Long Time No See

It's been a long time (2 years) since I've played LOTRO regularly but I've got that itch again. I've mostly been playing Rimworld (including creating my own hobbit shire, elven villages in the mallorn woods and dwarven mead-halls, thanks to the Lord of the Rims mods) and Elder Scrolls Online (which, like LOTRO, has a rich lore). The main reason I stopped playing LOTRO was because I was so frustrated with Mordor. Maybe now I've had a long holiday it won't be so bad. Maybe there have been improvements - so far it seems a lot has changed in game. I've got a lot to catch up on and I'm excited to experience the new stories beyond Mordor - for example, I just saw Myndariel has an invitation in her mailbox to attend Aragorn and Arwen's wedding!

So I just wanted to say, "Hi! I'm back." I look forward to exploring more of Middle Earth and updating some old articles and writing some new ones soon. Thanks to everyone who has visited or commented on my website - I really appreciate your support and hope you have a great time playing LOTRO.

Walked into Mordor

The Black Gate is open!

Hooray! The Mordor expansion is here!

I bought the Collector's Edition - I wanted a special mount and the high elf, and the extras in the Ultimate Fan Bundle would be nice, but too expensive.

Steed of the Alliance of the Third Age

Alliance of the Third Age cosmetic armour

So far, Myndariel my Lore-master, Tyravorth my Beorning and Letycia my Captain (who used the Aria of the Valar to get boosted to 105) have entered Gorgoroth and are questing in Udûn. I've also created a new High Elf champion.

Mordor First Impressions

Session play was used quite well to show us key moments in the final stage of Frodo's journey, especially Gollum with Shelob and the battle between Gollum and Frodo for the ring. The Field of Cormallen looked stunning in glorious colours. Radanir was funny with his speech about an important to decision to make (which inn will the Rangers meet at for drinks?).

Gollum and the Ring

Field of Cormallen

Walking into Mordor (yes I did originally try walking into Mordor from The Wastes - not recommended - you'll die!) by taking the horse from the Field of Cormallen to the Black Gate, it's dark, but not as bad as I expected. I like the purple shadows around the player when they leave the beaten track; they emphasise the sense of potential danger. The soot-smudged pages to find and audio lore excerpts are nice - if I could be patient enough to stand still and listen to them fully. I read them though. Briefly. Then rush off to explore some more. So much to see and do.

The introduction of new NPCs with their own goals in Mordor is interesting and I look forward to journeying alongside them and seeing what mischief they get up to. I love crafting so I'm happy to see new resources and recipes and less reliance on essences. I'll have to wait and see whether the disenchantment system (breaking down unwanted gear into Ash of Gorgoroth) is good - will we get enough excess gear drops? Other than quest rewards, I've only had one piece of gear drop in the wild and I can't wait to use it (it's for level 107). I've found lots of chests that apparently contain Gorgoroth Crafting Bundles - but you need level 106 to open them. I hope they will be worthwhile.

Udûn

The mobs have been difficult because my characters aren't that well geared. Myndariel has had the easiest time so far, but the mobs still take a while to defeat. I feel like I'm hitting them with wet noodles and they avoid so many of my attacks. Once I get new gear with the stats balanced appropriate for the zone I'm sure it will get better.

So far I'm enjoying it. It's tough but it should be. I'm looking forward to new gear and exploring new regions and learning more about the allegiance system and the Black Book of Mordor.

High Elf

Taurileth in the Second Age

I created a High Elf champion and played through the starting area. After having just been through the finale of the War of the Ring on Myndariel and Tyravorth, it gave me goosebumps and that déjà-vu feeling playing through the High Elf intro set in the Second Age during the last battle against Sauron. It was awesome!

High Elf Intro - Second Age

And Elrond's house! Oh my! It looked amazing compared to the version we are familiar with, and that was pretty good to start with.

Tham Send in Elrond's Last Homely House

Taurileth in Tham Send

I'm so glad we get the beautiful armour to keep. I love how you get sent to Celondim in Ered Luin with Elrond's sons - and a pile of books to catch up on a couple thousand years of history that occurred while you were sleeping! It's hard to imagine what that would be like. I've decided to make her a scholar as a result. Imagine poking around ruins and remembering them as beautiful buildings like it was yesterday - maybe she'll find "ancient" artifacts that were created by her friends or family, or even by her!

I almost wish I had used the character boost on her, but from reading the Patch Notes, it looks like there are quite a few quests that have minor variations for High Elves, and it might be fun to experience those.

Aria of the Valar

When I logged in after the expansion launched, I was missing my Aria of the Valar package. There was an announcement that it was a known issue, and would be fixed soon. I transferred crafting materials to my bank to make room in my bags for Mordor stuff, and my bank was nearly full, so I bought some more shared storage, and then my Aria of the Valar Package arrived. So I used the Aria of the Valar character boost to take my level 18 Captain to level 105 so she could head into Mordor. I'll have to level her crafting skills later.

It included (all character-bound):

• Aria of the Valar (instantly boosts character to level 105 and transports you to Camp of the Host in The Wastes so you can pick up the Epic Quest Volume IV, Book 8 from Aragorn that leads you into Mordor; you also get 12 tiers of each virtue, trait points, promotion points, over 300 marks, a Westemnet Iron Coin, at least 10 LOTRO points from auto-completed deeds, an Anórien lootbox and a sturdy key).
• Aria of the Valar Armour Pack (contains a full set of item level 294 armour and jewellery appropriate for your class, but no pocket item).
• Aria of the Valar Weapon Pack (contains a item level 294 weapon set appropriate for your class (e.g. a sword and shield), plus 3 Unidentified Third Age Legendary Item Boxes so you can choose a weapon, a class item and a war-steed bridle).
• Aria of the Valar Item Pack (contains 25 Dale-men's Crams, 25 Rejuvenation Potions, 25 Mithril Coins, Map to Eastfold - Aldburg, Map to the Sutcrofts - Snowbourne, an Anfalas Star-lit Crystal, Trait: Riding Characteristic (gain riding skill), Steed of the Citadel and war-steed appearances). 
• 3 Giant Piles of Silver Scraps (worth 5 gold 400 silver).
• 5 Tomes of Extraordinary Experience (XP boosters).
• Map to Rivendell.
• War-steed.
• Trait: Mounted Combat (can use war-steeds).
• Trait: Legendary items (can use legendary items).

Camp of the Host, The Wastes

Steed of the Citadel

Captain boosted to level 105 wearing equipment from Aria of the Valar Package

July: Month of the Hunter

This month is all about hunters in Middle Earth for me: I'm currently levelling three hunters through various parts of the game and really enjoying the class. I usually play blue spec because I like the mobility, but I've been having fun trying out the yellow spec traps and decoy lately too.

Level 100 Robinya (VIP) - West/Central Gondor

Robinya doesn't really like fighting, she likes collecting artifacts. Fortunately, her quests in West Gondor recently took her to Edhellond where there were corsairs running around and nearly trampling priceless old elven artifacts amongst the ruins, so she had no compunction about putting an end to them when necessary.

Edhellond

Then she went to Dol Amroth and met up with Jajax again, who told her about the corsairs down on the coast at Hashadîr, so she went to their camp and found some crates of artifacts and she wasn't going to let any corsair slavers or pillagers stand in her way of returning them to the library in Dol Amroth for further study. Then Jajax got kidnapped so she had to go rescue him from Abedec's Watch, and they had been stealing artifacts too, so she reclaimed them as well.

