Previous patch: Update 40.1 - Wednesday June 5, 2024
Next patch: Update 41.1 - Wednesday August 14, 2024

Patches‎ (18 C, 2 P)

Update 41 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 41: On the Wing, released on Wednesday, July 31st, 2024.

Of Special Note

The Hard Tack Crafting Event Begins August 1st!

The second Crafting Event has arrived called the Hard Tack of Thorin's Hall! This community effort is open to everyone but focuses particularly on Prospecting and Cooking. This is a cooperative event that can be completed by crafters and non-crafters alike. The event takes place every hour with an access point in Thorin's Gates outside of Thorin's Hall. There is a broadcast to Ered Luin five minutes before the event begins, and the event lasts for twenty minutes.

Taking part in the event provides ribbons that can be bartered for rewards with the vendor Heori Firefeed outside of the event space. Once inside of Ukhbab-gairu, speak to Ogmund Bellowbreath to acquire the event quest. Once acquired, three NPCs are available. Prospectors can speak to Skuld Scentlode to pick up the Prospector-only quest, Cooks can speak to Ingul Ovestoke to pick up the Cook-only quest, and everyone can speak to Velgerd Kilnwarden, Skuld, or Ingul to pick up a support quest available to everyone, including non-crafters. Characters must have reached Novice before they can take part in the event.

Birding has arrived!

A new Hobby is now available in The Lord of the Rings Online! Discover and track birds throughout Middle-earth and earn new rewards! Players can visit a Hobby Master in any of the locations throughout the world to get started, including The Last Homely House in the Hall of Fire, Arnfin in The Twenty-first Hall, Dol Amroth in the Havens of Belfalas, Henry Oakeshott in the Scholar's Stair Archives in Bree, and Brago Puddifoot by the Bywater Pool in The Shire. Equip your Birdwatcher's Kit and locate birds while traveling! Use a Birding skill called "Spot Bird" to determine what bird if any is discovered. Once you use "Spot Bird" a thirty second channeling begins, during which you will get three birdwatching execution chances at random intervals. Successfully executing the skill during each of these opportunities will allow you to find rarer birds!

Discovered birds are entered as a stamp into a new tab in the Collections Panel created for Birding. The Collections Panel can be accessed through the main menu or by pressing Shift+C. Birdwatcher's Kits can be purchased from any Supplier vendor. Leveling up your Birding gives you a chance to discover rarer birds. When you train Birding you will get text showing you which regions birds can be found in, and birds can be found in any outdoor areas in those regions. Currently, Birding is possible in Forochel, Angmar, Ered Luin, Evendim, North Downs, Misty Mountains, the Shire, Bree-land, Lone-lands, Cardolan, Trollshaws, Swanfleet, Eregion, Enedwaith, and Dunland. After twenty Birding attempts in a region the area will grow cold and you'll need to travel to a different region to continue or wait for the cooldown to end.

Lore-master Update

The Lore-master class is getting a big update! The changes aim to better differentiate the roles and play styles of the three different Lore-master Trait specializations. See the full list of changes in the release notes below.

Monster Play Questing and Reward Track

New quests have been added to support a new Monster Player Reward Track available in the LOTRO Store! These quests are available from Faranil at Glân Vraig for Free Players and by Cinaid in Gramsfoot for Monster Players. Two quests introduce the new daily offerings available. The first asks you to find an item in the Ettenmoors, and the second asks you to get advice from people who might know more. Once these introductory quests are completed, new daily quests from Faranil and Cinaid open that rotate daily and drive direct conflict across the Ettenmoors. The sides will work to cultivate or corrupt a sapling through daily questing. These daily quests can be reset with Mithril on the Monster side of the battle.

PvMP Glory Seeking

Glory-seeking is a new quest type available in the Ettenmoors where up to four players on each side can choose to become a glory-seeker. This marks their location on the map, places visual effects over their heads, and increases their damage output by 20%. Glory-seekers are rewarded for defeating opponents and grow stronger with every few kills. Defeating a large number of opponents within a twenty minute time limit gives glory-seekers a buff to damage, Renown/Infamy, and earned Glory for an additional 30 minutes.

News and Notes

General:

Special Yule during Midsummer Hobbit Presents have been retired for the season.
Virtue XP awards from Hobbit Presents have been returned to the standard values.
Season 11 of the Legendary Item Reward Track will launch on August 14th at 10am Eastern Time.

