A Guide for Kunark Ascending PQs

The purpose of this guide is to help players understand the mechanics of the PQs in JW, KP, Fens and how to best negotiate each PQ working together effectively. I'm publishing it only in the spirit of maximizing the experience for everyone so PQs don't drag on longer than necessary. Each of these has essentially three elements: the main boss, adds, and ancillary things that have to be done.

Jarsath Wastes:
You know the Iksar statue will be walking soon when the "birds" appear over him. Teamwork is the key. The winged adds that surround the ballista need to be killed off and the ballista repaired. As long as the iksar statue is walking, he takes zero damage (until he's almost at the battlements, in which case hang your head in shame). Two things need to happen. 1. The winged adds need to be pulled from the ballista to the stone statue as it's walking and destroyed by all the people pouring damage on the statue. 2. Give the player who's going to repair the ballista time to get the mats and recipe and repair the ballista. This should happen BEFORE the statue reaches the ballista and walks by. Players who know what they're doing will stay ahead of the statue and be working on the next ballista before it's needed, so that when the statue arrives, it can be shot with a bolt, the iksar statue kneels (the only position in which it takes damage at all) and everyone pours the damage on. Again, pouring damage on the statue while it's walking accomplishes nothing because the statue can't take any damage unless you're killing the adds. The winged adds should never be fought at the ballista (sure, they can be, but maximum efficiency is the goal here). Killing the adds reduces the ability of the statue to resist taking damage, kneeling or otherwise, so make sure they're being destroyed. If you see someone pulling the adds to the statue, resist the urge to nuke the crap out of them and pull aggro off the player trying to get them back to the statue. Occasionally, I see players fighting winged adds around ballistas that the statue walked by and is no longer in range. Don't waste time unless you're totally bored and just want to kill them yourself. If you're really lucky, maybe you'll win the Stone Sword of the Iksar, which is pretty nice.

The Fens:
The Herald arrives and now you have the quest. There are a lot of adds surrounding the dragon and these bad boys need to be rounded up and brought back to the dragon and destroyed. Usually, one of the smart players will run around and grab them up like the king of the Easter Egg hunt and bring them back to the dragon where they'll be facing a barrage of player damage. They help the dragon not take damage, so they must be eliminated. Once they're down, expect them to respawn at certain points of the fight, so again, someone should gather them up and bring them back to the group. You want to spot the inexperienced players? They'll be the ones off to the side pulling solo adds to fight. This is a straightforward tank and spank and pour the damage on. Don't let the adds stay out of range; pull them in to the dragon at every opportunity. The fight will end much sooner than if you stay focused on the dragon. With some luck, you may win the charm.

Kylong Plains:
This is the fight that seems to have a fair number of people confused about what to do. Hopefully this guide explains the mechanics to make this run more smoothly. There are several elements to this fight: 1) The Omen Feeder, 2) the Yha-lei mobs, 3) the tentacles and 4) the Hydromancers on the aerial platform. Once the PQ has spawned, you need to kill 100 of the fish mobs to get the Omen Feeder to spawn at the big bubbly pool in the center. This is usually helter skelter killing with a lot of mini groups running around. Fairly basic "kill it if it moves."
Here's where the trouble begins. The Omen Feeder spawns and people begin pouring damage at it. RESIST THE EFFORT. Why? Remember the comment about all the tentacles? They supply a buff to the Omen Feeder. Let the tank grab aggro and lead the Omen Feeder around who eats the tentacles, which removes the buffs. Don't take aggro from the tank, who trying to facilitate the fight going much quicker. If you must nuke something, keep the herd of Yha-leis down while the tank is doing his/her job. Once all the tentacles have been eaten, then light the fires and kick the tires because it's time to put the Omen Feeder down. One cautionary note here--remember the Hyromancers? Periodically, you'll be tossed in the air. Avoid landing on one of the aerial lily pads where a hydromancer is, because if you do and then jump down, high probability you'll die. If you simply avoid the lily pad, you'll survive the fall. DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, KILL A HYDROMANCER. If you do, you just caused the coin reward to be cut in half. Otherwise, at the end, you have a chance to win the fabled/relic helmet.

Hopefully, this guide will provide the information needed to move through each PQ quickly and smoothly. The more people work together in cooperation, the faster the boss goes down and you can move to the next. If I missed anything, apologies in advance.

Very nice guide, Bhayar. Thank you for taking time to write this up.

Ahhh cool. Thanks for the write-up.

sadly those that need to know this cant read as it is stated all the time in shouts during the kill.

You have to kill the Stoneweaver adds when the statue knells fast, they heal him. Also flying into the bubbling water in KP starts the quest. Easiest thing to do in KP unless you are pulling him around is turn your merc and pet off with the green dove button and stand far away.

