Gearing Guide
Gearing in New World may feel confusing at first, but once you understand a few basics, it becomes very easy. We can break progression down into three stages:
Leveling
Endgame Starter
BIS Grind (Best-in-Slot)
Leveling
Leveling gear is simple. Follow the Main Story Quest (MSQ) and you will receive gear strong enough to reach endgame content.
You don’t need to:
• Buy gear from the Trading Post
• Craft expensive items
Use whatever the game gives you. Replace items only when you get higher Gear Score drops. Save your gold for endgame.
Faction Progress
While leveling, join a faction (Covenant, Marauders, or Syndicate) and increase your faction rank by doing faction missions.
There is no major gameplay difference between factions beyond appearance and cosmetics, so choose whichever you like most.
Faction vendors provide:
• Good and affordable starter gear
• A faster boost into endgame
• Gear that keeps you from falling behind MSQ rewards
Level 20
Level 35
Level 49
Level 60
Level 64 Milestone
At level 64, once you reach the required faction rank, you unlock stronger gear from faction vendors. Each faction shop offers:
All armor weights (light, medium, heavy)
All weapon types
This milestone provides a fast and reliable way to gear up for your leveing progress, although you can skip it and keep playing with whatever you got from the game. This gear was really good in season 8-9, but in season 10 due to gearscore upgrade is no longer that important
Covenant Heavy Example Link | Marauder Light Example Link | Syndicat Medium Example Link
Perk 1 | Perk 2 | Perk 3 | Perk 4 | Gem Socket | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Heavy | yes | ||||
Medium | yes | ||||
Light | yes |
Level 65 Milestone
Artifacts Milestone
Reaching level 65 allows you to equip Artifacts. The first major milestone happens in the Elysian Wilds Main Story Quest (MSQ), where you receive the Attuned Leather Pants as a final reward. This item is widely used across many endgame starter builds.
After you finish the Rise of the Angry Earth MSQ, you will move into Nighthaven. There are no particularly important Artifacts in this part of the story, but completing it will help you progress smoothly toward level 70.
Endgame. Level 70
Entering Endgame. Artifacs.
Once you finish the MSQ, you are officially in the endgame. There are multiple game modes you can start exploring to collect new Artifacts and improve your gear.
Artifact | Class | How to get |
|---|---|---|
Damage Dealer / Healer | PvP track reward | |
Damage Dealer / Healer | MSQ (end of the Rise of the Angry Earth story line) reward | |
Damage Dealer / Healer | PvP track reward | |
Tank | Mutated Barnacles and Black Powder expedition (M1-M3) | |
Tank | PvP track reward |
Faction Gear
As a starting point, acquire your full faction 730 gear set. It offers solid stats and is an easy, reliable baseline while you work toward stronger endgame items.
You don't have to buy gear from faction shop, you can get similar items as drop in open world or from trade post. Let's break down what we are looking for
What items to get at start if not a faction gear?
As a complete beginner, you might wonder: how do I get gear good enough to start running Catacombs, raids, or dungeons? It’s actually quite simple — focus on having two key things in your first armor pieces:
A Gem Socket
A Defense Socket
You can find such items as random drops from regular mobs, expedition chests, or even on the market. Don’t overpay — these are temporary starter items that you’ll replace quickly. Paying around 1–2k per piece is reasonable, keeping your total armor budget near 10k gold.
Avoid spending gold on Enchanted Ward gems early on. They’re a bit too expensive right now (as of 21.10.2025) to justify using in starter gear. It’s completely fine to play without them at first — but definitely use them if you manage to get one for free.
