The best New World PvP builds and weapons

We explore the variety of New World PvP builds for different situations and tactics.

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New World players are starting to move away from their boar slaying, expedition explorations, and other New World PvE content. Instead, the focus of some players is on war. New World’s obvious end game is territory control, with guilds and factions aiming to take over zones from each other in a never-ending state of warfare.

Now that the servers are progressing, many players are experiencing New World PvP faction missions, taking over forts, or declaring wars. If you’re getting into this type of content, you might want to switch to a better New World PvP build. If that’s the case, we will go through some of the best New World PvP builds you can use. Moreso, we will explain which weapons and builds are great for a variety of PvP content and situations. That way, you know exactly what niche you want to play, and your company knows how to best use its players.

New World PvP Builds

The following New World PvP Builds are some of the best New World PvP builds you can use. However, there is some insight you need to know. Even average builds have a place in PvP, including wars, duels, faction missions and more. For example, if you’re defending a fort, a player positioned on the wall with a Musket will see so much more success than on the ground facing charging two-handed wielding juggernauts. When we mention a PvP build, we will mention what these builds are ideal for, and how they should be used, especially in 50 v 50 wars, etc. If one of your builds or preferred weapon combs isn’t mentioned, it doesn’t mean it is bad. There’s so many combinations it’s hard to effectively rank every build. The purpose of this guide is to help inform you of the best builds or strength of weapons to help inform you of a build you like.

Hatchet / Life Staff Build

The Hatchet and Life Staff build is one of the best self-sufficient duelings builds in PvP. The Hatchet has a Berserker tree, which allows the user to gain HP when they fight enemies and weapon damage steroids. Furthermore, the Berserker tree has self-healing in the Berserk skill and an ultimate passive that allows the user to cheat death. As for the other key skill, you can get Feral Rush, which allows the user to charge 10 meters. If it connects with an enemy, you will root them on the second melee swing. Follow that root up with a Raging Torrent, and you’re almost guaranteed to burst someone down.

Even in more difficult situations, you can use the Life Staff secondary weapon to keep yourself up. You’ll need to use skills like Beacon to keep your health up while you attack an enemy. Moreso, you can use Sacred Ground on an area you are fighting on to get health every second, as long as you remain inside it. The best time to use Sacred Ground is when you enter your cheat death stance. You have three seconds to heal yourself up before you die, so you can cast Sacred Ground and get more health in that area before you drop.

The best place to use this build is in open skirmishes or on objectives. It is great for fighting over control points in wars while being a great self-sufficient build for PvP faction missions. Head over to our Hatchet and Life Staff build for a more in-depth look at the build.

Great Axe / War Hammer

The Great Axe and War Hammer are too very good weapons at controlling PvP situations. The Great Axe has various skills, such as Reap and Maelstrom, which are tools for bringing enemies closer to you. You do need some gap closing to make sure that happens, so you can use Charge, which dashes you 10 meters forward. Alternatively, you can take Execute, which does a huge burst to targets below 40% HP.

On the other hand, the War Hammer is the best weapon for AOE crowd control. The build has so many options. You can opt for the Juggernaut tree, which has various hard-hitting skills, including Armor Breaker. It allows you and your team to do even more damage on opponents affected with Armor Breaker’s 35% armor reduction debuff. While it is not that effective against light armor, it is a noticeable reduction to heavy armor users, such as tanks and strength builds. Also, it negates and Fortify buffs, which you’ll likely see all over the place with Protector Life Staff builds.

Alternatively, you can opt for the Crowd Crusher build. This is more of a War Hammer tank build, but you can equally yeet enemies off control points or the walls of your fort. The key to yeeting is the skill called Clear Out, which knocks back enemies four meters back. You can then follow it up with a Shockwave for more CC, or a Path of Destiny for 110% damage against all enemies in the skill line.

While we don’t recommend using both weapons in the same build, these are great weapons to pick for front-liners that want some added CC. These are very complementary to the Rapier, Hatchet, and Spear. You can normally find the Great Axe and War Hammer are incredibly useful for sieging gates and controlling objectives. We advise taking medium or heavy armor, so you get a 10-20% buff to your CC durations, depending on the former or latter armor set and how much damage your other weapon does.

