The Lord of the Rings Online

Update 49 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 49: In Good Company, released on Wednesday, July 22, 2026.

As Mizadi's forces march across Harad to restore order, warriors and wanderers alike find rare moments to reflect, celebrate, and share laughter among old friends and trusted companions. Yet within the iron walls of Carn Dûm, the masters of Angmar muster fresh armies and forge new plans for war. Beneath the Ettenmoors, an Ancient Evil stirs anew, reclaiming the forgotten depths as new champions flock to its banner. With each passing day, the enemy's strength grows, threatening to drive back the Free Folk and carry the conflict far beyond the Ettenmoors. Will you answer the clarion call and take up arms in the coming struggle, or seek refuge in the fading peace of home and hearth while you still can?

Of Special Note:

The Angmarim Sorceress has arrived!

The Angmarim Sorceress is our exciting new Monster Play class! The Angmarim Sorceress is available for purchase in the LOTRO Store, and purchase is required for access. VIPs get 30% off all Angmarim Sorceress bundles through August 5!

Ettenmoors Updates and Enhancements!

Update 49 brings big changes to your PvMP experience:

• Earning Infamy and Glory has been updated: We have made a change to the formula used to determine the amount of Glory and Infamy earned while in larger groups of players in the Ettenmoors. This will reduce the value of a kill while players and monster players are organized in raids.​

• Artifact Capture has been enhanced:

NOTE: Artifacts will become available with our next game update. See Known Issues for more information.

The battle for control of the Crown of Mordírith and Gift of the Carrock capture is shifting. While the core objective remains the same, players can now seize the opposing artifact from Ost Ringdyr of Dar-gâzag and deliver it to your keep or recover your own Artifact from the enemy keep.

• Artifacts now have a drop-and-recover mechanic, allowing players and monster players to manually drop their artifacts by using a unique skill granted upon pickup, or drop the artifact immediately on death.

• The 30-minute reset cooldown has been removed and replaced with a 2-minute timer when the artifact is dropped. After two minutes the artifact returns to its last location.​

• Carrying an artifact is safe while holding your aligned artifact, but dangerous when carrying the enemy artifact. An escalating damage effect becomes more lethal to the Artifact bearer every 90 seconds and without support, could force them to drop the Artifact too soon.

• Carrying an artifact makes the bearer immune to movement modifying effects and the ability to enter stealth.​

• **Relic Capture: **Relics are moving to The Delving of Frór. The visage of Sauron at Rottenroot, and the visage of Gil-gâlad at Gwaelug. Claiming a relic grants a modest boost to your movement speed, damage output, Commendation earnings, and your Glory or Infamy gains. Controlling both relics simultaneously doubles the potency of these buffs.

• Siege Warfare Updates​: At the towers of Tírith Rhaw and Lugazag, the siege has begun. Defenders now have three options for the ballista they can deploy to defend a tower; the traditional ballista, a new ballista that launches explosive blasts, and a third that launches a sticky substance to coat the ground and slow enemies. In addition to these new ballistae, defenders can deploy more of these defensive siege units, as the distance restriction between them is reduced to 12 meters.​

• Attackers facing a fully reinforced gate at a tower can now choose from two variants of battering ram, and they can deploy as many rams as they desire. The new battering ram deals more damage but is more easily destroyed.​

• **Rediscover the Delving of Frór: **Find new entrances into and out of the Delving, allowing for rapid travel across the Ettenmoors for those who don't fear the denizens of the deep. In addition to the original entryways, players will find new paths in and out of the Delving scattered about the Ettenmoors, especially near outposts.​

• Delving bosses return with new abilities and renewed strength: Geargoth's forces have returned with renewed vigour and have pushed back the armies of the Coldfells and Gramsfoot. Though outpost control will still help your allies gain footholds in the Delving, you will no longer be able to prevent Gaergoth's strongest lieutenants from entering the fray.​

• Enemies in the Delving of Fror return as sources of powerful potions and salves for both Players and Monster Players alike. Additionally, Free Peoples entering the Delving can recover rare ore and use it to forge powerful new pieces of equipment designed specifically for combat in the Ettenmoors.​

• **Delving of Frór Questing: **The War-tyrant at Gramsfoot and Captain-General at Glân Vraig provide four new quests each to fight back Gaergoth, its forces, and the enemy while within the Ettendeep.​ These new quests assist Monster Players to advance their reward track and three quests targeting enemy players, the lesser creatures in Gaergoth's menagerie, and Gaergoth's lieutenants are available daily. The quest to target and eliminate Gaergoth is available weekly.​

New and returning items are now available from Myrtle Mint and Lootboxes!

• Filbert Fig, Myrtle Mint, and Rowan Raspberry have new dyes available to barter in exchange for Figments of Splendour.

• Adventurer's and Traveller's Steel-bound Lootbox cosmetics have been refreshed and now include Azog's Sword, Tattered Cosmetic Clothing and Cloaks, Cardolan Adventurer's Cloaks, Painted Skeleton Steed, Mountaineering Donkey, Cave Slug, and Red Salamander cosmetic pets, Floating Lantern, Nautical, Pot and Skillet, Goose House, Small Dwarf-made Tapestry, and Ceremonial Runner housing decorations, and new dyes. These items are also available on Myrtle Mint for Figments of Splendour.

• Adventurer's and Traveller's Steel-bound Lootboxes now contain the Hornburg Defender Cosmetic Armour, Reading and Hobbit-dance3 emotes, Spotted Hamster cosmetic pet, and Cuthstan Statue housing decoration. These items are not yet available for barter.

• Myrtle Mint now offers the Pack of the Able Angler and the Desk of the Able Angler for Figments of Splendour.

• Adventurer's Steel-bound Lootboxes now also have a chance to drop Sun-kissed Adventurer's Essence Boxes.

Other News and Notes:

Customer Support:

• Help panel support links now open in your system web browser instead of an in-game browser. This ensures you can access support and submit tickets with full captcha support. A confirmation dialog will appear when you click a support link to let you choose whether to proceed.

Festivals and Events:

• Ringwraith Event

• Issues have been fixed with higher level barter profiles.

• A pocket item has been added for barter with Amelia the Harried Scholar in Esteldin that can increase lesser wraith encounter frequency. (~7 min -> ~4 min)

• The amount of Tattered Shadows granted for defeating lesser wraiths has been increased. (~+50%)

• An additional tier of Reputation for the top levels of the barter system is now available.

• Amelia's Level 105 cap light potions have been rescaled to match their barter level.

• Ill Omens

• This event has a refreshed reward for defeating the Harbingers of the Dead. Completing the event's climactic quest now grants an Essence Bounty tailored to your level, including full support for level 160 characters and our level 105 legendary-server characters.

• The event's cosmetics vendor has also added three new rewards: two new cosmetic companion pets and a new housing decoration.

• Featured Instances

• The Featured Instance rotation has been updated to include: Great Barrow - The Maze, Sarch Vorn, the Black Grave, The Court of Seregost, Halls of Night, The Ruined City, and Ost Dunhoth - Disease and Poison Wing.

• Featured Instance quests will now grant XP and Legendary Item XP.

• The cap level featured instance packages, Azure, Crimson, Malachite, Marigold, Amethyst, and Obsidian Boxes of Ancient Treasures, when opened by a level 160 character, now have a chance to drop Mûr Ghala Craft or Heraldry Recipe selection boxes containing your choice of a recipe to craft special level 151+ Words of Craft or Heraldries.

• The Azure, Crimson, and Obsidian Boxes of Ancient Treasures awarded from running 6-player and 12-player featured instances at the level cap also now have a chance to drop additional Virtue XP in the form of a "1,000 Virtue XP" item.

Classes:

• Burglar

• Mischievous Glee skills will no longer cause targets to animate as if they were hit by an attack.

• Captain

• Armour of the Battle Cry sets now correctly display both effect values for the 3-set bonus.

• An issue causing the Yellow Line Captain to not be able to complete 'Deed: Renewed Voice' and 'Prologue, Chapter 2: Skills of an Adventurer', has been fixed.

• The item which grants you the "Temamir Archer" appearance now correctly states the appearance will be that of a hunter and not a guard.

• Champion

• Sprint's PvMP-variant: potency has been increased from +40% to +70%, but its duration has been reduced from 3s to 2s and its cooldown has been reduced from 45s to 20s.

• Guardian

• Whirling Winds will now sustain less damage from most sources.

• Stagger now correctly applies debuffs only when attacking from behind your target.

• Prey on the Weak now has a one second internal cooldown and its damage has been increased by 50%.

• Hunter

• Hunters should now properly generate pips while moving if their pips are currently zero.

• Mariner

• The Mounted Combat skill "Wounding Knife" skill now applies damage over time rather than healing over time.

• Minstrel

• The Armour of Triumphant Song no longer erroneously causes the echo heal from Triumphant Spirit to play more than once per player.

• Rune-keeper

• The Western Gondor Rune-keeper essence “Essence of the Storm” was incorrectly scaling by player level rather than by its item level, making it deal inappropriate damage. Essence of the Storm now scales properly by item level.

• The bubble from ‘Word of Exaltation’ now shows detailed damage reduction instead of 0% once taking Overture of Hope.

Combat and Monsters:

• Imhûlar bog-lurkers are once again named correctly rather than using Ambarûl names.

• Hawks and scorpions within the Hatokáli Fells now drop level-appropriate trophies.

Quests:

• Updated many "pick up" and "gather" quest items in Mûr Ghala to be usable for Beornings in bear form.

• Fixed a typo in the Isengard quest instance "The Gates of Isengard". NOTE: This quest instance will be versioned on release. If this quest is underway but not completed progress will be lost.

• In the Hobbit Allegiance "Deeper In", the Enraged Troll no longer dies in a single blow, breaking quest progress.

• In the Gundabad quest "Surveying Glittengrof", off-center quest rings no longer appear for crystal shards.

• Adjusted Mithril Travel locations for I.15.3, 'Proof's Burden'.

• Made some adjustments to 'Instance: Signs and Portents' to make it more reliable.

• In the Hatokali Fells quest "The Dragon and the Boxer", the Dragon can now be defeated at range and the quest will advance normally.

Deeds and Reputation:

• The tutorial quests "Introduction to Forestry" and "Introduction to Prospecting" can now be advanced and completed by speaking with Áfast in Gondamon, Bachwen in the Vineyards of Lórien and Naerelen in Emyn Lûm in Mirkwood.

Missions and Delvings:

• Delving mission rewards have been updated and are now award players with incomparable armours and other improved rewards at level 160.

• The Elderslade Mission "Invasion at the Redhorn Pass" is no longer marked with a Delving icon.

• Delving pets in Delving Missions no longer display that they benefit from Delving Malices.

Instances and Skirmishes:

• Pagru-kirít, the Garden of Corpses

• Imposing Banners should no longer fail to reset the Deadly Presence effect when healed to full.

• Echoes of Nuzêru are now correctly immune to healing.

• Removed an erroneous one second activation delay from the Song of Nuzêru protection area.

• The Song of Nuzêru protection area is now slightly larger.

• The pulsing damage from Song of Nuzêru has been corrected to only apply within 3 meters of each player rather than 5 meters.

• Song of Nuzêru damage has been reduced considerably.

• The Dread Power effect is now applied in a larger area around Ushkudâsh.

• The Dread Power effect now correctly increases player Outgoing Damage.

• Total morale on Ushkudâsh has been reduced.

• Great Barrow treasure has been revamped! The final boss chests in each wing now drop level scaling armour, weapons, and jewellery. The new items can also be purchased from the Classic skirmish barter vendor.

• Fixed an issue in the "Storm on Methedras" skirmish that caused Gwyllion to get stuck or despawn, blocking skirmish progress.

• A gap in the walls during 'Instance: The Foe Resurgent' was allowing players to get up-close-and-personal with the pixel fighters of Pelennor Fields. It has now been sealed.

• Within the public dungeon "Dungeons of Barad-dûr" in Dor Amarth, rubble piles have been reduced in size to allow for easier traversal. Additionally, the quest "Lost Lore of Gorgoroth: Dor Amarth" is no longer blocked by an offending rubble pile.

Items and Rewards:

• Legendary items for characters at level 160 can now advance to item level 565.

• Clean versions of Mûr Ghala raid armours bartered in Sul Madásh now require 20% fewer Blight-tainted Cloth Scraps and Armour Plates.

• Classic Skirmish vendor offerings are more alphabetized and the redundant Helegrod Mariner filter has been moved to Medium gear.

• Mariner players at level 10 to 99 can now open Treasures of Rohan and Treasures of Pelargir victory boxes.

• Mariners are now able to receive gear from Big Battles boxes from level 10-99. They are also able to purchase gear for merits from Merit Committee (Battle Decorations (High Honors)) NPCs.

• Monster Play Reward Track:

• Fixed an issue with Asachal's staff clipping through the ground.

• Fixed the icon on the translucent bow.

• The description on the new warg skin has been updated to be more reflective of what it is: Tawny-fringed Hyena appearance.

• The description of the new shield available on the reward track has been updated to High Chieftain Claghórd's Shield.

• Fixed a typo in the Albino Adagím Blight-crawler appearance description.

• Several essence-based heal effects have been converted from absolute-value heals to max morale %-based heals. Affected essences include the Cold-iron Cloak Clasp, the Gem-laden Cloak Clasp, the Petrified Essence of the Moon, and the Petrified Essence of the Viper.

• The Mûr Ghala Quartermaster at the Nagakhêdi Foothold camp will now exchange cloth scraps and armour plates for blighted relics and will also exchange cloth scraps for armour plates or vice versa.

• The Sack of Petals Bauble now properly applies to other players.

Crafting and Hobbies:

• Several single-use crafting recipe scrolls that require reputation to learn will no longer bind on acquire.

• Several clubs are now under the mace category instead of swords for storage purposes.

• Usage level for T5 Light, Medium and Heavy armours have changed to be more in line with other armour levels.

• Burglar Tricks and Throwing Weapons for T15 and T16 have had their crafting requirements reduced.

• Critical crafted morale and power potions from Tiers 1-6 are now appropriately boosted.

• The critical crafted Malledhrim Sword of Tactics now creates a new weapon called "Malledhrim Sword of Tactics"

• Crafted Armaments can now be disenchanted for Receipt of Armament Exchange barter tokens or sold to a vendor for silver. We have corrected a bug that prevented Tiers 11 - 14 Armaments from being disenchantable.

• Scholars can now craft Beorning Grisly Potions of Rejuvenation starting at Tier 5 and Rage from Tier 11. Recipes for Tiers 5-9 can be found in treasure. Recipes for Tier 10 onwards are auto granted.

• Crafted Mariner and Minstrel instruments now have different names.

• Tier 12 Crafted relic recipes now give you a Word of Craft Tracery Box.

• Umbar crafted items that were missing a description now have one.

• Jewellers will see a slight reduction in ingredient costs for Tiers 13 and 14 stickpins and belt buckles.

• Crafted Buckles and Stickpins at Tier 12 require fewer ingredients.

• Added recipes for Sun-kissed Flickering Essences to all Crafting Professions for Tier 16 Sul Madásh.

• Level 141+ special tracery recipes have been removed from the Delving barter. For now, level 151+ special tracery recipes can be found only in featured instances.

Housing and Decorations:

• Increased the default movement range of non-mobile yard hooks. Standard movement rules still apply to these hooks, but the range at which they can move within those rules has been improved.

• New housing decorations have been added to the barter for "The Tale of the Shipwrecked Mariners".

• If you have completed The Song of Waves and Wind, extra housing decoration sketches of the Kindred can be obtained via barter from Hamâti Quartermasters or Lumgâna.

• River-folk housing decorations now have an increased render distance.

• The Rivendell Kitchen Set can now be used to cook campfire foods.

• All Hitching Posts in Rivendell Housing have been replaced with Mobile Hitching Posts. NOTE: Any items slotted in the non-mobile Hitching Posts will be returned to their owner's housing storage or escrow.

• Yard Hooks using new, smaller artwork should now appear as expected at a distance.

• Tall Stone Wall property fence item now displays properly in Eastfold property fences.

• Ceiling Paint hooks now have their correct names.

• The Heraldry of Anórien and of Anfalas bundles in Lalia's Market now have the correct descriptions

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Update 48.8 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 48.8: A Glorious Hunt, Patch 8, released on Wednesday, July 1st, 2026.

News and Notes:

• Within the public dungeon "Dungeons of Barad-dûr" in Dor Amarth, rubble piles have been reduced in size to allow for easier traversal. Additionally the quest "Lost Lore of Gorgoroth: Dor Amarth" is no longer blocked by an offending rubble pile.

