New World is the most anticipated MMO of the year. Now that the game is out, players are excited to try out the best New World classes for 2021.

Before you head straight towards Aeternum, just bear in mind that New World classes are not locked-in. The mastery classes are like ‘templates’ that you can follow to make an exciting build. Each weapon has two mastery trees with multiple branches that can be improved. Perhaps you can find a class combo that will make you a legendary New World player!

And without further ado, these are the best New World mastery classes for September 2021 and beyond:

The Best New World Mastery Classes Explored

The Swordmaster – A Beginner’s Classic Choice

Rating

Complexity: 3/5

PVP Power: 3/5

PVE Power: 4/5

Gear Reliance: 4/5

Pros:

• Easy-to-use DPS build
• Best for PVE
• Cool skill animations

Cons:

• Skills can be countered or dodged easily

The Swordmaster class relies on the natural combination of Strength and Dexterity. This class offers variable DPS through effective thrusting and slashing. One of the best things about the Swordmaster is the opportunity to defend from attacks with the help of a shield.

The Swordmaster’s primary skill is the Whirling Blade. This skill is the best for beginners because of above-average CC (crowd control). Reverse Stab is another useful skill that focuses on single-target damage with nearly unstoppable ferocity.

Leaping Strike is an interesting skill for the Swordmaster class. It has a cool animation display, and it can deliver exceptional damage in PVP. One problem with the Leaping Strike skill is its speed. While leaping, the animation will telegraph the intent and pave the way for counter-attacks or dodging.

If you’re a team player, you’ll have a blast with a Swordmaster build due to the Leadership skill. This skill grants a 10% bonus damage rate to your party if you’re equipped with a sword. In an intense large-scale PVP, all sources of bonus damage are as crucial as your refined equipment and playing style. The other useful skills of a Swordmaster are Opportunist, Precision, Critical Precision, and Empowered Stab.

The Defender – A Pure Tank

Rating

Complexity: 4/5

PVP Power: 3/5

PVE Power: 4/5

Gear Reliance: 4/5

Pros:

• Near-perfect balance of offense and defense
• Shield Rush skill is effective for removing distance gap
• Excellent passives

Cons:

• Sustained PVP damage is not too high

The Defender class is all about self-preservation. By using the Defender class, you’d feel high and mighty while being protected by a shield. The shield is not just for defense, but can also knock the confidence out of your enemies.

One strong advantage of the Defender is the effectiveness of its passive skills. These skills can also yield more benefits with the support of a reliable party. By optimizing passives like Sturdy Shield, Defensive Training, and Final Blow, your Defender character can become a strong tank.

While the Defender build has excellent survivability, it delivers limited sustained damage over time. This simply means that other builds can bring down a Defender with a consecutive barrage of skills and status effects. If you want to bring your Defender to PVP, you should tag along with a few dedicated friends.

The Sharpshooter – One Shot, One Kill

Rating

Complexity: 4/5

PVP Power: 4/5

PVE Power: 4/5

Gear Reliance: 4/5

Pros:

• High-damage build
• Effective sustained damage
• Remarkable headshot effects

Cons:

• Constant reloading and repositioning needed

The Sharpshooter class uses the ranged musket to deliver death from afar. By using this class, you don’t have to worry about tanks and melee fighters unless they get too close. To become the best Sharpshooter, you must focus on improving the Power Shot skill and maximizing Shooter’s Stance. Powder Burn is another useful skill that can improve your sustained damage with every well-timed shot.

As a PVP Sharpshooter, your first priority is to deliver strong headshots. A timely headshot yields tremendous damage, and it can also reduce the cooldown of the signature Power Shot. In New World, scoring a headshot is difficult because of distracting visual effects and dodge rolling.

The Shooter’s Stance is a Sharpshooter’s ace in the hole. Under this stance, your character can’t move but the musket damage can go as high as 100%. Additionally, the reloading time decreases as much as 75%. You must enter the Shooter’s Stance in a safe, entrenched position. Stake out the possible shooting areas in a settlement, and make sure that your friends are nearby to protect you from rushers.

The Trapper – Be the Danger

Rating

Complexity: 4/5

PVP Power: 3.5/5

PVE Power: 4/5

Gear Reliance: 3.9/5

Pros:

• Interesting entrap-and-throw gameplay
• Weakens and slows down targets
• Well-synergized passives

Cons:

• Nearly helpless once cornered

The Trapper is the real epitome of the classic hunter-ranger archetype. It utilizes the power of traps, bombs, and crowd control. As a Trapper, the primary skill that you should focus on is Traps. This skill will cause your character to throw a simple trap meant to immobilize a target for 3 seconds.

