Ascension Chamber/Raid History

The Black Abbot awaits his rise to godhood and only you can stop his ascension. {{Quest
 * history= yes
 * name= Ascension Chamber
 * level= 15
 * duration= Long
 * normal= 4900
 * hard = 5100
 * elite = 5300
 * loc= Hall of Ascension
 * npc= Sir Rohine Stiedra
 * zone= The Necropolis
 * patron= The Silver Flame
 * favor= 6
 * mappic= M_ascension_chamber.png
 * overview=This article is about the old versions of the Accursed Ascension raid. For the current version look here: Ascension Chamber.

For changes to the loot, see Ascension Chamber loot history.

Flagging

 * Complete the Litany of the Dead story arc.
 * Reflagging is never required for this raid.
 * obj=
 * Defeat the Black Abbot
 * misc=

Original Release (Module 5 Version)

 * The initial debut of this raid was significantly harder in many ways, and easier in one major way: The puzzles were not required to win. You could simply have everyone suicide in their respective puzzle rooms, get resurrected on the main platform and attempt to win the raid with brute force alone... although even suiciding often wasn't necessary, as in this version the Abbot had no range limit on his telekinesis, so he would often fling players into the pit of death after he teleported them to the puzzle room, although generally just the last person who had agro.


 * However, as hard as the puzzles were, the fight itself was much harder in many ways as well in this older version:
 * A single death was extremely devastating: Every time anyone died, they turned into a deadly ancient mummy priest which cast blade barriers, cometfall, slay living, greater dispel and in general was very hard to kill.
 * The trash waves were spawned far faster and in greater numbers.
 * The level cap was still 14.
 * The Black Abbot himself was slightly more powerful, casting faster and teleporting more often.
 * He would also occasionally return to his platform, summon new trash reinforcement and lob fireballs at the party for a minute or so.
 * Inferno wasn't quite as devastating as the current version and dealt slightly less damage and did not drain spell points.
 * Despite the incredible difficulty of this version, it was still beaten many times through shear determination and heavy use of major mnemonic potions, averaging around 25+ per run. Even elite was beaten on the US servers (First by Khyber), as at the time very little actually scaled (mainly just the trash monsters as the puzzles were almost always skipped).

Module 5, Patch 1 version

 * This patch made the raid essentially impossible to complete by adding these changes:
 * Touch of Dolurrh: The grip of death holds tight within the Ascension Chamber: You suffer a -10 penalty to all your statistics. This effect was utterly unremovable and meant that a single death made the large majority of characters helpless for the duration of the raid.
 * All the puzzles HAD to be completed, in a single pass. (And you could not choose who went where.)
 * This debuff was so severe that it made the raid nearly impossible to complete. The debuff was later removed on normal difficulty only, then completely removed on all difficulties in the following patch.
 * There were no known completions of this version.

Module 5, Patch 2 version

 * Major changes were done to un-break the raid, though in generally not really enough to make it reasonable to complete.
 * This version was beaten on normal as the insane Touch of Dolurrh and Mummies were removed on normal difficulty. But only a few times by a hardcore group on the Japanese servers on normal difficulty only. Hard and elite was never beaten in this version.
 * Full list of changes from the release notes:
 * Touch of Dolurrh is now removed when you are teleported to a puzzle.
 * Ice platforms last for a longer period of time, and are much less likely to appear underwater.
 * The rate at which raid loot from the Black Abbot drops on hard and elite has been increased to 20% on hard and 25% on elite.
 * The Touch of Dolurrh effect has been removed from Normal difficulty.
 * The Phasing chasm now adjusts based on difficulty. "Normal" mode should be significantly easier than "Elite". "Elite" is unchanged.
 * This wasn't true. They instead changed all difficulties to the new easier normal version, a welcomed changed since the old versions were near-impossible.
 * Mummies no longer spawn on Normal and Hard difficulties
 * A delay has been added to the Asteroids chamber to give players a few moments to prepare for the challenge
 * Multiple-use Rest and Resurrection Shrines have been added to the Black Abbot's platform upon completion of the raid.
 * As the Black Abbot’s power has grown, so have some of the items contained within his horde. Heroes that defeat the Black Abbot will find that certain loot items contained within his chest have been improved. Existing items are unaffected by this change.
 * See Ascension Chamber loot history for details.
 * The three trials contained within the Black Abbot raid no longer need to all be completed in a single teleport pass and the Black Abbot will now send you back to the three trials if you have not yet beaten them, rather than simply continuing the battle immortal.
 * This note wasn't really true, as you had to beat him down to 1% for him to do this, which was unreasonably difficult. All known completions were done in 1 pass.