• Pagru-kirít, Garden of Corpses

• A new Tier 3 deed has been added for those up to the challenge!

• Trash

• Reduced ranged on Rending Cleave

• Khardâmu

• Added additional check for banner effects

• Reduced effective range on Ending Strike

• Ushkudâsh

• Increased cooldown of Weave Shadows

• Increased cooldown on Song of Nuzêru

• Reduced Area size of Song of Nuzêru pulsing from players

• Reduced damage on Shadow Spit

• Added callout for Call for Aid

• Reduced frontal size for the Spawn of Ushkudâsh fire breath

• Reduced damage on Shattering Roar

• Echoes of Nuzêru can no longer heal other Echoes of Nuzêru

• Rotting Blood now correctly gets removed when a player is healed to full health on Tier 3.

Update 48.7 Release Notes

Here are the release notes for Update 48.7 A Glorious Hunt, Patch 7, released on Wednesday, June 24th, 2026.

Of Special Note:

Pagru-kirít, the Garden of Corpses will unlock Tier 3!

Tier 3 of Pagru-kirít, the Garden of Corpses unlocks this Thursday, June 25th starting at 12:00 PM Eastern (-4 GMT). The Tier 3 Leading the Charge deed will be available until Monday August 10th at 3:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT). Pagru-kirít, the Garden of Corpses is FREE to VIPs and available as part of the Quest Pack "A Glorious Hunt."

News and Notes:

• Khardâmu, in Pagru-kirít, the Garden of Corpses, should no longer reset banner health when using Consuming Call.

• The Leaping Fish Kite will now work to advance the Midsummer Festival quest "Let's Go Fly a Kite".

Update 48.6 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 48.6: Pagru-kirít, the Garden of Corpses, released on Wednesday, June 17th, 2026.

Of Special Note:

A new 6-player instance has arrived!

A new 6-player instance, Pagru-kirít, the Garden of Corpses is available through Tier 2 difficulty with the launch of update 48.6. Free to VIPs or unlocked with purchase of the Quest Pack: A Glorious Hunt. Tier 3 will be available at noon on Thursday June 25th. The Tier 3 Leading the Charge deed will be available until Monday August 10th at 3:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT).

News and Notes:

• Veil of the Nine (Ringwraith event):

• We have corrected an issue with the higher-level barter profiles.

• A pocket item has been added for barter that can increase lesser wraith encounter frequency. (~7 min -> ~4 min)

• The amount of Tattered Shadows granted for defeating lesser wraiths has been increased.

• An additional tier of Reputation has been added for the top levels of the barter system.

• Quest Tracker: Overall height has been returned to the previous size. To reduce cutoff for the last tracked quest in the quest tracker list, long objective descriptions no longer use an extra line containing the ellipses ("...") overflow indicator. The ellipses has instead been moved to the right side of the tracked quest UI.

• Corrected an issue where the Monster Player Rewards were displaying in certain Free People character's Reward Track panel.

Update 48.5 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 48.5, released on Thursday, June 11, 2026.

Of Special Note:

The 2026 Midsummer Festival has arrived!

The festival runs from Thursday June 11th starting at 10:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) until 3:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on Wednesday July 1st. New rewards are available for barter, including Flowering Sun avatar cosmetics, Elk mount, Eagle-owl cosmetic pet, and housing decorations.

Read our guide to the event on LOTRO.com: https://www.lotro.com/guides/lotro-midsummer-festival-guide-en

At this year's Midsummer Festival, the freebooters of Furtherholm are introducing a new horse race, the Shield Isles Midsummer Run! Race around the tropical paradise of Zír Aktar and earn Midsummer tokens. Complete the race enough times to become a seaside sensation and earn extra Midsummer Tokens, 500 Virtue Experience Points, and the title Sea Horse-master. To begin the race, speak to Lêkhar, the Shield Isles Race Master, on the west side of The Cracked Flagon. To get to Furtherholm, talk to Ikhajât in front of the City Stables in Minas Tirith (Midsummer). She can also be found at the Party Tree, Thorin's Hall Inn, inside The Prancing Pony and The Festival Garden in Duillond.

News and Notes:

• Monsterplay: Gothmog's Mace fire FX is now only visible when the weapon is visible.

• Trait Tree Panel - UI content selection no longer shifts when the panel size exceeds the screen size.

• Trait Tree Panel - Trait dependancy arrows scale better with the panel size.

• Tooltips for UI elements correctly scale with the Tooltips UI scale slider again.

Update 48.4 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 48.4: A Glorious Hunt, Patch 4 released on Wed, June 3, 2026.

Of Special Note:

Angmar and Mordor now have a level cap of 105!

Our Legendary Worlds of Angmar and Mordor now have a level cap of 105. The maximum item level for Legendary Items has also increased to 250! Additionally, all six previously-seen Veil of the Nine Ringwraiths are being rotated into the game during this level cap, so if you have missed any Ringwraiths they can now appear. The Ringwraiths are The Black Blade of Lebennin, The Gloom of Nurn, The Grim Southron, The Bane of Rhûn, The Forsaken Reaver, and The High Sorcerer of Harad. The Throne of the Dread Terror raid opens on Angmar and Mordor at Noon Eastern (-4 GMT) on June 11th.

The 18th Legendary Items and 7th PvMP Reward Tracks are now available!

The 18th Legendary Items Reward Track begins at 10:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on June 3rd and continues until 9:59 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on September 2nd, 2026. The 7th PvMP Reward Track now begins and ends alongside the Legendary Items Reward Track as well. VIPs can unlock access to the PvMP Reward Track at a 50% discount in the LOTRO Store! New rewards in the LI Reward Track include an Incomparable Coffer of the Ambarûl Property Guard, the Tome of the Arabian Pony Pet, the Legendary Coffer of the Hamât Renewed Protectors, and the Tome of the Tame Hyena. New Rewards in the PvMP Track include new appearances for each Monster Play class and a selection of cosmetic items for weapons!

News and Notes:

General Notes:

• Housing Shared Storage capacity has been updated for certain non-kinship premium houses that were purchased during a short time window during the launch of Rivendell housing. The housing shared storage capacity should now correctly update to match the highest value of another house owned by the account on the world.

• NOTES:

• This change will not resolve outstanding issues with kinship housing storage capacity, only personal homes.

• This change will not resolve an account's Shared Storage housing capacity if it does not own another home with the correct higher capacity.

• Players with outstanding housing storage issues should work with Customer Support to resolve.

• The retry timer on all festival horse races has been reduced from five minutes to one minute.

• The cost to repeat the festival horse races sooner than the daily cooldown has been reduced from 5 Mithril Coins to 3 Mithril Coins.

• Monster Play:

• The cosmetic weapons Gundabad Captain's Bow, and Wight's Great Axe have been adjusted to hide when the user is not in combat.

• The visual appearance to the Wight's Great Axe has been upgraded.

• In the private instance "The Silent Street" Telemnar now spawns correctly, no longer blocking progress.

• Lions will now have a more natural looking out-of-combat idle animations. This includes the Maned Lion and Proud Lioness cosmetic pets, but not the Shadow Lion cosmetic pet.

• Fixed incorrect physics and origin placement of Rivendell housing decorations. Note that a few of the decorations have moved relative to their current placement in housing hooks, but they will now be more accurately positioned for future placements. You will need to unhook and re-hook any of these decorations already placed in order for these changes to fully take effect.

• The following Rivendell housing decorations have been slightly to moderately scaled up in size to better suit elf housing interiors. You will need to unhook and re-hook any of these decorations already placed in order for the size changes to fully take effect.

• Rivendell Portrait Set

• Portrait of Elrond

• Rivendell Tapestry

• Rivendell Fire-side Set

• Rivendell Trunk

• Rivendell Bed

• Rivendell Bedroom Set

• Rivendell Bedside Table

• Rivendell Coffee Table

• Rivendell Fireplace

• Rivendell Book-shelf

• Rivendell Stove

• The Timeless Elf-hawk cosmetic pet will correctly play hawk sounds.

• Fixed a bug that would result in the player ending up in the default housing neighborhood when leaving a instance via the right-click menu.

• We have addressed the issue in the Mission: Drive the Enemy Away where the enemies continue to respawn making it very difficult to get the scout to appear.

Update 48.3 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 48.3: A Glorious Hunt, Patch 3 released on Wednesday, May 20, 2026.

Of Special Note:

"A Glorious Hunt" Concludes!

Join Shâra Mizâdi in Ingarûma in Pahar Hatokáli for the epic conclusion of the "A Glorious Hunt" storyline, as she seeks her vengeance against the villainous Bârshud and a return to peace in the lands of Shagâna and Mûr Ghala. "A Glorious Hunt" is FREE to VIPs and available in the LOTRO Store.

News and Notes:

• An adjustment has been made to our load balancer to improve game performance in heavier instances and raids. This change aims to reduce the impact of too many groups sharing the same server instance on performance, and should help during raiding and instance grouping with some of the most severe lag caused by less optimized load balancing.

• Missions in Sul Madash and Zajana should be rotating properly.

• Rivendell housing - Music no longer stops playing when transitioning between floors and now smoothly changes based on music choice.

• Player Housing General - When music item is changed in a housing decoration slot, the audible music now updates immediately. Originally players would need to exit and re-enter the house to hear the music update.

• Numerous floating item and stuck spot issues across the game world have been resolved

• Server boundary physics issues in Idagal have been resolved

• Numerous terrain texture issues in Idagal have been resolved

• The mysterious ruin walls in Nan Dhelu have been removed from non-instance landscape

• Increased usage range on all housing hooks.

• The original scene file usage in Eastfold neighborhoods has been restored. This does not guarantee that scenery assets will appear exactly as they were prior to the introduction of Property Fences but should help bring the forests closer to what they previously were.

• Housing landmarks in Rivendell Housing have been adjusted to help improve loading of and access to housing features while in a property's yard.

• Clearance boxes on housing hooks have been adjusted to match the dimensions used by the previous larger hook artwork. This change will help to "de-frill" yards in neighborhoods that have experienced a sudden explosion of ground cover.

• Increased the default movement range of non-mobile yard hooks.

• FRENCH: Corrected an issue that prevented selling a house in a French client with certain addresses.

• The Folly of Nagakhêd - Maukhorn - The Avalanche skill has been reworked to more reliably fire following the unstable buff. Additionally, auto attacks will now reliably fire when the boss has placed the Unstable Debuff.

• Timeless Elf-hawk pet now correctly plays hawk sound FX.

• Housing Shared Storage capacity has been updated for certain premium houses that were purchased during a short time window during the launch of Rivendell housing. The housing shared storage capacity should now correctly display the full capacity at all houses on an account.

• The Elderslade quest "Reclaiming Supplies" has been fixed and is now once again completable.

Update 48.2 Release Notes

Here are the release notes for Update 48.2, released on Wednesday, May 6th, 2026.

Of Special Note:

• The second set of 'A Glorious Hunt!' quests are now available. Meet up with Shâra Mizâdi in Hanamíku in Pahar Hatokáli to resume your journey.

• Gather friends and seek out challenging foes in the darkness. Powerful members of Kishâsu’s Risen have invaded the Hatokáli Fells near Mut-hûru and Imizíla.

News and Notes:

Classes & Skills

• Minstrel

• Armour of Triumphant Song no longer erroneously causes the echo heal from Triumphant Spirit to play more than once per player.

Housing & Decorations

• Fixed an issue with shared housing storage where the bank capacity would not correctly calculate, preventing storage of items, for Rivendell housing, Belfalas Islands, and Rohan Towers and Caves.

Items & Rewards

• The deed tracking the acquisition or use of the Ringwraith Baubles from the legendary server was errantly removed. This has been fixed and now players who newly acquire one of these unique server baubles will correctly earn the item across their account. As before, if you have previously acquired the item, use the bauble skill and the item will populate to all other characters on your account.

Monster Play

• Tyrant Tharbîl once again displays his correct name.

Quests & Instances:

• In the Anniversary Mission: The Fortress of Olnathron, an issue has been resolved that caused Olnathron to become unattackable after a player wipe.

• The Rohan Sutcrofts quest "Foes From All Sides" now advances and completes correctly.

• The Folly of Nagakhêdi: Maukhorn's Avalanche ability should more reliably fire when the Tank is under the effect of the Unstable Buff.

• The appearance of Arodel in the Book 15 Daughter of Strife session play has been reverted to the original appearance.

Localization:

• GERMAN: The description text for the following Baubles now display properly in German: "Behold: My Treasure Hauler", "Laundry Day", "Plant a Patch of: Crystals", "Plant a Patch of: Poppies", "Plant a Patch of: Saffron", "Plant a Patch of: Tulips", "Sandstorm is Coming", "Stink Ball, Viznak's Cure?".

Update 48.1 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 48.1, released on Wednesday, April 29, 2026.

Of Special Note:

Rivendell Housing opens on Thursday, April 30th!

Update 48 sees the launch of our newest premium neighbourhood, the Rivendell Steadings. Nestled high in the mountains just to the west of the Vale of Imladris, players now have the opportunity to call Rivendell home! Rivendell Housing will open on the 64-bit game worlds on Thursday, April 30th, starting at Noon Eastern (-4 GMT). Additional housing neighborhoods will open automatically once enough homes in existing neighborhoods are purchased. Learn more in our guide on LOTRO.com.

There are multiple ways to get to the Rivendell Steadings. The main entrance of the neighborhood is a quick walk south-west from the Rivendell stables, right before the tree bridge crossing. You can also access the neighbourhood from Bree-town via the Broker’s Office as well as from the new Rivendell Steadings Broker’s Board in Lalia’s Market.

News and Notes:

Missions:

• Enemies will now spawn each time a boat is burned in the mission "Deny Their Escape."

• Enemies will no longer glide across the landscape when pathing in the mission "A Harsh Truth."

• One of the builders in the mission "Workers Released" was floating. They have been grounded.

• The appearance of the Tarkrîp Scrappers in the Anniversary Mission: Thornley's Revenge has been corrected.

Quests:

• The sub quests to the "From Ashes Come Virtue" quest now state that you must "Complete Quest: NAME" for clarity.

• The Sutcrofts quest "Thatching a Plan" now correctly requires you to collect 7 reeds, instead of 8.

• The "VIP Rewards" quest is once again available to all subscribers starting at level 5.

Reputation:

• The bestowal text for the quest "Ally of Hamât Renewed" has been re-written to no longer sound like it is Mizâdi giving the quest.

• Mûr Ghala Quartermasters now allow filtering barter profiles by reputation level.

Items:

• The Scorpion Trophy Housing Items have been renamed to better match their poses.

Landscape:

• Adjusted pathing issues across the Hatokali Fells.

• Adjusted rock placement in Elderslade to fix issues in The Lord of Gundabad story instance.

• Adjusted rock placement in Rohan to allow completion of "Searching for Erkenbrand" quest line.

• Adjusted Eastfold neighborhood to bring back trees around the yards and cleaned up errant trees that suddenly sprouted up in the middle of yards.

Art & Avatars:

• Race of Man run animations were reverted to pre-U48 animation style.

Update 48 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 48: A Glorious Hunt, released on Wednesday, April 22, 2026.

Of Special Note:

The 19th Anniversary has arrived!

The Lord of the Rings Online is turning 19! Enjoy our Anniversary Event fun starting at 10:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on Thursday, April 23rd. This year's Anniversary Event continues until 3:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on Tuesday, May 12th.

Find our guide on LOTRO.com!

This year's celebration features new Missions, new rewards and more:

• New Quintessential cosmetics on Anniversary barter vendors

• A 19-year Gift Box with new fireworks and portrait frames for players who previously acquired the 18-year Gift Box.

• The Mysterious Stranger inside the Prancing Pony has four new Missions set in the Lone-lands and the North Downs. These Missions are available to all players levels 20-160 during the festival, and all have Delvings as an option.

• Special items available just for the19th anniversary:

• We've added a special quest for our 19th Anniversary Celebration! Speak with Waldo Rumble and take part in new missions alongside existing missions and activities to obtain a new Sunstone Drakeling cosmetic pet.

• Find new dog and parrot cosmetic pets available to barter for Anniversary tokens and a jerboa pet and fence housing decorations available to barter for Steel Tokens.

• 'Nineteenth Anniversary Surprise!' packages will occasionally drop from monsters out in the world.

Rivendell Housing opens on Thursday, April 30th!

