Ascension Missions

i agree with him, many people who attempted the misison once or twice which is still not enough for them to know EVERYTHING about that mission tend to act "pro", and if u listen to them, ur screwed. usually they will say something about luring the mobs out, but they WILL run into like 50 mobs and get the whole team killed. speaking from experience.

Er...I don't like it when games cater to the lowest common denomonator. People already sit around in Augry Rock whining to get to their next mission point. They don't explore the desert (like they're supposed to). They don't just give it a shot (like they're supposed to). They wait to leech on to a group that's heading there, get dragged, then get dragged through a mission. They suddenly find themselves ready to ascend and yet...the last three missions have been all about teamwork and strategy. These players have lost out on the lessons they were supposed to learn because they're weak players themselves. They get ready to ascend (after asking how to do it, because they don't read the text from NPCs) and throw their hands up at having to out-think themselves.

If you lose to your mirror image and you had no actual strategy, well...how are you supposed to know what you did wrong? If you haven't had to employ strategy to win yet (or have just followed the directions of veteran players who have lead missions), you shouldn't have a shot at ascending, period. It's a shame people have already posted their skill combinations and tactics on the board to prove their penis is worth measuring; it ensures people who have no business ascending will do so, and will do so on their first or second try. These people will continue to be a drain on groups throughout missions, in the tombs, in the underworld, and in every endgame sanctuary imaginable. Thanks for that, ascension strategy posters!

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I admit, I felt like just quitting the game after having failed Elona about 10 times. I would log on, fail it once, then log off. Then people started talking about the glitch, so I decided to try it. Turned out, using the glitch was harder than just doing the thing the right way. The next party I got, we were able to beat it with 10 min. left.

Out of the 4 ascention quests, Elona is definately the hardest. But with a good group, it should be no problem.

After having finally passed Elona, and ascended, the game is FUN again!

These missions are pretty hard and I agree that most of the pre-ascension missions are easy (primary goals are easy, secondary ones not so). I still have Thirsty River to finish. With henchmen i've killed 4 or the 5 priests but I'm starting to doubt whether I can make it. Problem with henchies is that they don't have enough firepower to kill multiple enemies quickly. Mage keeps using Firestorm even though player elementalist would have Meteor Storm/Meteor + more AoE and fighter guys don't impress with their damage output either. Maybe Anet should revamp skills of the henchies...

I think there are some real balance issues with the Ascension quests, and I haven't even seen Thirsty River yet. I beat Dunes of Despair with only henchmen, without breaking a sweat, as a pure ranger first try. I have tried Elona's Reach about 15 times and have never gotten more than 1 crystal back to the hero (besides the one you start with). I have tried it with henchmen, with friends, and with pick-up groups. The mission is ridiculous. I think that even if there were NO time limit, the mission would still be very frustrating. Those bastards seem to take less damage than anything else I have fought in the game, except maybe the Sand Wyrms.

I just don't understand why Dunes is so easy and Elona's is so hard... couldn't they be a bit more balanced?

Yes, that pisses me off to no end...

Not sure if I can sum this up in a useful manner without writing a really long post, but I'll give it a shot.

Go down the right ramp, skipping both fights to the left and right (just ease down, neither will aggro).

Run over to the right ramp up to the bridge, back a bit. Now you have a choice - either engage the Minos, or edge around them and go up to the bridge when they move away. You may want to move onto the bridge ramp and then pull a few up before you attempt to cross the bridge. Reason being, your idiot warrior henchment (or players, choose one) will aggro the Minos below the bridge when they run under it. However, if you move correctly and kill swiftly, you can cross the bridge without getting any aggro, and then proceed right up to the hero.

Now, for the next part, I'd recommend doing the left path first, as it is the more difficult of the two. Run out of the gate and make your way diagonally across the open area to the top edge of the rift (NOT to the bridge with the mines at each end). Now get a ranger or a caster to pull back the two groups beside the boss by the bridge. You may get the boss also, depending on your group (and the boss) this may not be an issue. Once that little bit is cleared out, you are clear to go up and get the crystal. On the way back out, you will need to clear out two groups (going back around the rift again,s ame way you came in), but you can skirt through the open area if you move quickly. One crystal down.

