New World: Aeternum lets players pick a classic MMO role at the start of the game and provides certain weapons that make a good fit. However, the gist of what these weapons are actually capable of isn’t explicitly clear in the moment-to-moment MMO gameplay. This guide has you covered though and will show you all the best weapon builds you can make to become your party’s reliable frontline tank.
Starting with your stat allocation, it’s recommended that you reach 250 Strength and 200 Constitution for all the builds listed here.
Core Weapon: Sword and Shield
For all the tank builds in New World: Aeternum, the Sword and Shield is by far the most capable weapon archetype for soaking up damage and drawing aggro. If you want to play as a tank main immediately after the tutorial, pick this weapon up and put all your skill points into these nodes:
- Shield Bash
- Shield Rush
- Defender’s Resolve
- Achilles’ Heel
- Final Countdown
- Improved Rush
- Intimidating Bash
- Freeing Justice
- Sturdy Shield
- Elemental Resistance
- Final Blow
- One with the Shield
- Sturdy Grip
- High Grip
- Defensive Training
- Recuperation
- Defensive Formation
- Intimidating Rush
- Precision
These perks should provide you with all the means of getting damage mitigation, threat generation, debuffs, and auras to get started on tanking. To elaborate on your skills, Shield Bash is your aggro generation skill, Shield Rush is your damage and debuff ability, and Defender’s Resolve is your emergency damage mitigation skill. After fully leveling this weapon, it’s time to pick your second weapon.
Secondary Weapon #1: Warhammer
The Warhammer archetype is a great complement to the Sword and Shield as it has a lot of crowd control skills to help manage the groups of mobs and bosses you’ll be facing. When leveling this weapon’s skill tree, pick the following:
- Outnumbered
- Shockwave
- Frailty
- Path of Destiny
- Seismic Wave
- Stimulated Reduction
- Meteoric Crater
- Hammer Time
- Hardened Steel
- Wrecking Ball
- Safety Measures
- Breathing Room
- Power Through Pain
- Guarded Sprint
- Concussive Impact
- Prevailing Spirit
- Aftershock
- Contemption
- Epitome of Bonk!
While this build is great for PvE content, it’s also very effective in PvP due to the many hard CC effects it has with its many stun, knockdown, and stagger skills.
Shockwave is your standard AoE stun, stagger, and weaken skill for handling groups of enemies. Path of Destiny is your cleaving line AoE which can also reduce the cooldowns of your other skills. Wrecking Ball is your biggest source of damage, and it’ll grant you Fortify after casting it.
As for your Gems, go with the Runeglass of Leeching Malachite for PvP and Runeglass of Leeching Carnelian for PvE. The Malachite variant gives all your hard CCs an extra damage vulnerability effect and some lifesteal to sustain you in combat. Meanwhile, the Malachite variant helps you maintain the highest threat generation in the party and is a mandatory Gem when doing endgame PvE.
Secondary Weapon #2: Great Axe
If you’re willing to sacrifice some crowd control utility in exchange for raw DPS output, the Great Axe is a solid option for dealing burst damage. When building this tree, put your points in the following nodes:
- Mauler’s Resolve
- Maelstrom
- Gravity Well
- Crowded Well
- Storm’s Reach
- Unyielding
- Greed
- Critical Gains
- Charge
- Frenzied Momentum
- Unpredictable Strike
- Keen Edge
- Frustration
- Feed
- Critical Condition
- Death’s Embrace
- Center of Attention
- Crowded Protection
- Blood Lust
To explain its active skills, Maelstrom is your bread-and-butter damage skill that can cleave down groups or deal decent DPS to singular targets. Gravity Well helps you cluster up a group for you and your team to land your AoE nukes with. Finally, Charge is your gap-closing engagement skill that can deal a massive burst of damage the further you are from your target.
Lastly, slot the Runeglass of Leeching Onyx on your gear for PvP and the Runeglass of Leeching Carnelian for PvE.