Update 48 sees the launch of our newest premium neighbourhood, the Rivendell Steadings. Nestled high in the mountains just to the west of the Vale of Imladris, players now have the opportunity to call Rivendell home! Rivendell Housing will open on the 64-bit game worlds on Thursday, April 30th, starting at Noon Eastern (-4 GMT). Additional housing neighborhoods will open automatically once enough homes in existing neighborhoods are purchased.

There are multiple ways to get to the Rivendell Steadings. The main entrance of the neighborhood is a quick walk south-west from the Rivendell stables, right before the tree bridge crossing. You can also access the neighbourhood from Bree-town via the Broker’s Office as well as from the new Rivendell Steadings Broker’s Board in Lalia’s Market.

New Questing: A Glorious Hunt!

In the southern scrubland of Pahar Hatokáli, Shâra Mizâdi, queen of Shagâna and its environs, has pursued the villainous pretender king Bârshud across deserts, mountains and cities throughout Shagâna and Mûr Ghala. After he fled Emax Dûl, Bârshud and his sorcerous second, Sudûgul, have taken up residence south, in the Hatokáli Fells. Mizâdi and her retinue, including Numûru, Razâl and Rahâzi are fast on his heels. But like a serpent cornered, Bârshud is even more dangerous in his desperation. What fresh secrets and horrors will Mizâdi find in her hunt, buried deep beneath the Fells?

Experience the story of Mizâdi's glorious hunt over three parts, released over time throughout the spring! Meet up with Shâra Mizâdi in Hanamíku in Pahar Hatokáli to begin your journey. The first set of quests is available with launch, and the second set of quests unlocks on Wednesday May 6th at 10am EDT. The final quests in the story unlock on May 20th. "A Glorious Hunt" is FREE to VIPs and available in the LOTRO Store.

A new weekly quest to earn Virtue has arrived!

New Embers for Virtue quests are obtained from Embers traders around Middle-earth.

• First, you will need to obtain the weekly quest "From the Ashes Comes Virtue - Weekly" that tracks your status and provides the paramount reward at the end of the week. This quest resets every Thursday allowing your to start the process over again.

• Then, bestowed by the same Embers traders that bestowed the Weekly, you can obtain the six "From the Ashes Comes Virtue - I-VI" quests. Each quest allows you to turn in a number of embers for Virtue XP. Each of these quests also reset at the end of the week, allowing you to complete the quests again every week.

• If ever a quest does not allow for a turn in and you have enough Embers, you can log off the character and return to the world and the quest will update accordingly. Or, if you do not meet the requirement for the Ember turn-in collecting more Embers should also push the advancement of the quest.

New Additions to Adventurer's and Traveler's Lootboxes!

Rowan Raspberry has arrived to trade your Figments of Splendour for new and returning rewards! These new items are also available in Adventurer's and Traveller's Steel-bound Lootboxes.

Learn more in this article on LOTRO.com!

• Adventurer's and Traveller's Steel-bound lootboxes contain new "Rivendell" cosmetic items including avatar cosmetics, oryx cosmetic pets, and a variety of housing decorations. These items are also available on Rowan Raspberry for Figments of Splendour.

• Adventurer's and Traveller's Steel-bound lootboxes also now contain a Humming Sunbird cosmetic pet, Forges of Imladris, Rivendell Stove, and Rivendell Kitchen Set crafting facility decorations, and Replica of the Imladris Stables and Last Homely House decorations. These items are not yet available for barter.

• The following pet and housing items are now available on Rowan Raspberry for Figments of Splendour: Mushroom Hunter's Pack and Mushroom Hunter's Corgi cosmetic pet.

• Some older items were moved off of Rowan Raspberry and onto the Curator including Hidden Peaks cosmetic clothing and many housing decorations. See the article for full details.

• Filbert Fig has retired for the season.

• Newly acquired Adventurer's Steel-bound Lootbox gear for level 160 characters now scales to item level 562 - 564.

News and Notes:

Classes & Skills:

• Brawler

• The Plant Feet skill description no longer states a specific, incorrect interval value for its defensive bonuses.

• Burglar

• Mischevious Delight's power restore is now fixed.

• Captain

• Armour of the Dôlo's 4-set bonus now works as intended, but the cooldown reduction per enemy hit has been reduced from -1s to -0.5s.

• Guardian

• Sweeping Wound, Brutal Wound, and Overwhelming Wound bleeds now correctly benefit from Traceries which increase the damage of their corresponding skills.

• Shield-taunt no longer applies duplicate threat effects.

• The original animation for Smashing Strike of a leaping strike has been restored.

• Smashing Strike now properly inherits your weapon's damage type.

• The tooltip for the trait Reckless Attack now correctly refers to Reckless Attack, rather than Reckless Strike.

• Hunter

• Plant Feet trait no longer incorrectly increases induction times.

• Armour of the Silver Arrow's Moonlight bonus damage now procs on all ranged attacks.

• The Silver Arrow now correctly gains increased critical magnitude from the Area Effect Magnitude tracery, rather than the Single Target tracery.

• Camouflage no longer erroneously gains bonus critical chance from the Kingsfoil healing tracery.

• Hunter's Silver Arrow now correctly gains crit mag from Focus Builders Critical Magnitude effects

• Hunter's "Induction Bow Critical Multiplier" and "Focus Bow Critical Multiplier" properties have been renamed to "Ranged Focus Builder Critical Multiplier" and "Ranged Focus Spender Critical Multiplier" to more accurately reflect what they are and to what they apply.

• Lore-master

• Lore-master Brooches and Stickpins "of Rage" have been renamed to "of Nature", and now provide offensive pet benefits of +10% Pet Health +5% Pet Damage +2.5% Pet Crit Chance.

• Lore-master Brooches and Stickpins "of Regrowth" now provide defensive pet benefits of +10% Pet Health +10% Pet Health Regen -2.5% Pet Incoming Damage.

• Lore-master non-crit crafting Brooches and Stickpins at Westemnet (T9) and lower now provide additional Vitality, but no longer provide Power.

• Burning Embers' Tier 2 Damage over Time effect has been renamed to 'Flaming Embers' to distinguish it from the skill and its initial hit still called "Burning Embers".

• The "Fellowship Friend - Cat" effect now correctly shows its bonus as being +3% Melee Damage and not +3% Outgoing Damage, which was incorrect.

• Mariner

• Fixed an issue causing mariner ground-targeted pot skills to sometimes generate multiple hotspots.

• The Dramatic Flourish effect 'Imitating a Master of War' buff potency has been reduced from 25% to 10%.

• Minstrel's Armour of Triumphant Song 4-set bonus now correctly benefits your entire Fellowship, not solely the caster.

• Rune-keeper

• Rune-keepers once again gain the 'Charged' FX when the charged effect is applied or tiers up.

• Warden

• Armour of the Wound Carver's Heroic Spear of Fate buff potency has been adjusted for Tiers 1 and 2 and is now only consumed when using Spear of Fate if the buff at tier 3.

Crafting & Hobbies:

• Recipes for Mûrai Hunter Tomes now have more generic names so that it is clearer that they are multi-output recipes.

Festivals & Events:

• In the Anniversary Scavenger Hunt Quest Year 1 Travels: Towering Monuments, visiting the Stone of Erech in King's Gondor will no longer advance the quest. The quest text now specifies that you must visit the "wartime" Stone of Erech in the version of the Blackroot Vale that existed before the destruction of the One Ring.

• When the Midsummer Festival returns, Furtherholm will have a fishing supplier who sells fishing rods.

Housing & Decorations:

• The Housing Deco item Umbari Property Guard now correctly summons an Umbari Property Guard when called upon.

• Added two Enormous and 5 huge mobile yard hooks to the Lyndelby Kinship Smial.

• All Yard hooks now use smaller visual representations to mitigate usage issues in locations where hooks visually overlapped.

• Mobile Yard Hooks have a uniform coloration to help make them distinct from standard Yard Hooks.

• Fire Pit House Hooks now use Furniture-sized Hook Artwork to make using them and other hooks around them easier.

• Added a third property fence hook for the upper ring of fences in the Lyndelby Kinship Smial.

• All properties in Eastfold and Kingstead neighborhoods now have property fence hooks.

• All Belfalas Houses now have interior light hooks (NOTE: With the implementation of this system, most static lighting has been removed from Belfalas housing interiors. Players will need to purchase Light decorations from Ambience Furnishers to update the lighting in their homes)

• Minor adjustments have been made to the entrance locations of each Belfalas house interior to help mitigate the issue where players could fall through the floors upon entering from landscape.

• The following items can now be used on Yard hooks:

• Hobbit Stable

• Farmer’s Gazebo

• Renewed Gondorian Fountain

• Large Gondorian Scaffolding

• Ruined Arnorian Bridge

• Simple Ruined Arnorian Wall

• Small Destroyed Round Arnorian Wall

• Destroyed Wide Arnorian Wall

• Ruined Wide Arnorian Wall

• Arnorian Arch-wall

• Ruined Arnorian Gate

• Ruined Full Arnorian Arch-wall

• Full Arnorian Arch-wall

• Ruined Filled Arnorian Arch-wall

• Filled Arnorian Arch-wall

• Destroyed Arnorian Arch-wall

• Dispersed Arnorian Rubble

• Crumbling Dwarf Fountain

• Flooded Deeps Aqueduct

• The Wreck of the Thoroval

• Ruined Stone Pillars

• Stone Pillars

• Lórien War Tent

• Large Pipeweed Field

• Large Wheat Field

• Large Dry Wheat Field

• Round Gondorian Reflection Pool

• Blue and White Tent

• Red and Gold Tent

Instances & Skirmishes:

• The Isle of Storms instance now scales from level 150 to 160.

Items & Rewards:

• New rewards are available from Delving Quartermasters! Use Delving Writs to obtain the Tome of the Cobalt Grodbog Protector, the Tome of the Obsidian Deep-claw Whelp and several new housing decoration items.

• Daegoth, in Ost Galadh, will now exchange Medallions of Dol Guldur and Dark Emblems for Marks and Medallions on worlds where the level cap is 85 or higher, allowing players to acquire some level 65 challenge rewards that are otherwise unavailable.

• Some expansion packages were incorrectly binding their cosmetic contents to character instead of account, and are now fixed:

• Fate of Gundabad Collector's Edition - Bonus Items!

• Fate of Gundabad Ultimate Fan Bundle - Bonus Items!

• Cosmetic Armour of the Gundabad Reclaimer

• Fateful Gundabad Cosmetic Armour

• Minas Morgul Collector's Edition - Bonus Items

• Minas Morgul Ultimate Fan Bundle - Bonus Items

• Cosmetic Armour of the Great Alliance

• Cosmetic Armour of the Dead City

• Attempting to use a Title-granting consumable when you already have the title will now fail.

• The Pouch of Black Mushroom Spores for the Farmers Faire quest "Planting the Seeds for Harvest" will no longer go into Crafting Carry-alls.

• Ashes of Osgiliath: Instance Gear Updates

• The armour sets available from the Ashes of Osgiliath instance cluster (The Sunken Labyrinth, The Ruined City, and The Dome of Stars) have been updated.

• The gear set is now fixed at Level 100 / Item Level 202 and will no longer scale with your character's level at the time of the drop, ensuring consistent stats on every piece you earn.

• Class specific set bonuses have been re-added to these new versions.

• There is now a unique set for the Brawler and Mariner.

• Set pieces now have a chance to drop exclusively from the Level 100 Challenge versions of all three instances. Specifically the "Osgiliath Labyrinth Armour", "Osgiliath Ruins Armour", and "Osgiliath Dome Armour".

• Previously acquired gear is unaffected and will keep its current level but not gain set bonuses. This old non-set gear can be exchanged for their new set equivalents via barter at the Osgiliath Rewards Vendor Quartermaster.

• Mariners can now upgrade Dread Terror set items up to "Supreme" and even "of the Morannon"! Visit the Host of the West Herb-master and Master-weaponist for details.

• A few items from the Dread Terror gear sets incorrectly had sell values. These have been removed.

• The Marine Scorpion cosmetic pet has been renamed to Death-light Scorpion.

• Baubles

• The Ringwraith Baubles earned on Angmar and Mordor will now populate correctly across your account. If you have previously acquired the item to earn the bauble skill, then you will need to use the bauble skill to populate the reward across your account. If you have not previously acquired the item to earn the bauble skill the first time you collect the item you will receive the item on all characters on your account.

• A set of cosmetic items have been upgraded into Baubles. These items have been transformed into consumable, account bound scrolls which will teach you the Bauble skill/effect the item used to generate. As a reminder, to view Baubles open then Collections panel (SHIFT + C), then look to the bottom tab on the left.

• Rotten Fruit

• Sack of Petals

• Flower Petals

• Hollin Gate Fireworks

• Yellow Star Fireworks

• Orange Star Fireworks

• White Tree Fireworks

• Dragon Fireworks

• Pinwheel Fireworks

• Willow Fireworks

• Soaring Pinwheel Fireworks

• Incandescent Lightning Fireworks

• Mighty Ram Fireworks

Landscape:

• Numerous stuck spots across the game world have been resolved.

• Numerous floating objects across the game world have had their placement adjusted.

• Numerous inaccessible resource nodes and monsters have had their placement adjusted.

• Camels can now be used in Thorin's Hall and the Hall Under the Mountain.

• The appearance of the entrance to the Understaddle in Bree-land when the Farmers Faire is not in progress has been changed.

• Fixed a bug that caused Frill Terrain Color graphics option to show incorrect colors on frills.

• Dread 5, 6, and 7 no longer claim they cause cowering in their tooltips.

• Adjusted landscape scaling loot drops on monsters level 61-80 to more consistently scale their equip effects. Primarily effects Soothe Wounds and the other status removing effects to always be level 80 removal, as well as the Intermittent Power and Moral which also now have a flat restoration amount.

Legendary Worlds:

• Angmar and Mordor will increase to level cap 105 on Wednesday June 3rd, 2026. The Legendary Item level cap also increases to item level 250 at this time. On Angmar and Mordor only, from June 3rd through July 15th, extra plants will spawn in North Ithilien and the Wastes for Flora containing specific extract phials on a weekly rotation. To help plan collection forays, plants with Verdant Extract will be more common 6/3 - 6/14, Umber Extract 6/10 - 6/24, Crimson Extract 6/17 - 7/1, Sapphire Extract 6/24 - 7/8, and Amber Extract 7/1 - 7/15.

Quests, Deeds, & Adventure Areas:

• Burning Brush in the North Ithilien quest Saving the Wilds will now actually be burning.

• The barricades now have sound when they collapse In the Minas Morgul Instance "The Harrowing of Morgul".

• The webbed trees will now have appropriately sized flames in the Morgul Vale quest "The Trees of Taurlingol".

• Quest objective directions in "Crocodile Hunting (Daily)" have been corrected.

• Horses for the quest "Riders of the Storm" should now respawn faster.

• Added some additional text introducing the Word-hoard of Gobetham to the quest "II.10: Forgotten Lineage".

• An issue that prevented players from completing the Brown Lands Instance "A Sunset Storm" if they defeated the third captain and the commander in the wrong order has been resolved.

• Ensorcelled Vessel enemies in the "Houses of Lamentation" encounter can now be selected with mouse.

**Re

Update 47.4 Release Notes

Here are the release notes for Update 47.4, released on Wednesday, April 8th, 2026.

News and Notes:

The Folly of Nagakhêdi:

• Badharál the Gorger:

• The morale of the Plump Spiderling has been reduced.

• The Unnerving Spider's "Spores of Fear" has had its ability range reduced.

• Maukhorn:

• Maukhorn's maximum Morale has been reduced by 3%.

• Blighted Bloom has had its maximum Morale reduced by 20%.

• Legion of Lhaereth, Cristhir the Night-shadow:

• The initial cooldown and cooldown of Nightfall has been increased.

• Assassination has had its cooldown increased on Tier 3.

• The initial cooldown and cooldown of Call Stalkers has been increased on Tier 3.

• The health of assassins and Nightsingers has been reduced.

• Nightfall damage now ramps up every 25 seconds instead of every 20 seconds.

• Zamâktar the Putrescent:

• Zamâktar's Suffocating Spores on T3 (that spawn when a player dies) now have smaller Area of Effect that deals less damage.

• Terrible Roar's debuff duration has been reduced from 60 seconds to 45 seconds.

• Water should no longer sometimes remain risen during the fight with Zamâktar the Putrescent on Tier 3 difficulty.

Update 47.2 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 47.2: Folly of Kings, Patch 2, released on Thursday March 19th, 2026.

News and Notes:

• The Lutenist inside the Boat and Basket Tavern is no longer T-posing.

• TBD's have been fixed in the Spring Festival daily wrapper, A Taste of Spring.

