Hatchet And Great Axe Combination Guide (Patch 1.3.4)
The Hatchet is a particularly formidable weapon due to the Berserk ability, which grants you a substantial attack damage boost, and can be upgraded to increase your movement speed, give you massive health regeneration, and grant immunity to crowd control with making your attacks uninterruptible.
It has a very short range and a very small hitbox, meaning you need to be right on top of the enemy in order to hit.
The Great Axe is a two-handed melee weapon with enough defense, large damage output with area-of-effect attacks that cannot be ignored and decent crowd control skill, as well as a gap-closing ability, but pretty slow with long сooldowns.
This is a great pairing with the Hatchet, which is used for single targets in PvE and for healing while the Great Axe does a great job of getting close to foes and area of effect damage. Both these weapons deal Slash damage and will be weak when fighting Ancient-type enemies.
Attributes
Hatchet is a mixture of a melee weapon and a throne weapon, and it scales primarily on Strength and secondly on Dexterity. The Great Axe scales only with Strength, so you actually need two attributes – Strength for higher damage and Constitution for better surviving, depending on what you need most.
Once you reach the endgame and are able to have 300 Strength, you will have Grit during light and heavy attacks to avoid crowd control.
50 Dexterity is also good to gain +5% Crit Chance with all Weapon types. Swap it when you’ll be able to reach 300 Strength and 200 Constitution:
Constitution is a decent secondary Attribute, especially for PvP, 50 points will be enough to unlock 20% effectiveness to all health consumables, but you can get those 50 points with your gear or using +40 Consitution food:
Minmaxing your character for endgame PvP you can also reach 200 Constitution breakpoint for a 20% armor increase:
Builds For Hatchet
For more information, you can check our Hatchet Guide.
1. For most PvE builds Berserk skill tree basically looks this way:
You can simply pick all the skills in Berserk tree except the Frenzied Purge.
2. PvE build with Rending Throw is also possible, but less popular. It will make everyone in your party do more damage against a single enemy for a limited time:
3. For PvP it’s better to take more skills from the Throwing tree by sacrificing the Raging Torrent which is pretty good but can be dodged – one step and you miss all your swings. In this build, you also don’t need the Relentless Fury which works best with the Raging Torrent. Frenzied Purge is a nice, but not a necessary option for PvP, it can be taken instead.
With stamina regeneration, you can get the Infected Throw with the critical shot and headshot potential. Maxing Infected Throw is also an option. Remember it doesn’t stack with Plagued Strikes and Plagued Crits weapon perks, so there’s no reason to have them both. This build will let you kill healers with Life Staff which are pretty unkillable otherwise:
Or you can max the Social Distancing skill line for better mobility and get 15% additional damage with critical potential or stamina regeneration with Rejuvenating Crits:
Builds For Great Axe
For more information, you can check our Great Axe Guide.
There are two main builds for PvP.
1. The first one is a build with Charge, Maelstrom and Gravity Well. Maelstrom is getting more popular after Reap’s nerf. Blood Lust still fits better for PvP, but you have to take almost every passive skill in Reaper tree to get it:
Lots of variabilities are possible in this build. You can take Executioner’s Speed instead of Frustration, Death’s Embrace or Unpredictable Strike in Reaper tree, same as Unyielding, Heavy Pull, Enduring Strike or Revenge instead of Crowded Protection in Mauler tree.
Mauler’s Fury elite is also an option if you want Heavy Pull, Gravity, Revenge, and Enduring Strike at the same time.
2. The second one used to be called a meta PvP build before Reap’s nerf, but it still has good PvE and PvP viability with some changes. With this build, you can effectively use Trenchant Strikes or Thwarting Strikes perks, using Gravity Well and rely on heavy attacks (take something more useful instead of Greed for this):
Both Charge and Reap active skills don’t have really valuable upgrades so you can grab more passives instead. Hunger became pretty arguable because Reap only does 70% weapon damage now, but you can take it instead of Frustration or Death’s Embrace.
3. The third build is a pure PvE DPS build to deal as much damage as possible with Execute, Maelstrom, and Gravity Well:
In this build, you have healing from Critical Gains and Feed, all damage increasing perks, and, at the same time, defense from Crowded Protection and Unyielding.
For Expeditions, since you can hit an enemy from the back, you don’t need Critical Conditions and Unstoppable Greed with Executioner and can get Death’s Embrace, Executioner’s Speed, Gravity or Enduring Strike to combine it with Trenchant Strikes or Thwarting Strikes perks and rely on heavy attacks.
Revenge and Frustration also remain unused since mobs in Expeditions don’t do much attack blocking and you’re not going to block mob’s attacks either. But for open-world PvE these skills can be taken.
The main reason why this build doesn’t fit for PvP is that you don’t have Charge or Reap for gap closing and Execute is too slow.
Gear
Light armor gives you +20% damage bonus and the best amount of movement with a quick roll.
