd Control Duration Reduction
  
• Incoming Damage Modifier
  
• Outgoing Damage Modifier
  
• LOTRO Store
  
• New appearances are now available for each Monster Player class! Monster Player Class Appearances have also had their cost reduced to 795 LOTRO Points.
  
• The cost of individual Monster Player Class Corruptions, Traits, and Skills has been reduced based on their tier.
  
• Racial, Class, Mastery and Resistance, Mititgation, and Trade-off Corruption Bundles have been added to the LOTRO Store that contain all relevant skills or related benefits.

Combat

• Fixed a bug that reduced player's mastery slightly against lower level foes.
  
• Pets can no longer be in the Aggressive stance, which has been removed. Pets set to the Aggressive stance have been reset to the Guard stance.
  
• Quests and Adventure Areas
  
• Sari-Suma (Instance)
  
• Frozen Wights in a particular area in instance 'Sari-surma' should no longer spawn over level.
  
• The Shire
  
• Frills in the Rushock Bog in have been adjusted to no longer float.
  
• Some riverbanks in Bindbole Wood have been smoothed out to look more realistic.
  
• A few caves in the Bolestones have had their physics adjusted to be more accurate.
  
• Yondershire
  
• Several Yondershire interiors now have more appropriate ambiances for their environment.
  
• The Upset Hobbit in the gazebo in Nobottle should no longer find themselves disappearing under its floor.
  
• The radar now correctly directs players in the direction of local towns.
  
• Grounded the sprung net for "Instance: Springing the Grand Plan".
  
• The quest item in "Tying the Knots" has been corrected to 'Spool of Rope'.
  
• The Red Flag Spots in "The Tale of Ashenfell" now have the correct tooltip.
  
• A land seam present on a mountain has been smoothed out.
  
• A resource node between Long Cleeve and Nobottle that was in a river gorge is now in a more accessible location.
  
• Hobbit children that can be questioned during the quest "The Wayward Child" can no longer be questioned after you complete the quest.
  
• Parts of the landscape that were erroneously changed due to object replacement for Gundabad have now been fixed, reverting them to appropriate appearances for their biome.
  
• Rocks on the Falconer's Tower in the North Downs have been adjusted to use local, native rock.
  
• Fell Beasts can no longer break free of the Roost and spawn in the landscape.
  
• Forsting in Gundabad has been repositioned slightly to no longer fall through the floor.
  
• The "Prologue Emissary" quest has had its reward of a Will bracelet replaced with a Vitality bracelet.
  
• Miscellaneous Z-fighting in Mattugard has been resolved.

Housing

• Bree-land Homesteads
  
• Hooks in 8 Long Street and 6 Chestnut Street now align correctly with the terrain.
  
• The sign and fence of 3 High Road have been lifted out of the ground.
  
• A stretched texture in the garden of 8 Long Street has been smoothed.
  
• Ambient Music now works on the exterior of 5 Cape Road in Belfalas.
  
• Doormat in 1 Filly Lane in Kingstead now aligns correctly with the terrain.
  
• Visiting Bankers and Barbers can now be placed in Yard Hooks in Erebor.

Cosmetic Pets

• The White Goose cosmetic pet now correctly appears in the Collections panel.

Localization

• German
  
• Updated the deed title for completing the Legendary Sentinel's challenge in German.
  
• French
  
• Fixed mistranslation of "close" in the tracking UI for the "Passage of Foes", "Passage of Nature", "Passage of Shadow" and the 'Tome of Tracking', changing 'fermer' to 'proche'.
  
• German and French
  
• Updated the map translations for the Cape of Belfalas and Cape of Belfalas Homesteads in French and German. 
  
• Updated map translations for the Gondor Regional maps
  
• Updated translations that use a character's Ancestry and Class, such as titles, to better function in French and German. 

NPC and Vendor Changes

• The Farmers Faire Cosmetic Categories on Caltha Tunnelly have been rearranged to be in the correct order. Additionally, the Other category will now be listed last.
  
• Festival Vendors now have a profile for "Essences" rather than "Essences and Legendary Items" since the obsolete legendary items were previously removed
  
• Forge-masters and Relic-masters
  
• Relic-masters and their services have been removed from the world as there are no plans to use relics or shards in the future.
  
• Combination Legendary Item services are now only available from Forge-masters.
  
• A few Relic-masters that bestow quests or are related to quests have been turned into Forge-masters so as not to break those quests.
  
• These remaining Relic-masters (now Forge-masters) are near South Bree, in Gundabad, in Rivendell, and in Thorin's Gate.
  
• The Relic-master function has been removed from the town services item.
  
• Relics and shards will not be usable or convertible into LI2 ingredients.
  
• Forge-masters in Rivendell and Thorin's Hall can now be used for reforging outside of the Volume II Book 1 quest sequence.

Miscellaneous

• Minor improvements to reward track messaging for IXP runes.
  
• Instance and Skirmish chests will no longer drop Heritage Runes.
  
• Obsolete Relic Packages have been removed from several instances and raids.
  
• Ill Omens Essence Bounty packages that have not yet been used can now be used by characters above level 130. They will grant a level 130 essence selection package to any characters level 130 and higher.
  
• "Remembered Rivals" Featured Instance gear now binds to account rather than character.
  
• Raid Groups playing on Landscape will no longer benefit from "Open Tapping", and will also no longer receive gold, loot, XP, reputation, quest advancement or deed advancement from monster kills on landscape.
  
• "Sealed Tracery" boxes will once again deliver traceries to level 45 - 49 characters.
  
• The items "Tome of Greater Deed Acceleration" and "Slayer Deed Accelerator (60 min)" now last for 6 hours. "Slayer Deed Accelerator (60 min)" has been renamed "Slayer Deed Accelerator (6 hours)".
  
• The item "Slayer and Skill Deed Boost (90 min)" now lasts for 6 hours. Its name has been updated to "Slayer and Skill Deed Boost (6 hours)".
  
• Name restrictions have been loosened around words similar to "Defender".
  
• "Helm of Crystal Resolve" no longer clips the tops of the followings heads:
  
• Human male
  
• Dwarf
  
• Stout-axe
  
• Beorning male
  
• "Chestplate of Crystal Resolve" has been adjusted to better fit Hobbits.
  
• Using LIXP Runes for the Reward Track now provides better indications of success, failure, and the related reasons.
  
• Added an option to update your graphics display adapter from the v -> Options -> Repair tab of the game launcher. 
  
• If the game client doesn't appear to start, and there is no error of any kind, please take a look at this option. 
  
• For those familiar with the workaround of setting the DisplayAdapter value in UserPreferences.ini, this is intended to be a supported way of setting that value.
  
• Improved messaging for when the worlds are down.
  
• Improved the backend around the chat system, which should reduce frequency of disconnects.
  
• Added an 'Embers of Enchantment' barterer for the Hiddenhoard of Abnankâra. In order to acquire a piece of gear from the barterer, you will often need to have the completion deed for the tier following where the gear is introduced. Below is a breakdown:
  
• T1: Jewelry (Neck, Pocket), Off-hands
  
• T2: Jewelry (Rings, Earrings), Feet
  
• T3: Legs, Chest, Shoulders
  
• T4: Hands, Head, Cloak

Known Issues

• Training Audacity as a Creep from 35 to 36 will offer the player to train to 37. You cannot train beyond 36. If you log out and log back into the game this issue is resolved.

Here are the Release Notes for Update 33: The Yondershire, released on Wednesday, April 20th, 2022. 



This year we are partying in a big way, with all sorts of giveaways, events, and more! The Anniversary Event begins at 10:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on April 20th, 2022, and runs until 3:00 AM Eastern on May 11th.

Our Anniversary Event takes place inside The Lord of the Rings Online, starting at the Party Tree, located on The Hill in The Shire (location: 29.9S, 71.5W). When you first log in while the event is active you will also receive a message in Available Quests, which will get you a free map to take you there. Once there, make sure to pick up the wrapper quest “Another Lovely Year” by speaking to Waldo Rumble by the Party Tree!

This year we are debuting a new Festivity Instance called “A Flurry of Fireworks!” Help bring about the greatest fireworks display Bree-land has ever seen! Find “A Flurry of Fireworks” in the Seasonal Instances category of the Instance Finder. The Instance Finder can be opened by pressing Shift+F or by navigating to it in the Main Menu.

This year's Anniversary Event features a ton of new items to barter and earn! Among the new rewards are cosmetic items, a steed, and war-steed cosmetics “of Crystal Resolve”, a new Golden Crystal Beetle cosmetic pet, new fireworks consumables, a new housing fire pit and fireplace, and the debut of a new pet: the Corgi! Corgis can be bartered for Festivity Tokens, Anniversary Tokens, or Mithril Coins. Some Corgis are being helpful and hauling a cart while others are running unburdened. Everyone who logs in during the Anniversary Event will also receive a free Corgi pet.

Make sure to log in between 10:00 AM Eastern on April 20th and 3:00 AM Eastern on May 11th to pick up your “Happy 15th Anniversary” gifts!  

Additionally, we will once again have a 15-Year Giftbox available in-game that can be claimed by logging in between April 20th, 2022 after 10:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) until 3:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on April 1st, 2023.


Welcome to the northern region known as the Yondershire, a sparsely populated region of moor, thicket, and fen that has long been home to Hobbit recluses and troublemakers. Since the time of Bullroarer Took, the Yondershire has squabbled with the more comfortable parts of the Shire. The upstart Lotho Sackville-Baggins aims to bully the local Hobbits, but they’re none too keen on his designs.

