Misconceptions/Tips about the Ascension Missions

After a day of volunteer monking, I wanted to say the following:

- Elona Reach -

1) There is no need to -rush- anything, at any time, during this mission. If you have a capable group, there's no need to equip sprint or run ahead or anything. The only thing you'll accomplish is to separate yourself from the group, to split the group up as they search about for some sense of order in all the confusion, and, if you have really good luck, ultimately kill the group.

2) Pull, pull, pull. Pulling is your friend.

3) Watch the patrols! If idiots don't end up killing your group, failure to take into account the patrols will.

- Thirsty River -

1) Make sure to bring along anti-spellcaster skills. My three personal favourites are backfire, blackout, and concussion shot. When you go up against two monks, you'll need to somehow negate one and focus on the other.

2) THERE IS NO NEED TO RUSH. If you find yourself in a group where the first order of business is to "rush priest okay," you're probably not in the best group. Sure, it might work, but your chances of being wiped out increase incredibly. It's a lot easier (and much safer) to take each patrol out--and, if you're still fighting by the 1:30 mark, then move toward the priest. By that time, if you're still fighting, you've probably done enough damage to make such a rush safe.

3) In the second arena, when you have to face two teams, understand that they are not "auto-aggro," as one group insisted they were. Their failure to listen to me caused two wipe-outs before they realized I was right. My personal preference is to take the "left" group first by hugging the wall.

4) In the third arena, when you're facing three teams, if you time it right, you can actually -duck into- the right-hand base without aggroing the patrol. I find this much easier to do than (a) aggroing the patrol or (b) going toward the two-monk base first.

Why? Because if you need to run from the two-monk base, you'll now have a flee spot.

- Dunes of Despair -

1) Prior to "storming" the fort, make sure to clear out the bows. This'll save you some trouble.

2) Prior to entering the fort, HOLD THE BRIDGE and wait for the swords and hammers to come. You should target the hammers first.

3) If you're patient enough, before even coming up to the fort, head right (when you're facing it), and follow the dunes to a small temple guarded by losaru. There, you'll find a staff which will cast ward of foes. It's nice to have. Not necessary. But nice.

4) DON'T RUSH.

----

That's all I can think of right now. ;P

That pretty much sums up everything I allways scream at my groups just minutes before we're wiped out in those missions -_- ...

Awsome tips.. Success of the mission depends on the group. The mission's ease or difficulty depends on that. Most times you can judge how the mission will go based on how the group performs or behaves early on.

Ascension missions are not that difficult - I can do those literally in my sleep. Of course it depends on whether if you have competent group members.

:nods:

This, here, is the mission-breaker.

I ran Elona Reach three times before posting this.

Why?

Because the first two times, certain people on my party insisted on doing it THEIR way, which included rushing, which included separating from the group, which included pulling multiple spawns--and their way ultimately led to a group-wide WTF?, as well as one person (the person who I was originally volunteering for) leaving in frustration.

Ultimately, patience is teh key.

There is a saying that patients is the key to virtue.Being patient with missions will be sucess like everything else in life.

I remember my first time with Elona Reach. My poor R/W spent a full day failing that mission before, by some miracle, I found a group that could listen and someone who knew what they were doing. Now, I only do that mission with/for guildies and friends. I've done it so many times that I have most of the Mobs moving paterns memorized, and I know certain quirks that makes the mission really easy, if you're patient.

There are few things I hate more than Elona Reach. One of those things are the idiots that kept me there for 10 hours.

I've been lucky enough to never have to re-do any ascension mission more than once. My first time through, before anyone had any tactics other than "Just do your job", we didn't lose a single ascension mission.

My second time, with a warrior, we lost thirst river once. After that, I was lucky enoguh to find a group with one extraordinary player who was able to basically win the missions himself, so long as people listened to him.

Guys these missions are real easy if you have friends.

