Musket And Rapier Combination Guide (Patch 1.3.4)

• Attributes
• Builds For Musket
• Builds For Rapier
• Gear
• Gems
• Equipment Perks
• Consumables
• FAQ

Musket is a single target ranged weapon. Muskets are ideal for long-range combat with a high payoff for a single target shooting, especially headshots. 

The Rapier is a melee single target weapon. With extreme mobility, plenty of damage, and damage-over-time active skills, the Rapier is best suited for those who prefer not getting hit rather than trying to soak up damage. 

This weapon combination is effective at every range and has a high burst single-target DPS. But at the same time, they both have thrust type of damage weak against Undead type enemies and don’t have AoE options.

Attributes

Both the Musket and Rapier scale with Dexterity (x0.9) and Intelligence (x0.6), making them a fantastic pairing. 

For leveling, it’s better to put all your Attribute points in Dexterity to get maximum raw damage.

But on a high level (40-60), you’ll have an option to change your build to a hybrid one. While Intelligence gives less raw damage since it scales at x0,6, it has a very strong breakpoint for Musket at level 100, which will add 10% of damage to every headshot you land:

The next Intelligence breakpoint is at level 150, which go up to x0.8 damage scaling using the damage converting Gem:

And at level 300 Intelligence, which gives you extremely serious first headshot damage:

So you can reach 150 breakpoints in Intelligence and 300 breakpoints in Dexterity for the best damage. Or you can even max the Intelligence while using the Gems in your weapon to convert your damage partially to the magic one. 

This will let you cover the bosses’ weaknesses and match the elements where you need them. For example, Corrupted enemies are rigged to Arcane damage; Fire is good against Angry Earth.

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:

Builds For Musket

For more information, you can check our Musket Guide.

It’s pretty hard to make a build for everyone since Musket relies mostly on the skills and preferences of the exact player. If you’re sure you can land headshots, you can run a sniper build. If you feel comfortable in mid-range combat, you can use Traps.

If you want to shoot fast, you have to lose your mobility. If you’re going to get AoE, you have to pick up a Sticky Bomb, which is pretty hard to land. 

Those builds are given only as examples. The final decision of which perks you’d pick up is still up to you.

1. Sniper Build is extremely ranged, best for 50vs50 wars – you’re the sniper elite and not supposed to engage in close combat:

2. This build can be used for leveling or in the open world, where you cannot always stay on a range distance:

3. If you do need some AoE, you can try this build with Trap and Sticky Bomb:

4. This one is also mid-ranged and combines Trap and Shooter’s Stance – you can trap your enemy and then shoot him asap:

Builds For Rapier

For more information, you can check our Rapier Guide.

1. This build fits most for solo open world and leveling.

The last passive point is actually pretty arguable. You can take Desperation, but since you have a lot of ways to regenerate Stamina, it’s pretty useless. 

Controlled Breathing regenerates 3 stamina on every hit and can be used for PvP to dodge more often. Swiftness doesn’t reset the 4-second timer on every stack but grants you a bit of mobility.

2. This build is often used for PvP or if you have a Rapier as a secondary weapon to increase your mobility and for having close combat attacks.

3. Blood build can be used for PvP with a Rapier as the main weapon or for bursting single target damage in Expeditions.

The last passive skill of Tondo is pretty hard to use since it works if you’re more than 4 meters away from your enemy, while the range of Tondo is actually 5-6 meters. To finalize, the final passive of the Flurry tree is also pretty arguable. So you can take 3 passives from the Grace skill tree or simply pick up all skills in the Blood skill tree since there’s no reason to waste skill points on a rather useless first passive ability in the Grace tree just to pick up Perfectionist.

Gear

Light armor gives you a +20% damage bonus and the best amount of movement with a quick roll since normally you’ll keep the distance and don’t take damage. Medium armor is also a nice option as a compromise between offense and defense.

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 Dexterity or Intelligence on it for best results, or with Dexterity/Intelligence and Constitution if you need 50 points to unlock 20% effectiveness to all health consumables.

Gems

Your Musket Gems are often the core of your build, and you should become comfortable with switching between them depending on the situation.

1. Cut Pristine Onyx:

You will likely be able to open with a devastating headshot against full health foes. As a musket user, you’re going to be tagging people from a mile away that usually have full health in Wars.

2. Cut Pristine Emerald:

Will help you to execute enemies running away.

3. Cut Pristine Diamond:

This one fits more for a group play since you are likely to be in full health while fighting at a distance.

If you’re fighting mostly against one enemy type or using Intelligence hybrid build, then you can use the following 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%

For Armor Gems, you can use Cut Pristine Emerald for sniper PvP builds because the only ones who can kill you are other 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:

Equipment Perks

If you want to concentrate on using one weapon, you can check our Musket and Rapier guides for specific Armor Perks. Here you can find only the universal ones.

1. Armor Perks

Refreshing with Resilient can be a useful universal choice depending on your secondary weapon:

Physical Aversion is useful for PvP against Musket and Bow users:

Crippling Powder Burn:

This Perk is nice because slower foes are easier to headshot. If you are using Powder Burn, consider getting this Perk.

Empowering Shooter’s Stance:

This is an excellent perk that you should always try to take if you are using Shooter’s Stance.

Sundering Riposte:

Riposte isn’t often used in PvE. In PvP, this can help offset Fortify effects while making the follow-up punishment from landing a Risposte Stun absolutely deadly.

2. Weapon Perks

Vorpal is the best Perk for Musket since you try to land as many headshots as possible:

Rogue increases your Rapier damage heavily, as you’ll almost always be dishing out backstabs in a group play:

Keenly Jagged is a nice choice since you’ll crit a lot. If you land a critical headshot with this Perk, as well as the powder burn headshot, you deal a lot of damage over time:

Alternatively, you can use Enchanted and get plenty of damage that way as well:

Keen and Vicious are still a strong pair of go-to Perks:

Refreshing Move helps a great deal with getting more skill rotations out:

You can also go for Lifestealing for Rapier if you want to gain health back on hit:

For PvP against healers, you can use Plagued Crits (for Musket and Rapier) or Plagued Strikes (for Rapier only). 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:

Or Trenchant Rend for surviving:

3. Amulet Perks

Slash Protection and Thrust Protection cover most PvE and PvP incoming damage but could be adjusted depending on what faction you’re facing or if you’re going more into PvP:

Divine will give you more healing and Health – more HP. Everything is simple here:

If you really want to heap on the defenses, Fortified Recovery grants a fairly strong 30% Fortify for 5 seconds when hit below 50% health, but it has a 90 cooldown for the effect:

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 also grab Refreshing here if you don’t manage to get it on your armor.

5. Ring Perks

Keen Awareness is a strong option for higher burst damage potential and Thrust Damage is a small damage boost in general:

Refreshing is also a decent Utility with the lowered cooldowns, but that’s also available on armor:

Thrust Protection can be useful against other snipers:

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 it to 41, then dodge twice more for a total of 4 dodges:

Burning will increase your Powder Burn damage:

Blood Letting works great with Keenly Jagged on your weapon:

If you are using a Gem to convert your damage, then a certain damage increase could be useful:

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 Dexterity or Intelligence:

You can use food with both Dexterity and Intelligence bonuses:

Constitution / Dexterity and Constitution / Intelligence combinations are also available:

Also, you can use Constitution food to maximize your health:

Please check out our Cooking Guide to find more food for hybrid builds.

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 level 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 certain types 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