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Cloaked Ascendancy FAQ (in progress)
lowjohn
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,061 Arc User
My guildies keep running into the same issues when progressing though Cloaked Ascendancy, so I wrote this up for the guild forums. I figured it might help other people. Here are most of the common answers to questions our people have while starting this module.
1) The progression blocker is Evidence Of Evil. You get 25 of it from the Daily quest, +1 for some HEs, +1 from some chests, +1 from some dig sites. There's a Weekly that gives50 (75?/100?)20. The weekly gives *20*. It appears once you've started investigating one of the wizards in the campaign.
2) The 3 resources that show on your HUD are trivial - easy to get, easy to spend.They're not used for anything important, there's no need to save them up. You can spend them for access to dig sites, to upgrade guard posts, or donate them to the treasure ship. All three of those count as progress for the Daily. Upgrading Guard Posts grants Security which is used in a campaign task for restoration resources. Donating to the treasure ship triggers the treasure ship BHE.
EDIT Feb 27: Reclaimed Magic has an important use, once you've started investigating a Wizard: Turn it in at the Ritual Sites (the ones with the small HE) for progress towards the top left campaign task. This gives you boxes that contain Portal Stones, and Portal Stones let you go fight the wizard and get an Ascended Artifact restoration resource. Make sure you pick the stone that matches the weapon you want.
The Reclaimed Weapons can be used for Security, which does the top right campaign task and can also give Portal Stones.
3) You have complete choice in how to proceed through the campaign. It seems smartest to pick a Wizard and start up the chain towards them rather than spreading around - that seems like the fastest way to unlock one of the weapon sets and unlock Spellplague Caverns. Also, it's not worth unlocking the campaign store discounts unless you plan to get ALL the Ascended weapons (there's an achievement!) since the discounts cost more to unlock than the discount you get on ONE weapon set. If you're looking to swap to an Ascended set ASAP, it's actually cheaper to buy it at full price than pay for the discount then pay the discounted price. The discount is only really worth it if you're going to buy *two* Ascended sets.
4) Unlocking an Ascended set requires going after the wizard that matches the Ascended set in the campaign tasks. Yes, there's 3 wizards and 4 sets,I think the 4th set is unlocked by Spellplague? The 4th set is already unlocked. You get the resources by farming the Illusionist's Gambit skirmish.
5) Dig sites have two states: Locked and Unlocked. When they're unlocked, a dungeon type gets attached to them. 99% of the time all the dig sites you see are going to be unlocked, because there's just SO MANY PEOPLE doing the River District right now. You can tell what state a dig site is in by hovering your mouse over the map icon.
If a dig site is LOCKED then you need to take over the guard post next to it, then interact with the dig site. Remember that Sewer Map you bought in the intro quest and couldn't figure out how to use, but completed the quest anyway? If you have a Sewer Map, or a Dungeon Map, or a Crypt Map, you can interact with a Locked dig site and unlock it, turning it into a dig site of the appropriate type. If you don't have a Map, you can unlock a random dig site type for 1 of each Collectable Resource. You get a free pass (IE, one visit) to any site you unlock.
If a dig site is UNLOCKED then that means someone else has already picked the dig site type, and you can see it by hovering over the map icon. You can buy a pass to visit the dig site from the ladder dude next to it, or find one in a treasure chest, and run the dig site for loots. You can only run each dig site once an hour, even if you change instances.
So: If you're looking for a specific dig type, carry a map or two of that type for any Locked sites you find, and swap instances to find Unlocked sites of that type. You can pick which type of site you get when you unlock a site, or pick a random type, but all dig sites on all maps are almost always unlocked simply because the Mod is only 3 days old.
If a quest sends you to a SEWER or a CRYPT or a DUNGEON, you have to go to a dig site that matches. You can't complete a Sewer quest in a Dungeon or a Crypt quest in a Sewer.
ONLY ONE MEMBER OF A PARTY needs a dig site pass - all other members get in free.
6) The River District Daily: It's a bit confusing because it has TWO parts to it, and it doesn't make that clear, and it's entirely possible to finish one part while doing the other, for days in a row, without ever noticing.
Ostaram gives TWO Daily quests in the River District. The first is always the same: "Go do stuff", with a counter up to 100%. The second is one you pick - he presents you with 6 options and you choose one. You have to finish BOTH these quests to finish the Daily and get your sweet 25 Evidence. If you don't take the second quest, or you take it and don't finish it, the first quest will hit 100% complete and change to just "complete Ostaram's Mercantile Mission". Since this quest is called "Mercantile MissionS", it's easy to think it just says "complete this quest" and is stuck.
Some of those choose-your-own-quests are really annoying - in particular, "collect family treasures" doesn't show on the map, doesn't produce a zone on the map, and the things you need to interact with look exactly like Thievery skill nodes. Others are as simple as "run to a dig site, pick up an extra thing while you're in there".
Anyone got any other basics to add? Anything I've gotten wrong?
1) The progression blocker is Evidence Of Evil. You get 25 of it from the Daily quest, +1 for some HEs, +1 from some chests, +1 from some dig sites. There's a Weekly that gives
2) The 3 resources that show on your HUD are trivial - easy to get, easy to spend.