Explore the Yondershire, our first expansion of the Shire in years! Fun Hobbit adventures for characters level 20 to 23. FREE to VIPs and available in the LOTRO Store! 

You can get to Yondershire:

• West out of Little Delving
  
• North-west out of Needlehole through Rushock Gate
  
• South-east out of Ered Luin past the Falathlorn Homesteads through the Eastway
  
• South-west out of Oatbarton through Bullroarer's Sward
  
• Quest, explore, and craft your way to level 95 to your heart’s content!

With this update, all quests, areas, instances, and expansions released between the original launch of LOTRO back in 2007 and up to – and including! - the release of Helm’s Deep, the High-elf race, and the Rune-Keeper, Warden, and Beorning classes- will be available for free to everyone.

VIP players will have access to the Standard Edition versions of the Mordor Expansion, the Minas Morgul Expansion and the War of Three Peaks.  VIP players now receive 5 additional active quest slots, up to a maximum of 75. As a 15th anniversary special gift, the  benefits of the Subscriber's Jug (VIP Town Services) will last for two weeks instead of one day. 


We will begin the process of ending support for the 32-bit versions of the game client for The Lord of the Rings Online on May 18th, 2022. The 32-bit clients will continue to be supported until January 1st, 2023. In the meantime, some features may not work fully on the 32-bit clients. We recommend all players change their settings in the game launch to switch to the 64-bit game client. This is done by pressing the down arrow button at the top of the launcher, then selecting Options.

• Beorning
  
• Fixed description of Beorning Greater Swarm Trait. Now correctly indicates that only the DoT component becomes AoE.
  
• The bonus damage from Execute's rage consumption is now a base multiplier rather than a mastery multiplier, and is much more potent.
  
• Brawler
  
• General skill damage bumped, in many cases quite substantially.
  
• Removed text from the Brawler's Mettle tooltip that described functionality it doesn't have.
  
• Updated icon for Brawler trait 'Fulgurant Strike Cooldown' to match its skill icon.
  
• 'Gut Punch' now correctly states that it reduces the target's outgoing damage by 5%.
  
• 'Share Innate Power' skill unlock will not time out if not used within 15s of achieving max buff tier. Should now last as long as the buff itself is maintained.
  
• 'One For All' was only granting 1% mitigation bonus per nearby ally, it now correctly grants 2% per (max 10%).
  
• 'Fist of the Valar' base damage reduced, but its pip mod increased to +15%/pip, and is now a Base damage multiplier (much more potent).
  
• 'Pummel's' duration has been reduced [5s->3s], but it now pulses faster [1s->0.5s]. Damage rebalanced for faster duration.
  
• Fixed multiple bugs with innate strength buff timing and shared innate strength application.
  
• Innate strength personal buffs increased duration [15->20s]
  
• The skill 'Iron Will' no longer consumes any mettle when used.
  
• The effect from 'Iron Will' now correctly matches its skill tooltip. This skill's effect was incorrectly reducing incoming damage more than the skill tooltip stated
  
• if cast while you had 4-9 mettle. This has been resolved, and only reduces damage by 2% per mettle.
  
• Burglar
  
• The Gambler trait 'Swift and Subtle' now correctly increases the potency of the heal from Bob and Weave.
  
• Captain
  
• Fixed bug that the Captain's 'Hiddenhoard' yellow-set bonus was erroneously applying to the skill even if the set was not equipped.
  
• 'Standard of Honour' now scales properly with weapon damage at trait ranks 1-4. It also now gains the listed healing bonus from its trait.
  
• Champion
  
• 'Blade Wall' base damage reduced ~25%.  
  
• Trait "Strong Armed Swings" now correctly applies to all Strike skill hits.
  
• This trait was erroneously applying a buff to off-hand hits made by AoE champion skills, which only occurred if dual-wielding. This has been fixed.
  
• This trait was only applying to second and third hits from strike skills, despite suggesting otherwise. It will now correctly apply to the first hit as well.
  
• Guardian
  
• Fixed 'Catch a Breath' set bonus to work properly with tracery (or other) buffs.
  
• Hunter
  
• Fixed 'Swift Mercy' trait not correctly reducing the focus cost of 'Merciful Shot' with 'Swift Bow' shots.
  
• Lore-master
  
• Lore-masters now advance their level 1-50 damage and healing progressions in line with the Minstrel & Rune-keeper progressions.
  
• Damage of Red Line skills and effects in general has been improved.
  
• 'Sic'em' retired and 'Gust of Wind', 'Burning Embers', and 'Sticky Gourd' reworked due to attempt to reduce or eliminate severe performance issues they were causing.
  
• 'Sticky Gourd' effects are now applied as an immediate AoE that applies its own DoT/Debuff directly to targets, rather than a hotspot. It can also apply tier 1 Burning Embers when improved. The effects themselves now have a 20s duration. 
  
• 'Improved Sticky Gourd' now immediately applies one copy of Improved Burning Embers, but does not continue to apply them thereafter. The hotspot version of burning embers wasn't getting some of the Lore-master's stats, such as crit chance, and would overwrite those cast normally, significantly limiting their damage. This version only applies once, but should work properly.
  
• 'Fierce Lightning' can now be applied by any Lore-master lightning skill. It now directly applies its fire DoT to targets, rather than setting the ground on fire.
  
• 'Fierce Lightning's' pulse rate reduced to every 2 seconds, but damage increased. Duration unchanged.  This effect can stack up to 2x per caster.
  
• 'Sic'em' replaced with 'A Murder of Crows'. This skill summons a cloud of crows around the target for 15s, with a 2m CD. While they persist the crows inflict enormous damage and disorient their victim, reducing hit chance and increasing the damage of other attacks made against the target. Enemies within 7m of the main target also take constant morale damage from the cloud of circling crows, but are not debuffed.
  
• 'Burning Embers' is now a single effect with 4 tiers (smouldering->burning->searing->blazing).
  
• Successive casts of 'Burning Embers' will upgrade the DoT.
  
• Each caster may have one copy of it on a given target.
  
• All other variants (crossfire, sticky version etc.) are gone.
  
• Each tier now has its own variations in visual FX and icon.
  
• Damage of the single instance of 'Burning Embers' has increased greatly.
  
• When Lighting skills trigger 'Burst of Flame' on a target 'Burning Embers' is only downgraded one tier rather than being consumed, unless it was tier 1, in which case it is removed.
  
• 'Gust of Wind' can now only spread burning embers from its main target to others in the AoE- it no longer tries to spread from every target, to every target - this was a big performance issue.
  
• 'Gust of Wind' can upgrade embers one stage on any targets it hits.
  
• Chance of spreading/upgrading has been increased.
  
• Resolved issues with the interaction between 'Kindred Flame' and the 'Hiddenhoard' set bonus. 
  
• Minstrel
  
• Base skill damage increased for most skills.
  
• 'Song of the Hammerhand' base bubble value reduced [80%->35%]. 
  
• 'Enduring Morale' now scales properly with level. At its third tier 'Enduring Morale' grants 'Call of the Second Age', a 2s stun effect that increases to 3s by tier 5. To help counter some of the loss of survivability, we've fixed scaling on this morale trait, and added a new CC source for the Minstrel for when they over pull.
  
• Fixed racial animation discrepancy for 'Call of the Second Age'.
  
• 'Call to the Second Age' animation has been adjusted and can now be affected by speed multipliers. The skill will also blend with locomotion animation.
  
• Traits 'Inspiring Finish' and 'Emboldened Finish' now each scale to a 100% application chance at max tier (25%->50%->100%) was (10%->20%->30%). 
  
• Base damage of 'Echoes of Battle' increased by ~50%.
  
• 'Echoes of Battle' damage bonuses from 'Cacophonous Timeless Echoes' (red trait) and 'Weakening Echoes of Battle' (yellow trait) have been swapped.
  
• 'Echoes' tick rate sped up from 5s-3s (this should offset the damage per tick, but not the actual DPS).
  
• 'Finesse' trait becomes 'Song of Arda', which grants up to +25% light damage.
  
• 'Piercing Ballads' trait now includes the Finesse buff that 'Song of Arda' replaced.
  
• 'Concentration' trait changed to a -10% attack speed passive.
  
• 'Coda of Fury' cry reset chance increased [30->50%] chance.
  
• 'Emboldening Finish' damage bonus improved [15->25%]. 
  
• 'Bracing Finish' damage bonus increased [7.5->15%].
  
• 'Coda Finishing' buffs extended [10->12s].
  
• 'Echoes of Battle' base damage increased substantially. Tweaked 'Echoes of Battle' to tick faster (3s) and to allow partial ticks, as playing ballads frequently causes it to reset, interrupting its ticks.  (This is a partial fix for a known issue where changes to tactical damage bonuses will cause 'Echoes of Battle' toggle to refresh, interrupting its pulse timer and substantially reducing its damage potential.)
  
• Warden
  
• Determination skill 'For the Free Peoples' buff now reduces incoming damage by 2.5% per stack, up to a maximum of -25% incoming damage.

• Brawler Zircon Belt Buckles will have enhanced stats when they are crafted with a critical success.
  
• The crafted headpieces for the Beorning Abyss armour sets now correctly count towards their set bonuses.
  
• T9 Cook reputation trail food recipes will now display their names correctly when multiples of the recipes are stacked.
  
• Fixed extraction recipe for Bit of Pure Anórien Ore, so you can no longer use a Bit of Pure Anórien Ore or Universal Optional Crafting Ingredient to boost crit chance of extraction.
  
