Book 8 Bullroarer Cliff's Patch Notes

These abbreviated patch notes are based off of what is currently on Bullroarer as of the time of this posting. Keep in mind that as a test server, the content on Bullroarer is subject to change. Furthermore, many items have been left out for the sake of brevity. What follows are the most significant changes that either affect all players in some moderately significant way, or affect a subset of players (a single class for example) in a major way. With that in mind, here is lotroinfo.com's "Cliff's Patch Notes".

HIGHLIGHTS

• Content for a new and improved summer festival, with two new events.
  
• Many types of crafted equipment have had their equip levels revised, and their stats changed accordingly. Currently equipped items which would exceed the player's level as a result of the change will not be affected, but otherwise, all items in existence when the patch is applied will be updated to fall under the new system.
  
• Lothlorien Gift Boxes are being revamped to be more reliable and cheaper, though the ability to get a "Jackpot" first age item from them is also being removed. Their cost is being reduced, from 35 gold leaves 50 silver branches to 15 gold leaves 30 silver branches. They will have a greater chance of having second age items, (though the minimum level of such an item is now 58 instead of 59) and even when they don't have such an item, the "consolation prize" will generally be more valuable than before.
  
• First Age legendary items are now no longer dropped randomly from raid bosses. Instead, such bosses will drop a number of tokens which can be collected and then bartered in Lothlorien for a specific First Age item of the player's choice. A level 59 First Age will cost 4 such tokens and a level 60 First Age will cost 6. This should help alleviate concerns of some items being more common than others, as well as the presence of "undesireable" first ages such as Champion daggers or one-handers of any kind for a Captain. Note that "Filikul" First Ages from the Strange Happenings raid still drop as they used to since they are specific to that instance, but that in addition to those items, the raid will also drop the new tokens in limited quantities.
  
• Players can now buy stacks of items from NPC vendors in variable quantities. Holding SHIFT will still purchase a full stack as before, but now holding ALT will bring up a pop-up dialog box to purchase any amount the player choses, and holding CTRL will automatically buy just enough items to fill up all existing stacks of that item in the player's inventory.
  

FULL RELEASE NOTES

Skills/Classes

• The long-duration hope buffs from turning in the Broken Chain Link or Mirdinant to various NPCs in Rivendell will now persist after the player logs out or is disconnected instead of being cancelled.
  

Champion

• A very controversial change has been made to the Champion's Fervour stance. Now, while in that stance, the Champion will suffer a -30% incoming healing penalty, though the champion's own heals and the Strength of Morale man racial-trait skill are not affected.
• This penalty is ignored in the Ettenmoors.
• To go along with this change is another controversial adjustment to the Champion's Legendary-trait unlocked Controlled Burn stance. Controlled Burn will no longer last the entire duration of a fight, but will instead last 2 minutes 30 seconds. However, the Champion will now automatically gain the effects of Ardent Flurry and Glorious Exchange for the entire duration of the Controlled Burn effect.
• The Controlled Fury class trait, which previously allowed Ardent Flurry and Glorious Exchange to be used during Controlled Burn, has been changed since these effects are now automatically a part of the Controlled Burn skill. Now it increases the duration of Controlled Burn by 1 minute (to 3 minutes 30 seconds) and automatically adds the Red Haze effect to the duration of the Controlled Burn effect, in addition to Ardent Flurry and Glorious Exchange.
• [The above changes were designed to enforce the Champion to think harder about what stance to use when, and give more reason to use Ardour, which was often overlooked. As of this writing, none of these changes are necessarily final, and Turbine would certainly appreciate any feedback from players who have tried them out on the Bullroarer server.]
  

Guardian

• Corruption Removal countdown effects from the "Improved Sting" skill will now stack once per Guardian (instead of not stacking at all).
• Turn the Tables no longer requires the Guardian to face the target.
  

Hunter

• No significant changes

Minstrel

• Damage-dealing legacies on Minstrel Legendary Weapons have been reduced a bit to keep the Minstrel's potential DPS more in line with the intent of the class. No changes have been made to the core DPS of any skills.

Captain

• Cry of Vengence (Fellowship member dies reactive rez skill) has a longer window of opportunity to use (10 seconds) and a larger area of effect, making the skill easier to use.
• The class trait Loyalty now more specifically states everything that it does, and grants more armour to the Herald than it did before.

