Update 25 - Tuesday November 5, 2019

Update 25 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 25: Minas Morgul, released on November 5th, 2019.

Of Special Note

Minas Morgul has arrived!

Minas Morgul takes you on an expedition deep into the Morgul Vale in search of answers to a mystery that spans three thousand years. The words of the shade of Isildur will unearth secrets and visions of the Second Age that have remained untold until now, revealing playable landscape and new adventures from a crucial time in Middle-earth’s history.

• Two New Regions: The Morgul Vale as well as Mordor Beseiged!
• Level Cap Increase to 130
• New Crafting Guild benefits
• New Black Book of Mordor Quests
• and more!

Visit LOTRO.com/MinasMorgul to read more. Some elements of the expansion, including the Shelob raid and new Instances, will be released in the near future. Players logging in once the Minas Morgul expansion has been released will get their Valar items, Expedition Supplies, Crafting Carry-alls and more to the first character they log into after the expansion is released, or upon successful redemption of a Minas Morgul game code. Visit LOTRO.com/MinasMorgul for details.

News and Notes:

Classes

• Rune-keeper
  • Overall healing per second has been improved.
  • Epic for the Ages direct heal has been improved, but its area of effect has been reduced somewhat..
  • Writ of Health has had its initial healing increased, and its duration has been increased to 24 seconds.
  • Several Rune-keeper skills have had their animation delays improved.
  • Bombastic Inspiration has had its initial healing greatly increased and healing over time increased.
  • The bubble magnitude of Word of Exaltation has been reduced by 5%.
  • Rousing Words channeling duration has been decreased, but its magnitude per pulse has increased considerably.
  • The radius of Fates Intertwined has been expanded to 20 meters.
  • Unwavering Confidence has been increased.
  • Rune of Restoration's healing pulse has been increased.
  • Searing Words' damage over time component has been increased.
  • Searing Words from separate sources can now stack on a single target.
  • Volcanic Runestone has had its overall power increased.
  • Vivid Imagery now hits much harder.
  • Fulgurite Runestone has been redesigned for a longer and more persistent effect.
  • Ceaseless Argument has received a damage increase.
  • Word and Essay of Exaltation bubbles are now based on a percentage of Morale. Essay of Exaltation has had its cooldown increased to 45 seconds.
  • Direct damage of most Frost skills has been increased.
  • Direct damage of most dedicated yellow line attack skills has been increased.
  • Sustaining Bolt heal has been substantially increased.
  • Rune-sign of Winter has been increased, and is now a more attractive quick direct heal.
  • Mending Verse has had its initial heal increased.

• Warden
  • Warden Skill damage and damaging effects have been adjusted upwards.
  • Several Warden defensive buffs now share icons with the skill that generated them.
  • The following skill benefits have had their duration increased from 30 to 60 seconds:
    • Enduring Shieldwork
    • Enduring Advanced Shieldwork
    • Enduring Expert Shieldwork
    • Enduring Evasion
    • Enduring Advanced Evasion
    • Enduring Expert Evasion
    • Enduring Armour Use
    • Enduring Advanced Armour Use
    • Enduring Expert Armour Use
  • The following skill benefits have had their duration increased from 24 seconds to 48 seconds:
    • Celebration of Skill
    • Dance of War
    • Surety of Death
    • Conviction
• The value and budget of main stats itemization has been improved for all classes.
• The ratio of Outgoing Healing rating to Tactical Mastery has been increased. This change means that players can no longer effectively cap out their outgoing healing simply by stacking Tactical Mastery.
• Virtues can now be earned up to rank 65.
• Critical Magnitude has had its cap reduced from 100% to 75%, and its ratings curve is now steeper.

Crafting

• The time required to execute planting recipes has been reduced from 10 seconds to 3 seconds for most farmer field recipes.
• Crafting Carry-Alls
  • When Minas Morgul launches, all players who purchase the Ultimate Fan and Collector's Edition will have Carry-alls delivered to them. A Carry-all helps you consolidate and organize your inventory by storing your various crafting materials inside it using only one slot of space. Because these Carry-alls are Bound to Account, sharing crafting materials amongst your characters becomes easier.
    • The Collector's and Ultimate editions will grant a Small Crafting Carry-all that will hold 10 different types of unique crafting items that will allow each stack to go up to 2000.
    • The Ultimate Fan edition will grant an additional Large Crafting Carry-all that will hold up to 50 types of unique crafting items that will allow each stack to go up to 5000!
    • These items will be delivered once per account, and will be delivered to the first character you log into after Minas Morgul launches. If you play on multiple servers, please make sure to first log into the server where you want these Carry-alls delivered.

