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Monuments

Introduction
So you have reached level 60 (using my Lev 1-20 , Lev 20-40, Lev 40-60 leveling guides no doubt). It is clear that you are among the AoC elite, that you are one of the strongest players ever to step foot (virtually) in any MMO.

This article is about making it through level 60 through 80. A confusing age for any barbarian or mage. It is a guide that you will be able to use and follow no matter what class, what culture or what server type you belong to. I am not declaring myself some sort of expert, but I hope that you will gain from my experiences and insight.

To see other articles I wrote about Age of Conan, try these
Reviews
Age of Conan Review: "A great game with a fatal Flaw"
Age of Conan Vs Warhammmer Online
Leveling guides
Age of Conan Leveling guide: Level 1-20 "Tortage, its not just for breakfast anymore"
Age of Conan Leveling guide: Level 20-40 "Life as a Hyborian Tween"
Age of Conan Leveling guide: Level 40-60 "Mommy, are we there yet?...No!"
Age of Conan Leveling guide: Level 60-80 "And your journey to the Dark Side will be complete! "
Aoc Guides
Age of Conan Crafting guide: "Harvesting for the decapitated"
Age of Conan PvP Guide: "Mama Said Knock You Out!"

So, with that introduction, lets begin.

Gameplay basics post 60
Well now, you’ve hit the big time. Getting here was easy, no? only 20 levels to go! I’ll be done in no time…..wrong! Now is the gut check time. You remember all those “I hate everything funcom” posts on the forums? Yep, they are all from players who reached level 61.

Now is the time for the gut check. Now is the time we separate the men from the boys. These next 20 levels will try you, test you and take a paddle to your back end ..your response?...”Please sir may I have another!”. Do not give up. Did Sylvester Stallone give up after 3 Rocky Movies? Did William Shatner give up Captain Kirk when he was old, fat and with no discernable acting ability?....did I give up smoking?...the answer is NO, NO , NO! And neither should you. It can be done, we shall run the gauntlet together...well, you mainly.

KEY Strategy: If you are not already there. NOW is the time to Bind in Old Tarantia. The wagoneers and ship captains now take you directly to the zones where you will leveling. Old Tarantia is a middle point with quick access to all of these transports. Head to the temple of Mitra, wave to Fabio (kiss kiss) and head to the Wayfarer to the northern side. Bind and your set.

Lev 60 Destiny Quest
Our journey begins with the level 60 destiny Quest. Head to your main quest giver. He speaks, you listen…world harmony. Its off to Thunder River with you!

Thunder River (which is also a trail in the Grand Canyon, A Ceramic Tile Mural by Jan Taylor, and a hit single by Jewish Country singing sensation, Epstein.) is off the pontain instance in Aquillonia. Head to the Wagoneer in old Tarantia and he will send you directly to it. When you enter you will see that this entire instance is basically a HUGE river...flowing water...cascading waterfalls …DO NOT ENTER THIS ZONE WITH A FULL BLADDER. After a bio break, mount up and head South / southeast. Go see General Tatius (Played by Patrick Stewart wearing a fake novelty mustache) on one of the islands. He sends you towards a cave. To get there, head back to the zone entrance and go directly east. You should see boars along the road. Follow the boars , killing them as you frolic up the path (helps erase your carbon footprint) and up the hill. At the end of the path you will see a cave to your left.

Enter the cave and start taking out the guards (Who are actually recently unemployed extras from the movie ‘300’) . These guards are obviously not payed well because they drop nothing! Kill everything… lizardmen, animated canine carcasses and ancient ghouls (oh my). You will find Kurbankhol the Cursed and then the Collector (Note, pulling the last 2 dogs also pulls this boss). Get the Tunnel keys and the find Har Shebesh (its at this point I figured Funcom devs ran out of ideas and started using random letter generators for naming the bosses). To find this boss, head back to the zone in, its kind of a hidden passage at the right side of the first chamber immediately after the zone in. When you get close, you cut to movie. Then start pulling all the lichs using range. Pull em all before going for the boss, cause any remaining lichs will jump in when you attack Har . Once dead (him, not you), collect the last piece of the medallion.

Return to your quest giver. Talk to him and he tells you a storey. “Long ago the Atlantean…blah blah blah…Grim Gray God…blah blah blah…Purple people eater...blah blah. Off to the Lactish plains with you! Head back to old Tarantia, zone into Connalls Valley and take the wagoneer to the latish plains immediately (but you knew this aready cause you’ve read my 40-60 leveling guide...and are an avid fan). In Lactish Plans head towards the middle of the zone, enter the green mist and you will be transported to “The field of the Kings” which honestly is just a field of rocks with nary a king to be found. Hit the rock (This big one) and sit back and enjoy the show (Best movie of any MMO to date). Here you meet Thoth-Amon (As played by Lurch from The Adams family). Oh, all done? Ok its off the Old Tarantia (Use your wonderful Recall). Its time to meet Conan.

