New World SPEAR Guide and Best Builds (2024)

Want to learn how to perfectly puncture your foes in New World? This guide is an in-depth dive into all things Spear in Amazon’s MMO!

This guide dives deep into the Skills, Passives, and some builds for the Spear in New World. This guide can be considered a more advanced version of our New World Guide to Weapons for Beginners. By the end of this guide, you should have a thorough understanding of the Spear and with practice be able to fully master it.

The Guide is up-to-date for Patch 1.9.2

At the end of the guide you will find a section that lists all changes to this weapon that AGS has implemented as they maintain and support the game in the long term.

Spear Overview

The Spear is a flexible melee weapon that is fully capable of being used for offensive or defensive means. With plenty of crowd control options, and the strongest Rend application in the game, it can easily hold its own in most situations.

The Primary use of this weapon is in the Damage category. With the strongest Rend in the game, decent reach, and plenty of quick damage skills it’s easily a great option for Melee DPS.

The secondary use of this weapon is Utility and Crowd Control. The Spear has no shortage of crowd control. Knockdowns, knockback, Staggers, Stuns; the Spear has a lot of options to work with to reduce your own risk and punish opponents.

Spear Skills, Passives, and Perks

First we’ll lead off with the skills and passives. We’ll talk a bit about each, their uses and how effective they are. There’s a lot to cover here, so we’ll break it down per tree to keep things organized.

Alongside the general information, They’ll be given a Rating from C up to S tier for both PvE and PvP. C tier is exclusively for the passives that are not that great, either being forced by another upgrade or generally useless. A and B Tiers are middling tiers, putting them between the worst passives and the best, leaning one way or the other. S tier are the good passives, the ones you’re almost always going for if you pick up a skill or want to because it’s useful in many scenarios.

Zoner Tree

The Zoner Tree is is all about making space and zone contol. While this tree has some of the more favorable skills for PvP, all of these skills can work well in PvE as well.

The Active Skill for the Zoner Tree consist of Javelin, Sweep and Cyclone.

Javelin

Javelin puts you in an aim mode, enabling you to throw your spear once. This will deal 80% Weapon Damage and stagger on hit.

This the is only ranged option you get with the Spear. It can be decent as a finishing option for someone attempting to run away. Though the biggest advantage comes in PvE through the ability to headshot for consistently high damage regardless of positioning.

With a cooldown of 15 seconds, Javelin is one of the Spear’s longest cooldowns.

Javelin Rating: B – PvE and PvP (B+ in PvE with upgrades)

Being one of the few high damage ratios on the Spear, this ability can really hurt with practice and getting those headshots. It will take awhile to build that consistency, but it can be worth it once upgraded.

Forceful Impact

Forceful Impact upgrades the innate Stagger effect to a Knockdown effect.

This really helps when someone it trying to run and you manage to land a Javelin on them. The brief crowd control effect can be enough to help you close some distance. Can almost be detrimental in PvE depending on situation.

Forceful Impact Rating: C – PvE, B – PvP

In PvE this can almost be detrimental. Often times this is a skill you would open with to pull a mob, and the knockdown keeps them from getting closer immediately. This can be good when paired with a ranged weapon, but not amazing with a second melee weapon.

In PvP the knock down more strongly ties this skill to the Zoner identity. This helps it impact your ability to control a zone.

Refreshing Precision

Headshots with Javelin reduce Javelin’s cooldown by 50%

If you can get consistent with landing headshots, it makes Javelin your shortest cooldown and a reliable damage option.

Refreshing Precision Rating: A – PvE, C+ – PvP

Depending on the situation, you usually won’t have much issues landing headshots with this skill in PvE. The only downside is that the Spear is melee outside of this skill. It makes for a decent opener, but most non-elite enemies will be very likely to be dead before you get a second use in.

In PvP, the skill is very telegraphed and easy to avoid in most cases. The one case where it can still be useful might be War, where it’ll be harder to specifically avoid it but can still end up being blocked or just missing.

Deadly Distance

Deadly Distance increases Javelin’s damage by 2.5% per meter traveled, which caps at a 100% bonus.

This can make for some nice supplemental damage to a Bow or Musket, just don’t expect to get the full damage bonus reliably. However, 10-20 meters is still a solid 25-50% bonus. If you get lucky with headshots and trigger Refreshing Precision often, it’s a pretty heavy and consistent hit.

Deadly Distance Rating: B – PvE, C – PvP (A in Wars)

Unless you’re just using for extra damage alongside a Bow or Musket, you won’t get much use out of the skill or bonus, due to not wanting to play at too far of a range that even headshots with your other weapon can be unreliable.

In PvP, it’s very unlikely you’ll get much benefit out of this. The rare situation where you use it as supplemental damage in wars, it can hit pretty hard if you’re positioned well and consistent with landing them.

Sweep

Sweep performs a leg sweeping attack that deals 45% Weapon Damage and knocks the target down.

This skill is pretty good offensively and defensively. Once upgraded it gains even more offensive power making it a really strong option regardless of build.

At a cooldown of 10 seconds, Sweep is the Spear’s shortest cooldown.

Sweep Rating: S – PvE and PvP

Sweep is easily one of the most flexible options the Spear has in its kit. The knockdown is a quick and easy way to get in free damage on most opponents. It also doubles as a means of creating more space for you to use to your advantage. It’s already low base cooldown makes it incredibly reliable.

Tenacious Sweep

Tenacious Sweep adds Grit to Sweep, making it harder to interrupt.

Sweep can be a little slow, but this makes it a much more reliable skill to use overall.

Tenacious Sweep Rating: A – PvE and PvP

Grit is pretty nice for this skill and it will also apply to the final upgrade as well, making it a reliable damage option. However Grit doesn’t prevent Stuns, which are common in both PvE and PvP, so it’s not a be all end all.

Coup de Grace

Coup de Grace allows you to press your attack button during Sweep to perform a powerful downwards stab for 150% Weapon Damage. This attack will also trigger Heavy Attack-related passives.

Given that this follow-up attack is on par with the damage of other skills minus any secondary effects, this is a solid upgrade. Throw in the fact that it can trigger Heavy Attack passives and it’s an absolutely amazing upgrade.

Coup de Grace Rating: S – PvE and PvP

With it being both an optional and reliable follow-up for Sweep, it’s a really versatile upgrade that really makes Sweep a strong skill. While Coup de Grace lacks any secondary effects as opposed to any other damage option, it happens to have less delay over other options, making it very reliable to land after Sweep.

Cyclone

Cyclone is a quick spin attack that deals 130% Weapon Damage in an area around you. Targets hit by Cyclone are slowed by 50% for 3 seconds. This skill has grit, preventing interruption by staggers. With an Carnelian Gem slotted, this skill will taunt all targets hit by the skill for 2 seconds.

Decent damage and the strongest slow in the game in a single skill makes this highly valuable for maintaining your spacing in PvP and still a decent PvE skill.

With a cooldown of 12 seconds, Cyclone is one of the Spear’s shorter cooldowns.

Cyclone Rating: C – PvE, A – PvP (S in PvP fully upgraded)

Cyclone is much like Sweep in its versatility, but more focused towards the utility aspects that make it a strong PvP skill instead of PvE. Without being fully upgraded, it very lacking in PvE, where it will only provide damage that is lower than a Heavy Attack damage-wise.

In PvP, this skill honestly has too much utility to pass up, especially after being fully upgraded. The strong slow can be used as means of creating space, or making it difficult for your opponent to escape. The knockback you get from upgrades and slow both make for a great setup for Vault Kick with this weapon alone.

