Ultimate Ascension Tutorial

[Ehjookayted]

We all know Ascension as an easy yet boring map to get high rounds on. Through many of my games, I've developed a good strategy for high round runs. Today, however, that strategy was nearly perfected with Chopper-Nator.

------------------------------------------------------------------

ASCENSION ULTIMATE STRATEGY

First Room

Leave after round 3, don't buy any wall guns. Knife rounds 1 and 2, shoot a clip and a half at round 3, then knife. Hopefully you can get a Max Ammo or double points.

Mid Rounds (Before Jugg)

From the starting room, open the top door, buy an MP5K and chill and camp there going for head shots until around round 6. You should each have enough points for Juggernog, a box hit, and more MP5K ammo if you don't get good weapons. Whatever you get, don't trade in your starter pistol, unless its a Thundergun or Ray Gun.

Hopefully you do get a good gun, to deal with Monkeys. Now for monkeys, an MP5k will do alright, shotguns are good, but knifing them will be one stab, even without the sickle. For monkeys, protect what's important to you. For this strategy it'd be Juggernog and PhD Flopper. Stamin-Up is easy to protect so there's no harm in protecting it. You can use claymores, but make sure you only use them for perks near stairs (Speed Cola and Flopper), as Monkeys can get rid of them if they aren't angled on stairs.

You should always get a free perk this first monkeys. If it's quick revive, plan on letting it go. If it's Stamin-Up, still open that area up. If it's Flopper, it'll already be open, and if it's Speed Cola, don't open it up.

Before Round 10 (with Jugg)

This should only be a couple rounds, but camp in the same platform area. This should be relatively easy. The reason for this short period of camping is that the zombies are all not sprinters yet and are not difficult, but annoying to train.

Nothing's worse than having to waste ammo on the 3 straggler zombies of varying speeds after you've killed the 15 sprinters.

Until Pack-a-Punch

Once you hit round 10, separate into 2 training locations. In my opinion, one person should be at Stamin-Up and one at Flopper. These are both great trains, Stamin-Up being very underrated. The 74u here makes a great weapon to use. If P1 (Flopper train) uses just the MP5K and if P2 (Stamin-Up guy) just uses the 74u, pack-a-punching is possible at round 11 or 12, depending on when you get monkeys. If you get monkeys on 11, it's probably best to have only Jugg and the perk you got for free. Defend the perks the way you see fit.

Leave a crawler at the end of 12 (or whenever you have enough points) and go Pack-a-punch. P2 should get Stamin-Up at this time if he/she does not have it. Running circles in the PaP room is made substantially easier with Stamin-Up. PaP your starter pistols. If you don't have it because you have a T-Gun/Ray Gun, don't bother pack-a-punching. This just opens up the PaP room. Ideally, however, one person should have Mustang & Sally. They're extremely efficient against monkeys and save your @$$ always.

Until round 35

Now the beauty of the strategy begins. P2 with 74u should switch for MP5K for a round. After round, both should hit the box for an LMG, Galil, Gersche Devices or Matryoshka Dolls. Don't sweat not getting the latter two if you can't. You need a long-lasting points gun first and foremost. The RPK and HK21 will last un-upgraded until around 19/20. Galil is the same. After you start chewing through ammo, upgrade. These guns will now last until about 25/26. Only use these guns to kill the zombies.

Drops (Max Ammo, Double Points, etc.) are based on points, 2000 collective points to be exact, multiplied by 1.14 with each round. 2000 --> 2280 and 2280 x 1.14 and so on.

While it may seem like this would take a while, you rack up an insane amount of points. On only round 33, Chopper had 200K points. What does this mean? You get an insane amount of drops. More Max Ammos, more Insta-Kills, more Death Machines and more Nukes. These increase your firepower, save ammo and what not. Insta-kill is wonderful, as you can pull out Ray Gun/M&S fire a couple shots and kill the whole wave. With this strategy, getting to round 30 in 75 minutes is all well and possible. To round 35, use a mix of both.

By this time, you might have run out of ammo in your LMG/Galil and probably will have. At this time, P2 can move back to Stamin-Up area and train there with power weapon and 74u un-upgraded. P1 should buy an MP5K. Shoot your wave with two full buys of your respective sub-machine gun and finish them off with the M&S or Ray Gun. Upgrade the Ray Gun around 30 or even before. At the end of 34 or 35, leave a crawler and hit the box for Dolls, Gersches and Thundergun. Each player gets a whole box. P1 hits till teddy bear, box moves, P2 hits till teddy bear. Kill the crawler when you're ready for the End Game Strategy.

