Update Release Notes 29 - 3/17/21

Update 29 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 29, released on Wednesday, March 17th, 2021.

Of Special Note:

The Wildwood of Bree

Beyond the Bree-fields lies the lightly travelled wilderness of the Wildwood. This heavily forested area has drawn the attention of two groups of Free Peoples who vie for its resources. The League of the Axe, a group of game hunters and miners down on their fortunes, seek to tap the land's resources and ferry their bounty down the Brandywine from Trader's Wharf to markets abroad. Meanwhile, a group of villagers in Trestlebridge have formed the Woodcutter’s Brotherhood, with the goal of taking advantage of the Wildwood to benefit the folk of Bree-land and rebuild Trestlebridge to its former glory. Both factions must decide the fate of the Wildwood as they work against unsavory Brigands and the Tarkrîp Orcs. The update also includes two new 3-player scaling instances set in Eriador, "Woe of the Willow" & "Agoroth, the Narrowdelve". Free to VIPs and now available in the LOTRO Store!

Visit Enid Nettlesting at the Trader's Whardf in Evendim or Aran Greenwith at the Trestlebridge Gate in North Downs to start the Wildwood quest line. The quests have a challenge level of 45. An introductory questline for the new instances is available from Aragorn in Rivendell after completing "Book 13, Chapter 10: A Trimphant Return" and from Hob Hayward at the Buckland Gate. These quests are not required to enter the instances.

The deeds, 'Agoroth, the Narrowdelve -- Tier 3 -- Leading the Charge' and 'Woe of the Willow -- Tier 3 -- Leading the Charge' will be available for completion through May 2, 2021, turning off at 3am server time on May 3rd. Tiers 4 and 5 of Agoroth, the Narrowdelve and Woe of the Willow will be available starting on April 1, 2021.

Spring Festival

A new Boss from the Vaults arrives with this year's Spring Festival! Naruhel the Red-maid will become available on March 18th starting at 10:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) along with a new Festivity Instance called Bee's Big Business! This year's Spring Festival features new rewards as well, and runs through April 6th.

News and Notes:

Classes:

Burglar - Mischievous Glee healing Legacy fixed. Healing bonus value adjusted to properly reflect implementation.

Captain - Reverted change that prevented Revealing Mark from targeting Creeps.

Guardian - Shield-wall will no longer block the target from using Stamp.

Guardian - Fixed erroneous placeholder text for the Bolster characteristic.

Guardian - Added tooltip notes stating that Warrior's Fortitude traits from separate trees will not stack. This is just a text change reflecting the existing functionality.

Hunter - The DoT from Heart Seeker will no longer over-write the DoT from Barbed Arrow's when the trait "Shot Through the Heart" is active.

Rune-keeper - When the Closing Remarks buff is consumed by Epic Conclusion, it is replaced by the Aftershock buff, providing +20% Lightning Damage & +25% Lightning Critical chance for up to 10 seconds or until it is replaced by a new instance of Closing Remarks.

Warden Skills Shield-slam, The Boot, and Ranged Boot now apply their interrupt at the start of the skill animation instead of at the end.

Warden Trait "Shattered Javelins" is undergoing a few changes. Right now it can affect a high number of targets. If this ability is triggered on multiple nearby targets at once, the amount of bonus damage generated is more aggressive than we'd like. To address this, we're increasing the per-target damage of Shattered Javelins while decreasing the number of targets a single burst of Shattered Javelins can hit.

The burst damage from Warden Trait "Shattered Javelins" now affects 4 enemies down from 12.

The weapon damage multiplier for "Shattered Javelins" has been increased by 25%.

The Warden trait Indefatigable gives a larger bonus now. The tooltip has been slightly reworded to say "base block rating" instead of "block rating" to reflect the way multiple sources of bonuses interact with a base buff.

Warden Trait Aggravating Wounds should now work on all damage over time effects.

The Warden skills The Boot, Onslaught, and Wall of Steel used to have an invisible internal cooldown on their ability to apply their Interrupt. We are removing this internal cooldown with Update 29. This cooldown created some confusion when an expected interrupt effect wouldn't fire correctly. The time it takes to build and deploy a gambit is sufficient to prevent Wardens from becoming unstoppable interrupt-machines.