The second crystal is easier. Wait for the left group to move away and the right group to move down the ramp far to the right. Run all the way down to the right, PAST that group - you want to engage them from far away, as the first group paths fairly close, and may aggro if you aren't careful. Kill them once you're down past them. Now you just need to hug the right side of the area. Don't walk up to the little ledge ahead with the enemies to your right, instead, edge around it to the left. Now depending on the placement of the enemies here, you may be able to skip the boss ahead of you. If so, skirt him and kill the group on the right. If not, kill the boss first, then the group on the right. This leaves the path up to the boss open. Go up, kill the group near the boss, kill the boss by the crystal, and grab it.

At this point, you can either play it safe, or just flub it. Make your way back out the same route, and either kill the groups on the way, or just play crystal-tag and swap it between players while you make a mad dash for the hero, dropping it when you get crippled for someone else to pick up.

Hopefully that's useful to you. There really isn't any trick to the mission other than being very aware of aggro range, avoiding unnecessary encounters, and pulling back the groups to fight them safely.

It's wierd. I hear everyone say how hard those missions were, but the hard one for me was Thirsty River. I almost feel like it's been toned down since I completed it (having helped other people through it, it seems almost pathetic), yet I spent a good six hours with various groups trying to beat it. I came to realize once I beat it that the determining factor was simply meeting the strategic requirements. It's all good and well to say "kill the priest", but you have to actually manage it, mitigate the rest of the force, and decide whether or not to roll the two-minute dice. It's not really hard if you have a well-coordinated group staffed with members who know what they're doing. It's utter hell if you have the necro with a hammer screaming "I'LL DISTRACT THE BOSS" while the conceptual art mesmer and elementalist start drawing all the fire toward the healers.

All three missions are pretty reasonable...it comes down to having effective teams and utilizing strategy. "Kill the monk" doesn't cut it there, which is good.

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LMAO

lol! i didn't read anyone else's reply, but i thought this was freekin good.

ascention was totally my favorite part of the game cause it was the hardest. honestly they could make the game a little harder if they wanted to. it's so much more funerer when you gets to stragity the game. [*speaking of grammer ]

the strong will survive.

I've been doing thirsty river now, and this time it's not the mission it's some dumb ass players I'm getting. One guy actually quit in mission because we wouldn't restart the mission so he could capture a skill. Another the entire group didn't understand the concept of killing the priest to stop rezs. Man I wish the henchmen had better ai so I could lead them thru this.

The ascension missions are not that hard.

Dunes I completed first attempt with Henchies.

Elona needs real players. I did it twice with different parties each taking I think 3 attempts by which time the parties had figured out how to play it. Running with the crystals is a tempting but dumb idea. I can't help thinking there is an intended crystal running stratergy with all the trap plants there but never tried to formulate one.

Thirsty needs real players and I completed it easily on the first attempt with a pick up team that had a clue.

The mirror mission just sucks. As a ranger taking in my normal setup I was dealing 1/3rd of the damage I received - could not get anywhere near completing it. A mission which requires characters to devise a crippled version of themselves abusing dumb game AI to offset the significantly enhanced (in terms of attributes and equipment) version of themselves is stupid. I eventually completed it in 20 seconds and feel it is the worst mission/quest in the game.

well, i still havnt completed them all, but i think they shouldnt change them.
you gotta do the mission with real people, as long as you dont take those stupid people who only rush

See, these are the same people who will be pissed at doing infusion runs, and thunderhead keep, the fire islands, trying to close the portals, and all sorts of things. Fact is, I was getting frustrated at losing on the keep, finally got a good group, we figured out what we were really supposed to do and how to do it, and it was literally a breeze. I never had to fight more than 3 mobs on the siege, and that was rare with a boss.