Lore-master:

Lore-masters have received a significant update! Lore-master class trait specs have been reset due to changes in the trees.
Here are some general notes in addition to full details on the Traits:
Pet summoning skills retain their current cooldown timers, meaning you can re-summon pets at will in combat. However, in yellow line, pets do not support rapid pet cycling. In red line, pets have a reduced impact on player output. In blue line, pets play a key role with gameplay revolving around buffing your pets then using your pets to deliver most of your output.
The skill "Return to Master" is usable in combat with a fifteen second cooldown. The skill's cooldown is reset when you summon a new pet.
There is a new skill called "Dismiss Pet" that simply dismisses your active pet. This skill is on a one-second cooldown.
Pet skills across the board have changed to be driven by player skills. This means you will have player skills that correspond to each manually-activated pet skill, and the player skills manage and enforce the cooldowns of pet abilities. Re-summoning a pet will still reset skill cooldowns on that pet, but your player skill cooldown will prevent your pet from reusing any skills before their cooldowns have elapsed.
When actively executing a pet skill your pets will negate 30% Incoming Damage. This means your pets are not completely immune to damage, but smart use of skills can ensure that your pets are able to successfully execute their skills without being defeated.

Major pet skills are as follows:
- Spirit: Area of Effect Heal Over Time
- Bear: Challenge - A forced Taunt (without copy) that targets up to ten enemies in an Area of Effect with a 5 second cooldown.
- Raven: Fear No Darkness - This is an Area of Effect Cleanse and Modest Heal for the Fellowship
- Eagle: Frontal Area of Effect that burns enemies and tiers up Burning Embers if present.
- Bog-lurker: Bursting Root Fellowship Manoeuvre
- Lynx: High Damage Area of Effect Attack
- Feline Hunters: Area of Effect Strike, tiers up to +5% Damage per target hit for twenty seconds.
A note about Inductions: In the outlined Traits below several sources of Induction Speed reduction have been removed. Lore-master baseline inductions have been reduced across the board by 30% to 60%. The goal is to reduce the number of Trait points needed to spend into Induction Speed and reduce the expected Lore-master Induction modifier to a lower value, as the previous Traits made it possible for Lore-masters to hit -100% Induction Duration in some content, which could break animations and cause other technical issues.
A note about Traceries: A number of Traceries have slightly different effects or slightly altered potency. No new Traceries are being added nor are Traceries being removed:
- Burning Embers Initial Damage is now Burning Embers Damage. Burning Embers exists for its Damage Over Time instead of its initial hit, and now affects all Burning Embers damage.
- Test of Will Damage and Critical Multiplier is now Test of Will Cooldown. This reflects the fact that Test of Will's value is primarily due to its stun not damage.
- Air Lore Reflect Potency is now Air Lore Potency. Air Lore is more valuable for its damage negation rather than its reflect. This Tracery now improves both aspects equally. Its potency has been slightly reduced.
- Light of the Rising Dawn Damage and Critical Multiplier is now Retribution Damage. Retribution is a better fit for this damage bonus due to Light of the Rising Dawn now being a low damage interrupt skill,
- Signs of Power Durations and Debuff is now Knowledge of the Lore-master Duration. These debuffs have been consolidated into the Knowledge of the Lore-master debuff, and no longer gain small potency increases from this Tracery.
- Sticky Gourd Direct Damage is now Sticky Gourd Damage. Like Burning Embers, Sticky Gourd is about the damage over time rather than the initial hit. Sticky Gourd and its subsequent damage over time both now benefit from this Tracery, although it does not impact Burning Embers even if applied or tiers up via Sticky Gourd.
- Storm Lore Damage is now Storm Lore Cooldown. Like Test of Will, Storm Lore is not used for its negligible damage. This Tracery now reduces its cooldown.