Dunes = book trick with stance tank

Thristy = MM mass / Dual Ele nukefest / mez stance tanks(funny)

Elona = ranger/war runner

I dont think 'literally' was the word you were looking for there

thirsty doesnt take alot of skills, if u do things right u will ALWAYS have time to kill the priests, but no i was taking my nuker through the mission today, i yelled so many times not to rush, but its always those worriors who think they cant kill everything in 2 minutes rush off to the priest, leaving the nukers to take the patrol and die, and the monks to either follow the worriors and most likely killed by the left over patrol or very rarely succeds in keeping the nukers alive and go off and finish the priest. But in most cases the worriors rush off and after killing the priests do they relize that they are the only ones left and the boss right behind them is about to send them to hell for being stupid enough to rush in the first place.

and dunes is so easy that a monkey can probably do it. its those ppl who want to go and do the bonus that get ur whole group killed

The Ascension missions -are- easy.

Just people go out of their way to make it incredibly hard by doing silly things.

i was in a group in elona reach with a warrior that liked to rush...he rushed the middle bridge aggroed about 5 dif groups n whole team died...i had stayed at the gate at the beginning then every1 was like res me plz..wat didnt i bring lol...yer i forgot res so i got shouted at for about 5mins...4 people left so it was me n monk left...i ran the rest of mission without running or healing skills n completed the mission...was one of the best days of gw ever...lol

Volunteer monking huh..ive done that before. never doing it again...too many people going "CAN I ADD YOU TO FRIENDS LIST OK? WE BE FRIENDS KK?"

(off topic) Manic..every time i see you post something and i see that cat..it freaks me out. (/off topic)

tips for thirsty river:

in the beginning, there's usually a spawn of devourers on the little sand dune hill just straight up ahead. if ur group tries to take down the first sand giant on the right, most likely ur monks will back up and aggro those devourers.
(stay away from there)

in the 2nd set of enemies, u should always take the left group first, since they aggro themselves while the other groups stays put.

in the 3rd set:
bum rush the closest base (right side) and instantly kill the priest. then, kill the other ppl. next, choose the far left team to kill, AFTER THE 2 MIN MARK!!!

The problem with Ascension missions is that people seem to freak when they see the timer. They think they'll never make it, that its too short(or too long as per DoD) and don't think things through.

I often go down there to help groups when I have nothing better to do, and many times despite explaining things carefully to them, one or two players will still panic and run around like chickens with their heads cut off.

[Elona Reach]
1. When going for the left encampment, never use the bridge. Go pass it and use the back door.
2. Between the two encampments, there is a hill with a path behind it. This path links the two encampments and provides a nice, quiet route between the two base. Thus avoiding the various mobs in the middle open space.


[Thirsty River]
Time to attack the priest has been mentioned by the OP. You also need to time your attack on a new team after you have dispatched one. Usually it's best to start attacking and killing about 10 seconds before resurrection, e.g. 1:50, 3:50 and so on. If you do start earlier, then don't kill any as they will be resurrected, instead switch targets to soften them up and make the kill on/pass resurrection. Doing this provide the maximum 2 minutes before the next resurrection to dispatch a team.

Have one person and one person only to call target (preferably someone who knows what they're doing). If that person call a target then attack that target. Kill as many as you can quickly so there's less to deal with when it's time to kill the priest.

The enemy rangers enjoy using Throw Dirt to blind, so bear this in mind when they run up to you instead of shooting arrows at you. Enemy Mesmers use Chaos Storm that does damage and drain energy if you're casting. So casters, if you're surrounded by a blue light, don't stand there and cast spells. Chaos Storm has a small AoE, so move away from it.

well with my first character I found these missions really hard, nobody knew what to do etc.. I really had to do the missions over and over again, was it because I wasn't good or my party wasn't? think both, it was just at the begin, no1 had an elite or nice builds.

But when I played these missions with my second - third - fourth character these missions were just a stroll in the park, thirsty river is so easy.

I've been stuck here for a while now, but at the moment I have only been trying to do this with Henchies. I will be looking for a group soon as I am now getting bored of restarting the mission...

I think I should look at updating my armour first though? Only wearing a set with 51 armour on my necro.

I think we experienced players should cut others some slack. This, IMO, is the exact point where the game really, REALLY starts to teach tactics.