• The master jeweler "Beryl Belt Buckle Recipe" icon and description now correctly identify the recipe as being part of the master tier.

• New and Changed Word of Craft Set bonuses:
  
• Perfect Accuracy renamed to Heroic Alacrity and now provides a set bonus of -3% Attack Speed.
  
• Perfect Precision renamed to Heroic Precision and now provides a set bonus of +3% Crit Chance.
  
• Grand Armour now provides a set bonus of +1.5% physical mitigation.
  
• Grand Willpower now provides a set bonus of +1.5% tact mitigation.
  
• Perfect Healing now provides a set bonus of +3% outgoing healing. - Perfect Recovery now provides a set bonus of +3% Incoming Healing.
  
• New Beorning Traceries:
  
• Counter Dodge & Counterattack Damage (+5% dodge, +50% dmg)
  
• Shake Free Cooldown (-10s)
  
• Slash Damage (+35%)
  
• Thrash Damage (+35%)
  
• Nature's Mend Healing (+20%)
  
• Encouraging Roar Instant Heal (+15%)
  
• The following Beorning Traceries have been updated:
  
• Slam Bonus Wrath Chance tracery now also adds damage to that skill (+25%)
  
• Bonus DoT Pulse tracery now also extends the Swarm debuffs by a similar duration so they match.
  
• One specific effect change to complement the tracery changes:
  
• Crippling Stings base duration extended [8->12s] to match the other swarm debuffs, but its base slow magnitude was reduced [-30%->-15%]. Now maxes at [-50% -> -35%].

• The Angle of Mitheithel will now act the same as other regions do regarding Event-based and Festival-based effects/bonuses.
  
• Fate of Gundabad
  
• Pit of Stonejaws - Dwarf-wights that appear during Tombs of the Old Lords will no longer spawn inside their sarcophagi and have updated entrance animations.
  
• Black Book of Mordor Chapter 13.8 'Guardians of the Tower' will now have billboards that update with each monster kill.
  
• The deed 'Quests of Azanulbizar' was only awarding a single package of "Enhancement Runes, Incomparable" instead of two. Beginning with Update 33, this deed will instead award 2x "Enhancement Rune, Lvl 121". Players who have already completed the deed will be retroactively granted these Enhancement Runes upon logging after Update 33 goes live. Thank you for your patience on this matter.
  
• Welkin-lofts - Instance: The Tipping Point - Corrected an issue where Gorgar's Orcs were sometimes not appearing at the conclusion of the instance.
  
• The Hiddenhoard of Abnankâra
  
• Brittle Chains and Hobgoblin Totems can no longer become Scions on Tier 4+.
  
• Dushtalbúk's 'Absolute Clarity' now tiers up every 7 seconds on Tier 4+, up from 5 seconds.
  
• Monster stat mods have been adjusted slightly downward for Tier 4. Health is now multiplied by 3.5, down from 3.75. Damage is now multiplied by 3.25, down from 3.5.
  
• Mordor
  
• Gorgoroth - Continue the Conquest: If you have completed the Deed: Tales of Gorgoroth and are at least Level 115, but did not receive this quest, you can now obtain the quest by travelling to any of the Mordor Allegiance Halls, the Udun Foothold, the Ruins of Dingarth, or Magh Ashtu in Gorgoroth.
  
• A variety of Doomfold, Ironfold, Minas Ithil, and Gundabad Draughts and Salves have been added to appropriate Healer and Tavern Keep vendor NPCs.
  
• The Coldfells vendor has been updated with new Poison, Disease, Fear, and Wound potions as well as new rations.
  
• The exit portal for Mission: Clearing a Path is now clearly marked with the customary visual FX. This should reduce the frequency of players going "Hmm I wonder what's back here?" and accidentally leaving the mission.
  
• The Zhelruka Clan - Quests for the Zhelruka Clan that allow use of Mithril Coins to swiftly travel to certain Objectives now properly place the player at the proper location instead of outside the Hall of Vérnozal.
  
• Urugarth - Deed: The Orcs of Urugarth - This Deed and its 'Advanced' variant now advance from defeating Goblins in Urugarth. If you previously had either of these Deeds underway but not completed, their progress will be reset at the time of this Update. However, they will be much quicker to complete. If you have previously completed these Deeds, you will see no change.
  
• Adjusted a Hungry Hobbit patrol in Little Delving.
  
• One of the drakeling eggs in Kordh Gurat needed for the Deepscrave quest "Drake's Cradle" is now reachable.
  
• Bee's Big Business: Challenge: Flower Power - Players can now complete the Small Fellowship and Fellowship versions of this quest on Legendary Servers.
  
• Bee's Big Business: Challenge: Bee's Big Business - Players can now complete the Small Fellowship and Fellowship versions of this Deed on Legendary Servers.
  
• Deed Vanguard of Central Gondor now rewards players with a Cracked Rohirrim Tracery rather than an obsolete Blemished Symbol of the Elder King.
  
• Missions: Bonus Legendary Item Boosts will now award players with an incomparable tracery, rather than heritage runes which are unusable by any players below level 115.
  
• Removed obsolete travel route from Hrimbarg.
  
• Dug out hobbit hole in Breeland.
  
• Added Mailboxes to Belfalas and Eastfold Housing Social Spaces.
  
• Adjusted placement of Forsting

• The word Gundabad has been removed from the Legendary Items Reward Track panel title.
  
• For the remaining 2022 Festivals, the dyes that were bartered for mithril coins last year can be acquired for the appropriate festival tokens this year, while the dyes available for festival tokens last year are now available for mithril barter.
  
• Akúlhun's Brand of the Tyrant and Lainedhal's Insignia of the Captain-General now correctly apply immunity to slow, disarm, and silence effects for 5 seconds, rather than 10 seconds.
  
• Fixed typos in Great River, Gondor, Mordor, Rohan, Vales of Anduin, Evendim, Warden Class quests, Bingo quests, food items, Urugarth, Weathertop, Wildwood, Great River, and Big Battles.
  
• Shimmering Dust and Monstrous Scale item descriptions incorrectly stated that they could be turned in for tasks. Their descriptions now correctly state that they can only be sold to vendors.
  
• LUA: Fixed an issue where using the "Subscriber Town Services" would not clear LUA bank data between character logins.
  
• The Subscriber Buffs and Town Services item granted by the VIP Rewards daily quest will now last for two weeks.
  
• The "Valar 130 trait points - Minstrel" item will, going forward, now give the correct amount of class trait points, and stack with previous Valar level boost 120 use.
  
• When using the Flame of Ancalamír, the confirmation dialog now correctly states that it will deconstruct the entire stack of target items at once.
  
• All relic of Gundabad items now correctly state that they are only sought after by the Zhélruka, and cannot be used to advance other allegiances.
  
• Yondershire: Corrects mistranslation of "Huge Wings" During the Thorin's hall Questlog
  
• Symbols of Celebrimbor and Symbols of the Elder King should not be disenchantable for ancient script. The 'Blemished' level 100 versions of these items can no longer be disenchanted. They may still be used to craft obsolete legendary items for their cosmetics.
  
• Forge-masters will no longer offer to tell you about imbuement.
  
• Fixed stat scaling on several Captain standards. In particular, Anórien standards were providing too much morale, and have been corrected down to what they should be. Gundabad-tier standards were providing morale that didn't scale properly, and now provide the correct amount of Vitality instead. Captains using Gundabad-tier standards should see their maximum morale increase slightly as a result of this fix.
  
• The size of the housing decoration item 'Hrímil Frost-heart in Effigy' has been appropriately increased.
  
• The spear's innate bleed "Spear-pierce" now correctly scales with item level.
  
• Future world shutdown messaging should be more visible.
  
• The launcher will now ask you to switch to the 64-bit game client if you are still using a 32-bit one.
  
• Updated several typos and mistranslations in the French and German, including in titles, quests, and maps.
  
• Updated localization for a number of strings in the launcher,  making the text clearer for indicating and selecting which game client being used.
  
• Fan Bundles - Some of our fan bundles granted LI2 tokens that could not be bartered properly at Rivendell.
  
• The broken tokens' description has been updated to reflect their status and let owners know where to trade them in. 
  
• Existing 'bad' tokens from already opened packages can be bartered at the Rivendell Archive for packages with working tokens.
  
• These now grant packages that will give character bound tokens that will work correctly. These tokens will scale to the level of the character opening the sub-package.

This year we are partying in a big way, with all sorts of giveaways, events, and more. Read on to celebrate with us!




Our Anniversary Event starts at the Party Tree, located on The Hill in The Shire (location: 29.9S, 71.5W). When you first log in while the event is active you will also receive a message in Available Quests, which will get you a free map to take you there. Once there, make sure to pick up the wrapper quest “Another Lovely Year” by speaking to Waldo Rumble by the Party Tree! You can read more about the Anniversary Event in our guide.

This year we are debuting a new Festivity Instance called “A Flurry of Fireworks!” Help bring about the greatest fireworks display Bree-land has ever seen! Find “A Flurry of Fireworks” in the Seasonal Instances category of the Instance Finder. The Instance Finder can be opened by pressing Shift+F or by navigating to it in the Main Menu.

This year's Anniversary Event features a ton of new items to barter and earn! Among the new rewards are cosmetic items, a steed, and war-steed cosmetics “of Crystal Resolve”, a new Golden Crystal Beetle cosmetic pet, new fireworks consumables, a new housing fire pit and fireplace, and the debut of a new pet: the Corgi!

