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Guardians of Cloudia Beginner’s Guide: Tips, Tricks & Strategies to Dominate Your Enemies

Guardians of Cloudia is an exciting new action MMORPG from Neocraft, that’s very similar to Stella Arcana and the likes. Like in most MMOs, you’ve got the five archetypes of Tank (Swordsman), Healer (Oracle), Nuker (Mage), DPS (Rogue) and Ranger (Archer) in this game.

They also play similarly, with you having to dodge attacks with red hitboxes religiously and offering an auto-skill function, though it lacks Stella Arcana’s brain-tickling Autoattack Order mechanic. That being said, Guardians of Cloudia is a game with truly pretty art direction in the form of luscious environment design and a huge number of cute and cool pets to collect.

guardians of cloudia guide

You play a Skywalker, a chosen hero out not just to avenge the death of your friend Mina, but also to stop the Abyssal Army from ruining everyone’s day. You must travel across the world, find the Six Relics, and help those in need as you find them. The game starts out deceptively easy as long as you do level appropriate missions. That is until you hit level 50 or Battle Rating 80k where things start getting dicey during bossfights. Don’t get too comfy with the Auto control!

We hope that our comprehensive Guardians of Cloudia beginner’s guide will help you during your adventure, young Skywalker. We’ll start with the combat basics, that is when and when not to use autoattacks.

1. Combat Mode: Manual Or Auto?

Keeping autoattacks on has a few advantages and disadvantages. In some situations like grinding easy levels, chasing cowardly (regardless of their actual strength, looking at you Oretus) enemies, rolling over mooks on the way to the boss, and earlygame in general, you can easily get away with using Auto.

But in harder fights, you’re better off using Manual for the DPS consistency, mobility and potential for heavier burst damage, since you can simply hammer every button in one go. There are situations where Auto is better, and where Manual is better. Here is a more detailed list of Auto’s good and bad sides.

AUTO COMBAT: FOR THE EASY GRIND

auto combat in guardians of cloudia

Tactical Over Twitch

That being said, even playing on Auto requires a bit of thought if your character is in over their heads, particularly with positioning and area attacks. Rather than aiming your attacks with your thumb, which you won’t likely be doing if you want to keep the DPS up by going Auto, you can simply tap a specific target to wail on.

They will often be in the center of AOE attacks if you do this, so point at the innermost target in a mob to bring down the hammer on everybody. If there is a high priority target like a boss and you’re an AOE dealer, move yourself to a position where both the boss and the mooks are in front of you. You can also check your initial targeting priority in Settings>Gameplay, but the choices are specific to PVP since it’s between prioritizing pets vs prioritizing characters.

Multitasking Grind

auto battle guardians of cloudia

As long as a dungeon is roughly around your level or even at a slightly higher BR than you, mooks generally pose little threat without a boss backing them up. This is where Auto shines, rolling over easy quests (Treasure Land comes into mind) and easy enemies in the background while you multitask. That way, you’re accumulating EXP, silverleaves, and other stuff while you dismantle old runes and gear, check your dailies, do your homework, or even write a game guide.

This way, you’re always making some progress no matter what you’re actually doing. Even in dungeons that end in nasty bossfights, you can still normally use auto to plow through that road full of useless mooks, then swap to Manual when you get to the real fight.

MANUAL COMBAT: DIY BOSS DISASSEMBLY

manual combat guardians of cloudia

Maximum Mobility

Manual shaves off that agonizing second between moving, stopping, then commencing attacks. Mostly because you’re the one ordering the attacks yourself. Auto gives out consistent DPS but only if you’re not touching anything. Going fully Manual allows much more mobility, letting you dodge attacks better, do stutter-step shots (where you move, strike, move, strike, much like Starcraft players using Marine blobs), and fight bosses slightly above your BR on roughly equal terms.

You can also use it to kite enemies away from endangered teammates, or into a clump for any AOE attack you or your Mage buddy might have. You can do the kiting on Auto too, but that one second before you start attacking again is usually enough for the enemies to reach you once you’ve annoyed them all into a murderous, frothing deathblob.