Module 6 Version

 * In this version a few more tweaks were done to make the puzzles more reasonable, and you were allowed to re-attempt them when the Abbot hit 60% health. Along with the level cap being increased to 16, this made the raid more reasonable to win, although still extremely difficult.
 * This version was beaten on the US servers, though not frequently.

Module 7 Version

 * Another major overhaul to the raid's three puzzles further decreasing its difficulty. Mainly the ice wands puzzle had some major bug fixes, the phase tiles were slowed down a lot, and asteroids began to scale based on difficulty, letting players get some experience and learn how to do it on normal before facing the still fairly difficult elite version.
 * This version saw many completions by all servers on all difficulties, as many players finally started to learn the puzzles and beat them with a reasonable success rate, which along with some recent loot improvements made it worth running. Although, compared to other popular raids such as The Shroud, it was still very far behind in popularity as the difficulty level was still far higher than what most pick up groups could handle.

Full quest details on the Module 7 version
When you enter this quest, make sure you do not move too far past the end of the bridge until all your party members have made it across as this disappears and can drop them into instant death water. When you beat the Abbot down to around 70% of his maximum HP, he will retire from the battle. At this point he will also teleport 6 random team members to the 3 puzzles, 2 to each. If you do not have 6 live players at this time, you in effect fail the quest as the puzzles are required to win.

The three puzzles are:
 * Iceball Wand Room - You and your partner have to equip a special wand and take turns to create ice islands on the deadly water to progress to the other side. Each island lasts for around 15 seconds and the cooldown is about the same for the wands, so you have to alternate the creation of the islands as you go across. Try to place the islands a reasonable distance apart and not under a bolt path from the traps that are present. Each wand has 10 charges, new wands are supplied on completion where you will find a portal to return you to the main encounter area. When both parties are standing on an island and one of you is going to cast an island next, try to make sure you do not stand on/behind the player casting the island as this can cause the DDO aim mechanic to bug and fire the wand charge in a random direction - this can cause you to fail the challenge as you have no island to progress to when the one your standing on dissipates.
 * Asteroid Room - Pick up the rocks and equip these as your main hand weapon. You then have to use mouse look and attack to aim these throwing rocks at incoming asteroids before they can knock you off your suspended platform. If you fail you fall to your death in the main encounter area.
 * Although throwing the rocks is probably the method intended by the developers of solving this puzzle, the group I play with has determined the most reliable method for completing this puzzle is for characters capable of using summons and create undead scrolls to create many summoned creatures. These can also be dispelled and turned to stone. This has the effect of blocking the asteroids from knocking you from the platform. Care must be taken to try and remain in the middle of the platform while the asteroids continue to reign down upon you. Once complete more throwable rocks will spawn and a portal will appear which will return you to the main platform to battle with the Abbot again.
 * As of Update 6.1 patch 1, the Create Undead spell and scroll now has an extended cooldown timer which is shared by all sort of summoning spells, you can no longer summon as many undeads as you want.
 * Phasing Tile Room - This puzzle sees the person with the goggles having to guide a teammate across a series of invisible platforms that phase in/out of existence. Take your time to examine the pattern and find a good route across. Ideally you will get a pattern that will allow your partner to run across without having to "change lanes". A good technique for this is for the person on the platforms to run sideways while looking at the person with the goggles. That person only runs when there are platforms available for the runner to be able to move to. Thus you mirror each other's movements across the pattern. As there are issues with voice chat latency, I would recommend that if you need your partner to change lanes that you use visually agreed cues such as jumping to move away a lane or block to move forward a lane etc. Once the first person is across they then have to equip the Alpha phase goggles and use those to guide the other player across his hidden platforms. Once both characters are across, portals spawn to allow you to return to the main platform to continue battle with the Abbot.
 * A helpful technique is to also document the maneuvers you will be doing, for example:
 * 1-4 stop, 5 stop, 6-9 stop, all the way.
 * This lets your partner know when to expect to move/stop as they progress across the tile pattern. You can also count the tiles as you progress across if you have voice chat.

