New World Weapon Mastery - Master Your Weapon Skills!
Amazon Games has made a unique MMO. Instead of choosing a character class at the start of the game, New World incorporates a different mechanic. It requires the player to simply use the weapon of his choice to level up the weapon’s mastery.
This approach comes with its pros and cons. The good thing is, there are no restrictions since there are no classes. Every weapon can be picked and used right away. Unfortunately, the game itself doesn’t provide guidelines for classes, professions, and weapon proficiency. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the available options.
Explaining Weapon Mastery
Weapon Mastery is a system that grants you skill points depending on the Mastery Level of the weapon you use. Every time you level up your mastery with a particular weapon, you’re gaining one skill point to spend.
You can redeem these points in the weapon’s skill tree. Each weapon has two separate Skill Trees. Investing points in one or the other determines the weapon’s overall playstyle.
Regardless of your chosen weapon, you always start at level 0. By killing monsters or hunting animals, you gain Weapon Mastery experience that unlocks abilities for a specific type of weapon.
You can also gain weapon experience when your party member kills a mob. It only contributes to your active weapon, regardless of whether it’s sheathed or not. For example, if you’re equipped with Fire Staff, you will gain experience with this weapon every time your ally kills something.
Weapon Skill Tree
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Active Skills. Skills with square borders within the tree. Every weapon has three skill slots for its unique abilities. These typically come with mana costs and cooldowns.
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Passive Skills. Skills with circular icons. Passive Skills can either augment active skills for additional effects when used or grant buffs for your character as long as the skill is learned.
Every weapon has 3 active skills and 16 passive skills per tree.
Understanding how Skill Trees are working is crucial for your character progression. Each weapon has a unique set of different skills that players can get. Mastery Trees are divided between melee, ranged, defense, and healing. You can choose to focus entirely on one tree or use a combination of the two.
Choose Your Role
You have to decide what play style suits you the most. Do you want to be a tank with a two-handed War Hammer? An archer or mage relying on powerful ranged attacks? Or maybe you want to heal allies during battles?
Being useful when joining a group of players is mainly decided by your abilities and chosen Weapon Mastery. A good striker, defender, or healer will always be more welcomed than a jack-of-all-trades character.
Also, don’t forget about developing your Crafting Skills, Gathering Skills, and Trade Skills! Proficiency in these skills won’t relate to your Weapon Mastery, but they will affect your equipment. Crafting more powerful weapons means more damage, thus being more effective in battles.
Choose Your Weapon
New World offers 11 Weapon Types to master. Each weapon provides an exclusive selection of active abilities, passive modifiers, and bonuses. As we explained earlier, every weapon has two separate skill trees, but you’re not locked to developing only one.
You can spend your points however you desire in both skill trees. You can equip any weapon you like, but you can’t master each and every one of them. Weapon Masteries have a cap of level 20, and both Skill Trees have 38 perks to unlock with 6 active abilities for each weapon.
This way, you won’t unlock every ability, so you have to choose wisely depending on your playstyle.
We’ve broken down every weapon type in New World, so you can choose whatever suits your taste. We can’t tell which weapon is the best since New World’s meta changes regularly. We advise you to simply choose a weapon that’s the most appealing to you.
Sword and Shield
Perfect choice for beginners. It’s a solid option, but nothing stands out here. It utilizes a combination of swings and lunges for offensive purposes and a shield for defense. Sword and Shield benefit from Strength and Dexterity.
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Swordmaster Skill Tree. Offensive branch used for maximizing your DPS. It offers high damage skills like Reverse Stab, minor buffs to your ally's damage, and a leaping attack to close out the distance between you and your opponent.
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Defender Skill Tree. A solid choice for tanks. It improves your armor, reduces taken damage, and grants more health regen. With crowd control abilities like Shield Bash and Final Stand, you’re a perfect frontline.
Rapier
A very fast weapon, which sacrifices defense for high DPS output. Despite looking fancy, most players choose Rapier for a secondary weapon, since it doesn’t offer much variety and usefulness. It should suffice in PvE, but for PvP, there are better options. Rapier benefits from Dexterity.
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Blood Skill Tree. Despite its name, it only provides one ability that inflicts bleed. With Bleed, you can gradually drain the target’s health when Rend helps with DPS.
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Grace Skill Tree. It focuses on evasion and mobility. Fleche and Riposte are valuable in this regard, but they require precise timing to be a valid option.
Hatchet
It’s the ideal weapon for diverse gameplay since it has ranged and melee attacks. You can switch between faster and slower attacks, each with its benefits. Throwing one is also helpful. Hatchet benefits from Strength and Dexterity.
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Berserker Skill Tree. This tree is pretty straightforward as it gives you new attacks and enhanced damage. Although, two skills are the most useful: Defy Death and Berserk. With Defy Death, you can survive a fatal blow when below 50 HP, and Berserk boosts your damage by 15% for 20 seconds.
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Throwing Skill Tree. It focuses on ranged combat while inducing different effects. For example, Infected Throw deals 150% weapon damage and weakens the target for 10 seconds.