Sticky Bomb is another interesting skill of the Trapper class. Once this skill is activated, your character will throw a sticky bomb that will stick to an unfortunate target. After 3 seconds, the bomb will detonate and deal 175% weapon damage. Other players or monsters nearby are also covered by the blast. If you focus on maximizing Sticky Bomb, your Trapper can become a strong grenadier ready to take down stunned or rooted enemies.

The real strength of the Trapper class is the number of debilitating effects that it can deliver. Through the Stopping Power skill, your Trapper’s shots deal extra 120% damage with stagger ad knockdown bonuses. While the damage is not as deadly as the Power Shot, Stopping Power can wear down any target easily.

The Berserker – Unstoppable and Unbreakable

Rating

Complexity: 4/5

PVP Power: 4/5

PVE Power: 4/5

Gear Reliance: 4/5

Pros:

• Fast and high-damage attacks
• Counters many debuffs and effects
• Best for PVP

Cons:

• The player must have a fast reaction time

In many MMOs, the real enemies of tanks are assassin-type builds that can deliver continuous attacks with rapidly scaling damage. The situation applies with New World’s hatchet-bearing Berserker class. This class relies on the synergy of multiple abilities along with the player’s reaction speed and sense of awareness.

Berserk is the primary skill of the Berserker. Once activated, the Berserker will enter a furious trance that lasts for 12 seconds. Under this stance, the Berserker has increased damage, increased speed, debuff removal, and the ability to restore a small portion of health.  

The next useful skill of the Berserker is Feral Rush. If you’re chasing a monster or an enemy player, just activate Feral Rush to leap forward and deliver quick attacks. With two important actions in a row, Feral Rush will definitely give you an advantage.

Lastly, Raging Torrent is a skill that deserves a point. This skill lets your character attack four times consecutively, reaching as much as 360% weapon damage. A fully upgraded Raging Torrent branch maximizes your sustained damage significantly.

The Thrower – All About Hit and Run

Rating

Complexity: 4/5

PVP Power: 4.5/5

PVE Power: 4.5/5

Gear Reliance: 3.9/5

Pros:

• Strong throwing damage
• Deadly disease and weaken effects
• Easy hit and run mechanics

Cons:

• Fast skill switching and movement required
• Lacking in defense

The hatchet offers another strong mastery class: throwing. Utilizing a strong hit and run mechanic, the Thrower can take down most enemies including tanks. Such a high level of damage is possible through the combination of Rending Throw and Infected Throw.

The Rending Throw deals up to 110% hatchet damage with a defense-weakening effect. At a longer distance, Rending Throw is even more effective. This skill makes the Thrower a deadly ambusher that can kill targets in one or two blows.

The Infected Throw works best with Rending Throw, greatly pumping the damage and also infecting the target with disease. The combination creates three strong effects: rend (defense reduction), disease (healing reduction), and weakening (damage reduction).

If you’re about to be cornered, you can use Social Distancing to leap backward while throwing an axe at the same time. The trade-off is remarkable because enemies will also get slowed down by the skill. Once you’ve recovered, just circle back and use a snarky combo of Rending Throw and Infected Throw.

Since the Thrower is an offensive build, it lacks a pure defensive technique. So, don’t let yourself get cornered. Find quick exits, and make sure that you have the best passives such as Persistent Hindrance, Exploitation, and Critical Throw.

The Reaper – A True Harbinger of Death

Rating

Complexity: 4/5

PVP Power: 4.5/5

PVE Power: 4.9/5

Gear Reliance: 3.9/5

Pros:

• Great for solo or group PVP
• Deadly disease and weaken effects
• Execute and Reap are big killers

Cons:

• Only a few passives are useful
• Fast reaction time needed

The Reaper is the best class for dedicated PVPers. Relying on the big damage of the Great Axe, the Reaper can crush any opposition despite the lack of raw speed. The Reaper’s main skill is Reap. This skill allows you to snag opponents closer and slice them with follow-up attacks.

Charge is the opposite of Reap as it allows you to close the distance to a target and deliver a finishing strike upon arrival. The best thing about Charge is the total damage that it can deal, reaching as high as 420% once fully upgraded!