General Skills:
- Dispel Corruption's exact effect depends on your most recently-summoned pet.
  - Bear removes 1 Corruption from your target with a seven second cooldown.
  - Birds removes 3 different corruptions from your target over 5 seconds on a 15 second cooldown.
  - Cats removes 2 different Corruptions from up to 5 targets in a small Area of Effect on a 20 second cooldown.
  - Bog-guardian removes 1 Corruption from up to 5 targets in a large Area of Effect on a 15 second cooldown.
  - Spirit removes 1 Corruption from up to 5 targets in a moderate Area of Effect and restores Morale for each corruption removed on a 20 second cooldown.
- Knowledge of Cures: The baseline version of Knowledge of Cures no longer has an induction and is usable while moving.
- Blinding Flash is no longer a baseline skill, but can be traited in the yellow tree.
- Light of the Rising Dawn becomes your core Interrupt skill. It no longer has an induction and its cooldown is reduced to 15 seconds. Its damage has been reduced and its stun removed.
- Sticky Tar and Ancient Craft are now only available when specialized in The Ancient Master.
- Burning Embers no longer tiers down in any circumstance. Its tier up is gained by 'Dry Kindling' in the red tree.
  - The Burning Embers 'Slow Burn' effect now reduces enemy mitigations by 3%. This effect is also applied by other skills when they apply the 'Burning Embers' Damage over Time effect.
- Cracked Earth has been split into two versions, a base version with higher damage but no root, and an alternative that can be traited in the yellow tree that reduces its damage but adds the root countdown.
- Gust of Wind no longer interacts with Pleasant Breeze. Gust of Wind gains potency when specialized in the Master of Nature's Fury, and gains a new effect after using the skill Nature's Fury.
- Signs of Power: Vigilance:
  - Stealth Detection's bonus has been changed from +3 to +5.
  - Stealth Detection's duration is now 5 minutes by default.
  - Signs of Power: Vigilance now has a 90 second cooldown but applies its stealth detection in a small Area of Effect around the Lore-master. Additionally it pops enemies out of stealth in a moderate radius.
  - Now applies the Motivated buff to yourself and nearby allies, granting +10% Max Morale.
- Signs of Power: Command has been removed.
- Knowledge of the Lore-master now debuffs enemies regardless of whether you are in combat. This debuff has gained the effects formerly applied via Signs of Power: Command and See All Ends. When used out of combat it will additionally pop up the monster examination panel.
- Light of Hope has had its cooldown increased to 15 seconds and now costs 5% of your Max Morale. The potency of this heal has been increased 50%.
- Staff Strike now deals Frost Damage by default. Its damage from consuming a flank has been increased substantially.
- Wisdom of the Council has had its cooldown reduced to 3 minutes. The damage negation/reflect procs on all types of Incoming Damage, and the buff duration has been reduced to 10 seconds. The damage negation and reflect is no longer enabled in PvMP.
- Inner-flame is now blue line only. Inner Flame now transfers 15% of Threat to your pet with each pulse, and it no longer applies any form of damage buff to the Lore-master or their pet.
- Wizard's Frost, Wizard's Fire, and Wizard's Spark is available to all Lore-masters in their first few levels.
  - Wizard's Frost applies 'Gripped by Cold' which slows enemies by 30% for 4 seconds. Wizard's Frost's flank heal potency has been doubled.
  - Wizard's Fire applies a short Damage over Time burn. When consuming a flank, Wizard's Fire restores some Power. It's flank consume no longer grants a Damage Over Time buff.
  - Wizard's Spark deals immediate Damage and has a 5 second cooldown. When consuming a flank, Wizard's Spark gives you +35% Movement Speed for 8 seconds. When specialized in Master of Nature's Fury, Lightning Strike is also able to proc this flank effect.
- Water Lore's healing has been reduced by 33% (this healing value has been shifted into the Wizard's Frost flank heal) and Water Lore is usable while moving with no induction. Water Lore is now earned at level 32.
- Call to the Valar now resets a few key abilities depending on your chosen specialization.