Robinya reached level 100 in Ethring, Ringló Vale in Central Gondor. It would be nice to get her to level 105 before the Mordor expansion launches, but I don't think I have enough time.

Mordor Expansion

I watched some streams of people playing the Mordor beta and saw that there is still a lot missing, placeholder text for quests, character appearances looking worse than before (fat faces with less expression, flat chests and big bellies), class skills needing balancing or fixing etc. so I figured the expansion was a still a little ways off - this is Mordor: I hope it will be really polished. Then we see the announcement for preorders and in the fine print it mentions the release date at the end of this month - July 31st. The fine print! <shakes head in disbelief> I love LOTRO but sometimes I despair over how the game is run.

For most MMOs, expansion release dates is a big deal and they usually give you a fair bit of notice to build hype and let people prepare for it. When I used to play WoW, I would arrange to take my holidays during the first week of a new expansion so I could play it non-stop and enjoy all the new content without interruptions (oh server crashes or major bugs were inconvenient but also bonds players who were there together as they commiserate and help each other on voice chat, in-game chat or forums).

This will be the first expansion in LOTRO since I joined, and I'd love to dedicate several days to it, but I won't even be there when the gates of Mordor open because I've already made other plans - visiting my family in New Zealand. Normally I would hope expansions launch on time and be complete (unlike Rift's latest expansion which was missing most of the advertised expansion content), but this time I hope the Mordor launch is delayed, for both selfish reasons and so they can make it the best it can be.

Level 35 Mystrandos (F2P) - Evendim

Evendim

My free-to-play hunter Mystrandos is questing through Evendim, working on the Epic questline and saving up LOTRO points to unlock Angmar next.

I don't really enjoy the quests in Northcotton Farm - so much traipsing back and forth - but at least she got quite a bit of XP from it. She completed some Shire deeds by questing around Oatbarton and the Glassblower's Camp near Dwaling, so those LOTRO points will help. Now she's based at Tinnudir and I'm looking forward to visiting the ruins throughout Parth Aduial.

Level 1-20 Hunter

I actually levelled a hunter from 1-20 at the start of the month so that I could create a little kin for crafting alts and invite myself into it with two accounts and two instances of the game open at the same time. However, I was already level 10 before it hit me that I should have screen-shotted and documented her levelling for the Introducing X Class guides. Oops. Opportunity missed. Ah well, I'll just make another hunter and take notes this time. Never can have too many hunters right?

Update 20.1.2, the store and game launcher drama

The latest update on May 31 was intended to fix the in-game store, but had some serious side effects for a lot of players, with both Windows and Linux affected.

Basically, from what I understand, the in-game store uses some third-party software and the third-party changed their code to comply with some new legal requirements and Standing Stone Games had to change their code to maintain compatibility. While they worked on the changes, they implemented an external store for LOTRO in the web browser, but when they switched to the new in-game store using a Chromium Embedded Framework, older operating systems, such as 32-bit Windows XP and Vista as well as Linux systems using 32-bit Wine, did not support it, which caused critical errors and crashes upon launching LOTRO and clicking the Play button.

At the same time, there was also a problem with 64-bit Windows 7/8/10 systems that seemed to have the same outcome - the game crashed on launch - but a different cause. It was found to be due to a conflict with a third-party graphics utility called SweetFX, and removing SweetFX fixed the issue for many. Some people suggested ReShade (which works with LOTRO) as a replacement for SweetFX.

While ideally these issues would have been caught in QA testing before launching the Update, SSG started investigating the issues pretty quickly and kept providing feedback and suggestions in the forums, but the community was also great at trying to narrow down the root cause (although there were a few who decided to ridicule people using older operating systems which wasn't helpful).

Suggestions for fixing the issue included:

• renaming/relocating the UserPreferences.ini file (didn't work)
• restore default settings in the launcher options (didn't work)
• run game as admin (didn't work)
• reinstalling the game (didn't work)
• removing d3d9.dll from the LOTRO game directory (worked for some people with Windows 7+, probably as it was a dependency for SweetFX)
• changing Wine version to 2.7-staging or later and OS from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1, and using OpenGL (worked for some people using Linux - but not for me)

Within 48 hours of the Update, the developers had new launcher and client files for affected players to download and copy into the LOTRO game directory (also recommended to backup the original launcher configuration file first). Reports started coming in pretty quickly that it worked for most people with Windows and Linux (worked for me).

So LOTRO worked for a few days until June 6, then they did server maintenance to implement some bugfixes and the game launcher crashed again - this time with an error message saying "You don't have the current version of the client." The solution was to download and install a newer version of the launcher and client files from the same place as before (but clear your internet cache/use incognito or private mode/use different browser to make sure you don't re-download the old versions). This worked, but I hope we don't have to do this every time they update the game.

Also, I'm still having to use the external browser to visit the store with no option to choose between the in-game store or the external store in the UI Settings or the UserPreferences.ini file. I'm using Linux Mint 18 and PlayOnLinux with Wine version 2.8, Windows 7 compatibility and DirectX 9. I've also tried Wine 2.7-staging, Wine 2.9-staging (with OpenGL, CSMT or default rendering settings) and Windows 8.1 compatibility but it made no difference to the store. DirectX 11 support in Wine is improving (I can play Elder Scrolls Online now, but with graphics glitches) but not complete yet, and I don't think changing to DirectX 11 will fix the store issue. I would like to have a working in-game store soon.

LOTRO is playable again, but they really need to get a permanent fix for these issues. It's putting me off playing LOTRO at the moment because I don't know if the game is going to work or if I'm going to have to go hunting for work-arounds, or if I'll have to wait for the next patch.

*Update 22/6/17: Tried to log into LOTRO and there has been a patch. First it told me that it could not save the data files, so I reset the launcher options to default. It patched ok and logged in, then crashed with the error message about "You don't have the current version of the client." I re-downloaded the launcher and client files (I've put shortcuts to the download links on my browser toolbar - looks like I might need them frequently), put them in the LOTRO folder, restarted the launcher and then the game worked.

*Update 29/6/17: Another patch, another crash and error message about not having the correct version. This time I only downloaded the lotroclient_awesomium.exe file and moved it to the LOTRO folder, then restarted the launcher and the game worked.

*Update 3/8/17: Update 21 and the Mordor expansion released and the game worked fine straight away, but the store still opens in the external browser. However, I ended up reinstalling LOTRO on my other computer and it crashed to desktop after clicking the Play button. I downloaded the launcher and client files from the website, then the game automatically patched them (apparently they weren't up to date), then the game worked on that computer too. So those files are still critical for linux players and we're still stuck with the external game store.

Spring Festival and Update 20

I love Spring Festival in LOTRO! There's so many activities and there are usually some very nice rewards. This year does not disappoint!

One of my little hunters was delighted to see the Steed of the (Moon) Moth has pretty green and brown decorations and the Cloak of the Moth is amazing how it shimmers and changes colour as it moves!

Steed of the (Moon) Moth - Spring Festival 2017

Cloak of the Moth (green/purple)

Cloak of the Moth (yellow/orange)

The dresses are nice too, but not in the same league as the cloak. I've got what I want from Spring Festival so now it's time to check out the new zone in Mordor ...