Up to now, force, high levels and good equipment have won missions. These missions are really the first time communication becomes paramount.

So. No wonder you get PUGs who are a mess. Many have just gotten to this point and think they can bulldoze through anything. Yes, its annoying. Yes, it's time consuming... but folks NEED to fail a few times to learn.

I think my first time through, I got lucky with a Pug and did one of the missions first time off the bat. Then got stuck doing another about 10 times... and it wasn't just the other folks fault. It was my fault too. I didn't build my ele right. I didn't pay attention beyond ganging up fire on a target... we aggro'd too much. Etc. etc.

But eventually I learned, and I noticed that others did too. Now, I'm back with my 5th character, a necro. So, we will see how it goes.

Elona Reach, Dunes of Despair and Thirsty River missions can be done with henchies. Just need to control and manage them well.

Having better armour may help, but if your tactics and strategy is bad then better armour may just prolong a mission destined to fail. I had armour from Ventari's Refuge on my characters (apart from Monk who had Sanctum Cay ones) when I did these missions. Didn't see the point in upgrading to Amnoon armour since Droknar was only afew missions away.

My warrior had the easiest time through these. Even though I knew what to do and what to expect, my other characters had a harder time and had to try many times. Worse time was against the last monk team in Thirsty River, spend ten minutes trying to take down the monk boss. Had him pinned and surrounded against a wall and door and just beated on him non-stop. Their team keep being ressed and it was really a stalemate. But a lucky hit managed to put things in our favour.

for thirsty, mm is awesome on the mission. i just got my necro through there with henchies at lvl 17, i suggest anyone doing the mission should try and find an mm necro to come with them :P

Dunes of Despair was probably one of the hardest missions in the game for me to solo without henchmen with my W/Mo.

Some very brief pointers as how to handle the final fights doing this...

1) Go to the left immediately and kill ONE of the Forgotten Arcanists. You don't have time to kill them all. If you do that, they will (most of the time) follow you instead of attacking the hero.

2) Go to the right and kill ONE of the swordsmen. The remaining ones should again follow you instead of attacking the hero.

3) Go attack the bows in the middle. Attempt to lure them a little to the left so that when the second wave of arcanists appear, they attack you as well.

4) If you've aggroed right, you should have several arcanists, the bows, and a hammer or two pounding on you at the same time. If you use many of the stance tank builds in the Warrior forum, you should find ways to survive this. Focus on killing the bows first so you can avoid them blinding you, which is a pain to keep removing. Then work on the arcanists and finally the warriors. You should have enough time to gradually wipe them out.

5) After that wave, no more forgotten will come from the left. Attack the right immediately (before they start moving down), and lure them to where the bows normally appear. You should have the same situation where several guys are pounding on you at the same time. Gradually wipe them out, and there will be one last group (particularly nasty if they have the healer boss with them), but that should be manageable.

6) Watch your health with the seige wurms blasting you. It's easy to get distracted by this, but if you keep up constant healing, you should be able to offset any losses.

The key is to control your aggro and make sure that none of the forgotten get in range to start pounding on the hero. This takes a ton of practice...I think it took me over 50 times before I successfully completed it solo. If they start attacking the hero, it's over, so that's your main objective.

1. Two Monks are not necessary for success in any of these three missions.
2. All three of these missions are relatively easily henched provided you know how to work with and to fill in the gaps in the henchbot AI.

Ascention is nothing in this game, all it is a big level jump for the more experienced players so they wont have to waste there time lvling there characters up.

But for new people all missions are most of the time very exciting and you wouldn't want to spoil it for them

Bingo. Furthermore, you don't have to return the first crystal before going after the second. Just drop it on that little path or a little before, go get the second crystal, and pick up the first on your way back. I learned that one from GuildWiki.

The Crystal Desert has always been the first Anti-Noob Barrier. Back when it was nice to farm Sanctum Cay, whenever I finished with a group, I had a little speech.