Keeper of Animals (Blue line)
- This tree focuses explicitly on your summoned pets, centered mainly on buffing and supporting your pet, allowing your pet to deliver most of your total damage output. * These changes represent a fairly major change for the Keeper of Animals, and are intended to better differentiate the play style of this specialization from the Master of Nature's Fury play style.
- Gain access to stronger animal companions with unique skill sets.
- Specializing in the 'Keeper of Animals' tree will reduce your Outgoing Damage by 33% to help account for the additional damage dealt by your pet.
- All offensive and damaging pet skills now have some amount of inherent bonus to Threat.
- Minor Pet Skills, all with a 20 second cooldown:
  - Bear: Single target stun
  - Raven: +5% Mitigations to the Lore-master for 30 seconds
  - Eagle: -40% Speed and Damage Over Time
  - Bog-lurker: Damage Over Time
  - Small Cats: A more potent Damage Over Time
  - Big Cats: Area of Effect Damage Over Time
- Sign of the Wild: Rage (Specialization Bonus) - Grants the skill Sign of the Wild: Rage, a pet skill that causes your pet to make a devastating attack against its target with a 15 second cooldown. After using this command skill, your elemental skills will reduce the active cooldown of Sign of the Wild: Rage by 2 seconds. This means that active skill plays make SotW:Rage available again more quickly.
- Sign of the Wild: Protection (Specialization Bonus) - Grants a skill that helps your pets shield themselves from harm. This command skills has a 2 minute cooldown. Individual pet effects:
  - Bear: 75% Damage negation, +25% Incoming Healing
  - Raven: +100% Evade Chance, +25% Shadow Mitigation
  - Eagle: 25% Damage Negation, provides Eagle's Sacrifice. Due to persistent issues with the old sacrifice mechanic, this effect has been replaced by one that prevents the LM from being defeated. If the LM receives a death-blow, they will instead restore some morale and lose this protection.
  - Bog-lurker: -50% Incoming Ranged Damage, Crowd Control Immunity
  - Small Cats: -100% Perceived Threat, Potent Heal Over Time
  - Big Cats: Restores Morale every time the pet is attacked.
- Wild Sigils of Frost, Fire, and Lightning each tier up buffs on your active pet with a twelve second duration, up to 5 tiers maximum:
  - Wild Frost: x.9 Incoming Damage (-10% per tier)
  - Wild Fire: x1.15 Outgoing Damage (+15% per tier)
  - Wild Lightning +5% Run Speed, -10% Attack Duration, and +1% Critical Chance per tier.
- Keeper of Animals Specialization Traits:
  - Inner Flame (formerly Kindred Flame): Grants the skill Inner Flame. Inner Flame now transfers 15% of Threat to your pet with each pulse. Inner Flame no longer tiers up a Damage buff for you or your pet.
  - Inspiring Rage (formerly Peerless Wisdom): Sign of the Wild: Rage inspires your pet and your allies with +10% Pet Damage and +3% Damage for allies (does not stack with Captain's Inspire or Mariner's Inspiring Presence) with an 18 second duration.
  - Naturally Armed (formerly Raven's Protection): Sign of the Wild: Protection applies To Arms to your raid group. Does not stack with Captain's To Arms or Mariner's West Wind.
  - Battle Knowledge (formerly Critical Coordination, which is now in the Trait tree): Grants the skill Battle Knowledge, which allows you to create an area on the ground that gives allies +25% Outgoing Damage. Does not stack with Captain's Standard of War or Mariners Call the Banners of War.
  - Bolstered Bond (merged with the old Tutelage of the Brown Wizard): The old Bolstered Bond and Tutelage of the Brown Wizard bonuses, which are all passive bonuses to your pet stats, have been merged into a single Trait.
  - Tutelage of the Brown Wizard: Wizard Sigils give your pets additional bonuses when at their max ranks. Fire provides +15% Sign of the Wild: Rage's Critical Chance. Frost provides an additional 5 seconds of duration to Sign of the Wild: Protection's effect duration. Lightning provides Crowd Control immunity.
- Keeper of Animals Trait Tree:
  - Potent Sigils: gives +5-30% Wizard's Sigil Damage. Four ranks.
  - Hunting Instinct (formerly Wild Rage) now gives an additional +5% Call to Pet Damage per rank.
  - Unwearied Companions: Newly-summoned pets get a temporary Damage Bubble for 10 seconds. Subsequent ranks increase the potency of the bubble.
  - Prepared Materials: Reduces pet summoning Induction times by 20% per rank. Also reduces Call to Pet cooldown from -10 seconds to -45 seconds based on rank.
  - Friend of Lurkers grants the skill Friend of Lurkers as well as the ability to summon bog-lurkers.
  - Prepare for War: Incoming pet damage when executing player commands is reduced an additional 5% per rank. Pet Mastery from this trait has been replaced by 'Pet Damage' directly.
  - Wild Alacrity: Increases Wild Sigil durations by 3 seconds per tier. (This trait is only available when specializing in Keeper of Animals/blue line)
  - Friend of the Noble Birds grants the skill Friend of Eagles as well as the ability to summon Lesser Noble Birds.
  - Don't You Touch Him! grants the skill Retribution. (This trait is unavailable when specializing in Nature's Fury/red line)
    - Retribution damages and stuns your target and reduces the active cooldown of Beacon of Hope by 3 seconds.
    - Retribution increases the potency of your Wizard's sigils for 4 seconds, making them an Area of effect and causing them to apply the maximum tier of their corresponding Wild Sigil buffs.
    - Retribution has a 60 second cooldown.
    - Critical hits to your pet will reduce Retribution's active cooldown.
  - Catmint now restores your pet's Morale over Time and removes 5 PDFW effects from your pet. (This trait is unavailable when specializing in Nature's Fury/red line)
  - Friend of Feline Hunters grants the skill Friend of Hunters as well as the ability to summon Big Cats.
  - Loyalty allows your pet to leech Threat from you with a sacrifice to Morale. This trait now has only 2 ranks.
  - After-battle Treat now has only 2 ranks.
  - Unbreakable Bond grants the eponymous skill. (This trait is unavailable when specializing in Nature's Fury/red line)
    - Unbreakable Bond causes Incoming Pet Damage to be converted 10:1 to your pet's Power (5%) while preventing your pet from BPE'ing.
    - Unbreakable Bond also redirects healing from the Lore-master to your pet while active.
    - This skill has a one minute cooldown.
  - Murder of Crows now increases your target's Incoming Damage by 25%.