Update 20: Battle of the Black Gate includes a new zone The Wastes (Camp of the Host is now in The Wastes instead of North Ithilien), plus two new resource dungeons (Carchost, the Towers of the Teeth and Skoironk, the Maggot-holes) with solo and group options. The Epic story has a new episode, the raid gear from the Throne of the Dread Tower can be upgraded further, there are a couple of new recipes for each profession and there are new rewards for helping the Host of the West prepare for the Battle of the Black Gate.

The barren Wastes

Ruins dot the landscape

Looking towards the Black Gate

There are many ruins scattered across The Wastes, different types of flowers such as Bonemallow and Mournweed that yield phials of violet or golden extracts, and new resource nodes that yield scraps of Dagorlad weapons and armour, wood, cloth, onyx, artifacts, edible plants and occasionally Rangers' crafting journals that are used in new crafting recipes with a cooldown that make items to barter for reputation tokens which can be used to increase reputation with The Host of the West beyond kindred level or traded for new items and gear (including epic jewellery, shields and off-hand weapons).

I tried the Carchost resource instance but couldn't find any resources, only orcs and bats. There were a couple of items that seemed to be part of a quest but I couldn't interact with them or find any quest-givers. Maybe I didn't explore far enough, but my initial impression is confusion as it wasn't what I expected based on previous resource instances.

I don't really like how the zone revolves around collecting items and converting them into other items then converting those into other items that you can then use to get the items you want in the first place. It seems very convoluted and more complicated than it needs to be - there's not many quests in the zone so instead you have to grind items for something to do. I also don't really like the idea of having to earn rep beyond Kindred status - that also just increases the grindiness of the zone. Ah well, maybe they couldn't devote too much creative effort to this Update because they're working on making the Mordor expansion really good. One can hope.

Website Update - Guides Condensed

Hi. Just a quick note to mention that I have been spring cleaning (it's summer here, so maybe I'm late or really, really early) and condensed the list of guides on the right hand side but the guides are all still available! There's even a few new ones added recently.

I now have a Class Guides section that has links to my guides and other community guides for each class.

All the crafting guides are now in the Crafting Guides section, so if you want information about farming, scholars, how many ore you'll need to process to reach Master Anórien Prospector, or galleries of armour and weapons that can be crafted, this is the place to look.

I hope this makes the site a little more streamlined and easy to navigate. Thanks for visiting and for your feedback.

Update 19.2, Yule Festival and the future of LOTRO

News

It's a big day for LOTRO - update 19.2 has launched along with the Yule Festival and then we find out that LOTRO is no longer to be operated by Turbine and instead now belongs to Standing Stone Games, a new indie game developer, and will be published by Daybreak Games.

Already changes have begun when I logged in just a short while ago - there was the Daybreak Games End User Agreement to accept, the Standing Stones Games splash screen when the game loads and Turbine Points have already been renamed LOTRO Points in the in-game store.

From what I've seen so far, most people seem to be surprised but optimistic that this is good news for the future of LOTRO. I hope so too. Quite a few questions have already been answered in a FAQ that confirms the current development team are still working on LOTRO, that the license for the LOTRO IP (which was due to expire in 2017) has been updated and that game accounts and privileges such as lifetime memberships etc. will remain the same.

Update 19.2 won't affect me much - it mostly relates to additions to North Ithilien, premium housing, PvMP and some general bug fixes. Hunters are getting some significant changes (Blood Arrow becomes a general hunter ability available at level 40 with a self-heal effect) so trait trees have been reset. And the Yule Festival has launched with some new mounts and cosmetic items. I can't wait to see the reindeer-like mount!

Update (Dec 22): Steed of Winter's Light

My Adventures in Middle Earth

I've been pottering around on my free-to-play (F2P) account lately, finally having enough Points to remove the gold cap so I don't keep getting reminder messages and so my characters can get faction mounts and buy things from the auction house if they want. Now I just need to get riding abilities for my new characters and then I can start working towards unlocking extra zones. Plenty for them to do at the moment and I do enjoy the low level zones the most.

I've been playing LOTRO via Linux Mint and levelling up a couple of new characters on a new server - my original F2P characters were excited for Spring Festival and got some nice cosmetic outfits and mounts and now my new Linux-only F2P characters are looking forward to Yule Festival for their turn to get some nice things. I do get lower frame rates and more stuttering effects in Linux, but it's mostly working quite well. It will be interesting to see if there are any changes in its performance or to the launcher and compatibility with Wine with Standing Stone Games taking over.

Myndariel is still neglected and waiting to continue her journey to North Ithilien. I think I shall have to set a goal to motivate me - to get her there by New Year's Day. That means my Linux characters have a few days to enjoy the Yule Festival then Myndariel must make a move towards Mordor! You know what? The next couple of weeks in LOTRO should be a lot of fun!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

To everyone out there, I hope you have a wonderful and safe Christmas and all the best wishes for the New Year.

Level 80-85 Frustration

My Beorning has kind-of got stuck in the early 80s and its so frustrating it's putting me off the game at the moment.

She completed all the quests and exploration deeds in East Rohan at level 83, plus all the additional quests I could find. I'm not masochistic enough to make myself suffer through completing the slayer deeds. I tried taking her into West Rohan but couldn't find any quests. A kin-mate reminded me about Hunbald near the Entwade Crossing - he starts Vol III Book 11 of the epic quest and sends you to Edoras eventually. That got me into West Rohan and to level 84. Unfortunately she died more than she should have to those annoying level 85 and 86 mounted orcs that seem to be everywhere, but she persevered.

Edoras in the distance

Then she got to the dreaded Stilling the Wade quest. I've done it before and I know you have to focus on attacking the mobs who are attacking the palisades and ignore the orcs attacking at the gate - but just because you ignore them doesn't mean they ignore you! Especially when you're low level! I hate that quest - it's the most frustrating quest in any MMO I've ever played.

So, she's got a few alternative options for levelling - start the Hytbold quests, which is probably the easiest option; go to Wildermore, which would mean getting some turbine points to unlock the zone because I'm not currently subscribed; or doing skirmishes and big battles ad nauseum. To be honest though, none of them really interest me. I wish there was another level 80-85 or 80-90 zone, and I'm sure there would be a lot of people who would agree with me if I suggested that it not be heavily focused on mounted combat - there's plenty of that in Rohan.

Another issue that has been frustrating her and may be partly why she's finding the quests in West Rohan so difficult is because there is no might-based medium armour appropriately designed for Beornings in East Rohan. She's wearing agility gear and sure it works, but not as well, and you really notice it when you're up against mobs 2-3 levels above you, even in the tank spec. She feels so squishy and like she's swiping at mobs with rubber claws - it's taking forever to kill mobs and she's not doing much damage. Sure she would do more damage in dps spec, but then she would be even more squishy.

Sigh. I'll probably have a break from her and focus on some of my other characters for a little while. Myndariel, my main lore-master, has been doing some quests in Eastern Gondor that she skipped earlier and Melanariel, my second lore-master, is almost ready to enter Moria (I should probably make up some background story about how they are both descended from a long-lost relative called Ariel, but another time perhaps). Then there's my hunter who is busy helping Bingo, and a bunch of other characters that have been neglected in crafting halls around Eriador.

Bâr Húrin in South Ithilien (Eastern Gondor)

Executive Producer's Letter - December 2015

Thanks to Level Up Haffle, I just found out about the latest Executive Producer's Letter before I even got the news from Turbine. There's some explanations about the delays with the server transfers and some news about what's coming in 2016 - namely, an increase in level to 105 and a new instance cluster and a 12-man raid associated with the Battle of Pelennor Fields.