Every time I ever have difficulty with a mission, like the E34E Ascalon event when you had to escort Prince Rurik through the prison areas, the time I got a good group who really knew what they were doing, we aced it, flat out never had a hiccup. I must have tried that like 30 times when the monsters were boosted (since everyone was 15+ on those) and it just clicked at some point.

Many of these battles, seem to be that clicking, when I have a poor group who actually wins, it is a bit of a let down, I mean, how did we win? Why even bother winning when it isn't hard, that is like playing any singleplayer game on easy, or cheating.

You can pick mines up and drop them. If you drop them, they do the same thing to enemies they normally do to you when you just walk by them. If you assume you have at least two real players in the mission...well, just think about it. Running is definitely an option if you use them; with bonus, that mission took a little under 10 min. to run.

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Now I want to get my guy level 20 more then ever, only 5 more left... and all the missions after gates of kryta lol
As for the topic, I find enjoyment in getting my butt kicked(In other words when there is a challenge then I have more fun, more challenge=more fun) so even if I try these mission(s) 100 times and don't beat them, I will still play... though dieing 100 times in a row would mean there is something SERIOUSLY wrong there and I rather need to revamp my strat, skills, or attributes.

I don't quite agree with you here. Even up to the point when I was ready to ascend, my whole concept... my whole joy from the game was keeping people alive. I saw more red bars than scenery and was quite content with it. It felt good to slap a button and drop 161 points of healing on someone and have 7 other spells I can throw at them if that wasn't enough. So naturally, when it came time to face my mirror, I was like what the hell!? It really was not a mirror of the way I play the character. If I hadn't gotten hints from the folks here, I'd still be trying to ascend. Now that I've ascended? I'm back to healing. It's what I'm good at. I got an 8 man team through the first two missions in Dragon's Lair before Guild Wars took me back abruptly to the login screen (sorry guys! hope you made it!). I really don't think I'll be a drain on anyone. If we fail in a future mission and I realize I need to be more offensive minded, I can still equip my mesmer skills, but honestly? The only reason I chose Mesmer as a secondary was because Althea was marrying Rurik... lol.


Later on in the thread, though, I agree with you. Thirsty River was the hardest... by far! On the third time through when we beat it though, I learned from the first two failures. When our group engaged the priest, I waited outside and when the badguys came out to get me, I ran through the main group and behind the altar out of sight but within spell range. That let me heal at will and cast smiting stuff when I had a chance.

I had to do Elona 14 times till i was through. And why? Because of the groups. Some players don't stick with you, some think they need to run off alone and so on.
The problem is most time: "does one know the mission/quest" or "will all work together".
Players are harder to control then your average henchmen ^^.

I tried River with a good group, we came to enemy team 3 and battled great! But then the ghost hero died and we were like, "he can die?". That was a bit frustrating, it's work enough to watch over your team..

In the end its about if you know good people or not. When you have to make a team out of strangers then you can easily end up with the biggest lvl20 noobs around.

Of the 3 Dunes is the easiest, then Elona, then Thirsty River. I made it to the last boss at the River 4 times and never could kill him or died there. But the last group grabbed a Necro w/ Teleporting skill. He teleported in and lured the enemies over to the rest of the group (be sure to have 1 ranger for sniping). Plus did a bunch of killing for himself. So for the last round of bosses we had the priest and boss in 2 of the locations left, and in less than 2 mins were able to knock out both of those priests. Then we worked on the last boss & group. We didn't get the bonus cause the King had left, but we did it. At one point in the game during the 2nd round only the Ghost and I were alive! We managed to recover and beat this mission even with more than half the team who had -60DP!!!

Note I had been working on Thirsty River for 3 days with pick up groups.

I did Dunes easy -- I had some guild members with me.
It was so easy I actually don't recall most of it, as I would any difficult parts.


I did Elona easy -- with a PUG, and I was party leader even though I had never done it before.
We finished with 12 minutes (11:56) to spare, and we had taken our dear sweet time in a few places just killing things that were semi close to being in our way.


I just need to get to Thirsty River... and for that I need a map >_<