Head to the Nobles District (which you fondly remember) and go across the HUGE bridge to Conans Castle. Head in, up the steps and speak with Pallantides. Now hit the door! Enjoy the movie…OMG!!! Its HIM! The one Ive waited 60 levels to finally meet!!...Its Conan!!!!....er…Hmm…wait… That's Conan?!?!....ok, ok Funcom should have done some work on Conan! I have issues!

Problems with King Conan
First: That is NOT a voice fitting of Conan. Conan should NOT sound like an Brittish Shakespearean Actor! This is not the voice of a guy who screams "GUUAAAAGGGGHHH!!! before throwing himself into a pit of Lizardmen armed only with uncut fingernails. No, this is a voice which you can envision uttering the phrase... "Greetings Warrior, care for a spot of tea?" Funcon, pay the $$$ and get the Governator!

Second: He has no Eyes! Perhaps I missed it in my comic collection but when did Conan have both his eyes gouged out?!?! I took the liberty of making some for him (Thanks to our friends at Frisky Dingo for donating the eyes). Ahhh, thats better.



Third: His attire! Take a look…take a close look. What’s that he’s wearing?!

	Funcom's Conan
	Real Conans!

Yep…it’s a skirt! Funcom put a skirt on Conan the Barbarian!!!!
Lets look at a few of the great Conans of the past…LOOK! SEE THERE! True Conan’s wear diapers!!!..Cimmerian diapers! Funcom do your homework! (Sniff sniff...er, Schwarzenegger needs to be changed)

Ok, The Funcom's diaperless, double blind, skirt wearing thespian has stopped talking. You ought to be close to lev 61, feel free to top off the level at the nearby Villas.

Key Quests: Conan the skirt wearing barbarian king gives a series of quests that take you to Atzels approach. Don’t go to Atzels yet, but get the quest and save it for when your 65.

Key Strategy: It is well known that doing solo quests cannot get you from 61-80 alone. Grinding is needed. Many players turn to the Villas exclusively to grind a LOT of their way to 80. DON’T DO IT! By now, we can do any villa blindfolded, left handed, while reciting ‘The pledge of allegiance’ …in Spanish! A good rule of thumb “The more you grind in the Villas, the less you will like the game”. Save your Villa time for when you really need it.

Level 60-65
We got to 61 just doing the lev 60 destiny quest. Now its time to move out. Remember the Thunder River. Yep, time to head back…Bio Break! Back in Thunder River there are plenty of quests for you to grab if you didn’t already when you moved through on the destiny quest. The whole zone reminds me of Niagara ….the cheap tacky Canadian side. If you do all the quests and a little extra mob killing a long the way, You will get enough to 65.

Key Strategy: If you want to polish off a level but don’t want to head back to the villas, do the Wanted Boards. They are repeatable and usually easy, however they don’t give you as much XP upon completion (Listen up Funcom! Up the XP reward). A great one here is the zombie quest on the 3rd island. Grab it and head across the bridge, and boom! …chock full of zombies!

Key Quest: Kill Raiders quest. Tells you to stand guard against raiders which attack the gate. …DON’T STAND AT THE GATE. Because the gate guards will KS your raiders and you’ll not get credit. Head down the path and wait…..and wait…..check your watch….wait…wait some more…do you like Sokudo?….wait…Ah a raider!…no, no, that was a skunk….waiting…. These guys take forever to spawn. If you see someone also doing this quest GROUP UP...you do not want to compete against anyone for the raiders.

Fun Quest: Evodus! Ever want to see a man lying with his legs gnawed off by rabid dogs with the extension of the partially chewed bones extruding from his stumps flopping around as he moves! I know I do!! Off to find Evodius in the southwest corner of the zone! Mmm, that’s good eatin!