Burglar

• The three Moria legendary capstone traits now reduce the cooldown of their respective skills by 140 seconds (instead of 120 seconds).
  
• Cunning Attack now applies an even more powerful bleed from a devastating critical than from a regular critical hit and its bleed also does even more damage from stealth than it did before.
• Well-placed Strike's default cooldown is now 3 minutes instead of 5 minutes.
• The Strategic Planning trait now reduces the cooldown of Location is Everything by 3 minutes instead of 1 minute 30 seconds.
• Strike from Shadows now increases critical percentage of stealth attacks by a flat percentage (5%) instead of by a rating.
  

Lore-master

• The lynx's front cone attacks Feral Strikes and Slashing Claws will now work properly all the time, striking targets in front of the lynx.
  
• Knowledge of the Lore-master will now always properly report a monster's Conjunction/Fellowship Maneuover immunity.

Rune-keeper

• The Weapon of X (Frost, Flame, Storm) skills no longer proc a permanant debuff. Instead, the debuff lasts only 10 seconds, but applies much more commonly.
  The Fall to X (Frost, Flame, Storm) skills now display their damage when they apply seperately from the attack that triggered them. This is a cosmetic/clarification change only and doesn't affect the way these skills have always worked.
  
• Armour of Flame has had its damage decreased.
• Epic Conclusion has been changed so that it does more minimum damage and less maximum damage, especially during critical hits. Net DPS remains about the same, it's just more in the middle of the road.
  
• Ceaseless Argument does less damage, but it's power cost is also decreased, making it more like the "auto-attack skill" it was always meant to be.
• Wrath of Flame skills have had a slight increase in power cost across the board.
• Martial Training Legendary Trait now increases morale by 300 in addition to its other effects.

Warden

• Warden DOT effects and Morale-stealing effects now stack once per Warden (instead of not stacking at all).
• Legendary Weapon legacy Exhultation of Battle Threat Up legacy was adding much more threat than it should have. It has been reduced to the intended value.
• A few skills/gambits have been changed to be more responsive.
  

Traits/Titles/Deeds/Virtues

• The Tolerance virtue was giving its maximum value to in-combat morale regen at all tiers. Now the amount it gives scales properly with each tier.
  

MONSTER PLAY
General Monster Play

• Towers can no longer be captured while the boss is still alive.
  
• Controlling Artifacts now nets monster players an bonus to infamy earned.
• Skills and Items can no longer prevent or cure conjunction stuns [this affects both sides].

Weaver

• Damage over time of a few skills increased
• Some skills now do acid damage (increasing their damage potential)
  

Black Arrow

• The DOT component of Flaming Arrow can now be cured once again (as a wound).

Stalker

• Rallying Howl's heal was increased.

Warleader

• "Crack the Whip" and "Quit Whining and Fight!" heals both increased.
  

Defiler

• A number of beneficial changes. Various skills either do more damage, induct faster, cannot be avoided by block/parry/evade, or heal more.
  
• Plague of Flies cooldown is no longer shared by Gooey Gourd. The flies it summons have a higher level than before, but the skill's cooldown has been increased to 30 seconds.
  

USER INTERFACE

• An interface layout can now be saved and loaded between multiple characters! No longer do you need to manually set up a new interface for each alt. Use /ui layout save to save the current layout, and /ui layout load to adjust the current UI's layout to that which is saved to the name specified.
• Queued skills now always show the animated border, even if they are currently unavailible to use. This makes it easier to tell what skill is queued for classes that use attack chains, such as Burglars or Guardians, where one skill would make another availible and so on.
  
• Effect icons will now more obviously pulse when they are about to end.

Quest Guide

• Various changes to quest guide indicators on the map to make them more obvious, especially when highlighted
• The quest guide quest list now remembers its position on the map when the map closes or the player logs out.
• Numerous changes to various quests and what they report to the quest guide.

Chat/Social/Kinship

• New characters no longer are spammed with all the passive skills they start the game with.
• When receiving a kinship recruit request, the recruited player can see the name of the kinship he is being asked to join.

Housing

• Housing lockout fees now increase the longer the house remains in lockout. Left alone for a long enough, the fee will grow to 90% of the house's initial purchase price (ouch).

Raids and Instances

• General
  Various exploit fixes (not actually listed).
• The original radiance set now has Tough durability instead of normal.
  

Fil Gashan

• The Waterfalls will once again properly remove the Fire DOTs in the final fight.

16th Hall

• The final boss has been changed [not mentioned in what way].

