Update 23.1.7 Release Notes


Here are the Release Notes for Update 23.1.7, released on Thursday, December 13th.


Of Special Note:


New Seasonal Instances


Two Seasonal Instances have been added to the Yuletide Festival: Battle at Frostbluff and Boss from the Vaults: Storvâgûn! In Battle at Frostbluff, players will help the children of Winter-home save their snow forts from a monstrous mountain cold! This instance is available for Solo Players, Duos, Small Fellowships, and Fellowships. In Boss from the Vaults: Storvâgûn, players will again face the traitorous giant-lord atop the snowy cliffs of Helegrod! This instance is available for Fellowships and includes 2 tiers of difficulty. In addition to cosmetics and other rewards, these seasonal instances can provide Figments of Splendour. You can barter for unique cosmetic rewards from Verbena Greenhand in Frostbluff.

News and Notes:

Classes:

• Beorning
  
  • Beorning skills have been normalized to standardized progressions.
  • Beorning forms are now treated as stances.
  • Slash and Thrash are now usable in either form. Each skill will immediately transform you to the appropriate form for that attack before firing. These two benefits share a one and a half second cooldown.
  • Beornings now learn 'Wanderlust', which provides the ability to use their bear form for out-of-combat travel at level 15.
  • Beornings now earn the ability to wear Heavy armor as of level 15.
  • Blue Line Beornings are now able to block as a core line buff. They receive 2 block per Might.
  • Old Beorning armour sets have been converted to heavy armor statistically.
  • Level 116-120 Beorning armour has been converted to heavy. Most lower level Beorning specific armour is otherwise unchanged.
  • Beornings no longer suffer wrath decay out of combat, and now slowly gain wrath over time in bear form.
  • Most Beorning DoT's and some effects are now tracked per user. They should stack on targets properly, rather than interacting or overwriting each other.
  • Thrash now generates 5 Wrath, rather than costing Wrath.
  • The Shake Free bubble now provides 10% morale bubble (15% at rank 2).
  • Shake Free is now an immediate skill. Its cooldown has been reduced from 120 seconds to 40 seconds.
  • Vicious Claws is now an immediate skill. Its cooldown has been increased from eight seconds to 12 seconds.
  • Vicious Claws Wrath cost has been increased [10->15].
  • Bash Wrath cost has been increased [10->20].
  • Nature's Mend Cooldown has been reduced from five to three seconds.
  • Rejuvenating Bellow's cooldown has been increased from six to nine seconds.
  • Execute now hits harder, doing increased damage for full Wrath. Its cooldown has been increased from three to 30 seconds. However, this skill can no longer Crit.
  • Execute is no longer free when Moment of Opportunity happens. You can simply use it regardless of the target's health.
  • Yellow line's 'In the Face Of' trait has been replaced with 'Overbearing'. This trait now grants a separate combat rez skill with a shorter induction that does not replace the peaceful version of Bear Up. Overbearing should work consistently in combat.
  • Bear-form and Man-form Legacy damage bonuses should no longer stack, and should affect all skills correctly.
  • The Abyss yellow line raid set bonus now applies Encouraging Roar's heal over time to the fellowship at 33% Efficiency. The direct version of the heal over time will always overwrite the fellowship version in cases where they might overlap, regardless of tier.
  • Thunderous Roar is now a separate skill from Vigilant Roar, rather then replacing it.
  • Vigilant Roar's cooldown has been reduced from 16 seconds to 10 seconds.
  • Thunderous Roar now has a separate cooldown of 75 seconds. Overall these changes will make it harder for a bear tank to hold constant agro on large numbers of mobs, but will enhance their ability to interdict and hold targets selectively.
  • Vigilant Roar and Thunderous Roar are no longer cries, and thus not resistable,
  • Vigilant Roar/Thunderous Roar's Reflect has been replaced with an incoming heal buff. The heal buff is +5%/10% for the two skills respectively. These values are enhanced by the IA legacies that previously enhanced the reflect. The reflecting aggro component against attackers remains.
  • The animation times of Ferocious Roar, Hearten, Composure, Shake Free, and Shapechange have been reduced.
  • Mark of Beorn is no longer PBE-able.
  • The 'Quick Recovery' trait no longer reduces the heal over time component of Recuperate.
  • Rez should now work consistently in combat.
  • Wrath Return Legacy: Only attacks that spend wrath can benefit from this refund legacy. Non-attack skills no longer incorrectly benefit from this legacy.
  