Once all 3 puzzles have been completed successfully on the same run (all 3 are needed, otherwise you have to melee the Abbot down to 1/3 of his hp before he once again retires from the battle, sending new random team members back to the puzzles), you will be able to continue the fight against the Abbot. He uses 3 special attacks at various points:


 * Inferno - The entire platform will be engulfed with fire causing excessive (200+) damage every 2-3 seconds and will also drain spellpoints. To avoid this, the players with the ice wands need to create ice islands off the main platform. When Inferno ends you can return to the main platform to continue the fight. The Abbot may use inferno several times so be ready.
 * Items that help are fire resist/protection, fire shield and to mitigate the damage taken.


 * Encasement - The Abbot can encase party members with a tight constricting rock which squeezes the life out of them. The only way to break them free (apart from death / res) is for those who succeeded in the asteroids puzzle to throw rocks against those who are encased to break them out. Typically you need 3 hits to break a player completely free.
 * If you get encased whilst on an ice island this can create a platform that can be used to avoid inferno should those with the ice wands die.
 * If you have the Freedom of movement spell cast on you or are wearing the Kundarak delving boots from the Plane of Night raid you will be able to jump out of the encasement without any additional help.


 * Invisible ghosts - The Abbot can summon mp and hp stealing wraiths/ghosts (believed to be 4 at a time) which those without the beta/alpha phase goggles cannot see or attack. Those wearing the goggles must dispose of these, although they are affected by AOE attacks such as Firewall. Note also that if you are wearing the goggles you cannot see party members or mobs in ordinary phase (i.e. the Abbot etc).

My recommendation is that if you fail any of the puzzles at the first attempt, just get out of the quest any way you can and try again, unless you want to practice handling the fight against the Abbot's special attacks (assuming you completed at least 1 of the puzzles and have the right equipment to do so).

Additional tactics that can help There are several tactics which you can follow to make this raid much more likely to be completed:
 * Choose partners. As only 6 people can be teleported to the puzzles the other 6 get left behind. If you choose 6 people to die (or fewer if not a full raid), assign each person who dies to a specific person who will live. This will guarantee that people who know the puzzles get to go there and also have backup people to help after they are raised.
 * Get an encasement on the water. Inferno can easily wipe your party when you return to fight the black Abbot. It's recommended that you try and get a safe spot away from the main platform which you can retreat to in case of Inferno. In my group those with the ice wands are assigned the duty of immediately going to a set location and creating islands which they jump back and forth from. If they have Freedom of movement or the Kundarak delving boots they cannot be permanently encased. You will also have an encasement on the water which people can jump to to avoid Inferno. It's recommended that you only stand on the encasement island while Inferno is active to avoid additional further encasements building a tower to which you will be unable to jump. If you are likely to be encased its advised to stand at the very rear of the encasement so a stepped effect will be created which you can climb.

In-quest items; * Items above are all Destroyed on Exiting Adventure, Destroyed on Death, Bind on Acquire
 * Iceball Wand - Wand: Iceball (caster level 1) 10 Charges, 15 second cooldown
 * Allows you to create iceberg on the water, used to cross the Ice room, then to avoid Abbot's Inferno
 * Beta Phase Goggles - Goggles: Visibility 2
 * Alpha Phase Goggles - Goggles: Visibility 1
 * Allows the wearer to see out of phase things, platforms and invisible monsters
 * Boulders (available in stack of 50) - Equip in weapon hand
 * Allows you to destroy incoming asteroids and on successful completion of the puzzle to break Encasement cast by the Abbot in later fights

Module 9/Eberron Unlimited Version

 * Yet another major overhaul to this raid. This time around, the big change was the additional of player-selected puzzles. Previously all members of the raid had to be experienced in all puzzles as you could not choose who went where. In this version, 3 portals appeared after you beat the Black Abbot down to 60% health, allowing you to send scouts and choose which puzzle each player enters after the scouts determine which is which.
 * Puzzle difficulty was also decreased yet again, making them much more reasonable to complete consistently, and eliminating some annoying bugs which would often cause problems.
 * Release notes for this version:
 * The CR of the Black Abbot raid has been increased to 17!
 * Significant changes have been made to the Black Abbot raid to make it more friendly to pick up group raids.
 * Fixed a problem with the Black Abbot Asteroids chamber that often required more asteroids to be destroyed than expected, especially with many people in the room.
 * Boulders thrown in the Asteroids portion of the black Abbot raid no longer decrement by 2's.
 * The Accursed Ascension raid has had much of its treasure improved. Existing items are unaffected by this change, except for:
 * Retroactive Changes: Both the Lesser Maximize and Lesser Heighten spell effect buffs increased to 20 seconds in duration.

