Looking for New World PvP tips and builds? Player-vs-player combat is a large part of the New World experience – although it is possible to opt out of it, the MMO has been designed to encourage clashes between players. PvP becomes available to you once you’ve joined one of the three New World factions. These factions form the basis of the player-vs-player conflict in New World, so pick the dominant faction if you want lots of backup, or the underdogs if you want to PvP as much as possible.
There are a few different forms of player-vs-player combat in Amazon’s MMO. The most accessible is open-world PvP, which takes place outside settlements between players of all levels. To enable open-world PvP in New World, press ‘U’ while within a safe area, called a ‘sanctuary’. Upon leaving the safe area, a 30-second cooldown begins, after which you are vulnerable to other players.
There’s also large scale 50v50 PvP in the form of Wars, and the Outpost Rush mode which unlocks at level 60. We’ve put together some advice on how to choose your New World PvP build, and some tips that will help you get the edge on your opponents in battle. These tips are all based on beta gameplay, so there may be some changes when the New World release date arrives.
Best PvP build in New World
Open-world PvP is frequently all about kiting, staying out of range of enemies until you choose to hit them. For this reason, we recommend choosing at least one weapon with a mobility skill, like rapier, fire staff, or bow. If you pick two, you’ll be even more agile.
The most important thing is to avoid being surrounded and locked down by groups of enemy players, but if you want to do more than just survive, and actually deal significant damage to your enemies, you also need area-of-effect attacks and crowd control. This means the ice gauntlet, spear, and rapier are particularly effective. The bow and musket are also good, but you need excellent aim for them to be viable.
Because of the focus on mobility, these builds all use light armour for the dodge roll – but if you’d like to run a tankier build and don some heavy armour, it’s a good idea to go for a great axe, which is able to pull in light armour enemies and obliterate them. The sword and shield also offer excellent mobility with leaping strike, and the ability to block magic with the shield, so these two are a powerful combination for catching up with enemies and taking them down. Builds that focus on building constitution are particularly strong in Wars.
Read more: Our New World beginner’s guide
The life staff is powerful defensively in situations where you can remain inside your healing circle, but this puts you at a disadvantage when facing larger groups as you will be easily surrounded. You can outheal attacks from several players at once, but you won’t be able to defeat them. It is, however, an excellent support weapon for group PvP.
For these reasons, some of the best PvP builds in New World are:
- Great axe & hatchet
- Ice gauntlet & rapier
- Hatchet & spear
- Musket & spear
New World PvP tips
- If you have a mobility skill, you can use it to escape the Great Axe’s gravity well – but you cannot escape it with a dodge. If caught in the well, remember you can block attacks from a single enemy.
- Go prone in order to conceal yourself – when you’re prone, the enemy will not see the PvP flag above your head. This can be used to set up ambushes in open world PvP, which is a wonderful feeling, unless it happens to you.
- After dodge rolling (requires light armour), your character naturally stops still for a moment – but you can cancel this animation by holstering or swapping your weapon, or using an ability. This means there is no interruption to your momentum. If you wait momentarily to achieve above 50 stamina before rolling a second time, you can chain three dodge rolls in a row.
- You can also cancel your attack animation by swapping weapons or using a skill, and cancel your skill animation by swapping weapons.
That’s everything you need to take on the rest of the New World – for more information on how the various weapons compare to one another, check out our New World weapon tier list. If you’re on the look out for more New World guides, here’s how to make money at New World trading posts, and how to fish in New World.
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