Corgis can be bartered for Festivity Tokens, Anniversary Tokens, or Mithril Coins. Some Corgis are hauling a cart while others are running unburdened. Everyone who logs in during the Anniversary Event will receive a free Corgi pet.

Anniversary Tokens can be bartered during the event for the following new rewards:

• Cloak of Crystal Resolve
  
• Boots of Crystal Resolve
  
• Gloves of Crystal Resolve
  
• Helm of Crystal Resolve
  
• Pauldrons of Crystal Resolve
  
• Chestplate of Crystal Resolve
  
• Crystal Resolve Garments - Gift-wrapped selection box
  
• Steed of Crystal Resolve - Festival/Mithril Barter
  
• Saddlebag of Crystal Resolve
  
• Caparison of Crystal Resolve
  
• Head-piece of Crystal Resolve
  
• Legs of Crystal Resolve
  
• Saddle of Crystal Resolve
  
• Tail of Crystal Resolve
  
• Crystal Resolve War-steed Cosmetics - Mithril Barter
  
• Tome of the Golden Crystal Beetle
  
• Tome of the Fireworks Corgi - Mithril Barter
  
• Fireplace of the Dragon's Hoard
  
• Firepit of the Dragon's Hoard
  
• Soaring Pinwheel Fireworks - consumable - Steel token barter
  
• Flaming Pinwheel Fireworks - consumable - Steel token barter
  
• Willow Fireworks - consumable - Steel token barter
  
• Enemy Tears Fireworks - consumable - Steel token barter

Festivity Tokens can be bartered for the following new items:

• Anniversary Blue Sparkler
  
• Tome of the Tri-colour Corgi
  
• Teal Anniversary Fireworks Banner
  
• Purple Anniversary Firework Banner
  
• Explosive Fireworks Crate
  
• Lamp post with Celebratory Yellow Banners
  
• Post with Celebratory Teal Streamers
  
• Celebratory Red Banner Wall Hanging
  
• Celebratory Yellow Long Banner Wall Hanging
  
• Teal Ceiling Streamers
  
• Green Ceiling Streamers

The Anniversary Event begins at 10:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on April 20th, 2022, and runs until 3:00 AM Eastern on May 11th.


As we announced in the March 2022 Producer’s Letter, We're making some big changes to the game! The following will happen automatically when Update 33 is released:

Permanently Free for everyone:

• High Elf Race
  
• Classes:
  
• Rune-keeper
  
• Warden
  
• Beorning
  
• ALL Quests, Instances, areas, and expansions released between April of 2007 and the release of Helm's Deep. Quest, craft, and explore your way to level 95! Includes:
  
• Expansion Quests: Helm's Deep
  
• Expansion Quests: Isengard
  
• Expansion Quests: Mirkwood
  
• Expansion Quests: Moria
  
• Expansion Quests: Rohan
  
• Instance Cluster: Isengard
  
• Instance Cluster: Rohan
  
• Instance: Halls of Night
  
• Instance: Inn of the Forsaken
  
• Quest Pack: Eriador Bundle
  
• Quest Pack: Angmar
  
• Quest Pack: Enedwaith
  
• Quest Pack: Eregion
  
• Quest Pack: Evendim
  
• Quest Pack: Forochel
  
• Quest Pack: Great River
  
• Quest Pack: Lothlorien
  
• Quest Pack: Misty Mountains
  
• Quest Pack: North Downs
  
• Quest Pack: Trollshaws
  
• Quest Pack: Wildermore
  
• Raid: Draigoch's Lair
  
• Skirmish: Attack At Dawn
  
• Skirmish: Defence of the Prancing Pony
  
• Skirmish: Ford of Bruinen
  
• Skirmish: Stand at Amon Sul
  
• Skirmish: Storm on Methedras
  
• Skirmish: Survival: Barrow-downs
  
• Skirmish: The Icy Crevasse
  
• Skirmish: Thievery and Mischief
  
• NOTE: Eriador Bundle includes Quest Pack: Angmar, Quest Pack: Enedwaith, Quest Pack: Eregion, Quest Pack: Evendim, Quest Pack: Forochel, Quest Pack: Misty Mountains, Quest Pack: North Downs, and Quest Pack: Trollshaws.

Permanently Free – VIP ONLY:

• Standard Edition – Mordor Expansion
  
• Standard Edition – Minas Morgul Expansion
  
• Standard Edition – War of Three Peaks
  
• +5 Quest log limit
  
• The benefits of the Subscriber's Jug (VIP Town Services) now last for two weeks instead of one day.

Make sure to log in between 10:00 AM Eastern on April 20th and 3:00 AM Eastern on May 11th to pick up your “Happy 15th Anniversary” gifts! When you log in you will receive the following if you are at least level two when the Anniversary Event is active:

Account-Wide Gifts:

• Chestnut Corgi Pet
  
• Steed of Starlight (This skill also auto-grants the Starlight Caparison, Head-piece, accessory, leg-guards, and saddle.
  
• Collector’s Edition – Mordor Expansion
  
• Collector’s Edition – Minas Morgul Expansion
  
• Collector’s Edition – War of Three Peaks

Account-Wide Gifts – VIP ONLY:

• Starlight Cloak
  
• Hooded Starlight Cloak
  
• Light Weapon Aura

Once per Account 15-year Celebration Login Gifts:

• Mithril Coin x10
  
• Gift of the Valar
  
• Anniversary Small Carry-all Selection Box
  
• 15-year Celebration Gift Box containing
  
  • Trait: Riding Characteristic
    
  • Virtue Acceleration Tome: 2000 Bonus Virtue XP
    
  • Reputation Acceleration Tome
    
  • Slayer and Skill Deed Boost (90 minutes)
    
  • Tracery Reclamation Scroll
    
  • Tracery Token, Incomparable
    
  • Legendary Item Box
  
  Once per Account – VIP ONLY 15-year Celebration VIP Login Gifts:
  
  
  • Mithril Coin x40
    
  • Anniversary Medium Carry-all Selection Box
    
  • 15-year Celebration VIP Giftbox containing
    
    • Trait: Riding Characteristic
      
    • Virtue Acceleration Tome: 2000 Bonus Virtue XP
      
    • Reputation Acceleration Tome
      
    • Slayer and Skill Deed Boost (90 minutes)
      
    • Tracery Reclamation Scroll
      
    • Tracery Token, Legendary
      
    • Legendary Item Box
      
    • Massive Pile of Silver Scraps worth 2 Gold
    
    Notes:
    
    
    • Make sure to log in on the world you wish to receive these awards. Once per Account rewards are distributed to the first character on the first world you log into while the Anniversary Event is active.
      
    • VIPs: The rewards you will receive for logging in during the Anniversary Event are in addition to the rewards every player will receive. Yes, you will get double of some things!
      
    • The Trait: Riding Characteristic is automatically consumed when sent to a character who does not possess the trait. If your character does possess the trait, the item will be delivered, and you can send it to another character on your account. Yes, VIPs will get two Trait: Riding Characteristics.
    
    
    15 Year Giftbox!
    
    Additionally, we will once again have a 15-Year Giftbox available in-game that can be claimed by logging in between April 20th, 2022 after 10:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) until 3:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on April 1st, 2023.
    
    This gift will be delivered to any player that logs in and previously claimed the 14-Year Giftbox. It includes:
    
    Free Players (non-PvMP):
    
    
    • Soaring Pinwheel Fireworks
      
    • Fifteen-Year Portrait Frame
      
    • Title: Clear as Crystal
    
    Creepside Players (PvMP):
    
    
    • Flaming Pinwheel Fireworks
      
    • Fifteen-Year Portrait Frame
      
    • +5% Attack Damage x5
      
    • Title: Crystal Shatterer
    
    
    The Yondershire Beckons!
    
    
    
    Finally, don't forget that we are debuting our next adventure pack with Update 33: The Yondershire!
    
    Since the time of Bullroarer Took, the Yondershire has squabbled with the more comfortable parts of the Shire. The upstart Lotho Sackville-Baggins aims to bully the local Hobbits, but they’re none too keen on his designs.
    
    Explore the Yondershire, and experience some more delightful Hobbit adventures, our first expansion of the Shire in years! For characters level 20 to 23. FREE to VIPs and available in the LOTRO Store!

Hello again! It’s time to update y’all again on what we have going on. Before I get into that, just a reminder that I’m Raninia, the Producer on The Lord of the Rings: Online, and I plan to continue to write these letters to you on a quarterly basis. You can see my previous letter here.

With that preamble out of the way, let’s talk about what’s happening between April and June!

Our next big update of 2022 – Update 33 - is expected for late-April, which will kick off our 15th Anniversary celebration, and bring with it a few significant surprises:

First, we’re adding a new area: the northern region known as the Yondershire, a sparsely populated region of moor, thicket, and fen that has long been home to Hobbit recluses and troublemakers.



Since the time of Bullroarer Took, the Yondershire has squabbled with the more comfortable parts of the Shire. The upstart Lotho Sackville-Baggins aims to bully the local Hobbits, but they’re none too keen on his designs. Explore the Yondershire, and experience some more delightful Hobbit adventures, our first expansion of the Shire in years!





Second, we’re bringing back the Anniversary Festival, and we’re adding a whole new festival instance, A Flurry of Fireworks! You’ve been asked to aid with the greatest fireworks display that Bree-land has ever seen. Setting up for the fireworks, things have gotten behind schedule and dusk is fast approaching. You must help keep everyone on task and deliver their fireworks to the proper locations on time! And if you’re looking for a bit more, we’ve got an exciting gift to share with everyone, but we’ll have more info about that when we get closer to our 15th Anniversary.

