Update 35.1 - Wednesday April 19, 2023

Update 35.1: Release Notes

Here are the release notes for Update 35.1, released on Wednesday, April 19th, 2023.

Happy 16th Anniversary!

Happy 16 years of The Lord of the Rings Online! The Anniversary Event returns at 10:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on Thursday, April 20th, and the event continues until 3:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on Thursday, May 11th! Read more about the Anniversary Event in our guide on LOTRO.com. This year's event features new rewards, including new rewards with both the Anniversary Barter and Festivity Anniversary Barter! Cosmetic outfits of Illumination, Forged Staves, new Goats, housing items, and more!

Log into the game starting at 10:00 AM Eastern on Thursday, April 20th to pick up your 16th Anniversary Gift!

Free People of Middle-earth receive inside of their 16-Year Giftbox:

• Incandescent Lightning Fireworks
• Sixteen Year Portrait Frame
• Title: Illuminator

Monster Players receive inside of their 16-Year Giftbox:

• Violet Explosion Fireworks
• Sixteen Year Portrait Frame
• +5% Attack Damage x5 Potions
• Title: Extinguisher

Any player who received the 15-Year Giftbox last year will receive a 16-Year Giftbox on every character they log into in addition to their associated title. The gift will be granted permanently to your account as long as you log into at least one character starting at 10:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on Thursday, April 20th until 3:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on April 1st, 2024.

Gwathrenost, the Witch-king's Citadel - Arrives April 26th!

Gwathrenost, the Witch-king's Citadel is a new Raid for Level 140 Players set in a re-imagined Carn Dûm! This raid will be available on Tiers 1 and 2 starting at Noon Eastern on April 26th.

"Once the seat of the Witch-king of Angmar, the dread citadel of Gwathrenost casts a long shadow upon the city of Carn Dûm. All but abandoned after the Steward of Angmar was deposed, the remnants of the Iron Crown have crept forth from the shadows, seeking to master a lost artifact of the Witch-king and reclaim dominion over the realm."

Gwathrenost, the Witch-king's Citadel will become available up to Tier 2 starting at Noon Eastern on April 26th. Players who wish to aid in the fight against the Iron Crown should travel to Bail Avarc in Angmar. Bail Avarc can be reached via the stable-masters at Esteldín, Gath Forthnír, and Rivendell. Bail Avarc can initially only be accessed via stable-master routes. Travel skills are also available for barter from the Stewards of the Iron-home. Tier 3 unlocks on May 3rd, 2023 starting at 12:00 PM Eastern (-4 GMT), Tier 4 unlocks on May 17th at 12:00 PM Eastern (-4 GMT), and Tier 5 opens at 12:00 PM Eastern (-4 GMT) on May 31st. The "Leading the Charge" deed for the raid is available to earn until 3:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on September 7th, 2023.

ALSO: Return to Carn Dûm instances (Into Sant Lhoer, Thaurisgar, and Sagroth) are now available up to Tier 5!

LOTRO is celebrating the uniqueness of every player!

Our latest update celebrates individuality with additional character customization options for the Race of Men (humans) that let players express themselves in new ways. We want to make as many players feel represented in the game as possible, and we are introducing new character creation options for your face, hair, and body! We know there is more work to do to offer a wider variety of character creation options, and we will be following up this release with additional options in the future.

Here are some things to know:

• Your existing characters remain mostly unchanged, although we have updated some textures to improve their look.
• There are now more shared options between genders, including hair and beard styles where applicable.
• The body proportion range has been increased.
• These new options are also available at the Barber for access to existing characters.

News and Notes

Classes

• Beorning
  • Mark of Grimbeorn no longer requires facing your target and now has a cooldown of 3 seconds.
  • Mark of Beorn cooldown reduced to 3 seconds.
• Brawler
  • Brawlers now can barter for jewellery at the Dol Amroth Big Battle vendors, in addition to the Minas Tirith vendors.
  • Fixed an issue where some Brawler jewellery was restricted to the Beorning class, instead of Brawlers.
• Captain
  • Healing from the Standard of Honour is now correctly improved by the 'Relentless Optimism' trait.
  • Courageous Convocation no longer prevents Words of Courage from turning into Courageous Heart while Stand Alone is active.
  • Stacks of At the Fore no longer suggest that they affect your Outgoing Healing.
  • Blade-brother and Stand Alone now state that they will prevent the other from being used while active.
  • Captains should now have only one version of Valiant Strike.
• Minstrel
  • Chord of Salvation is once again an Immediate skill.
  • Toggled Melody/Echoes of Battle skill cooldowns reduced to 2s.
  • The Call to Greatness tooltip once again refers to the correct Captain skills.
  • Improved Story of Courage no longer requires facing your target.
• Warden
  • The Gambit healing bonus from specializing in Determination now correctly affects healing from Conviction.
  • The 'Fist Gambit Damage & Critical Chance' tracery now correctly improves the DoT from Resounding Challenge.
  • The trait 'No Respite for the Wicked' no longer refers to the Offensive Strike Gambit line.
  • The max range and AoE size of Deflection was reversed for its melee and ranged variants. The melee version is now correctly centered on yourself, while the ranged version has a smaller AoE centered on your target.
  • The description of the trait 'On the Offence' has been corrected, and no longer suggests that Offensive Strike has a morale-tap.
  • Desperate Combat now activates Desperate Spear/Shield/Fist for 90 seconds, rather than 30, so you can spend charges until all of them are consumed or the skill's cooldown has expired.
  • The blue-line trait 'Never Surrender' now displays the correct cooldown reduction.
  • Damage increased slightly for direct-damage gambits (The Boot - Wall of Steel & Offensive Strike - Boar's Rush).
  • Several class traceries were giving the incorrect secondary stat on legendary quality versions. These now give the appropriate secondary stats, matching their lower-quality counterparts.

