Defender of Ascalon

Legendary Defender of Ascalon is a title that you can display for prestige.

It is awarded per character for reaching level 20 in Pre-Searing Ascalon.

This title is meant as an incentive and reward for "perma-pre" characters, however, you keep the title if you leave pre-searing.

Defender of Ascalon title track
You will earn the "Legendary Defender of Ascalon" title if you reach level 20 prior to the Searing.

Note: Progress for this title is not shown until the character reaches level 12.

Guide
The most important thing if you want to start working on this title is to understand how the experience gained from killing monsters decreases as your character gains level. Please read: Experience

Step by step

 * 1) You may start any and all quests (especially to unlock skills given upfront or in the process of the quest), and you may even complete the quest, but do not claim the reward yet until you reach at least level 16, preferably level 19. The only exceptions being your very first quest for your first two skills (such as from Van the Warrior, Ciglo the Monk, or Verata the Necromancer).
 * 2) *Note: A quest that has been completed is marked as "complete" in the quest log, but it will not be removed from the quest log until you claim the reward.
 * 3) *Note: Some quests cannot be completed without claiming the reward. Such quests should be abandoned and postponed, especially if quest items occupy a valuable slot in the inventory.
 * 4) *Note: It is advantageous to wait until 19 because you gain more XP from death leveling if your own level is low, and as a higher level, you need to death level monsters to a higher level to get equal experience from them (thus taking more time).
 * 5) Fight your way to level 16 solely by killing monsters: Most foes in pre-searing are level 3 or less. You may climb quite fast by killing level 3 foes, for example Black Bears, Blood Sworn Bandits and Ice Elementals in Wizard's Folly. There is a trail of Black Bears and Bandit Blood Sworns just north-east of Foible's Fair. Follow the path towards Lakeside County and proceed to head west once you pass the house. There should be a portal to enter the catacombs. Use this to respawn the enemies as necessary. It is recommended to do this until level 7 or 8.
 * 6) *(There are some higher level foes in presearing as well: an adult drake in the river outside Ascalon itself, and a warrior boss skeleton in the dead end above the pit in the Catacombs. Or you can choose to bring forward steps 3,4 or 5 to accelerate your progress though be warned that you will inevitably spend a lot of time repeating them later.)
 * 7) An effective method to finish (or earlier speed up) the climb to level 10 is by repeating the quest Charr at the Gate and abandoning it every time it is completed. The foes are level 5 and Rurik and his forces beat them easily while healing you effectively if you join in. Make sure that you have the foes in your danger zone in order to collect the XP. Map back to Ascalon and abandon the quest immediately so as not to accidentally accept the reward.  By speaking to Lady Althea as you pass the Actor's Stage you could add (and later abandon on completion of course) the mesmer quest A Mesmer's Burden which spawns a level 5 Rogue Bull nearby.
 * 8) *Instead of abandoning the completed Charr quest the process can be speeded up (at the cost of one kill's XP) by map traveling back to Ascalon City while one Charr remains alive. This saves abandoning and reclaiming the quest from Rurik.
 * 9) From level 10 on you will have to venture into the Northlands to kill level 7+ Charr.
 * 10) From level 14 you must get your XP from killing the level 10 Charr bosses.
 * 11) From level 16 on, you must use the "death leveling" method. For details see the section "Death-leveling" below.
 * 12) At level 19 you may claim the XP reward for all quests, including all quests for all secondary professions. This will boost your level to 20, or very close to it. (Caution: As soon as you've confirmed your secondary profession certain quests become unavailable, so you should complete those first and claim the reward, but DO NOT click the "Accept as secondary profession" button.)

Note: You can accept a secondary profession and still collect all rewards for the other secondary profession quests. What you cannot do is get the quests themselves once you have committed to your second profession. ''Example: Monk character finishes all five secondary profession quests (Me,W,E,R,N). Monk character goes back to Warmaster Grast and accepts warrior as a secondary profession. Monk character levels to 19 as directed by this guide. Monk character can now successfully accept all quest rewards, including those for the other four secondary professions.''

Death-leveling
Due to the fact that you do not gain XP from killing foes that are more than 6 levels lower than yourself, and the fact that the highest level foes in pre-searing are level 10, the only way to climb higher than level 16 is by completing quests with an XP reward, and by so-called "death levelling".

This involves leveling an opponent monster by allowing it to kill your character over and over (typically while the player is afk). The monster gains experience from this and levels up. The monster must be located near a Resurrection Shrine in order not to lose aggro before your respawn.

Monsters commonly used for this method are Striders in Ashford Village and Moss Spiders near Barradin's Estate. It is also possible to lure a Charr patrol in the Northlands close enough towards the Res Shrine to death level them, but it is a bit tricky not to lose aggro (see guide in External Links section for details).

You can speed up the frequency of being killed (and consequently the experience gained by the foe) by:
 * removing all armor to reduce your AL,
 * aggroing more than one foe at a time (but only one of them will level up!),
 * wielding a vampiric weapon (giving -1 health regen, they are very rare in pre-searing, but they do exist!),
 * repeated life sacrifice (which means you can't go afk),
 * using the warrior skill Frenzy, causing you to take double damage.
 * repeatedly activating the warrior skill Healing Signet just before getting struck and cancelling with the escape key after being struck, causing you to have -40 armor without getting healed.

Warning: After 10 (or 12, this seems to have changed to a few hours before error) hours of no activity at all (no movement, no keystrikes, no inputs, ...) you'll automatically be disconnected from the server with an error 059.

Once the monster reaches an appropriate level (preferably level 20, at least your own minus five) it can be killed for experience. Remember there is no death penalty in Pre-Searing.