Third, we’re making some updates to VIP. Some of the smaller changes will stay under wraps for now, but I'm excited to inform you that VIP will now include the standard versions of the Mordor, Minas Morgul, and War of Three Peaks expansions. You may be wondering, why only those expansions? Well, that brings me to my next announcement.

Fourth, and long requested, we’re making some big changes to the LOTRO Store. You’ve seen some of the first changes we made a month ago with the release of Rangers and Ruins, which brought the Premium Wallet, Gold Currency Cap, and Virtue, Race, and Class trait slots for free to all players! Starting with Update 33, we’re making the High Elf race free for all players. Now everyone can play as those who beheld the beauty of Valinor, and play as a Captain, Champion, Guardian, Hunter, Lore-master, Minstrel, Rune-keeper, Warden, or Brawler through all of Middle-earth!



That, conveniently enough, brings me to the next change: Rune-keepers, Wardens, and Beornings will now be available for all players to play! Craft powerful runes, create masterful gambits, or summon the secret of Beorn, as you grow your legacy as a hero in Middle-earth! And if you’d like, you can do all of the above!

Finally, there’s another change that’s perhaps the biggest we’ve made since The Lord of the Rings: Online went free to play all those years ago... With this update, all quests, areas, instances, and expansions released between the original launch of LOTRO back in 2007 and up to – and including! - the release of Helm’s Deep will be available for free to everyone. Quest, explore, and craft your way to level 95 to your heart’s content!

As part of our celebration, we’ll have some more announcements lined up, stay tuned in April!

During this time, we’ll be making progress on our Legendary World of Anor, bringing players there to Isildur’s desecrated fortress city of Minas Morgul, and level cap 130, on April 13th. Less than a month later, on May 4th, Shadowfax will progress to the fabled stronghold of Rohan, Helm’s Deep, and its level cap of 95, which will now be accessible to any VIP at no added cost! And finally, at the end of June Treebeard and Shadowfax will both be making further steps. On June 29th, Treebeard will make its second jump, entering the dangerous forests of the Mirkwood, and Shadowfax will continue marching forward to the half-ruined lands of Gondor and Old Anorien.

Besides all that, we’ll continue with our ongoing work to improve performance and lag, keep adjusting class balance, continue bug-fixing, further refining the new Legendary Item system, and bring Season 2 of the Legendary Item Reward Track. All these improvements will arrive with about every patch.

We promised that we would be making some big announcements for our 15th Anniversary, and we’re confident that we’ve delivered, but we still have a few tricks up our sleeves that we can’t wait to share with you in the weeks and months ahead. 15 years is quite the milestone, and we’ll do everything we can to make it 15 more!

Raninia

Here are the Release Notes for Update 32: Rangers and Ruins, released on Wednesday, February 16th, 2022. 



"Beyond the falls of Amgaruslun in the Clovengap lies Abnankâra, the Hiddenhoard. Once an ancient treasury wrought in secret by Mótsog and the Greymauls during their rebellion against the Longbeards in the Elder Days, it has become the lair of Hrímil Frost-heart, a dreaded cold-dragon of Morgoth. Within this frozen retreat, Hrímil tends her wounds and slumbers, dreaming of vengeance upon Prince Durin and the dwarves of the Gabil'akkâ..."

The Hiddenhoard of Abnankâra will initially be available to play on both Tier 1 and Tier 2 difficulties, with Tiers 3-5 unlocking in the weeks to come! The raid will open at Noon Eastern (-5 GMT) on Thursday, February 24th, 2022. In addition to three exciting new boss encounters, including the final confrontation between Durin and Hrímil Frost-heart, this raid also features new rewards, a suite of new deeds, and new, time-limited titles for completing Tier 3, Tier 4, and Tier 5!

The Hiddenhoard of Abnankâra is available to all players who have purchased Fate of Gundabad and reached Level 140. Talk to Prince Durin at Zidir-nesad, the Steepset in Mount Gundabad to begin the quest to discover the Hiddenhoard! It is recommended, but not required that you complete the tale of The Legacy of Durin and the Trials of the Dwarves before entering the Hiddenhoard of Abnankâra.
The Leading the Charge Deed is available to earn until 3:00 AM Eastern (-5 GMT) on April 21st, 2022.


One of Smaug’s last treasure hoards has been opened and the Dwarves of Erebor have moved to reclaim it! Join them in owning a piece of Middle-earth, in the Great Hall under the Mountain.

New premium player and kinship housing is now available in Erebor! To learn more and tour the available homes, visit Gárthi Lockwarden in the Broker's Office in Bree as well as within Erebor in Tumnu-dûm, The Dwelling-halls NOTE: Players can own as many personal premium homes as they wish, but Kinships can only own one premium house. Erebor Housing includes:

• Twelve Base Premium Houses, one Special Base Premium House, six Deluxe Premium Houses, and one Premium Kinship House!
  
• A full suite of Town Services and social spaces for you to enjoy with your kinship and neighbors!
  
• New exterior music and Ambient Environment hook types to allow you even more customization options for your homes!
  
• Swimmable gold coins!
  
• Life-sized chess/checker boards

The Legendary Items Reward Track is now available to all players starting at level 45! This track can be accessed through the Menu (Character → Reward Track). As you play the game and collect Item XP it'll progress the track throughout the season, and if you get all the way to the end there is a repeatable goal for more rewards! We'll refresh the track every season, and the frequency, drop rate, and kind of rewards will change over time. The Legendary Items Reward Track is Account-based, so all of your characters on each world will contribute to the Rewards track, and you can select the rewards on whatever character you prefer. Read more in an article about the Legendary Items Reward Track on LOTRO.com.


Stretching south from the Trollshaws to the junction of the Bruinen and Mitheithel rivers is a wild land of rocky hills and deep pine-woods, and a graveyard of ancient kingdoms. The ruins of Elves and Men alike crumble among the trees, and the Rangers steal through the shadows of the trees, ever watchful, carrying out secret assignments as the north grows more dangerous by the day. The Angle of Mitheithel is a new area for levels 40 to 45.

The Angle of Mitheithel is free to VIPs and available in the LOTRO Store under the Quest Pack called "Rangers and Ruins".


Classes

• Beorning
  
• Relentless Maul can no longer be used while moving. The skill would instantly fire and cancel, and there were some other unintended behaviors.
  
• Base form of Relentless Maul now counts as a healing skill, as it can be modded with the Yellow line heal effect.
  
• Desperate Shout's buff is now visible again.
  
• Burglar
  
• Purge Corruption can now crit.
  
• Hedge Your Bet now heals 5% per pulse on all rolls. It now has a 15-30% chance of applying on each attack, based on the roll.
  
• The bleed on the Blue raid set has been reduced.
  
• Honed Wit now properly increases Burglar damage over time.
  
• Brawler
  
• Brawlers who complete the class quest "Brawling Lessons" will now receive a new title, "Fearsome Fists", in addition to the existing title. This title will be awarded retroactively to Brawlers who have already completed the quest.
  
• Changed the builder attacks to all have an animation time of 0.75 seconds. Previously varied from 1.0 to 1.5 depending on the builder.
  
• Come at Me has been buffed. Taunt radius increased (7->12) and base targets increased (3->5).
  
• Weather Blows can now be used in motion.
  
• The range of Strike Towards the Sky has been increased from 2.5 meters to 3.5 meters.
  
• All group buff effects smaller than 10 meters have been expanded to 10 meters.
  
• All attack AOE's shorter than 7 meters have been extended to 7 meters.
  
• The Eager Challenger trait in Blue line has been changed from -30 seconds to -20 seconds. The other -10 seconds is now available on a Tracery that also increases the Mayhem bubble magnitude.
  
• The Critical Chance Increase in Red line now has an additional effect at Tier 5: Critical hits with Finisher skills generate 1 Mettle.
  
• The base healing percentage for Joy of Battle has been increased from 1% to 3%.
  
• Pummel will no longer cancel early if used with five or less Mettle.
  
• Some Tracery naming and display issues have been corrected.
  
• Champion
  
• Bracing Attack no longer misses or can be BPE'd. Its damage has been reduced by about 20%.
  
• Merciful Strike's crit multipliers have been raised to match the default for most skills (x1.5 crit, x2.0 dev).
  
• Guardian
  
• Flash of Light now scales with your weapon. Damage now scales up more effectively into higher levels as well.
  
• Flash of Light now only procs off of your active Take to Heart target.
  
• Catch a Breath's cooldown timer will no longer bug when war-chant is reducing it.
  
• Shield Smash was incorrectly calculating its area of effect from the selected target rather than the Guardian. This has now been fixed. Shield Smash's arc range has been increased slightly to make up for lost reach.
  
• Hunter
  
• Lingering Wound now applies damage over time again.
  
• Rapid Fire now properly reduces the cost of Split Shot.
  
• Focus when affected by Song of Aid is now usable both in and out of battle.
  
• Lore-master
  
• Commune With Nature now has a 180 second cooldown. Nature's Light has had its duration changed to 20 seconds. Nature's Gift has had its initial cooldown removed so it can be used immediately. Both these pet skills have an internal cooldown of 180 seconds.
  
• Minstrel
  
• Call of Earendil now resets properly with Cries and Calls.
  
• Rune-keeper
  
• Some Rune-keeper damage over time pulse rates have been increased. The number of pulses is unchanged, so the durations are now shorter. The total damage is the same, but overall DPS is higher: Writ of Fire's pulse rate has gone from four to three seconds, and Scathing Mockery has had its pulse rate lowered from six to three seconds.
  