Medium armor will give you more protection, +10% damage bonus and +10% length of the crowd control debuffs, but you’ll not have a quick roll.
Heavy armor offers the best protection and +20% length of the crowd control debuffs for the price of lower mobility:
Also, you can combine different types of armor, light with medium, staying under 13 kg, or medium with heavy, staying under 23 kg. You can change your armor type by simply replacing 3 parts.
Maxed Medium Armor 22,9 lbs build (1L + 2M + 2H): Heavy Chest, Light Pants, 2 Medium and 1 Heavy piece.
Alternative Maxed Medium Armor 22,9 lbs build (2L + 1M + 2H): Heavy Chest, Heavy Pants, 1 Medium, and 1 Light piece.
Maxed Light Armor 12,7 lbs build (4L + 1M): Light Head, Medium Chest, Light Gloves, Light Pants, Light Boots.
Maxed Light Armor 12,6 lbs build (3L + 2M): Light Chest, Medium Pants, 1 Medium, and 2 Light pieces. If you need more in-depth information, how tankier you would be wearing a certain kind of armor of a certain Gear Score, feel free to use the New World Calculator by Mixed Nuts.
Armor Type | Light | Medium | Heavy |
Head | 1,5 lbs | 2,6 lbs | 4,7 lbs |
Chest | 3,5 lbs | 6,2 lbs | 11,0 lbs |
Gloves | 1,5 lbs | 2,6 lbs | 4,7 lbs |
Pants | 2,0 lbs | 3,5 lbs | 6,3 lbs |
Boots | 1,5 lbs | 2,6 lbs | 4,7 lbs |
Shields | 2,7 lbs (Round) | 5,4 lbs (Kite) | 11,0 lbs (Tower) |
Look for Armor with Strength and Constitution on it for best results. Choosing the type of armor depends only on your preferences.
Gems
The best gems for both Hatchet and Great Axe are:
1. Cut Pristine Opal:
Fits more for PvP, where you’ll be dodging a lot.
2. Cut Pristine Diamond:
You are likely to be in full health while fighting with all your self-healing. Fits more for a group play.
3. Cut Pristine Emerald:
This will help finish off low health foes.
If you’re mainly fighting against one enemy type, for example, farming something, you can use to convert your damage:
1. Cut Pristine Amethyst to fight against Ancients:
2. Cut Pristine Aquamarine against the Lost:
3. Cut Pristine Ruby against Angry Earth:
4. Cut Pristine Sapphire against Corrupted:
5. Cut Pristine Topaz against Ancients:
Damage Effectiveness | Slash | Thrust | Strike | Fire | Ice | Nature | Void | Lightning | Arcane |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ancients | -15% | +20% | -40% | +15% | +30% | ||||
Corrupted | +20% | -15% | -40% | +15% | +30% | ||||
Angry Earth | +20% | -15% | +30% | -40% | |||||
The Lost | -15% | +10% | +15% | +30% | -30% | ||||
Beast | +20% |
Corrupted refers to enemies covered in a black and/or red glow. Corruption Breaches are the most common source of Corrupted enemies.
Angry Earth enemies are nature-themed enemies mutated with bark-like skin and similar nature-themed traits.
The Lost are glorified citizens and spectral enemies that inhabit most of Aeternum’s ruined towns, farms, and cemeteries.
Beast refers to any of the wild animals that roam around the New World’s various zones. Wolves, Bears, and Lynxes are just a few enemies that fall under this category.
For Armor gems, you can use Cut Pristine Emerald for PvP while fighting mostly against Bow and Musket users:
If you’re already level 60 and farming chests or mobs for gear, you need a Lucky Gem:
For other situations to provide generic damage absorption:
1. Cut Pristine Onyx:
2. Cut Pristine Malachite:
3. Cut Pristine Diamond:
4. There is another option if you are going to farm the Expeditions and have problems with getting the aggro, the Cut Pristine Carnelian:
Equipment Perks
1. Armor Perks
Refreshing with Resilient can be a universal choice:
Refreshing Evasion is useful if you’re dodging a lot:
Physical Aversion is useful for PvP against Musket and Bow users:
Refreshing Torrent is great to make your general skill rotation work smoothly:
Keen Berserk helps you crit more often when solo, where you can’t guarantee backstabs:
Enfeebling Maelstrom:
This is a great utility upgrade for both PvP and PvE, which can help its viability in every situation you’d want to use it. Given you’d only run this skill for the potential AoE damage, this makes everything you pull in and land No Reprieve on also deal less damage to you, which helps to mitigate any return damage.
Insatiable Gravity Well:
This is one of the best perks for the Great Axe. You heal not only from an initial hit, you also heal from both vortexes. When used correctly, it can actually just make Gravity Well a huge burst of health restoration.