If you don’t have the patience for combos, Execute is the skill that you should focus on. Through this deadly skill, your character can deal 200% weapon damage. A terribly wounded foe will receive 300% damage instead.

The Reaper’s passives are interesting but only a few of them can make your build really powerful. These useful passives are Critical Gains, Critical Condition, Feed, and Keen Edge.

The Mauler –King of Crowd Control

Rating

Complexity: 4.5/5

PVP Power: 4/5

PVE Power: 4.9/5

Gear Reliance: 3.9/5

Pros:

• Best crowd-controller
• Above-average survivability
• Unstoppable in PVE

Cons:

• Near-perfect timing is required
• Usual target in PVPs

One of the most popular mastery classes or builds in New World is the Mauler. Raw damage is a factor that contributes to the Mauler’s popularity, but AOE damage is the mastery’s bread and butter.

Maelstrom is the most convenient skill of the Mauler, followed by the Whirlwind. Once the Maelstrom is activated, your character performs a spin-attack and pulls enemies closer. These enemies receive damage as they’re pulled towards your character. Whirlwind is another beneficial skill that deals weapon damage and allows spinning movement at the same time.

The Mauler is an effective crowd-controller with limited survival skills. To use the Mauler effectively, you must have proper timing and great battlefield awareness. Perhaps you can activate Whirlwind near some debilitated foes or you can use Charge from the Reaper tree and then use Maelstrom afterwards. Such is the flexibility of the hatchet!

Blood – Let Your Enemies Bleed

Rating

Complexity: 4/5

PVP Power: 4.5/5

PVE Power: 4.9/5

Gear Reliance: 4/5

Pros:

• High and fast DPS
• Strong bleed mechanic
• Skills have great synergy

Cons:

• Slightly lacks defense

The bleed system has always been a part of MMOs, and it is even more important in New World. While most classes can benefit from having a bleed-inducing weapon, nothing comes close to the Blood mastery class of a rapier. The Blood mastery relies on the neat combo of Tondo and Flurry, all the while supported by the Flourish and Finish skill branch.

At first glance, Tondo is a low-damage skill. However, as the strikes build up, Tondo will create a stacking barrage of damage compounded by the bleed status. Literally and figuratively, your enemies will bleed to death.

Flurry is a useful skill even though it can be countered by fast players. Upon activation, this skill will trigger a stance and launch a barrage of multiple strikes. If you decide to max out this branch, you’d notice a steady damage build-up that will eventually stagger an enemy. Even if the enemy survives your combo, he or she will be exposed to one-hit attacks from other PVPers.

Flourish and Finish is the gambit card of the Blood class. Once you’ve timed this skill properly, you can knock back enemies and deal more damage. Additionally, Flourish and Finish will improve the potential damage of your rapier by as much as 150%.

The Blood mastery’s passives are few but all of them are useful. Refreshing Strikes, in particular, will reduce skill cooldowns and improve your character’s killing capabilities. Heavy Puncture is also a winning passive ability due to its capability of extending the bleed status.

Grace – Remember Your Footwork

Rating

Complexity: 4.5/5

PVP Power: 4/5

PVE Power: 4/5

Gear Reliance: 4/5

Pros:

• Excellent mobility
• Easier way of chasing enemies
• Rewarding to play

Cons:

• Needs some skills from the Blood class
• Low defense once cornered

Do you want to take down your enemies in a beautiful and non-grisly manner? In that case, the best mastery class that you should pick is the rapier’s Grace. Focused on evasion and movement, the Grace mastery will let you escape danger and build up the right momentum to defeat your foes.

Grace’s Evade skill is useful for escaping threats and improving the damage of your light attacks. Aside from the defense and speed improvement, you can also restore a portion of your stamina bar upon usage. In a way, Evade gives you a chance to recover your bearing and come back for vengeance.

In some cases, Riposte is more useful than Evade. Once the Riposte stance is activated, it will stun the attacker for less than 2 seconds. This time frame is enough to activate all other important abilities offered by the rapier.

If you love chasing enemies, you should spend some points in the Fleche branch. The Fleche skill lets your character lunge for up to 10m. This lunging attack delivers excellent damage and can take down retreating foes. You also have the option to make a light attack while lunging.

The Grace mastery’s passives focus on stamina gain, haste, and cooldown reduction. Take note of these passives as you build your powerful New World character.