Solo Bossbusting Done Right

manual battle guardians of cloudia

If you’re playing alone (usually in Treasure Hunt maps where you can’t bring teammates), going Manual when you reach a bossfight will be a lifesaver. It’s easier to get away with being on Auto while in a team since you have infinite respawns for as long as the rest of the team is still alive, and even then going Manual will be appreciated if you’re any good at it.

When you’re alone though, one red hitbox attack hitting you is usually enough to guarantee a fight will end badly. And even if you dodge all of them, the one second of stoppage means your DPS can fall behind. This is especially important against enemies roughly equal to your Battle Rating, and especially when doing Treasure Hunts and lone-wolf Gear Realm trips.

PVP? Fight Manual-A-Mano

pvp battle guardians of cloudia

Should you find yourself in the Arena where the opponent is an AI controlled player character, or are lucky enough to catch a Starmoon PVP Event where actual people control their characters, you’ll find yourself being far more effective with Manual controls.

This is for the same reason you need them for bossfights. Players are far less predictable than AI, and even if the character is controlled by AI, they tend to be much stronger too. You’re gonna need that mobility badly, especially if say, you want to lure and force enemy players away from that darn control point in Starmoon fights!

In summary, Auto is good if you’re grinding easy stuff, or on your way to a battle that will require you to fight in Manual. Once you’ve cleared the road of mooks though, take the helm and beat down the boss yourself. Or bring friends!

2. Adventuring, Grinding, And Going

There are lots of things to do in Guardians of Cloudia, though it may seem overwhelming at first. This is a list of the more reliable trips to take for your daily grind. The Main Quest is a given, but it’s more of an end goal. You’ll usually alternate between rolling over the Main Quest, then doing these to get past the difficult obstacles within.

Treasure Land

treasure land guardians of cloudia

An accurate name for the place you’ll want to visit if you want anything out of the Commerce Guild. This is your primary source of Goldleaves, the currency used in the Commerce Guild’s player market. The enemies here tend to be grossly underleveled compared to you, so this should be no problem at all.

You just get mobbed by a ton of weaklings, and you get easy money by nuking them to space. The best part? It says you spend Activity Points to go in, but it only really tallies the total amount of Activity Points you’ve accumulated for the day, which resets to 0 every day. After you spend all the points you have going in here, you can still spend them in the Activity Credit Shop anyway!

Gear Realm

gear realm guardians of cloudia

As the name implies, this is your primary haunt to find equipment. You can enter solo, but picking the options that require teams gets you a chance for higher quality rewards. It’s usually a trip through several groups of mobs culminating at a bossfight. As for rewards, you can end up with good orange or red tier equipment, though occasionally it’s for the wrong class.

That sounds bad until you realize you can sell them in the Commerce Guild player market for a pile of Goldleaves. Of course, that’s assuming anyone buys it! While you’ve got a limit of three attempts, you can still get rewards after those are spent by joining someone else’s team. And you should too, doing this alone gets quite difficult past level 40.

Treasure Hunt

treasure hunt guardians of cloudia

Not to be confused with Treasure Land, Treasure Hunt is where you march for pet-related items like shards and bells. The difficulty occasionally zigzags, but these are typically a bit harder than other dungeons since you’re often just a bit underleveled for the next one you want to beat. Not to mention you can’t bring a team. Keep on your toes during the bossfight or minibosses, since those are usually the only things that can kill you here.

Stay away from the red hitboxes as usual, and if all else fails, use this as your final grinding destination for the day. This is also mandatory for progression: You need to reach certain levels in Treasure Hunt to unlock both Major Array and Support Array pet slots. The Treasure Hunt menu also comes with idle passive rewards, so keep an aye out for those too.

Hero Quests

hero quest guardians of cloudia

These are quests scattered around the map. They usually reward Stat Beans or SSR Pet Shards. You can find these by tapping on the Minimap. That being said, the SSR Shards only appear at a chance. Since these stay all day and have no limit though, they make a good post-grind break. Unless you run into one with a high BR, then you pull out the Manual controls!

