Best New World Weapons And Abilities

The best New World weapons and abilities can be subjective based on your playstyle, but there are a few options that are head and shoulders above the rest. The isle of Aeternum in New World is littered with beasts and monsters that need slaying, for which you will absolutely need the best weapons. It’s important to note that New World has a mix of PvE and PvP, so it’s likely each one will develop its own meta overtime, but for now we’ll just focus on the best New World weapons for PvE questing and farming. 

• Make sure you read our New World tips and best New World settings guides if you're just starting out.

Best New World Weapons And Abilities

As New World has no classes, there are no specific requirements for using weapon types, and from the get-go you can use whatever tickles your fancy. However, your attributes of Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Focus do relate to your proficiency with each weapon type.

Once you hit level 5 (which you should do within an hour of playtime) you can carry two weapons, that can be equipped with the number keys. Each weapon also has upgrades, split into two trees that contain both active macro abilities and passives that buff both the weapon itself and your abilities. Players with the same weapons can also have wildly different playstyles, thanks to the different upgrade paths available. 

Best New World Weapons: Hatchet

Click to enlarge

Back during the beta, this weapon came out on top as the go-to for high damage builds - and now since launch it has kept its crown. The hatchet is a one-handed melee weapon, so it can be paired with other items like a staff or shield and scales with your Strength and Dexterity attributes. It excels at high DPS, meaning you can play it as simply as getting into your enemies face and trading blows, or be a little more crafty from range with a series of debuff attacks. The two upgrade trees for the hatchet are named Berserker and Throwing. 

Berserker is geared toward a high damage and durability playstyle, with lots of passives themed around reducing your cooldowns and increasing your damage with every attack. The key ability for this tree is aptly named Berserk and gives you a 20% damage buff for 12 seconds. 

• Looking for New World iron ore? Our guide has all you need to know.

The second is Feral Rush which causes you to rush forward and hit twice for increased damage each time, and thirdly, Raging Torrent, which gives you four swift attacks but only at 90% total damage. The best upgrades in this tree are by far the ones for Berserk, as they turn you into an unstoppable machine with increased speed, a constant heal and immunity to crowd control.

The Throwing tree is for a more support oriented character, who will hang back and debuff enemies so that others can take them out easier. The passives here are designed to give you high critical hit damage and stamina regeneration. Your main ability is going to be Rending Throw which deals 100% weapon damage and inflicts a rend debuff, which boosts any damage aimed toward the target. 

The topical Social Distancing is next which launches you backward whilst dealing 130% damage to the target and slowing them - perfect for escaping quickly. Thirdly, we have Infected Throw which deals a whopping 150% damage along with two debuffs named disease and weaken, that reduce healing and outgoing damage respectively. The Social Distancing upgrades are vital here as they allow you to speed around the battlefield supporting other players and debuffing more enemies.

Best New World Weapons: Fire Staff

Click to enlarge

The Fire Staff is a magic based weapon that scales with Intelligence. It’s another high DPS weapon but focuses mainly on area of effect spells and damage over time effects - so you can get a good mix of burst and dot damage with this one. The two skill trees are named Fire Mage and Pyromancer.

The Fire Mage tree is where all your AoE and burst damage comes into play. Starting with Pillar of Fire, this is an ability that allows you to target an area with a pillar of flames that deals 134% weapon damage; it only costs 15 mana and has a cooldown of 10 seconds. 

Meteor Shower is the next ability with a huge AoE, and is channelled, which means you hold it for as long as you want, for up to six seconds. The first meteor hit does 34% weapon damage, plus an additional 20% for every second it’s in use. This can be an expensive skill however, as it costs six mana per second and has an 18 second cooldown. 

• Learn all about how long you can step away from your PC for with our guide to the New World AFK timer.

Lastly is the classic Fireball spell. This is a ranged attack that hits at 140% weapon damage and then leaves behind a raging fire for six seconds dealing 10% weapon damage every second. It’s another with a high cost of 25 mana and a 15 second cooldown. The passives for this tree will give you buffs to mana regeneration and increased damage, such as Clear Casting which is a vital pickup for everyone.