Crafting:

Recipes to make Ember-worthy crafts are now available in the Minas Ithil crafting tier. These recipes have been automatically added to your crafting panels.

Housing:

In Rohan housing neighborhoods, the Ambience Furnisher and housing brokers should now give appropriate vendor discounts based on your housing passive skills.

The supplier summoned with the Gondorian Supplier Horn housing decoration should now give the appropriate vendor discount (the highest discount from any of your housing passive skills, including Belfalas and Rohan houses).

Items:

The icons for the Ill Omens Portent, usable inventory items, have been recolored according to their benefit, making them easier to distinguish from each other in inventory or quickslots.

You can now upgrade Remmorchant set armour pieces. Speak to the Remmorchant Quartermasters in Estolad Lân and trade in your existing set pieces along with Tokens of Resolution, earned in Agoroth, the Narrowdelve and Woe of the Willow, to receive upgraded greater Remmorchant set armour pieces.

Gragarag's Chest - Tier 1, Guruthang's Chest - Tier 1, and Gamnagol's Chest - Tier 1 now have a chance to drop random Remmorchant class set hand, feet, and chest pieces.

The Spider-queen's Hoard - Tier 1 chest now has a chance to drop Remmorchant class set hand, feet, and chest pieces appropriate to your class.

The Spider-queen's Hoard - Tier 2 chest now has a chance of dropping Remmorchant class set shoulders, legs, hands, feet, or chest pieces appropriate to your class.

Some changes have been made to barter for the Remmorchant class set gear at the Remmorchant Quartermasters in Estolad Lân:

The armour exchange, allowing exchange of a piece of set gear for an equivalent piece for a different trait specialization, will no longer be deed gated, since you have already earned an equivalent piece of gear.

Barter for class set gear hands and feet pieces will no longer be gated by any deed (removing the tier 3 deed requirement).

Barter for class set gear chest pieces will be reduced to Tier 1 gating (down from tier 3 deed requirement).

Barter for class set gear legs and shoulders will be reduced to Tier 2 gating (down from tier 3 deed requirement).

Barter for class set gear legendary helms will remain Tier 3 gated, but with a reduction in the Ember cost to match the other incomparable class set pieces.

The barter profiles have been reorganized and renamed in accordance with the altered required deed completion.

The Dol Amroth and Central Gondor reputation granting tokens now require completion of 'Volume IV, Book 1, Chapter 1: The Muster of the Rohirrim' instead of the 'Dol Amroth City Guard' or 'Introduction: Central Gondor', so that the minimum level required for the quest matches the minimum usage level on the tokens.

Individual Steed items purchased from the LOTRO Store will no longer auto-consume, making it easier to use on any character on your account.

The Anfalas Star-lit Crystal granted when opening the Aria of the Valar item Pack will now be bound to account instead of character.

The Imbued Legacy Replacement Scrolls granted when opening the Valar Level Boost - 120 Item Pack will now be bound to account instead of character.

The Steed of the Citadel item granted when opening the Blessing of the Valar, Aria of the Valar, or Valar Level Boost - 120 Item Packs will now be bound to account instead of character.

The Dusky Nimblefoot Goat item granted when opening the Gift of the Valar Item Pack will now be bound to account instead of character.

The Piles of Silver Scraps found in Gift and Blessing of the Valar packages now correctly bind to account.

The Tomes of Extraordinary Experience granted when opening the Aria of the Valar package now correctly bind to account.

The Aria of the Valar item Pack and Valar Level Boost - 120 Item Pack no longer have a required minimum level to open.

The cosmetic pet Huorns now have a more appropriate set of sounds while moving.

You can now use your hobby horse mounts in more areas of Middle-earth.

The Rare Crafting Component selection box now also allows selection of the Tier 13 Ithilharn Shard as an option.

PvMP

Creeps were getting +30% partial damage reduction from their Partial BPE events from 'nowhere'. This has been removed.

Warleader - On Your Feet reverted to a non-fellowship effect.

Warleader - Quitters Never Win changed to a fellowship effect

Defiler - Slick Flesh changed to a fellowship effect.

Fixed some stretched textures in the Ettenmoors.

Removed LoS breaks on barriers near Gramsfoot to prevent Freeps avoiding the ranged NPCs.

Quests & Adventure Areas:

The correct music should once again play during the "Interlude: No Other Way" session play.

