I'm copying and pasting my guide from GWSCR.com koz we now have gw2BBCode! Expect more guides and stuff.
Starting the dungeon
After you watch the first cutscene, all you need to do to get into the dungeon proper is kill the Graveling Breeder that pops up. Watch out for the traps - if you know where they are they're very easily avoidable. The breeder should not pose any sort of a threat unless your team is AFK.
When the breeder's dead, the 3 dungeon NPCs will spawn, and you can buff them with swiftness to speed them on their way. Once they arrive at their camp, you can trigger the next cutscene, and then start the voting to choose your path.
Queen Spider
After the Priory camp is a staircase leading downwards - if you stand at the top once the voting is finished, a graveling burrow will spawn at the bottom, but if you run straight down the stairs before voting finishes, it won't have time to spawn. In any case, you can ignore it and run past, or if you're cool, stand where the hatchlings can't hit you and solo the burrow.
Watch out for the traps in the next room, including the flamethrowers at the far staircase. These can all be avoided.
The next room contains a Queen Spider boss, who can either be run past or killed for her 10s drop and the waypoint she spawns. If you choose to kill her, it's highly recommended that you dispose of all the baby spiders in the room before you fight her, or you'll be poisoned all the time. Any skills that reflect projectiles will deal with them easily. Also consider destroying the gargoyle heads that shoot fire at you koz they do a lot of damage.
After you kill the boss, there'll be a doorway that is closed until you vote for the path. If you forgot to vote, make some fool waypoint back to trigger the voting. Then go through the doorway, deal with the big group of gravelings on the other side, and dodge past a long tunnel full of traps. At the other end of the tunnel is a chain that disables the traps, so only one person needs to make it through. PROTIP: don't fight the gravelings on the traps!
Kholer and the troll
The next boss is Lieutenant Kholer, who can be one of the most annoying foes in the entire game because of his Dagger Storm. If your team isn't prepared for him, you'll have a horrible time. It used to be popular to run past him, but since the update that made him drop 10s, most groups prefer to kill him. He also gives a chest (yay, 2 blues and a garlic bread!) and a waypoint.
Stuff to know about Kholer:
1. he's a turd
2. he has 2 silver buddies, but can easily be pulled away from them
3. he uses a brutal elite that can down the entire team at once
4. he really is a turd
Okay so when he's not using his elite, he doesn't do too much damage, so long as you have a vague idea how to play the game. So you just need to be prepared for the Dagger Storm and you'll be fine. Here's what it does:
1. Kholer stands still and slowly raises his right hand. This is the only cue you'll get.
2. he sends out projectile hooks (which can be blocked, reflected or dodged) at everyone
3. if you get caught by a hook, you'll get pulled straight to Kholer - stability will prevent this
4. Kholer spins round, reflecting projectiles (so if you just successfully avoided getting pulled in, don't use projectile attacks) and dealing massive damage to anyone in melee range. It's basically Whirling Defense [Whirling Defense] (ranger off-hand axe skill) but he's a liar and pretends it's called Dagger Storm. If you got pulled in and you can't break stun to get away, you're pretty much guaranteed to get downed.
With sufficient practice, it's fairly easy to spot the cue (unless he's covered by any of GW2's gloriously OTT animations, such as Virtue of Justice...) and time a dodge roll. If you're a guardian you can also throw up Aegis [Aegis], Stability [Stability], or Wall of Reflection [Wall of Reflection] to benefit the whole party. Other professions have cool skills such as Feedback [Feedback] on mesmer or Magnetic Aura [Magnetic Aura] on ele.
If you're lucky, you'll get a random spawn of a Cave Troll boss. This can appear in any one of a number of locations - it'll break through a flat section of wall when somebody walks past. The Cave Troll is great for 2 reasons:- it drops 10s and it's hostile to Kholer and is strong enough to kill him, allowing you to simply tag both the bosses and get both the drops. You're not required to pull them together (some prefer not to, as it does complicate things a little), but if you do, the easiest way to make them fight is to pull Kholer to in range of the troll, and then jump down into the water to break aggro.
Note that sometimes the troll doesn't spawn at all, and sometimes it'll spawn later on in a place you can't pull Kholer to. It's random.
Hodgins's path
Up until Kholer, all 3 paths are identical. After that encounter, they go separate ways. If you chose to help Hodgins, you'll be heading south from Kholer. There'll be a staircase going down to the next room - it's covered in flamethrowers! Either run down very fast with good timing, or you'll need some sort of invulnerability skill like Mist Form [Mist Form].
Archive of the Resting
This next event requires you to kill 6 graveling burrows whilst defending Hodgins from the adds they spawn. If you have eles on your team, scream at them for Frost Bows [Conjure Frost Bow]. Kill the burrows as fast as you can and Hodgins probably won't die - don't bother defending or healing him. Each time you kill a burrow, another one will spawn until you get to the last two. You don't really need to know the pattern they spawn in, but if you're interested it's very simple to observe.
If you fail the event i.e. Hodgins dies before the last burrow does, revive Hodgins and speak to him when you're ready to try again.
When you're finished, one person needs to go to the new waypoint, run up the stairs and interact with the coffin to find the scepter.