Invigorating Combo

Invigorating Combo restores 25 stamina for each hit with Cyclone.

While stamina isn’t a huge concern in PvE, this solidifies Cyclone as strong PvP tool. Considering it’s 25 per hit, you could easily refill any missing stamina depending on how many targets you hit.

Invigorating Combo Rating: C – PvE, A – PvP (S with Aggressive Manuevers)

While stamina has its uses for PvE, it much more limited to the use it’ll see in PvP. This isn’t a big deal though as Cyclone isn’t the greatest option for PvE anyways.

In PvP however, this pairs incredibly well with the Aggressive Manuevers passive to both refund part of the stamina used to active the passive and still benefit fully. Even without it, the extra stamina is a nice bonus to get in PvP.

Strong Momentum

Strong Momentum adds a 3 meter knockback to Cyclone.

This gives the skill a bit of extra utility in PvP, giving you the ability to counter someone’s engage on you. While it’s a short distance, it gives you enough space to react, and combined with the slow, an easy way to follow up with huge damage.

Strong Momentum Rating: C – PvE, S – PvP

In PvE, it’s rare that knockback will do anything other than delay your damage. While it can interrupt some enemy attacks, it’s not super valuable to do so if it’s a weaker enemy.

In PvP, the space this can provide is pretty solid. While it’s not a massive amount of space, it can give you some breathing room. The slow is still the bigger benefit, but the combination of the two can be very valuable for creating space.

Zoner Tree Passives

The Zoner Tree focuses mainly on boosting your Heavy Attacks, adding additional damage, damage reduction and even cooldown reduction to them. There are a few niche passives that if used well can be very strong in practice.

Refreshing Reach

Refreshing Reach makes successful Heavy Attack reduce your cooldowns by 15%. This can only trigger once per attack.

Cooldown reduction is always nice, and considering there are quicker variants of Heavy Attacks that deal slightly less damage, this can be a very easy way to reduce your cooldowns quickly.

Refreshing Reach Rating: S – PvE and PvP

In PvE it’s very easy to consistently land heavy attacks on enemies. This can bring a lot of value this passive as even with full charge heavy attacks, it’s slightly faster to trigger as opposed to Refreshing Jabs for Light Attacks.

In PvP it’s also slightly more reliable as you’ll have more crowd control to make it consistent. With a lot of that crowd control being short, it helps to have a way to trigger it with a single hit.

Deadly Consistency

Deadly Consistency increases the damage of repeat Heavy Attacks on the same target by 10%. This effect can stack up to 3 times, providing 30% increased damage.

Considering the only condition for this damage boost is to use mainly Heavy Attacks, it can be very worthwhile in PvE.

Deadly Consistency Rating: S – PvE, B – PvP

While heavy attacks can be used consistently in PvE, doing so in PvP is much rougher as they’re pretty telegraphed and very easy to dodge. This also only applies when doing them back to back, which you won’t always have the luxury of doing in PvP.

Invigorating Crits

Invigorating Crits restores 20 stamina when getting a Critical Hit.

This is another passive that’s good to pair with Aggressive Maneuvers, but a little less reliable without perks and passives supporting it.

Invigorating Crits Rating: A – PvE and PvP (S with Aggressive Maneuvers and/or Reserved Strength)

Despite Stamina being a bigger deal for PvP, this actually works really well in PvE when playing the Spear in a DPS role as well. The biggest reason for this are incredibly strong passives that ask us to either be full stamina or dodge prior to an attack. One increases damage, while the other reduces our cooldowns after an ability. This allows you to make good use of both passives, should you get a crit.

Strong Conditioning

Strong conditioning increases your Stamina Regen by 30% while under 50% Stamina.

This is a nice passive to use in PvP as opposed to Invigorating Crits being a more active approach. The cut off at 50% Stamina is a unique decision that will allow you to dodge more frequently, should your Dexterity be high enough to reduce you Dodge Stamina Cost.

Strong Conditioning Rating: C – PvE, A – PvP

This will rarely ever do anything for you in PvE. For the most part you won’t actively expend stamina in a way where you’ll get much use out of this. Sure it can help you take advantage of Aggressive Maneuvers, but nowhere near at easily as Invigorating Crits.

In PvP however, frequent dodging can result in being at much lower Stamina. This can help you easily maintain enough stamina to dodge without exhausting all of your stamina. Works best with the DEX perk that reduces dodge cost.

Deadly Reach

Deadly Reach increases your Critical Chance by 10% when hitting foes at a distance of 3 meters or more.

While this primarily affects Javelin, it can also be used with Heavy Attacks. The interaction with Heavy Attacks was also adjusted back in Patch 1.1 “Into the Void” to work more reliably without attack homing pushing you too close.

Deadly Reach Rating: A – PvE and PvP

With the updating improving how this passive interacts with Heavy Attacks, it’s now a fairly reliable bonus that can be used alongside others in builds that want to make use of more Heavy Attacks.

Evasive Maneuvers

Evasive Maneuvers lowers the stamina cost by 20% when dodging backwards after a successful hit.

This pairs nicely with things like Aggressive Manuevers to reduce the cost of dodging by a significant amount. It’s also very oddly specific that it has to be a backwards dodge.

Evasive Maneuvers Rating: S – PvE and PvP

Given the trigger for this is literally any hit, this is a very easy condition to meet. It will help reduce the cost of dodging frequently, despite being only backwards dodges. This is because you may often have to reposition backwards just a bit to make sure you skill land thanks to the increased range and reach. Being able to do this a little more freely helps the Spear do really well.

Merciless Strength

Merciless Strength increases your damage against knocked down targets by 25%.

This is a little niche, as it really only applies to Sweep unless you’re throwing point-blank Javelins.

Merciless Strength Rating: A – PvE and PvP (C without Sweep)

Despite it only applying to Sweep and therefore Coup de Grace, Sweep is up often enough that it will actually be useful. It’ll also boost the damage of any active damage over time effects you might have applied as well. Without Sweep or any other reliable knockdown though, it’s not worth taking.

Defensive Stance

Defensive Stance grants 15% Fortify for 2 second after a successful Heavy Attack.

Given how many other options there are to support heavy attacks, this is a nice bonus to add to them. It also makes going for repeated Heavy Attacks a bit safer.

Defensive Stance: A – PvE and PvP

Heavy Attacks are pretty nice in general, and getting solid Fortify for landing them is a great reward for doing them often. 15% Less incoming damage can absolutely be the difference between living and dying in an encounter.

Reserved Strength (Zoner Tree Ultimate)

Reserved Strength increases your damage by 25% while at Full Stamina.

For most weapons, Full Stamina would be a tough requirement. The Spear has a lot of support to easily keep you topped off, which makes it entirely possible to have this up constantly despite needing to dodge to gain several bonus effects.

Reserved Strength: A – PvE, B – PvP

Despite the support it has, there may be crucial times when it falls off. In PvE this is a less risky thing to use, as you’ll use less stamina in general in PvE. In PvP however where Stamina usage can make or break a fight, it’s much less likely to be on full stamina.

The Impaler Tree

The total opposite of the Zoner Tree, the Impaler Tree is all about getting in your opponent’s face and inflicting a myriad of debuffs and relentlessly dealing damage.

The Active Skill of the Impaler Tree include Skewer, Perforate, and Vault Kick.