Perks you looking for armor | What to put in it | Why |
|---|---|---|
Defensive Socket | Enchanted ward II (x5 max) | This is your main defensive perk. Most boss and enemy attacks in New World count as either Light or Heavy hits, even if they appear magical. Having Enchanted Ward on all five armor pieces should be your baseline for damage mitigation in endgame PvE content. |
Gem Socket | Depends on a content and your build needs | Gems are extremely powerful. They not only provide important damage mitigation against specific elements, but can also offer additional damage bonuses. Always make sure your gear has gem sockets. In almost every situation, having properly socketed gems is the best gearing choice you can make. |
Fixed Perk (not a charm socket) | This is an easy way to gain extra damage at the cost of a small amount of armor. | |
Skill Slots | Depends on a build | Skill slots are an important source of Empower or Utility for many builds. Some weapon setups rely heavily on these bonuses, while others may not need them at all. Always check your specific build to determine whether Skill slots provide meaningful value. Invest in them only if they directly support your key abilities and damage output. |
Offensive Slots | Depends on a build | Offensive Charms In offensive sockets, you can insert charms that increase your damage. These include:
If you use empowerment-based charms, keep the Empower cap in mind. You cannot exceed a total of 50% Empower. This isn’t usually a problem in solo content, but in group encounters you often receive Empower from teammates’ buffs. In those cases, it’s better to prioritize “base damage increase” charms to avoid wasting potential damage. |
What weapons to use?
Weapon choice is very individual and depends heavily on the type of content you want to play. Some weapons excel in solo situations, others are essential in group content, and certain weapons may not be accepted in Raids or M3 Dungeons.
Some weapons are designed primarily for damage, while others provide buffs and utility. Ideally, you should run a main-hand weapon focused on damage, paired with an off-hand weapon that brings utility such as Rend, Weaken, damage boosts, or crowd control.
Weapon perks are very build specific so if you want to learn about it look into build guides
Weapon | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
Rapier | Mainhand Damage | Rapier currently has one of the highest raw DPS outputs in the game, but it provides very little additional value to a raid group. |
Spear | Mainhand Damage / Offhand Utility | Spears are an extremely powerful weapon, offering every key type of utility: Rend, Weaken, and crowd control. They are a strong option for both a main-hand damage weapon and an off-hand utility weapon. |
Sword | Mainhand Damage / Mainhand Utility | Sword has great potential not only as a strong tanking weapon, but also as a solid damage option with valuable team utility through Rend, Weaken, and crowd control effects. |
Blunderbuss | Mainhand Damage | A strong damage dealer, but similar to Rapier, it does not provide any meaningful utility to the group. |
Flail | Mainhand Support | Flail has excellent Empower and Weaken potential, especially in larger raid groups (10+). Its abilities can affect not only your own group members but all nearby allies, providing strong team-wide support. |
Life Staff | Offhand Support | It might sound counter intuitive but in New World pve lifestaff is not a main weapon for a healer choise. Yes it is weapon you will be healing your alies but as mainhand you will be using Void Gauntlet only using Lifestaff abilities when group needs it |
Void Gauntlet | Mainhand Damage / Mainhand Support / Offhand Utility | It may sound counterintuitive, but in New World PvE, the Life Staff is not considered the primary weapon for healers. While it is the weapon you use to heal your allies, your main-hand weapon will typically be the Void Gauntlet or Flail. You swap to the Life Staff only when your group needs direct healing. |
Fire Staff | Offhand DoT Damage / Offhand AoE damage | In most scenarios, Fire Staff has lower single-target DPS compared to Rapier. However, its main advantages are strong AoE and powerful Damage-over-Time effects. This makes it an excellent off-hand weapon choice alongside a high-DPS main-hand, giving you the best of both worlds. |
War Hammer | Offhand Utility | Strongest rend weapon in a game makes it perfect choise for those who want to be valuable part of the team |
Great Sword | Mainhand AoE Damage | As the strongest Rend weapon in the game, this is a perfect choice for players who want to be a highly valuable part of the team. |
Ice Gauntlet | Offhand Utility | Ice Gauntlet can be used in some specific scenarious if required by startegy, but in most cases not a best choise |
Great Axe | Offhand Utility | Great Axe can be used in specific scenarios when required by strategy, but in most cases it is not the best choice. However, in Mutated Expeditions it becomes very valuable for grouping and clumping mobs together. |
Bow | Offhand Utility / Offhand DoT / Offhand AoE Damage | Having a Bow as an off-hand is not a bad option, at least for the additional Damage-over-Time, AoE and Weaken it can provide. |
Musket | Offhand DoT | Having a Musket as an off-hand is not a bad option, at least for the additional Damage-over-Time it can provide. |
Hatchet | Mainhand Damage / Offhand Utility | Even though Hatchet can deal decent damage and provides useful debuffs like Rend, Weaken, and Disease, it is still not a common weapon choice for group content. I’m looking forward to seeing how Hatchet performs in Season 10. |
What Jewelry to Use
Jewelry slots are very build-specific and will differ depending on what you are playing. As a starter option, I recommend using Overcharged Jewelry from Catacombs, which covers all your basic needs. From there, you can begin looking for stronger set variations or valuable random drops from the open world as you progress based on specific build guides.