• The Map to Clegur given to players in the quest "A Gardener's Lament" no longer shares a cooldown with the Map to the Spring Festival.

• The daily repeatables in Clegur for the Spring Festival can now be reset using Mithril Coins.

• The appearance of the Daffodil Banners used in the quests "Springtime's Colours" and "Flower Envy" have been corrected.

• The Large Daffodil Celebration Banner now uses the correct banner appearance.

• The appearance of the Small Daffodil Celebration Banner housing decoration has been updated to resolve some visual issues. For these changes to fully take effect, please unhook and rehook the housing decoration.

• Several T-posing NPCs in various parts of the game have been fixed.

• The instance quests for "The Folly of Nagakhêdi" will now correctly update if a "Conquering the Folly of Nagakhêdi" quest is used to skip bosses.

• The "Challenges of the Folly of Nagakhêdi (Weekly)" Quest now requires you to kill each boss once on any tier instead of completing the instance quest three times.

• The "Advanced Challenges of the Folly of Nagakhêdi (Weekly)" Quest now requires you to kill each boss once on Tier 3 difficulty.

• The "Explorer of 'The Folly of Nagakhêdi' - Tier (1-3)" Deeds now require you to complete each boss on each respective Tier.

• Daily Quests

• The daily rotating Adagím quest "Attacking the Blight" now advances based off any Huorn killed in the zone.

• The daily rotating quest "Terror in Abnishu" has had the Matron removed as a requirement.

• Monster Play:

• Fixed a typo in the description of Ivar's Corrupted Staff.

• Warden

• Armour of the Wound Carver's free Spear of Fate skill can now be used as intended. When this special Spear of Fate skill is usable, there is now a visible effect for 10s.

• Armour of the Wound Carver's 4-set bonus now correctly states that the Tier 3 Heroic Spear of Fate effect will cause Spear of Fate to remove your Mastery skill cooldowns for a brief moment.

• The Folly of Nagakhedi

• Fixed an issue where Badharál the Gorger's Caustic Birth may target fewer eggs after a reset.

• Maukhorn: Cascading Blooms should no longer spawn on players after the encounter has ended.

• Legion of Lhaereth: Animated Blood monsters now have set spawns instead of reactively spawning based on the location of Blood Pools. (Developer's Note - This mechanic was changed to improve game performance issues.)

• Zamâktar: Picking up a second mushroom of the same color as a mushroom you are currently holding will now correctly cause the second mushroom to detonate immediately.

• Zamâktar: Fixed an issue where players could end up with Blight Mastery in addition to Blue or Yellow Spores.

• Increasing health values for Zamâktar the Putrescent on Tier 2 and Tier 3 by 10%.

Update 47.1 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 47.1: Folly of Kings, Patch 1, released on Wednesday March 11th, 2026.

Of Special Note

Ten new Missions & Delvings are available in Mûr Ghala

Visit Várudar in Adagím or Jôrlar in Zajâna within Kighân to pick up new Missions to conquer fresh challenges in Mûr Ghala! Each mission giver has five new missions available. Missions in Adagím and Kighân are now split over two days - come back the next day to see a different set of missions!

Monster Player Rewards - Season 6 now available

Beginning with Update 47.1, Monster Player Reward tracks will be extended to a 3-month duration, and moving forward, the Monster Player Rewards timing will coincide with the Legendary Item Reward Track. The Season 6 track will be available to complete through June 2nd, 2026. You will still need to unlock the Monster Player Rewards track in the LOTRO Store, and active VIP members will receive a 50% discount on the track.

You can read more about these adjustments on LOTRO.com

.

New Quests for Spring Festival

Everyone is invited to celebrate the return of Spring with the Hobbits of Clegur in Swanfleet, as they enjoy their Daffodil Days event! There, you will find new festival quests with their own daily and weekly wrappers that can be advanced in tandem with the main spring festival wrappers. You can get the party started by talking to Hughbert Larch at the Bree-land Festival grounds. New rewards available during this year's Spring Festival include Daffodil Celebration cosmetics, goat mount and pet, a new Stoor dance emote, and several new housing decorations. The Spring Festival begins at 10:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on Thursday, March 12th and continues until 3:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on March 31st.

Learn more about the Spring Festival in our guide on LOTRO.com

.

News and Notes:

Festivals & Events

• No movement altering abilities should be usable in the Shrew Stomping event during the Spring Festival.

• Seasonal rewards for the Red Maid festival instance have been adjusted to reward Legendary Tracery Token Packages.

General Notes

• Ordâkhai Battle-cats will now attack on their own and no longer require being attacked first.

• You can no longer use the Boots of Quite-imaginable Power, the Enormous Boots, or the Dwarf-club of Unimaginable Power while in bear-form as a Beorning.

• Tracery Token packages awarded by quests and deeds that were generating General Errors and could not be used because they were missing their Max Contents Level should now be stamped with level 160 and be usable.

• In the Hobbit tutorial Instance: A Road Through the Dark, Celandine will no longer t-pose.

• Kintai Caretakers are now actually guards.

• Players can now leave The Haunt of Kidu-bala.

• All Festival Banners (static and housing decorations) now use the correct appearances.

• The treasure cache stuck in the hills of southern Idagal has been moved slightly, making it accessible.

• The month of March now displays properly on the German kinship calendar

Classes

• Burglar: Mischievous Delight now properly restores Power to allies.

Instances & Skirmishes

• Folly of Nagakhêdi Tier 3 opening has been adjusted, and is now Noon Eastern (-4 GMT) on Thursday, March 26th.

• Folly of Nagakhêdi - Legion of Lhaereth Encounter changes:

• Reduced the number of adds summoned by Call the Legion and Call Stalkers on Tier 1.

• Blood Pool now has a 2 second trigger delay (was 1) and a much weaker initial damage hit.

• During Phase 2, which special "Arena abilities" can occur is now tier-gated. On Tier 1, only Commander Mornang will use her ability (Darkwing Flight). On Tier 2, only Darkwing Flight and Rain of Knives can occur. On Tier 3, Darkwing Flight, Rain of Knives, and Blood Orb can all occur.

• Fixed an issue where completing Ekal-nêbi, the Fallen Palace on Solo/Duo mode would not count towards the "Challenges of Mur Ghala (Weekly)" quest.

• Fixed an issue causing Volatile Mushrooms to sometimes not respawn after a group wipe on Zamâktar the Putrescent.

• The Wailing Hold: The effects for Smashed Bones were not stacking correctly, this should now be fixed.

Monster Play

• Consumable items purchased with Marta at outposts now stack to 30 in your inventory.

UI & Scaling

• Fixed a bug that caused quest area overlays on the Map UI to either not show or be cut off incorrectly against edges of the map.

• Quest areas on the Map now show when the map is first opened.

• Fixed a bug that caused the Character panel contents to incorrectly scale outside of the panel.

• Fixed a bug that caused skill and trait tooltips to sometimes resize/rescale incorrectly.

Update 47 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 47: Folly of Kings, released on Wednesday, March 4, 2026.

Of Special Note:

A new raid has arrived: The Folly of Nagakhêdi!

For over a hundred years, the Kintai Elves have battled a mysterious blight, seemingly brought on by the Din of Stone. It has already consumed once-beautiful Adagím, and now threatens the rest of the Elven glades. An investigation by the Rangers Faeron and Rhadrog has tracked the source of the blight to The Folly of Nagakhêdi, but what dangers lurk inside the ancient and abandoned wonder?

The Folly of Nagakhêdi is now available at Tier 1! Account ownership of the Kingdoms of Harad expansion is required for access.

Learn more about Kingdoms of Harad on LOTRO.com

. Tier 2 opens at Noon Eastern (-5 GMT) on Thursday, March 12th. Tier 3 opens at Noon Eastern (-5 GMT) on Thursday, March 19th. The Leading the Charge deed for The Folly of Nagakhêdi will be available until 3:00 AM Eastern (-5 GMT) on Thursday, May 14th. Reminder that the Leading the Charge deeds for the Kingdoms of Harad instances continues until 3:00 AM Eastern (-5 GMT) on March 16th.

The 17th Legendary Items Reward Track has arrived!

The newest Legendary Items Reward Track has arrived! The Legendary Items Reward Track is available to all players starting at level 45, and can be accessed through the Menu (Character - Reward Track.) New rewards in the 17th track include the Tome of the Vibrant Spotted Boglurker cosmetic pet, Tome of the Rose-coloured Mumak Calf cosmetic pet, Incomparable Coffer of the Wild Pasture Weapon Aura, and Legendary Coffer of the Wild Pasture Hoof-prints! The 17th Legendary Items Reward Track continues until 9:59 AM Eastern (-5 GMT) on June 3rd.

News and Notes:

Classes: Skills & Traits

• Beorning

• Blue line version of Ferocious Roar will now properly bestow the Rattling Roar deed.

• Brawler

• Come at Me now correctly taunts enemies for 5s.

• Vulnerability now reduces enemy Critical Chance rather than Incoming Damage.

• Strike as One now lasts 15 seconds and grants a larger buff when solo but a smaller buff when affecting allies.

• Burglar

• Clever Retort builders now have diminishing returns.

• Bloodletter's Melee Damage buff reduced from 3/6/9% to 1/2/3%.

• Burglar damage reduced by 5%.

• Mischievous Delight once again restores Power to your Fellowship.

• Champion

• Emboldened Blades at Tier 5 will now cause Remorseless Strikes to hit multiple enemies.

• Raging Blade damage increased by 25%.

• Guardian - NOTE: Guardian's saved Trait tree configurations have been reset due to changes to Traits.

• Charge effects are no longer removed when executing an attack while using the trait tree Defender of the Free.

• Shield Wall will no longer remove or block the use of Protection by the Sword.

• We have increased the range on the defensive portion of Protection by the Sword to 60m. The parry response effect will only trigger when the protected target is within 20m of the Guardian.

• Stamp now earned at level 16.

• Challenge is now granted by specializing in 'The Defender of the Free.'

• Fray the Edge base cooldown increased to 30s.

• Fray the Edge cooldown is now reduced to 15s when specializing in 'The Defender of the Free.'

• The Disorientation trait has been removed.

• Smashing Strike (formerly Smashing Stab) is now a general skill earned at level 34.

• Smashing Strike bonus effects are now mutually exclusive, and Smashing Strike must be used directly after either Shield Swipe or Retaliation in order to gain a bonus effect.

• Smashing Strike can now be used while wielding a 2h weapon.

• Smashing Strike's bleed now pulses every 3s rather than every 2s.

• The Break Ranks effect is now applied by Smashing Strike rather than Shield-taunt.

• The Shield Spikes trait has been decoupled from consumable spikes and now always benefits shield skills, regardless of spikes consumables.

• Protection by the Sword no longer grants autocrit to the user.

• Shield-smash no longer stuns foes.

• To the King can no longer knock down foes.

• Insult to Injury is now Wary Warrior, which causes the Guardian's Ward buff to increase your Melee Damage.

• Base Guardian's Ward buff duration increased 10s -> 30s.

• Demoralizing Anthem no longer reduces the active cooldown of Righteous Fury.

• The max chance to gain Blind Rage has been reduced from 100% to 25%.

• Blind Rage now increases your incoming damage by 5% while active.

• New red-line trait: Reckless Attack

• Grants skill: Reckless Attack, which requires and consumes Blind Rage.

• Ranks 2-5 increase skill damage by 5% each.

• Rank 5 causes critical hits with Reckless Attack to grant a parry response.

• Stagger now removes corruptions rather than Sting.

• Thrill of Danger no longer costs Power to execute.

• Charge cooldown reduced from 60s > 40s.

• Charge tracery effect reduced from +11s to +3.3s.

• Hunter

• Hunter damage reduced by 5%.

• Non-Blue-spec Hunters will now be able to build focus while moving using skills that generate +1 focus on use - even if they are starting with 0 focus. Focus reduction over time still applies for non-blue-spec hunters, but the window is now applied more consistently on an interval rather than immediately when the hunter first gains focus.

• Explosive Decoy now properly explodes more quickly and its ghost does not linger to taunt your enemies.

• Lore-master

• Flame of Anor's AoE Wizard's Fire damage no longer hits your current target twice.

• Searing Embers damage reduced by 10%.

• Murder of Crows potency increased 25% > 30%; cooldown increased 2m > 3m; duration reduced 20s > 17s.

• Major Command: To Arms' buff potency increased 10% > 12.5%.

• Mariner

• Buoying Winds potency reduced 5% > 2.5%.

• West Wind cooldown reduced 90s > 80s.

• The Dramatic Flourish effect 'Imitating a Master of War' buff potency has been reduced from 25% to 10%.

• Having your balance forcibly reset to neutral now applies a short debuff (-75% Incoming healing, +10% incoming damage, 4s duration) rather than stunning you.

• Stumbling fore-ward's miss chance penalty has been removed, and has been replaced with -3% mitigations.

• Minstrel

• Chord of Salvation is no longer immediate when in Dissonance or Melody stance. Chord remains immediate in Resonance.

• Improved Chord of Salvation skill tooltip has been cleaned up slightly, and its AoE effects now both have a range of 20m.

• Chord of My Salvation healing increased by 50%.

• Rune-keeper

• The Trait 'Scathing Retort' now causes Smouldering Wrath to burn faster and tier down Writ of Fire to deal bonus damage.

• Fiery Ridicule no longer has an induction.

• Fiery Ridicule can no longer target multiple enemies with the max rank of Conflagration of Runes.

• Warden

• Warden damage increased by 5%.

• +10% damage for some shield gambits.

• +20-40% damage for Wall of Steel and Boars Rush line gambits.

• Wall of Steel and Boars Rush gambits now have short diminishing returns effects, lowering their damage if the same gambit is used multiple times in a short period.

• Shield Up, Readied Blade, and Shield Mastery gambits all now deal AoE damage.

• +1 DoT pulse from all gambits in the Spear of Virtue/Fate gambit line.

• The Warden's Triumph gambit has been removed - its effects are now always active passively when the Warden's Triumph trait is active.

• Determination-specific threat effects have been improved on several gambits.

Quests

• The quest Recovering Relics has been fixed. You must now collect items from the Ordakhai at Jag Golód to complete the quest.

• The quest Protectors of Wilderland: Bounties can now be cancelled. It will also no longer auto-bestow and will instead become available in the Quest Actions Available tab.

• In the Minas Tirith quest, In Days of Youth, the empty bottle of Beren's Blood will now be placed on the ground as expected. An issue has also been resolved that prevented the animation of putting it down from playing.

• Traveller's and Adventurer's Quartermasters across the world now offer a repeatable weekly quest to trade Embers of Enchantment for Virtues Experience.

• We have made it easier to swap from your fishing rod to your weapon before combat begins when running the Hytbold daily quest, Terror of the Deep.

• Did some work to help prevent the Wound-crazed Olog from being unattackable during 'Instance: Mordor Triumphant.'

Deeds & Reputation

• Class deeds will no longer display a tooltip in the Deed Log that refers to obsolete trait points.

Instances & Skirmishes

• It is now possible to start Private Encounters from inside of a Housing Neighborhood.

• The Treasure Caves of Hurum Kâna

• Reduced Blade Flurry, Flesh Rend, and Poisoned Blades damage.

• Reduced Molten Gold hotspot damage.

• Fixed an issue wherein certain boss abilities would not correctly target the main threat.

• Poisoned Blades is now correctly classified as a poison.

• Reduced the number of treasure tornadoes within Barlat’s fight on all tiers.

• Kôth Rau, Wailing Hold

• The Smashed Bones ability has been reworked for Boss 1 & 3: The skill still stacks but now is cleansable, however at harder difficulty it starts at a higher stack.

• Boss 2: On Respawn Add waves should no longer spawn in Solo and Tier 1 unintentionally, following a wipe.

• Monsters in Kôth Rau, the Wailing Hold should no longer stand around waiting for orders when entering combat.

• Ekal-nêbi, the Fallen Palace

• Dark Priestess Barkhuráni T3 - Fixed an issue where Haunting Specter's spawning could be inconsistant. They should more reliabilty start spawning 10 seconds into a phase, every 45 seconds after that, and up to 3 times per phase.

• Increased cooldown on Haunting Specter's Shadow Claw.

• Thothril the Entangler (All tiers) - Pull of Madness - Far zone is no longer avoidable by going to the very edges of the room

• Ratúlko the Bloody's Lock Up skill no longer has an induction

Items & Rewards

• Lore-master traceries are now sorted more appropriately in the Rivendell Archive.