Grace Rapier

Some of the best New World PvP builds out there require a Grace Rapier to function. The Grace Rapier is one of the best specializations you can use to outplay your opponents. The Grace specialization has skills like Riposte, allowing players to outplay opponents, stunning them if they attempt a swing on you while the skill is active. Furthermore, you can use Evade to essentially get a stamina free dodge that also light attacks your opponent as you exit the dodge. Lastly, Fleche is a 10-meter dash you can use to get into the fray or escape impending doom.

The Grace Rapier build is great for both Intellect or Dexterity focus builds, since the Rapier scales with both attributes. Hatchet and Spear users can use the Grace Rapier for more melee outplay potential, especially against Great Axe or War Hammer players. Meanwhile, Intellect weapon users can use the Rapier to outplay and keep themselves out of harm’s way if someone rushes them.

The best use of the Grace Rapier is in skirmish situations. It can be great for duels, fighting enemies on objectives or completing PvP faction Missions.

Life Staff

The Life Staff is by far one of the best New World PvP builds. Simply put, you cant win your war or complete PvP faction missions if your party or raid dies. There are two choices for a Life Staff player. You can opt for the Protector build, which focuses on buffing allies with Recovery, Fortify, and Haste. It is very good for peeling for opponents, allowing for moderate heals over time, speed buffs, and reduced damage taken. Not to mention that it also offers damage through Beacon, and Light’s Embrace, which is one of the strongest single target heals in the game if it hits an ally with all three buffs active.

On the other hand, you can use the Healing specialization on the Life Staff to provide direct consistent heals to your allies. This has the Sacred Ground skill, which heals areas in an area on the ground. You also have Splash of Light, healing yourself and your allies for 50% weapon damage. Finally, you have Divine Embrace, which is a powerful single-target healing spell. Don’t forget all these heals scale with weapon damage (Intellect) as well as Focus, which increases healing efficiency.

If you want more details on the New World healer playstyle or a greater look at Life Staff builds, you can check out our guides on them by following links to them. 

Anti-heal Hatchet

The Anti Heal Hatchet is the only New World PvP build that offers anti-healing. The Throwing specialization has a skill called Infected Throw that applies an anti-healing debuff, reducing healing by 30% on the target while the debuff persists. It also applies a 10% damage reduction, which is helpful against kill targets or annoying Hatchet / Life Staff players. 

The Throwing specialization also comes with another skill called Rending Throw, which applies a 10% Rend debuff on the target. Rend reduces the amount of damage an opponent can do by the amount specified. Lastly, another skill called Social Distancing makes you jump backwards and slow the target by 15% for three seconds.

The Throwing specialization is very niche, but it is beneficial for PvP content, especially in coordinated skirmishing groups.

Ice Gauntlet

The Ice Gauntlet is an excellent PvP weapon. The Ice Gauntlet provides players with a defensive cooldown through Entombed. The Entombed skill encases the user in ice, making them invulnerable while it lasts. Furthermore, there is a skill called Ice Storm, which places a damaging zone that slows enemies caught in the zone. You can use this to pressure certain battlefield areas and make it awkward on chokepoints or objectives. The third skill is entirely preferential, so we recommend taking a look at the other skills and decided if this is for you. Either way, this weapon is great for fort defence, open-world PvP, and objective control on wars.

Bow, Musket and Fire Staff

The Bow, Musket and Fire Staff are two of the hardest weapons to use in PvP. However, smart usage allows these players to do some incredible things. The Musket and Bow are great for defenders on Forts, able to harass their opposition from the safety of elevated walls. If you’re attacking a fort or on the attacking side in the war, you can find a safe spot away from the melee and pick off enemies on the battlefield or ranged defenders on the walls. 

Furthermore, both weapons are great for open-world PvP Faction missions. If you get the surprise on enemies, you can pick them off before they even get close to you. The only downside is that you need a Rapier, Spear or Hatchet to disengage players if they make it up to you. Alternatively, all three weapons have to disengage tools, through the Traps, Evade Shot or Incinerate. If you don’t have a supporting weapon, you need to take these skills, respective of the weapon they belong to.

This concludes our New World PvP Builds guide. What do you think of our PvP builds and the situations they are useful in? Let us know in the comments.