Level 60-65 Quest NPCs

Boathouse	Palisades	In Wilderness
CaptainTiberius	Thracius	Jacob
Messor	Donicus	Corona Alba
Cornelius	Sergeant Surus	Anthea
Liviana	guard Captain Marcus	Pavo
Wanted Posters	Sara	Evodius
	Wanted Posters

Level 65- 70
Its out of Thunder River. Next we head to the frozen lands of Atzels Approach where your bladder can now expand but your nipples will contract. Now there is one rule to Atzels approach …Bring a friend. Not you…THEM!! The mobs in Atzels do not believe in a fair fight. You attack one, you bring him, his neighbor, their dog, grandma and 17 of their closest friends. They even have magical instruments littered across the camps..”The Uber Horn of BAF-ing” DO NOT let anyone you attack run to the horns! If they do, the entire camp can come down and smack ya…heck sometimes even your real life mother will awaken, come through the door and PWN you (...and your at college!). Now that’s a horn!

I hate Aztels. It’s a sucky zone and one you will suffer through. Caution will serve you well in Atzels and even with that, you will die. You will find that there isn’t a lot of easy quests here. Many of the quests you get are red and you need to kill BAFing groups 4 levels higher than your own. It’s tough. My advice, BAF someone of your own. Send out a /Yell, /Tell, IM from Facebook, classified in the local newspaper …whatever just find someone and duo everything here. It makes a tough zone a lot more tolerable (…er, me?...um ...no, cant…I have…knitting, yea knitting class tonight!...gonna knit skirts with Conan).

Aelfriths camp is the first quest area you’ll find. Actually it is the only quest area. There are several randomly placed quest givers throughout the zones, so keep your eyes out the for ‘!’. This is the first zone where you notice that the number os quests start to go down. There is a nice Wall of wanted posters but you can only do half, the other half comes at lev 70. You will need Climbing of at least 450 to get up the glacier to the higher level Trogs and climbing of 600 to get up the rope ladder near Skammestein. You can live without climbing the rope, but I do suggest you get yours to at least 450. If you grind all these quests you will get about half way through level 67 …THAT’S IT and it sucks!

Key Quest: Xiode from Mannanan server (Whom you may remember from such forum troll posts as “Funcom hates Pygmies!” and “I quit AoC…AGAIN!) notes a simple quest at Skammestein. As you’re killing your way through there enter the tents, there are cases that you can click that give a quest back at Aelfriths camp…free, simple XP.

When you’ve run out of quests, my suggestion is find a group and do the prison instance back in Thunder River. That instance and its hand in quests will get you close to 2 levels. I know a lot of people like to grind solo, but I’m tell you, Grouping and Instance XP is where its at! This is the big issue that’s overlooked by most of the players in this game. This is one of the main mistakes I see players make as they strive for 80....they skip the group stuff. Yes, you can solo your way to 80, but you’ll get their faster is you just PUG an instance or two..and get better gear while doing it. However, if you must grind then Skammestein camp is a great grinding spot for lev 65-68. Plenty of 65-67 fast respawning mobs and a nearby rez point. If that’s not good enough…sigh…to the villas with ye!

Key Quest: Remember Conan. He gives a series of quests to kill in Atzels, so head back to him periodically and turn in and get new.

Fun Quest: Kiebus sends you off to basically take out an entire village of enemies in the northwest corner of the zone. The questline involves setting fires to the walls of the camp. When you do ..MOVE (or stealth) cause 60 Mobs are inc to put out the flames. When its all done you have 3 minutes of Mayhem, where you have to stand your ground against all comers for a full 3 minutes. Its a Hyborian cage match...Very fun!

Key Quest: When you set off to go to the dragon's cave. HOwever getting there is tricky. To find the dragons cave, head to Atzels Fortress. As the fortress coes into view there is a path up the snow to the left(west). Go up the path and look for polar Bears (of the rabid variety). Go past the polar bears and over a small bridge and then youll get to the top of the dragon's Cave. you need to find the Climb Point...its near the mining picks and tools. climb down and be rdy, therre are lev 79 snakes slithering about.

Key Quest: Kill Kronor quest. It’s a tough quest and I don’t recommend it unless you have a partner (or 3) or your lev 69ish. Just too many mobs spawning fast on you to do solo. However once you do get it every time you head down the waterfall (which is often) you spawn these guys right in front of you. My suggestion is that you delete this quest until your ready to do it.

Level 65-70 Quest NPCs

Aelfriths	Atzel's Camp
Vaskeque	Rulvio
Kurtz Mandros	Neoric Manywinters
Esperan
Servia
Hoture
Kiebus
Iulian
Wanted Posters

Lev 70-80
You see the light at the end of the tunnel!....no..its just a freight train comin your waaaaaaaaay (Metalica). Nows a good time to take a break from the leveling grind and head to finish some of those tier 3 resources. Each quest gives 3.5 bulbs a piece..and a decent amount of coin on the trader (until your Nazi Guild officer finds out your lev 70 and makes you harvest for the “good of the guild”…bah!). After that its off to Kheshata. Recall back to Old Tarantia and head to Khemi, On your way through Khemi to the docks pick up a quest from Tali. Once at the docks you can zone right to Kheshata.