• We have added nine new baubles depicting the Ringwraiths from the Veil of the Nine. These baubles can only be acquired through barter on the Legendary servers Angmar and Mordor.

PvMP/Ettenmoors

• Taking control of Tírith Rhaw as a monster will now reward you the treasure key for the location.

• Taking control of Tírith Rhaw as a player will now reward you the treasure key for the locations.

• Gates constructed at Tírith Rhaw and Lugazag, now properly reset after the tower boss is defeated.

• Adjusted the marta purchased mitigation potions to match their store bought counterparts.

• Ettenmoors bows are now correctly set with a minimum level of 160.

• We have replaced the reward on the monster players quest, Counter Assault, to benefit Monster Players, not Free People.

• Corrected an issue where monster players could endlessly collect the items needed for the quest, Master's Design Quest.

• Corrected a typo in the description for the Two-faced Spinner Appearance trait item.

• Many members of the Coldfells army have undergone extensive training programs and received better-preserved rations, increasing their health.

• Coldfells Army Captain-generals should now have health more commensurate with their Tyrant counterparts.

• Warleader

• Scorn healing potency has been reduced slightly.

• Scorn, Petty Criticism, Crack the Whip, and Quit Whining and Fight Power costs have been increased slightly.

Landscape & Adventure Areas

• Mounted Combat skills will no longer be intermittently available in Cardolan and Swanfleet. They will be unavailable throughout those areas.

• Several unreachable Resource Nodes in Adagim and An Sheru have been fixed.

• Gúthi in Moria's Flaming Deeps at The Crossroads of Ash, has found a new goat you can use to travel to Nud-melek to complete the quest Leaving the Deeps.

• The Far-ranging Stable-master in the Twenty-first Hall has been labelled as such.

• Lumgana, Aralath, Alahamar, and Semanisi, the quatermasters for the four factions in Kingdoms of Harad are now correctly labeled Quartermaster.

• Barrels in Hytbold should no longer murder players.

• Z-fighting in Clegur has been fixed

• Rendering/Physics issues in The Wailing Hold have been fixed

• The Haunt of Kidu-bala exits to the correct location when leaving from a non-instanced version of the space

Localization

• The Eriador map now properly displays Yondershire in French and German.

Shared Storage

• Added an option to the context menu to allow you to purge character bound items from carry-alls. This is intended for carry-alls placed in shared storage by transferred or deleted characters so that the non-bound items and the carry-all itself can be recovered.

UI & Miscellaneous

• Fixed a bug that caused the Inspect display viewport to scale uncontrollably when altered by a custom user skin.

• Monster Play: Fixed an issue in the Open Groups tab of the Social Panel, where the class filter menu did not properly list all of the available classes.

• \ Fixed an issue with the function buttons in the Kinship panel being different sizes / overlapping.

• Cursor scaling has more increments.

Known Issues:

• Ringwraith Baubles earned on Angmar and Mordor are not properly claiming across your game account and are instead only displaying in the Collections Panel for the character that earned the Bauble. We will fix this issue in a future game update.

Update 46.2.1 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 46.2.1: Kingdoms of Harad, Hotfix 1 released on Wednesday, February 18, 2026.

News and Notes:

UI Scaling

• Lua support for UI scaling has been disabled due to the need for additional compatibility development. We will be working to reduce the requirements for Lua order of operations, particularly for SetParent, SetVisible, SetSize, and SetRotation. We intend to bring this future development to upcoming Bullroarer previews.

• The new Lua UI.Window functions have been temporarily removed and should not be used: SetScalingOriginPoint(), GetScalingOriginPoint(), RegisterForGlobalScaling(), UnregisterForGlobalScaling(), SetScale()

• Fixed a bug that caused certain UI elements to re-position incorrectly when the screen size changed. This includes when switching focus to and from a fullscreened client.

• Dungeon maps correctly show the player arrow again.

Update 46.2 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 46.2: Kingdoms of Harad, Patch 2 released on Wednesday, February 11, 2026.

Of Special Note:

Tier 3 of the new Instances arrives February 12th!

Tier three of the new Instances arrives at Noon Eastern (-5 GMT) on February 12th. The Leading the Charge Deed is available to earn until 3:00 AM Eastern (-5 GMT) on March 19th. Access to Kingdoms of Harad is required for access.

You can learn more about Kingdoms of Harad on LOTRO.com. You can access the Instance Finder using Control+J or through the main menu button in-game.

News and Notes:

Instances

• The Treasure Caves of Hurum Kana

• Deeds now bestow correctly on all tiers.

• Barlat's enrage timer effect should not start until the fight begins.

• Sand Blast has been adjusted from a 60m radius explosion to a 10m radius.

• Summoned Grasping Shadows now have more threatening skills.

• Bârlat's Overseers' Impaling Strike skill now has an induction and deals damage in a frontal arc.

• Bârlat the Bold should no longer use Shower of Jewels and Gold Pile simultaneously.

• Ekal-nêbi, the Fallen Palace

• Fixed an issue where the deeds were not bestowing upon entering the instance.

• Fixed an issue where the guard summoned by the Palace Sentries in the stairwell after the Ratúlko the Bloody encounter would not aggro if players ran away.

• The damage zone generated at the end of Ratúlko the Bloody's Barbed Chain ability is now visible.

• The Curtain Pulls in the 6-player version of Dark Priestess Barkhuráni's encounter will now disappear after they have been used.

• Kôth Rau, the Wailing Hold

• Leading the Charge and vanquisher deeds rewards were corrected.

• Râkdakul's Calamity mechanic now correctly drops two damaging areas, then puts down safe locations.

• Sorceress Ombátha adds will stop spawning following a boss kill.

UI Scaling

• Lua Plugins are now supported by UI Scaling. By default, plugins will scale with the Global scaling option. Plugin authors can change the scaling to their plugin with the following commands. Added Lua functions for Window and LOTRO.

• Window: function Window:SetScalingOriginPoint(left, top); Set the point the Window scales around. Default position is 0,0.

• function Window:GetScalingOriginPoint(); Get the point the Window scales around. Default position is 0,0. returns: left, top

• function Window:RegisterForGlobalScaling(); Enable Global scaling multiplier for the Window's scale

• function Window:UnregisterForGlobalScaling(); Disable Global scaling multiplier for the Window's scale

• function Window:SetScale(scale); Update the scale of the Window. If registered for Global scaling, this value is multiplied by the Global scale factor.

• **Known Issue: **The 1st tooltip in a session will be unscaled.

• Map cursor coordinates now correctly match the map scale.

• Tooltips that are too large for the screen no longer reset to minimum size and instead correctly scale to match the screen.

• UI elements that save their size and position are better at restoring their size and position regardless of their scale between play sessions.

• Tooltips originating from the right side of the screen are now positioned closer to the cursor.

• Statically placed tooltips now correctly stay inside the client window even if the "Examination Tooltip Position" window is set close the to screen edge.

• Scaled UI objects are better at staying in their relative screen position when the client window is resized.

• Player map marker no longer goes invisible on some maps

• Corrected an issue that caused player storage items to have a mismatched selectable area with their visible image when scaled.

• Fixed a bug that caused UI Elements to shrink when the HUD is toggled off then on.

General Notes

• Crafted class items with essence slots will now properly appear as a choice when right-clicking a valid essence to slot.

• Fixed an issue where Mizâdi would go missing if you canceled 'Clearing the Way' before completing it, preventing you from being able to accept it again.

• The shields from the Kingdoms of Harad instances, available as drops or from barter, will now correctly bind to account on acquire.

• Sea-farers essences can once again be disenchanted into the appropriate malleable essences by using the Flame of Ancalamír. Crafted Sea-farer's essence boxes can again be used.

Known Issues:

• The quest 'Daily: Recovering Relics' is disabled due to a bug and cannot currently be progressed. This will be corrected in a future update.

Update 46.1 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 46.1: Kingdoms of Harad, Patch 1, released on Wednesday, February 4, 2026.

Of Special Note:

Three new Kingdoms of Harad instances have arrived!

The Kingdoms of Harad stand at a crossroads, their rivalries sharpening as a greater threat gathers strength. Gandalf has come with a warning of a darkness rising in the South. The Thardúth, ancient servants of Morgoth, rise once more, harnessing powers that could unmake the balance of Middle-earth.

**Ekal-nêbi, the Fallen Palace (6 Player Instance)**​ "The palace of Ekal-nêbi is the crown jewel of Emax Dûl, an opulent home to rulers from the kingdom of Nêshak, Nísaka... and now from Ordâkh. Hidden in the background of palace life, Thothril the Entangler, Thardúth of Damudûr, quietly began working her enchantments upon the minds of its inhabitants. Now with soldiers of Mizâdi's alliance at the palace doorstep, she asserts final control over the palace."​

**Kôth Rau, the Wailing Hold (6 Player Instance)**​ "Overlooking Damudûr, Kôth Rau serves as stronghold for those who wish to subjugate those within An Shêru. Faeron and Rhadrog have tasked you with entering this stronghold and defeating the sorceress Ombátha and the cruel Utûgi leader, Râkdakul. The hope is that with the defeat of these cruel masters, it will break the hold on those under their influence. This 6 person instance has three boss encounters located in the Wailing Hold, a fortress in An Shêru."

**The Treasure Caves of Hurum Kâna (3 Player Instance)**​ "In the forgotten caves of Hurum Kâna, a scoundrel makes his home. The self-styled brigand king, Bârlat the Bold strikes at caravans and travellers on the nearby Great Road. The Doorwards of Zajâna have tasked you with bringing Bârlat to justice. But what secrets could the caves - and Bârlat - be hiding, deep in Hurum Kâna?"​

These instances are accessible to level 160 characters that have acquired access to the Kingdoms of Harad expansion. Tiers I and 2 of these new Instances are now available! Tier three of the new Instances arrives at Noon Eastern (-5 GMT) on February 12th. The Leading the Charge Deed is available to earn until 3:00 AM Eastern (-5 GMT) on March 19th.

You can learn more about Kingdoms of Harad on LOTRO.com

. You can access the Instance Finder using Control+J or through the main menu button in-game.

The first phase of Scaling UI has arrived!

Update 46.1 includes the addition of a new User Interface Scaling feature to the game! Access these new settings in the "UI Settings" tab of the Options menu. Scaling is currently supported for the cursor, more than fifty individual UI elements, and a Global UI setting. Additionally many full screen UI elements have been updated to support wide screen displays without stretching, including the Login Screen, Character Creation and Selection, Loading Screens, and the Map Window. The MAP UI can also now be toggled between Fullscreen and Panel modes in the UI Settings.

News and Notes:

• Premium homes will once again return 90% of their Homesteading Coin cost when sold. Note that premium houses that are released automatically as part of the transfer process will continue to return 100% of their Homesteading Coin cost via in-game mail on the destination world. Foreclosed premium houses will continue to refund 80% of their homesteading coin cost.

• Some Tracery Token, Sealed Tracery, Enhancement Rune and other packages that were in the mail system when players logged in for Update 46 or 46.0.1 are displaying a general error when attempting to open them because they are missing their Max Content Level. This issue now is corrected as long as those packages were no longer in the mail system when first logging into Update U46.1.

• Resolved an issue where some players could not withdraw account-bound items from their character or shared storage after transferring from a legacy world. Items incorrectly marked as "bound to another account" are now accessible as intended.

Festivals and Events

• Legendary Servers: Ringwraith spawn announcements should now appear in all regions.

• A Mission to Bring Good Cheer will now also advance when completing Mission: Crown of Hamât quests.

Classes: Skills and Traits

• The 'Renewed Defences' effect once again lasts 3 minutes.

• All DPS specializations now have inherent -50% threat generated by damage modifier (increasing the overall damage-threat differential between DPS and tank specializations).

• For all tank specializations: threat generated from damage has been increased by 50%

• Reducing threat copy overhead from +100% threat to +10% threat

• The potencies of all additional threat effects (such as 'Moderately Increased Threat' or 'Greatly Increased Threat' have been doubled (+100%).

• Let Fly no longer has an induction, now has a 40m range, and now applies bonus threat for Guardians and Champions in tanking specializations.

• The Jiret-menêsh travel skills no longer take a scenic detour to Khanâg Gur.

• Travel skills to Ahâba and Zajâna are now more centrally located.

• Beorning

• Nature's Mend will no longer play its unique sound for every ally targeted.

• The mounted skill 'Bee Swarm' no longer forces your target to move away from you.

• Vicious Claws will longer make reference to the deprecated skill 'Mark of Beorn.'

• Maul is once again raid-wide.

• Maul now consumes 5 Wrath per second (10 Wrath per second while specialized in 'The Hide')

• 'The Roar' Maul now lasts 6s (down from 8.5s).

• 'The Hide' Maul now lasts as long as you can sustain it with Wrath, and its cooldown has been reduced to 5s.

• 'The Hide' Maul no longer taunts enemies, but does generate increased threat each time it deals damage.

• 'The Hide' Maul now affects enemies up to 10m away from you and has a base target count of 10 (up from 5).

• Brawler

• Fulgurant Strike's cooldown has been reduced by 10s.

• Mighty Upheaval can no longer knock down foes by default.

• Mighty Upheaval cooldown reduced from 15s > 12s.

• The Mighty Upheaval Knockdown and Damage tracery has been split, and is now one tracery for knockdown chance (+65%-80% chance) and a second tracery for damage (+28%-38.5% Damage; replacing the Fulgurant Strike tracery).

• Strike to the Sky can no longer knock enemies upwards.

• Strike to the Sky cooldown reduced from 10s > 8s.

• Burglar

• The mounted skill 'Trick: Impugn Character' no longer changes your target's aggression.

• Captain

• Routing Cry now has a 12m radius when specialized in 'The Leader of Men.'

• Gallant Display effects now tier down upon expiration.

• Hammer-stroke Damage increased slightly.

• Gallant Display and Routing Cry Damage increased slightly when specialized in 'Leader of Men.'

• When specialized in 'Leader of Men' Battle Shout will now hit multiple enemies around your target.

• Champion

• Champion's Challenge cooldown reduced to 10s when specializing in 'The Martial Champion.'

• Champion's Challenge debuff removed.

• Horn of Gondor Damage increased by 10%.

• Traiting into 'the Martial Champnion' now reduces the True Heroics cooldown by 80s.

• True Heroics: The Martial Champion no longer restores allies' power.

• Horn of Champions now has a 12m radius.

• Horn of Champions no longer debuffs enemies.

• Horn of Champions cooldown has been reduced to 12s (8s when traited to rank 2) and now costs 2 Fervour.

• Clobber still consumes Fervour but can now be used with no Fervour.

• Increased Second Wind restore potency contribution from Fervour.

• Adamant base value increased from -5% > -20% (-40% with max Fervour).

• Merciful Strike's occasional Power cost spikes have been removed.

• Guardian

• The Keen Blade now increases skill damage by 10%.

• Breach and Whirling Breach have been removed.

• Retaliate and Whirling Retaliation are once again available while specialized in The Keen Blade tree.

• Relentless Fury has been renamed Righteous Fury.

• War-chant's default radius has been increased 10m > 12m.

• Demoralizing Anthem no longer changes the radius of War-chant.

• Shield-swipe is now properly modified by Area of Effect trait bonuses.

• Relentless Fury has been renamed to Righteous Fury.

• Righteous Fury base cooldown reduced to 100s.

• Bleeds associated with Brutal Assault, and Overwhelm have been renamed to more closely match their main skill.

• Hemorrhaging Wound is now Brutal Wound.

• Terrible Wound is now Overwhelming Wound

• Brutal Assault's cooldown has been reduced to 8s.

• Brutal Assault now unlocks Thrust, Overwhelm, and parry response skills.

• Brutal Assault now applies a Brutal wound if a Deep Wound is present.

• Brutal Assault's base damage has been increased.

• The trait Hemorrhage has been changed to add 4% to Brutal Wound bleed damage and increases the critical magnitude of Brutal Assault by 2.5% per tier.

• Tireless Blows has been renamed Faultless Assault.

• Faultless Assault increases the damage dealt by Brutal Assault by 5% per tier.

• Into the Fray has been renamed Sting of Justice.

• Sting of Justice increases the damage of all bleeds by 3% for tiers 1 through 5, and adds an additional 5% at tier 6 for a total of 20%.

• Sting of Justice no longer confers a 100% chance to critically strike on Virtuous Charge.

• Overwhelm now applies an Overwhelming Bleed if a Deep Wound is present.

• Brutal Charge has been renamed to Virtuous Charge.

• Virtuous Charge no longer grants a 100% critical on your next melee skill at Max trait level.