Pyromancer is also about DPS, with dots and active effects that bleed your opponent of health and burn them to a cinder. The best Pyromancer passives give you increased DPS such as Watch It Burn, which makes your light attacks apply a burn effect. The main ability for this one is Flamethrower which emits flames from your staff up to five metres in front of you, dealing 34% weapon damage and applying a burn effect that deals an additional 3% damage every second for six seconds. It costs four mana per second and has an eight second cooldown. 

Incinerate is the next ability which creates a three metre wide explosion dealing 130% weapon damage and pushing enemies back, it also applies the same burn effect as Flamethrower. It costs 22 mana and has a 12 second cooldown. 

The last ability for this tree is Burn Out, which sees you charge forward followed by a path of fire that deals 129% weapon damage. The burn effect is stronger at 10% damage per second for eight seconds and it costs a hefty 30 mana with a 20 second cooldown, but the most vital upgrade here is Heat It Up which extends Burn Out by 50%, giving you some well needed mobility and a bigger area to inflict burn.

Best New World Weapons: Rapier

Click to enlarge

En garde tu bête! The Rapier is the gentleman's way of carving through beasts in New World and as one of the most flexible weapons in terms of use, you can’t go wrong with it in any situation. It scales with Dexterity and Intelligence which makes it relatively unique amongst the melee weapons in-game. Due to its versatility, the Rapier has a good mix of burst damage, dot skills, and utility which is why it’s our third choice. The skill trees for this are named Blood and Grace.

The Blood tree is where the big damage options for the Rapier come into play. First is the Tondo ability where you make a slash in front of you inflicting a bleed on all who are hit. The bleed can be stacked three times and deals 100% weapon damage whilst the initial hit deals 50% weapon damage. 

The next ability compliments Tondo perfectly and is named Flourish and Finish. It acts like two abilities in one, with an initial sweep attack that knocks back mobs dealing 90% weapon damage. After the initial attack, if you light attack again you will follow up with a lunge that deals 110% weapon damage. This works really well with Tondo as the bleed effects that it applies are detonated for full damage after the lunge attack is successfully hit. 

The last ability in Blood is called Flurry and lets out five quick attacks that increase in damage with each blow. If each attack lands then it can hit for a total of 296.3% damage which can burst

down the majority of enemies with ease. The passives for this tree do well to increase your basic attack damage and the Refreshing Strikes passive is vital as it reduces all cooldowns by 1% with each hit. If you're using the Blood tree then it’s imperative to acquire the Bloody End upgrade, which increases the detonation damage of Tondo’s bleed when using Flourish and Finish.

• Struggling to catch New World snails? Check out our guide, which has everything you need to know.

Utility and mobility is the name of the game for the Grace tree. The key ability here is Evade, a quick sidestep dodge that follows the direction you are moving. It acts like a dodge with invulnerability frames but uses no stamina and allows you to light attack during it. It’s best feature is that it allows you to position yourself behind enemies with ease, meaning you can get in a critical backstab for free.

Next we have Fleche which lunges you forward 10 metres and deals 145% weapon damage to everything in the range of the dash. It’s great for repositioning should you get overwhelmed and deals decent enough damage too. Lastly is the Riposte ability, which puts you into a defensive stance for one second, so that any attacking enemies are stunned for 1.5 seconds. This is mainly useful for bosses as its long cooldown makes it pointless to use on most normal enemies.

For the Grace passives, Red Curtains is very strong due to its 5% cooldown reduction after any critical hits which can be paired well with Evade, however the rest are quite situational which does appear to contrast the mostly versatile nature of the Rapier. The upgrades for the Fleche ability are also incredibly useful for high damage as you can cancel the dash for a higher damage attack with Interruption or increase your critical hit damage with Backside.

None of the New World weapons are necessarily bad which means you can definitely find success by using any weapons in the game, but we've found these three to be the best so far.

Stick around on GGRecon for more New World guides, news, and our upcoming review.