End Game Strategy

Now you will get closer together. Player with Thundergun runs trains near the auto-turret. The routes are tight, but with cut-backs and corner grouping, it's fairly easy. Player without T-Gun runs at Flopper. In the mid 30s to mid 40s you can trade off using T-Gun and traps. For the early part it's trap by PaP and T-Gun.

What to do with trap near PaP:

Communicate and tell Flopper guy to run down. Meet him and take zombies to trap, one player hits trap, the other shoots zombies with one clip of MP5K/74u. All zombies in wave will die. Take stairs up and then drop down at the hole and return to hoarding areas.

For Thundergun:

Player with Flopper station runs to corner with MP5K then runs all the way down to trap. Player with T-Gun runs to that corner and up to Flopper. Zombies will all follow P2 (guy with T-Gun in this example). Quick crescent hoarding tactic and Thundergun shot wipes 'em all out. P1 takes trap route back without actually using trap.

Alternating should work until time for master end game strategy at 45-ish. This will include trap by 74u/Stamin-Up. Use Thundergun first, then trap by PaP and then trap by Stamin-Up.

For Stamin-Up Trap:

Hoard zombies in same area. This time P1 runs past P2 while P2 is corner grouping. P2 follows and can shoot with 74u one clip or two. Both players retreat to Junkyard. P1 hangs back by lander; P2 groups zombies using staircase and then jumping off. Players run back out. P1 can shoot with MP5K. P2 buys trap. Return to areas.

Conclusion

This strategy takes a while in the 30s, but in the 40s, with high respawn speed, it's fast, somewhat dangerous and provides variety when zombie games tend to get boring. Your points will continuously go up. For end game monkeys, never open up that bottom door from starting room and never open up the door at the other side of power. Using T-Gun, traps and auto-turret, monkeys will be easily dealt with. In insanely high rounds (if you were to get to 85+) using this strategy, one player would continuously hit the box for T-Gun while the other would control all the zombies (always shooting them!). To shoot is very important, seeing as if you don't, the zombies begin to die off and will respawn near your partner, and you don't want that to happen.

As a last note-

What to do when someone goes down:

Let the other person's zombies join your train, bring all your zombies out and revive them. Quick revive is not needed at all (unless it's your 5th perk). After they are revived, don't kill any zombies until they have bought their needed perks. Usually Jugg, but sometimes Jugg and Flopper.

What to do if someone dies completely

This should NEVER happen. But if it does... finish the round with whatever gun you have, kiting on the Flopper platform. When the round begins, kill the last of the zombies in the MPL room, hopefully spawning him/her near Jugg. Let him/her get Jugg and buy an MP5K. Give him/her the Flopper area. Leave a crawler at the end and let he/she do what he/she needs to do.

How to pause the game to stop for the night

If you are going for a 60+ game, you can pause the game like this:

Have a crawler, repair all the windows. Let the crawler bleed out; find where the zombie is re-spawning before it breaks out of the window. Get on the opposite side of where the zombie is respawning and hold down []/X/F. Notice how it can never break through the window. Now, take something with weight and tape it down to your controller/keyboard. You can do this as long as you like. The zombie will never die. This has been tested for 2 hours. However, since zombies die off only when they are in the map, inactive, or are crawlers, this creates a way to stop the game. Be wary of overheating or game crashing if kept on too long. There is no solution for that.

------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope you guys found this helpful; it has taken me a couple months of games and research to perfect (almost) this strategy. I'd appreciate the feedback and love

Video coming soon.

[way2g00d]

Hey, nice strategy overall. I really like pausing the game trick. will try sometime. [brains] to you.

[Superhands]

Very nice 2-player strategy, very in-depth and I completely agree that the player that doesn't get the Thundergun should PaP the M1911 to the Mustang & Sally, combined with PhD Flopper these can save your ass and are great for monkey rounds.

Just something to add - I'd recommend rather than one person running a loop by the auto-turret, they'd probably be better off running in the launch pad just outside the PaP room instead. Nice wide-open space, a lot less tricky to run and only a few seconds away from the auto-turret run, so the trap strategies you talked about would still work just as well

[brains] To you and I'll get on to writing that FIVE strategy for your project real soon :D

[Chopper]

Very nice 2-player strategy, very in-depth and I completely agree that the player that doesn't get the Thundergun should PaP the M1911 to the Mustang & Sally, combined with PhD Flopper these can save your ass and are great for monkey rounds.

