Defender of Ascalon

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Defender of Ascalon
Campaign	Prophecies
Title type	Character

The Legendary Defender of Ascalon title can only be gained by attaining level 20 in pre-Searing Ascalon, the tutorial area in Guild Wars Prophecies. This title can be displayed in the "Honor" monument.

[edit] Legendary Defender of Ascalon title track

Tier	Title	Level in pre-Searing
1	Legendary Defender of Ascalon	20

[edit] Acquisition

Since the highest-level creatures in pre-Searing Ascalon are the level 10 Charr bosses, and a character stops gaining experience when he or she is six or more levels higher than the creature killed, level 16 would seem to be the maximum level for a character in pre-Searing.

As a result, the only known and confirmed method of attaining level 20 in pre-Searing Ascalon is through death levelling, a technique in which a player repeatedly lets his or her character get killed by hostile creatures. Enemies gain experience when they manage to kill your character, and the repeated killing of the player's character will allow the enemies to level up. This way, you are able to gain experience again by killing your enemies once they have leveled up to within the five-level range.

The five-level experience cap works both ways. Since experience is only gained by enemies who are five or fewer levels higher than your character, an enemy that repeatedly kills a level 10 character will stop earning experience once the enemy reaches level 16, so there is no point in trying to level the creature any further. As such, it takes a lot of time and effort to earn this title.

Others have already tried to level up enemies by letting them kill pets or minions, but those are not feasible; pets only give experience upon their first death and minions don't give any experience at all. Therefore, the only way is to use one's character to level up enemies.

Two characters can death-level together, but there is no real advantage in doing so. Time saved from only having 1 resurrection delay per 2 kills is negated when those two characters have to split the experience for the kill later. Although it is possible for one character to move far away from the other so as not to share in the experience.

[edit] General steps

1. Create a character of your choice.
2. Complete the first few quests, but only accept the rewards for Message from a Friend, War Preparations, and <Your Profession> Test.
   • It is advisable to accept quests that offer skills at the beginning, but do not accept the reward at this step.
   • The advantage of picking up a secondary profession at early levels is offset by the increasing difficulty of gaining experience at higher levels. As such, it is advisable to not take a secondary profession until at least level 16. Even so, players can still begin the secondary profession quest of their preference in order to gain skills they may want for levelling as long as they don't formalize their choice of profession.
3. Level up to level 11 solely by killing creatures of the appropriate level in Lakeside County and Regent Valley. At this stage, avoid joining up with another player in a party.
   • Bear in mind that you receive the most experience by killing foes that are of the same level or higher than your character.
   • Before level 5 or 6, you can farm for experience almost anywhere.
     • If you take the elementalist skills of Flare and Fire Storm from Elementalist Aziure in Wizard's Folly, there is a cave in that snowy area where there are a lot of Ice Elementals (which take double damage from fire damage).
     • Repeatedly attempt the Elementalist Experiment quest, where many Ice Elementals (level 1) will spawn. Use Fire Storm to quickly dispatch them all. Do not accept the quest reward but simply return to an outpost, abandon the quest, and repeat.
     • If you retained the monk skills, specifically those of the Smiting Prayers attribute, travel to The Catacombs to kill undead (which take double damage from holy damage). See the map to the right for the recommended route to take.
       

       
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   • You can also try grinding Hulking Stone Elementals in northwest Green Hills County.
   • At level 5 or 6, consider heading to Wizard's Folly and repeatedly travel up and down the road killing all the enemies (possibly including a level 4 River Skale Brood).
   • At level 7 or so, your character can now take on level 5 foes. These include the Rogue Bull (point 2 on map below) and Skullreaver in the Catacombs and River Drake (point 4 on map below) in Lakeside County and the Oakhearts in the Northlands (provided you can easily find help in entering). The Rogue Bull is the most convenient if you start doing the following early.
     

     
   • Starting from level 8 or so, it is recommended to repeatedly abandon and re-accept the quest Charr at the Gate (point 1 on map below). That quest spawns 4 Charr and you have Prince Rurik and his guards doing the killing for you. Some players may find it more efficient to zone back to Ascalon while the last Charr is still alive, thus avoiding the need to abandon the quest and having to run up all the way to Prince Rurik to re-accept the quest. This quest may be attempted as early as level 3, but be extra careful.
     • It is possible to combine the last two methods into a single run (see map), yielding multiple level 5 enemies.
4. At level 11, it is time to move into the Northlands and hunt the Charr instead. You may start earlier (level 8-10) if you have a partner you can hunt with.
5. At level 14, you will need to start killing the Charr bosses in the Northlands.
6. Once you hit level 16, you will have to start "death levelling" enemies just to gain more experience (see notes for a more detailed guide).
7. When you reach level 19, go and accept all those quest rewards you've been skipping. The total amount of experience reward (approx 10,000 exp) will push you close enough to level 20 as to only need several more "death levelling" sessions.
8. Congratulations! You are now a Legendary Defender of Ascalon.

[edit] Notes

• This title track will only show up in the Hero Panel when your character has reached level 12.
• The last part of the title description in the hero panel essentially spoils the pre-searing plot.
• The Survivor title track is mutually exclusive with this title because the only known method of attaining this title is to use death-levelling. The following alternative strategies will not permit gaining both titles:
  • Experience from quests: The experience available by completing all quests is only about 12,000 xp. This is enough to get from level 16 to level 17, but not level 18. This is almost enough to get from level 19 to level 20. To compensate for the difference, a player must death level.
  • Having a friend death-level: Pairing with someone willing to death level for you will not work because of the lack of reusable res in pre-Searing.
  • Using pets or minions to death-level monsters: Minions don't provide experience; pets provide experience only once.
• Death levelling can take months to get from level 16 to level 20. If a player is dedicated enough to do around couple runs each day, it may take only several weeks.
• Death levelling in a timely fashion is dependant on having all charr parties killing you a relatively equal amount of times, or you could end up with an entire group that doesn't level at all, leaving you with a trip that was only worth ~400xp. Internet instability and getting disconnected after so many hours of inactivity compound difficulty.
• When hunting Charr at lower levels, you can use Ben Wolfson (from the Across the Wall quest) to help you kill foes. It should be noted that if he kills a foe without you damaging it, you will gain no XP. He deals a surprising amount of damage and is rather durable for a level 5 NPC.

[edit] External links

• Pre-searing community forum for Death levelling discussions