Guide to fame farming

The Fame Game
Fame are special points which are earned by winning Battles in Heroes' Ascent. These points are charted up in the Heros Title Track and the more you have is a sign of your ability in one of the most difficult tournements presented in Guild Wars. Heroes' Ascent is a very difficult Tournament, but it rewards that hardship with personal glory if one succeeds.

Fame is earned by winning matches in Heroes Ascent, winning consecutive battles will earn you more fame. The following chart shows how much fame you will earn based on how many consecutive victories you have obtained:

This guide will try to share with you some of my tips for earning Fame.

Note: Heroes' Ascent is by no means easy and do not expect to read this article and find some genius way to gain free fame or some glitch or exploit. HA will always be a battle, this guide will hopefully help you shape your means of earning fame.

This article is written under the notion that you (The Reader) is unaware of effective methods of gaining fame in Heroes' Ascent. This Article is to shape your fame gain methods.

Identifying Builds
Before you try your skills in HA it is important that you study what builds people run in Heroes Ascent. Note the popular builds, and what skills they are running. Get to know the layout for each of the maps and the objectives for winning - this will save you some embarrasement in the future.
 * Visit offical fansite PvP sections and forums, read information and insight from high ranked players to gain insight into this gametype.
 * Open Observer mode and watch top rated Heroes' Ascent and HoH battles and watch particular players, note what skills s/he uses and how s/he responds to any given situation.
 * NEVER BE AFFRAID TO ASK in Observer Mode for attributes and skills for certain builds.
 * If you do not even know anything about mainsteam builds used in HA watch the public chat, if you see someone going "W/E Shock Axe LFG" ask him about the build, ask for attributes, skills etc.

Identify your means of gaining Fame
Below are some of the popular methods new players use to get started:

Friends List/Guildies
The most powerful way to gain fame is to maintain a solid friends list and to be in an active guild. People that know of your skill and PvP expertise will readily invite you into groups even if you do not meet that group leaders rank requirement. This means you have a better chance of getting into organized teams that have a much better success rate while in HA. Getting a solid contact list is a difficult thing to get started, but once you have a few contacts getting a few more is not as difficult.

The best method to getting started would be to get into an active guild that at least on occasion will venture into HA. The second best method would be to roll a popular build and join a Pick Up Group (PUG) that does not require rank. In either case, when you win a few rounds add the leader of that group to your friends list and next time you are ready to venture into HA send a whisper to that person and ask if he is forming a group. In addition to adding group leaders to your friends list, add exceptional players to your friends list and ask them if you can join their group later. By building your friends list with solid contacts you will have a much easier time joining sucessful groups and gaining the required rank.

Henchway
Since the update of HA from 8 man teams to 6 man teams henchway has become an increasingly popular build, they pack a decent spike for a henchway group and generally do ok. Henchway still requires atleast 2 people to enter. Some points to remember with henchway:
 * for an effective henchway team you need to call targets and spike them, henchways have poor performance as lone fighters.
 * There is only 1 Healer Henchman, one of the human players may need to run a Monk.
 * Create builds which complement the henchmen. The henchmen will pile all their damage on a called target or whatever target you are currently attacking. Bringing skills that suppliment the skills of the henchmen (such as enchantment removal) can lead to a higher success rate.
 * Use Control+shift+space to target a foe, all the henchies will attack that target, try not to push on the target too long if he does not die.
 * The key to henchway is persistance, you will lose a lot but then you will win some. you keep at it in with persistance and the fame will add up to some degree.
 * Generally this is a poor and slow method to gain fame, it is unlikely you will defeat the majority of teams that enter Heroes' Ascent with a henchway team.

PUGs
PUG's are Often disorganized espically pugs which are below Rank 3. If you do decide to join a PUG make sure they are organized in some way. Make sure they have a solid team build or possibley voice communication such as Teamspeak Or Ventrilo.
 * Unlike henchway, PUGS normally disform after the first few losses.
 * If PUG groups are not around try and create your own, it does take some leadership and you will need to determine the capable players and the incapable.
 * PUG's almost always run a popular build that is seen in Observer Mode, knowing these builds will help when you are trying to find a group.

Heroes
Heroes are a new Edition to Guild Wars with the release of Nightfall, they are basically henchmen which you have the option of customizing with runes, attributes, skills, first and secondary profession. Heroes are better choice then henchmen in the sense that you can plan your build and make skills work in Synergy. The Heroes are still AI and work similar to henchmen but you can control some aspects of them such as what skills are used and where they moved. Another new feature is the ability to enter Heroes' Ascent by your lonesome if you have heroes, this makes fame farming espically easy and takes out the pressure of finding another person or group.
 * Heroes can also be merged with henchmen to make a team of heroes and henchmen.
 * Heroes have incredible interrupting abilitys as they are AI, it is generally a good idea you fuse interruption into your hero's builds.
 * At the current time, you can not get more then 2 heroes for 1 class.
 * A team of Heroes and also Henchmen have a great disadvantage against Real Player groups as real players can make concious thoughts and decisions which can determine the outcome of a battle. Generally, Heroes or henchway teams cannot win Hall of Heroes or win many consecutive wins without major difficulty.

Rank 3
Rank 3 is the first stepping stone in your Fame quest, once you reach Rank 3 more groups open up to you with more diverse and organized teams, you are expected to play to a certain level of quality for your Rank. It is difficult to get to rank 3 with no connections or much experience but perist and eventually you will atain this coveted stepping stone. At Rank 3 you are also capable of showing your title to the world and have access to the deer emote by typing /rank or /fame in chat. Be sure to keep up with the everchanging builds in Heroes' Ascent, the metagame always change overtime and it is important to keep yourself avalible to all builds. Always be prepared by having popular builds ready to go when you are looking for a group.