Master of Nature's Fury (Red Line):
- This specialization minimizes the amount a player needs to interact with their pets and reduces the overall impact pets have on your personal damage output. The core rotation revolves around tiering up embers and then cashing them out with lightning strikes, but you gain greater access to lightning strikes, and each strike fully removes an existing Burning Embers DoT effect, leading to more active play overall.
- Skills:
  - Ring of Fire functions a little differently:
    - The ring is now placed on the ground in front of you rather than on your target.
    - The ring no longer doubles in size at max rank of its corresponding trait.
    - Ring of Fire primarily delivers damage via a Damage Over Time effect to enemies standing inside of it.
    - Ring of Fire's cooldown has been increased from 30 to 75 seconds.
    - The PvMP version of this skill deals significant damage when passing into it. When inside the ring it deals minor damage over time. When leaving the ring, passing through the barrier deals additional damage, but much less than when passing into the ring.
  - Nature's Fury functions differently:
    - If the storm's target is defeated while active, it spins off into a new storm.
    - Now deals significantly more damage to its primary target and much weaker Area of Effect damage.
    - Storm effects now last 10 seconds.
    - After activating Nature's Fury, the Lore-master gains a 15 second buff which enhances Gust of Wind and Wizard's Frost while giving +10% Critical Chance and +30% Elemental Damage.
    - Nature's Fury's cooldown has been increased from 90 seconds to 2 minutes.
  - Sticky Gourd deals fire damage over time and with Dry Kindling tiers up Burning Embers over time on affected enemies.
  - Ents Go to War cooldown reduced from 5 minutes to one minute. Its damage has been increased and will knock down enemies below 20% Morale. Ents now deals bonus damage to any targets that have recently been Shaken by Cracked Earth.
  - Lightning Storm cooldown reduced from 90 seconds to 60 seconds. Lightning Storm critical hits will collect lightning motes to your staff when traited into 'Storm and Staff.'
- Pet Skills:
  - All Pet Skills change automatically when you specialize into Nature's Fury.
  - Minor Pet Command is now Minor Pet - Flank and applies the Flanked effect to your target.
  - Major Pet Command is now Major Pet - Distraction and applies the Flanked effect in addition to reducing your current Threat.
  - Summon X is now Call to X. Each of these skills deals immediate damage as well as applying flanks over time and a tertiary effect listed below. All share a 2 minute cooldown.
    - Bears: Area of Effect Fear
    - Ravens: Distraction/Enrage
    - Eagles: Tiers up Burning Embers over time
    - Lurkers: Stun and Damage Over Time
    - Feline Hunters: Area of Effect Damage
    - Feline Stalkers: Damage Over Time
- Master of Nature's Fury Specialization Bonuses:
  - Lightning Strike: When specialized in the Master of Nature's Fury, Wizard's Spark becomes Lightning Strike.
- Master of Nature's Fury Specialization Traits:
  - Improved Ignition gives Lightning Strike and Lightning Storm the ability to cash out Burning Embers for bonus damage based on the current tier of Burning Embers. Damage from Improved Ignition now deals lightning damage and benefits from bonuses to lightning damage.
  - Master of the Elements: Frost skills apply debuffs if they follow a Fire or Lightning skill.
  - Quickening Flames (formerly Exposure to the Elements): Fire skills tier up an Induction Duration buff of -10% per tier with a maximum of three tiers and a fifteen second duration.
  - Liquid Fire grants the skill Sticky Gourd, which deals Damage over Time and, with Dry Kindling, tiers up Burning Embers over time.
  - Staff Sweep (formerly Hasten) grants the skill Staff Sweep. Staff Sweep no longer reduces skill cooldowns.
  - Flame of Anor now gives +1 Wizard's Fire pulse.
- Master of Nature's Fury Trait Tree:
  - Master of Fire gains 2 ranks with a maximum bonus of +25% at rank 5.
  - Storm and Staff (formerly Storm and Sword): Your staff collects lightning motes every fifteen seconds, stacking up to three times. When using Staff Strike, a single lightning mote will be consumed to bring a lightning strike down on your enemy. This strike benefits from Improved Ignition and Fierce Lightning. When charged with Lightning, Staff Strike now has a fifteen meter range. This trait also causes critical hits with Lightning Storm to gather lightning motes to you.
  - Fend Them Off increases the bonus damage dealt when Staff Strike consumes a flank.
  - Unyielding Sweep (formerly Rapid Fire) gives you a +7.5% Critical Chance for 14 seconds. Ranks 2 and 3 give +4 to +8 seconds to its duration to re-apply the buff.
  - Fierce Lightning's overall duration and pulses have been reduced by half, and its damage has been lowered by 20% to reflect that its damage is now more front-loaded (so less of its total damage is likely to be lost due to being overwritten).
  - Dry Kindling: Reapplying Burning Embers causes it to tier up +1 tier per rank, up to 3 ranks maximum.
  - Mighty Wind requires Dry Kindling at max rank, and its bonus at max rank has been increased from 70% to 100%.
  - Ring of Fire now improves Ring of Fire damage, since Ring of Fire no longer applies a debuff.