Items

• The "Carn Dûm Standard of Victory" and "Carn Dûm Standard of Hope" have had their names swapped on all rarities to reflect the roles each Standard's stats are better associated with.
• Fixed a typo in the Jewellery that appears in the three person instances of Carn Dûm.
• Adventurer's and Traveller's Steel-bound lootboxes contain new "Alchemist's" cosmetic items including avatar cosmetics, housing items, a steed and matching war-steed appearances. These items are also available on Myrtle Mint for Figments of Splendour.
• Adventurer's and Traveller's Steel-bound lootboxes also now contain a Rust Corgi cosmetic pet.
• Adventurer's Steel-bound lootboxes now have a chance to drop Delving Adventurer's Vivid Essence Boxes.
• Newly acquired Adventurer's lootbox gear, for level 140 characters, will now scale to item level 478 - 480.
• Some older avatar cosmetics and steeds have been moved off of Myrtle Mint and onto the Curator.
• The following shields have their armour value updated to correctly reflect Incomparable rarity:
  • Superior Broad Targe of Sagroth, Lair of Vermin
  • Superior Stout Targe of Sagroth, Lair of Vermin
  • Superior Reinforced Aegis of Sagroth, Lair of Vermin
  • Superior Bright Aegis of Sagroth, Lair of Vermin
  • Superior Reinforced Targe of Sagroth, Lair of Vermin
  • Superior Restorative Shield of Sagroth, Lair of Vermin
  • Superior Resilient Shield of Sagroth, Lair of Vermin
• Newly acquired Wayfarer Shields from Traveller's lootboxes will now have the appropriate amount of stat bonuses, which increases the stats at levels 10-40.
• Beorning, Champion and Guardian drops in the second boss of Sagroth have been corrected.
• Legendary bows for Beorning, Champion and Guardian added to treasure pools at Sagroth in T4 and higher.
• Warden shields will now drop for Wardens in Sagroth at all tiers.

Delvings:

• Completing Tier 11 or tier 12 Delving quests in Cardolan missions will now advance some Tier 11 and Tier 12 specific Deeds.
• The tooltip for the Delving Malice "Lingering Fear" has been corrected to reflect that it affects both Outgoing and Incoming Healing.
• The delving malices Sauron's Touch I and II have had their offensive and defensive monster buffs reduced.

Monster Play:

• A grammatical issue in the new free people tutorial in the Ettenmoors has been fixed.
• Defeating Tyrant Burzgoth now properly advances the Weekly objective in the Ettenmoors weekly quest.
• The second tier of the weekly Free People Ettenmoors quest now requires 21 Ettenmoors general quests to complete - this is technically the same number as before, as the previous version of the weekly counts toward the completion of the second weekly quest.
• Audacity now correctly multiplies damage by 0.55, reducing incoming damage by 45%, rather than by 55%.

Pets:

• Bear and Herald Taunts no longer apply threat catch-up.
• We've been having some issues with pets breaking instance encounters if they are able to hold aggro on bosses, so until we have a more comprehensive fix ready we are reducing them to force-taunt only.

Quests & Instances:

• Return to Carn Dûm
  • Repeatable quests for Sant Lhoer, Thaurisgar, and Sagroth now properly require Level 140 to be accepted.
  • Players can return to the Quest Hub in Carn Dûm by leaving through the instance's entrance.
  • Sant Lhoer, the Poisoned Gardens
    • Venom-twisted Reavers in the Oganuin encounter are no longer eligible to become Scions.
    • The quest has been adjusted so it shows up in the "Angmar Reborn" category in the Quest Log.
    • Repeatable quests have had their quest items adjusted so they don't show up as highlighted on the landscape map.
    • Fixed a bug where the boss and other monsters sometimes spawned in at level 1.
  • Thaurisgar, the Vile Apothecary
    • The final boss on Tier 4 now drops the correct chest.
    • Bile Tanks are no longer eligible to become Scions.
  • Sagroth, Lair of Vermin
    • Class items received in the six-player version of this instance have had their stats reworked to better fit class themes and roles.
• Goblins in The Further Adventures of Bilbo Baggins have become less experienced.
• Throne of the Dread Terror class items now have a maximum level of 115.

UI:

• The "Show Avatar Update" check box for the Race of Men has been disabled.

General:

• Shadows on water now only affects the water debris layer (algae, seafoam, etc) and not the water itself.
• Ocean water in Belfalas and Pelargir now correctly retains is green color in the dawnless day.
• We've backed out the monster mitigation changes, as they were exacerbating the differences between DPS classes' armor penetration too much at higher levels.
• The heath adjustment is changing from [+25% -> +15%] so it's less impactful on high end instance difficulty as well.
• Crafting recipes for Gundabad traceries will now use the proper Crit Item for the recipe's profession.

Known Issues:

• Some animations are not displaying correctly for human Rune-keepers.
• Minstrel instruments for human characters are not appearing consistently with skill use.
• Some Minstrel animations are not displaying correctly.
• Some /emotes are not animating correctly.
• The hobby-horse animation is not functioning correctly for male humans.
• Burglar and Brawler crowd control removal skills are currently only working on roots, and will not remove Daze, Stun or Knockdown effects.
• The facepaints from Hobnanigans do not currently work on race of Man.

Source

• English
• French
• German