• Virtuous Charge now guarantees that the first successful melee skill strike after activation will knock the target(s) down.

• Virtuous Charge now dispels the speed boost and knockdown bonus on a successful damaging skill. The slow immunity remains until expiration.

• Protection by the Sword now requires you to target a player other than yourself.

• Protection by the Sword bestows a 5% bonus to Parry and Partial Parries on the target, and when the target of Protection by the Sword within 20m parries or partially parries, the Guardian unlocks a parry response.

• Hammer Down's cooldown is reduced to a base of 30s.

• The trait Rupture no longer causes Hammer Down to apply an incoming damage bonus to bleeding targets, and instead applies a bleed that similarly scales based on the number of bleeds it consumes on your target.

• Ruptured Artery now lasts for 8s.

• Force Opening's cooldown reduced to 6s.

• Forced Opening damage increased.

• The potencies of 'Force Attack Duration' traceries have been reduced to 20% of current values.

• Hunter (NOTE: Saved Trait configurations have been reset due to changes to the Hunter traits.)

• All Hunter skill damage has been increased. For most skills, damage has been increased by 15%. Some key Bowmaster skills have been increased by 20%.

• Induction times for Barbed Arrow and Swift Bow have been reduced slightly.

• Volley's base effect is now granted as a bonus trait while specialized in 'The Huntsman.'

• Volley now only buffs Focus Spender Damage.

• The original Volley trait is now inaccessible to Bowmaster and Trapper Hunters.

• Huntsman bleed removal bonus damage effect potency increased.

• The traits Plant Feet and Critical Precision have swapped places, making Critical Precision a Bowmaster-exclusive trait.

• Swift Mercy's base proc chance has been increased from 20% to 30%.

• Deadly Precision has been moved to a position shallower in the Bowmaster trait tree and is now 2 ranks.

• The Strength trait has been moved into the Bowmaster's passive-capstone trait position.

• An issue with the Storm of Arrows trait tooltip has been fixed.

• An issue with the Huntsman's Blades trait tooltip has been fixed.

• The Umbari Armour of the Jungle Ghost 6-piece bonus once again correctly adds a stun and interrupt to Explosive Arrow.

• Lore-master

• The mounted skill 'Sign of Power: Inspiration' no longer applies a damaging effect while in the Red Dawn stance.

• Fixed a bug where Storm and Staff visual effects was showing out of combat while using a movement style.

• Fixed a bug where Storm and Staff visual effects was still showing when players had disabled avatar attack effects.

• Minstrel

• Call to Greatness no longer resets allies' capstone skill cooldowns.

• -120s Call to Greatness Cooldown (some set bonuses also reduced from -60 to -30)

• Call to Greatness now causes all of your ballads to be AoE skills that each grant 3 of their respective ballad buffs, as well as one of two effects, depending on your specialization:

• Watcher of Resolve: Immediately restores 50% of maximum Morale, and +25% Max Morale, x0.5 Incoming Damage, -15s Anthem Cooldowns for 15s.

• Warrior-skald: -30% Chance for Codas to cash out Ballad Buffs, +25% Outgoing Damage, and 15s Anthem Cooldowns for 15s.

• Bolster Courage Healing increased by 15%

• Bolster Courage Power cost increased slightly.

• Raise the Spirit healing has been increased by 30%.

• Rune-keeper

• Writ of Health Healing reduced by 5%.

Combat and Monsters

• A handful of player effects which deal bonus damage according to your player level now correctly deal greater damage for player levels 151-160.

Quests

• Langhar will now tell you where to go next if she's defeated by the goblins during 'Instance: The Skin-changer's Heritage.'

• "The Fall of the Mírdain" lead in quest for the "Doom of Caras Gelebren" skirmish now requires the server to be at or above player level 60, when the skirmish is also available.

• Fixed an issue where you could not re-accept 'Our End of the Deal' if you abandon it because Mizâdi is missing from the bridge-fort to Emax Dûl. You can now also accept this quest from Kotráka Saiya inside the palace Royal Living Quarters if you abandon it while inside the palace.

• Rotating and static Regional Quests introduced with the Kingdoms of Harad expansion pack are now bestowed from four settlements throughout the expansion regions. New Regional Quest boards at Sul Mádash, Zajâna, Jire-menêsh, and The Dawn-warden settlements will display the bestowal for these daily and weekly quests.

• Changed the names of some NPCs involved with "The Song of Waves and Wind: Chapter 13" so they match the quests.

• Quest dialogue in 'Fate of the Moulder-wood' has been revised to account for some previous adventures.

• Fixed the interactions on the quest "Daily: Crystals to Send Below" to allow for quest completion.

• All daily and weekly quests that are part of the Mûr Ghala end game are now appropriately displaying their minimum level of 160.

• A typo in the the An Shêru quest Mounting a Rescue has been corrected.

• Khagâmi's position in Gadim-ûn has been shifted slightly so that she appears to be floating less.

• The named ents in the Mordor Allegiance quest "Chapter 3: High and Low" now properly all have distinct appearances.

• A text change has been made to Rhadrog's dialogue in the An Shêru quest Taking a Rest. Players who had this quest in progress will need to pick the quest up again from Khagâmi at the crossroads in An Shêru due to versioning.

• The Mûmak Trainers' Horn used in the An Shêru quest Befriending a Behemoth can now be used in combat to better facilitate quest completion in a fellowship.

• During the Quest Scholarly Pursuits, the NPC Caebar and the collectable berry bushes should now be properly selectable via the player mouse.

• A typo has been corrected in the An Shêru quest A Letter to Meshaget.

• Typos have been corrected in the An Shêru quest Instance: A Gift for the Future.

• The An Shêru quest Instance: Into the Quelling-house can now be run in a Fellowship.

• The An Shêru quest instances Taking a Rest and A Personal Matter, will now always take place at night

• Removed an icon suggesting that a daily quest was available at the Fields of Sarhazai.

Tasks, Deeds and Reputation

• The Hamati task quests "Mûr Ghala Hamâti Task: Sun-baked Axes" and "Mûr Ghala Hamâti Task: Sun-scorched Sword Sheaths" had their turn-in items reversed. This has been fixed. Note: these task quests will be versioned upon release.

• We have added four new deeds to track the completion of the end game daily and weekly quests available in the four regions of Mûr Ghala.

• We have extended the reputation tier for the Temamir of Jiret-Menêsh to Kindred.** **

• We have increased the achievable reputation with Zajana to Kindred.

• The deed "Treasure-seeker of Mûr Ghala" now correctly is listed under Mûr Ghala. This deed will be versioned upon release of 46.1.

• The Hamati task quests "Mûr Ghala Hamâti Task: Sun-baked Axes" and "Mûr Ghala Hamâti Task: Sun-scorched Sword Sheaths" had their turn-in items reversed. This has been fixed. Note: these task quests will be versioned upon release.

• All quartermasters involved in the quests for reputations now have the corresponding barter profiles for their factions.

• We removed the sparkles that make the reputation objects found throughout Mûr Ghala appear to be lootable regardless of reputation rank or keys.

• Many bounty quests in Mûr Ghala now reward you with reputation upon completion.

Missions and Delvings

• Adjusted the bestowal text on the mission Routing Reinforcements to be more relevant to activity inside of the mission.

• Addressed an issue where the granted skill used in the mission, Disrupting Control, would advance the quest when used on orcs.

• Added an exit door to Mission: Arms Saboteur and Mission: Routing Reinforcements

Instances and Skirmishes

• The Acid Wing in the Tower of Orthanc raid is once again accessible to players.

• Voice-over has been added to Dun Shûma, The King's Fortress

• Gwathrenost, the Witch-king's Citadel: Shard of Tauressaur's Rain of Splinters damage has been reduced.

• Ene

Update 46.0.1 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 46.0.1: Kingdoms of Harad, released on Wednesday, December 10, 2025.

Of Special Note:

The Yuletide Festival begins at 10:00 AM Eastern (-5 GMT) tomorrow (Thursday, December 11th)!

The Yuletide Festival has returned for 2025 along with Yule Hobbit Presents! Hobbit Presents have a chance to drop bonus Yule gifts including a mount, cosmetic pets, and housing decorations. A slate of new rewards is also available in this year's Yuletide Festival.

Read more in our guide on LOTRO.com!

• Available during the Yule festival this year, you can get weekly and daily quests from Mara Sandydowns in Winter-home or Calúrmin at Sul Madásh. For the weekly quest, Mara and Calúrmin will accept 2500 Embers of Enchantment for 5000 Virtue XP added directly to your current virtue. Daily quests from Mara require you to obtain 10 Perfect Snowballs from the barter vendor in Winter-home or to provide 10 Mûr Ghala Sarzái for Calúrmin to receive 500 Virtue XP.

• Note: You may have to re-log after acquiring enough of the token to complete the turn in.

News and Notes:

• Planning Note: With the release of Update 46.1 in January, we will be restoring our prior Homesteading Coin return rate of 90% when selling premium homes. Note that premium houses that are released automatically as part of the transfer process will continue to return 100% of their Homesteading Coin cost via in-game mail on the destination world. Foreclosed premium houses will continue to refund 80% of their homesteading coin cost.

Legendary Items and Traceries

• With the release of Update 46 we encountered an issue where Legendary Items were, in some cases, incorrectly displaying un-leveled or empty tracery slots. Most items at or near the 150 level cap were unaffected, but lower level items were generally affected. While no Traceries were actually lost from these affected items, the data indicating which levels went with which slot was shuffled.

• With this Update 46.0.1 game update any affected items should once again be displaying their proper Tracery slotting, but unfortunately,** **the levels on those Tracery slots may be re-arranged, with the levels re-assigned to a different slot of the same type.

• Note that if you re-slotted an affected item in the meantime, this fix will not revert your item to its prior state, but will likely still reorder your item's Traceries and slot levels to ensure that there are no lingering issues with the item data.

• Tier 16 Word of Craft Traceries will now correctly contribute to normal set bonuses, while Tier 15 and below Traceries will contribute to 'Faded' set bonuses.

• Tracery boxes granting level 151+ rewards now correctly require players to be level 151 or higher to open them.

• Ettenmoors weekly quests now reward a scaling box to provide a Tracery token appropriate to your character level.

• We corrected an issue where occasionally Sealed Tracery and Tracery, Lvl 151 packages were giving level 131 heraldries to level 151+ characters.

• Reward Track 16: Tiers 40, 65, and 90 rewards no longer grant Umbar-specific Tracery recipes. These rewards now grant players a Tracery token and a Delving Box of Crafting Materials. The repeatable level 101+ reward can likewise no longer award players with crafted Tracery recipes.

Quests & Reputation

• We addressed an issue where Mizadi and crew did not respawn properly after the ambush in “To Shield the Shepherds.”

• An issue has been resolved that made it difficult to advance the An Shêru quest “Gathering Friends” when other players were doing the same quest objective at the same time.

• Made an adjustment to prevent the whispers from getting stuck on characters that progress “The Song of Waves and Wind.”

• Updated the bestowal text for the Kintai Reputation to reflect needing to speak with the Quartermaster.

• Altered the reputation tiers for the Kintai reward quests to the correct values.

• Removed duplicate map-notes for Bâdrasag, the Bladehorn in Kighân.

• Fixed several floating quest items in Kighân.

• Corrected objective text in the An Shêru quest “Mounting a Rescue” to be more clear.

• Altered the reputation tiers for the Temamir of Jiret-menêsh reputation reward quests to the correct values.

• Altered the reputation tiers for the Hamat Renewed reward quests to the correct values.

Crafting

• Woodworker recipes for the Simple Axe, Club, Bow, and Crossbow no longer require Brushed Múrai Leather

• The farming recipe for Chickpeas now properly gives out Chickpeas for its critical output.

Monster Play

• Ettenmoors chests found at Glân Vraig are updated to contain scholar mats, gems, and essences for characters 151+.

Miscellaneous:

• Roc monsters found throughout An Shêru now have unique skills.

• Addressed a visual artifact where new spider models introduced in Update 46 were stretching. This change will fix both monsters on landscape and monster play appearances.

• Normal travel routes from Jiret-menesh no longer get stuck shortly after leaving.

• The normal travel route from the Hallows of Gadim to The Dawn-Warden no longer gets stuck near the end of the route.

• Adjusted placement of an Idagal Treasure Cache to avoid players getting stuck.

• GERMAN: Updated translations for the Community Loot List title prefixes "Artist" and "Musician" in German.

• GERMAN: The bug causing difficulty for German players to join the German world chat has been corrected.

• FRENCH: The French client will now display text properly in French.

Known Issues:

• We are aware of an issue with the Cosmetic Outfits panel not always displaying properly on some characters. We apologize for this troublesome bug and are working on a fix for our next game update.

• We are aware of an issue where a string table error will sometimes appear when harvesting wood nodes. We are investing the cause and hope to have a fix soon.

• German and French game clients: Some new Yule items, in particular the packages, do not yet have translated text.

Update 46 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 46: Kingdoms of Harad, released on Wednesday, December 3, 2025.

Of Special Note

Kingdoms of Harad has arrived!

Where Sun and Shadows Meet

The Kingdoms of Harad stand at a crossroads, their rivalries sharpening as a greater threat gathers strength. Gandalf has come with a warning of a darkness rising in the South. The Thardúth, ancient servants of Morgoth, rise once more, harnessing powers that could unmake the balance of Middle-earth.

Rally the Kindred of the Coins along with the fierce Mizâdi, Shâra of Renewed Hamât, as rival kingdoms clash and old grudges resurface. From arid wastelands, blighted forests, and perilous ruins, war looms on every horizon. Who will rise to lead the Kingdoms of Harad against the coming darkness, or deeper into it?

The Epic conclusion of 'The Song of Waves and Wind' arrives with Kingdoms of Harad! Pick up 'Chapter 14.1: Whispers of Wizardry' from Jaith, the guard outside the Meeting Hall of Dar Laja in the city of Umbar Baharbel. Completing the previous chapters of 'The Song of Waves and Wind' are recommended but not required. The level cap is now 160! With the level cap increase, Monster Player characters will automatically advance to level 160 on login.

Learn more about our new expansion Kingdoms of Harad on LOTRO.com!

Angmar and Mordor have a new level cap!

• Angmar and Mordor have been updated with a new level cap of 85!

Learn more about our Legendary Veil of the Nine worlds on LOTRO.com.

• News and Notes

Festivals & Events

• Salutation to Faire Days Farmers Faire wrapper quest will now take 12 total days to complete rather than 15.

• A Bountiful Harvest Fall Festival wrapper quests can no longer be cancelled to prevent issues with properly receiving the quests every year.

Classes & Skills

• Beorning

• NOTE: Beorning class saved Trait configurations have been reset due to changes to Piercing Roar Traits.

• Piercing Roar now costs 10 wrath.

• Piercing Roar is now only available to trait when specialized in 'The Roar'.

• Piercing Roar cooldown increased 30s > 45s.

• Piercing Roar now reduces incoming damage of all fellows (x0.75 Incoming Damage) for 10s.

• Crippling Roar (now Resounding Roar) makes the buff raidwide and increases its cooldown to 60s.

• Thickened Hide now grants a multiplicative reduction rather than an additive reduction to your defences.

• Hearten's HoT now has one additional pulse.

• Encouraging Roar's HoT no longer tiers up. Its baseline potency is now equivalent to tier 3 of the deprecated, tiered effect.

• Nature's Salve radius has been increased from 8m to 20m.

• Nature's Mend is now an AoE 30m heal for the fellowship of your target.

• Piercing Roar is now a fellowship buff rather than a targeted debuff (the skill is no longer targeted, and no longer reduces enemy damage).

• Trample is now an AoE skill and no longer applies a debuff.

• The Improved Trample trait now increases Trample damage by 10% per tier.

• Thorned Armour now mitigates effect damage (no longer ignores effect damage)

• Burglar

• Corrected a typo in the Trait No Subtlety.

• Subtle Stab now has +10% inherent bonus to critical chance as intended.

• Malicious Wound can now benefit from DoT crit chance.

• Clever Retort Outputs now have reduced critical magnitude.

• Clever Retort now consumes Aim correctly when used.

• Cash Out (Payout) damage variance reduced from 20% to 5%.

• Captain

• At the Fore now tiers up from and mitigates effect damage. (no longer ignores effect damage)

• Champion

• Adamant now reduces all incoming damage by 5% (with additional 4% per fervour, up to 25%).

• Adamant now correctly consumes Fervour when used.

• Adamant now correctly applies your player buff before the skill removes your Fervour (so it can respond to Fervour-based changes correctly).

• Sprint cooldown reduced from 2m to 30s (45s in PvMP).

