Your ascendance is now complete.

My first character in Guild Wars has finally ascended. It took me a lot longer than it probably should have, but I finally did it. My character is a Necromancer/Mesmer. He’s a great support character but he doesn’t exactly dole out the damage. (Note: If you haven’t ascended and/or don’t want any spoilers, you might not want to continue reading.)

For those who don’t already know, the final “test” is a face off against a doppelganger, a “mirror” image of yourself. Sort of. This so-called image of me had a big magic axe and powerful bow, both of which I don’t have. He also had my spells but he was doing more damage to me than I could do to him. No matter what I did, he was whipping my butt. I got close to beating him a couple times. Of course close only counts for nuking elementalists. I had to quit for a while because I was getting frustrated. Not just frustrated. FRUSTRATED. It didn’t help that fellow GW-mate Bobster told me how easy it was for him. I had no clue what to do.

Most gaming I do, I do “pure”. I don’t do GameFAQs, I avoid spoilers and hints as best I can. When I beat a game, I want to do it without any help. (That’s probably one of the reasons why I haven’t finished Viewtiful Joe) When it came to ascending in Guild Wars, I wanted to do it “pure”. I didn’t want help from the interwebs or fellow players. Heck, for a while, I wouldn’t even change my skills, allowing him to kick my butt with my own magic, repeatedly. I’m stubborn like that. I noticed he was doing some serious damage with his bow (insane damage, actually) so the first thing I did was upgrade my armor. With the new armor, I redoubled my efforts and took him on again. I tried numerous skill combinations and strategies. After another dozen beat downs I decided purity wasn’t as important as actually getting it done, so I went off to the crazy web and did a little research. Of course hitting the forums immediately yielded results and victory was near.

The solution? Necromancers have a handy little spell called “Insidious Parasite”. It steals health when an enemy physically attacks you. With my new armor I was better equipped to take a beating, so I ran in, cast IP on my doppelganger and let him go to town on me. Since he was dealing out less damage than what I was leeching from him, I just sat there and let him kill himself. Cheap? Maybe. Impure? Sort of. I would have figured something out eventually, I just didn’t have time for eventually. Ascensions need to happen, know what I’m saying?

So in the end, I guess I should just be happy to have reached a GW milestone and get on with my questing, but there will always be that nagging doubt in the back of my mind.

I’m unclean.

At least now, maybe I can finish Viewtiful Joe.