The Rift

• Players will no longer get stuck on the Balrog platform in the final fight.

The Battle of Lorien

• Sentinel's Challenges will now automatically fail when you fail the main instance, fixing some issues with timers.

Grand Stair

• Only one chest in from the final boss fight will drop cash now.

Filikul

• The boss can no longer be affected by the Burglar skill enrage
• The boss will now dispell shield wall effects, with a slight penalty to those who used it or were receiving it.
• There are now Filikul Sword Legendary Items in addition to Filikul Spears (only one of either will drop per run) [this was actually listed elsewhere, but I'm repeating it here for clarity]

CRAFTING
Crafting Revamp!

• Crafting has had a major revamp. As mentioned earlier, equip levels and stats on various items have been adjusted. Furthermore...
• Optional ingredients have been revised once more. Now each trade will have its own single unique optional ingredient per tier. (No more sharing ingredients between trades). Note that this doesn't effect "Journal" optional ingredients for single-use recipes.
• Optional ingredients can now also be found in resource nodes in addition to from monsters. The type of ingredient found is based off the node.
• Cooks now can use optional ingredients. Theirs come exclusively from farming fields.
• Optional ingredients now explicitly state what trade they are used for.
  

General Crafting

• There is now a "Make All" button on the crafting panel which will automatically craft as many of the item as the player has ingredients for.
• The "number to make" no longer resets to 0 at the end of a craft session.
• The price of all recipe scrolls below supreme tier have been reduced.
  
• Special optional ingredients used in Lothlorien reputation recipes are now in game and can be bartered for in Lothlorien.

Scholar

• Revised the naming scheme of various potions to be more consistent.
  
• All Battle Lores and Warding Lores have a cooldown of 10 minutes now (instead of 30 to 40).
• Level 51 infused potions now use etchings of Moria instead of Relics of Khazad Dum [good, because etchings used to end up being an extra ingredient].
• Level 58 pure potions now use Relics of Khazad Dum instead of Tattered Khuzdul Parchments.
• Various Scholars Guild potion recipes now require slightly more components to execute.

Prospecting

• Bronze is now made from Copper ingots and Tin ingots, instead of directly from Copper and Tin Ore. This affects both tier 1 Copper and Tin, and tier 6 Khazad Copper and Khazad Tin.

Cooking

• Consuming a food of a lower tier than the player is currently being affected by no longer wastes the food. Now the lower-tier food's effects are merely suppressed until the higher-tier food wears off.
  
• Effect names for various foods now properly reflect what category of food the came from.

Tailor/Armourer

• Adjusted the stats of various armour sets of various tiers to make them more appealing to particular classes.

EMOTES

• /fishslap now looks like you're actually slapping someone with a fish, not just holding a fish while slapping someone. [It's a subtle, but important difference!]

ITEMS
General

• Various items have far greater stack sizes...
• Food items stack to 50 [was 15]
• Minstrel Lute Strings stack to 50 [was 10]
• All reputation items stack to 100 [was 50 for most]
• Travelling Rations stack to 100 [was 50]
• All crafting ingredients, components, trophies, and optional ingredients stack to 100 [was 20 or 50]
• All potions stack to 50 [was 20]

LEGENDARY ITEMS

• The Lorien-barted "Hero of Caras Galadhon" title now properly applies without regard to any title which may already be on the item.
• Only usuable items will appear in the list of items to slot on an empty Legendary Item panel slot.
• In response to major changes to their legendary item legacies, both Wardens and Minstrels will have legacy points refunded on their legendary weapons when Book 8 goes live so that they can re-allocate their points as they wish.

LOOT SYSTEM

• Iron Garrison Resource Caches have better rewards.
• Level 58-60 instances in Moria have a chance of dropping 2nd age items from all or most boss chests now [used to be mainly Hard-mode chests had this chance].
• The Strange Happenings raid now drops Filikul Sword Legendary Items in addition to Filikul Spears, though only one of either drops per run.
• Rare monsters in Lorien now properly drop Mithril Flakes.
• When rolling on keys, only players who do not have the key on their ring may roll on it.

GRAPHICS/ANIMATION/FX

• Glass spiders no longer appear invisible on high graphics settings.
  

Once again, these are the most major changes, and yet as you can see, they are a hefty list. For more complete information, be sure to read the full patch notes, especially when they actually go live so you can see the final and true changes that made it into the game.