Why hard mode in Ascalon was a bad idea:

You explained how it may be harder than other areas, but you haven't explained why that is wrong. You haven't made a point yet. And please do not say 'the starting area should be the easiest'. It's hard mode. There is no starting area.

One of problems I see with people in GW is - P U L L I N G.

People like to rush in groups, and then be like "oh, it's hard". But then at next time, when i say STOP, and equip longbow and shot and pull few, then fight those, then another...it's easier.

Some parts of this game can't be done by just rushing into groups and killing them.

It's gotten very easy these days with all of the PvE skills, consumables and summoning stones but it is exceptionally dull in my opinion. The paving can be really awkward which drags the vanquishes out a lot.

I got my Zodiac Longbow of Fortitude ready to go in my second equipment slot I agree, pulling is absolutely necessary in many HM areas especially elite areas when not running a speed clear team, even then you never know if your tank is going to lag or a monk and may need to pull anyway.

"Enemies per player" is a terrible argument for why it was a bad idea. A map could have over nine thousand enemies to players to vanquish, and that wouldn't necessarily make it harder to clear. It would just be a lot, lot longer.

The number of skills that players have available for healing and damage and the size of mobs in the respective areas are much better points for argument.

Bottom line though, this is Hard Mode. If you really have to complain about its difficulty, you probably just shouldn't play it.

Understood and agreed. However, the O/P seemed to be talking about grind, and the majority of comments seemed to be saying that Ascalon HM is difficult. Was just pointing that out.
It's sort of like if the talking point was about how it's annoying when there are puddles everywhere, and every response was, "but it's not hard to swim in puddles."

I find it funny that the OP is whyning about the ratio of mobs, not the numbers. Nor the difficulty. I'd have called because the standard party is just too small for 4man. Then again, far from impossible.

My only gripe with Ascalon HM really is that the Z-Vanquishes (same things goes for the Z-Missions here too I guess, well at least when playing in HM) offer a smaller reward for them than they do other later areas in the Prophecies campaign, which is a bit silly considering they aren't exactly easier, though when it came to vanquishing it only got a real problem in Eastern Frontier (where they wiped me a few times) and Regent Valley (where it wasn't threatening, it just took forever to kill some of the mobs) because of the massive heal spam from mobs of many Grawl Uloydytes there. Woulda been okay with a party of six, but as these areas are east-most in Ascalon, I couldn't be bothered to caravan over there from Yak's like I did the closer Ascalon explorable areas. Thank goodness for summoning stones. The extra damage from a Siege Turtle or whatever really does help.