Floating Rubble in the Volume 2, Book. 4, Chapter 7 Instance has been grounded.

Stuck spot in Skarhald has been fixed.

Beorning NPCs will no longer become invisible after shifting out of bear form.

Fixed an issue with quest Retribution of the Trees not being able to complete if Cultivating the Wildwood advances too far.

Removed the quest prerequisite for The Easterling Menace bestowed by Náin the Slakeless in Járnfast.

The object to teleport from Minas Tirith (After-battle) to the Hall of the King has become a banner and slightly moved position.

As long as you do not have 'Crannog's Challenge' currently underway, you should now be able to accept and complete 'Present Yourself to the Chieftain', even if you have previously completed 'Crannog's Challenge'. This resolves issues with usability of Bone Amulets and Wicked Daggers.

The quest "Craft for Embers" may now be obtained and turned in at a Mote and Ember Trader in Bree, Galtrev, Moria's Twenty-first Hall, or Mózhek near the Stable-master in Skarháld.

The quest "Craft for Motes" may now be obtained and turned in at a Mote and Ember Trader in Bree, Galtrev, Moria's Twenty-first Hall, or Mózhek near the Stable-master in Skarháld.

'On A Mission (Weekly)' will be versioned when Update 29 is released. If you intend to complete it without having your progress interrupted (for the week of the patch), please complete it before the patch is deployed. If it was not bestowed or completed, it will bestow normally upon completing a qualifying mission.

Fishing works properly in the Elderslade region now.

Suppliers, Provisions and Healers in the Rohan Neighborhoods now have the correct discounts.

Removed bush from base of stairs in Frostbluff.

Grounded floating column in Anghumu-ru in Moria.

Stable-master in Annâk-khurfu no longer sounds like a Beorning.

Fixes stuck spot at r3 lx1646 ly1828 ox136.24 oy98.05 oz355.48 h234.8.

Gandalf is no longer floating in pre-battled Minas Tirith (r3 lx1277 ly586 ox119.37 oy59.72 oz419.97 h199.7).

Random Water plane will no longer appear above the players in the Kidzhul-Kalah Mission.

Fixed depthcarving issue in Elderslade Angmarim Tower (r2 lx816 ly1624 cInside ox0.11 oy11.39 oz-46.15 h4.2).

Fixed stairs issue in Gates of Gundabad (r2 lx792 ly1636 ox5.99 oy86.99 oz926.58 h241.9).

Fixed patrol issue at the Orc Encampment in Lothlorien (r2 lx754 ly1142 ox52.25 oy139.69 oz565.30 h42.2).

Fixed sunken resource node in Fanuidhol (r2 lx755 ly1154 ox66.24 oy43.75 oz559.06 h293.9).

Grounded floating resource node in Kingstead (r2 lx793 ly664 ox35.10 oy10.32 oz236.22 h253.1).

Dug up buried resource nodes and quest objects in Kingstead (r2 lx788 ly688 ox81.43 oy11.23 oz281.93 h173.0 , r2 lx792 ly687 ox19.92 oy140.50 oz272.50 h210.9).

Fixing some major holes in the impassables of the southern section of Western Fangorn (r2 lx687 ly808 ox157.68 oy0.32 oz491.22 h250.3).

Thrymm Redbeard grew taller in Throne of the Dread Terror, but perhaps it was just his legendary status. Now he's back to his normal height (but his legend remains undimmed).

Virtues:

For Wildwood, the virtue cap has been increased to 74 (for characters who are level 130).

U29 - Valar Virtue XP Quest restructure:

To resolve issues caused by the quest starting items, such as 'Virtues of the Valar - 105 and above', being unique, the various Valar levelup packages have been updated to use a single quest to give information about using virtue tokens.

The Valar virtue granting items have been removed as quest rewards and are instead granted inside a coffer delivered from Valar packages.

Completing that quest allows the player to open any virtue token coffer(s) they have received from any Valar packages.

While the virtue token coffers are bound to character, the virtue XP awarding items received on opening the package are bound to account.

UI:

LOTRO lighting has been updated! A new Advanced Graphics option named "Per Pixel Lighting Attenuation" has been added for DirectX 10/11 that increases the lighting quality. Toggling this option to true will enable softer lighting as well as more consistently used normal maps and specular highlights.