Skewer

Skewer has you leap forward a short distance and skewer your target, dealing 125% Weapon Damage. This also applies a Bleed that deals 20% weapon Damage per second for 10 seconds. (200% Weapon Damage over 10 seconds)

This is a pretty quick attack, and much like other Damage over Time effects, seems weak when you look at the ratio per tick of damage but it adds up to a decent amount over time and is one of the strongest single application DoT effects.

With cooldown of 15 seconds, Skewer is one of the Spear’s longest Cooldowns.

Skewer Rating: A – PvE and PvP (S with Exposed Wounds)

Skewer is a pretty good ability, it’s quick and applies a Bleed that with just a bit of cooldown reduction can be maintained indefinitely. This Bleed is what gives it a spot on most builds, as it enables Exposed Wounds, which increases your Critical Chance, letting the weapon handle better when solo.

Deadly Ambush

Deadly Ambush increases Skewer’s Damage by 20% against Full Health targets.

This is a nice damage bonus with one of the most atrocious requirements of hitting a full health target.

Deadly Ambush Rating: C – PvE, B – PvP

When you can find opportunities to use it, it’s good. However there’s still much stronger skills that should get priority to use their similar bonuses, like Pillar of Fire from Fire Staff. However it’s still required to get to the more impactful bonuses.

In PvP due to the general prevalence of healing, you’re more likely to get to get value out of this.

Follow Through

Follow Through grants 20% Empower for 10 Seconds when Skewer lands a Critical Hit.

Normally, this would be a weird condition to have on random chance, then you realize that it’s free if you can set up backstabs.

Follow Through Rating: A – PvE and PvP (S in Expeditions as DPS)

It’s hard to give this a solid S rating, as if you’re taking aggro or are solo it’s hard to apply this bonus. If you’re playing Spear as a DPS in Expeditions where you’d be able to more readily be able to backstab, it’s definitely worth having.

Deep Wound

Deep Wound increases Skewer’s Bleed duration to 15 seconds. (300% Weapon Damage over 15 Seconds)

This is a decent perk which can be really useful early on before you start getting a perfect build going. It will let you maintain a permanent bleed with much less hassle.

Deep Wound Rating: C+ – PvE, A – PvP

Given that this Bleed also determines the uptime of Exposed Wounds, which boosts Critical Hit Chance, it’s vital to keep up. Though once you get and use more of the skill cooldown reduction skills, it becomes a point spent better elsewhere for PvE.

However in PvP where these resets aren’t always as reliable, the extended duration gives you a much larger window where you can re-apply the bleed to maintain Exposed Wounds. Since it matches the skill’s cooldown you’ll only need to consistently land the skill.

Perforate

Perforate performs three quick strikes that each deal 80% Weapon damage and apply a 5% Rend effect for 10 seconds. Dealing a total of 240% Weapon Damage and applying a 15% Rend over 3 hits.

Perforate is one of those skills that you’ll always want in PvE, but will be a little dicey in PvP. It’s easily one of the strongest skills the Spear has, but isn’t just a single hit and requires all three hits for max damage and Rend.

With a cooldown of 12 seconds, Perforate is one of the Spear’s shorter cooldowns.

Perforate Rating: S+ – PvE, B – PvP

There’s no reason to ever be without this skill in PvE. If you’re not taking it, you’re throwing away the most useful part of the Spear. It provides the highest amount of damage in the shortest time, while also applying one of the strongest Rends in the game.

In PvP, landing all three hits is unreliable without a set up. While the Spear does often have setup, it also has more reliable skills for PvP. If anything, for PvP this would fill the third slot alongside Sweep and Vault Kick over another skill.

Rupturing Strikes

Rupturing Strikes applies Rend at 10% per hit for targets over 50% Health. (30% over 3 hits)

This takes your already strong Rend and boosts it further against high-health targets. If you’re running Perforate, you want this 100%.

Rupturing Strikes Rating: S – PvE and PvP

There’s quite literally no other weapon that can apply this strong of a Rend. Even if you’re not getting all three strikes in PvP, it’s still applying a decently powered Rend.

Impactful Strikes

Impactful Strikes applies a stack of Weaken with each hit, up to a max of three. This increases the target’s outgoing damage by 10% per stack, up to a max of 30% at full stacks.

With the Update 1.9 changes, Perforate now applies Weaken with each hit with this passive. This is a huge upgrade over the previous stagger effect. Weaken even makes this a decent PvE pick up as well.

Impactful Strikes Rating: B – PvE, S – PvP

While Weaken isn’t the strongest PvE effect, it can still help to reduce incoming damage. It’s much better than a stagger that was essentially useless.

This change makes this upgrade insanely strong for PvP, as inflicting a combination of Rend and Weaken can absolutely ruin someone’s day. Lowering your opponent’s attack and defense can be a powerful way to swing a fight.

Vault Kick

Vault Kick uses your Spear to vault forward and deliver kick that deals 75% Weapon Damage and Stuns for 1.5 seconds. With a Carnelian Gem, this skill will taunt all foes that are hit for 2 seconds.

Vault Kick is your only Stun, but it also tends to be weird to use as often. It’s not super valuable to put a Carnelian in to use this as a taunt, this is due to the taunt duration being incredibly low.

With a cooldown of 15 seconds, Vault Kick is one of the Spear’s longest cooldowns.

Vault Kick Rating: B – PvE, S – PvP

In PvE this skill leaves a lot to be desired. It’s a decent Stun, which can help set up backstabs and other skills, but it’s a vary narrow range that it hits compared to Sweep’s knockdown, which won’t be broken when the enemy takes damage.

In PvP, this skill functions as both a Stun and a small gap closer. It’s versatile enough that it worth taking in most PvP builds. Whether you use it as a gap closer, crowd control or even both; it’s a very useful skill.

Relentless Blows

Relentless Blows increases your damage by 20% upon landing Vault Kick on an enemy with less than 50% health.

This is a pretty solid damage boost that last long enough to get value from consistently, making this nice for both PvE and PvP. The Threshold isn’t too bad, with skills like Perforate to help close that gap quickly.

Relentless Blows Rating: A – PvE and PvP

This is a great bonus overall if you find yourself using this skill. It gives a really nice bump in damage output if you can get a few good hits off in this time. The Threshold can make it a little less reliable than necessary, but it’s not terrible.

Continuous Motion

Continuous Motion reduce your other cooldowns by 30% when successfully landing Vault Kick.

This is a pretty big cooldown reduction, and pairing it with Aggressive Maneuvers makes Vault Kick a good choice to take in most situations if you can set up a guaranteed hit.

Continuous Motion Rating: S – PvE and PvP

30% Cooldown Reduction is pretty huge on its own, reducing most of your cooldowns by 3-4 seconds. With so many options for cooldown Reduction, the Spear can have a really strong skill rotation that will cycle indefinitely. This greatly assists in helping make these rotations more consistent.

Impaler Tree Passives

The Impaler Tree passives are mostly focused around Light Attacks, with a good bit of extra damage and crit mixed in.

Precise Jabs

Precise Jabs increases your Critical Hit Chance by 5% with Light Attacks.

This is a decent passive, though there is a stronger passive on this tree as well for critical chance. It doesn’t make it less valuable, just a bit lower of a priority.

Precise Jab Rating: S – PvE and PvP

Bonus Critical Hit Chance will never not be worth grabbing, as more consistent critical hits generally means more damage.

Crippling Jabs

Crippling Jabs applies a 30% Slow on your target with the last hit of your Light Attack Chain, if they’re under 30% Health.