• Fire, Frost and Lightning skills are all now labeled correctly in their tooltips.
  
• Warden
  
• Tracery Mastery's cooldown has been improved from -3 to -5 seconds, while Remmorchant set bonuses have been reduced from -5 seconds to -3 seconds.
  
• For the Free Peoples now grants an incoming damage percentage reduction that increases to -25% at full stack. This replaces its old effect.
  
• Heals have been increased generally across the board.
  
• Critical Defense debuffs now scale correctly.

• Brawler Belt Buckle icons should now be consistent across crafting tiers.
  
• Achieving a critical success when crafting Dwarrowgleam Belt Buckles now adds 2 ilevels to the resulting item.
  
• Achieving a critical success when crafting Dwarrowgleam Stickpins now adds 2 ilevels to the resulting item.
  
• Players who have achieved the highest reputation with their crafting guild now have access to a recipe that will allow the creation of a Sunstone Shard once every 7 days. See your "Improved Recipes" vendor. Please note: These recipes require Gundabad (T14) Crafting.
  
• Housing
  
• Cape of Belfalas and Rohan housing interiors now support multiple music hooks.
  
• Cape of Belfalas and Rohan housing now supports exterior Ambient Environment and music hooks.
  
• Items
  
• Legendary Item Rewards: Older scaling instances made it too easy to farm Legendary rarity LI items. As a result, scaling instances have had their top end LI drops reduced to Incomparable rarity. Non-scaling instances remain unchanged.
  
• Legendary items may now reach item level 475.
  
• Incoming Healing progressions have been corrected on class items so they can now increase to current levels.
  
• New Adventurer's gear for level 140 characters will now scale to item level 461 - 463.
  
• Bound to Character Traceries and Essences now actually bind the legendary item or slotted item to the character when slotted.
  
• PvMP Rank cloaks are now gated by Monster Play, and may not be used outside the Ettenmoors.
  
• You can now equip a second Legendary Item without first unequipping the first if you have a unique Essence or Tracery in two different items.
  
• All shields will now offer the Crit Defence and Ranged Defence bonus previously only granted by Heavy (Guardian) shields.
  
• The Brawler Abyss Raid Set Armour pieces bartered from the Master of Mordor Lore in Dor Armarth on the Plateau of Gorgoroth are now actually usable by Brawlers.
  
• The Delver's Essence boxes now allows selection of a Vitality essence.
  
• New Brawler Traceries have been added to the barter vendor.
  
• The Pelennor Warrior's Gear Rewards Vendor - Master of Battle Lore now correctly offers Brawler set gear.
  
• All Task Quest items now list the regions that they belong to in their descriptions, excluding Housing Task Boards.

• Monsters above level 60 now have a small base Critical Defense rating.
  
• The wargs for "Corrupted Heirlooms" no longer count as North Downs creatures, so they will no longer trigger deeds, but especially not when you find them in Rohan.

• Class, Race, and Virtue trait slots will now automatically unlock when a character hits the required level, regardless of subscription status or purchase. This does not apply to Monster Play characters.

• The Featured Instance rotation has been updated to now include: Dungeons of Dol Guldur, Fornost: Wraith of Water, Seat of the Great Goblin, Iorbar's Peak, Sword-hall of Dol Guldur, and Barad Guldur. The Featured Instance reward packages have been updated, including new armour that will scale to your character level. In order to support this scaling, the reward packages will now decay, so they must be opened within 1 hour or be lost. The Featured Instance (Cap) quests will now require tier 2 completion of the instance. The Featured Challenge quests have been removed.
  
• Stablemasters in the Trollshaws, parts of Eregion, Lothlorien, Southern Mirkwood, and Eryn Lasgalen now use the Elk Travel Mode. NOTE: Since we have updated the Trollshaws Stablemaster routes players will need to rediscover them.
  
• A vector has been added from Thorenhad in the Trollshaws to guide players to the Angle of Mitheithel.
  
• Added some clarifying dialogue to "Chapter 6.1: The Artist and the Apprentice" to make it clear which character advances the quest.
  
• Enemies in Elderslade and Gundabad missions now execute their induction skills in 5 seconds down from 10 seconds.
  
• The Adventurer's Quartermaster and lootbox now offer Delving Adventurer's Essence Boxes.
  
• The Houses of Rest - Vethug Wintermind no longer becomes unattackable on Dui and Fellowship group sizes after being reset.
  
• The level requirement from Rivendell to Gath Forthnir has been adjusted from 125 down to 20.
  
• Fate of Gundabad
  
• Gundabad Quests: The story of Câr Bronach concludes in Gundabad with 20 additional quests for level 135-136. If you have completed questing in Câr Bronach, speak to Mézto at Grúmachath to continue.
  
• Den of Pughlak - Removed some visual effects that would stick onto players even after they left the instance.
  
• The name for the Orders From Dushtalbuk should now correctly display during "The Camps of Stazg Vozag".
  
• Gundabad Geode Hunter: Barter prices have been adjusted.
  
• Mission - Gundabad - Lay to Rest - Dwarf-wights now patrol the space and have proper appearances.
  
• Legacy of the Necromancer
  
• Lay of Rust and Rime - Scion of Winter - Stablemaster icons will no longer appear on the minimap during this instance.
  
• War of Three Peaks
  
• All tier completion deeds bestow in "Woe of the Willow" regardless of tier.

• Some French and German translations have been updated.
  
• The system now refers to Traceries correctly In the new Legendary Items UI instead of calling them Essences when unslotting, and with tooltips on the buttons.
  
• The Reforge UI now has a summary that is accurate, and the Reforge UI has had its text updated to reflect the new system.
  
• A display error on classic Essence examination has been fixed.

• The Gold restriction has been removed from free and premium accounts. All account types can now have a maximum of 9999 Gold without purchase of the Currency Cap.
  
• The benefits of the Premium Wallet Upgrade have now been applied to all accounts. The widest possible assortment of barter currencies, including a variety of instance tokens, region barter tokens, festival tokens, taxidermy barter items, and crafting instance tokens, will now automatically go into the barter wallet for all characters on all accounts.

• Erebor Housing: In order to prevent decorations from intruding on other player's properties, the mobile hooks in the lower courtyard of Deluxe Erebor Houses, and the Huge/Enormous Hooks in all Base Erebor Houses have their vertical movement restricted.
  
• The Last Bridge Stable-master appears on the Lone-lands map but not on the Trollshaws map.
  
• Barachen's Camp, Echad Candelleth and Gwingris Stable-masters do not appear on The Angle of Mitheithel map.
  
• The Legendary Items Reward Track currently uses the wrong icon  and does not yet have a hotkey for access. Access is through the Menu, under Character options.

Hello! For those of you who may not know who I am, I’m Raninia, the producer on The Lord of the Rings: Online. Severlin hasn’t gone anywhere, but I’m now picking up the duties of writing these letters and keeping you all abreast of the goings-on with the game.

Which brings me to another change being made to these letters –moving forward, these letters will come quarterly, and they’ll cover the next quarter. So today, I’ll be informing you what we’re planning to do from January through the end of March. Next time –which should be around March –I'll give a preview of what’s coming between April through the end of June, and so on.

Ok, on to the meaty stuff you’re here for!

Our first big update of 2022 – Update 32 - is expected for mid-February, and will begin our celebration of our upcoming 15-year anniversary, and bring with it several things:

First, beyond the Falls of Amgaruslun in the Clovengap lies Abnankâra, the Hiddenhoard. Once a grand treasury housing the golden coffers of Durin the Deathless, it has been claimed by Hrímil Frost-heart as her lair within Mount Gundabad. Within this frozen retreat, Hrímil tends her wounds and slumbers, dreaming of vengeance upon Prince Durin and the Dwarves of the Gabil'akkâ. We’re really excited for you all to experience the awesome conclusion of this storyline as we look towards the future. Look forward to seeing this 12-player raid on Bullroarer soon.



Second, we’re bringing player housing to Erebor! One of Smaug's last treasure hoards has been opened and the Dwarves of Erebor have moved to reclaim it. Join them in owning a piece of Middle-earth, in the Great Hall under the Mountain! This new premium neighborhood will include 12 Base Premium Houses, 1 Special Base Premium House, 6 Deluxe Premium Houses, and 1 Premium Kinship house, along with a full suite of town services and social spaces for you to enjoy with your kinship and neighbors! In addition to the new neighborhood, Erebor housing introduces new exterior music and dayfile hook types to allow players even more customization options for their homes! We also intend to extend the usage of housing permissions to allow players to make their yards fully private from uninvited guests.

Third, and long awaited, is our Legendary Item Reward Track! Each season of the Reward Track is planned to run for three months, and will give rewards based on your play that will help you progress your Legendary Items and a few other goodies as well. After each season, the rewards will refresh and you’ll be able to progress anew. All of your characters on a world will contribute to your reward track progress on that world –that means your main and your alts all help towards earning awesome rewards!

Fourth, we’ll also introduce a new area: the Angle of Mitheithel. Stretching south from the Trollshaws to the junction of the Bruinen and Mitheithel rivers is a wild land of rocky hills and deep pine-woods, and a graveyard of ancient kingdoms. The ruins of Elvesand Men alike crumble among the trees, and the Rangers steal through the shadows of the trees, ever watchful, carrying out secret assignments as the north grows more dangerous by the day. The Angle of Mitheithel will be for levels 40 to 45.

Finally, Update 32 will see the return of the Spring Festival with new pets and housing rewards!

