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!

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.