That should make a few people happy.

Here's the full news:

Hello all!

2015 was a great year for LOTRO, and we hope you agree! We had many large beats to cover this year as we built out more of Gondor including the two great cities of Osgiliath and Minas Tirith. Additionally we took on major service upgrades including building a brand new store and consolidating our servers to a core ten worlds which are buzzing with activity these days.

Unfortunately we also missed a beat this year with our plans to move into a brand new Datacenter. We wanted to have this new center launch by the end of this year, and while all of the hardware is up and ready to go. However, this upgrade in hardware also came with an upgrade in operating system from 32-bit to 64-bit. When we started load testing the new hardware, we learned that our chat system does not function properly on the new OS. As a result we have to architect a new solution for chat which will delay us into 2016. Updates to come as we work through the problem.

Our story continues in 2016 with Riding with the Rohirrim to the Battle of Pelennor Fields and then taking the battle to the enemy as we push towards the Black Gates! It is going to be an exciting year to be sure.

Major 2016 Initiatives:

Level Cap increase to 105: Build on your heroism and power with 5 more levels of character advancement. Your Imbued Legendary Items will not need to be replaced, but will continue to grow and level with you.
New Fellowship Challenges: The Battle of Pelennor Fields will contain a new instance cluster as well as a long awaited 12-man raid!
New Collections: We will be adding UI elements to help you see and catalogue many of the items you can already find in game. Our first collection system will be around emotes. Ever wondered what emotes are available to you, what they look like or where you can get them? Now you will know!
Quality of Life: Much like last year, we will continue to make quarterly patches that focus on bug fixing and general improvements to Quality of Life.

Thank you for your continued commitment to this team and to our game. We look forward to seeing you in Middle-Earth as LOTRO enters its 9^th year!

Athena “Vvyvanne” Peters
Executive Producer- Lord of the Rings Online

Travel Skills Summary Available

How often have you wondered, "I need to go to ...., what's the quickest way to get there?" Or how often have you seen in world chat, "I need a hunter to take me to ....", or "Can someone summon me to the Culverts (referring to the Osgiliath Culverts near Minas Tirith)?"

There are a lot of travel skills in LOTRO to help you move around the world faster. I've written a guide called Travelling Around Middle Earth about how to get the travel skills available to everyone and also the special wayfaring and mustering skills for hunters and wardens respectively.

I hope it will be helpful as a quick reference.

Crafted Weapons Gallery Coming Soon

Return of the Lore-master

Hi. I took a break from LOTRO after the release of Central and Eastern Gondor. Mostly I felt disappointed with the quality of the releases. However, after some time away I started to miss Middle Earth. My interest was also piqued when they announced the imbued legendary items and cosmetic weapons. So I'm gradually getting back into the game again, especially since the Farmer's Faire (my favourite holiday event).

Cosmetic Weapons and Gallery Coming Soon

I know I kept a couple of staves that I got as quest rewards while levelling Myndariel because they looked cool but I'm sure there's a lot more nice looking weapons out there and since I like crafting I'm going to focus on crafted weapons and showcase them in a gallery like I've done with armour, to make it easier to find good looking swords, daggers, axes, bows, spears, staves and shields ... did I forget anything? Probably. In any case, my craftsmen will dust off their tools and get to work very soon in the crafting hall of Bree.

Update: New guides and galleries

Hi. I hope you had a great weekend. I did. It was a warm and sunny spring day and I enjoyed basking in the sun with a good book and a big beanbag. I also got my captain to level 75 and got her a warsteed (wow it's such a different experience on a melee class compared to ranged!), and added some extra guides and galleries to the blog here:

My captain's a metalsmith so she helped model for the new Forged: Crafted Heavy Armour gallery.

The Resources and Crafting Instances guide is designed to provide some quick reference information about where you can go to get the ore, leather, wood or scholar resources you might need.

Finally, since I'm working on visiting everything in the Instance Finder and sharing a bit about them here, I've added an index called the Guide to Instances to make it easier to find relevant information.

Update: Crafted Light Armour Gallery

I don't know about you, but when I'm planning a cosmetic outfit, I always consider which crafted pieces could be used to complement a theme.

Darzil's LOTRO Crafting Guide has been an excellent resource in the past, but it is no longer updated so I'm making my own galleries. I'd also like to mention that the Item Treasury plugin by Galuhad is a great tool for being able to preview items in-game.

I've just finished updating the Tailor-made: Crafted Light Armour gallery with cloaks, armour sets requiring reputation and high level gear. Please have a look!

Here's a few of the recent additions to the gallery:

Lvl 42 Ajokoira Armour (Light)

Lvl 60 Lothlórien Hooded Cloak of the Elder

Lvl 75 Wyrmscale Acrobat's Cloak

Lvl 95 Fangorn Armour (Light)

I will be working on the crafted medium and heavy armour galleries soon. If you have any suggestions about the galleries, please leave a comment.

Update 14: Paths of the Dead Patch Notes

14 July 2014: Update 14 is now live. Here are the Patch Notes by Sapience:

Of Special Note

Welcome to West Gondor
West Gondor is a beautiful new area in LOTRO, but the peace of the lands surrounding Dol Amroth has been threatened by the landing of Corsair ships along the coast. These violent, brutal invaders have brought with them a tide of fear and unrest in the fair stone cities of Gondor’s noble people. The Blackroot Vale, Lamedon, and the Havens of Belfalas are home to a number of friends of the Free Peoples as well as enemies allied with Sauron, and there is much to be done to help the good folk of West Gondor.

Epic Story Volume IV
A New Volume of the Epic Story begins! With the threat of Saruman ended, adventurers throughout Middle-earth must now prepare for the full onslaught of Sauron, the Great Enemy! The Rohirrim muster for war and Aragorn enters the Paths of the Dead, bound for his destiny… and you must follow behind, to safeguard the lands through which he must pass. Volume IV is free to all players!

The Essence System is here!
New gear found throughout the world can be upgraded and enhanced by placing Essences into available slots.
A quick overview:

• You will find armor with open slots that can accept essences.
• Both the armor and essences drop in a wide variety of areas and content; some can even be crafted.
• By slotting essences into this new armor you can customize the stats of the armor to your liking.
• With this update, the essences will be exceedingly rare. We don’t want to flood the market before we get some good feedback on the live servers. Don’t worry, if you don’t see many of these initially, we’ll be increasing the drop rates some time soon once we see how they play. The intent here is for players to have access to customization options, not to create a new grind. The essences are unbound until used so they can be freely traded amongst players.

The level cap has been raised!
You may now level your character to level 100! All classes have seen the addition of new skills and additional trait points to allow players to further enhance their characters.

Join the City Watch of Dol Amroth
Upon reaching level 100 you’ll receive a summons from Beriaudur, head of the city guard of Dol Amroth. He has heard of your travails through West Gondor and wants to see if you are interested in joining the watch. The city of Dol Amroth is broken into 8 districts, each focusing on a different important building. Only once a watch-man has earned the trust of the residents of a district, are they allowed to patrol and be responsible for that section of the city.