Ore Mines

oretus armored guardians of cloudia

This is possibly one of the hardest things you can do in the game early on as a beginner, but it gets easier as you get stronger since it doesn’t scale to your level. Thankfully, the game makes it mandatory for you to have a team for this mode, allowing you to respawn for as long as the team is alive. And there is no shortage of people willing to join an Ore Mine trip.

Only the first part of the battle is deadly (but hilariously so), as the Armored Oretus loves to spam radial stomp attacks with loads of damage. Worst of all, this attack neither comes with a red hitbox warning or a slow telegraph, leaving little time to get out of the way. While this is painful for squishy mages who just have enough range to get lethally nudged by this attack, a tankier class (or a team around level 60!) can do a better job staying alive.

oretus naked guardians of cloudia

Bring a solid team with a good Oracle to get past this rough spot, and you can rest and relax in the second half. Keep an eye on your Oracle’s healing circles and stay there, unless the Oretus pulls out their red cone hitbox attack and the healing circle’s in it.

The second half of the fight is just your team smacking the poor naked Oretus around while it runs away, dropping ore for you to mine. He’ll do the stomp, but not nearly often enough to kill you even if you’re a squishy low-to-mid level mage. You get Runes out of this, which you can socket to upgrade your character. As for the temporary buff powerups that drop, try to get them, but prioritize the Oretus if you think it’s gone too far away.

Windbell Quests

windbell guardians of cloudia

A far more chill way to get Windbells and other pet-based stuff compared to Treasure Hunt, though it’s limited every day to a number of quests. You get sent to do multiple quests across the world (level appropriate so don’t worry about getting shredded like in Treasure Hunt) and at the end, you’re given a random amount of Windbells.

The quests range from the usual “Beat the tar out of the local wildlife and bring their bodyparts to someone” to games of rock-paper-scissors with NPCs. You need Windbells to summon new Pets, so mixed with the fact these quests tend to be fairly easy you have no excuse not to do these.

Windhunt Quests

windhunt guardians of cloudia

Very similar to Windbell quests right down to the name, but a bit more difficult and usually requiring a team. Just like Windbell quests, these missions fling you around the map killing monsters, bringing chickens home to NPCs, and other such stuff. Early in the day there are a lot of teams doing these, so keep an eye out for them so you won’t have to do these yourself. The primary reward for these is EXP, and you have a limited number of times in a day to do these.

Sky Tower

sky tower guardians of cloudia

The ultimate in rune-grinding zones, the Sky Tower is your one stop shop for orange and red runes for the small, small price of intense pain and suffering. You have a limited time to do these quests since they only appear on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays after 12 noon and end at midnight. Make absolutely sure you bring a strong team so you can get past all 12 floors, and play on Manual so you don’t end up getting obliterated by the enemies up there.

Thankfully, once the Sky Tower is active, there is no shortage of willing high-level participants to help you knock the Tower down. And if you happen to be a newbie being carried by a big, strong lv60+ endgamer, don’t forget to thank them. Oh and one last thing, save your Bound Gems for these runs so you can get extra rewards.

3. Making Yourself Stronger

warning guardians of cloudia

Good footwork can get you far in this game, but sometimes you really just need to bulk up for the fight ahead. Even if you make no mistakes in a fight, it’s possible your damage or HP just isn’t enough to kill the other guy first. Not to mention you really would want to have some room for error whether or not you’re going Auto or Manual. There are many ways to get stronger in the game, with a particularly important one when you hit your 40s to 50s. Here they are down below.

Gear Enhancement With No Worries

gear enhancement guardians of cloudia

We’ll get this one out of the way, don’t worry about wasting enhancement materials on lower tier armor and weapons. You’re not enhancing the gear itself, but the slot it’s in. That means the big fat +10 you’ve been working so hard on WILL apply to the shiny red-tier gear you’re using to replace your old junk! As for reforging, it’s relatively easy to get darksteel and zinc for reforging jobs.

Where to get materials for Gear Enhancement and Reforging you ask? You can get Darksteel and later on, Zinc for reforging by dismantling old junk gear. You can get Azure Stones for Enhancement from the Black Market, the Commerce Guild Credit stores, and adventuring in general. If you see them being sold for Silverleaves in the Black market, that’s your cue to spend.