"Congratulations, welcome to hell. Here in Amnoon they have new armor, weapons and collectors. From now on be at your best or the Jade Scarabs will drag you screaming into the rolling sands to feed upon your sun bleached bones. Good luck"

The group subsequently would ask how to survive. Fear is a good way to get players new to the desert to shut up an listen. ^_^

For those of you who are curious, the other Anti-Noob Barriers are as follows:
2nd: Ascension itself, cept for maybe Warriors.
3rd: Dragon's Lair
4th: Thunderhead Keep

I rarely found stupid people past Thunderhead. Usually if someone got the group killed it was an accidental aggro in a tight space and the like.

It's funny that you should say that to be honest, because the last three
or four time's i've had to do these missions for myself and times before and
just recently for friends, i've done more or less exactly the above, .

When i've needed to go through those missions myself, i've logged onto both
my accounts and left myself afk while my other account either ran it, or i've
just taken a few henchmen and completed it myself, .

Having two accounts and doing almost everything yourself for your other characters
pretty much always makes life a hell of alot easier then most pug's to be honest, ...

Thirsty Tip: mobs of different bosses fight each other (O_o some kind of tuff-war). use that to your advantage. Its funny seeing the Monk boss fighting the Ranger boss mobs while u sneak in and lay waste to his priest

Before you start a cinema scene or talk to a ghost make sure all the mobs are clear. I have had to many groups start the cinema scene while a mob was smacking on us and we could not defend ourself.

I struggled with the desert missions.
Ascension? No problem for anybody with the dedicated thread here.
Dragon's Lair? Maybe I've just been lucky so far, but I've never had a problem - even with PUGs! The bonus, however...
Thunderhead Keep? Hoo yeah.

^I can't count how many people per day I see in Rock repeating "I'm a necro, how to kill mirror?" and such all day.
Dragon's Lair...typically if your party can beat the mission..they can beat Glint..I've never had a PUG get to Glint then die (I'm serious. If they have enough brains to make it to Glint 99% of the time they can kill her).


Elona:
You can try PUGing it (This one has a decent PUG success rate), or People do free/500gp Runs for it all the time. Cuase even rangers run it decently easy.

Dunes:
This one has a REALLY high PUG Success rate..Unless someone is completly braindead this one usualy goes by smooth. The Bridge stay-at tip is good. Also If 2+ siege worms get on you (the dmg can start to hurt) - then you can actually make them stop by having your team go up under the bridge again (this is a highly known about tip). BUt seriously...The mission is dog easy with Henchies..and I mean EASY..You can let the henchies fight them themselves and just stand there if you want its so easy.

Thirsty:
150% of the failures (over 100% lol) are because 2 people or more in the PUG think they know exactly what to do, and their methods aren't the same. Also a BIG killer is at the last 3 when part of the team sneaks into the warriors base to ninja the priest and the other part of the team doesn't understand whats going on so they just run around or Leeroy the 3-4 groups near the base and everything just falls apart. This happens SO much I acutally advise you NOT try the sneak into the base trick.

Easy ways to finish them (if you're willing to fork over cash):

Elona Reach:
Rangers actually run this BETTER than warriors, because their Elite running stance Escape gives them a 75% evasion tech, whereas the Warriors are stuck with "Charge!", which does not give them an evade-tech. The quickest way to finish this is to hire a runner; the high-end can complete it within 2 minutes while you stand around doing nothing (go eat some sandwiches or something).

Thirsty River:
Minion-mancers can "run" this one fairly easily (you might be able to hire one if they're around). Barring Minion-mancers, a good, high-damage warrior should be able to take out a priest in less than 10 seconds (I suggest a Tiger's Fury axe warrior, myself -shameless plug-). Thusly, such warriors can (usually) "run" the mission with just the henchies (and you tagging along for the ride). Hiring a warrior in that regard can be iffy at best though, the quality for warriors in Thirsty River varies greatly.

Dunes of Despair:
You really don't need anybody's help for this mission since it's SO amazingly easy, I managed to finish it as a level 12 Necromancer with just henchies to help me. All you need is a bit of patience and nearly anyone (unless of course you're level one or something, that could present problems) could hench this thing successfully.