The people of Dol Amroth have much that needs to be done and each day you can aid them in their tasks. These tasks range from threats in the Paths of the Dead, to corsair camps on an island, to a 3-man instance, to fishing, and more. Two of these sections, the Paths of the Dead and the caves and tunnels beneath Emyn Ernil will be need to cooperatively unlocked by the server before any trust may be earned with some of the districts. Upon completing a quest you’ll be rewarded with Silver Tokens of Dol Amroth or tokens for a specific district. Using the token will provide rep with that district. The tokens can also be bartered for armour, essence, and housing rewards. The tokens may also be freely traded with other characters.

Upon completing your quests for the day, Beriaudur will ask if you wish to join the watch-men in some training exercises. Returning from these exercises, you discover corsairs have snuck into the city under cover of night. You are able to select which district you wish to free, based on those you have earned the trust of, and together with the watch you may attempt to retake the city. This is an instance that can be done once daily and rewards Gold Tokens of Dol Amroth and tokens for the various districts.

By Player Request

Log out Changes
It now takes 30 seconds for players to log out if they are in combat (while out of combat, the 10 second timer remains unchanged): preventing the log-out mechanic from being abused in certain situations.

Inventory Sort

• Slotted Legendary Items are now sorted before others.
• We will now group together all your food and all your potions. Within each group, the items will be sorted by level, then quality.
• We now sort items in order of increasing instead of decreasing quality for consistency

Inventory Bags No longer auto resize.
Due to player feedback, inventory bags no longer resize themselves proportionally when the size of your client changes. The only thing that can change the width of your bags now is manual manipulation of their size. There are some caveats that come along with this:

• The first time you log in after this change, you will have to change the width of your bags via the drag bar on the right edge once again since the sizes had to be reset
• If you play on multiple machines, your changes in width on one machine will not impact the other (the up side of this is that if you play in different resolutions on different machines, you can have each machine use different bag widths without having to manually change it back and forth)

Player Council Contributions to Update 14
The Players Council has brought a number of quality of life issues to our attention and we’re happy to announce that the following changes and additions are being made to the game based on the feedback of both the 2013 and 2014 Players Council members.

• The maximum number of friends you can have on your friends list has been increased to 100.
• The maximum number of characters allowed in the Kinship Message of the day has been increased. (Currently 80, increased to 132)
• A new global chat channel has been added. This channel is /world or /wd. You are automatically added to this channel when you log in and it is active throughout the game world. Monsterplayers have their own version of this chat.

We would also like to thank the council for their contributions, insights and feedback on the Essence System, Beornings, level cap increases, and Legendary Items. Some of these changes are present in this update, others have had an influence on the future of the game and are reflected in Executive Producer Aaron Campbell’s latest Producer’s Letter.

Release Notes

General

• Fixed a bug which prevented fellowship members from being able to see each other’s emote text and hear each other’s' music under certain circumstances.
• Chest slot items that affect both the upper and lower body are now only affected by dyes applied to the chest slot.
• Shield of the Hammerhand once again stacks with Derudh's Stone and the Outrider's Token.
• The Welcome Back Weekend effects have been updated to now grant a % bonus to Experience Gain on Monster Kills, Crafting, Quest Completions, Legendary Item and Mounted Combat XP. Updated the effect description.
• Over-time effects applied by always-crit skills no longer always crit on each pulse.
• Retreating from an interior space should now bring you to the proper defeat circle.
• Crippled effect, usually put on the player by wolves, has been converted to a true wounding effect. Along with decreasing your run speed, it now also decreases might and expires out of combat. Wound healing potions will now cure it, regardless of how many of these effects are stacked on the player.
• Certain players who were not automatically bestowed Tier 2 versions of some deeds (e.g., "Orc-slayer of Wildermore (Advanced)") should check their Deed Logs, as that oversight should now be rectified.
• You can no longer slot a conflicting set of skirmish traits

Classes

All Classes

• Traits that granted primary stats have been increased to be more competitive.
• Might contributions to tactical mastery were not mentioned in the text of the might tooltip on the character panel of the Champion, Guardian, or Warden. Agility contributions to tactical mastery were not mentioned in the text of the agility tooltip on the character panel of the Warden.

Burglar

• New Trait – Sharp Eye – Burglars gain a Passive 2.5% Mitigation buff which is suppressed when your crit chain is active.
• Traits - Enhanced Trait - Roll the Dice - New rank adds +5% Tactical Damage
• Traits - New Trait - Sneak Attack (The Quiet Knife) - Increase Damage from Stealth by 100%
• Traits - Enhanced Trait - Strike from Shadows - Potency increased from 5% Crit Chance from Stealth to 10% from Stealth. New rank adds +20% Critical Damage from Stealth.
• Traits - New Trait - Cover Your Tracks (Mischief-maker) - Gain 5% Max Morale, +2.5% Physical Mitigation and +2.5% Tactical Mitigation
• Traits - Enhanced Trait - Comedic Timing - Resistance Penetration increased from 2%-->5% per rank. New rank increases the bonus by a further 15% Resistance Penetration.
• A Small Snag, Quite a Snag, Exposed Throat, and Blind bet should now increment "Finish What You Have Started" deed in addition to Flashing Blades.
• Fixed bug that was causing Coup De Grâce to not properly consuming Aim buff.
• Improved Feint will no longer pass along damage bonuses that apply to Stealth Damage.

Captain

• Fixed a bug that was causing Rallying Cry to not stack properly with other captains and in some cases have a weaker version override a stronger version.
• Resolved an issue with the Improved Standards not hitting enemies who were within range but not in Line of Sight of the banner.
• Traits - Lifting Words - Bonus increased from 3%-->4% per rank
• Traits - Skilled Hands - Tactical Damage Bonus increased from 2%-->3% per rank
• Traits - Enhanced Traits - Astute Hands has a new rank which increases Tactical Critical Damage by 20%
• Set Bonus - Tactician's Prowess Critical Healing Magnitude balanced down from 50%-->25%
• Traits - New Trait - Valour - Healing skills have a 20% chance to build Valour. At max stacks, an AoE healing pulse emanates from the Captain and your next Valiant Strike is guaranteed to crit.
• Traits - Standard of Honour - Standard of Honour and Improved Standard of Honour have been condensed into a single trait. Ranks 1-4 will improve the potency of Standard of Honour, and rank 5 will make it Ground Targeted.
• Traits - Reform the Lines - No longer enhances Incoming Healing
• Lead the Charge Specialization - Passive Bonus 2 - Critical Hits cause the enemy to take 2% increased damage for 10s. This effect stacks with Telling Mark
• Traits - Martial Prowess - Attack Duration bonus balanced down to 3%/6%/10% over 3 ranks
• Traits - Standard of War - Standard of War and Improved Standard of War have been condensed into a single trait. Ranks 1-4 will improve the potency of Standard of War, and rank 5 will make it Ground Targeted.
• Traits - Enhanced Trait - Arterial Strikes has a new rank which grants +20% Melee Critical Damage
• Traits - New Trait - Elite Companions - Heralds and Archers have a 20% chance to reduce enemy armour.
• Traits - Situational Awareness - Ranks now increase proc chance by 10% per rank. Evade bonus is fixed at 8% across ranks.
• Traits - Noble Mark - DoT effects can no longer trigger Morale Return
• Traits - Turning Point - The Incoming Healing bonus now caps at 25%
• Traits - Standard of Valour - Standard of Valour and Improved Standard of Valour have been condensed into a single trait. Ranks 1-4 will improve the potency of Standard of Valour, and rank 5 will make it Ground Targeted.
• Traits - Enhanced Trait - Strength in Numbers has a new rank which causes 2 HoTs to be returned for each Fellowship Member affected.
• Traits - New Trait - Elendil's Fury. On any Block, Parry, or Evade, gain a stack of Elendil's Fury. At 5 stacks, your next Blade of Elendil deals significant damage and opens up a Defeat Event.
• Fixed a bug that was causing Rallying Cry to not stack properly with other captains and in some cases have a weaker version override a stronger version.
• Fixed a bug with Exemplar not properly proccing its heal when a shield brother was hit.
• Exemplars heal skill proc now has an internal cooldown of 8 seconds. This cooldown applies to the Captain’s proc and the Shield Brothers proc separately.

