Runescape: Order of Ascension Monastery

Runescape released the Order of Ascension this week.  The Ascension Monastery caters to high-level Rangers/Slayers.  It's a nice change of pace from the normal dungeons in that respect.  Some good training, decent drops, and a unique boss system that allows the social slaying while keeping gate-crashers out of your party.

On the day of release, Monique and I just didn't have time to try it.  Same the next day, and the next.  Finally on Friday we had a chance to go in.  Not knowing what to expect, we suited up the best we could, and brought our best ranging gear.  For me, this was mostly the Superior Death Lotus Armour and a Zaryte Bow.  Monique wore Armadyl gear.  I don't remember her weapon of choice, but think she just brought a rune crossbow and broad bolts.

As it turned out, the dungeon is easily survivable.  Probably could have used lower level gear and not worried too much.  We joined up as a Co-op Slayer duo, but never had the opportunity to test it out, as we never received a keystone drop.  That's okay, it was still fun.  And I'll eventually get to try the bosses out.

There's no really short way to get there.  The Monastery of Ascension is placed in the middle of a triangle of arrival locations.  You can run south-west from Feldip, North-West from Oo'glog, or North-East from Mobilizing Armies.  All three are about equal in distance.  Easy to get to, but you do have to run a pretty fair length.

Upon arrival, Ocellus was standing at the doorway to greet us.  The introduction was interesting enough, but I couldn't wait to get into the dungeon, so blitzed right through all the talk.  It does take at least 81 Slayer to get in.  Going inside, the ambiance is dark and spooky.  I was expecting the monsters to be very tough, but actually they were quite manageable.  Each one is unique, and fight using teamwork.  The Rorarius are a cohesive unit.  Attack one, and you find yourself fighting ALL of them.  Gladius are the coolest of the bunch.  They teleport and use stun.  They have a special weakness to being attacked while stun, which makes having a partner useful.  But they weren't really hard to kill.

The Scutarius are the most difficult to solo, because they have very powerful shielding to the front.  Again, if you have a partner, one of you can distract them while the other attacks from the rear.  No threat, just takes a long time if you're soloing. 

The biggest non-boss threat is the Capsarius.  These lovely ladies heal and protect the other monsters.  If one of these is nearby, you won't have much luck killing anything.  Best option is to kill the Capsarius every time she regenerates, then go back to the others.

The dungeon is large, and has some high-level agility shortcuts giving access to more monsters.  Like I said, we never got a key drop, so I can't say much about the Legiones.  I had hoped for a chance to co-op Slay, but oh well. 

The drops are decent, and it's well worth bringing some Hi-Alching runes.  The Order of Ascension monsters are weak to Range, and the entire dungeon is designed for Ranging and Slaying.  In terms of how it looks, ease of fights, and drops, it reminds me a bit of the Grottworm Lair.

Probably won't duo it any time soon.  Monique would rather work on slayer by assignment, since she's gotten pretty high-level and would like to earn her 99.  She recently got her 99 Dungeoneering.  That's cool, because Dungeoneering has one of the most awesome capes in the game, with it's three different emotes.  As for myself, I'm still working mostly on getting 120 Dungeoneering.  At 110, I've come a long way, but still have a long way to go. 

 That means neither of us has much time for the Ascension Slayer Dungeon, unless Monique gets an assignment in it.  I liked it enough to go back.  Sometimes my usual routine starts feeling too much like... routine.  When that happens, now there's another great place to go unwind a bit.