Legendary Defender of Ascalon Title - 2015 guide

While i am aware of there being a few other guides on this title on this forum,i cant seem to notice they are outdated (2010/11).
If you want to use the "traditional" way of getting the title via death leveling go check those guides.

This guide will be about how to get LDoA title with vanguard missions.

+What is LDoA?
-Its a title available only to prophecies characters and only during the time they are in pre searing ascalon (the tutorial zone). It requires you to get to lvl 20 before leaving pre searing.

+Does it take a lot of time?
-Yes and no. Depends on how much help you get at some levels from other players, if you are able to solo efficiently as well as what vanguard mission you get

+Estimate time?
-Personally ive done it within 36 hours in 16 days of "casual" playing with a lucky mission and some friends helping out at early lvls a little bit

+Is it very grindy?
-While it will does require you to grind off levels there are some levels that you can "power" level trough, as well as levels that you can "skip".

+If i decide to make it a permanent LdoA pre character, how can i get the HoM reward for the title?
-You should talk to Kimmes the historian in ascalon city. He will add the LDoA title to HoM as well as other titles such as drunkard or sweettooth which are also obtainable in pre.



*If you are going just for the title only i suggest creating a elementalist as he is able to deal a ton of damage to a single target as well as aoe.

*Having the Igneos Imp helps you a LOT with your dps and it will enable you to solo a lot of parts which means more exp that goes to you!

*You are able to get Honey combs form Nicholas for some extra 10% moral boost tho it wont be necessary in most cases.

*You should NEVER FINISH ANY QUEST you find. You can accept them, and finish them but DO NOT TAKE ANY REWARDS. You may wish to use them all in order to skip a difficult level in order to progress further with the next easy level to save a lot of time.



Accept the first few quests that will introduce you to your professions trainer right outside Ascalon. This will grant you your first 2 skills.

From this point you should unlock all outposts in pre searing as well as killing everything you encounter.

Collect all quests that you find,this will most likely spawn new monsters for you to kill (remember you can freely do quests as long as you dont accept any rewards for them)

Now that you unlocked all towns you might want to get more skills.
Click here in order to check where to find your skills as well as some from another profession that you can temporary use and combine with your primary profession.

-Rangers offer a nice healing skill as well as the ability to charm a animal pet that levels up with you and deals a nice amount of dmg to your targets.

-mesmers also have a nice healing skill

-warriors offer healing signet...however its very risky to use it specially in higher levels

All other professions offer nice skills that one can use early,but because you cant put attribute points in your secondary profession (because you havent picked one yet) they become fairly weak later on

Tip from Gentleman Xander: "repeat the quest for elementalists in Wizard's Folly, that gives great exp for low lvls." He's referring to a quest given by the elementalist under the wizards tower. She grants you the spell Fire storm in order to aoe lots and lots of weak Ice elementals. Theres also a nearby cave there that has quite a few lvl 3 ice elementals as well


This is where youll start to grind a little bit.

At this point you should take the quest from Rurik in Ascalon.
His quest will lead you, Rurik, a npc healer and a npc warrior to the north wall gate where he will kill 4 lvl 5 charrs.

Remember NOT to claim the reward for this quest,but simply map travel back to ascalon,abandon the quest,retake it and kill the 4 charrs again and again.



You should go in ascalon and look for another player to go over the northen wall and kill lvl 8-10 charr bosses now.

Depending on the hour of the day there will always be someone around that can take you for a few charr runs. Joining a alliance is also a good idea (i always see a few of mine in ascalon at all times)

There are also 4 lvl 10 boss charrs that grant double exp as well as a chance to drop a 10 slot green charr bag (350-500g) and a rare gold charr salvage kit (5/5=10platinum)



When you reached lvl 10 you are able to take Daily Vanguard missions that scale with your level as well as reward you with 1000 exp.

For example if you are lvl 10-13 the missions will spawn lvl 8-10 monsters
at lvl 14-16 =11-14mobs, and at lvl 17+=15-18

These monsters might be tricky sometimes as some use self healing skills, bleeding-deepwound, hexes and other nasty skills so at first it might be wise to go with another player.

Important
-Having a active Vanguard mission will grant you the Vanguard Initiate which will boost your base armor by A LOT.

Personally i keep the mission before i go to sleep, or before the new vanguard mission comes out cause having that additional armor makes the life much more easy.

What to actually do during these levels?
Besides doing the missions daily for the extra 1000exp you would want to keep farming charrs until you get lvl 14. Make sure you have that Vanguard Initiate buff.

Getting from lvl 13-14 might seem like one of those lvls that you just want to skip. This is because you are fighting mobs that are 5 lvls under you (the lvl 8 chars). Trust me, you dont want to skip this. Getting 5%exp per charr run is GREAT!


At this part charr runs give no exp, except the 4 bosses that give low exp and take a lot of time to get to them....

At this time you should take whatever vanguard mission you get and spam it in order to kill your lvl 11-14 mobs. Check the mission you have on the wiki and study the map to check where the mission mobs spawn. Make a route that seems to be the most efficient way to kill as many groups as possible with the ability to rezone and start right over.


This is probably the most horrible level you can be at...you are lvl 16, it takes a LOT more exp to get to the next lvl and all you get is mobs that are 5 lvls under you (lvl 11).

This is personally the best time to go and finish all of your quests that you saved by now. It should lvl you up to lvl 17 without any problems.

If you are still stuck at lvl 16 after finishing all the quests you may try to grind as much as you can, or simply be casual about it and do the missions only...tho the difference in these 2 methods could be between 1-4 days...