Just something to add - I'd recommend rather than one person running a loop by the auto-turret, they'd probably be better off running in the launch pad just outside the PaP room instead. Nice wide-open space, a lot less tricky to run and only a few seconds away from the auto-turret run, so the trap strategies you talked about would still work just as well

[brains] To you and I'll get on to writing that FIVE strategy for your project real soon

Hey Super, you are right it's very tricky to run in there. We just played using this strategy and unfortunately had to quit at 35 as Eye had to go out.

I tried that area by the Turret for the first time on 33 and managed it ok without going down. Then on 34 I got a bit too confident and went down twice there.

We realised that if the flopper player starts at the bottom of the stairs it will attract a few of the early zombies coming from the Jugg area away from that turret which makes a massive difference.

The simple reason we want to perfect that is that it saves at least 20-25 seconds each wave as we want to go through the trap from the flopper side. If 1 player is collecting at the PAP lander he has to come all the way back up to the flopper area and then turn around again to collect the zombies to go back through the trap. This is purely almost a speed run strategy past level 33.

We spend the first 30 or so with an HK or RPK, managing with the ammo with no problems. 31 and 32 are pure point whoring with 1 player in the stamina area with an AK and the other on flopper with MP5K. Both these rounds will give 25,000 points to each player in 10 minutes each round. This was pretty much ironed out tonight, next time we are going to really both have the time to see how quickly we can get to 50.

[Chopper]

Here is also some footage showing how to perform the glitch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_3smLSxq38

[Phat130y69ps4]

Great guide the only things i might add or change is I always get quick revive and only open jug from the first room....one person can protect TWO perks at once so its worth having being u wont lose it and someone will be there anyway. and if you play with 4 people i like two by flopper (1 running in circles and one in the room shooting thru the hole) Also I agree i think its easier for someone to run by pack a punch too. all n all though you nailed it!

[Chopper]

Great guide the only things i might add or change is I always get quick revive and only open jug from the first room....one person can protect TWO perks at once so its worth having being u wont lose it and someone will be there anyway. and if you play with 4 people i like two by flopper (1 running in circles and one in the room shooting thru the hole) Also I agree i think its easier for someone to run by pack a punch too. all n all though you nailed it!

The way we play quick revive isn't necessary. Revives are always simple as you are always split and can group all the zombies in your own area before sprinting to do the revive.

[thischarmingman]

ive got to like 25 without even needing to pack a punch my thunder gun. i just run trains by the lander in the swamp/lander junk yard where you release the orb in the EE. its so easy to kill an entire train with one shot of a thunder gun. sometimes you must shoot one to get the train going but it works the best and got me to 34, was playing with 4 people in different spots, would have gone farther if i didnt have to leave and try to revive people.

[slamscape]

Great guide the only things i might add or change is I always get quick revive and only open jug from the first room....one person can protect TWO perks at once so its worth having being u wont lose it and someone will be there anyway. and if you play with 4 people i like two by flopper (1 running in circles and one in the room shooting thru the hole) Also I agree i think its easier for someone to run by pack a punch too. all n all though you nailed it!

The way we play quick revive isn't necessary. Revives are always simple as you are always split and can group all the zombies in your own area before sprinting to do the revive.

It is not just about the quick revive. It also makes the monkeys have to work 10 times as hard to even reach jug. QR isn't vital, but if you can easily have all 5 perks, you should get them.

Getting into the jug room after being downed is a bit tougher though the bottom if you dont use the lander, but it is a lot easier to get out of the jug room using the bottom than having to force your way back up the stairs into a small room for the prime spawning location of the zombies to whoever is on the platform.

[MixMasterNut]

I don't understand why everyone's Ascension strategy says stay in the spawn room until round 3 or 4? What are you sticking around for?

Personally I think the best strategy is to get out of the spawn room ASAP. I leave at the very end of Round 1. That way the G-Force machine doesn't have a chance of kill any of my zombies, thus robbing me of potential points. Also, it's much easier to train zombies and setup collateral bullet damage outside. There's no reason at all to stay inside. Playing outside is where it's at!