• Sprint potency increased from 25% to 50% (40% in PvMP).

• Sprint in PvMP once again confers immunity to slows.

• Sprint duration reduced to 3s.

• Sprint's associated tracery now increases Sprint's buff duration up to 3.3s. athletic trait reduced from 20/40/60 to 3/6/10 (seconds of Sprint cooldown reduction per tier).

• The trait 'Athletic' no longer adds a stun proc to Sprint.

• Skill: 'Wild Attack': Each weapon type now takes the same time to execute.

• +20% Raging Blade Damage

• +20% Blade Storm Damage

• Merciful Strike damage increased ~700%.

• Merciful Minded no longer changes the health threshold of Merciful Strike.

• Merciful Minded Trait now gives you a 3% chance for Merciful Strike to become available regardless of target health.

• Merciful Strike now generates 2 Fervour when used.

• Merciful Minded Ranks 2-3 now increase the chance of unlocking unrestricted Merciful Strike up to 15%.

• Devastating Strike now increases your personal outgoing melee damage, rather than your target's incoming melee damage.

• Adamant's buff has been cleaned up and should now perform as designed.

• Mighty Roar no longer removes Unbreakable buffs.

• Mighty Roar now has a 10m radius and its target count has increased from 5 to 10.

• Unbreakable buffs now reduce incoming damage up to 10% rather than increasing tactical mitigation.

• Unbreakable's Max Morale buff is now a separate, 30s effect.

• Armour of the Hiddenhoard Martial Combatant's Unbroken buff now lasts 60s, rather than 120s.

• Sweeping Riposte now generates 2 Fervour when used.

• Sprint is now a much faster movement buff for a shorter duration, but on a shorter cooldown.

• Quick With a Blade no longer changes the health threshold requirement of Merciful Strike, and instead causes Merciful Strike to restore Morale at the cost of greater Power.

• Guardian

• Guardians now gain +10% Max Morale when specialized in 'The Defender of the Free.'

• Shield-swipe is now an AoE skill which strikes enemies in a 180 degree frontal arc.

• Hunter

• Explosive Arrow now correctly plays an explosion visual effect on your target when used.

• Split Shot no longer erroneously generates Focus when used.

• Pinning Shot cooldown increased from 8s to 12s.

• Pinning Shot now enrages enemies.

• The trait "In for the Kill" now correctly increases the damage of all Hunter DoTs.

• Heart Seeker no longer has a bleed by default, and correctly gains it from the 'In for the Kill' trait.

• Rapid Fire T10 now applies +5% Ranged Damage (on top of prior bonuses).

• Lore-master

• Pleasant Breeze no longer breaks target stealth when used.

• Sign of the Wild: Rage now marks your enemy, increasing the damage they receive from all sources for 20s.

• Fixed some pet animation display issues.

• The Lore-master variant of "To Arms" now lasts 15s, up from 10s.

• Mariner

• Shanty skills which buff or heal your allies will no longer break them out of stealth when used.

• Minstrel

• Gift of the Hammerhand is no longer immediate.

• Perfect Performance: Minor Ballad now increases all damage, rather than just tactical.

• Rune-keeper

• Fulgurite Rune-stone no longer slows enemies in PvMP.

• Fulgurite Rune-stone now has a cooldown of 30s in PvMP.

• Warden

• Warden gambit healing has been increased by 30%.

Combat & Monsters

• Goblin sapper fire puddle damage has been reduced.

• World Boss - Rotwing's Building Shadow->Shadowburst effect will no longer occur unless the target is in Rotwing's general vicinity.

Quests, Deeds, & Adventure Areas

• The Virtue Cap now goes up to 100 for level 154 or higher characters.

• Updated the characters that appear nearby during 'Chapter 13.8: Last Words,' and fixed a typo.

• Elendil will no longer refer to you by your name when turning in 'Lost Lore of the Great Alliance,' since you're technically not present.

• Issuriel has been reminded of Mazog's correct lineage and will no longer confuse his family tree in Volume II, Book 8, Chapter 2.

• The Gundabad Allegiance Mission "Chapter 2: The Mountain-home" now requires fewer banners. Banners now remain after being placed. Due to these changes, this Mission will be versioned on release and incomplete progress will be reset.

• Removed the Volume I Book 3 Foreword from the list of quests that can get shared to your Fellowship to prevent unintentionally blocking your fellowship members

• Gave Cucheron's banner for hindering the enemies' defences the correct effect during 'Instance: Midnight in the Drownholt.'

Instances & Skirmishes

• For boss encounters which reset player skill cooldowns upon failure or completion, this reset mechanic will now include edhelharn tokens, scrolls of warding lore, and scrolls of battle lore.

• Cosmetic pets are no longer permitted in the Dol Guldur instance group, In Their Absence instance group and Tower of Orthanc raid.

• Festival tricks are no longer permitted in the Dol Guldur instance group, In Their Absence instance group and Tower of Orthanc raid.

• The Minstrel skill "Still as Death" is no longer permitted in the Dol Guldur instance group, In Their Absence instance group and Tower of Orthanc raid.

• The Moria quest instance "Cease to Resist" now allows players to leave the instance via the initial door.

Missions & Delvings

• Weekly mission quests "On A Mission (Weekly)" and "On A Continuing Mission (Weekly)" have been updated to incorporate new missions. This will cause these mission quests to reset upon release.

• Mur Ghala Delvings will soon be available at level 160. We currently expect Delvings for newly-added missions to arrive with our next game update.

• Progress will be reset on the weekly quests "Delve Deeper", "Delve into the Darkness", and "Delve Deepest" when Update 46 is released.

• Landscape treasure caches no longer appear in the Elderslade Mission "The Roots of Decay".

Housing & Decorations

• Several new housing decoration bundles can be purchased in the housing wing of Lalia's Market from the Mûr Ghala Decoration Vendor using Homesteading Coins.

Items & Rewards

• Enhancement Rune and Tracery packages that grant items scaled to your character level are now stamped with a Max Contents Level matching the world level cap when the package is acquired. Previously acquired packages will be stamped with Max Contents Level 160.

• Package Items now show their max contents level on examination.

• Morale potion healing values have been adjusted slightly so that some morale potions of higher quality now heal for more, to better differentiate them from weaker variants of the same level.

PvMP/Ettenmoors

• Updated the level-scaling effect for Burglar and Mariner to reflect that it enhances both classes.

• Updated the level-scaling effect for Champions and Brawlers to reflect that it enhances both classes.

• The Vitality bonus from 'Monster Play Vigour' has been reduced slightly.

• Tyrant's Brands and Captain-general Insignias have been deprecated, and are no longer functional. You may barter your old brands or insignias for some of their original commendation value at either Gramsfoot or Glan Vraig. These items were always a stopgap solution and were originally added when players did not have access to skill-based crowd control breakouts. Though Freep classes gained skill-based breakouts years ago, Creeps lagged behind. As of this update though, all Creeps now have skill-based CC-breakouts, meaning every player now has access to both a "catch all" breakout skill as well as existing potions for specific kinds of CC within the Ettenmoors, allowing us to finally retire brands and insignias.

• Root potions (solvent of painful freedom, solvent of release, phial of unbinding) now grants 5s of immunity to slows and roots.

• Blackarrow:

• At rank 2, gain access to "Focus" which will free you from any negative combat states.

• The 'Corrupt Bow' appearance for Blackarrows was a duplicate of the 'Corrupt Longbow' appearance, and has now been replaced with a Black Ash Umbari Bow appearance.

• Defiler: At rank 2, gain access to "Smelling Salts" which will free you from any negative combat states.

• Reaver: Resilience is now accessible at rank 2.

• Stalker:

• Slink Away will cause you to enter stealth for 3s.

• Retaliate will damage a targeted enemy within range and cause incoming attacks to heal you for a brief time.

• At rank 2, gain access to either "Slink Away" or "Retaliate, depending on your stance, both of which will free you from any negative combat states.

• Howl from the Shadow cooldown reduced from 60s to 45s.

• Howl from the Shadow now causes you to briefly enter stealth.

• Howl from the Shadow now deals damage.

• Howl of Unnerving mitigation debuff duration increased 5s > 10s.

• Howl of Unnerving mitigation debuff now always applies (assuming it is not resisted).

• Howl of Unnerving mitigation debuff potency reduced from -20% to -10%.

• Disappear cooldown reduced from 3m30s to 2m30s.

• Disappear's enhanced trait now reduces the skill's cooldown by 30s.

• Disappear's unbreakable stealth duration has been reduced from 10s to 3s.

• Warleader

• Purge is now a single-target cleanse skill, which can be used on yourself or an ally to remove one or two harmful effects.

• Snap Out of It is now a self-targeted (non-AoE) skill which will free you from any negative combat states.

• When using any banner skill, the actual banner should appear much earlier in the skill's animation.

• Weaver

• At rank 2, gain access to "Swallow Light" which will heal you and free you from any negative combat states.

Landscape

• Misc floating objects have been grounded.

• Terrain texture issue in Entwash Vale has been fixed

• Stuck spot in Furtherholm has been fixed

• Lothlorien Docks route from Landlocked Dock-master can now be used

• Ethring is now listed as in the Ringlo Vale on stable-masters, instead of Lossarnach.

• A stuck spot in Old Forest has been blocked off. Any characters currently still in this location will need to Milestone or /stuck to remove themselves from this location.

• Vale-ore for the Rohan quest Preparing for the Siege are no longer buried within a boulder.

Localization

• Added World (French), World (German), Trade (French) and Trade (German) chat channels. These channels are included in the chat filters for the General tab by default, and can be deactivated from the chat UI in the filter menu.

• FRENCH

• Translations for the titles Farmer, Wanderer of the Free City, and Proud will now display properly in French.

• GERMAN

• Translations for the titles Sublime Stalwart, Dragon Slayer, and Adept of Shadows will now display in German.

Art & Avatars

• Added 2 new options that will allow players to change the color of hotspot area guides.

• Elf and High Elves now animate correctly when using the 'Golden Passage Milestone' skill.

Miscellaneous

• Fixed an issue where removing items from a carry-all could alter their binding status.

• Hunter and Burglar traceries found in the Rivendell archive are now sorted into more appropriate categories.

• Hand-knell volume has been lowered a bit to be more in line with other instruments, and Ab2 is now closer in tone to surrounding notes.

Known Issues:

• Temamir of Jiret-menêsh reputation reward quests bestow at an earlier faction level rating than they should. These quests will be addressed in an upcoming patch.

Update 45.8 Release Notes

Here are the release notes for Update 45.8, released on Wednesday, November 12th, 2025.

News and Notes:

• This update includes support for the 4th Monster Player Reward Track, which begins at 10:00 AM Eastern (-5 GMT) on Thursday, November 13th and is available in the LOTRO Store at that time. The 4th Monster Player Reward Track continues until 9:59 AM Eastern (-5 GMT) on January 1st, 2026.

Update 45.7 Release Notes

Here are the release notes for Update 45.7, released on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2025.

News and Notes:

• Adjustments have been made to the way timed effects like damage or healing over time communicate to make this work more efficient in the game environment. This change's impact will be most visibly seen in large raid groups and heavily-populated PvMP zones, but this change will improve communication efficiency game-wide.

• The end date for Legendary Items Reward Track Season 15 has been extended to 12/3/2025 at 9:59am server time. Legendary Items Reward Track Season 16 will start on 12/3/2025 and run until 3/4/2026 at 9:59am server time.

• All avatars should now play the proper effects when using the Milestone of the Golden Passage.

Update 45.6 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 45.6, released on Thursday, October 9, 2025.

Of Special Note:

**The Harvestmath Festival begins on Thursday! **

The Harvestmath Festival begins at 10:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on Thursday, October 9th, and continues until 3:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on November 3rd. This year's festival features new rewards, including a "Cobweb" cosmetic cloak, hat, robe, Harvestmath Cauldron, Fall Hobby-broom, decorative pumpkins and webbed hedges, new pets, "spooky" housing music themes and more!

See this year's full reward list in our guide to the Harvestmath Festival on LOTRO.com.

News and Notes:

• NPCs will no longer fall through the floor in the Tier 1 version of the raid "Depths of Mâkhda Khorbo",

• The number of spawns from skills have been reduced in the Garash fight in the raid "The Temple of Utug-bûr". We have reduced most summoning effects by half as well.

• A bug has been corrected that prevented characters under level 50 from accessing titles in the third Monster Player Reward Track.

• Captain-General and Tyrant quests at Tol Ascarnen, Grimwood Lumber Camp, and Tirith Rhaw will now advance correctly.

• The reset at the Grimwood Lumber Camp will now invoke an hour long cooldown on resetting the NPCs.

• Legendary Worlds: Nazgul logic has been adjusted to trigger victory at the start of its defeat sequence.

Update 45.5 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 45.5, released on Wednesday, September 24, 2025.

Of Special Note:

Kingdoms of Harad is now available for Pre-Purchase!

The Kingdoms of Harad stand at a crossroads, their rivalries sharpening as a greater threat gathers strength. Gandalf has come with a warning of a darkness rising in the South. The Thardúth, ancient servants of Morgoth, rise once more, harnessing powers that could unmake the balance of Middle-earth.

Rally the Kindred of the Coins along with the fierce Mizâdi, Shâra of Renewed Hamât, as rival kingdoms clash and old grudges resurface. From arid wastelands, blighted forests, and perilous ruins, war looms on every horizon. Who will rise to lead the Kingdoms of Harad against the coming darkness, or deeper into it? Experience the Epic Finale: Embark on over 400 new quests, uncovering stories of betrayal, shifting alliances, and ancient powers. Test your strength in three new instances and raid** as you take part in the climactic chapter of the Song of Waves and Wind.

• **Level Cap Raised to 160: **Advance from 150 to 160 and unlock new powers, abilities, and gear to face the trials of Harad. Grow stronger than ever as the struggle against Morgoth’s shadow reaches its decisive moment.

• **Explore the Heart of Harad: **Journey through four vast new regions: the blighted lands of Adagîm, the arid gorges of Kíghan, the scorched plateaus of An Shêru, and the once vibrant lakes of Idagâl.

• **Forge Fragile Alliances: **As the Thardúth rise with power from the First Age, the South teeters between unity and ruin. Rally the proud Kindred of the Coins and the fierce Mizâdi, Shâra of Renewed Hamât, even as the ambitious Nakási Wave-reaper moves to tip the balance.

• **Journey Farther with Expedition Supplies: **Get immediate access to Expedition supplies to enhance your journey! The Collector's Edition includes five Reputation Acceleration Tomes, a Virtue XP Accelerator, five 100% XP Accelerators, and a Rare Crafting Component x5 Selection Box. The Ultimate Fan Bundle also includes 25k virtue XP, four Virtue XP Accelerators, and an Ultimate Carry-all Selection Box. Expedition Supplies are limited to one per account.

• **Exciting Bonus Items in the Ultimate Fan Bundle: **Enjoy other great features in the Ultimate Fan Bundle, including: 10 slots of extra bank space, an Ultimate 150 level-up package, Ultimate Carry-all Selection Box, Housing Teleporter, Armor of the Golden Lion, Weapon Aura of the Golden Lion, Camel and War-steed of the Golden Lion, Baby Camel pet, a "What's in the Basket?" Bauble, XP Boost Earing, and a level 150 Valar Package.

** Instance & Raid content will be available after Kingdoms of Harad release.

Click here to learn more about Kingdoms of Harad!

The Bane of Rhûn has arrived on Angmar and Mordor!

The Bane of Rhûn has joined the Black Blade of Lebennin to challenge adventurers on the Legendary Worlds of Angmar and Mordor!

Learn more about these worlds on LOTRO.com

. Ringwraiths will sometimes appear in-game, either in the landscape or accessible by a portal that appears, and anyone at the level cap of the game world can enter the portal or otherwise take part in the fight. Once enough players arrive through the portal, the Ringwraith will spawn. New versions of these Ringwraith instances will appear as necessary based on the number of players who enter the portal instance space.

Filbert Fig and Adventurer's and Traveller's Steel-bound Lootboxes have been updated!

Filbert Fig has arrived to barter your Figments of Splendour for new and returning rewards! Filbert Fig can be found by the Boar Fountain in Bree along with Galtrev in Dunland, Skarhald in Ered Mithril, Estolad Lan in Imlad Morgul, the Twenty-First Hall in Moria, and in Hultvis in The Vales of Anduin.

Read more on LOTRO.com!

