Lots of questions about Ascension.

ive already ascended, and i still have no clue about what it did exactly.

does ascension do anything other than let you continue onto other places in the game?
if i already ascended but went back into the mesa and lost to my dopple ganger, do i have to re-ascend?
is the hall of heroes an actual place? is it the place where i fought my dopple ganger?

Until you beat your mirror, you are not ascended. When you ascend, you will be teleported to a new place. I don't want to spoil the story for you, so I won't go in to more detail.

You ascended at Augury Rock (that's the big rock that split open). I am not exactly sure "where" the Hall of Heroes is located, so I won't speculate and show myself the noob I probably still am.

I hate to ask, but are you sure you ascended? Surely you did the 3 ascension missions. But you fought the doppelganger and won at least once, right? You should have ended up at Dragon's Lair if you succeeded.

Then, yes, it allows you to continue on to the rest of the game. Also, ascension is now a prerequisite to enter certain other places accessed from the Temple of the Ages.

Once you've beaten the doppleganger, you'll be in Dragon's Lair. I didn't find the mission so hard, in fact i didn't even die once, but that might be because i was with a good group even though half of it was henchman . Once you beat the Dragon's Lair, you'll be teleported to a new place with new missions and whatnot.
Be sure to bring some signets of capture to the dragon lair!

yea ive ascended already. im at droknars forge right now. beat dunes of despair, thirsty river (on my 14th try >.>), elona reach and dragons lair.

i went back into that rock thingy to take a screenie, but i didnt think that the dopple ganger would still be there. so i ended up losing to him. this is why im not sure if im still considered ascended.. also, do i have to go to the temple of ages by exploring? or will there be a mission later on that takes me there?

Well, congrats on your ascension! As long as you beat your doppel once, then you are indeed ascended.

The Temple of Ages is sort of between Divinity Coast and Beetletun. I always ended up there while doing the Villainy of Galrath quest so I have never had a quest to take me there. I believe there is a quest out of Fisherman's Haven (which is north of Sanctum Cay) which requires you to go to the Temple.

Ascension also gives you 50,000 exp.

ascension seems less special than i was hoping for :\

at first, i thought it would make me a lot stronger so i could beat the lvl20+ monsters :'(

you can beat lvl 20+ monsters, you just need to start capturing elites and figure out a good build that works for you.

so far ive only got melandru's resilience and order of the vampire (well... not any more since i switched over to a R/E)

depending on what build you plan on doing, barrage is always a good skill for a bow ranger.

i dont have that skill yet O_O