The Ancient Master (Yellow line):
- These changes bring yellow line Lore-masters' power more closely in line with yellow-line Burglars and Mariners.
- The Ancient Master Specialization Skills:
  - Fire Lore and Frost Lore have been merged into a singe skill: Fire and Frost Lore, which is granted by specializing in the Ancient Master. The potency of this combined effect has been reduced slightly to x0.9 Outgoing Damage (-10%) baseline.
  - Test of Will's cooldown has been reduced from 60 seconds to 40 seconds.
  - Friend of Nature: Specializing in the Ancient Master grants the ability to summon Spirits of Nature.
    - Spirit of Nature no longer has an initial cooldown on any player-commanded skills.
    - Nature spirits now automatically flank enemies periodically, as well as automatically healing allies for a small amount.
  - Minor Pet Skills have a 45 second duration and a 20 second cooldown:
    - Spirit: Bonus Morale is restored when you are healed.
    - Bear Offers x0.97 Outgoing Damage
    - Raven: Offers x0.9 Outgoing Ranged Damage and applies the Enraged effect
    - Eagle: -2% Incoming Damage and +1 Hope
    - Bog-lurker: +3% Incoming Ranged Damage and +2% Incoming Tactical Damage
    - Cats: +3% Incoming Melee Damage and +2% Incoming Tactical Damage
  - Insult to Injury now has two lightning and two fire sources. After using Sticky Tar or Test of Will, your next Fire skill will apply bonus damage. Likewise, after using Ancient Craft or Bane Flare your next Lightning skill will deal bonus damage.
  - Sticky Tar effects are now applied in a slightly modified way:
    - Tar has a base duration of 20 seconds, but that duration can be increased by 'Force of Will' adding up to 15 seconds.
    - Additionally, when Sticky Tar falls off of an enemy (through leaving the tar area or the tar area expiring) they will suffer from an additional 20 seconds of Minor Rent Armour. This means you can achieve a maximum Rent Armour duration of 55 seconds per use, though the actual ground effect will only persist for 35 seconds max.
- The Ancient Master Specialization Traits:
  - Sticky Tar grants the skill Sticky Tar.
  - Storm Lore grants the skill Storm Lore.
  - Ancient Craft grants the skill Ancient Craft.
  - Warding Knowledge grants the skill Warding Knowledge.
    - Warding Knowledge is now a defensive skill benefitting allies when standing in its area rather than debuffing enemies. Warding Knowledge applies a x0.7 Incoming Damage effect, reducing damage by 30%. Warding Knowledge has a 30 second duration and a 2m 39s cooldown.
- The Ancient Master Trait Tree:
  - Grasping Earth: Reduces Cracked Earth damage by 50% but adds the delayed-applicated root to this skill.
  - Shield of Knowledge (formerly Level-headed): Provides a short defensive buff to you when using a Lore skill. This buff is increased by rank.
  - Bane Flare: Grants the skill Bane Flare
    - Bane Flare cooldown increased from 1 to 2 minutes and its grace period reduced from 4 to 2 seconds.
    - Ranks 2 and 3 reduce the cooldown by 30 seconds per rank
  - Force of Will: Increases buff durations by 3 seconds per rank.
    - Affects Slow Burn, Brittle Frost, Fire and Frost Lore, Wind Lore, Ancient Craft, Sticky Tar, and Knowledge of the Lore-master.
  - Earth Power: +5 seconds Cracked Earth Root Duration per rank.
  - Mending Lore no longer gives Water Lore an Incoming Healing buff at max rank.
  - Sign of Power: See All Ends: grants the eponymous skill.
    - SoP:SAE is now a short duration defensive buff for the Lore-master, negating 45% Incoming damage and giving +100% Partial Parry Chance for 3 seconds - just slightly longer than the skill's animation.
    - SoP:SAE now has a 20 second cooldown.
  - Flow of Power grants the skill Share the Power. Additional ranks increase the amount of Power restored.
  - Blinding Flash grants the eponymous skill.
    - Blinding Flash base daze duration is now 10 seconds.
    - Blinding Flash base cooldown is now 30 seconds.
  - Explosive Flash: +5s Blinding Flash Daze Duration per tier.
  - Quick Packing: +5s Blinding Flash cooldown reduction per tier.
  - Sign of Power: Righteousness grants the eponymous skill.
    - Righteousness immunity now has a 15 second base duration and 45 second cooldown.
  - Wind Lore grants the eponymous skill. (This trait is unavailable when specializing in Nature's Fury/red line)
    - Wind Lore no longer tiers up, and simply applies +5% Incoming Damage when used.
  - Immemorial Wind causes Wind Lore to spread Fire and Frost Lore to nearby enemies. (This trait is only available when specializing in The Ancient Master/yellow line)
  - Pleasant Breeze: Grants the eponymous skill. The amount of healing is increased +5% with each additional rank.
    - Pleasant Breeze restores a small amount of Morale to a small area around your target.
    - Pleasant Breeze no longer interacts with Gust of Wind and no longer requires a proc to make it available.
    - Pleasant Breeze healing increased 50%.
    - Pleasant Breeze cooldown increased from 10 seconds to 30 seconds.
  - Beacon of Hope: Changes Light of Hope to Beacon of Hope, an an Area of Effect skill with half the healing.
    - This skill is limited to the fellowship of its target.
    - This trait also causes Water Lore to apply +5% Incoming Healing to its target when used.
  - Grants the skill and effect: The Ancient Master
    - The Ancient Master has a 3 minute cooldown.
    - The Ancient Master allows you to store power when you land critical hits or heals (up to 1x per skill use). At the 6th tier, it will turn into an Ancient Master charge.
    - The skill itself (The Ancient Master) will immediately give you the maximum of 5 charges. Using an empowered skill consumes one charge.
    - Charges will fall off slowly when out of combat, down to a single charge (so you can always start combat with one charge, but should not be forced into re-building charges before every pull)
    - These charges empower many of your skills as follows:
      - Fire and Frost Lore becomes AoE.
      - Sign of Power: Righteousness gets +20 seconds to its duration.
      - Sign of Power: See All Ends potency doubled, partial Parry becomes a full Parry.
      - Shield of Power: Vigilance buffs allies Critical Defence.
      - Air Lore applies a bubble.
      - Water Lore becomes AoE.
      - Beacon of Hope heals 50% more.
      - Wind Lore potency increased to 7.5%.
      - Burning Embers becomes AoE.
      - Gust of Wind deals more damage and applies Brittle Frost.
      - Wizard's Frost becomes AoE and debuffs enemy inductions.
      - Wizard's Fire applies a potent Damage Over Time.
      - Wizard's Spark stuns its target.
  - Enfeeble now improves the debuffs from Ancient Craft and Knowledge of the Lore-master.