 

Impaler – Focused and Steady

Rating

Complexity: 4/5

PVP Power: 4/5

PVE Power: 4/5

Gear Reliance: 3.5/5

Pros:

• Strong damage and debuffs
• Great for cornering foes
• Unstoppable ambusher

Cons:

• Limited exit strategies
• Vulnerable once targeted or cornered

The Impaler is an all-out offensive build that benefits from quick strikes followed by debilitating effects like rend, bleed, and stun. A pure Impaler build is a ‘glass cannon type’ capable of delivering crucial blows at the risk of being vulnerable.

The classic skill of the Impaler is Skewer. This skill allows your character to lunge forward and deal heavy weapon damage with bleed. Even if your target is at full HP, it will receive compounding damage as long as the spear keeps hitting. It’s a wise choice to fully upgrade the Skewer branch.

Perforate is a secondary skill that causes rend on a target. The skill is also stronger if your target has more than 50% HP remaining.

A chase is almost worthless if you can’t find a way to stop your target. The Impaler’s Vault Kick skill solves this problem by stunning your opponent for up to 1.5 seconds. Vault Kick is stronger against enemies with less than 50% HP remaining, making it an effective one-shot ambush technique.

All of the Impaler’s passives are useful, but you should focus on getting Finishing Blows, Exposed Wounds, and Exploited Weakness. These passives will seal the fate of your target, unless you get cornered by two or more rushers and ambushers.

Main Reasons Why You Should Play New World

Are you still having doubts about New World? Well, here are some of the reasons why you need to play this MMO as soon as possible!

Exciting PVP Scene

New World has an exciting open-world PVP system. Daring players who want to test their mettle can explore the rest of Aeternum and engage in high-octane PVP fights. Even though you have the chance to opt-out of PVP, you’d miss out on the cool rewards.

These are some of the benefits of engaging in New World PVP:

• High character and weapon XP gain
• Faction Points
• Ranking system and perks
• Bragging rights

Before you start hunting down players, you need to join a faction (Covenant, Syndicate, or Marauders). Next, simply flag yourself for PVP by hitting the U button. Just keep in mind that you can only activate or deactivate PVP inside a settlement.

Take a look at this simple PVP guide on maximizing your weapon combos:

Interesting New World Weapon Pairings

Territory Warfare

The most interesting thing about New World’s PVP system is the territory warfare or War Mode. Under the 50v50 War Mode, players can take or defend a territory within a 30-minute time frame. War Mode is a chaotic scene with lots of skills being thrown around or activated. Beginners will very likely die many times in War Mode, but they can always return and fight back without consequences.

Outpost Rush is a smaller version of the War Mode. In this small PVP event, groups of players can attack or defend an outpost. The first group to reach 1,000 points will climb the leaderboard and win great rewards. Speed is an important factor of Outpost Rush because a single tactical mistake will often cause a group to lose big points.

So if you like to wage war in the name of a faction, you shouldn’t miss out on New World’s PVP scene. There are tons of rewards waiting for the best conquistador!

Flexible Level Progression

New World gives a lot of choices to players in terms of progression. You can spend many hours PVPing with your friends or you can simply craft high-tier items. Slaying monsters is also a great option since many enemies lurk all over Aeternum. Defeating these enemies will yield XP and various types of loot.

If you want to gain more XP while discovering the mysteries of Aeternum, check out the Expeditions. Each faction has a set of unique expeditions that players can try. Expeditions are challenging because of their environments and deep-dwelling monsters. But you know what they say – the greater the risk, the greater the rewards!

Diverse Crafting

New World’s crafting system attracted many players during the Open Beta. Now that the game is on full swing, the crafting system will continue to improve over the next few months.

The first thing that you have to know about New World’s crafting system is the dynamic between collecting and refining. During the early levels, you can find many resources that have little market value. Instead of selling these items for meager coins, you must refine them into valuable resources necessary for high-tier crafting.

Aiming for high-tier crafting is not easy because you have to complete Town missions and raise your crafting levels simultaneously. Obviously, the grind is unavoidable.

The second important thing about crafting in New World is the degree of flexibility. You can train any skill that you want such as Arcana, Engineering, Furnishing, Cooking, Armoring, Weaponsmithing, and Jewelcrafting. Take note that you need high-quality materials and reagents to craft the best items. Perhaps you can save time by talking to some players and offering an ex-deal for the reagents that you need.

New World Grinding Guide: Things You Should Know

Keep Your Eyes Peeled for Stuff

As a beginner, it’s easy to miss many important things in the game world. This is acceptable because you have to explore Aeternum and enjoy the cool things about it. But if you want to become powerful within a short time, you need to watch out for resource spots.

