U20 Launches Tomorrow

From Cordovan:  “The LOTRO game worlds will be brought down to release Update 20: Battle of the Black Gate on Tuesday, March 21st from 8:30 AM to 1:00 PM Eastern (-4 GMT). Click here for the Release Notes. Thank you for your patience, and we will see you back in the game soon.”

How to get the new gear:  http://dadislotroguides.com/u20-reputation-crafting-instance-gear-items/

RELEASE NOTES

Update 20: Battle of the Black Gate Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 20, released on Tuesday, March 21st.

Of Special Note:

Journey through The Wastes!

Update 20, The Battle of the Black Gate, features more than ninety quests in three new regions: the Noman-lands, Dagorlad, and the Slag-hills. Discover new adventures beginning in the Camp of the Host.

The Black Gate

Epic Volume IV, Book 8 is now available. Experience the Host of the West’s climactic confrontation with Sauron’s forces at the Battle of the Black Gate, as Aragorn seeks to draw Sauron’s Eye away from his true peril…

Resource Dungeons

Two new dungeons are now available! Explore Carchost, the Towers of the Teeth and Skoironk, the Maggot-holes, each with its own landscape, solo resource instance, and group resource instance.

Prepare the Host of the West for Battle!

Players can acquire supplies, provisions, and armour to prepare the Host of the West for the Battle of the Black Gate! Collect enough items to assist each faction of the Host of the West, and receive unique rewards. Supplies, provisions and armour can be earned through solo and group resource dungeons, Roving Threats, Landscape monsters, and Crafting.

News and Notes:

Classes

• Burglar – Using Track Treasure will deactivate an active resource tracking skill and vice versa. Only one type of item may be tracked on the mini-map at a time.
• Captian’s Reform the Lines skill has received a visual update.
• Captain – Elendil’s Fortune buff is no longer removed when the Captain is healed.
• Captain – Five stacks of Elendil’s Fury will now cause your next Blade of Elendil to consistently grant a defeat event.
• Captain – Last Stand Heal legacy will now properly increase the Last Stand heal.
• Captain – Increased initial value of Defensive Strike Armour Buff legacy.
• Champion – Riposte now unlocks on partial parries.
• Champion – The Physical Mastery Buff from Battle Frenzy now refreshes reliably.
• Guardian – Guardian Follow Through now increases Shield-Smash targets to 8 when fully traited. Follow Through increases Shield-Smash targets by +2 at rank 1, +2 more at rank 2, and +3 more at rank 3.
• Hunter – Archers Mark now properly reduces a target’s critical defense.
• Hunter – The Blood Arrow heal over time duration has been decreased from 20s to 10s without changing the overall magnitude of heal, so each tick is larger.
• Lore-master – Enfeeble-modified debuffs should properly account for other sources of debuff strength.
• Lore-master – The Fellowship Friend buffs from the Bear and Raven now properly reduce incoming damage.
• Lore-master – The Firm Grasp trait now works with the daze effect that Lightning-storm can gain from certain items.
• Minstrel – Follow Up now works out of combat.
• Rune-keeper – Essence of Storm no longer removes the “Charged” buff which makes Sustaining Bolt free.

Crafting

• New crafting recipes for endgame tokens: Two Host of the West recipes have been added to the Anorien crafting tier for each profession (Cook, Jeweller, Metalsmith, Scholar, Tailor, Weaponsmith, and Woodworker). You can also acquire 2 additional recipes per profession via rep barter, and there is a 1-shot recipe that drops for each profession.

Featured Instances

• The Featured Instance rotation has been updated. The new Featured Instances are the Lost Temple, Glinghant, Fornost: Wraith of Earth, Seat of the Great Goblin, Sword-hall of Dol Guldur, and Flight to the Lonely Mountain.
• Featured Instances can now drop Wastes crit crafting items and reputation token bundles for the Host of the West Quartermasters.

Items

• The T2 challenge Throne of the Dread Terror now offers an “Ornate Inlay” which can be bartered to update existing Throne of the Dread Terror equipment.
• Skirmish – The price of the Small Reputation Acceleration Tome is being increased to better reflect Mark and Medallion acquisition rates.
• Return to Arnach travel skill scroll now properly requires Friend standing with Rangers of Ithilien, not Kindred.
• Older and scaling instances received a large scale pass to provide/improve Beorning specific container drops where they were missing or not class appropriate.
• Nanu has finally come out of hibernation and started moving again! The turtle’s hiding place has been updated.
• Dyes – “Dark Purple” and “Deep Purple” were used in different places to refer to the same colour. All references to this colour have been unified to “Dark Purple.”
• Sigileth’s daggers are now appropriately flagged as daggers, not swords, in the wardrobe.
• Auction House – Cosmetic Pets – The Aurochs Calf, Stowaway Rat, and Sand Flies cosmetic pet items now properly post to the “Cosmetic Pets” Auction House category.

Pet Collection

• Pet Collection has received an overhaul. The UI now displays every pet available in the game. Players can now preview pets, summon pets they own, and drag a pet skill to a quickslot from the Collection UI. The old pet collections and associated titles can now be found under Social Deeds. To complete these Deeds, summon each pet in the Collection.
• Two new Pet Collection Deeds are now available: Best Bugs and Fetching Foxes.

Quests and Adventure Areas

• Two new Flora repeatable quests for the Wastes have been added. These quests count towards Assisting the Herbalists: North Ithilien, and are bestowed by Arador after completing the Noman-lands quest content. Phials of Golden and Violet extracts can be collected from Flora in the Wastes, and traded for rewards at the Herbalist.
• Players with the vector quest “Incubated by the Flaming Deeps” underway (incomplete) will have to re-obtain the quest from the NPC.
• You can now perform emotes on the stages in Belfalas premium housing areas.
• The Bree Scholar’s Hall no longer has a visible exterior.
• North Ithilien – Cair Andros: The Captives – fixed Maushlak occasionally not entering combat.
• Instance: The Reclamation of Talath Anor – Typo/wrong voice over in instance entry dialogue and background dialogue has been fixed.

UI

• Four additional custom Chat Tabs are now available. These tabs can now display across two rows at the top of the Chat Window.
• In the Fellowship Mini Panel, fellows buffs and debuffs will no longer disappear after a fellow is defeated.
• The accelerator button should no longer appear on the Deed panel for reputation deeds.
• Mount skill icons should now all appropriately grey out when the skill cannot be used.
• Added a Stable-masters Collection button on the radar.
• The Mordor map should now more correctly display fellow member locations.

Miscellaneous

• Fixed a display problem that would cause effects icons to jump around and flicker. This should also be a small performance improvement for the client.
• The following emotes now have animations: assist, attack, blush, brb, curtsey, drool, fight, grumble, hug, innocent, mumble, pat, ready, resist, rest, stare, stretch, succumb, sweat, tear, wait, & wink. “Nothing” should be the only text-only emote remaining for all races now. The /pat emote chat text has been changed to reflect the new animation. The hug emote will now show hugging self animation.
• You will no longer see any mobs above level 105 (until Update 21).
• The French and German Mordor maps have been updated.
• NPCs standing with crossed arms will no longer show held items.
• Beleriand weapon particle effects are now more noticeable.