This is a really strong slow, but the required conditions make this nearly worthless in terms of spending points. Especially when you can just use Cyclone instead.

Crippling Jabs Rating: C – PvE and PvP (C+ with Exploited Weakness)

With how specific the requirements are for this, it’ll rarely be useful. The biggest problem this has is it only applies on the last hit of the Light Attack chain, which while quick is pretty inconsistent in PvP without set up. The only time it should be considered is when you take Exploited Weakness where it will also act as a damage boost as well, but not a very consistent one.

Unerring Precision

Unerring Precision increases your damage by 20% against targets with active Grit.

Used in the right situations, this can be very useful. It does however make the Spear decent for countering the Hatchet or High Strength builds as they will have grit active frequently.

Unerring Precision Rating: B – PvE, A – PvP

While Grit is seen often in PvE, it’s usually tied to attacks you want to dodge rather than trade into. With Grit being fairly common in PvP, you’ll get more value out of this.

Exacerbating Crits

Exacerbating Crits extends your Debuffs and Damage over Time effects by 20% when landing Critical Hits.

Since your important Debuffs and DoTs sit at 10 seconds each, this means you’ll be able to extend them by roughly 2 seconds if you crit shortly after applying them. This will help you maintain a relatively high uptime on them throughout a fight.

Exacerbating Crits Rating: S – PvE and PvP

With how much support you have for landing frequent Critical Hits, there’s no reason to ever look over this. Being able to extend your powerful Rend and maintain a Bleed for the extra Critical Chance makes this a very hard to pass up passive.

Finishing Blows

Finishing Blows increases your damage by 15% against targets with less than 30% health.

The threshold for this bonus is a bit low to be super strong, but it’s still strong and reliable enough to be used often.

Finishing Blows Rating: S – PvE, A – PvP

Despite the low threshold, this makes it still a great option in PvE, especially against Elites and Bosses. With the much larger pool of health for these enemies, you’ll get more value out of it.

In PvP with the ease as which people can heal or be healed out of this range, it’s not quite as good. However it’s still decent enough for 1v1 situations.

Aggressive Maneuvers

Aggressive Maneuvers reduces your cooldowns by 20% if you land an ability within 2 seconds of dodging.

While this has a specific trigger it’s still a reasonable achievable one, especially in PvE. While it may be harder to trigger in PvP without set up, you’ll often have two abilities than can do so.

Aggressive Maneuvers Rating: S+ – PvE, A – PvP

In PvE there’s no reason to ever not be without this. There’s so many ways to get stamina with the Spear that this is a really free cooldown reduction bonus.

In PvP, landing the skills will be a bit tougher, but you do have two skills that can set up crowd control to help guarantee the bonus will go off. It’s still very strong, just not to the point of always taking.

Exposed Wounds

Exposed Wounds increases your Critical Hit Chance by 15% against target with a Bleed.

Combined with Skewer, this is a very strong passive to take. If you want an extra Bleed to work with you could also even use Keenly Jagged, though it’s really not necessary unless you’d rather replace Skewer.

Exposed Wounds Rating: S+ – PvE and PvP with Skewer (C+ without Skewer)

If you’re running Skewer, always take this; or vice versa. It’s a very potent passive that can massively boost your DPS with additional critical damage bonuses. Without Skewer, your only setup for it is the Bleeding Sweep perk, another weapon, or Keenly Jagged.

Refreshing Jabs

Refreshing Jabs reduces your cooldowns by 10% when you successfully land the second hit of the Light Attack Chain.

This can be a decent option for Cooldown Reduction for some builds, though the alternative for Heavy Attacks tends to perform better in more situations.

Refreshing Jabs Rating: A – PvE, B – PvP

This passive ends up being stronger in PvE due to its ease of use. You’re much more likely to be able to land that second hit of the attack chain on a target that’s not actively avoiding your damage.

In PvP, the requirement of hitting the second attack is what lowers the value of this. It can still be great with set up to guarantee it, but without it, it’s more unreliable than the Heavy Attack version in the Zoner Tree.

Exploited Weakness (Impaler Ultimate)

Exploited Weakness increases your damage by 10% for each Debuff on the target, up to a max of 30%.

Given that the debuffs do not have to be your own, this is extremely strong in group play. Even when solo, you can often apply a few debuffs of your own and get full value from it.

Exploited Weakness Rating: S+ – PvE, A – PvP

Since the Spear has decent access to enough debuffs to make this a fairly consistent bonus, there’s little room to not take it over Reserved Strength. It’s a bit stronger and ties more closely into what the Spear often does.

This is also a much stronger option for PvP, given that its activation condition is MUCH easier to trigger, even if it’s not always at full strength.

Spear Perks

Below is a list of the Skill perks available to the Spear. The range for the effect’s value is determined by the gear Score of the item it is on. The Minimum value is at Gear Score 100, while the Maximum is at Gear Score 625.

The Spear has a few really strong perks, which can actually change up builds. They’re all pretty decent overall though and most are worth using when you have the appropriate skill.

Bleeding Sweep

Bleeding Sweep enables Sweep’s Coup De Grace upgrade to apply a bleed for 8 seconds on successful hit. On Weapons, this applies a Bleed dealing 9.3-17% Weapon Damage per second, for a total of up to 136% damage. On Armors, this applies a Bleed dealing 2-9.6% Weapon Damage per second, for a total of up to 76.8%.

With this effect having a solid duration, it deals a nice chunk of damage. It also ties a bleed to your shortest cooldown, rather than forcing you to always take your longest cooldown for a Bleed.

Bleeding Sweep Rating: B – PvE, A – PvP

Considering this Bleed can be as easy to maintain as the one from Skewer, the only difference is total damage it will deal whichmakes the perk weaker in PvE. In PvP however, this skill is already good option and this allows you to use Exposed Wounds without taking Skewer. Even though Skewer isn’t a terrible option for PvP, you’ll almost always have Sweep already, so you can be more flexible with skill choices.

Sundering Javelin

Sundering Javelin allows you to apply Rend for 10 seconds with a successful Javelin hit. On Weapons, this will inflict a 10-25% Rend. On Armor, this inflicts a 5-19% Rend instead.

At the upper end of the scale, this is a pretty decent Rend. It can match almost match Perforate’s upgraded Rend with a single hit. It should also be able to stack alongside it, giving the Spear the ability to hit the Rend cap on a single target.

Sundering Javelin Rating: S – PvE and PvP

In PvE, you’ll be less likely to use Javelin, but this can also be a reason to slot it into a PvE build. Being capable of a near constant 25-40% Rend at all stages of a boss fight will be very noticeable.

This is also a bit more reliable over Perforate in PvP, as it’s loaded into a single hit. Which, with Sweep and Vault Kick often be the top two skills for a PvP build, you’ll have plenty of set up for it to make it reliable.

Leeching Cyclone

Leeching Cyclone heals you for a portion of your weapon damage for each hit of Cyclone. On Weapons, this will heal for 31-53% Weapon Damage. On Armor, this will heal for 10-32% Weapon Damage.

Even more utility for an already utility packed skill is pretty nice. Given the Spear has no healing on it by default, and this healing scales with your damage, it’s pretty good.

Leeching Cyclone Rating: B – PvE, A – PvP

Healing is decently useful in PvE, but the skill itself leaves much to be desired over other options. It can still be useful if you prefer the skill over another though.

In PvP and Large Skirmishes and War Especially, this has a chance to really shine, as it can be a pretty strong boost of healing, while also applying strong crowd control and pushing targets away from you.