During this time, we’ll also be making progress on our Legendary Worlds of Shadowfax and Treebeard. On January 5th, Treebeard will be making its first jump, entering the fabled Mines of Moria, and Shadowfax will continue progressing, this time to the dangerous lands of Isengard. Two months later, on March 2nd, Shadowfax will be entering the vast plains of Rohan! We’ll have more news on when Anor will be making its way to Minas Morgul in my next letter.

Besides all that, we’ll continue with our ongoing work to improve performance and lag, make adjustments to class balance, continue fixing bugs, and further refine the new Legendary Item system. These various things will arrive just about every patch.

I’m really excited for you all to see all of the progress we’re making and the updates we’ll be releasing in this quarter, and I’m also excited to hear how folks feel about the new format of these letters. We’re extremely thrilled tocelebrate our 15-year anniversary this year, and we’re working on fifteen more!

-Raninia

Available through Monday, November 29th, 2021:


Temporary Release: Bombur's Bounty!

A bundle of useful things including Mithril and boosts! Available through Monday, November 29th!

Double Bonus Points is Back!

Get twice the Bonus Points in the LOTRO Store through Monday November 29th!

Black Friday Sales in the LOTRO Store:

• 75% off Stat Tome Bundles
  
• 50% off Stable Master Stands
  
• 35% off Virtue Acceleration Tomes

Now through Monday November 29th!

Also on sale:

Forge Your Own Ring! Get 20% off:

• Crafting Guild Access
  
• Ingredient Packs
  
• Crafting Accelerators
  
• Rapid Crafting, Crafting Tiers, and Recipe Books

Available through Thursday December 2nd

Weekly Coupon

Free Fall Injury Immunity x5

Coupon Code: GETUPAGAIN

Now through Thursday December 2nd!


There is not much time left to redeem your Coupon Code to get ALL of our currently-available quest packs for FREE! Use the Coupon Code LOTROQUESTS2021 through Redeem Code in the LOTRO Store or learn more here: LOTRO.com/getready. The Coupon Code is available to redeem 1/Account through Tuesday, November 30th, 2021!

Following the grueling battles and heavy tolls of the initial assault, Prince Durin and his allies now regroup and prepare their final offensive on the mountain-home of Gundabad, seeking to reclaim their ancestral legacy from the corruption of the Orcs, hobgoblins, and Angmarim that have been infesting it. As the great dwarven army musters, tensions remain high between the Longbeards, Stout-axes, and Zhélruka, threatening to break the already fragile alliance before they can recover and restore their birthright. Meanwhile, thought to be fractured and pushed back by the dwarven victories, the host of Orc-Chieftain Gorgar the Ruthless now unites under the true Lord of Gundabad - the fearsome, great dragon Hrímil Frost-heart - who will stop at nothing to bring an end to Prince Durin and his followers.

Battle as the new Brawler class, take on new foes, forge new Legendary Weapons, and stand at last against Gorgar the Ruthless and Hrímil Frost-heart in a final, decisive battle. Achieve victory and Gundabad will belong to the dwarves once again, and forever! The latest Lord of the Rings Online expansion, Fate of Gundabad, is available now!

Read more about Update 31: Fate of Gundabad in our Release Notes: https://www.lotro.com/en/content/update-31-release-notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 30: Blood of Azog, released on Tuesday, June 8th, 2021.


Interlude: Blood of Azog

After the escape of Gorgar, son of Bolg, and the sealing of the gates of Mount Gundabad by Hrímil Frost-heart, Prince Durin faces his first true test as the leader of the Gabil'akkâ. As Durin weighs whether it will be vengeance or wisdom that guides his hand, Lord Glóin's thoughts turn to conflicts of old. All too familiar with the triumphs and sorrows of Durin's Folk, Glóin hopes that a lesson in history might temper Prince Durin's desire to bring the War of Three Peaks to an end heedless of all cost.

Blood of Azog introduces a new story set after the events of the War of Three Peaks that allows the player to experience historical moments in Middle-earth’s history as Prince Durin and the Gabil'akkâ make ready to reclaim Mount Gundabad. Meet new characters, see additional Dwarf-folk clans, and prepare for the adventures to come in Gundabad! Players can begin this story by talking to Glóin inside Annâk-khurfu in Elderslade. The Blood of Azog is FREE to VIPs and available to purchase in the LOTRO Store as a Quest Pack inside of the game.

Tales of Yore: Azanulbizar

Among the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain, studious scholars have kept detailed accounts of the history of Durin’s Folk. Within these lengthy volumes is the tale of the Sixth War of the Dwarves and Orcs, which ended with the Battle of Azanulbizar. Players will experience the momentous events of the battle as their own characters, but through the eyes of Hermáth Stormhammer, a hero of Durin’s Folk, as recounted in his written works. Players can begin the Tales of Yore: Azanulbizar content by following the Blood of Azog interlude questline from Glóin at Annâk-khurfu in Elderslade. Players who wish to jump immediately into Azanulbizar, can travel to Akrâz-zahar in the Dwelling-halls of Erebor and click on the Tales of Yore: Azanulbizar collection of books to travel to the new quest area.

As part of the addition of Azanulbizar, T.A. 2799, Update 30 also includes a small visual update to The Lord of the Rings Online’s Dimrill Dale, first introduced in the Mines of Moria Expansion.

Raid: The Fall of Khazad-dûm

Although the fate of Khazad-dûm was all but certain by the year 1981 of the Third Age, the Dwarves of Durin's Folk resolved to make a final stand against the Balrog of Morgoth better known as 'Durin's Bane'. In this new 12-player raid, players will join King Náin I and his vanguard, including Nafni, as they valiantly attempt to drive Durin's Bane from the Second Hall. Can the Dwarves of Durin's Folk prevail against this ancient foe or do they merely delay the inevitable? Witness a battle against Durin's Bane like you've never seen before in the Lord of the Rings Online!

Players can gain access to this new raid by approaching the gates of Khazad-dûm at Azanulbizar. In addition, players who have finished the main questline in Tales of Yore: Azanulbizar are granted an additional quest to complete the raid and earn unique rewards!

Tiers 1-3 are now available! The "Leading the Charge" Deeds will be available to earn through August 11th, 2021. UPDATE: We are shifting the start date for Tiers 4 and 5 of the Update 30 raid The Fall of Khazad-dûm. Tier 4 will now be available starting at Noon Eastern on July 1st, and Tier 5 will be available starting at Noon Eastern on July 15th. The Deed-gated raid gear being made available for Embers is expected to become available around mid-August. The Leading the Charge deeds will no longer be available after 3:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on August 26th.

• Beorning
  
• Expose is now a target debuff that increases incoming damage by about 7.5% for melee and 5% for ranged. In human form it buffs Tactical and Ranged instead.
  
• Vigilant Roar no longer taunts by default, and instead only taunts when the first rank of the Vigilant Roar trait is taken (similar to Biting Edge).
  
• Vicious Claws (tank version only) can no longer miss, nor be blocked, parried, or evaded.
  
• Damage has been increased for the following skills:
  
• Slam
  
• Nature's Vengeance (initial hit)
  
• Bee Swarm (initial hit)
  
• Vicious Claws, particularly in red line.
  
• Grisly Cry
  
• Vigilant Roar
  
• Thrash, particularly for its lower tiers
  
• Expose
  
• Bash
  
• Execute
  
• Cooldown on non-combat resurrection has been reduced from 20 seconds to one second.
  
• Burglar
  
• In line with some other classes that have seen reductions in raid debuff skills, a few of the yellow line trickster debuffs are being similarly trimmed.
  
• Trickster debuff reductions:
  
• Trick: Dust in the Eyes has had its maximum miss rate reduced from ~39% to ~15%.
  
• Trick: Disable Damage reduction has been lowered from -15% to -10%. and the Attack Speed reduction has been lowered from -20% to -10%.
  
• Disable has been reworked to correct various buffs.
  
• Finesse's debuff is now -33% of the target's Finesse, rather than a level scaled value.
  
• Legendary Item bonus to Addle tactical damage has been reduced to 5%, unimbued bonus to induction time reduced to 16%.
  
• Burglar Bob & Weave and Relish Battle trait heals tick faster (1/second).
  
• Captain
  
• The Captain's ability to maintain high and extended degrees of invulnerability has made them irreplaceable in high challenge content, so we've needed to limit a few of their most powerful abilities.
  
• Yellow Line:
  
• Captain Yellow line morale bonus reduced from 25->10%.
  
• Shield of the Dunedain LI legacy cooldown bonus reduced from (+10->+5s) (total duration reduced from 20->15s), Shield of the Dunedain can only be used on others.
  
• Stand Tall Duration bonus reduced from (+10->+3s), Proc cooldown reduced from (1.0,2.0,3.0->1.0s,1.5s.2.0s)
  
• Red Line
  
• Telling Mark base effect reduced from 5% to 3%, The traited bonus has been reduced from 5% to 2%, total 10% to 5%.
  
• As a 100% uptime debuff with no action time cost, Telling Mark's group effect was too powerful.
  
• Kick can no longer miss, nor be blocked, parried, or evaded.
  
• Fixed: Captain banner heralds were not correctly inheriting offensive bonuses from their summoner.
  
• Fixed an old 'Make Haste' duration change that was never processed correctly.
  
• A few captain buffs are now raid-wide. As part of this change Motivating Speech needed to be turned into a duration buff in order to make it raid-wide. Motivating Speech now has a five minute duration with a one minute cooldown.
  
• Champion:
  
• Clobber can no longer miss, nor be blocked, parried, or evaded.
  