Start with looking items that have one perk from following
Perk 1 | Perk 2 | |
|---|---|---|
Amulet | Try to find protection according to content type you are doing. It might be fire/nature/void/lightning/ice/arcane or thrust/slash/strike | Not important as starter |
Ring | As for start try to find ring with your weapon damage type (thrust/slash). It counts as empower, so in raids due to specifics of team composition you more likely will be asked to use something else, but in solo content it is good choise. | Not important as starter |
Earring | Refreshment | Beloved for groups with tanks / Regenerating, Empowering Toast or Fortifyiung Toast for solo content. Despised for Tanks |
Endgame Grind. BIS.
After you decide on your starter gear and weapon setup, and you obtain your armor either from the faction shop or open-world drops, you can move on to exploring endgame content such as Raids, Mutated Expeditions, and Catacombs to upgrade your gear further.
Basic socket recommendations remain the same as mentioned earlier. Gear pieces with the following setup are a strong choice:
Gem socket
Defensive socket
Offensive socket / Skill Socket
Offensive socket / Fixed perk
Fixed perk
This gives you a solid foundation to progress through endgame activities while you work toward items from sets
Fixed Perks
All listed bellow is decent fixed perks that you will be happy to see on your armor. In order of power
Fixed Perk | Description |
|---|---|
Increase base damage by 1.5%, but armor is decreased by 1% while below 50% health (stacks per armor piece this perk is slotted in) | |
All hits gain 15% lifesteal and the power of lifesteals is increased by 15% as long as you have not used a survival potion in the last 13s. | |
Increase the duration of limited duration buffs on self by 10% | |
Hits grant 1.6% lifesteal. Gain 7.8% of your Max Health, 7.8 stamina, and gain 9.3% fortify and 7.8% Empower for 8s on kill. (2s cooldown) | |
After dodging an attack, gain Fortify, increasing armor by 9% for 6s (Each item with this perk stacks) | |
Elemental Conditionings | These may be useful in Mutated Expeditions to help reach the elemental damage resistance cap of 50%. It used to be easy to reach this in previous seasons, but in Season 10 the value of gems was decreased from 6% to 4%. This means that even with a protection amulet, the maximum achievable resistance is now around 42%. |
Sets
Season 10 introduces set bonuses into the game. Some of these sets are easier to obtain, while others require a longer grind. Progressing toward full set bonuses is a long-term goal and will significantly increase your power.
Set items come with four locked perks (including infix). The final perk is rolled randomly when the item drops, which can make farming the perfect version take longer. Still, these sets are an important part of endgame gearing. All set items come with light, medium and heavy variations
Slowly implement set items in your starter gear to make it stronger
Set | Where to get | Why |
|---|---|---|
Overcharged x3-x5 | Catacombs Lootboxes | If you able to play no hit in group content this set can give you 5%-25% damage boost |
Enrage x1-x5 | Icle of Nighheaven (2nd Boss) | This set can provide you up to 32% bonus damage if all conditions are met with usefull infixes (unique features). You can learn about it on nwdb https://nwdb.info/db/item-set/setbonus_enrage |
Tenacity x2-x4 | PvP Track Reward | Tenacity set can be valuble set for tanks but require a lot of PVP grind |
Elementally Charged x2-x4 | Catacombs Lootboxes | As heavy armor, this set can work well for tanks, since it comes with multiple Conditionings as locked perks and has a high chance to roll another Conditioning as the final random perk. However, Infixes on this set are not ideal for traditional tank builds |
Thanks for checking out!
This section may be updated throughout the season, but for now these are the main thoughts I wanted to share. I hope this guide helped bring some clarity to what items you should look for and where to get them.
If you have any questions, feel free to join the Discord. Stay creative, enjoy the game, and see you in Aeternum!
Mutation Academy
Honzey - builds, design and development
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