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Best New World Tank builds and tanking guide

Here is the best New World tank build along with a New World tanking guide.

Updated: Jan 10, 2022 2:52 pm
Best New World Tank builds and tanking guide

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New World is one of the biggest MMOs to launch in recent years, with many coming over to Aeternum and giving it a go. Many players are enjoying the classless system, along with creative freedom over your playstyle. As you progress through the game, you’ll begin to encounter New World expeditions, which are basically dungeons from other MMOs. If you want to go into this sort of content, or perhaps take on New World corruption events or be a tanky PvP player, you will want a Sword and Shield Build. Here is the best New World tank build to use in-game.

Moreso, we will give you a quick rundown on how to tank in New World, allowing you to get the most out of

Read More: New World Tier List. New World Builds.

Best New World Tank Build for PvE

The best New World tank build requires a one-handed sword and shield. It is one of the only weapons in the game that has defensive capabilities. The Defender tree has a skill called Final Stand, which allows the user to resist 30% of incoming damage for a brief window. You’re going to need this cooldown to handle multiple hostels at once in expeditions or fight a big boss that hits hard.

While Final Stand is one of your core skills, you’ll need another two skills to fill out the rest of your New World tank build. The other two skills from the Sword and Shield will be Shield Rush, allowing you to charge five meters in a direct, knocking down enemies. This is good if an NPC goes running off to an ally of yours. The other skill you can grab is Shield Bash, which guarantees a stun on the hostile it collides with. The build is all about control and sustaining damage against your opponents. However, you can take the Whirling Blade skill over the other two skills above. That’s if you want to do some cleave damage when taking on multiple enemies at once rather than having extra control.

New World Warhammer Tank Build

New World Warhammer Build

Since New World’s weapon system offers the choice of two weapons, the other weapon choice for a New World tank build lies between two options. One of the obvious choices is the Warhammer, a great CC ground and pound weapon.

You’ll want to focus on investing your weapon attributes on the Crowd Crusher spec. The Crowd Crusher is the tree about flooring your opponents with various heavy swings and seismic slams. The one you need for the tank build is Shockwave, which slams the ground and stuns enemies around the impact zone. It can also taunt if you have a taunt gem equipped.

The other two skills are entirely optional. Clear Out is a tool that knocks enemies away, which is nice if you need to create some space between yourself and the baddies. Alternatively, you can grab something like Wrecking Ball that trips up enemies caught in the attack animation. If you want more cleave damage, opt for Path of Destiny. Any of the above three skills are fine.

New World Tank Build: Great Axe

New World Great Axe

The Great Axe is a weapon that offers so much control, especially when you need to absolutely whale on your opposition. However, the control the weapon brings is awesome for controlling AI in expeditions or corrupted events.

The skill you want to take is in the Marauder tree, titled Gravity Well. You throw your Great Axe onto a location, which then drags baddies over to them. You can then mop them up with your allies AOE skills, such as Rain of Arrows, Meteor, and more. Reap is a great tool for dragging enemies in range to your location if you need extra tanking capabilities. If you have a taunt gem equipped, you can taunt the enemies you hit for several seconds. 

The final ability, you can opt for more control, such as Charge for a 10m dash, or Whirlwind to add more cleave damage to your build. Finally, you can even take Execute for those execute damage windows when you don’t need defensive skills from your Final Stand. 

New World Tanking Guide

Now that you know what sort of build you are using in New World, we can offer you some New world tanking tips and tricks. 

The first is that it does not work like other MMOS. There is no threat meter, but threat is in the game. You simply have to let the tank go in first and get the attention of the mobs, as that provides threat straight away. Some weapons can get perks like reducing the amount of threat you deal, but it is hard or random to come across. If someone in the party has reduced threat, they then can attack earlier. If you need to protect a player who has a mob’s attention, try and stand in front of them to take the damage. Some expeditions are known for almost two shotting enemy players who haven’t invested points into Constitution.

Also, some builds have perks that allow them to additional burst if they are the first to deal damage to a full health enemy, especially Fire Staff and full Intelligence builds. You can coordinate with those players to do the burst. If they happen to steal threat, CC and damage them to get their attention.

The other tip we recommend is to do damage. You only have one defensive cooldown through Final Stand, so remember to CC enemies as often as possible and cleave during those periods. Your DPS will also likely cleave or do AOE damage, so if they yoink threat during this phase, keep a spare CC available.

Remember to get Cornelian gems in your weapon slots. Cornelian gems turn some damage based abilities into taunts, such as Shockwave. Grabbing one of these is incredibly strong for ensuring mobs stay attacking you and not your squishy light armor wearers with no Consitution.

Lastly, remember to hit the Heavy armor threshold. New World Armor has a few intricacies, such as Heavy armor getting the most damage reduction and 20% increased CC duration. The 20% extra CC duration is big, considering your build from one of the above weapons will likely give to two to three weapon skills that do CC.

If you enjoyed this New World guide, why not visit our New World hub for more articles? 


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