Life Skills: Potions, Luck And Food Shipments

life skills guardians of cloudia

One more good reason to join a Guild is to upgrade your Life Skills, since you need Guild Contribution medals to upgrade them. You have Cooking, Potion Crafting, and Luck. You’ll need Cooking to upgrade the other two, since you can use Food to solve Guild Cargo orders then get Guild Contribution medals.

You can focus on Luck and Potion Crafting since those give you better benefits, though thankfully the Food lifeskill is cheap and you can sell any extra Pudding in the Commerce Guild player market. Luck increases the drop rate of good equipment, and Potions to, well, keep you from dying. Keep them leveled and you won’t ever have to spend a single Goldleaf on healing potions.

One Mage’s Junk, Another Swordsman’s Treasure

capitalism guardians of cloudia

So you found some shiny Red or Orange tier armor. Hurray, at least until you notice it’s Swordsman armor and it’s too huge to fit on a nerdy little Mage like you. Sell it via the Commerce Guild player market (No, you don’t have to join a Guild to use it in spite of the name) so you can turn that piece of expensive garbage into sweet, sweet Goldleaves.

Then you can use those Goldleaves to buy stuff from the player market you can actually use. Like a suit of armor that fits your puny, non-swole Mage self. You don’t have to worry about pricing either as the game automatically suggests one for you. You can also do the same for any Food you don’t need, though if you’re in a guild you may be better off keeping them for Cargo orders.

Runic Refinement

runes guardians of cloudia

You may want to save your Rune Spirits for orange tier runes or better. You’ll get them eventually, usually by accumulating Orange or Red Seals or by getting lucky in the Sky Tower. Rune Spirits are quite rare, and you don’t want to waste them on purple tier runes if you can help it.

 Evolving runes is no problem though. You only need to dismantle low tier runes to get the materials for it, so keep evolving them so your character can stay strong. Once you get a fancy orange or red rune, dismantle your old runes to power up the fancy ones.

You can get Orange and Red Seals and Runes from opening Rune Chests and from fighting in the Sky Tower. Unfortunately, the Sky Tower is only open during 1230 hours to 2400 hours during Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. If it isn’t those three days, you’ll have to go beat up the Oretus in the Ore Mines and pray they have good drops.

Take Care Of Your Pets

pets guardians of cloudia

Your pets aren’t just there for show, in fact they’re one of the most important things to keep an eye on. Pets in the Major Array slots not only give you an extra skill you can activate yourself, they also do damage on their own and sometimes have their own skills you have no control over. Pets in the Support Array slots provide stat bonuses depending on their Aptitudes, which can be improved with Reroll Dew.

Bring pets according to the role you want to do. Say, a healer pet if you want to be a support or survive in solo runs, a pet with an AOE damage or crowd control if you want to clean out mooks, or even a pet specifically to mess with people in PVP, something with a hard hitting attack or can prevent them from healing with their own pets or potions.

If ever you get a pet that might suit you better but already have one you’ve poured resources into, you can Recycle the old pet to get the materials back. The pet gets busted down to level 1 but keeps their star level, and you can now upgrade the new guy.

Exaltation: Commitment To A Role

exaltation guardians of cloudia

When you make it to around lv40, you’ll get a quest involving Exalting your character into a more focused class. This gives you access to improved abilities based on what role you pick. You can pick one path or another, which usually makes your character more specialized in a specific role.

At one point you take a test that suggests a path to you, but you can more or less ignore this as the real choice is right at the last minute. This questline lasts all the way past lv50 and will eventually ask you to accumulate a total of 38 skill points, so it’s a bit of a haul. Make sure you pick the right choice depending on the strategy you favor.

A tip for this specific quest, save up your Activity Points to buy some Fairysheep. You can use the Adventure Book to redeem Fairysheep for EXP, which in turn allows you to redeem Skill Points.

And continuing on that note about Exaltation, here is an overview of the character classes.