Once in Kheshata you are immediately greeted by quest givers. The First “twinkle” wants you to go back to Atzels….GAH!!!!!!! Load up on quests (that don’t require you to go to Atzels). There is a main quest guy in the hills nearby, make sure you get him. Load up at the Wanted board there as well. Doing all the quests from the first quest area will get you to 71.

Key Strategy: There is a Bind Spot at Thot-Amons Castle. Just behind the Apprentice Quarters instance enterance on the third level. make sure your grab it.

Key strategy: There are Insect Sentry Bosses scattered throughout the zone. Watch out for them.! They hit HARD, don’t try them solo.

After that its time to head to Thot Amons Castle (The one with the big swirly clouds). Plenty of quests in and around in the village at the castle base. One is to kill sentries. Don’t do it unless you have a partner. In fact, Kheshata matches Atzels in its suckiness. Mobs in general over 70 are really beefed up. My suggestion, find a partner.

Level 70-80 Quest NPCs

Zone Entry	Thot-Amon Castle	Western Slums
Ipex	Tuktopet	Zane
Mizra Suffi	Serafis	Sadaq
Kayleigh OFili	Kaled	Khakhte
Viltren Al'mackra	Nawal the tanner	Captain Nekqator
Nadir	Wanted Posters	Rasmenes
Wanted Posters		Nephturi

The biggest Issue with this zone. Not nearly enough solo quest XP. I even went back to Atzels to look for more quests, there are some, but not enough to warrant the travel. Every level from 73 on gives you a few new quests, but gain enough quests to get through about half the level. My suggestion, is if you have friends (and you should!!) , head to the frozen city instance in Atzels then the Scorpion caves in Kheshata, then run Onyx. If you an extreme introvert start your day grinding 2 or 3 Villas, then finish off the level with questing in Kheshata, rinse and repeat. It’s a long slog from 73 to 80 this way.

Key Merchant: Venes Venele is a merchant in the western slums on the west side of Thot-amons castle. She sells a 48 slot Bag of enlightenment for 80 gold. Honestly I dont think its all that important. Give me 48 extra resource slots and thats worth 80G. She also sells a Custom Made saddle for 150g. Not sure if that makes you faster.

Key grinding Spots:
The base of atzels fortress is a great grinding spot for levels 72-76,
Death Camp grinds are good for players from level 75+.
Demons in Poitain are good grinding for levels 79-80
Villas are solid grinding to all levels (however, the surgeon general has it listed as a leading cause of Herpes.)

Well that’s it, you ding 80…the heavens open up, heavenly trumpets sound and now you are officially Uber. The biggest issue for AoC is that the first 20 levels are the best, and the last 20 are the worst. It’ll get better as Funcom adds more quests , but it will take time.


Summary
--Questing XP is a good all the way to 73ish. Then it dries up.
--The quickest way to lev 80 is by Grouping and Instance XP!
--Use the Villa Quests in Old Tarantia to grind up, or top off a level. To maintain santity, do NOT over use them
--Conan may be a cross dresser...but he doesnt know because he's blind

For more in depth guides for leveling you quickly to 80, PvP and crafting.
Take a look at this Advanced Strategy Guide

There is also an AoC Gold guide that may help you buy your upper end Gear and gems.

Hope you had fun reading. Have any additional strategies or info, put them in the boxes below or send me an email at Admin@TheBurialGrounds.Com

Stay tuned and come back to Look for my Warhammer guides...coming soon!

Level Quickly! Class specific PvP Tactics! The AoC Class and Strategy guide!	Make your Age of Conan life easier by using the AoC Gold Guide
Know thy Enemy! Get the advantage with The Age Of Conan: The Ultimate PvP Guide.	Ashlings World! One of the best 1-80 AoC Leveling guides

Other Age of Conan Related Articles I wrote

Age of Conan Review: "A great game with a fatal Flaw"
Age of Conan Vs Warhammmer Online
Age of Conan Lev 1-20 Tortage Walkthrough
Age of Conan Walkthrough: Level 20-40 "Life as a Hyborian Tween"
Age of Conan Leveling guide: 40-60 "Mommy, are we there yet?...No!"

Age of Conan Crafting guide: "Harvesting for the decapitated"
Age of Conan PvP Guide: "Mama Said Knock You Out!"

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