Fortifying Perforate

Fortifying Perforate applies a stacking Fortify buff on you for each hit of Perforate which lasts 6 seconds. On Weapons, this grants 9-17% Fortify, for a max of up to 50% Fortify. On Armor, this grants 2-9.6% Fortify, for a max of 28.8% Fortify.

This is one of the strongest self-Fortify effects out there, especially on your weapon where it will cap out. Granted it takes multiple hits for the full effect; at the higher end, it doesn’t need to be fully stacked to be useful.

Fortifying Perforate Rating: B – PvE, A – PvP

Generally, the Spear plays as a DPS, which lessens the value of a Fortify effect. Though many bosses have AoE attacks than can still end up hitting you and this can help you survive a heavier hit.

Fortify is pretty good in PvP, as the less damage you can take, the better. Some fights get pretty chaotic, so it can be easy to get in a perforate hit or two. In skirmishes or wars you may even be able to get more value out of the skill by hitting multiple targets and stacking it up faster or higher.

Enfeebling Skewer

Enfeebling Skewer enable Skewer to apply a Weaken for 8 seconds with a successful hit. On Weapons, this applies a 23-44% Weaken. On Armor, this inflicts a 3-24% Weaken instead.

When it’s on your weapon, this applies the strongest Weaken effect available. Even on Armor, at the high end it’s a fairly potent Weaken. Given how long this lasts, this can make the spear an even stronger 1v1 weapon.

Enfeebling Skewer Rating: A – PvE, S – PvP

In PvE, unless you’re solo this won’t be as useful outside of reducing the damage your tank will take. When solo though, it’s another easy stack for Exploited Weakness while also mitigating a good bit of damage.

In PvP, Weaken is one of those effects that’s always good to have if you can get it. In combination with Fortify it can dramatically reduce incoming damage from a target.

Keen Vault Kick

Keen Vault Kick allows Vault Kick to also increase your Critical Hit Chance for 5 seconds. On Weapons, this grants 18-36% additional Crit Chance. On Armors, this grants 2-19% additional Crit Chance instead.

This perk does not specify that a hit is required, but it very likely is. That aside, More Crit Chance is always nice when you can get it. Thanks to passives it can be up pretty often too.

Keen Vault Kick Rating: B – PvE , S – PvP

In PvE, you’re less likely to use Vault Kick. If you do however, this can be a great perk to help with your DPS while solo. Thanks to Backstabs, you won’t need it much in groups.

In PvP you’re almost always going to run Vault Kick. It’ll also be much harder to get Backstabs in most PvP situations, so the increased Critical Hit Chance will be much more noticeable.

Spear Builds

The Spear is fairly limited in build paths, but there’s at least solid build options regardless of what content you want to do.

Solo PvE Build

This build is geared at getting the highest damage possible while playing in solo. We’ll be focusing on Perforate, Skewer, and Sweep to do this.

Being designed for solo, this build will level exceptionally well. It deals more than enough damage to handle most solo content, focusing on the quicker Light Attacks over the slower Heavy Attacks.

To start, we pick up Skewer and Perforate while also grabbing the relevant upgrades for these skills. Doing so will allow us access to the most important passives for this build, Exposed Wounds and Exacerbating Crits.

Exposed Wounds will give us a huge boost to our Critical Hit Chance, which will generally boost our damage, but also enable Exacerbating Crits to be consistent. Exacerbating Crits will further extend our Bleed to keep it ticking longer while also improving the uptime of Exposed Wounds.

Now that we have our combo for getting more consistent Critical Hits, it’s time to focus more on cooldown reduction to further increase the uptime of our Bleeds. To do this we pick up Aggressive Maneuvers and Refreshing Jabs. These help to allow our skills to be up more often giving easy access to refreshing our debuffs as they fall off.

Then we grab Finishing Blows to be able to reach our goal of getting to Exploited Weakness. This will enable us to to get extra damage on top of applying our Rend and Bleeds. We’ll also pick up Crippling Jabs after this for a consistent 30% when enemies break that threshold of 30% health.

We round off the Impaler side of the tree by grabbing Precise jabs for more consistency with crits. However, if desired this can be delayed until after picking up Sweep and Merciless Strength. On our way to those passive, we also pick up Deadly Reach. While it may be an inconsistent bonus with regular attacks, the rare occasions it helps will be more helpful than a boost that only applies with frequent Heavy Attacks.

Finally we work on upgrading Sweep to get Coup de Grace, and round off the build with Invigorating Crits. Invigorating Crits can be grabbed earlier if desired, as it acts as means of recovering Stamina while making more use of Aggressive Maneuvers.

Skill Perks, Usage, and Rotations

Skewer is mainly going to be the skill we want to initiate most combat with. If we manage to get an back stab on an unaware enemy, it’ll give us a nice 20% damage boost thanks to the Follow Through upgrade. It’ll also enable Exposed Wounds right away.

Perforate is going to be our main debuffing tool. The strong Rend it can apply will not only boost your own damage but all damage your target takes. It makes our Bleed stronger as well as all of our skills and basic attacks.

Sweep grants you a bit of added safety and a easy way to execute a strong, but short burst rotation that we’ll go over shortly.

For Weapon Perks, being focused on solo DPS, means we’ll want Keen, Vicious and Keenly Empowered. This will easily give us the best damage we can get. We don’t want Refreshing Move as we’ll get plenty from Aggressive Maneuvers and Refreshing Jabs.

For your weapon Gem slot, Opals are typically strongest here. Since you’ll make heavy use of Stamina, Opals tend to provide the most reliable bonus. You can also consider Jasper as well, as you’ll be a bit more likely to take damage.

For Armor Perks, Refreshing Evasion is super strong for the play style this Spear build uses. We’ll already actively be dodging a ton, so this is a great pick up to give us just a bit more of a boost with cooldown reduction. Other good general perks include Refreshing and Luck. Refreshing is universally good, while Luck will be helpful up until you get perfect gear. It can still be insanely useful for farming chests and such for sell-able items, but is entirely preference.

Fortifying Perforate and Enfeebling Skewer are also both helpful to this build, with Enfeebling Skewer giving us very easy access to the 30% bonus from Exploited Weakness. Fortifying Perforate isn’t entirely necessary, but does make soloing a bit more comfortable. Bleeding Sweep can also be used, but the short Bleed tends to not be as valuable, as you already have a stronger and more consistent Bleed. However, both should be able to stack and still contribute to overall damage if you;d like to grab it.

For our Amulet; Empowered, Health and Fortified Recovery make for a great combo of perks. Empowered is nice as at the high end it can extend our Empower from Skewer by an additional second and a half. Health is a nice pick up in most cases, as you won’t be taking a lot of CON, it won’t provide too much health, but at the high end can easily add another 400+ Health. Fortified Recovery is a nice little defensive option, helping you survive some tougher situations.

For our Earring; we’d want Nimble and Refreshing Evasion most times. Nimble helps the somewhat excessive use of Stamina from this build by boosting Stamina Regen slightly. Luck makes a nice filler here for farming. Otherwise, Refreshing or Duplicating Toast can be decent pick ups.

Finally for our Ring; we’d want Keen Awareness or Thrust Damage at all times. Keen Awareness boosts our Critical Hit Chance further, making us crit pretty often. Thrust Damage boosts our primary damage type, and any damage we can get is good as a DPS. The other slots are pretty open; Refreshing, Refreshing Evasion, and Luck are all good options for general use.

