Ascalonian Catacombs
Explorable guide
Location: Plains of Ashford
Story recommended level: 30
Explorable recommended level: 35
After entering and talking to the NPC doors will open to the first room. You'll have to kill one Elite Graveling Breeder before proceeding to the next room where you can choose your path. When running to the Elite be careful to not step into the traps.
Path 1: Hodgins' Plan
Path 2: Detha's Plan
Path 3: Tzark's Plan
All the paths start with the same two bosses. After that they split up.
After choosing your path you decent the stairs and take down the graveling burrow. It is not necessary but it only takes a few seconds.
Bonus event! There is a room under the stairs. It's empty when you enter. If you interact with one of the torches on the wall a bunch of Elite Ghosts will spawn.
Continue to the next room and keep far left. There are a bunch of traps between the pillars. When you reach the stairs do not decent them since there are gargoyles on the wall that will most likely kill you. Instead jump on the wall straight ahead. From that spot you can take down some of the gargoyles in the next room with ranged weapons. This is recommended since they can be bothersome during the coming fight.
After you took the 2-3 gargoyles in reach down you can jump down and start killing the small spiders. There will be some lower level spiders (level 1-3) in the north-east corner or on the east side. If you kill them the Spider Queen will spawn with some more smaller spiders. As soon as she gets spawned focus on her.
The Spider Queen throws poison fields, does some melee attacks and can also immobilize you. Try to stay out of the poison fields since the poison can down you in seconds. If you get immobilized use a condition remover to get free, to avoid getting stuck in a poison field. It is always safer to stay behind her. Both melee and ranged attacks are good. It is also a good idea to take down the 2 leftover gargoyles during the fight since they can be annoying during the fight.
After the Spider Queen is killed wait until the gravelings come into your direction. Kill the Elite Graveling Breeder first and stay close to each other to avoid the gravelings to burrow and knock you down. Continue through the tunnel but try to avoid the traps. There's a chain on the left side of the door at the end of the tunnel to deactivate the traps.
Bonus Event! The Champion Troll spawns randomly. You can lead him to Kholer so they fight each other and in the end one may kill the other but it takes a long time. Killing the Champion Troll yourself is much faster. He's one of the most difficult bosses of Ascalonian Catacombs though.
He uses fear, stomps followed by shock waves (so you have to dodge twice) and sends out electric bolts that bounces between players.
Run to the center of the room. You'll find Lieutenant Kholer there. When you start attacking him he'll spawn Elite Ghosts. He'll do this every 25% of his health. Kill the Elite Monk first, followed by the Elementalist. Aside from those two Elites the Necromancer is also rather annoying. If you go with a low level team make sure to kill the Elites as soon as they spawn. If you go with an experienced team you can just ignore them, they'll die through
AoE and melee damage.
Kholer uses some normal melee attacks that don't do much harm. The only tricky part here is that he throws whips, pulls you to him and spins, giving you a lot of conditions and damage. This can down you easily. To avoid that focus on Kholer's movements. At a certain point he'll lift his right, sword arm, it'll start to glow and after that he'll throw the whips (see screenshot). Dodge as soon as you see this. Mesmer can use feedback to block this attack and Guardians can use wall of reflection. If you fail to dodge you can use stability or double dodge to break free. After this the paths split.
Path 1: Hodgins' Plan
Run south. Decent the stairs but be careful for the gargoyles that spit fire. Hodgin will stand at a door behind a table. You'll have to defend him while he does something (nothing). Burrows will spawn through the room, 6 in total. Rather than all going after the same burrow it's better to split up.
Make 3 teams. One team of 2 takes down the burrows on the east side, 2 go to the west side. One person will defend Hodgin by kiting the gravelings that escape on the other side of the table. Do not stand on or near Hodgin because their attacks on you will also affect Hodgins.
It is useful to have an Elementalist to conjure ice bows and flaming great swords. Skill 4 of the ice bow can almost take down a burrow entirely. Skill 3 and 4 (without target) of the flaming great sword are very effective as well. After the 6 burrows are down the door will open. One of the party has to go through the door and climb up to get one of the flaming scepter pieces.
Take the chest and waypoint back to where Kholer was. Run west and turn right after entering the next room. Go up and keep left to not spawn the oozes. (See green path on the map) A door on the north side will open. You'll have to find 5 pieces of the flaming scepter in that room. One person could easily solo this part. There will be a lot of gravelings so stability is recommended. After you got the 5 pieces talk to Hodgins. He'll assemble the pieces and you can proceed to the boss.
Follow the white route on the map to reach the boss room. Stability and speed skills are useful here. After the first few tunnels you can either take the first tunnel left or the second. Don't take the last! When you run to the most north point of the boss room the gravelings will stop following you if you took the first or second tunnel, if you take the most north tunnel left they wont lose aggro so you'll have to kill them.
There will be gravelings spawning through the boss fight. With a high dps team they are not going to be troublesome since fight will be over before too many can spawn. When the fight lasts longer and too many spawn you have to kite them through the fire circles that will appear through the room. This makes the gravelings die right away. With a low dps team you can better far range so you can kite them easily.