Update 11 Version

 * Update to the Black Abbots hitpoints: Gave him nearly triple the hitpoints (from 50K to 135k)
 * There were no release notes mentioning this, it was a stealth change that no one really expected or saw coming.

Update 12 Version

 * Most major raid bosses were upgraded in some ways. Loot saw massive changes and some possible upgrades added - see Ascension Chamber loot history for details.
 * When adding the Seal of the Black Abbot to the chest loot drop tables (0% on Normal, 11% on Hard, 16% on Elite), they lowered the named item drop rates and introduced a hole in the drop tables on Hard and Elite (see discussion). This changed the named item drop rate from 16%/20%/25% per character to 16%/15.52%/14.56% for Normal/Hard/Elite, and made 20th-completion lists (which use the Elite drop table code) possibly contain fewer than the intended ~10 items (usually containing 3-8 items instead). This was fixed in Update 13.
 * Note that this resulted in the raid requiring more runs for often lower-quality loot, then requiring more work to 'upgrade' the loot back to previous normal qualities.
 * The Black Abbot had a longstanding bug fixed: previously, he never scaled between difficulties. He now does, and became immensely harder on elite, seriously challenging extremely well prepared veteran groups of level 20s, whereas before even level 14s had beaten him on elite. All of his stats increased, his hitpoints alone increasing to over 300k - which meant an increase of 600% in only 2 updates - a rather drastic and unpopular change with most players.
 * Was made easier/harder in one way: The Ice Room water was no longer insta-death, but instead dealt heavy damage over time. This meant that clerics with divine intervention could not simply swim through it anymore. But also meant that any class with very powerful self healing abilities could potentially survive a swim. Dark Monks can still safely use Dance of the Water Strider to walk over the water without taking damage.
 * Due to these changes, the raid very rarely gets run on elite. It is still frequently run on hard as you are required to run at least hard to get a chance at a seal to upgrade the raid loot.

Update 13 Version

 * The hole in the Hard and Elite loot drop tables was corrected (so the 20th-completion lists should contain the intended selection of ~10 items), with the new chest drop rates being: 16%/18%/20% per character on Normal/Hard/Elite, with a separate roll for Seal of the Black Abbot with a drop rate of 0%/11%/16%.
 * Note that this is still a reduction vs. the pre-Update 12 drop rates of 16%/20%/25%, requiring more runs for often lower-quality loot, then requiring more work to 'upgrade' the loot back to previous normal qualities.
 * The Phasing Tile Puzzle was changed to scale with difficulty (technically a correction of the bug listed in Module 5, patch 2 above): The old rate is now the speed on Normal, Hard is faster with fewer permanent tiles, Elite is even faster with no/few permanent tiles:
 * Update 13 made the Tile puzzle more difficult on Hard and Elite difficulties:
 * Normal: Some static blue tiles. Phasing tiles cycle:
 * 9 seconds white
 * 3 seconds fading to red
 * 4 seconds missing
 * Hard: Very few static blue tiles. Phasing tiles cycle:
 * 6.5 seconds white
 * 3.5 seconds fading to red
 * 5 seconds missing
 * Elite: No static blue tiles. Phasing tiles cycle:
 * 3.5 seconds white
 * 3.5 seconds fading to red
 * 7 seconds missing
 * Neither of these changes were mentioned in the release notes.
 * Because of the severe difficulty of the Phasing Tiles Puzzle on Elite, the raid is only run on Normal or Hard (usually Hard since Normal doesn't drop the Seal of the Black Abbot required to 'upgrade' the loot back to normal qualities).

Update 13 Patch 1 Version

 * Currently in testing on Lamannia, the Phasing Tiles Puzzle is changed back to the Normal speed on all difficulties.

Update 19
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 * After the update, the ice islands formed by the Ice Ball Wands can't be stepped on. Since this update also feature the enhancement revamp that removed monk's Dance of the Water Strider, the only method of completing the ice puzzle is to have a character with high heal amplification, moderately high hit points (600+), and Silver Flame Healing Potions swim it. The quest was closed until they fix the ice islands.
 * traps=
 * Ice Room has some piercing dart traps on the way.
 * Deadly water - Touch it and die (Up until the Update 12 version, when it was changed to deal heavy damage instead)
 * Pit of Doom if you fell in Phase Tile puzzles. (Instant-death, no way to survive)
 * Asteroids - instant death in original versions. Later changed to simply deal 200 damage per hit.
 * npcreward=Standard, with special 20th reward
 * chest=Black Abbot warded chest
 * monsters=Black Abbot, Wheeps, Quells