Brighter Shores Guard Profession guide: Leveling and Active foes explained

Modified Nov 06, 2024 18:36 IST

In Chapter One of Brighter Shores, you’ll gain access to the Guard Profession — you become a literal town guard. After going through a brief bit of tutorial to introduce you to the game, you’ll start entering combat with monsters, and start building up some experience points in this profession. As a combat-focused profession, it’s pretty clear what you need to do to level it up — get into fights!

That said, there’s a little bit more to it than that. The Brighter Shores Guard Profession also includes an Active Foes guide in-game to help you on the path to growing stronger. Now that players can take part in Early Access, they can try this and other professions out. Here’s what you need to know about being a Guard.

How to level the Guard Profession in Brighter Shores

You’ll pick up the Guard Profession fairly early in Brighter Shores. It’s a combat job, so you’ll only gain exp in it by defeating foes in combat. This doesn’t necessarily have to be goblins, crows, and other monsters, though. Thankfully, the town of Hopeport also features some recruits who are always looking to spar.

You can check these anytime — it's an indicator of who you need to be focusing on for exp (Image via Fen Research)

Simply defeating enemies that are in your Active Foes list will get you exp that goes towards your Guard Profession level in Brighter Shores. By going to your profession window (top right of screen, brown cap icon), you can see all the various professions you have available to you in Hopeport, Hopeforest, Mine of Manutuban, and Crenopolis. Sadly, those last two aren’t available unless you purchase the optional premium pass.

You’ll find Guard Profession in the Hopefort tab, with a Sword crossed over a Shield. This will show you all the enemies that you can fight to gain Guard Profession exp. However, it’s not recommended you just immediately run and find the strongest enemies since you aren’t likely going to be geared enough for that.

It’s wiser to head North from the main guard area, where you find the Barracks, and enter the Sparring Area. There are easy Recruits you can fight here, through level 12.

You can get some amazing gear by farming Recruits (Image via Fen Research)

Before you enter a fight with anyone as Brighter Shores’ Guard Profession, look at the enemy you’ve interacted with. You may see what attack types they have, what they’re weak to, and even what they’re immune to. This is why it pays to have multiple weapon types. You don’t want to enter a fight where you can’t hurt the enemy. In that case, use the Immune spell to run away.

Another positive is that you’ll be able to farm potentially very powerful equipment for this profession here. I got relatively lucky and saw an Epic Weapon drop in the first few fights, alongside a pile of useful armor.

While you can certainly grind the Recruit Sparring Partner until level 15, there are other places you can go in town. Once you’re around 7-8, you can go fight the Deathclaws on Old East Street.

If you have the gear to handle stronger enemies, by all means, do so. However, if you're trying to take it easy, find easier ones and smash them down (Image via Fen Research)

In that same level range, you can also Thieves in Tim’s Alley, connected to Old East Street. However, these enemies may hit harder than you’re ready for. If you’re taking too much damage, or are dying to them, head back to Deathcrows, or the Recruits. This is just an example of how to treat the early hours, so you’re ready to level deeper into Hopefort as a Guard.

In general, I recommend fighting enemies that are just slightly weaker than you as you run less risk of dying, gain solid exp, and can stay in one spot for significant amounts of time.

Over time, enemies will fall out of your exp range. For example, when you hit level 12, you’ll stop gaining exp from Recruits. Instead, you get a stronger version of them — the Rookie Sparring Guard. These are roughly level 18, so they take much more to defeat.

Check out our other Brighter Shores guides and features

Edited by Ritoban "Veloxi" Paul