Second scepter
Return to the Foefire's Heart Waypoint - if you didn't kill Kholer earlier, you'll have to run back up and avoid him. As you enter the Rockfall Chamber, hug the left wall to avoid popping oozes. When Hodgins comes into the room, he'll tell you to go collect some scepter pieces in the Hall of Champions - I think ANet were expecting us to kill all the gravelings in there but there's no point - just equip survival/running skills and dash around the hall picking up scepter pieces. Leave one person (ideally the squishiest) with Hodgins to talk to him when all the scepter pieces are collected. Then you'll get a chest and a new waypoint.
The Howling King
You can run all the way to the end boss without too much difficulty, but feel free to kill everything along the way if you're not in a rush. Once you get in range of the Howling King's patrol though, it's wise to choose an area to fight him and kill nearby breeders so they don't interfere. When you have a safe space, carefully aggro the boss and pull him to the team.
Be aware of the boss's 2 special scream attacks - the cue for these attacks is that he'll rear up on his hind legs. There's no way to recognise which one is which until it's too late, but he alternates them so you'll always know which one he's going to do next:
1. spewing out some adds - either a breeder, some hatchlings, or a howler (prioritize killing breeders, use hatchlings to rally, ignore howlers)
2. a mighty scream that inflicts confusion, although you won't notice the confusion because the damage will insta-down you - just don't stand in front of him when he does this
In between each scream, he will burrow underground and move towards someone who isn't standing in close range. When he surfaces he deals a lot of damage and causes knock down in a large area. You can avoid this by running away or just not standing so far from the boss.
Detha's path
Go east from Kholer into the Eastern Chambers and then south into the Flooded Temple.
Flooded Temple
This event requires you to defend Detha while killing a huge group of gravelings and a graveling boss. Behind Detha are 5 chains which trigger spike traps in the area in front of Detha. The traps do huge damage to the enemies - they don't harm the team. At least one player (ideally a heavy with plenty of survival skills) needs to stand in the trap area to hold the aggro away from Detha, and up to 4 people can use the chains to kill the gravelings. Whoever's tanking should run around to stay alive and move the gravelings across all the traps so they die faster.
If you fail the event i.e. Detha dies before the gravelings do, revive Detha and speak to her when you're ready to try again.
When the event finishes, grab your chest and leave the room.
The Ghost Eater
Running to the end boss is slightly harder than the other paths, and sometimes people prefer to kill the gravelings to prevent Detha from glitching. There are also a couple of champion scavengers who drop 5s, and an unavoidable group of oozes that are hostile to the gravelings. Next to the oozes is a chain you need to pull to enter the final room.
Before the boss will spawn, Detha needs to build 3 cannons. While she does this, you need to defend her from groups of Ascalonian ghosts. When she starts building a cannon, a group of ghosts will spawn, and as long as she's still building, any time you kill a ghost it will re-spawn. Once she finishes the cannon, kill the ghosts and she'll move on to the next cannon. For the third cannon, you don't need to fight the ghosts at all, since they just de-spawn when she finishes. Accordingly, it's a lot easier to just kite around and hold aggro while she builds.
Here are a few tips for fighting the ghosts:- use the pillars in the room to line-of-sight the ghosts and ball them up. Prioritize killing the necros, and don't worry about the mesmers. If Detha gets killed while building a cannon, do NOT revive her until the ghosts are gone, or a whole new group of ghosts will spawn.
After all the cannons are ready, talk to Detha to start the boss fight. This is one of the easiest boss fights in the game, provided you stay in melee range of the boss. If it targets someone who isn't in close range, it'll do an annoying burrowing attack. Provided everyone stands on top of the boss, this will never happen, unless of course the boss targets Detha.
Ignore the adds - they do NOT drop ectos. They're only good for rallying off if by some miracle you get downed.
Tzark's path
Go east from Kholer into the Eastern Chambers and then continue east to the Lovers' Chamber - as you run through the tunnel, you'll spawn a group of ghosts, so it's best to run together as a team. Otherwise you'll screw over the people at the back.
The Lovers' Chamber
The actual goal of this event is to defend the 2 essence collectors against graveling spawns, but the easiest way to do this is by destroying all the graveling burrows as they spawn. If you have eles on your team, scream at them for Frost Bows [Conjure Frost Bow]. If you don't, kick yourself for not bringing an ele and just be prepared to do a lot of damage. Hopefully you'll have at least one person on the team who's memorized the spawn locations of all the burrows, or at least someone with sharp eyes who can ping quickly. Follow their instructions and run round destroying burrows.
The Hall of Champions
Run to the next bit (I don't think I've ever even heard of a group where people wanted to kill the trash along the way) and walk up to Warmaster Grast to trigger the event. It's pretty chill - just destroy all 4 burrows in your own time. Heavy AoE damage is excellent - don't get killed by the gravelings (in case that isn't obvious).
Grab your chest and go straight to the new waypoint.
Colossus Rumblus
This boss is very similar to the Howling King; try not to confuse the two of them. They spawn in the same location and look identical; here are the notable differences:
1. Colossus Rumblus's primary scream attack doesn't summon adds - instead it causes bits of the ceiling to fall down and do massive AoE damage. Avoid the red circles.
2. The route from the waypoint to the boss is a lot shorter, because Tzark blows a hole in the wall.
3. Oh hey that's all the differences! Apart from that they're exactly the same.
His secondary scream is exactly like the Howling King's - it used to have a ridiculously huge range (approximately 300°), but apparently this was a bug, and it has been fixed.
Subject: Ascalonian Catacombs explorable walkthrough 
Fri Feb 22, 2013 8:09 pm