Path 2: Detha's Plan
Run east, then south to the flooded temple. There are 5 chains in the east side of the room. 2 on either side of the stairs and 1 in front of the stairs. When you pull the chains spikes will pop up in front of the stairs. Put one person on one side of the stairs to pull the 2 chains on that side. Another 2 persons on the other side and one person for the middle chain in front of the stairs. A last person will stand on where the spikes appear and will play bait.
You'll have to protect Detha while she does something (nothing). A lot of gravelings will run towards her. The bait will have to try to keep them away from her by hitting the gravelings and run circles through the spikes. The persons pulling the chains will have to pull the chains right when the gravelings step on their spikes. There are 3 bars on the right side of the screen. One is for Detha's health, one for the amount of (elite) gravelings killed and one for the boss. When the meter of (elite) gravelings is filled everyone can jump down and help the bait to kill the boss graveling.
Follow the white path or waypoint back to Kholer and follow the green path. Use the chain after climbing the stairs (the red dot) to open the gate to the boss room. Run all the way through the room to lose aggro.
The boss 'fight' has 3 phases. One rule counts for all phases. Do not hit the boss when he has his ghost shield up. He'll spawn oozes and he'll eat them to regain health. In the first phase you'll have to defend Detha while she sets up the traps. She starts with a trap in the south west part of the room. Kill Necromancers and Monks first before the other elites. Elementalists can be bothersome too. The second trap she sets up is in the south east corner, the last trap is the north.
In phase two you'll have to grab one of the guns that drop. It has 2 skills. Skill 1 lifts, skill 2 pulls. There are two ways to do this part. Either only one person uses skill 1 while the others use 2 or everyone just uses both. Both tactics work and are equally fast.
Start with talking to Detha (so the boss will spawn) and letting her die. She's useless anyway and will only aggro the boss. Let one person hit the boss once with skill 1 (never use skill 2 on the boss. Skill 1 won't aggro the boss but 2 does). He'll spit out some oozes. Stand behind one of the traps, target one ooze and lift/pull the oozes into the trap. You'll need 3 oozes to fill a trap. Make sure to not aggro the boss. If you aggro the boss run out of the orange circle you'll see on the mini map. He will not follow you out than that circle. Charge the 3 traps and drop the guns.
In phase 3 you stand behind one of the traps. Let someone run to the boss to aggro it. Remember [b]do not hit it[/b]. Wait until the boss throws 3 circles (so he does not throw them on everyone of the party) and kite him into the trap. Since he does ranged and melee damage it's best to run past the trap. As soon as his 'ghost shield' breaks dps him as much as you can. Don't stand in his aoe circles since they do a lot of vulnerability and will down you easily. Stop as soon as he looks ghostly again and run to the next trap to break his shield again. With a good team you'll be able to take him down within 2 traps but it's still recommended to charge all 3.
If you do not manage to kill the boss after using all 3 traps let someone kite the boss/keep him busy while the others pick up the guns again to charge another trap. Do not run away from the boss since he'll regain health.
Path 3: Tzark's Plan
This is the quickest path. Run east to the lover's crypt. To get there you'll need to cross a room with some spiders (ignore them) and a small tunnel with some elite ghosts. You can either kill those ghosts or just ignore them.
Tzark will put two beacons on either side of the room. You'll have to defend them until they are filled with ghost essence. Graveling burrows will spawn through the room during this process. Take them down as fast as you can, don't focus on killing the gravelings. Use melee and AoE attacks on the burrows so the gravelings around them get damaged too. If you see gravelings attacking the beacons hit them and kite them away. The beacons will regain 'health' when they don't get attacked.
If you don't manage to take down the burrows quick enough and too many gravelings spawn let one person kite the gravelings around to keep them away from the beacons.
Remember to use Frost Bows (skill 4) and Flaming Greatswords (skill 3 and 4 without target) if you have an Elementalist in your team. Stability is also useful here.
When the beacons are full Tzark will turn everyone into ghosts. Run to the gate that opens in the north to enter the next room. Cross this room following either the white path or the green path (see map). There'll be spiders in this room but you can just ignore those.
You'll find Warmaster Grast in the next room. Talk to him to spawn another 4 graveling burrows. Take them down, ignoring the gravelings, and proceed to the next room.
Tzark will blow up a wall so you'll have a shortcut to the boss. Follow the white route on the map to reach the boss room. You can either take the south or the middle tunnel. Don't take the north one! When you run to the most north point of the boss room the gravelings will stop following you if you took the south or middle tunnel, if you take the most north tunnel left they wont lose aggro so you'll have to kill them. Stability and speed skills are useful here.
During the boss fight it is very important to keep Warmaster Grast alive. Target him to make sure everyone knows where he is. If he dies revive him right away. At certain points during the fight Warmaster Grast will lift his hammer and a blue shield will appear around him. Stand under that shield to avoid getting crushed by falling stones. When the shield disappears you can spread out again.