So this actually gives me the perfect opening for a (related, I promise) question about which I've been wondering for a while: How, exactly, is PQ loot "assigned," for want of a better word? Let's say there were 20 people involved in the fight. When it ends, each of those players gets either one or two rewards, depending on whether they had also completed the once-a-day quest for that particular outing. Will all 20 players end up with the same reward (the relevant footwear, for instance), or is it totally random, as is the case for any mission? Does one player always get the "rare" reward, whatever it is, or can it be given to more than one person -- or, depending on the RNG, no one at all?

I can't give you a definitive answer obviously as I can't see the code. But I have seen examples of more than one person receiving the rare reward, and can confirm that different participants get different rewards (be it merc gear or regular gear, and various slots). So I storngly suspect it's just a RNG reward for each individual.

it is rng as I have two boxed these several times. it is the same as agnostic chests: class specific and random. I don't box these any more as the lag is just too much with players over loading the zone with invites since the epic 2 spell components were added.

they actually die a LOT faster with about 12-20 or so people provided you have a couple heavy epic 2 hitters.

The adds don't heal the name in real time. If they are still up at the end of the 1 minute kneel, they sacrifice their life depop and heal the statue. It's been a long time since I have been in on an attempt where the adds last more than 10 seconds or so, but you have the full minute to kill them without heals.

As far as I have seen flying into the bubbling water does nothing. I've seen the event start with just people standing next to the fisherman waiting for it to complete spawning.

Excellent guide!

Just one question - where is the recipe to repair the ballista found? I assume it uses level 100 mats.

The recipe and mats are all around the ballistas. Click the dead iksar body to get the recipe, and the wood/rope/bag to get the three components.

I might add that adds in Fens PQ are much less resistant to magic damage, so, for example, Wizard Prestige AA ability, Unda Arcanus Spiritus work wonders on those, hitting for almost 50% of their health in one blast (if you have enough Potency).

Not a derail, just trying to add to the post;

JW.. no need to kill the ballista mobs, you can leave them alone completely. Many players capable of grabbing mats from prior cleared ballistas and standing next to the next ballista to repair it while 1-2 adds bash down on them. Love it when players prepare repaired ballistas ahead, and not so keen on players who feel its necessary to round up all ballista mobs (which repop) and bring them to the named to be killed. Top reward likes fens is lore, so if you get nothing if you already have it and get lucky again. Move to an alt and get more!

KP: Does not need to be a tank to do the tentacle run. On HOF one of the best "clearer of tentactles" is a casual guilded necro with some nice heroic gear, who does it with ease. Helm reward is relic, reward is not lore.

/sarcasm on

Thanks for pointing that out for everyone to see. I'm sure it will be adjusted to be more in line with progression now - just like the Stone Sword of Iksar / Greenmist / Hemotoxin / Lifeburn / etc - all of which have been stomped into being as useful as emoting /rude for the added dps.

BUT, since we're posting spoilers and tips and tricks, ya'll are leaving out the most important one that 80 percent of the PQ participants use, lets not forget to address the elephant in the zone:

1. Get quest
2. Autoattack
3. Get reward

I mean, lets be real here. We've all seen 'em. Just standing there doing jack squat. You look at the parse, they've hit the mob 10 times over the course of 30 minutes. Yeah, those guys.

The rewards aren't performance based, so all the wizards, necros, planeswalkers, reapers.... unless RNGezes decides to bestow upon you the uberest of loots.. you're going to be as effective as one of those used car dancing noodles dual weilding two +1 arms of flappy flappiness.

/sarcasm off

Zed
I notice rather strange thing about PQs. - most damage done by either physical damage or auto attacks. On PQ and on PQ only I have my savage ally top parses by huge margin also I got my very first Fens charm and the ONLY rare loot piece I ever seen from PQ (after over 200 total runs) only after I start consistently dominate parses (all of them).
While I am not arguing about chances (yeah I guess simply hitting mob ONCE and after that auto follow someone is sufficient) I think there is timer trigger for reward for how long you been in combat (I might be wrong thou) basically to get on list for reward you oughta jump into the fight fairly early

While hitting mob in fens and jw works and for OF hitting one of the adds before xalgoz works... seems kp you just need to be in the event area to get one of the quest updates and reward. Dead players come back later to see what they got. And Doom... you keep thinking your parse matters on a PQ and everyone with you for the ride will be happy.

Where is the quest giver for the PQ in JW please

right outside of outpost big dude on Rhino

Bumping this again and not for ego gratification. Was in several PGs yesterday on my necro and noticed there are way too many players running around with zero notion of how to negotiate public quests. I thought this was odd, but other guildies mentioned they're seeing the same issues. Not sure the how or why, but if this guide can help, we're all better for it.

Can someone grab the actual names of the PQ quests and maybe a screenshot of what the Journal Window says about them? I'm trying to get this info on the wiki as well, and I need the name of the quests for each PQ.