News and Notes:

• This update includes a series of significant changes to frills and bushes to address an issue with game performance. Most frills and bushes are now client-only by default. Some rock and frill placement may be adjusted as a result of these changes, but few visible differences should be noticed. These changes reduce the overall physics complexity of these objects and improve game performance.

• River hobbits will now grow and shrink properly during the Mushroom Hunt.

• Chests at Lugazag and Tirith Rhaw should now spawn after control shifts from one side to the other after one hour.

• The Tyrant at the lumber camp is, once again, the required kill to flip the Lumber Camp back to the Free People.

• The Evergreen Sickle-fly and Russet Corgi cosmetic pets now properly appear in the collections panel and have accompanying text describing how to obtain them.

• The Ringwraith event space has had an adjustment aimed at improving encounter AI.

• The Valorous Potion of Morale can now be properly contained in a Healer's Carry-all.

• The volume of the Hand-knell has been reduced slightly to be more in-line with other musical instruments, and the Ab2 note is now closer in tone to surrounding notes.

• Guild leaders can once again transfer without selling their Kinship housing. Items in Kinship Housing Escrow will be moved to Personal Housing Escrow, and can be found on any character on the account. These items can also then be transferred with a Shared Items Transfer.

• The wrapper quests "A Bountiful Harvest" for the Harvestmath Festival can no longer be cancelled to prevent issues with properly receiving the quests every year.

Known Issues:

• Some animations are not displaying correctly on the new Camel of the Golden Lion and Camel of the Vigilant Sentinel. These animations will be corrected for all races in a future game update.

Update 45.4.1 Release Notes

Here are the release notes for Update 45.4.1, released on Wednesday, September 17th, 2025.

News and Notes:

• This game update restores a correction that initially launched with Update 45.1,1 but was accidentally reverted in Update 45.4. This correction relates to the Burglar Trait "On a Roll" and targets a specific gameplay performance concern.

• Veil of the Nine worlds: Vitality has been increased on Amelia's level 75 faction armour to make it more competitive with other sets available at this level.

• The Temple of Utug-bûr: The number of additional nodules that spawn during the transition stages of the Gârash boss fight have been reduced for Tier 3. This brings the spawns into better alignment for each tier and reduces the overall impact on performance when these enemies spawn.

• Transfer: We have corrected an issue where some characters were unable to join a kinship after server transfer.

Update 45.4 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 45.4, released on Wednesday, September 10, 2025.

News and Notes:

• We have corrected a bug that could cause characters to be unable to jump due to riding mounts in snow.

• Grodris, the Matron of the Wintersebb in the Isendeep Mine in The Ettenmoors, now properly respawns two hours after defeat.

• The Burglar Trait: On a Roll will once again decrease the active cooldown on Double Down by additional time per rank.

• Chat line call-outs for signature skills during the Veil of the Nine ringwraith event now display properly in French and German.

Update 45.3 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 45.3, released on Wednesday, August 27, 2025.

Of Special Note

Angmar and Mordor have a new level cap!

Our Legendary Worlds of Angmar and Mordor now have a level cap of 75 and the inclusion of content from Isengard to the Great River.

Read more about our Legendary Worlds on LOTRO.com.

! The Tower of Orthanc instance becomes available to play at 1:00 PM Eastern (-4 GMT) on Thursday, August 28th.

News and Notes:

Festivals and Events

• In the Egg Scramble, the drop rates of White Eggs have been slightly increased once again to aid in completing the quest.

• Resolved an issue with the Farmers Faire quest Kick Out the Cave-claws that caused players to not be able to loot the den if they kicked a second cave-claw too quickly.

• In the Farmers Faire quest Kick Out the Cave-claws, multiple players will no longer be able to kick the same cave-claw.

• You will no longer be haunted by Gathering Guests (Weekly) trying to bestow to you when the Midsummer Festival is not in progress. When the Midsummer Festival returns, this quest will be bestowed by Captain Khâtaphos and will no longer bestowed remotely.

• Ringwraith Event

• Enervating Grip VFX no longer gets stuck on players.

• Amelia's barter now offers a set of level 75 essences.

PvMP

• The Fire & Frost Lore debuff applied by Lore-masters will no longer build hidden stacks on a target. When an active Fire & Frost Lore effect is cleansed, it will be removed entirely and will not allow a suppressed version to rise up.

General Notes

• The legacy client has been discontinued, if you have the legacy client selected, you will be prompted to select a new game client when launching the game. You may change which game client you are using from the Launcher in "Menu->Options→General."

• The Rift of Nûrz Ghâshu, The Tower of Orthanc, Draigoch's Lair, and Throne of the Dread Terror traditional raid locks will now reset three times per week (Monday, Thursday, and Saturday). Other instances with thrice weekly traditional raid locks (Carn Dûm and Dâr Narbugud) have been switched to Monday, Thursday, and Saturday resets rather than Monday, Wednesday, and Friday resets.

• Birds can now be discovered properly in the Rohan Housing neighborhoods, the Cape of Belfalas, and North Ithilien.

• Beorning, Brawler, and Lore-master incomparable armours from the Tower of Orthanc now correctly require you to complete different bosses from the raid before they can be equipped.

• Lalia's Market barter prices for Hedgehog Burrow, Gondorian Supplier Horn, Ingredient Crate, and Premium Ingredient Crate housing decorations have been increased to better correspond to pricing in the LOTRO Store.

• In the LOTRO Store, the LOTRO Point prices for many housing decorations have been reduced to better correspond with barter pricing in Lalia's Market.

• Isengard Equipment Sets

• Mariner's Draigoch Armour of the Serpent's Bite now has a set bonus.

• Beorning armour sets of the Tower Smasher and Echoing Roar now have the correct equipment pieces associated with them.

• Beorning and Brawler Orthanc sets now have two class-based bonuses, matching the sets other classes can acquire.

• Burglar's gamble chance upgrade no longer implies that it can affect the deprecated debuffing gamble.

Miscellaneous

• GERMAN: Translations for the titles Sublime Stalwart, Dragon Slayer, and Adept of Shadows will now display in German.

• FRENCH: Translations for the titles Farmer, Wanderer of the Free City, and Proud will now display properly in French.

Update 45.2 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 45.2, released on Wednesday, August 13, 2025.

Of Special Note:

New Farmer's Faire Questing!

The farmers of Staddle need help! Shrews and Cave-claws have been using tunnels beneath the fields of Staddle to pillage the town. The people of Staddle are begging for stout-hearted, adventuresome folk to aid them in their time of need. Talk to Humbert Thornburrow in Bywater, or head straight to Staddle and report to Constable Tanglerush for more information.

"Staddle Besieged" is a series of six quests plus a daily wrapper that is available only during the Farmers Faire. Earn Farmers Faire Tokens for helping the hobbits in need, and keep an eye out for treasures found within The Understaddle that may include pipeweed, cosmetics, dyes, or even a pet!

The 2025 Farmer's Faire begins at 10:00 AM Eastern on Thursday, August 14th.

News and Notes:

Festivals and Events:

• Farmers Faire returns on August 14th, 2025 with new quests in Staddle and new Apple-picker’s cosmetic rewards! Read more about the Farmer's Faire on LOTRO.com.

• For Farmers Faire some adjustments have been made to make the Egg Scramble and Mushroom Hunt deeds easier to complete:

• Farmers Faire: Maggot's Mushroom Hunt now requires 5 mushrooms rather than 8 to complete successfully.

• Egg Scramble Victories (Tier 2) now requires 10 rather than 20 quest completions.

• Maggot's Mushrooms Victories (Tier 2) now requires 10 rather than 20 quest completions.

• Much Drinking, Much Running and Much Eating, Much Running now require 2 successful bets per runner rather than 3.

• In the Egg Scramble, the drop rates of White Eggs have been reduced. The drop rates of Bad Eggs have been greatly reduced. The drop rates of colored, spotted, and striped eggs have been increased. The drop rate of the Golden Egg has been greatly increased.

• In accordance with these drop rate changes, the Farmers Faire tokens received for using the striped eggs has been reduced from 10 to 5 and the tokens received for using the golden egg has been reduced from 50 to 20.

PvMP and Ettenmoors:

• We removed the announcement for heroes returning to Grothum and Hoarhallow, as they were occurring randomly, at best.

• We revised the value of quests on the Monster Player Reward Track to make the amount of time engaging with the track more achievable. The new values are as follows:

• Standard quests will reward 2500 Monster Player Reward Track Experience.

• Immediately repeatable quests will reward 500 Monster Player Reward Track Experience.

• The task to kill 50 players will reward 7500 Monster Player Reward Track Experience.

• The weekly quest for Monster Players will reward 50000 Monster Player Reward Track Experience.

• This change reduces the number of standard quests to earn a single pip along the reward track to about 8.

• We have addressed an issue where the titles from the latest Monster Play Reward Track were not bestowing correctly.

• We addressed the errant title on the reward box for the Nemesis of the Free title on the Monster Play Season 2 Reward Track.

• Grodris' timer will extend to 2 hours between spawns.

• The faction that defeats Grodris keeps the buff she grants until the opposition defeats her.

• Flags will return to the exterior/interior of Lugazag and Tírith Rhaw; these align with the controlling faction and can only be used to ingress and egress from the tower when you are out of combat.

• Defenders at forward camps will more readily defend the flags.

• Underseaths exits can only be used when out of combat.

• Relics are no longer dispelled when near Underseath exit.

• You can no longer leave the Underseaths while carrying a relic.

• You cannot be interrupted when deploying a siege machine.

• White Hand Bow-masters will be removed from the forward camps and replaced with a less potent enemy.

• Mazauk and Goldhead gain skills to deal with gates.

• Mazauk now appears as a defender at Lugazag when Monster Players control the tower.

• Goldhead now appears as a defender at Tírith Rhaw when Players control the tower.

• Doors are placed behind the new defenders on the bottom floor of Tírith Rhaw and Lugazag.

• Broadcasts now alert players and Monster Players when the reward chests are available to claim at Thirith Rhaw and Lugazag.

• Levers, on either side of the doors, can only be used when out of combat and will open the doors.

• Defeating the defenders on the bottom floor of the tower will also open the doors.

• The base resistance of gates was increased significantly.

• Fixed an issue with overwriting an existing spider skin with the U45 update. This sets the name and the appearance back to the original Luminescent Morgul Creeper.

Miscellaneous:

• Captain: Removed the errant Ettenmoors Dispel effect on the improved version of the Motivating Speech.

• Translations for "The Gambler" have been updated in German.

• "Extraordinary Wanderer's Tools" now properly give their bonus rare item effect.

• "Magnificent Master's Resilient Leggings" have had their stats adjusted to differentiate themselves from the "Magnificent Master's Steadfast Leggings".

Update 45.1 Release Notes

Here are the release notes for Update 45.1, released on Wednesday, July 30th, 2025.

News and Notes:

PvMP:

• An errant multiplier for two-player groups in the Ettenmoors has been corrected. The error was reducing the amount of Infamy/Glory to 5% instead of providing a 5% bonus before dividing the amount of Infamy/Glory earned.

• Keys rewarded at Lugazag and Tirith Rhaw for capturing the location are now unique.

• The keys of Lugazag and Tirith Rhaw now grant properly when flipping a keep to your faction.

• Chests in the Towers that grant rewards will now lock so they can be used by other players.

• Rewards from chests at the Towers now provide a decaying reward package item. This is done to ensure that the loot in the chest is able to respawn.

• Players and Monster Players will no longer trigger aligned cauldrons at the towers of Lugazag and Tirith Rhaw.

• Gates will no longer hold players in combat after being attacked at Tirith Rhaw and Lugazag.

• Health bonuses on the gate now stack correctly and apply a lesser value.

• Tomes of Defence have been added to Outpost barterers for 175 Marta for both Free People and Monster Players.

• Burglar's "Hiding in Plain Sight" now correctly activates "Sneak" within the Ettenmoors.

Miscellaneous:

• The Forester Crafting Event will now provide its correct reward.

• We have removed the 15th Legendary Items Reward Track that debuts August 20th from the 32-bit game worlds. We do not want players to begin this track just prior to world closing and have to restart progress on their 64-bit game world. The 15th LI Reward Track begins at 10:00 AM Eastern (-4 GMT) on August 20th. Reminder that Character Creation is no longer available on our 32-bit game worlds.

• Birding

• The Anduin Eagle and Helmed Mew now properly describe that they can be found in Anórien in addition to the Eastfold.

• The Bird in the Hand and Handful of Bird Feed Baubles now properly display in the Collections Panel.

• The Deed "The Rarest of Birds in Gondor and Mordor" now properly bestows.

• Burglar

• "A Sure Thing" damage now correctly applies to your current target.

• Clever Retort's "Malicious Wound" now benefits from damage over time pulse bonuses.

• Clever Retort now correctly benefits from bonuses to Fellowship Maneouvre potency, including those from Burglar signals.

• Well-placed Strike now benefits from Critical Magnitude bonuses.

• Exposed Throat now correctly benefits from single-target critical chance and magnitude bonuses.

• Hunter

• Kingsfoil Healing no longer incorrectly turns into Purge Poison when Bountiful Purge is traited.

• Split Shot now benefits from Suppressing Stings as intended.

• Strength of the Earth now requires you to stop moving before using it.

• Distracting Shot now correctly interacts with the Volley trait.

• Call to Greatness now resets the cooldown of Horn of Orome for yellow line Hunters.

• The trait Perseverance now correctly requires you to first trait "Press Onward".

• Mariner

• Disarming Strike now correctly reduces Tactical Damage rather then Ranged Damage.

Update 45: Allies and Adversaries Release Notes

Here are the release notes for Update 45: Allies and Adversaries, released on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2025.

Of Special Note:

The Ettenmoors has received a big update!

The Ettenmoors has received significant updates with the release of a Siege mechanic and more! These changes are far-reaching and aim to alter the gameplay in the Ettenmoors by providing a large number of fluid events that can influence and tip the scale of battle. We have added more mechanics in the form of rewards for taking and holding the towers of Lugazag and Tírith Rhaw, new relics and buffs in a new area called The Underseaths, accessible by controlling a forward camp on the landscape of the Ettenmoors, and new vendors with buffs available once you take control of outposts. This is one of the largest changes made to the game play flow of the Ettenmoors in several years. Further information about these changes can be found lower in the release notes.

The Monster Player Reward Track Season 2 will soon be available!

Along with other major changes to the Ettenmoors we will debut Season 2 of the Monster Player Reward Track! This reward track is available will be made available on the LOTRO Store, and we will announce when the track will become active. Completing the track earns you a currency called Marta, which can be used to claim new rewards! Further details are available in the release notes.

Birding has been expanded!

Birding has been expanded once again! This time around, birding reaches into the lands of both Mordor and Gondor, with nine new territories to discover birds in. These new territories are Anórien, Ithilien, Lossarnach, Lebennin, Belfalas, Lamedon, Waste, Agarnaith, and Lhingris. Within these, there are over 120 new birds to discover amongst these territories. Find all the rarest of these birds to gain a new title. Along the way, discovering all the birds in certain territories will grant you other rewards, from new pictures to hang up in your houses to even a few new Baubles to collect. The birds are calling and eagerly awaiting those birding enthusiasts, so get out there and explore!

The release notes are too large in size for Steam. Please see the full release notes on LOTRO.com: https://www.lotro.com/update-notes/lotro-update-45-release-notes-en

Update 44.2.1 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 44.2.1, released on Wednesday, June 4, 2025.

News and Notes:

• We have implemented some fixes that aim to correct an issue that causes characters and pets to get stuck in a "flying" animation.

• We have implemented some fixes that aim to correct an issue that requires us to undergo twice-weekly restarts on four of our 64-bit game worlds. Note that we will continue to undergo these twice-weekly restarts for now.

• Dun Shûma, The King's Fortress

• Fixed an issue where Weaponmaster Mâkhragab was not taking reduced damage during Whirling Death.

• Reduced the health of Weaponmaster Mâkhragab, Raghtâ Sai, Methân Sai and Kâlach Hûl.

• Iti-mêlim can no longer use Terrifying Roar while stealthed.

• The Serpent's Glare laser will now despawn after 30 seconds and respawn when the boss uses the ability again.

• Fixed an issue where Weaponmaster Mâkhragab and Zidunâm, the Spirit-caller encounters could improperly reset if players wipe just as the boss is defeated.

• The Ordâkhai Trader Cache will now be bound to account as intended. Unbound Trader Caches that already exist will bind as soon as they enter your inventory.

• Quest - Gundabad: Defending the Shielded Citadel can now be properly completed.

• It is now easier to catch the correct fish when next to Dúdrad during the West Rohan quest Edoras: The Last Cast.