Update 26 - April 23, 2020
Update 26 Release Notes
Here are the Release Notes for Update 26: Mists of Wilderland, released on Thursday, April 23rd.
Of Special Note:
Through the ages of the world, many peoples have inhabited the Wilderland. In the latter days of the Third Age, Beornings, dwarves, and the Great Eagles all consider themselves protectors over these northern lands. With conflict brewing in Gundabad these protectors now share the common goal of keeping the Wells of Langflood safe. This update debuts our new, free story line "The Legacy of Durin and the Trials of the Dwarves" in addition to offering a new Quest Pack called "Mists of Wilderland". The Quest Pack is free to VIPs and will be available in the LOTRO Store in the future. Note that this quest pack is currently free to all players as part of our initiative to make all quests, raids, and instances free through April 30th, so this quest pack is not currently available in the LOTRO Store.
News and Notes:
Classes
- Beornings have improved strafing and attacking while strafing in bear form.
- The Beorning skill Counter now has sound, and other skills that were missing sounds now have them.
- Captain and Lore-master companions now follow to the side of the player and at a closer distance.
- Champion DPS has been increased generally across the board.
- Burglars - Startling Twist should now properly remove corruptions again.
- Rune-keeper Lightning Crits:
- Lightning Rune-keepers were made too reliant on critical hits by the huge lightning critical bonuses they received from offensive attunement, these have been re-balanced.
- Lightning skill damage has been increased by about 10%.
- The Epic Conclusion damage over time now lasts for eight pulses.
- Closing Remarks no longer consumes buffs.
- Ceaseless Argument and Writ of Lightning now both have 3 second cooldowns.
- Tactical Crit Bugfix - We have fixed the source of a major bug causing most tactical skills to crit substantially harder than intended as stats increased. This effect was never visible in the character sheet or tooltips.
- All skills and effects that previously benefited from the Crit Magnitude bug have had their base effect boosted by 20% to help balance for the reduced DPS/HPS of the fix.
- Healing effects were rather heavily affected by the critical fate bugfix, and we further reduced the base crit level of most of the heals due to a heavy over-reliance on crits for healing throughput. To counteract this, base heals have been increased, and the healing bonus from legendary class items and HPS runes has been increased, making base heals quite a bit more powerful. Since gauging the overall healing over time has been impacted by these changes due to them being greatly dependent on how much Fate a healer was previously wearing, we will be keeping an eye on the impact.
Crafting:
- The Ploughman's Loaves recipe now produces the correct crit result. It was previously producing Rye Flour Oatcakes.
Items:
- The Adventurer's Quartermaster and Adventurer's Steel-Bound Lootbox now have Moonlit Adventurer's Essence Boxes & Warmly Moonlit Adventurer's Basic Essence Boxes.
- To provide alternate sources of legendary item consumables, the Traveller's Quartermaster now offers special Scrolls of Empowerment and Star-lit crystals for Motes. These items can be used on any legendary item before it is imbued to improve the legacies. After imbuement, the scrolls can be used to unlock legacies through tier 74 and the crystals can be used to unlock the main damage/healing legacy through tier 58.
- The Adventurer's Quartermaster offers the same scrolls and crystals for Embers. In addition, the Adventurer's Quartermaster offers scrolls that unlock legacies through tier 79 and crystals that unlock the main legacy through tier 63.
- The Earring of Spring's Arrival, Earring of Spring's Promise, and Earring of Spring's Rite mistakenly suggested that you could summon flower petals around your target, when they only summon petals around yourself. The item descriptions have been updated.
- West Rohan Endgame - Quickbeam now charges progressively more Fangorn Leaves for more potent IXP runes.
- Two-handed Wayfarer Axes are now properly categorized as axes instead of swords.
- Stilettos are now spelled stilettos instead of stillettos.
- The new Spring Festival Mount is now located in its proper category in the skills panel UI.
- The Gift-Giver's Brand acquired from Roving Threats is now an account-bound rather than character-bound currency.
- The following steed granting items from the Buried Treasure event will no longer auto-consume when you acquire them: Treasure Laden Steed, Cave-claw Steed, Treasure Laden Goat, Harvest-brew Goat.
- The quest starting items 'Virtues of the Valar - 50' and 'Virtues of the Valar - 95' now properly bind to your character. The virtue xp scrolls received from completing these quests remain account bound.
- Certain Malledhrim armour now has a max equip level of 94. This is to prevent abuse of certain equippable bonuses at higher levels.
- Certain Erebor jewellery now has a max equip level of 94. This is to prevent abuse of certain equippable bonuses at higher levels.
- Osgiliath Armour sets now have a max effective level of 114.
Monster Play:
- Weaver skills Tainted Kiss, Virulent Poison, and Mephitic Kiss now use tactical damage like other Acid skills.
NPC's:
- Beorning Trainers no longer have Power.
Quests & Adventure Areas:
- Angmar - Urugarth - Deed: The Orcs of Urugarth - Many more Orcs in Urugarth now count for advancing this deed and its follow-up. NOTE: If unfinished, its progress will be reset after the patch is applied to the live game worlds.