Skill Rotation

This build has a fairly simple rotation you want to stick to where possible. Though for it to work reliably, you may need a bit of assistance from Refreshing or Refreshing Evasion.

1. Dodge Forward
2. Sweep (without Coup De Grace)
3. Dodge Forward
4. Skewer
5. Light Attack x2
6. Dodge (forward or side)
7. Sweep (without Coup De Grace)
8. Dodge Forward
9. Perforate
10. Light Attack x2
11. Repeat

We lead this rotation with Sweep for a couple reasons, but the biggest is that it’s the shortest cooldown of our three. Using it first also gives us an opportunity to setup Skewer’s Follow Through for the bonus damage. We don’t use Coup De Grace here, as we’re setting up to backstab with Skewer and also want to boost it with Merciless Strength.

Next we use Skewer, using it directly after Sweep should allow us to almost guarantee a Backstab if positioned correctly. This backstab will give us a guaranteed trigger of Follow Through. Just like with Sweep, we dodge so when Skewer connects, Aggressive Maneuvers reduces its cooldown by 3 seconds right away. Then we light attack twice to trigger Refreshing Jabs to reduce Skewer by another 1.5 seconds, while knocking another second off Sweep.

Between the animations of our attacks, dodging, and skill use, Sweep should already be back up or very close. Then we dodge forward or to the side of the enemy, to enable Aggressive Maneuvers again, this time to trigger with Sweep again. This will knock another 3 seconds off Skewer and 2 seconds off Sweep.

While the enemy is still knocked down we want to quickly roll past them to get in backstab position and immediately use Perforate before they recover as we did with Skewer last time. This will allow Perforate to crit three times while benefitting from Merciless Strength, and restore 60 Stamina to top us back off with Invigorating Crits.

We then follow this with Light Attacks until Sweep is back up again, which shouldn’t be very long at all. Then we should be able to repeat this whole cycle all over again.

Expedition PvE Build

This will look pretty similar to the Solo build, but with a key change that increases the damage output while taking away a bit of the safety of Sweep. This time, focusing on Skewer, Perforate and Javelin.

This build could also be used for solo leveling, but is more focused on group play. It’s a slightly more risky set up focused on a constant stream of damage output rather than frequent crowd control. Though it makes the Spear hyper-focused on single target with only the reach of it skills giving it any AoE.

Much like the previous build, we’re picking up Skewer and Perforate first. We’re then immediately grabbing upgrades so we get access to the important passives to boost our DPS, while making the skills stronger in the process.

We’re immediately grabbing Aggressive Maneuvers and heading over to grab Javelin. we’re delaying Exploited Weakness a bit this time in favor of the increased DPS Javelin will bring. We also immediately upgrade it to grab Refreshing Precision, which is a key part of where this build’s DPS comes from. Refreshing Precision in addition to Aggressive Maneuvers means getting a Headshot with Javelin will decrease the cooldown by 70%, putting it on a incredibly low 4.5 second cooldown, making it very spammable.

Now that we have Javelin with Refreshing precision, it’s back to the Impaler tree to grab the rest of our passives; Prioritizing Exacerbating Crits to extend our Bleed and Finishing Blows to give us even more damage as our target gets to lower health. Unerring Precision helps boost our damage against bosses that have Grit attacks. While Exposed Wounds can help Javelin crit more reliably, even if we miss the headshot. We finish off the Impaler Tree by grabbing Exploited Weakness.

After we grab Exploited Weakness, it’s back to the Zoner tree to round off our passives. We start by getting the final upgrade for Javelin, Deadly Distance. This upgrade boosts its damage with distance traveled. In a lot of cases, this will be providing roughly a 10% bonus to damage to each Javelin. This will add up quickly with how often we can use it.

After this upgrade, we’ll pick up Evasive Maneuvers as we’ll frequently be using it alongside Javelin. It’ll help make our stamina costs much less and combined with Invigorating Crits, can mean a lot of our dodge before Javelin will end up being around 12 stamina, while the rest are only 20.

Finally we round off with Refreshing Reach and Merciless Strength. While we won’t benefit from Merciless Strength too often on bosses, it will still give us a bit of extra damage against most enemies than can be knocked down. Refreshing Reach will be used on occasion to help assist with our cooldown reduction.

Skill Perks, Usage, and Rotations

Javelin will be a very strong opening skill, as well as our most consistent DPS output with a bit of practice. It’ll also end up applying a Rend with a Perk that we’ll be adding into the build, making that opening even stronger yet.

Skewer is here to add more consistent damage thanks to its high initial damage and a Bleed that will end up dealing closer to 20% Weapon Damage per second with all the Rends and passives boosting its damage.

Perforate is here for the super strong Rending power it offers, which is essential to quickly killing off any Elite or Boss monster. Between this and Javelin’s Rend, there will very easily be a consistent 30-45% Rend active at all times.

For our Weapon we’ll want to pick up Vicious, Rogue and Keenly Empowered. Vicious and Rogue will end up massively boosting out Melee attacks, while Vicious can still boost Javelin’s Damage. We go for Keenly Empowered for the extra damage boost, as the Spear is unable to have Vorpal as a perk, which we’d use instead to boost Javelin further if it were an option.

For your weapon Gem slot, Diamonds are typically strongest here. The Spear packs a lot of CC, but lacks the effects that could allow Malachite to be better. If you’re not confident enough to avoid damage to maintain Diamond’s bonus, you can opt for Opal as well

For Runeglass upgrades, You’ll want to take your choice of an Elemental or Punishing upgrade. Elementals provide a solid DoT bonus which can help you chip down an opponent faster if you find yourself unable to get frequent hits. Punishing is a pure damage boost.

For Runeglass upgrades, You’ll want to take your choice of an Elemental, Punishing, or Energizing Runeglass Gem. Elementals provide a solid DoT bonus which can help you chip down an opponent faster if you find yourself unable to get frequent hits. Punishing is a pure damage boost. Energizing is a unique option for Spear in PvP, giving it yet another way to recover Stamina while playing aggressive. For your Armor, you’ll only want Punishing.

For our Armor; We’ll absolutely want to grab Enfeebling Skewer and Sundering Javelin. Both of these provide additional means of applying debuffs for Exploited Weakness. Alongside these skill perks, we’ll also want Refreshing Evasion and good mix of Ward perks to reduce incoming damage in expeditions and other group content. Fortifying Perforate can also help with some of the large attack ranges that some bosses have, and help make less work for our healers.

For our Amulet we’ll be looking to get Refreshing Evasion, Empowered and Fortified Recovery. Empowered with make both Follow Through and Keenly Empowered effects last longer, giving us more uptime on those effects. Fortified Recovery helps give us a defensive layer if we get hit with heavy damage.

On our Earring we’ll be looking to pick up Nimble, Refreshing Evasion, and Evasive. Nimble helps us keep our Stamina up, since we’ll be dodging a lot with this build. Evasive acts like a safety net, so that no matter how much damage we do, we should never take aggro from our tank. This is almost never needed, but it’s a nice safety net with a weaker or inexperienced tank.

Finally for our Ring we’ll want to pick up Thrust Damage, Refreshing Evasion, and Hearty. Thrust Damage boost our damage across the board. Hearty gives us additional Stamina, which can help make it harder for us to accidentally run out of Stamina.

Skill Rotation

Your skill rotation is Javelins for days. If you consistently can land the headshots, your DPS will be insanely high with how often it gets used.