  
• Burglar
  
  • Reveal Weakness's cooldown has been reduced from 5 seconds to 2 seconds.
  • Find Footing ONLY performs a CC break. The cooldown has been reduced to 120 seconds; Combat State breakouts for other classes have a much shorter cooldown. The Burglar needed its skill aligned, but for balance purposes we had to remove the bonus application of the "Touch and Go" effect.
  • Touch and Go: Restores 50% Morale, +25% Evade Chance, +15% Physical Mitigation, +15% Tactical Mitigation. Duration reduced to 10 seconds; Evade is not as helpful as direct mitigation in instances and raids, so we wanted to balance out some of the defensive bonuses. We also upped the heal from 25% of Max Morale to 50% because Burglar's medium armour makes them susceptible to big hits.
  • Debuff Duration from Burglar Skill "All In" reduced from 15 seconds --> 10 seconds.
  • Yellow Line Trait Opportunism damage increased.
  • "Reveal Weakness" Imbued Legacy now caps at 7.5% at Rank 64. This legacy has become overgrown, and for the sake of Instance and Raid balance it needs to be trimmed back some.
  • Skill "Reveal Weakness" no longer stacks.
  • Skill "Reveal Weakness" now debuffs target Finesse, Critical Defence, and Resistance as part of the base skill.
  • The Gambler Set Bonus "Reveal Weakness" now increases its namesake skill's Finesse Debuff by 50%.
  • The Quiet Knife Set Bonus "Reveal Weakness" now increases its namesake skill's Critical Defence Debuff by 50%.
  • The Mischief-maker Set Bonus "Reveal Weakness" now increases its namesake skill's Resistance Debuff by 50%.
  • Imbued Legacy "Reveal Weakness Incoming Damage" now enhances Reveal Weakness debuff ratings for Critical Defence, Resistance, and Finesse starting at rank 65.
  • Skill damage and DoT damage increased. With reveal weakness decreasing in potency, Burglar damage needed to increase to compensate.
  
  
• Guardian
  
  • Flash of Light damage moved to a normalized progression.
  
  
• Minstrel
  
  • Skill "Gift of the Hammerhand" now grants a bubble equal to 10% of the target's maximum morale before bonuses.
  • Skill "Legend of Helm Hammerhand" now grants a bubble equal to 10% of the targets' maximum morale before bonuses.
  • Skill "Story of the Hammerhand" now grants a bubble equal to 10% of the target's maximum morale before bonuses.
  
  
• Hunter
  
  • Skill queueing should be much smoother, particularly with blue line race of Man hunters.
  
  
• Lore-master
  
  • 'Command Pet' can no longer directly target other players. The use of this ability in sparring was causing significant performance issues.
  
  
• Captain
  
  • Oathbreaker's Shame can only be used in combat. This skill now applies an immunity effect on its target, preventing another use of Oathbreaker's Shame on the same target for three minutes.

Items:

• New rewards have been added to the Yule Festival barter vendors Alex Grey and Jeffrey Bloomer! This includes new housing items, new avatar cosmetics, a new emote, a new bassoon, and new steed with matching war-steed appearances.
• New items have been added to the Traveller's Steel-bound Lootbox, including a new tabletop mine cart housing item, and cloaks!
• The Traveller's Steel-bound Lootbox tooltip now lists the correct levels for scaled contents.
• The placeholder armour appearances on Traveller's and Wayfarer's armour from Traveller's Steel-bound lootboxes has been updated to new final appearances.
• A music box playing tracks from the Ered Mithril Instance Cluster is now available with the housing items barter.
• The buff for Warden Set Bonus "Fire At Will" has been refreshed to give a competitive ratings buff.
• Thikil-gundu now drops incomparable weapons instead of rare weapons on T3 difficulty.
• Level 51 - 54 gear that creates at the level of a character or instance space has been adjusted so that it will have more appropriate stat values. These pieces will also all create at item level 51.
• Dwarf-holds Rewards Quartermasters have new cosmetic items to be traded for your Coins of Grárik.
• Crafted Bassoons will now display a bassoon in /music mode instead of a fiddle.
• The 'Forgotten Box Vendor' has been introduced to Lalia's market to allow players to purchase the older obsolete lootboxes.
• Hidden cosmetic instruments on outfits no longer cause a default lute to show in combat.
• Angmar Gearing update:
  
  • Many level 40-50 items obtained from Angmar content have had their base stats improved to the approximate equivalent of similar Helegrod gear which had a more favorable itemization budget.
  • Many of the somewhat odd stats on these items have been retained, but as a rule all armour pieces have been updated so they at least grant a portion of their appropriate main stat and/or some vitality to make them more usable by their intended classes.
  • These pieces have NOT been fully modernized, so they rarely feature stats like finesse that are common later in the game.