- Dunland - Dunbog - Instance: Tusks of the Boar - Selecting Warrior allies will no longer cause them to take on the appearance of a ghostly Dunlending.
- Eastemnet - Defence of Walstow - Allied NPCs will no longer prevent the player from receiving credit for defeating enemies.
- Ered Mithrin - Quest: Fight for the Grey - This quest can now be cancelled.
- Eregion - School of Tham Mirdain - Llygad the Blade's swords are now of a slightly more reasonable size and his drama no longer fails to display a few lines when his fight begins.
- Eregion - School at Tham Mirdain - Fixed a bug where Commander Târsh could continue spawning after his defeat.
- Helegrod - Dragon Wing - Higher difficulty tiers now properly award Marks and Medallions.
- Minas Morgul - The Fiend House - The Fiend House now has a point of interest marker on the map of Minas Morgul.
- Minas Morgul - Echad Uial - Quartermaster - Fixed a typo in the barter category name.
- Minas Morgul - Bar Nirnaeth, the Houses of Lamentation - It is now possible to leave the instance through the entrance door.
- Minas Morgul - Bar Nirnaeth, the Houses of Lamentation - Fixed physics issues near certain objects.
- Minas Morgul - Bar Nirnaeth, the Houses of Lamentation - Morloth's Roots now start out of combat for three seconds upon spawning in to allow players more time to get within range before they begin using Quaking Earth.
- Mirkwood - Barad Guldur - Quest: Challenge: King of the East - Players who were defeated during the fight against the Lieutenant will now properly receive credit for completing the Challenge so long as they do not retreat.
- Mordor - Talath Urui - Quest: Lurking in the Flames - Rock-worms in Talath Urui will now display that they are valid targets for this quest on their mouse-over tooltip.
- Moria - Durin's Way - Quest: Fungus Takes Flight - Players can no longer become stuck in one of the cages used to imprison the Globsnaga.
- Skirmish - Ford of Bruinen - Elladan and Elrohir have been buffed in all group sizes and now have rapid power regeneration.
- Skirmish - Storm on Methedras - The Solo version of Echrud now uses weaker fire-based attacks as he was slightly too powerful.
- Skirmish - Stand at Amon Sûl - Beornings now properly benefit from the campfire buffs.
- Skirmish - The Siege of Gondamon - NPCs now have more appropriate weapons.
- Wildermore - High Knolls - Byre Tor - Quest: No Proper Grave - Burying animation now plays a sound.
- Wildermore - The Fallows - Quest: Preparing a Siege - Typo fixes.
- Westemnet - Helm's Deep - Removed an invisible frog.
- Vales of Anduin - Lulstrok - Quest: Fear Without Name - Adjusted quest objective volumes on the map.
- Vales of Anduin - Hultvis - The Protectors of the Vales no longer phase and are always visible.
- Sessionplay: The Fall of Moria:
- Reduced the vitality of the cave-claws and deep-claws in Azanarukâr.
- Removed some of Nafni's slower-paced skills.
- Added a new skill with a 30 second cooldown: Nafni's Speed.
- Nafni's Speed boosts our playable dwarf's run speed by 150%, letting him zip through the grand hall of Moria much more quickly.
- The quest formerly known as "The Ash of Gorgoroth" has been updated and re-written to reflect the current Disenchantment system.
- Session Play: We Cannot Get Out - Reduced the vitality of the several types of Orcs (except for Mazog).
- Session Play: The Prisoner of Sammath Baul:
- Reduced the vitality of the slugs in Sammath Baul and removed their slowing puddles.
- Lowered the duration of the 'Motivating...' induction from 7 seconds to 3 seconds.
- Lowered the duration of the 'Persuading...' induction from 10 seconds to 2 seconds.
- Removed some of the Bloodletter's unnecessary skill clutter (Dark Faith, Time of Waste, Staying Alive).
- Session Play: The Fate of Laerdan - Reduced the vitality of Orcs, Half-orcs, and Angmarim.
- Session Play: Daughter of Strife - Reduced the vitality of the Durub Orcs (but not the leader).
- Minas Morgul endgame quests now give additional reputation tokens.
- Minas Morgul three and six person instances now give reputation tokens on all difficulties, including solo.
- One of the Treasures of Lhingris is now accessible again... just by a different path.
- Travel routes in the Twenty-first Hall that require certain quest states will now only appear once you have satisfied their quest requirements. This affects two travel routes: Goat to the Great Hall of Durin and Goat to the Hall of Flowing Water.
- Some typos have been corrected in Vales of Anduin content.
- Some typos fixed in Thorin's Hall.
- Fixed typos in quest Gloomthorn, Scourge of Eryn-Lasgalen.
- Fixed a typo in Bhol Rûdh: Ancient Lights.
- Typo fixed in The Return to Seregost.
- During 'Courage from a Keg,' Inwóna will now 'Cheer' correctly.
- Something secret will become available on May 13th. Good luck!
Traits:
- Stout-axe racial trait "Unyielding Will" no longer gives Vitality in addition to Will.
UI
- The Shelob vital portrait frame will now be correctly visible when active on a targeted player.
- Fixed a typo in the Known to Lossoth Deed.
Miscellaneous
- A correction has been made to the game's physics engine to improve game performance.