Emotes

• The Elevenses Emote has been scripted to work more consistently; the food items will disappear if the emote is interrupted.

Hobbit Gifts

• The Hobbit Gifts system has received a significant update, including a new UI, new items, and Virtue XP in its rewards.

Items

• Items that grant War-steed appearances can now be consumed while mounted.
• The Flame of Ancalamír can now be used while mounted.
• The War-steed Appearance: Grand Accessory once again has its proper appearance on a War-steed Pony instead of looking like a basket of sunflowers.
• A new Housing Item called the "Training Dummy Stand" is now available for Barter from the Curator when the Curator is available.
• All Embers and Motes of Enchantment, and all Figments of Splendour, have had their total Wallet cap set to 10,000, if their total exceeded 10,000.
• Armour value bonus scaling on the Shield of the Hammerhand has been increased so the total armour values are more appropriate.
• Physical Mastery has been adjusted on the Finely-woven Standard of the Veteran Captain.
• Beornings will now receive heavy armour from the Gift of the Valar, Blessing of the Valar, and Aria of the Valar.
• Universal Potions, Food, and Scrolls of Max Morale and Power in the LOTRO Store now Buff/Restore Morale and Power based on a % of max values.
• Corrected aura visuals on some weapons that were incorrect, either by scale or position. This does not correct visuals for auras that were not visible, or which were only partially visible.
• A Dust-Shrouded Adventurer's Essence Box has been added to the Adventurer's Quartermaster.
• When replacing an Imbued Legacy with another Legacy, you now carry over a greater percentage of the earned item advancement experience.
• Legendary Item Legacy Tiers have had their base Legacy increased from 63 to 67. Other Legacies have been increased from 79 to 83.
• Some older armour sets with a large number of Essence slots have had their maximum equip level set to level 120.

Pets

• Critters summoned from the following housing decorations will now perform their correct emotes when not moving: Nanu's Hiding Place, Hedgehog Burrow, and Badger House. Nanu's movement has also been slowed down slightly.

PvMP

• Player characters in the Ettenmoors and PvMP Osgiliath can now use cosmetic outfits.

Quests Adventure Areas

• The new Minas Morgul Instances are only available at Tier 1 for launch. Tiers 2 and 3 will be available soon.
• Scion Difficulty Tiers 4 and 5 of the Dwarfholds instances and Kidzul-kâlah are unavailable while the new instance cluster is being introduced. Scion difficulty tiers will be available again on selected instances in the future.
• Fixed a door in the Loremaster-specific chamber of "In The Presence of Saruman".
• The boss in Instance: A Venomous Strike will now summon at the correct time.
• Adjusted the requirements to unlock the Volume II Book 3 and Volume II Book 8 movies in the Movie Library.
• Various areas have had minor stuck spots, death spots, and physics issues fixed.
• Mistrustful Dwarf-folk in Erebor - Forging Trust are now denoted by a blue quest ring to improve their visibility.
• Players must now discover the Inner Caras Galadhon stable-master before they can travel there using the Stable-master Collections Panel.
• Black Book of Mordor
  • Characters that have completed Shades in the Swamp can pick up the next chapter of the Black Book of Mordor from Gandalf in the Beorninghus.

Races

• Stout-axe's Enmity of the Cultists now awards the Needful Ingenuity trait.
• Stout-axe's Enmity of the Cultists II now awards the Nimble-handed trait, and now properly bestows when you complete Enmity of the Cultists tier 1.

UI

• New UI Settings option "Induction Bar Display." When checked, an induction progress bar will be shown above any character or pet pending an action. This preference is only available when the "Floating Names" preference is on.
• Fixed an issue where Disenchantment examination tooltips would sometimes be clipped along the right edge.

Miscellaneous

• Fixed an issue that could cause a crash on startup on machines with more than 32 logical processors, such as AMD Threadripper 2970WX and 2990WX.
• You can now earn up to 94 class trait points after completing the Black Book of Mordor. Up to 94 class trait points can be spent in your class trait trees.
• The game credits have been updated.

Known Issues

• Some text in French and German has not yet been translated, and there are some missing line breaks in German text.
• The following Grey Mountains and Gladdenmere instances are temporarily only available through tier 2:
  • The Depths of Kidzul-kâlah
  • Glimmerdeep
  • Caverns of Thrumfall
  • Thikil-gundu (The Steel Keep)

Source

• https://forums-old.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?676406-Update-25-Minas-Morgul-Release-Notes