EDIT Feb 27: Reclaimed Magic has an important use, once you've started investigating a Wizard: Turn it in at the Ritual Sites (the ones with the small HE) for progress towards the top left campaign task. This gives you boxes that contain Portal Stones, and Portal Stones let you go fight the wizard and get an Ascended Artifact restoration resource. Make sure you pick the stone that matches the weapon you want.
The Reclaimed Weapons can be used for Security, which does the top right campaign task and can also give Portal Stones.
3) You have complete choice in how to proceed through the campaign. It seems smartest to pick a Wizard and start up the chain towards them rather than spreading around - that seems like the fastest way to unlock one of the weapon sets and unlock Spellplague Caverns. Also, it's not worth unlocking the campaign store discounts unless you plan to get ALL the Ascended weapons (there's an achievement!) since the discounts cost more to unlock than the discount you get on ONE weapon set. If you're looking to swap to an Ascended set ASAP, it's actually cheaper to buy it at full price than pay for the discount then pay the discounted price. The discount is only really worth it if you're going to buy *two* Ascended sets.
4) Unlocking an Ascended set requires going after the wizard that matches the Ascended set in the campaign tasks. Yes, there's 3 wizards and 4 sets,
5) Dig sites have two states: Locked and Unlocked. When they're unlocked, a dungeon type gets attached to them. 99% of the time all the dig sites you see are going to be unlocked, because there's just SO MANY PEOPLE doing the River District right now. You can tell what state a dig site is in by hovering your mouse over the map icon.
If a dig site is LOCKED then you need to take over the guard post next to it, then interact with the dig site. Remember that Sewer Map you bought in the intro quest and couldn't figure out how to use, but completed the quest anyway? If you have a Sewer Map, or a Dungeon Map, or a Crypt Map, you can interact with a Locked dig site and unlock it, turning it into a dig site of the appropriate type. If you don't have a Map, you can unlock a random dig site type for 1 of each Collectable Resource. You get a free pass (IE, one visit) to any site you unlock.
If a dig site is UNLOCKED then that means someone else has already picked the dig site type, and you can see it by hovering over the map icon. You can buy a pass to visit the dig site from the ladder dude next to it, or find one in a treasure chest, and run the dig site for loots. You can only run each dig site once an hour, even if you change instances.
So: If you're looking for a specific dig type, carry a map or two of that type for any Locked sites you find, and swap instances to find Unlocked sites of that type. You can pick which type of site you get when you unlock a site, or pick a random type, but all dig sites on all maps are almost always unlocked simply because the Mod is only 3 days old.
If a quest sends you to a SEWER or a CRYPT or a DUNGEON, you have to go to a dig site that matches. You can't complete a Sewer quest in a Dungeon or a Crypt quest in a Sewer.
ONLY ONE MEMBER OF A PARTY needs a dig site pass - all other members get in free.
6) The River District Daily: It's a bit confusing because it has TWO parts to it, and it doesn't make that clear, and it's entirely possible to finish one part while doing the other, for days in a row, without ever noticing.
Ostaram gives TWO Daily quests in the River District. The first is always the same: "Go do stuff", with a counter up to 100%. The second is one you pick - he presents you with 6 options and you choose one. You have to finish BOTH these quests to finish the Daily and get your sweet 25 Evidence. If you don't take the second quest, or you take it and don't finish it, the first quest will hit 100% complete and change to just "complete Ostaram's Mercantile Mission". Since this quest is called "Mercantile MissionS", it's easy to think it just says "complete this quest" and is stuck.
Some of those choose-your-own-quests are really annoying - in particular, "collect family treasures" doesn't show on the map, doesn't produce a zone on the map, and the things you need to interact with look exactly like Thievery skill nodes. Others are as simple as "run to a dig site, pick up an extra thing while you're in there".
Anyone got any other basics to add? Anything I've gotten wrong?
Post edited by lowjohn on
4
Comments
I would say the easiest way to complete a Mercantile Mission is to look at what type of dig site has been opened closest to you, and take the quest that corresponds to grabbing an extra item while you loot the dig site. If you pick the quest based on what's already there, you don't have to worry about later finding the right kind of dig. I had initially forgotten/overlooked that the map tells you what the open sites are.
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Also, in order to unlock a dig site, you have to secure the site at least a little bit. But you can only do this if closer sites have been unlocked. This is a little confusing, but essentially you can only access to far-away sites if someone has upgraded the closer sites. Again, you might not run into this because of the high population in River District right now.
Also, might be worth moving this to guides and asking Zeb to tag it
1) This is not a feedback thread, so your comment would be better placed here:
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1228517/the-cloaked-ascendancy-issues/p1
2) If every new expansion was the absolute best use of your time in terms of farming AD / progression, then folks would come out of the woodwork complaining that the game is forcing us to only do the new content (see how people reacted to fishing in SoMI, which was arguably one of the best ROI activities in the game). Personally, I'm glad that they are aiming to strike a balance. New content gives new shinies, but old content is still feasible for farming etc.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1228665/mod-11-weekly-task
adinosii just posted the weekly gives 20 EoE
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1228665/mod-11-weekly-task
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If you're a control class, then you might be ok; if not, you could struggle - plenty of adds that hit hard and leap at you constantly.
As others mentioned, if a bit low iL, just group up.
Where do you trade Reclaimed Magic for portal stones?
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80