Observe the map for nearby herb bushes and start a seamless gathering run. Hyssops are valuable because they’re needed for making health potions. Iron is another important resource because it is needed for iron tools and quests. Wood is also a crucial resource, but you don’t have to worry about it too much. After all, Aeternum has many trees, to begin with.

While traveling back and forth, you might also find journals. These journals contain information about the world, and they also yield XP. Don’t miss these journals – every source of XP is important!

You’ll also need lots of leather for crafting and quests. So, find a spot with many boars and hunt them down indiscriminately. You need to skin these creatures for their hide.

Don’t Forget Your Stash

Stash is as important as your inventory bags. You can put extra crafting materials in your stash to avoid overloading your personal bag.

During the Beta, many players went back and forth filling their bags with resources from their stash. This is a big time sink! The workshop will get the required items directly from your stash and bags. You don’t have to transfer these items one by one.

Be reminded that your stash is exclusive to the settlement that it’s located in. Your items from First Light won’t be available in Windsward. Once you’ve reached all settlements, try to fill all of your stashes with helpful, commonly used items.

Make Lots of Rations and Potions

Cooking is an essential skill in New World, unless you want to spend a lot of coin buying rations from other players. These rations are important for healing your character during intense PVP or PVE fights. Whenever you have the chance, try to allot a portion of your time for crafting rations.

Do you want something better than rations? By all means, just grind your Arcana skill real hard. Start from weak health potions and eventually move up to the PVP-essential infused health potion. The grind is long but definitely worth it, especially if you love PVP and you want to make money selling potions to PVPers.

Always Get More Than Necessary

Do not settle for what’s needed. Rather, stretch your priorities by getting more items than necessary. You never know when you might need extra items for quests and additional tools or weapons.

Just watch out for Azoth. Every player has a cap for collecting this rare blue concoction. If you reached the cap, other incoming Azoths from quests will just go to waste. Do your best to level up before collecting more Azoth.

Why should you collect Azoth? Well, Azoth can increase the gear score of the items that you’re currently crafting. Azoth is also an important material for fast travel and mastery tree respecs. If you’re below level 20, you don’t have to worry too much about respec because it’s free.

Reach Level 10-12 ASAP

Upon reaching Level 10, your character will have lots of opportunities for further growth. Settlements will offer more quests and jobs. You can also join a faction and get flagged for exciting PVP events. As you probably know, you’ll gain additional XP by winning PVP fights.

On Level 10 above, quests are your lifeblood. By accomplishing quests, you’ll gain XP, Azoth, items, and coin. The trade-off is great for your efforts!

FAQ About New World Classes

What is the best class for a beginner?

Answer: During the early levels, you should try using a sword or a hatchet. These weapons deliver strong DPS on PVE, but they fall a bit short on PVP. Still, it’s early to tell if the situation will remain the same for swords and hatchets. These weapons might receive massive improvements in the coming updates.

Do I need to follow a build to enjoy the game?

Answer: You don’t need any builds to enjoy New World. Instead, just choose your favorite weapons and grind hard to become stronger. Builds are great for testing damage outputs and efficiency in PVP, but they shouldn’t affect your gameplay drastically.

How important is PVP in New World?

Answer: While New World’s PVP system has changed, it’s still thriving and full of action. Nearly everything in the game is skill-based, allowing players to improve over time. PVP is important in New World because it is the game’s biggest selling point. Plus, you will gain more weapon XP by killing enemies in PVP.

Is New World’s economy balanced?

Answer: Right now, New World’s economy is balanced but not perfect. The prices of materials fluctuate regularly, and the difficulty curve for crafting top-tier gear is also high. If you want to become a successful crafter in New World, you need to grind a lot and work with other people.

How will the game turn out after its official release?

Answer: No one can say for sure, but economy balancing is possibly the next step. Players will also get busy crafting new builds so the meta might change within a few weeks.

Final Notes

New World is an exciting MMO with new features to offer. Even though New World didn’t reinvent the wheel, it generated lasting appeal through hype, visual improvements, and progressive PVP. The game’s crafting system is interesting but it still has a large room for improvement and rebalancing. Nevertheless, New World is very likely to have beneficial updates or patches before the year ends. For many fans and players, the waiting game begins.

What do you think about Amazon’s New World? Do you have a unique build idea? Share your thoughts in the comment box below. We’d love to hear about them!