4. Class Overview

selecting a character in guardians of cloudia

There are five classes in this game, each corresponding to the usual RPG player archetypes of Tank, Melee DPS, AOE Nuker, Ranger and Healer. They come in the form of the Swordsman, Rogue, Mage, Archer and Oracle respectively. You should be familiar with these archetypes at a glance, but here is an overview of each class just to be sure!

Mage

mage guardians of cloudia
How Do You Burn Something While It’s Frozen?

Mages typically deal AOE and burst damage, with a bit of crowd control thrown in. Most of their fire based skills deal some form of area damage, and their ice skills typically deal burst damage or some form of crowd control. Exaltation splits them into two more classes. Pyromages focus on burning crowds to death with AOE attacks. Aquamages sacrifice the ability to simulate a forest fire for the ability to heavily damage lone targets in a single blow and cripple enemies in general.

The downside with Mages? They have paper skin and move rather slowly, stopping for every single attack. It is absolutely mandatory to dodge red hitbox attacks as a Mage unless you’re rather overleveled, lest you die horribly. Use that Swordsman as a human shield, and keep a slot open for your only dodge skill.

Swordsman

Your Personal Human Shield, Be Thankful For Them

The dude you should ideally pick if you’re new to RPGs in general. Swordsmen are tough frontliners who can take blows better than most of the other classes, with the possible exception of Oracles who can just stitch themselves back together after a bad hit. They also have decent mobility, particularly with their sword spin attack that lets them move while dealing AOE damage.

As a Swordsman, it’s your job to go in and basically distract the enemy. You must draw attacks away from those Mages, Archers and Rogues whose faces are too weak and pathetic to take blows, unlike your polished jaw. Upon Exaltation, they can pick the path of Guardian or Destroyer. Guardians have increased defense and gain an AOE Roar attack, while the Destroyer gets lifesteal to promote a much more violent playstyle.

Oracle

oracle guardians of cloudia
Badmouthed Me In Chat? Have Fun Dying First!

As the team’s healer, it’s their job to keep everyone alive. That being said, they can also decide who dies by not healing them, so don’t make them hate you. Not only can Oracles use healing spells to save your butt, they can also summon angels to smite bad guys and kill them with the power of holy light. Always watch out for their green healing circle, and run towards it.

Unless it’s in a red hitbox warning, that means the Oracle messed up. Exaltation splits them between Judges and White Sages. White Sages have improved healing skills, and Judges are better at smiting bad guys to death.

Rogue

rogue guardians of cloudia
Stabbing, The Anime Way

Rogues are the close combat DPS option. This makes them harder to use than Archers and Mages, who, while squishier, are able to keep their distance from the enemy. Using Auto with them is ill-advised even early on. They rely on their speed and dodging skills to survive even more than squishy Mages and long-ranged Archers, who don’t need to get within strangling range of bosses. That being said, mastering these guys pays off with big, tasty damage numbers, thanks to their Combo Point system.

As such, it’s usually their job to focus bosses and heavies down. Exaltation splits them between Slayers and Shadowdancers. Shadowdancers have improved dodging and stealth, and can summon a Shadow Clone to distract and slow the enemy. Slayers are built to stab harder with better Combo Point gains and a powerful area attack that spends those points.

Archer

archer guardians of cloudia
Shooting Is Just Stabbing From A Distance

Archers are a weird but powerful middleground between the Rogue’s single target speediness and the Mage’s slow-walking fiery-cold blasts. They have some ability to do AOE damage, but their specialty is to attack safely from far away with consistent damage. They’re generally a safer option compared to dangerously close-ranged Rogues or slow and squishy Mages, since they have both mobility and the ability to shoot from a distance. 

Enough distance in fact that going Auto is safer for them than most other classes. A good choice when going solo.  Exaltation splits them into Windtalkers and Sharpshooters. Sharpshooters as the name implies have improved single-target sniping ability, and Windtalkers have better mobility and AOE attacks to make up-close situations safer.                                 

And this ends our Guardians of Cloudia beginner’s guide. If you have any tips of your own, or just want to talk with your fellow players, feel free to leave a comment below!