Best DPS Build New World | High Ground Gaming (2024)

Most MMO players like doing damage, but DPS players focus on damage to the exclusion of basically everything else. In this guide to the best DPS build for New World, we’ll cover the basics of a good DPS build, plus the skills and equipment you need to deal the most damage you can.

Let’s get started!

New World Best DPS Build

First, a quick overview. Our strategy here is quite simple — keep your enemies at a distance and fire away until they’re dead. To that end, you want to focus on high mobility and dodge so you can kite effectively.

Keep in mind that this build is an archetypal glass cannon build. You can always balance it out based on your preferred playstyle, but we’re foregoing defense in favor of dealing as much damage as possible.

Attributes

For your attributes, you’ll want to put everything (and I mean everything) into Dexterity. Only stop putting points into Dexterity when the game physically makes you stop. Once that well has run dry, you can start putting your remaining points into Intelligence, as your secondary weapon will rely on this stat to a degree.

Equipment

As mentioned above, you’ll want to maximize your dodge and mobility for this build. The important thing is to keep your equipment load light. The optimum choice stat-wise is to wear a medium chest piece and keep the rest of your armor light.

Weapons

All of New World’s DPS weapons are good choices, but the musket is the weapon of choice if you want to maximize your damage as much as possible. We’ll be focusing primarily on the musket in this guide, though we’ll also briefly touch on the rapier as a secondary/backup weapon.

New World Best DPS Skills — Musket

Now that we’ve got the basics out of the way, let’s get into the best skills for a DPS build in New World. We’ll start with our recommendations for the musket, which will focus on the Sharpshooter and Trapper skill trees.

Powder Burn

Powder Burn is the second-row active skill in the Sharpshooter skill tree, and the first active skill we want for this build.

This skill overcharges your musket, dealing 110% weapon damage on a hit and inflicting a burn effect that does 20% weapon damage each second for 9s. When fully upgraded, the Chronic Trauma boost extends the burn status effect by 4s if your attack was a headshot. Obviously this is a huge boost to damage (which exactly what we’re here for). This skill has a 14.7s cooldown.

This skill does good base damage, but the DOTs are what you’re really here fore. This skill will rack up the damage real quick, and is a must-have for maximizing your DPS.

Shooter’s Stance

Shooter’s Stance is the third-row active skill in the Sharpshooter Skill tree. This is the next active skill you want to purchase, though it can be a bit risky.

You enter a crouched aiming stance. The stance does not increase your weapon damage, but reduces weapon reload time to 75%. This lasts for three shots and has a 17.7 second cooldown, and you cannot move until the stance ends.

Reducing weapon reload time to 75% may not sound like a big deal, but once you play around with the musket, you’ll understand how annoying reloading after each shot is. Shooter’s Stance really piles on the damage, and once upgraded, it lets you fire five shots before it ends.

Both Shoot More and Marksman are great additions as you upgrade this skill. Shoot More gives you two more shots at reduced reload, and Marksman reduces your cooldowns when focusing one enemy.

Sticky Bomb

Sticky Bomb is the third-row active skill of the Trapper skill tree, and the damage and status effects are well worth the point investment. You throw a bomb that explodes three seconds after it hits an enemy, dealing 210% weapon damage and staggering all enemies within 3m. This comes at an 11.8s cooldown.

This ability will do the most raw damage of any of your active skills. The stagger is not to be underestimated either, as you want to keep your distance in this build. Just remember the three-second delay so your timing isn’t thrown off!

As you upgrade this skill, consider getting Sticky Slow for an added a slow effect. This is great for keeping your distance for that sweet long-range sniping.

Passive Skills

Most of the passive skills from the Sharpshooter skill tree are very solid choices for this build. Both Critical Reload and Called Shot from the first row are great picks. Critical Reload gives you a free reload if you get three headshots within 5s, and Called Shot ups your damage by 5% if you’ve been aiming for at least 3s. I still recommend all the passives from the Sharpshooter tree, though. You can’t go wrong.

As for the Trapper Passive skills, Salt on the Wounds, Back it Up, and Weakened Defense are the skills you want. Salt on the Wounds is just a straight 10% damage increase to targets 30% or lower on health. Back it Up gives a 10% movement speed increase when enemies are within 8m of you, which is great for getting out of a tough spot. Weakened Defense adds 50% stamina damage to all enemies blocking with a shield, and 10% armor penetration to those who aren’t. It’s a win-win.

Sniper

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Sniper is the go-to choice for the capstone ability. For one thing, you won’t go far enough down the Trapper skill tree to unlock Lethal Combo. For another, Sniper really ups your headshot game. So it’s a no-brainer.

New World Best DPS Skills — Rapier

Ideally, your secondary weapon won’t come up much in this build, as your goal is to stay back and snipe with the musket. Since having a second weapon is optimal, however, we recommend the rapier as the best pairing for this build.

The point of the rapier (no pun intended for once), is to get in some quick damage when an enemy gets in too close, and to get you away from said enemy in a pinch.

You’ll mainly want to focus on Tondo and Evade here. Other than fully upgrading those two skills, the rest of the points you spend on the rapier are up to you, as they’re less central to this build.

Tondo

Tondo is the first first-row active skill of the Blood skill tree. It is a quick attack that can hit at a distance and inflicts Bleed.

You attack up to 5m away for 50% weapon damage. On a hit, you inflict a Bleed status effect that does 10% weapon damage per second for 12s. You can stack this effect up to three times. This comes at a 5.9s cooldown.

Tondo is a very fast attack with solid DOTs. The move is great for getting in some quick melee DPS before retreating and pulling out your musket again.

Evade

Evade is the first-row active skill in the Grace skill tree. It does what it says on the tin, and is great for helping you get away from troublesome melee opponents.

You perform a sidestep that gives you momentary invulnerability. If you do light attacks during the sidestep they are performed much quicker than normal. This all comes at an 11.8 second cooldown. The point of evade in this build is to help get you out of melee as quickly as possible. After all, the musket is the star of this show. However, getting a hit or two in before retreating is a bonus.

Join the High Ground

That’s all for our guide to the best DPS build in New World — thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this guide, drop a comment and subscribe to our newsletter for more New World content. As always, happy shooting and stabbing, explorer!

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