1. Dodge Backwards
2. Javelin
3. Dodge Forwards
4. Perforate
5. Heavy Attack
6. Dodge Backwards
7. Javelin
8. Dodge Forwards
9. Skewer
10. Heavy Attack
11. Repeat

We start with Javelin, since it has the lowest cooldown and strongest cooldown reduction. It’ll also apply Rend consistently, boosting the rest of our damage. We dodge backwards to take advantage of Aggressive Maneuvers, Deadly Distance and Evasive Maneuvers all at the same time. A single backwards roll outside of this instance should only cost 8 Stamina after getting a refund with Invigorating Crits. It’ll also put us a decent distance backwards away from the enemy to boost the damage we deal with Deadly Distance.

After this we roll forwards to close the distance for our melee skill that will immediately follow the roll. We lead with Perforate over Skewer, as we don’t really need Exposed Wounds if we’re positioned correctly. This will also apply our second Rend, which will have us nearing the Rend cap and setup the rest of our damage. We follow this with a Heavy Attack to trigger Refreshing Reach and Evasive Manuevers.

Then we roll backwards for Javelin again. Then we roll forwards to get in range for Skewer, following it with a Heavy Attack just like Perforate. Thanks to Exacerbating Crits, the Weaken and Bleed this applies will end up having near permanent uptime, giving us a permanent 30% bonus from Exploited Weakness.

PvP Build

Finally, there’s the PvP build, where we’ll be aiming to endlessly chain our attacks into long combos with heavy damage and crowd control. To do so, we’ll be utilizing Javelin, Sweep, and Vault Kick.

While it’s possible to level with this build, it’s extremely single-target focused which can make it very slow going. It’ll be reasonably safe with the amount of crowd control it has, but it does lack the raw damage of the PvE Builds.

This time, we’re grabbing our first two skill from the Zoner Tree, Javelin and Sweep. We also grab Merciless Strength and Forceful Impact. This gives us two skill that can frequently and consistently knockdown foes and we’ll do bonus damage while they’re knocked down.

After this we move over to the Impaler Tree where we’ll be for a bit. We grab Precise Jabs for a bit of Critical Hit Chance while we level. We could swap this with Refreshing Jabs, as when each of these is taken doesn’t matter. Then we pick up Finishing Blow to reach Vault Kick which we’ll be maxing out immediately, while also grabbing Aggressive Maneuvers at any point after grabbing Vault Kick. I’ve personally found that Aggressive Maneuvers and Relentless Blows both work well as the first pick up, but always preferred the damage.

With Vault Kick maxed and having Aggressive Manuevers, this means any time we roll and follow it with a Vault Kick that lands, it’ll reduce our cooldowns by 50%. This is a huge chunk of cooldown to be refunded with a single skill.

After this we grab Impaler Passives until we can pick up Exploited Weakness. I personally opt for Exposed Wounds, Exacerbating Crits, Unerring Precision and Refreshing Jabs. Exposed Wounds is something we’ll be setting up for later with perks, and will help us land consistent Critical Hits to benefit from Invigorating Crits. Exacerbating Crits will help us with uptime on our debuffs, giving us better uptime for our heavily boosted damage from Exploited Weakness. Grit is common enough in PvP that Unerring Precision is a solid pick up. Refreshing Jabs is a nice bonus, even if we don’t use it too much.

Once we get Exploited Weakness, it’s back to the Zoner Tree to finish off our upgrades as passives. We immediately grab Invigorating Crits then max out Javelin for the damage and cooldown bonuses. Then we round off by grabbing Tenacious Sweep.

Tenacious Sweep could be replaced by any other passive in the Zoner Tree if you desire anything else. I personally like the Grit, as it’s a strong part of our rotation. Evasive Maneuvers is a really good pick up if you’re confident with your Javelin accuracy. Refreshing Reach can be a good way to help with cooldowns if you miss part of the combo.

Skill Perks, Usage, and Rotations

Javelin will be a huge part of our damage and combo potential here. Unlike the Expedition build however, leading with Javelin is a bad idea here unless you’re catching your opponent entirely off guard. It’s more likely to miss or be evaded without setup.

Sweep will act as our primary combo starter. It’s quicker and hard to block or evade when it’s not expected. Since we’re opting out of the Coup de Grace passive, this is its sole purpose.

Vault Kick is our combo extender. Once we knock someone down with Sweep, this becomes a really free hit which will massively lower any cooldowns we have going. It’ll also keep our opponent upright and perfectly still to land an easy Javelin Headshot.

For our Weapon perks we’ll be looking to get Keen, Vicious, and Keenly Jagged. Keen and Vicious work to boost our Critical Hit Chance and Damage, making them a very reliable source of damage. We opt for Keenly Jagged, as means of triggering Exposed Wounds so it doesn’t go entirely to waste.

For your weapon Gem slot, Jaspers are typically strongest here, as getting hit is likely to happen. While we do have a stun it’ll only be applying to a single hit which isn’t enough value to use Malachite. If you do prefer Malachite you’ll have to find a way to fit in Cyclone instead. Additionally, due to the frequency with which you can and would want to use Stamina, Opals are also a solid option.

For Runeglass upgrades, You’ll want to take your choice of an Elemental, Punishing, or Energizing Runeglass Gem. Elementals provide a solid DoT bonus which can help you chip down an opponent faster if you find yourself unable to get frequent hits. Punishing is a pure damage boost. Energizing is a unique option for Spear in PvP, giving it yet another way to recover Stamina while playing aggressive. For your Armor, you’ll only want Punishing.

For our Armor Perks we’ll be looking to pick up Refreshing Evasion or Refreshing, Resilient, and our skill perks. Refreshing Evasion will help a lot, as the rotation for this setup is less reliable without a few stacks of this and Refreshing working to reduce our cooldowns. We take Resilient to reduce any critical damage we may take, making us a bit more durable towards anyone that may be going for a lot of crit.

Keen Vault Kick and Sundering Javelin our the skill perks we want. Sundering Javelin gives us a decent Rend to work with, even without taking Perforate. Keen Vault Kick give us a nice bonus to Critical Hit Chance after we land Vault Kick, which we should be doing often enough for this to be a fairly high uptime bonus overall.

For our Amulet we’re going to go mostly defensive. We’ll be opting for Slash Protection and Fortified Recovery. Slash Protection will protect us from the majority of melee weapons. Fortified Recovery gives us a nice defensive boost when we drop below 50% health. Stamina Recovery also works as an alternative to Fortified Recovery to refill out Stamina when hit below 50% instead of granting Fortify.

On our Earring we want Nimble, Refreshing Evasion and Regenerating. Nimble boosts our Stamina Regen, and like the other Spear Builds, this one will use a lot of Stamina. Regenerating give us a small bit of passive health regeneration.

Finally for our Ring we’ll want to grab Thrust Damage or Keen Awareness, and Refreshing or Refreshing Evasion. Thrust Damage increases our damage across the board. Keen Awareness boosts your Critical Hit Chance making them a bit more consistent. The last slot is open to any other utility perks you’d like, but most combinations of these four are necessary.

Skill Rotation

This build has a bit of an odd rotation to it but is very simple, but with the right perks could lead into potentially being an endless combo.

1. Dodge Forward
2. Sweep
3. Dodge
4. Vault Kick
5. Dodge Backwards
6. Javelin
7. Repeat

We dodge into Range to land Sweep to start our combo and trigger Aggressive Maneuvers with it, instantly knocking 20% off its cooldown. Then we dodge to where we’re near but not on top of out opponent, this is so we can land Vault Kick as they’re getting up, knocking 50% of the cooldown of out skills. With them stunned, we dodge away from them to get more damage with Deadly Distance and go for a Javelin headshot.

