Ascalonian Catacombs #GW2 #GuildWars2
stargrace 
Last night the Combat Wombats met up in the homeland of the Charr to take on the level 30 story-mode dungeon ‘Ascalonian Catacombs’. Our greatest challenge was trying to get everyone into the zone, even when we all started from the same instance. Some how we got bugged and we all had to log out before the game would let us in. 20 minutes after pounding at the gates they let us through. Fixed? Not so much.
I learned a few more things this dungeon run. Rangers are not nice. Elementalists die first. Boulders are not an exploit, bring them and use them EVERYWHERE.
I also learned that if you really want to get the best benefits from a dungeon, you should try to do them when you’re level appropriate. While the gear that I got from every chest and drop was for level 57-58 (my level) the final dungeon chest rewarded a helm that was level 30.
To say the dungeon was easy would be a complete and utter lie. It took the Wombats about mid way through for us to finally find our groove. Once we adjusted traits and got comfortable with each others play style things went much easier, but were still really hard. Because dungeons scale you just like the rest of the world does, there will be no running off to solo instances that I can see, unless some sort of mercenary NPC is added further down the road.
Once you’ve completed story mode you’ll have the option (as long as you’re the right level) to either re-enter story mode, or move on to exploration mode. Apparently exploration mode is MUCH harder than story mode, so you’ve been warned.
Still, it was a great evening and I had a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to seeing what our next adventure will be.
As always, happy gaming no matter where you find yourself!