Ascendants climb the Chain of Ascension by killing, directly or otherwise, their superiors in Rak'Shir duels. Ascendants are only second to the highlord in the Chain. The lower an ascendant's title, the higher their rank (e.g. First Ascendant is of higher rank than Second Ascendant).[1] After years of absorbing terrazine and having the advantage of using their supplicants' essence, they become very powerful.[2]
Ascendants often dare one another to disable and commandeer an active colossus. If one succeeds, the Tal'darim gain a powerful war machine. If not, a rival ascendant has been eliminated. The most cunning ascendants utilize observers to spy on one another, in addition to the Tal'darim's enemies.[3]
Game Unit[]
Legacy of the Void[]
Ascendants appear in Legacy of the Void as a variant of the high templar. They are the Tal'darim faction option in the "psionic warrior" category, alongside the high templar and the dark archon. The ascendant's offensive abilities are Psionic Orb and Mind Blast, which do heavy damage to enemies, and it has the support ability Sacrifice, which allows it to drain life from an ally to restores its own energy.
The ascendant's primary advantage over the high templar is Sacrifice, which it can use to quickly restore its energy. This lets the ascendant be ready for combat right after warping in without needing to wait to store up energy. This also makes the ascendant powerful for prolonged conflicts, able to keep its energy reserves high to use its abilities liberally. Otherwise, Psionic Orb's potency versus Psionic Storm is circumstantial, and Mind Blast is a powerful single-target ability, both of which make the ascendant more offensive than the high templar, while the latter has Plasma Surge to support allies in combat.
If the player uses ascendants, the Spear of Adun's Reconstruction Beam ability is useful, as the ascendant can use Sacrifice on mechanical units and then Reconstruction Beam will heal them. Otherwise, sentinels and avengers are good targets for Sacrifice, since they can use their abilities to rejuvenate.
Abilities[]
Psionic Orb
Fires an orb of psionic energy forward, dealing 10 damage per second to all enemies in its path.
Ascendants can be built by Alarak in Co-op Missions. They are unlocked at Level 8 and further upgrades are unlocked for them at Level 12. Unlike the campaign, they start out with a full energy bar. Their Psionic Orb ability also has sightly different visual effect.
Ascendants are a uniquely powerful spellcaster unit thanks to their Power Overwhelming upgrade. They can rapidly become sturdier than even archons and their damage output skyrockets, a fully stacked Ascendant can oneshot Hybrid Destroyers with Mind Blast. Even key objectives like the Void Trashers can be bursted down in a second by a barrage of Mind Blasts.
Builds focusing on Ascendants should have roughly a dozen of them supported by a large mass of Supplicants and a few Havocs, as well as utilizing Alarak to keep focus off them as possible. Note that Psionic Orb damage stacks on itself, so a group of Ascendants unloading several can decimate attack waves with ease, while sniping down the tougher units like Hybrids or Ultralisks with Mind Blast. Train objectives featured on Oblivion Express and Part and Parcel are especially vulnerable to Psionic Orb as their segmented parts will be hit several times by every single cast.
At least 5 Warp Gates are recommended on Ascendant builds to keep a steady flow of Supplicants, and on longer maps over 8 are ideal.
After the desired group of Ascendants is on field, the player will start to pool large amounts to vespene gas, which can be spend on some Wrathwalkers or Destroyers. Minerals should be steadily spend on Supplicants, as Ascendants are dependant on them for their power upgrades. Running out of Supplicants in the middle of a push can be catastrophic, as Alarak might attempt to consume an Ascendant to sustain himself. Because Ascendants slowly ramp up by sacrificing Supplicants, even loosing a single one can be severe.
Having at least one War Prism available for pushes is ideal to quickly warp in emergency Supplicants.
Alarak's Shadow of Death prestige is recommended for Ascendant focused builds, as the Mothership can keep focus off the Ascendants with its immense durability and its teleport ability helps alleviate the Ascendants poor map mobility. It can also be used in a pinch to escape if Supplicants have ran out.
Mind Blast cannot target structures so Ascendant builds are not ideal for cleaning up bases, and their effectivity against structure objetives, like in Dead of Night or Scythe of Amon is rather low.
Abilities[]
Psionic Orb
Fires an orb of psionic energy forward, dealing 10 damage per second to all enemies in its path.
Power Overwhelming: +2.5 damage per second per Sacrifice. Up to a maximum 35