• Guardian
  
• Protection by the Sword's group melee damage buff has been increased from 2% to 5%.
  
• Sting has had its cooldown reduced from 3 seconds to 2.5 seconds, which will allow it to be more conveniently slipped between skills with longer attack executions.
  
• Heavy Weapons Training now increases skill damage by 10%, up from 5%.
  
• Relentless Assault now grants a modest amount of Finesse.
  
• The following skills have received a damage boost, listed approximately from the smallest boost to the largest boost:
  
• Brutal Assault
  
• Whirling Retaliation
  
• Redirect
  
• War-chant
  
• Hammer Down
  
• Shield-blow
  
• Smashing Stab
  
• Bash
  
• To the King
  
• Sweeping Cut
  
• Shield-swipe
  
• Force Opening
  
• Overwhelm
  
• Guardian's Ward
  
• Stamp
  
• Turn the Tables
  
• Stamp can no longer miss or be blocked, parried, or evaded.
  
• Hunter
  
• Hail of Arrows has been fixed to properly proc 50% of the time at the first skill tier, and 100% of the time at the 2nd.
  
• Blindside no longer causes the player character to move into melee range with their target if Combat Movement Assist is active.
  
• Blindside can no longer be parried, bringing it into alignment with other ranged Hunter skills.
  
• Lore-master
  
• The magnitude of fire and frost lore debuffs were considerably above where we were comfortable with them being for large group content, so Fire Lore's traited effect has been reduced from 35% to 15% and Frost Lore has had its traited effect reduced from 30% to 15%.
  
• Wind Lore has had its effect increased from 1/2/3% to 3/4/5%.
  
• Wind Lore's duration has been increased to 30 seconds to free up other skills for rotation.
  
• The following skills and effects have received an approximate 20% increase in damage:
  
• Burning/Searing Embers (direct and DOT)
  
• Wizard's Fire
  
• Test of Will
  
• Gust of Wind
  
• Cracked Earth
  
• The interaction between the trait Fierce Lightning and the skill Lightning Storm has been refactored to address frame rate drops caused by the skill.
  
• The tooltip for Lightning Storm no longer erroneously states that the skill consume Morale.
  
• Minstrel
  
• Anthems should now be Raid-wide.
  
• Anthem of War's unimbued Legendary Item bonus to physical/ranged has been reduced from about 10% to about 5%, and Anthem of War's base Tactical bonus has been reduced from 15% to 10%.
  
• The tooltip for Major Ballad now correctly states that it is a damaging skill in the Dissonance form instead of the Resonance form.
  
• Rune-keeper
  
• Most red line skills have received a damage increase.
  
• Mystifying Flames now affects all incoming damage, not just fire. Its damage multiplier has been reduced from 15% to 5%.
  
• Mystifying flame no longer stacks different tiers on a single target.
  
• Mystifying Flames and Molten Flame are no longer able to be resisted.
  
• Fiery Ridicule's damage over time has been changed from seven pulses/2 seconds to 7 pulses/3 seconds, along with an increase in damage per tick.
  
• Essence of Flame has had its cooldown decreased from 15 seconds to 12 seconds.
  
• The induction on Essay of Fire has been decreased to 2 seconds.
  
• Smouldering Wrath has had its cooldown increased from 15 to 17 seconds.
  
• Frost affinity now grants +20% outgoing healing rather than force setting the bonus value to 20%, which prevented any other bonuses from stacking.
  
• Warden
  
• Shield Slam can no longer miss nor be blocked, parried, or evaded.
  
• Combat
  
• Update 30's new raid introduces a new mechanic called Revive Counters, which put a limit on the number of revives available to accept during boss fights in the new raid at Tier 2 and above. During boss fights, you may see a "Revives Available" icon in your buff bar, which will track the number of revives available for the entire Fellowship. Accepting a revive effect decrements the counter. If the counter is currently at zero, all revive skills will become greyed out. During the fight, your Fellowship will receive additional revive tokens, up to a maximum of five.
  
• Various difficulties start with additional revives and timers:
  
• T1: N/A
  
• T2: 3 Revives, +1/60 seconds
  
• T3: 2 Revives, +1/120 seconds
  
• T4: 1 Revives, +1/180 seconds
  
• T5: 1 Revives, +1/240 seconds
  
• When a boss fight ends, all revive tokens clear.
  
• All boss and encounter monsters in level 130 group instances have had their damage output reduced to offset the adjustments to player-cast outgoing damage debuffs.

• Players can obtain a new recipe from their Craft Guild Improved Recipes vendors. The output of this recipe can be disenchanted for several Ithilgalad Crafting Components.
  
• The Doomfold recipe for "Braised Oxtail with Roasted Potatoes" now requires the Westfold recipe "Loaf of Barley Bread" as a component. Previously, it required the Apprentice recipe "Barley Bread", which is gated behind Men of Bree reputation.
  
• Housing
  
• When you 'Sell' a premium house, you will now receive 90% of the purchase price in premium housing writs, up from 70%.
  
• Enormous Yard Items should now render at a greater distance.
  
• Using the housing decoration Gammer's Cozy Hobbit Bed will now randomly change the bedding color to one of 8 different options.
  
• The Small Obsidian Wall Carving housing decoration has been made just a bit smaller, to better fit its small wall decoration hook.
  
• The Door to Mazarbul Replica and Free-standing Door to Mazarbul Replica housing decorations will now open and close on use. You may wish to remove and replace these items on their decoration hooks in order to properly update the physics.
  
• Fixed some gloss and glow issues for several housing floor surfaces.
  
• Items
  
• Anniversary, Eagle, and Summerdays Fireworks can now be used while mounted.
  
• Adventurer's gear, when opened at level 130, will now create at item level 432, with the chance to create at up to item level 434.
  
• Crafting materials received from Adventurer's lootboxes will now drop in slightly greater stack sizes.
  
• A Small Cache of Ithilgalad Crafting Components is now available as a rare crafting resource drop from Adventurer's lootboxes, while the Elderslade Supply Pack has been removed as a possible drop.

• Rowan Raspberry has returned and has new cosmetic items available for figments of splendour, including avatar cosmetics, housing decorations, cosmetic pets, and a steed and matching war-steed appearances.

• Remmorchant, the Net of Darkness
  
• Shelob - Shelob's Enrage timer has been increased to 20/21/22/23 minutes on Tier 2/3/4/5, respectively.
  
• Thossulun the Massive - Acidic Ichor Pool's duration has been increased from 30 to 50 seconds.
  
• The spawn of the next Daughter after one is killed has been delayed by 20 seconds.
  
• Bâr Nírnaeth, the Houses of Lamentation - Slightly lowered the damage of Torment, Flense, and Shadow-burst.
  
• All Boss and encounter monsters in level 130 group instances have had their damage outputs reduced to offset the adjustments to player-cast outgoing damage debuffs.
  
• Adjustments related to balance have been made to the following Instances: Shadow Roost, The Harrowing of Morgul, Shakalush, the Stair Battle, and Remmorchant. Additional, some tank DOTS have been reduced in Shakalush, the Stair Battle.
  
• War of Three Peaks - Quest: A Crack in the Iron Crown - Bandrauth Adder-fang has been reduced to Signature difficulty.
  
• Gabil'akkâ Stable-masters are now named 'Mission Recruiters' and will allow lower-level players to access assorted Mission content across Middle-earth.
  
• The Mission Recruiter Stablemasters have networked! You can now travel between Trestlebridge, Elderslade, and Erebor for your daily mission needs.
  
• Yule Festival - Quests - A Mission to Bring Good Cheer: It is now possible to use Mithril Coins to return to Mara Sandydowns.
  
• Eryn Lasgalen - Quests - New Thievery/Ambushed on the River: It is now possible to use Mithril Coins to return to Lorndúr.
  
• Elderslade - The Master of Tur Agal: Breaking combat will no longer cause Bandrauth to become unresponsive.
  
• The Wastes - Camp of the Host: Players will no longer get stuck on invisible objects at certain points in the Camp of the Host.
  
• Midsummer - Quest: A Cure for All Ills: Disciplining noisy revellers on Ioreth's behalf in the Houses of Healing is now more Fellowship-friendly.
  
• Several stuck spots in Minas Morgul and Elderslade have been fixed.
  
• A floating staircase has been grounded in Erebor.
  
• Some region impassability has been refined in parts of The Wastes.
  
• Wildwood - Release the Hounds - The quest's location has been corrected from southwestern Wildwood to the southeastern Wildwood.

• Virtues can now go up to rank 75 at level 130.

• Elf female avatars now use their correct base idle.
  
• Torch-carrying Elf/High-elf Rune-keepers no longer T-Pose.
  
• The game credits have been updated.

• Credits in the German Client will temporarily appear in English.
  
• Players who previously had the Free-standing Door to Mazarbul slotted in their house may experience physics issues around the door. Removing and re-slotting the item will correct these issues.
  
• The name for the new raid chest - Chest of Durin's Bane - has accidentally overwritten the names for the Chest of the Beasts (Tier 1 - 5) from Amdân Dammul, the Bloody Threshold. Therefore, if you run both raids, the chest locks info panel for these two chests from different raids will incorrectly show the same name.
  
• The quest 'Fondness for Festivity (Intro)' will not bestow if you accept the quest 'In Celebration of Midsummer' before accepting the quest 'The Majesty of Midsummer'. If you have already accepted 'In Celebration of Midsummer', cancel the quest, accept 'The Majesty of Midsummer', and then re-accept 'In Celebration of Midsummer' to correct this issue. A fix for this issue ill be part of an upcoming patch.