Your last 3 lvls should go fairly easy and smooth as you will be facing lvl 15-18 mobs all the time. Even at your last lvl 19 you wont have to kill mobs that are 5 lvls under you...

Remember to keep accepting the rewards from the mission daily,as well as have 1 mission always active as even if you upgraded your armor with the collectors armor its nothing when you get hit by a flare that deals 100dmg every second...



-You might help people out in ascalon by offering Gate Monkey services (GM)
Players that wish to go and solo the charr need another player to open the gate for them. You simply join their party ,pull the lever and get paid 100-200gold (some even give more)

While having extra gold is always nice this might also help you get to know other people that also go for LDoA. If you are lvl 13 and you find another lvl 13 player that is looking for a gm, he might invite you as a party and hunt charr together which is essentially much faster (and cheaper for him)


-At early levels you might wanna find and kill some lvl 4-5 mobs that are constantly in the world.
Lakeside country has a lvl 5 drake,a lvl 5 bull, a lvl 4 scale brood (tons of dmg,carefull)
The catacombs has a lvl 5 boss skeleton (double exp!"
Regent valley has a lvl 5 oakheart as well as 2 lvl 5 melandru's stalkers

Sometimes you might even see friendly animals around,they are usually lvl 3 and reward you with some nice exp as well.


-A very special Vanguard mission would be Rescue Farmer Hamnet

If you ever get this mission i highly recommend NEVER EVER to finish it

This is a mission that offers the fastest grinding in any possible situation (after lvl 13)

You are able to rezone from Foible's Fair and right outside form it to the north there should be 1-2 groups of high lvl monsters that you can aoe down and quickly rezone back to repeat it.

There is also a rezz shrine right outside it so there should be a npc monk that will heal you if you are in trouble.

In fact, its so easy that i was watching streaming anime on one half of my monitor,and spamming rezones with that mission on the other half of my screen


-There is a way to get the last 1-3k exp to get to lvl 20 easy and without grind.
If your last vq was farmer hamnet its most likely that quest will be "old".
What you want to do then is finish him for 1k exp, then finish the current VQ for another 1k exp and then finish the next one that comes tomorrow for the 3rd 1k exp.

You can also time it so you dont have to wait all day long for the 3rd VQ. Just check when the daily VQ is reseted at your local time

Hope you liked the guide and it was helpful.
As always, additional tips and additions are always welcome.

PS: I encourage you to try death lvling, its one of the very unique experience Guild wars can offer

Here are some tips:
Lvl 1-5: repeat the quest for elementalists in Wizard's Folly, that gives great exp for low lvls.
Lvl 10-13/14(I dont remember when vq foes switch): charr runs are better exp in you are able to solo charr. If not, then don't bother about this one.

I did recommend doing charr runs at those levels (except lvl 14 cause you only get exp from bosses...and not so much if you're in a party for the time spent getting there)

Vq foes start at lvl 10, at lvl 10-13 you get to fight mobs that are lvl 8,9 and lvl 10 bosses (same as charr runs)

Ofc soloing char runs are always the best thing to do at these levels but in some situations its simply not possible.

For example a lvl 10 necromancer can cast death swarm,maybe life steal with vampiric gaze and then what? sit and wait for cooldowns?

Yes he does have high lvl minions but you cant summon them if you dont have corpses...

Also not all players have the imp to help them out either.

Again, I mentioned that you get Vq that can grant you a extra 1000 exp per day. It also grants you a buff that almost doubles your armor(as long as you have the vq active) which you can use when you are hunting charr (specially if youre able to solo them)

(Apologies for the late reply; had technical issues to sort out and prioritised the re-write of my Warrior guide)

Some advice in no particular order:

-At the risk of sounding like a grammar nazi: a good proofread would do you well. There's a quote, I can't remember who from or how it goes exactly but it's something like this: "Nobody thinks a suit and tie is a sign of competence but nobody will listen to a naked man." If the guide looks sloppy it can feel less legitimate or official or whatnot. Specifically, you have a lot of one line sentences that ought to be formed into a proper paragraph. As it is it sometimes feels like a stream of thoughts rather than something properly thought out.

-There are times where you lack explicitness. Example:
What quest? The point of a guide is to help people. Vagueness doesn't do this. As it turns out, Rurik also gives Charr in the Catacombs. While it may seem obvious that you're referring to Charr at the Gate, remember who your potential/target audience is.

-I would explicitly mention Nick+Yakkington/the garden, plus the need to accumulate Red Iris Flowers. Also that the /bonus weapons are available, though personally I consider them to be cheating.

-I would compare and contrast with the wiki page. When writing my Warrior guide one of the things I always ask myself is "why would someone use this guide rather than the resources that already exist?". If what you write just ends up being a poor-man's wiki page no one will care. This isn't the case with your guide - it centralises some info that is spread over a variety of wiki pages, but trying to establish a point of difference or personal perspective (which wiki's generally don't accomodate) would be good. Theory aside, what I'd like to see in an in-depth guide are the following:
*Strengths/weaknesses and relative ease of each profession
*One of the things I found when I did LDoA (with a Necro) was that I felt I had no option but to go /R (unofficially) for the pet. I don't have access to the imp (how much difference does it make? do some professions benefit from it more than others? I was quite surprised at this thread.) and I didn't group very often so the meat shield was absolutely vital. Is this correct/common or was I wrong?

I've got 6 LDoA's and this honestly this guide is terrible, I struggled to find one single thing that could be considered the best step to take.