Quests and Adventure Areas:

• The Rift of Nûrz Ghâshu - Tier 2 and Tier 3 difficulties have been added to The Rift of Nûrz Ghâshu raid.
• Helegrod - Dragon Wing - Tier 2 and Tier 3 difficulties have been added to the Helegrod - Dragon Wing raid.
• Helegrod - Spider Wing - Zaudru's Brood - Much to Atli Spider-bane's dismay, Zaudru's brood has grown slightly larger. It should now be easier to complete this quest.
• Ered Mithrin - For those who have completed the Thornholt quest chain, Radagast has an additional quest to the Rushgate. For those who have not yet played the Thornholt quest chain, the Rushgate quest will unlock towards the end of the Thornholt quest chain now.
• A new playable landscape has been added to Western Foothills of Angmar.
• Portions of Western Foothills of Angmar have been given a visual update.
• Endgame daily quests (Wanted Pebbles) now award 5 Longbeard Tokens, up from 2.
• Grounded floating objects in Carn Dûm.
• Added stable deco around Saeradan's steed in Bree-land.
• Players can no longer pass through the thrones in Thikil-gundu (creatures still can).
• To prevent a variety of stuck locations going down the cliff at Ceber Dúath in Lhingris, players will suffer defeat instead upon jumping off the cliff.
• Withered Heath Resource Instance - There are now campfires at various points along the path. May they provide warmth and light the way.
• 'Instance: A Restful Night' - Bingo will no longer build his campfire in the middle of a very flammable bush.
• Text fixes for 'Chapter 7.2: A Damaging Song'.
• 'Instance: A Venomous Strike' can now be more reliably completed.
• Cleaned up terrain ramp in Troll Valley in northern Trollshaws.
• Grounded floating chest in Lonelands Half-Orc ruins.
• Cleared bushes around Toki Whitebeard in Trollshaws.
• Grounded floating Trolls in the Trollshaws.
• Grounded floating fences in Fornost.
• Fixed ceiling far terrain issue in Ram Dúath.
• The endgame weekly quest Reclaiming the Grey (Final) now awards 50 Longbeard tokens, up from 20.
• Fixed Stuck Spot in Lhingris.
• Moved mixed spawns in Vale of Thrain off the cliff.
• Fixed terrain seam in Horsefields.
• Fixed stuck spot in Annúminas.
• Fixed random shrub in the wall of the Combe and Waddle.
• Thikil-gundu - Frór will no longer become inactive and block progress through the space if someone is standing near the geode when he resets.
• Thikil-gundu - The locked door to Afhân-binnîn will no longer fail to open once the trash in Amrâg-zahar is defeated.
• 'A Matter of Feed' - Drop rate of boar heads increased to 100%.
• 'Shadow of the White Hand' - the readable notes now appear in the quest tracker and not just in inventory.
• Quest Guide updated for Black Book Chapter 5.3, 'Whispers from the Long Years'.
• 'Eyes to the West' quest now has an expanded area for the final /look area.
• 'Intro: A Plea for Aid' - the readable note now appears in the quest tracker and not just in inventory.
• A number of hobbits had invisible dresses throughout the Shire, and they have been supplied with better threads.
• Some Higher Level fire drakelings will no longer burn themselves.
• Caverns of Thrumfall Tier 3 and Meta Deeds can now be properly completed.
• Moved inaccessible resource nodes in Old Forest.
• Vantage point in "A Trap for the Creature" is no longer obstructed by bushes.
• Fixed stuck spot in Old Forest.
• Fixed stuck spot in Rivendell.
• Fixed stair placement issue in Thikil-gundu.
• Fixed radar issue in Eastern Malenhad.
• Orcs and Angmarim are no longer perched on top of tents in Skathmur (Ram Dúath).
• Bushes have been cleared from the paths to Elrond's Stables in Rivendell.
• Grounded floating rocks in Brandyhills.
• Grounded floating bush in Combe.
• Fixed cliff texture issue in Buckland.
• Fixed Port-on-Login issue between Dale-lands and Ered Mithrin.
• Some of the Orcs at the Cirith Nur Encampment did not count for 'Dirty Work: Orc-slaying,' but now they will.
• Removed floating frill in Bree-town.
• Grounded floating trees in Far Chetwood.
• Adjusted placement of horse corpse in Minas Agor.
• Fixed physics issues on wormholes in Dûm Boha.
• Quest: Purifying the Mirkwood - plants will no longer sparkle if you cannot interact with them.
• NPC stuck in column in Minas Tirith is no longer stuck in column.
• Tree is no longer growing through crafting hall in Combe.
• Encroaching reeds cleared from near house in Bree-land Homesteads.
• The mushrooms for 'Bounty: Soggy Mushroom Mash' were not despawning properly when used.
• In order to prevent players from getting stuck, Rinwald in Hytbold now requires you to rebuild the Mead Hall before he will take your Hytbold Tokens.
• The Mead Hall in Stoke had some incorrect NPC phasing for 'Celebration of Victory,' and it has now been corrected.
• In the quest instance The Madness of Vanyalos, Vanyalos remains an NPC all the way through. Hopefully this will prevent the instance from occasionally entering a stuck state.
• Survival: Barrow-downs - The Weathering the Storm Deed set has returned! These deeds can now be completed at your current level.
• The Giant Ghostly Reed Imposter in the Midgewater Marsh has been vanquished.
• Rohan - Instance: War Comes to Rohan - Cillan no longer t-poses.
• North Ithilien - Instance: A Troubling Path - Frodo no longer kicks or t-poses.
• Fangorn's Edge - Huorns will now survive long enough for you to make an effort to save them.
• Blood of the Black Serpent - Monster difficulty has been reduced on Tier 2.
• Throne of the Dread Terror - Once the final encounter is completed, Fell-strike will now be immediately dispelled.
• Silent Street - There is now an additional wall of Shadow blocking access to the House of the Kings until the final encounter is defeated.
• The keg carry animation in Winterhome content has been fixed.
• Glimmerdeep - Hobgoblins now count towards the Goblin-slayer deed in the Glimmerdeep instance.
• A Fortune of Festive Spirit and the associated Festive Flurry quests during Yule Festival now award Figments of Splendour in addition to their usual rewards.