Other Classes:

Rune-keeper: Scribe a New Ending no longer suggests that it applies to your fellowship when used. This is a targeted skill.
The 'Renewed Defences' effect that follows powerful debuffs like Murder of Crows, Oathbreakers Shame, and the Breaking of Thangorodrim now lasts 90 seconds, up from 45 seconds.
After benefitting from a 'To Arms' buff, players will now experience 25 seconds of 'Exhaustion.' This prevents you from benefitting from any other 'To Arms' effects until it expires.
Captain's Standard of War cooldown increased 60s > 90s. Standards of Honour and Victory retain their existing cooldowns of 60s, though all three skills still share a cooldown.
Mariner's Call the Banners of War base cooldown increased 1m30s > 2m.

LOTRO Store:

The ability to unlock a fourth profession slot is now available in the LOTRO Store.

Combat and Monsters:

Rectangle and Cone AoE Effects in game will now detect targets over significantly greater height differences than before.
This should allow area effects to operate more effectively when slopes, ramps, and stairs are involved.

Crafting and Hobbies:

Birding!
- A new Birding Tab has been added to the Collections Panel to show all of the ornithological occupants of Middle-earth you can spot.
Several crafting introduction quests have revised dialogue to account for the removal of vocations.
New Metalsmith recipes have been added to the Umbar tier create the following multi-tools:
- Tools of the Umbari Armsman: weaponsmith, woodworker, forester, and prospector
- Tools of the Umbari Explorer: tailor, forester, jeweller, and prospector
- Tools of the Umbari Historian: scholar, farmer, jeweller, and weaponsmith
- Tools of the Umbari Protector: prospector, metalsmith, scholar, and tailor
- Tools of the Umbari Tinker: jeweller, prospector, farmer, and cook
- Tools of the Umbari Generalist: cook, farmer, metalsmith, and tailor

Quests, Deeds, and Adventure Areas

The objectives on the map for the Eryn Lasgalen quest, The Torech Emel Brood are now easier to see.
The letter that bestows the quest Outfitting Yourself and Others will now show the correct text for Beornings.
The Mordor deed Tales of Gorgoroth has been revised to identify which quests players are required to complete in order to complete the deed.
Resolved an issue with the Gundabad quest Searching For Gold in which players would receive two gold nuggets and only get credit for one.
The banners in the Dol Amroth quest Banners of Umbar are now easier to click on.
The objective, "Complete Citizens of the Cape of Umbar" in the Deeds of the Cape of Umbar meta deed, has been corrected to read "Complete Quests of the Cape of Umbar". The completion requirements have not changed.
Players will no longer be attacked by invisible corsairs while playing the Shield Isles quest Theft Beyond Measure.
The Storm-raven on the mailbox in Echad Naeglanc, Dunland, will no longer cause players to go into combat.
The name of a quest in The Wastes, Under the Watch of Narchost, has been corrected to Under the Watch of Carchost.
Morcar in Wildermore will no longer show a quest ring on the radar after all of his quests are complete.
Trees associated with the Eryn Lasgalen quest Mending the Mirkwood will no longer glow unless you have the quest underway.
In the Eregion quest instance Leader of the Foul Wood, Zagâfum will no longer attack the player before they are on the correct objective.
Zhélruka Warriors in the Câr Bronach quest Tûr Fúar: Captured Zhélruka will no longer respawn with quest rings even though they cannot be re-used to advance the quest.
- PLEASE NOTE: Players who logged out with the Câr Bronach quest Tûr Fúar: Captured Zhélruka in progress will need to re-accept the quest and start it over due to versioning that was required to address an issue.
Glowing spots on the landscape in Eregion can now only be seen when the relevant quests are in progress.
Enemies in the Firien Wood, a remote bestowed quest in the Beacon Hills, Far Anorien, will now bestow. It can be acquired by defeating Variag in the vicinity of Halifirien.
The deeds Captains of Minas Tirith, Masters of Minas Tirith, and Wardens of Minas Tirith should once again bestow properly when you approach the appropriate NPCs.
The Barrow-downs quest Digging in the Dirt now has quest guides that are easier to see on the map.