2. Weapon Perks
Rogue and Vicious increase your damage heavily, as you’ll almost always be dishing out backstabs in group play:
Refreshing Move helps a great deal with getting more skill rotations out, which make up a good chunk of your damage:
Alternatively, you can replace Refreshing Move with Enchanted or Keen and get plenty of damage that way as well:
Keenly Jagged is a nice choice since you’ll crit a lot:
Thwarting Strikes can add a lot of damage if you have 300 Strength or using Enduring Strikes and Unstoppable Greed and rely on heavy attacks:
Thwarting Counter can be advised only if melees using Grit are extra popular on your server and you meet them in PvP very often:
You can also go for Lifestealing, if you want to gain health back on hit:
For PvP against healers, you can use Plagued Crits or Plagued Strikes. The maximum amount of healing decreasing is 24% for GS 600 weapons.
Plagued Crits require lowering the target’s health to 50% first:
Plagued Strikes don’t require anything but a heavy attack, but in PvP, it can be easily dodged, so both options are pretty situational:
Plagued Strikes can be combined with Trenchant Crits or Trenchant Strikes for more damage. Of course, you can use them without Plagued Strikes in PvE:
Trenchant Rend:
Or Trenchant Recovery for surviving:
3. Amulet Perks
Slash Protection and Thrust Protection cover most PvE and PvP incoming damage:
Fortified Recovery can give you a nice fortify bonus if you start dipping into lower health:
Divine will give you more healing and health – more HP, everything is simple here:
The Infinity Crystal is a 570 amulet that has both Divine and Health and Strength as the main stat. This is probably going to be best in the slot for a while. It comes from a quest in Shattered Mountain.
4. Earring Perks
Beloved and Evasive can both help you mitigate aggro, making you less likely to pull aggro in expeditions:
Purifying Toast and Refreshing Toast are both great utility options for open-world PvP where health consumables tend to be used more. These all help in PvE as well:
You can grab Refreshing here as well if you don’t manage to get it on your armor.
5. Ring Perks
Slash Damage and Keen Awareness are always great options thanks to their damage:
Refreshing is also a decent Utility with the lowered cooldowns, but that’s also available on armor:
Thrust Protection can be useful against Bow and Musket users:
Hearty will add you enough Stamina for one more additional dodge. If the player has 109.5 total stamina, and each dodge takes 40 stamina (with 150 Dexterity attribute bonus), they can dodge twice (leaving the player at 39.5 stamina), wait a fraction of a second for stamina to regenerate to 41, and then dodge twice more for a total of 4 dodges:
Blood Letting works great with Keenly Jagged on your weapon:
You can also go for Leeching if you want to gain health back on hit:
Consumables
In this chapter, you can find information about endgame consumables because you don’t really need most of them on low levels. You can easily find the low leveled versions of them because the names only differ by one word, except food.
1. Regeneration
First of all, you need Health Regeneration Food:
Health Potions:
And Regeneration Potions:
2. Attribute Food
As a DPS player, you might want to increase your Strength. This food gives you an option to put 40 points from Strength to Constitution.
You can use food with both Strength and Constitution bonus to increase your health and damage at the same time:
Constitution / Strength combination with more Strength is also available:
Also, you can use Constitution food to maximize your health:
To find more food for hybrid builds, please visit our Cooking Guide.
3. Honing Stone
Powerful Honing Stone will increase your damage. They can be bought or crafted at Smelter if you reach 170 Weaponsmithing level:
4. Gemstone Dust
Powerful Gemstone Dust can be also bought or crafted at level 170 Jewelcrafting:
5. Oakflesh Balm
Powerful Oakflesh Balm can be bought or crafted at 170 Armoring level as well:
6. Powerful Incense
Powerful Incense requires 170 Furnishing levels to craft. Otherwise, it can be bought for cheap from the Trading Post:
7. Weapon Coatings
Weapon Coatings give a 15% damage bonus against certain types of enemies. These coatings are usually used in dungeons, where you’re fighting mostly against enemies of the same type, for example:
8. Ward Potions
Ward Potions increase your damage absorption against certain enemy types. They can help you mitigate heavy incoming damage:
9. Absorption Potions
Absorption Potions can help you not only in dungeons but also in PvP against mages. They increase absorption by 15% against a certain type of elemental damage, for example:
10. Corruption Tincture And Blight Tincture
Corruption Tincture and Blight Tincture remove afflictions and give 97,5% resistance to these afflictions for 5 minutes:
11. Infused Encumbrance Potion
Infused Encumbrance Potion will help you a bit with bringing your sack to the nearest warehouse. It lasts 3 minutes and increases the Encumbrance Limit by 100:
I know that feeling, bro, even one Flint or Green Wood must not be discarded.
For more Potions, you can check our Arcana Guide.
FAQ
For the current moment, this is one of the best melee weapon combinations for both PvE and PvP.
Hatchet for regeneration and single target in PvE and one-on-one PvP and Great Axe for gap closing in PvP and AoE scenarios in both PvP and PvE.
Strength for more damage and Constitution for surviving.
Whatever you need most, mobility or defense. You can mix different armor parts and find armor combinations that fit your own playstyle best.
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