UI:

• BETA: The Quest Log and Quest Bestowal panels now support dynamic font resizing. To resize text, either press on the increase/decrease font size buttons on the bottom left of each panel, or hold down the Control key and use the Mouse Scroll Wheel when hovering over the panel text. This change will only persist during the current client session, and may be replaced by a different solution in the future.
• The chest lock panel now lists information in sortable columns and updates automatically when chest locks are applied or modified.
• The Social Panel tab "Group Stage Info" has been renamed to "Raid Locks".
• The "Raid Locks" sub tab "Staging Info" has been renamed to "Group Locks Info".
• Item examination tooltips now show what items disenchant into when applicable.
• There is a new panel called Socket Control that can be used to socket or unsocket individual essences. You can now overwrite a socketed essence, destroying the currently socketed essence and replacing it with another of your choice. Optionally, you can choose to unsocket an individual essence for Mithril. To access the panel, either shift-double-click a socketable item, or drag a socketable item to the new essence slot on the character panel.

Misc:

• Advanced Graphics Options - Frill Terrain Color: There is a new graphics option to apply terrain color to frills to better blend them to the underlying terrain. Turning this option off may increase performance.
• The `/music` command now takes optional parameters. Use `on`, or `true` to enter music mode. Use `off` or `false` to exit music mode.
• Fixed map links to Ered Mithrin, Erebor, Steel Keep, Glimmerdeep, Iron Hills, and Northern Mirkwood.
• Loading performance improvements have been made to all Collections panels.
• A new visual effect will appear on chests that will generate favoured loot.
• You may now use Marks of the Longbeards to barter for Dwarf-iron Fragments in Ered Mithrin.

Known Issues:

• Rune-keeper: The power over time restore given by the blue line trait 'Prelude of Power' is currently draining power instead of restoring it.
• The Eriador Map is broken for the French game client, and only displays in the top left corner of the map.
• Beorning:
  
  • Grimbeorn’s Spirit is not working properly and will be addressed in a future update.
  • Beornings in Bear form will not always appear as Bears to other players after zoning or logging in.
  • Ranged weapons are currently usable while in Bear-form.
  • Debilitating Bees and Sluggish Stings do not work properly if both are traited.
  • Relentless Maul still has a few issues we will be addressing in the future.
  • There are tooltip issues with various skills that still need to be addressed.
  • Unlocking the yellow line set bonus Grimbeorn's Strength is currently causing sacrifice to only last for 10 seconds instead of the intended 20 second duration.