Champion

• True Heroics – Lowered cooldown to 2 minutes (Lowered legacy to be 60 seconds maxed out to compensate for this change).
• The Deed Heroic Resolve now only requires 50 uses of True Heroics, down from 750.
• Wild Attack is now properly tagged as a Strike skill.
• Resolved issue with the effect of Champion's Advantage only counting towards the first hit of a Blade skill when it was intended to be all hits.

• The Martial Champion
  • Riposte damage increase trait has been raised from 15% to 20% per rank. New rank on trait that grants: Sweeping Riposte – 20% Chance to unlock sweeping riposte instead of riposte. Deals damage up to 3 targets.
  • Critical Defence trait has been converted to a percentage based trait.
  • Aggressive Exchange trait has been moved to Tier 1 of the Martial Champion tree.
  • New Trait – “Quick with a Blade” Merciful Strike has no health threshold requirement.
  • Horn of Champions – Increased debuff duration to 10 seconds.

• The Berserker
  • Hamstrung should now properly display the effect it gives Hamstring.
  • Set Bonus Renewing Strikes – Reduce chance to 15% and heal to 3% of max health, but can now trigger on every attack hook
  • Set Bonus – Precise Strikes – Bonuses from trait apply every attack hook.
  • New Trait – Weapons Master – Dual wielding weapons gives you +10% damage and +3% Parry Chance. Wielding a single weapon gives you 5% Attack Duration +10% Critical Damage
  • Enhanced Trait – Merciful Minded –Max Rank: Merciful Strike is now guaranteed to crit.

• The Deadly Storm
  • Passive – Flurry – Increase proc chance to 30%, up from 20%.
  • Exchange of Blows no longer reflects damage over time effects.
  • Bladestorm critical hits now proc Flurry.
  • Champion’s Advantage – Increase duration of buff to 12 seconds, up from 8 seconds.
  • New Trait – The More the Merrier Blade Skills have a 15% chance to generate 1 fervour for every target hit
  • New Rank of Ardent Rage. This rank reduces the cooldown of Battle frenzy by 30 seconds and changes the fervour regeneration effect to be 1 fervour every second for 10 seconds.

Guardian

• Bash Legacy should now properly increase the damage of bash.
• Traits - Disorientation application chance balanced down from 20%-->5% / rank
• Traits - New Trait - Break Ranks (Defender of the Free) - Shield-swipe will cash out max fortification stacks for a 20% damage buff for 15s. You will not be able to start rebuilding Fortification until 5s after this buff ends.
• Traits - Enhanced Trait - Stoic - Stoic has a new rank which will cause your bubble to heal you for 10% of your Morale when it expires.
• Traits - Enhanced Trait - To the Rescue - New rank causes your next skill play to be a guaranteed Crit
• Traits - New Trait - Honourable Combat (The Keen Blade) - Gain a skill which removes all bleeds from a foe and heal yourself for 2% max Morale for each tier of bleed removed.
• Traits - New Trait - Singular Focus (The Fighter of Shadow) - Parry response skills have a chance to break enemy armour, reducing its effectiveness for 30s. This debuff cannot be refreshed by other traits.
• Traits - Enhanced Trait - Strong Bursts - New rank increases AoE damage by a further 10%

Hunter

• Resolved an issue with Erebor Huntsman 2 piece set bonus not properly applying to Improved Fleetness.

Huntsman

• Exsanguinate now has no Focus Cost.
• New Trait – Moving Target – The Hunter gains +5% Evade chance whilst moving. This bonus disappears after standing still for a second, but will resume thereafter.
• Enhanced Trait – Strong Draw – New rank that gives the hunter a +15% chance for focus consumers to consume 1 less Focus

Bowmaster

• New Trait – Plant Feet - The Hunter gains +5% Evade Chance after standing still for 1.5s. This bonus breaks upon movement.
• Enhanced Trait – Draw Weight – Increased bonus from 2% to 3% per rank
• New Max rank grants +15% Critical Damage for Induction Skills
• Set Bonus – Archer’s Mark – Crit Defence debuff has been increased for all ranks.

Trapper of Foes

• Enhanced Trait – Trait - Survival Gear – New max rank that increases Max Bonus to 8% Mitigation
• Elusive – Change bonus to give Evade Chance instead of Partial Evade Bonus
• New Trait – Emergency Preparations – Evading allows you to instantly place a trap within 10m of yourself. This trap is the equivalent of a Set Trap and can only appear once every 8 seconds.
• Trait – Endurance – Ratings have been buffed to be more competitive.

Lore-master

• Traits - Prepare for War - Ratings have been increased significantly
• Traits - Inner Flame - Now gives a significantly stronger Fire Damage buff. Base cooldown reduced from 90s-->60s
• Traits - Hearty Diet - Ratings have been increased significantly
• Traits - Enhanced Trait - Hearty Diet - now has a 6th rank which increases Physical and Tactical Mitigations by 2.5% each.
• Traits - Ring of Fire - debuff has been significantly increased
• Traits - Enhanced Trait - "Ring of Fire" has a new rank which increases the radius to 10m
• Traits - New Trait - Fire Shield - Fire skills have a 25% chance to place a protective shield around you which increases mitigations and returns Fire Damage to attackers
• Traits - Fire-lore - Melee Damage Reduction increased from 3%-->5% per rank
• Traits - Frost-lore - Tactical Damage Reduction increased from 2%-->4% per rank
• Traits - Enhanced Trait - Ancient Craft has a new rank which increases your own armour by 5%
• Traits - New Trait - Enfeeble - The effects of Ancient Craft, Sign of Power: See All Ends, and Sign of Power: Command are doubled for the first 10s of their duration
• Skills - Sign of Power: Command now uses its updated icon for all versions of skills and effects
• Skills - Ring of Fire fx should now more accurately reflect the radius of the attack.
• Traits - New Trait - Feral - Gain a passive buff based on which pet you have active. Does not apply to pets summoned by Sic’ em. Bear - +5% Max Morale, +5% Each Mitigation, Raven and Eagle – +50% Gust of Wind damage, +5% Crit Chance, Cats - -10% Induction Duration, +15% DoT Damage, Spirit - +15% Incoming Healing, +15% Outgoing Healing, Bog-guardian - +10% Tactical Damage and +2s Stun Duration
• The Loremaster set for the Tradition now increases your tactical damage by 20% for 10s rather than reduce your target's Tactical Mitigation