Spear
A melee weapon with a long reach and aggressive, thrusting attacks. Ideal for strategic positioning and applying constant pressure to your enemies. Spear benefits from Strength and Dexterity.
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Zoner Skill Tree. Focuses on crowd control and throwing attacks. Cyclone is perfect for keeping enemies at bay, while Javelin is perfect for single-target damage.
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Impaler Skill Tree. Used mainly for damage. It includes both slow and fast attacks in addition to one crowd control ability.
Great Axe
A large, two-handed weapon with powerful chopping attacks and wide swings. Perfect for dealing with multiple enemies using AoE abilities or dealing massive damage to single targets. Great Axe benefits from Strength.
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Reaper Skill Tree. It focuses on single-target damage, improves survivability, and grants movement speed. With Execute, your weapon deals 200% damage which is boosted by another 30% for targets below 50% health.
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Mauler Skill Tree. It consists of AoE abilities and crowd control abilities. Gravity Well pulls enemies, while Whirlwind deals 50% weapon damage to all nearby foes.
War Hammer
A slow, powerful weapon with crowd control abilities. Deal crippling blows to a target or use its weight for stuns and knock-ups. This weapon is straightforward and suitable for beginners. War Hammer benefits from Strength.
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Juggernaut Skill Tree. This skill tree is purely for damage. Armor Breaker penetrates 30% of your opponent’s armor and deals 140% weapon damage. Mighty Gravel works similarly, dealing 170% weapon damage.
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Crowd Crusher Skill Tree. Perfect for PvP since every ability grants some sort of crowd control. For example, Shockwave stuns all impacted targets for 2 seconds.
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Bow
Classic ranged weapon for obliterating enemies from afar. You can rapidly fire arrows for a constant DPS or shoot a fully-drawn arrow for maximum damage output. Bow benefits from Dexterity.
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Skirmisher Skill Tree. Great for mobility and keeping your distance. With Evade Shot, you can leap back 5 meters and shoot an arrow dealing 125% weapon damage.
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Hunter Skill Tree. Use this to maximize your damage output. With Penetrating Shot, your arrow passes through targets dealing 150% damage.
Musket
It’s a long-ranged weapon with superior fire-power at the expense of its long reloading time. Perfect for those with precise aim since every hit is very powerful. Musket benefits from Dexterity and Intelligence.
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Sharpshooter Skill Tree. Ideal for single-target damage. You can empower your shots with a 150% damage output or go into Shooter’s Stance for a reduced reload time.
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Trapper Skill Tree. This one mainly benefits PvP since it focuses on placing crowd control traps. You can throw a Sticking Bomb for a whopping 235% weapon damage or place Traps to immobilize your targets.
Fire Staff
Weapon for Destruction Mages. It greatly excels in AoE effects and damage-over-time abilities. Due to its crowd control abilities, it’s perfect for forcing enemies away. Fire Staff benefits from Intelligence.
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Fire Mage Skill Tree. Inflict massive damage through the power of Fire. Use targeted Pillar of Fire that deals 170% weapon damage or use Meteor Shower, which increases AoE damage over time.
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Pyromancer Skill Tree. Set enemies on fire with sustained damage-over-time effects. Use Incinerate to deal 130% weapon damage and knockback all enemies. You can also use Burn Out to dash through enemies applying a Burn effect that deals 10% weapon damage each second.
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Life Staff
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A necessary weapon for every Support character. Life Staff Skill Trees are full of perks to support partners in combat with powerful healing and buffing abilities. Life Staff benefits from Intelligence.
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Healing Skill Tree. This Skill Tree is self-explanatory. Use different abilities to heal your allies in battle.
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Protector Skill Tree. Instead of healing, this Skill Tree provides more weapon damage for your allies.
Ice Gauntlet
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Call upon the skies for a devastating Ice Storm that slows enemies or utilize freezing attacks that hinder and damage your foes. If Fire Staff isn’t your thing, Ice Gauntlet is an excellent choice. Ice Gauntlet benefits from Intelligence.
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Ice Tempest Skill Tree. This Skill Tree is excellent for crowd control and AoE spells. Very similar to Fire Staff.
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Ice Conjurer Skill Tree. Very supportive Skill Tree to aid your allies in battle. Place an Ice Pylon to buff your team within its area or fire ice projectiles at enemies.
Void Gauntlet
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Manipulate the power of the Void to damage your foes or support allies. It can be used in both melee and ranged capacities. Due to its hybrid nature, it’s the most diverse mage tree. Void Gauntlet benefits from Intelligence.
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Annihilation Skill Tree. An offensive Skill Tree focusing on using the Void's power to aid you. You can summon a Void Blade, which deals 150% weapon damage, or concentrate on crowd control using Petrifying Scream.
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Decay Skill Tree. This Skill Tree is more supportive but can also deal sustained damage if needed. Use Essence Rupture to weaken enemies or Orb of Decay for healing.
Summary
New World offers a diverse range of weapons for every character. Explaining every ability would make this article too long. Thus, we chose to focus on the basics behind every weapon.
Remember to choose one according to your playstyle and role. Check other New World guides on MMOPIXEL to further enhance your experience!
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