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Guardian Grinding & Leveling Guide

Counterstrike 4/3 (use your max rank)

Grinding w/ People

40-41 Counterstrike Stance 3/3

Tempest

Soldier

Use the Stand Your Ground ability immediately on pull, then again at 30 seconds, and a Health potion the moment it becomes fully effective (i.e. if your health pot direct heals for 450, use it once you’re about 450 health down). Use Shield Sweep any time you feel you need to. Juggernaut if you have it before using a Strike and aoc gold Guard or Overreach.

11-15 Toughness 5/5

Counterstrike 1

16-20 Weapon Master 5/5

Overreach or Plexus Strike

1. Feats

3+ Mobs, Higher Level, Safe:

2. Grinding Spots

-Always have plenty of consumables on hand. Every 10 levels (w/ the exception of 70), you should have independent Stam and Health pots up. These are cheap, so stock up in the hundreds if you have inventory room.

-Particularly good since this is a range that currently has few quests.

49-50 Improved Shield Bash 3/3

Frenzy Stance, Ardent Battle Cry, Juggernaut and Volcanic Rage aoc gold , as well as most other instant abilities, can be applied mid-combo. If you have effective keybinds, you should be using this before you finish out your Overreach or Strike and Guard.

1-2 Mobs of near equal level:

-Casters screw you. If you’re grinding multiple mobs higher level than you and a caster comes your way, it’s a good sign to leave. On the other hand, a lot of casters don’t actually cast — Sorcerers have a tendency to melee attack and summon a minion, whereas medics and chaplains are more likely to call the fireworks.

Soldier

-Another relatively unfarmed area, maybe because people are moving on to Kheshatta. The bottom left wanted poster only opens up once you hit 68 so people might miss this. It’s near Ivoryvale (there is a waypoint there; don’t forget to find it in the Southeast corner near the Trogs), and the Trogs are easy to grind 2-3 at a time. Annoying thing is they have a stun w/ a 20s cooldown, so pulling three can be frustrating.

The value of Counterstrike and bleed damage is that it is highly effective on mobs significantly above your level. Provided you have the gear, there are several places where you can kill 1-2 mobs 10 levels above you; it’s not normally time efficient but it can be fun.

Code:

3+ Mobs, Higher Level, Dangerous:

Guardian Feats - The Age of Conan Armory

Counterstrike 3/2

Juggernaut

Boars (Thunder River) 58-64

0. Quick Tips

30-30 Readiness 1/1

70-70 Juggernaut 1/1

2. Grinding Spots

Juggernaut

-Juggernaut/Soldier is better than Tempest/Soldier for leveling.

10-10 Storm Blade 1/5

Soldier

52-52 Forced March 1/1

Soldier

3. Ability Usage

-The hitbox is large on these so it can be frustrating to get 3 or more with the CS debuff at a time; however, they are so abundant and so rarely farmed; in the far Southeast (??) corner of Thunder River; make sure you keep searching vertically upwards until you find the spawn point with the boss mob.

At Level 60, Respec to the following build:

Cannibal Cave (Eiglophian) 52-56

Juggernaut

48-48 Stunning Charge 1/1

Code:

25-29 Bleeding Counterstrike 5/5

Frenzy Stance can also be effective at the beginning of pulls where you’re only dealing with one or two mobs and they are within 3-4 levels of you. This allows very quick kills with Overreach and Strike and Guard.

To fix that, don’t step backwards an equal distance from all of them! That just causes them to form up exactly the same way in a different spot. Instead, shift back and to the left, very slightly, so both the mob to your left and the mob in front of you can still hit you. This causes the right-most mob to move into your debuff triangle:

If you’re grinding with people, all of these have to be adjusted. Counterstrike is NOT an effective opening move; try Overreach or Strike and Guard instead, depending on if their cooldowns are up, to get the attention of the mob.

1. Feats

Level Differences

Strike and Guard

Counterstrike 3/2 (use your second highest)

45-47 Lifesaver 3/3

-Per KieraTaer’s response to this thread, there are effective repeatable quests across the zone. Check response #8 for more information, as well as information on Eiglophian locations.

30-34 Recovery 5/5

x O x

Counterstrike 4/3

68-68 Cunning Deflection 1/1

78-79 Improved Dulling Blow 5/5

Other points worth mentioning:

35-39 Improved Defensive Stance 5/5

-Most archers will begin melee damage the moment you attack them. So, if you see one, run to it and hit it before you start grinding the group next to it. This changes in Kheshatta and at least in a few places elsewhere.

42-43 Sustained Rage 2/3

Frenzy Stance & Instant Buffs

56-57 Drive Them Back 2/2

20-24 Savage Counterstrike 5/5

71-73 Iron Skin 5/5

0. Quick Tips

Overreach

-Humanoids are almost always better than animal mobs by virtue of the size of their hitbox and their longer weapon ranges. You can fairly easily get three humanoids. If you’re having problems positioning to get three, look at the following:

When you’re dealing with large packs of mobs, the law of averages kicks in. Becoming efficient across the board is almost always a better idea than looking for a substantial increases on a single ability. The following is a level-by-level outline:

53-55 Improved Dulling Blow 3/5

77-77 Volcanic Rage 1/1

3. Ability Usage

Strike and Guard

58-58 Sustained Rage 3/3

Soldier

AND

67-67 Sustained Rage 3/3

Counterstrike 4/3

44-44 Anticipation 1/1

Juggernaut

Counterstrike 1

Please feel free to add to this list with suggestions. I switched from Tempest to Juggernaut later rather than earlier, so I’ve missed a lot of good opportunities.

Fields of the Dead Vanir (40-50)

Juggernaut

61-63 Lifesaver 3/3

64-64 Storm Blade 1/5

X X

Murderous Little Acolyte Quest (Kheshatta) 72-76

51-51 Stand Your Ground 1/1

-Always eat food! They’re only 10 tin and speed grinding up substantially. You can carry two independent types of buffs up (stam/health) as a food and drink combo, though some of the drinks are disguised as food (i.e. bananacake is a drink).

I use CS 1 because it’s a very quick way of checking whether the debuff is hitting as many mobs as I want it to. Most mobs will be dying by the time the CS’ are up, so make a decision between Overreach or Plexus Strike. Plexus is absolutely preferred in most situations, but you may choose not to use it if the process of the combo itself may kill off several mobs (using it when you can guarantee at least three mobs are hit by the stamina drain at the end is ideal).

74-76 Surging Health 3/3

59-59 Cunning Deflection 1/1

Maneuvers, Strategems & Tactics

This guide is also posted and updated here:

65-66 Drive Them Back 2/2

Enduring Defense Maneuver, Hold the Line Strategem for solo grinding. Provoke Maneuver, Intractable Mind Strategem for groups. Don’t use tactics while grinding unless you’re sure you can handle the penalty.

Mammoth Breaker Troglodytes (Atzel’s) 68-72

http://www.tankspot.com/forums/aoc-s…ing-guide.html

If you are only debuffing one target and you have at least three on you, this is probably the way mobs are facing (even if they aren’t directly to your side, if you aren’t debuffing them, consider them like this):

-You receive this quest inside the main city in Kheshatta. It leads to a personal/group instance underneath the zone, similar to Cannibal Cave. Wonderful for grinding but very short. This instance allows you to reliably get four mobs at a time and debuff all of them at once. You will have to reset this instance using an invite from another player and if you turn in the quest, you can no longer enter the instance.

69-70 Iron Skin 2/5