It kind of depends on weapons skills. The route I went was goblins, wood trolls, dusk ogres, rock trolls, then something like vines and marauders. If I remember right dusk ogres helped me out a lot. They got me out of that occasionally blowing up a box range.

Mujaki Paladin of the people.

Louts, Gobins (goblins goblins goblins...seriously, til like 40 ranks), then sit in grass eels a bit to get combats to ~50ish, then sprites in ratha.
Alternately, if you want to stick around crossing:
Louts to 10, goblins to 40ish, grendels and wood trolls til you don't learn combats from them anymore, reavers, rock trolls...not sure what comes after rock trolls. Maybe those blood wolves/ogres out west, but most people move to either vines/creepers in Theren, or silver leucros and swains in ratha, I think.

The general rule of thumb is that a creature will teach hiding, stalking, lockpicking, and disarm traps at about the same hard caps as they teach combats.