Instances and Skirmishes:

In order to prevent several gameplay issues, scions are being removed from all tiers of the instance "Thaurisgar, the Vile Apothecary".
Base Health, Mitigations, and Damage have been increased for most monsters found within level 50 endgame instances: Carn Dum, Urugarth, Barad Gularan, and The Rift of Nurz Gashu. This should have a modest impact on the difficulty of those spaces, and should help make those instances a bit harder to complete without full groups when played on-level.

Missions and Delvings:

The Elderslade Mission "The Hunting Grounds" now works correctly in a Duo Fellowship.
- Note: The Hunting Grounds instance mission will be versioned on update.
The Gundabad Mission: "Sting Like a Grodbog" instance exit door now works correctly.
The Gundabad Mission: "Unwelcome Guests" instance exit door now works correctly.
Enemies now consistently spawn at the correct time in the Wildwood Mission: Attack on Cotfast.

Items and Rewards:

Legendary Items now indicate if they are ready to be reforged in the examination tooltip.
Socketed Instruments will now properly appear in the Instruments section of the Auction House
If you have completed "The Abyss of Mordath -- Tier 2", Fragments of the Abyss crafting components are once again available for barter at the Gorgoroth Crafting Vendor or at the Master of Mordor Lore Gorgoroth Rewards Vendor.
Stat distributions have been adjusted for some level 50 equipment. Crafted gear in particular now caps out at a slightly reduced iLevel, and a number of instance (Urugarth, Carn Dum, Barad Gularan, and the Rift of Nurz Gashu) rewards should now be more appealing.
The tooltip on Albino Skin now correctly identifies it as an item that can be turned in for tasks.

PvMP/Ettenmoors:

Monster players should now be able to access their own Reward Tracks (subject to availability)
Some updates to Player Barter Vendors in the Ettenmoors: vendors now have purchasable quests that reward an amount of IAXP that scales to your level. These quests are available for purchase with Tokens of Valour, Commendations, and the new currency being introduced with the Monster Play Reward Track - Marta.
New Cosmetic Rewards based on the initial and third Ettenmoors armour releases added to the armour vendors in Glân Vrai - these are available for purchase with the new shared account currency available from the upcoming Monster Play - Season of Strife Track.
New Consumable packs are available from barterers on the player and monster player vendors in Glân Vraig and Gramsfoot respectively. These are available for the new shared account currency available from the upcoming Monster Play - Season of Strife Track.
Added the new player portrait frame for the Season of Strife to the task Vendor at Glân Vraig.
There is now a weekly quest for monster players and a reward key with a chest that is lootable weekly.
Player chests have been updated and an additional tier was added with a new key given out on the first weekly quest.
Bring them Low! now has a return to Tordur as outlined
Cleave the enemy now teleports to the orc camp and no longer mentions the random location.
We have done the following to the kill task quests purchased at Gramsfoot and Glân Vraig:
- There are no longer tiers associated with these tasks, there is only 1 task.
- The kill count for these tasks increases to 50 kills.
- The weekly quests previously advanced by each completion of either the kill task, or the kill task tiers now provides 5 of the item needed to satisfy the objective in the weekly quests.

Landscape:

Miscellaneous deco placement issues have been resolved.
Miscellaneous stuck spots have been resolved.
Miscellaneous pathing issues have been resolved.
Miscellaneous floating objects have been resolved.
Miscellaneous terrain textures issues have been resolved.
Miscellaneous Z-fighting has been resolved.

Localization:

Adjusted the layout of the Class Traits screen to fix an issue where the German description of the Lore-master traits would be cut off at the bottom of the screen.
(Deutsch) Fixed a text wrapping issue on the Virtue Traits Screen.
(Deutsch) Fixed a text cut off issue on the Quest Screen.
(Deutsch) Fixed a text wrapping issue on the Crafting Recipe Screen.
(Deutsch) A typo has been corrected on the Middle-earth map in German.

Miscellaneous

The game launcher will now automatically fix a certain class of "Unable to decrypt and de-serialize the data downloaded from the server" errors.
The Fleet-captain barterer in Dâr Laja, the Meeting-hall now shows the barterer map note.
Voice over audio for the Kindred in the last step of the new quest for the Keteph storyline now plays correctly.
Old Bauman at the Combe Lumber Camp now shows a map note that he is a barterer.
Harthabor in Jax Phanâl now shows a map note that he is a barterer.
Corsair Raiders in Barad Rill no longer eat using weapons as utensils.
The Temamir dwarf Asitam now has a consistent appearance whenever he appears (either in King's Gondor or in Furukzahar).
The prospector representing the Iron Garrison at Gharâf-fehem in The Redhorn Lodes has had their name corrected to "Hersir".

Source

Update 41 - Wednesday July 31, 2024

Contents