All our skills should be back up or nearly back up by the time we get to them in repeat rotations. If everything lands correctly, this has potential to be a nearly endless combo.

Spear Weapon Pairings

This spear is a weapon that scales primarily with Dexterity, and Strength to a lesser extent. This allows it to pair decently with some melee weapons, but work exceedingly well with Ranged weapons.

This makes the top 3 recommended pairings for the Spear the Bow, Rapier, and Blunderbuss.

Bow

The Bow scales with Dex, giving you a purely Dexterity scaling pairing that can deal damage at all ranged. The Bow cover’s the Spear weaker mid-long range, while the Spear cover’s the bow’s weak close range play. This pairing has been around since launch and remains effective in both PvE and PvP.

To learn more about the Bow, you can check out our Bow Guide and Best Builds. This will help you plan out a strong build, should you opt for this pairing.

Rapier

The Rapier is a much more aggressive option that gives you an incredibly high damage potential in melee range. The Rapier offers a lot of addition power to the Spear, being able to provide a Bleed to trigger Expose Wounds, alongside its powerful flexibility of evasion and raw damage.

To learn more about the Rapier, you can check out our Rapier Guide and Best Builds. This will help you plan out a strong build, should you opt for this pairing.

Blunderbuss

The Blunderbuss may seem like an odd choice, being that it scale with Strength rather than Dexterity. However, it’s a formidable mid-range weapon that can offer a lot of mobility tools to the otherwise immobile Spear. Since it’s primary use isn’t damage, it’s fine for it to be lower damage. You will still take some Strength with the spear anyways for the benefits a small amount can provide to even the Spear, alongside a bit of extra damage.

To learn more about the Blunderbuss, you can check out our Blunderbuss Guide and Best Builds. This will help you plan out a strong build, should you opt for this pairing.

This is the end to this incredibly detailed and in-depth guide to the Spear in New World. We hope you have learned everything you need to know about this weapon, its usage, skills, perks, builds, combos, and ability rotations. The icons used in this guide are pulled from newworldfans.com‘s database.

Patch Notes Changes

This segment will help you keep track of what has changed for this weapon with the patches as AGS maintains the game in the long-term.

Update 1.1 “Into the Void”

• Adjusted the distance the player moved towards the target when doing a heavy attack. The heavy attack was pulling the user too close previously, resulting in the Deadly Reach passive not being able to trigger consistently.
• Sweep
  • Coup de Grace:
    • Increased damage scaling from 125% to 150%.
    • This attack is now flagged as Heavy, allowing it to trigger Heavy-related passives.
• Skewer
  • Increased bleed damage from 10% to 20%
• Perforate
  • Increased damage scaling from 70% to 80%
  • Fixed a bug which caused the passive Continuous Motion to not reduce the cooldown of Perforate.
• Cyclone
  • Increased damage scaling from 110% to 130%
• Vault Kick
  • Fixed an issue where Vault Kick’s cooldown began 1 frame before the hitbox would appear. This resulted in the ability going on cooldown if the attack was interrupted early, even if it didn’t hit.

You can find the full patch notes forNew World Update 1.1 “Into the Void”in ourNew World Patchesarchives.

Update 1.2 “Winter Convergence Festival”

• Increased hit-shape size and attack homing on all thrust attacks.
• Skewer: Increased lunge distance by 50%.
• Perforate: Increased rotation speed during the ability.
• Strong Conditioning:
  • Fixed an issue where the Strong Conditioning buff could be canceled by using a Honing Stone.
  • Strong Conditioning no longer shows a text pop-up when triggered.

You can find the full patch notes forNew World Update 1.2 “Winter Convergence Festival”in ourNew World Patchesarchives.

Update 1.3 “Expedition Mutators”

• Fixed an issue where the damage ticks from Bleeding Sweep on the Spear were triggering cooldown reduction.

Update 1.4 “Heart of Madness”

No significant changes.

Update 1.5 “Arenas”

• Deadly Consistency: Fixed an issue where perks that dealt extra damage (e.g. Keenly Jagged and Chain) could reset this passive’s hit count.
• Increased hit shape sizes for basic attacks, Skewer, Perforate, and Coup de Grace.
• Increased homing on Coup de Grace.

Update 1.6 “Summer Medleyfaire”

• Fixed an issue that caused javelin throws to trigger the incorrect impact effects against various material types.
• Cyclone Ability
  • Removed pushback from the base Spear Cyclone ability.
  • Grit is now on Cyclone ability by default, and is no longer tied to the Strong Momentum upgrade.
  • The Strong Momentum upgrade now has pushback as an optional upgrade for Cyclone.

• Bleeding Sweep: Increases the bleed damage while on a Spear and also the duration from 4s to 8s:
  • On armor: 2% to 9.6% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 2% to 17% based on Gear Score.
• Enfeebling Skewer: Increased the effectiveness of the weakness:
  • On armor: 3% to 24% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 3% to 44% based on Gear Score.
• Keen Vault Kick: Increased critical chance bonus:
  • On armor: 2% to 19% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 2% to 36% based on Gear Score.
• Fortifying Perforate: Increased fortify while on a Spear:
  • On armor: 2% to 9.6% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 2% to 17% based on Gear Score.
• Sundering Javelin: Increased rend effectiveness while on a Spear:
  • On armor: 5% to 19% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 5% to 25% based on Gear Score.
• Leeching Cyclone: Increased cyclone life stealing while on a Spear:
  • On armor: 10% to 32% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 10% to 53% based on Gear Score.

Update 1.7 “Brimstone Sands”

• Fixed an issue that caused the Spear’s Defensive Stance passive to trigger from damage-over-time ticks when using the Bleeding Sweep perk.
• Invigorating Crits: Fixed an issue that caused headshots with Javelin to not trigger this passive.
• Fixed an issue that caused Cyclone’s Invigorating Combo to not grant stamina when Strong Momentum was unlocked.

You can find the full patch notes forNew World Update 1.7 “Brimstone Sands”in ourNew World Patchesarchives.

Update 1.8 “Winter Convergence Festival 2022”

• Fixed an issue where you couldn’t buffer basic attacks during Javelin recovery.
• Made it so movement speed is not completely halted while tossing the Spear’s Javelin. Additionally made it so tapping the ability button while aiming now throws the Javelin instead of sheathing it.

You can find the full patch notes forNew World Update 1.8 “Winter Convergence Festival 2022”in ourNew World Patchesarchives.

Update 1.9 “Season 1: Fellowship and Fire”

Added in Taunt Gem compatibility to several weapons and abilities to create additional choices when tanking:

• Cyclone (2s on hit taunt)

Reviewed all weapons to make more clear differentiations between attacks that are intended to be for Crowd Control and Damage. Removed Stagger from damage-focused abilities, and reduced damage for stagger-focused abilities.

• Javelin damage was reduced from 125% to 80%.
• Perforate’s final upgrade Impactful Strikes no longer staggers and was reworked to inflict a stack of 10% weaken for 5s on each successful hit (3 stacks max).
• Sweep’s knockdown attack damage was reduced from 75% to 45%.

• Notable Fixes
  • Fixed an issue that caused Impactful Strikes to apply to other Spear hits.

Here at VULKK.com we have already a ton of useful New World Guides and more and more are being published regularly. We also have all of the news and updates covered to keep you up-to-date with all things New World!