Minstrel

• Traits - Inspiring Cries and Calls – Proccooldown reduced from 25s-->15s
• Skills - Song of Aid now allows Hunters to use Improved Focus in-combat
• Traits - Inspiring Cries and Calls – Reduce skillproc cooldown from 25s --> 15s
• Skills - Soliloquy of Spirit – Cooldown reduced to 1s. This effect may stack up to 3 times
• Specialization - Watcher of Resolve Fate and Will ratings increased
• Traits - Song of the Hammerhand - Now has 3 ranks. Increases Bubble potency by 10%/15%/20%
• Traits - Resonant Piercing Cry - Now has 1 rank. When triggered, Resonant Piercing Cry places a hotspot. Bolster Courage and Raise the Spirit are more effective on allies within the hotspot.
• Skill – Bolster Courage – Healing balanced down by ~25%
• Skill – Raise the Spirit – Healing balanced down by ~20%
• Skill – Chord of Salvation – balanced down healing by ~20%
• New Trait (Watcher of Resolve) - Inner Strength - Soliloquy of Spirit adds 1% to mitigations.
• Enhanced Trait (Watcher of Resolve) - Chord of Salvation – New Rank heals primary target for every fellowship member nearby
• Traits - Anthem of War – No longer increases Anthem Duration. Now increases Critical Damage by 10%
• Traits - Enduring Morale – Morale bonus increased
• Traits - Finesse – Ratings value increased
• New Trait (Warrior-skald) - Echoes – All damaging cries and calls have a chance to apply a harmful DoT
• Enhanced Trait (Warrior-skald) - Herald’s Strength – New Rank steals 2.5% Mitigations from the enemy for 10s
• Traits - Tactical Mastery – Ratings increased
• Traits - Strength of Helm Hammerhand – Mastery Ratings increased
• Traits - Shielding Cry – Duration bonuses increased to 5s / rank
• Traits - Sharing a Story - Trait removed
• Traits - Exposing Weakness – Now has 2 additional ranks which increase the debuff bonus by 10% / 25%
• Traits - Extended Anthems – Bonus increased from 2s-->5s per rank
• New Trait (Protector of Song) - Strike a Chord – In Melody Stance, your Ballads debuff the enemy with flipped values of the buffs you gain.
• Enhanced Traits (Protector of Song) - Tactical Mastery – Gain 5% Tactical Mitigation at Rank 6

Runekeeper

• Riffler of Writs items should now properly remove the attunement shift of a Writ as intended.
• Words of Exaltation had old tooltip text that referred to the duration of the bubble being increased per tier of writ of health on a target. This functionality was removed in update 12 but the tooltip was not updated. It is now.
• Do Not Fall this Day skill can now work on players not in the runekeeper's fellowship.
• Fixed a bug with Frost Armour that was giving a reduced amount of incoming damage if the player already had reduced incoming damage. It should now apply the proper -10% incoming damage to any target.
• Hastened Determination should now lower the cooldown of Self Motivation instead of increase it.
• Branded Marks was intended to have only one rank. It does now.
• Fixed an issue that was causing the cooldown reduction of Epic Conclusion when used with Closing Remarks was not properly applying to the character if they killed their target with the skill.
• Glorious Foreshadowing Incoming Healing bonus should not properly tier down with Writ of health instead of dispelling when it expired.
• Volcanic Runestone should now be properly affected by the Fire Damage weapon legacy.
• Steady Hands useable while moving
• Scribe a New ending – Skill is useable even when disarmed.
• Do Not Fall This Day – Reduce cooldown to 5 minutes. Can be casted on a target out of combat.

Benediction of Peace

• Our Fate’s Entwined – Runestone can’t die for duration of runestone.
• Master of Allusion – Also reduces the induction time of Frost skills.
• Bombastic Inspiration – Increase duration to 12s.
• Prophetic Word – lower to 3 ranks, from 5.
  • Each rank now Increases Mending Verse healing by 10% per rank.

• New Trait– Prolonged Verse – 3 ranks
  • Increases the pulse of Mending Verse by 1 per rank.
  • Max rank: Lowers the induction of Mending verse by 1 second.

• New Legendary Trait – Overture of Hope
  • Words of Exaltation and Essay of Exaltation now grant +10% inc. healing and -10% incoming damage reduction.
  • In addition, Words of Exaltation applied on a target will trigger the expiration heal of Bombastic Inspiration if present on a target.

Cleansing Flame

• Trait – Conflagration of Runes – Increased bonus from 2% to 3% / rank
• Scathing Retort – No longer grants a tactical mastery buff, instead Smouldering Wrath is immune to interruption.
• Seething Truth – Lowered Smouldering Wrath damage increase to 30%.
• Guile and Subtlety – Removed Trait. Replace with 2 new traits
  • New Trait – Thick Skinned – 3 ranks
    • Increases Physical Mitigation by 2/5/7%.

• New Trait (Includes Enhanced Trait) Hastened Determination- 3 ranks
  • Reduces the cooldown of Self Motivation by 5 seconds per rank.
  • Max rank: Removes the induction of Self Motivation and can be used on the move.

• New Trait – Branded Marks – +2 pulses to all Fire DoTs

Solitary Thunder

• Set Bonus – Master of Tragedy – Add internal cooldown of 10 seconds.
• Trait – Critical Defence - Increase Max bonus from 5% to 7%
• Enhanced Trait – Perfect Imagery
  • New rank – Reduces the cooldown of Vivid Imagery by 30 seconds.

• New Trait – Flashing images – After using Steady Hands, if you use a cashout skill within 6 seconds, you will be returned to your previous attunement level before Steady Hands.

Warden

• Traits - All traits which provide ratings bonuses have been significantly increased.
• Traits - Critical Protection - Max Critical Defence bonus increased from 5%-->7% Critical Defence
• Traits - For the Free Peoples - Mitigations given to fellowship are increased
• Traits - New Trait - Fellowship Protector - Conviction gives you Mitigation ratings for every Fellowship member affected by the skill.
• Traits - Enhanced Trait - "Stand your Ground" has a new rank which grants +2% Block chance and +2% Parry Chance
• Traits - Way of the Spear - Trait now offers 3%/6%/10% Spear Gambit Damage over 3 ranks
• Traits - Recklessness - Skill grants more Critical Rating when triggered
• Set Bonus - Sharpened Spears - Spear Gambit Damage increased from 5%-->10%
• Set Bonus - One After Another - Morale restored increased from 1%-->5%
• Traits - New Trait - Honed Spikes - Shield Spikes now give your shield skills +20% Critical Damage
• Traits - Enhanced Trait - Lasting Impression has a new rank which causes a DoTs final pulse to deal significant burst damage to the target
• Traits - Momentum - Melee Damage buff after swapping into melee stance increased from 2%-->4% per rank
• Traits - Shattered Javelins - Burst damage increased by over 20%
• Traits - Battering Strikes - Debuff Duration increased from 12s-->15s
• Traits - New Trait - Seize the Moment - Critical Hits with Gambits have a 50% chance to remove cooldowns from masteries for 10s. This effect cannot be triggered more than once every 10s.
• Traits - Enhanced Trait - Bulls-eye - New Rank grants +20% Ranged Critical Damage.
• Fixed the tool-tip for the Agility stat as it did not include the fact that Agility also increases Tactical Mastery.

Mounted Combat

• Fixed a case where class stances didn't fully activate if you changed trait specs while mounted.
• Mounted Combat: Mounted Enemies will hit harder and more frequently.
• The Root effect was causing mounted players to accelerate rather than affecting their mount's acceleration rate. Now when the effect is active, your acceleration rate will be decreased for the duration of the effect.

Legendary Items

• All Heritage Runes now stack to 200.
• The Legacy Replacement items are now usable while riding a horse.
• Reduced the induction time for using IA upgrades and legacy replacements.
• The First-age Legendary class items (non-weapons) were not getting the full benefit from legacies (as one could see when they compared the Might legacy added to a class item and weapon, for example). This change will only affect newly identified First-age class items.

Epic Battles, Skirmishes, Instances, & Raids.

• Various shouts inside instances should now show up over npc's heads
• The vast majority of the Epic Battles promotion benefits have been rebalanced to provide larger benefits earlier on. The tier 5 values have not changed.
• Notable increases have been made to the stat boosts monsters get on tier 2 and 3 skirmishes and tier 2 scaling instances.
• Notable increases have been made to the base stats for elite masters, nemesis, and arch-nemesis in skirmishes.
• Vanguard skill Incite Foe will now be automatically added to the auto skill bar when acquired.
• Added Instance: Lords of the Eastemnet &Instance: The Battle for Hytbold to Snowbourn reflecting pool
• Instance: Direfirel - Half-orc archers now throw spears. Half-orc warriors are always in Melee
• Fangorn Forest: Crafting Instances now contribute to West Rohan Slayer Deeds
• Vanguard skill Incite Foe will now be automatically added to the auto skill bar when acquired.
• Deeping-coomb, the "Prepare" secondary objective will now generate slightly more enemy soldiers
• Deeping-coomb "Darkwater" secondary objective, the Darkwater Spirits speed and spawn rate has been adjusted to make defeating them on the water much easier
• Some visual and icon effects on the Epic Battle "smite zones" have been fixed
• For the Hornburg secondary, Final Blockade, added a guard, weakened attacks of enemies, and made them come out into the main area before hitting the ballistae, in order to make the secondary more soloable.
• Deeping Wall - Securing the Culvert: Gamling will drop his arms when he's done carrying a rock.
• Deeping Wall - Vanguard Defilers: fixed formatting typo in totem tooltip
• The barter NPC that sells Legendary item accessories has been updated so that the legendary item titles are displayed in their own list.
• You can no longer slot a conflicting set of skirmish traits

Helm’s Dike

• Guarding the Watchtower: placed clubs & torches in the hands of the attackers
• Fixed “Enemy Archer” zones that were missing or badly placed
• Powder at the Gate: attempted fix for issue where last wave of sappers would just stand still
• Stone Obstruction: archers fire longer each time you tell them to shoot

Glittering Caves

• Spider boss Scrimgrit hits a little harder than before; we gave her some extra skills
• Bombs & Bats: fixed but where killing multiple sappers at once could prevent quest from completion
• Touched up appearance and placement of several “Enemy Archer” zones

The Hornburg

• Ladders: fewer trolls and they only show up later, reduced HP of hooks by roughly 20%, slowed spawn rate of sappers coming up the ladders

Monsterplay

• Level 100 pvmp armour, weapons, and jewelry can now be purchased in Glan-vraig.
• Potions and insignias should now work for level scaled characters starting at level 20. (Food not included)
• Creep Mastery Corruption bonus was misleading and referring to only melee skills when all types of skills proc the effect.
• Reaver and Stalkers auto attacks should now properly use their new damage types on all attack hooks.
• Toxic Carapace should no longer reflect periodic damage from bleeds and other types of damage over time effects.
• Improved Vital Target now applies a healing debuff for 20 seconds to its target.
• Resolved issue that was Guardian's Fearless 4 set piece bonus to not properly disarm creeps.
• Fixed a bug that was allowing the free People to use the Blood of The Fair Folk potions.
• Resolved an issue that was making some mounts appear to be useable in the Delving of Fror, even though they were not.
• Resolved issue that was Guardian's Fearless 4 set piece bonus to not properly disarm creeps.
• Crumbling Insignia should now work on all slowing effects, not just some.
• Resolved issue with Warg's Flayer bubble sometimes not properly re-applying to the player.
• Weaver hatchling's stealth is now broken when it moves.

User Interface

• UI: Switching between in-game maps should be a bit more responsive.
• Quests listed in NPC selection UIs are now listed alphabetically.
• There's now a search box on the reputation panel

Items

• Item set bonuses now properly handle duplicates of the same item, such as two identical bracelets equipped in both wrist slots. The duplicates only count as one item for the purpose of set completion, and in cases where the bonus effect strength depends upon the average levels of set items, the item with the higher level will be used.
• The Token of the Hornburg pre-order item now works through level 99
• Stats for Helm's Deep pre-order cloaks will continue to grow past level 94.
• Lootboxes now contain a "Pick a Mount" box which allows you to select one of over 25 different mounts, including the Lootbox exclusive Red Painted Skeletal Steed.

Hobnanigans

• Adjusted costs of Red Chicken, Dorking and Scrapper Hats
• Adjusted physics on fields to prevent some stuck and boundary issues
• Hatching is now a daze instead of a stun
• Chickens behind the Pet Vendor now name what they are
• The bonus reward effect no longer clears on logging out or death

Cosmetic Pets

• Floaty names for Hobnanigans Chicken Rewards will now be the right color for their rarity
• Names for Huorns have been changed to be more lore appropriate.

Chat and Social

• There's a new "World" chat channel. You can talk on it to other people on the same server no matter where in the world you are. It is turned on by default, you can turn it off by right-clicking on the chat tab and unchecking the "World" checkmark. The command to talk on the channel is /world or /wd. Monster Players have their own version of the world channel.
• You now get appropriate usage reminders when using chat channel commands with no text to send
• You can no longer make user chat channels with the same name as one of the existing chat channel commands.

Kinships

• You should more consistently see the correct fellowship icons in the kinship panel.
• The maximum number of characters allowed in the Kinship Message of the day has been increased (Currently 80, increased to 132).

Quests

• Fixed a number of issues where tooltips over monsters wouldn't correctly indicate the quests/deeds that they would advance.
• Typos fixed throughout Volume I, II, and III.
• Typos fixed throughout Bree-land, Angmar, North Downs, and West Rohan.
• Greetings added to several festival vendors.
• Reliability fixes for ‘The Horn of Gondor’ session.
• The Restless Orcs of the Crack's Edge - Orders no longer go into pending loot.
• North Downs - Fields of Fornost - Quest: Niels' Bounty: Morrafn, the Flame of Hate now give xp
• West Rohan - Slayer Deeds: Set Rewards are now visible in the Deeds tab
• Typos and text in Volume IV Book 1 fixed.
• Icons plugged in for Volume IV Book 1 items
• Swan-knights involved with Epic Volume IV Book 1 now have correct appearances.
• Adjusted the destination for when you leave the IV.1.12 instance.
• More typo fixes, especially in IV.1.10.
• Changed the Calembel Farmer's penchant for running away and breaking IV.1.6.
• Dorthaneth now have their real appearances.
• Changed the distance at which you can see the walls of Isengard. Didn't help too much.
• Visibility fixes for the Wall of Isengard.
• 'Interlude: Those Who Are Dead' should now be repeatable on a daily cooldown.
• Fixed a bug where all the trainers in the Nan Curunir ox-clan merchant camp had the wrong class requirements.
• Fixed minor typos in The Best Defence (Entwash Vale) and The Riders Four (The Wold).
• There is new, corrected intro audio for the Battle for Erebor.
• The North Downs warg, Gloomfang, no longer drops Raugzok's Ear as a trophy.