New World Musketeer Guide

Musket And Rapier Combination Guide (Patch 1.3.4)

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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:

New World 100 Breakpoint
100 Intelligence Breakpoint

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

New World 150 Breakpoint
150 Intelligence Breakpoint

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

New World 300 Intelligence Breakpoint
300 Intelligence Breakpoint

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:

New World 50 Constitution Breakpoint
50 Constitution Breakpoint

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:

New World Musket Sniper Build
Musket Sniper Build

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

New World Musket Build For Leveling
Musket Build For Leveling

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

New World Musket AOE Build With Trap And Sticky Bomb
Musket AOE 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:

New World Musket Build With Trap And Shooter’s Stance
Musket Build With Trap And Shooter’s Stance

Builds For Rapier

For more information, you can check our Rapier Guide.

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

New World Solo Open World And Leveling Build
Rapier solo open world and leveling build

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.

New World Rapier As A Secondary Weapon PVP Build
Rapier as a secondary weapon PvP build

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

New World Rapier As A Main Weapon PVP Build
Rapier as a main weapon PvP build

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.

New World Equip Load
Armor Equip Load

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 TypeLightMediumHeavy
Head1,5 lbs2,6 lbs4,7 lbs
Chest3,5 lbs6,2 lbs11,0 lbs
Gloves1,5 lbs2,6 lbs4,7 lbs
Pants2,0 lbs3,5 lbs6,3 lbs
Boots1,5 lbs2,6 lbs4,7 lbs
Shields2,7 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:

New World Cut Pristine Onyx
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:

New World Cut Pristine Emerald
Cut Pristine Emerald

Will help you to execute enemies running away.

3. Cut Pristine Diamond:

New World Cut Pristine Diamond
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:

New World Cut Pristine Amethyst
Cut Pristine Amethyst to fight against Ancients

2. Cut Pristine Aquamarine against the Lost:

New World Cut Pristine Aquamarine
Cut Pristine Aquamarine against the Lost

3. Cut Pristine Ruby against Angry Earth:

New World Cut Pristine Ruby
Cut Pristine Ruby against Angry Earth

4. Cut Pristine Sapphire against Corrupted:

New World Cut Pristine Sapphire
Cut Pristine Sapphire against Corrupted

5. Cut Pristine Topaz against Ancients:

New World Cut Pristine Topaz
Cut Pristine Topaz against Ancients
Damage Effectiveness Slash Thrust Strike Fire Ice Nature Void LightningArcane
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%
Ancients are the skeletal enemies adorned in regal clothing. You can find them guarding obelisks and other large-scale ruins found throughout Aeternum.
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 sniper PvP builds because the only ones who can kill you are other Musket users:

New World Cut Pristine Emerald
Cut Pristine Emerald

If you’re already level 60 and farming chests or mobs for gear, you need a Lucky Gem:

New World Pristine Pearl
Lucky Gem

For other situations to provide generic damage absorption:

1. Cut Pristine Onyx:

New World Cut Pristine Onyx
Cut Pristine Onyx

2. Cut Pristine Malachite:

New World Cut Pristine Malachite
Cut Pristine Malachite

3. Cut Pristine Diamond:

New World Cut Pristine Diamond
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:

New World Refreshing
Refreshing
New World Resilient
Resilient

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

New World Physical Aversion
Physical Aversion

Crippling Powder Burn:

New World Crippling Powder Burn
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:

New World Empowering Shooter’s Stance 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:

New World Sundering Riposte
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:

New World Vorpal
Vorpal

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

New World Rogue
Rogue

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:

New World Keenly Jagged
Keenly Jagged

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

New World Enchanted
Enchanted

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

New World Keen
Keen
New World Vicious
Vicious

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

New World Refreshing Move
Refreshing Move

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

New World Lifestealing
Lifestealing

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:

New World Plagued Crits
Plagued Crits

Plagued Strikes don’t require anything but a heavy attack, but in PvP, it can be easily dodged, so both options are pretty situational:

New World Plagued Strikes
Plagued Strikes

Plagued Strikes can be combined with Trenchant Crits or Trenchant Strikes for more damage:

New World Trenchant Crits
Trenchant Crits
New World Trenchant Strikes
Trenchant Strikes

Or Trenchant Rend for surviving:

New World Trenchant Rend
Trenchant Rend

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:

New World Slash Protection
Slash Protection
New World Thrust Protection
Thrust Protection

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

New World Divine
Divine
New World Health
Health

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:

New World Fortified Recovery
Fortified Recovery

4. Earring Perks

Beloved and Evasive can both help you mitigate aggro, making you less likely to pull aggro in expeditions:

New World Beloved
Beloved
New World Evasive
Evasive

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:

New World Purifying Toast
Purifying Toast
New World Refreshing Toast
Refreshing Toast

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:

New World Keen Awareness
Keen Awareness
New World Thrust Damage
Thrust Damage

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

New World Refreshing
Refreshing

Thrust Protection can be useful against other snipers:

New World Thrust Protection
Thrust Protection

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:

New World Hearty
Hearty

Burning will increase your Powder Burn damage:

New World Burning Perk
Burning

Blood Letting works great with Keenly Jagged on your weapon:

New World Blood Letting
Blood Letting

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

New World Void Damage Increase
Void Damage Increase
New World Ice Damage Increase
Ice Damage Increase
New World Fire Damage Increase
Fire Damage Increase
New World Arcane Damage Increase
Arcane Damage Increase
New World Lightning Damage Increase
Lightning Damage Increase

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:

New World Hearty Meal
Health Regeneration Food

Health Potions:

New World Infused Health Potion
Health Potion

And Regeneration Potions:

New World Infused Regeneration Potion
Regeneration Potion

2. Attribute Food

As a DPS player, you might want to increase your Dexterity or Intelligence:

New World Fried Albenaja
Food To Convert 40 Points From Dexterity To Another Attribute
New World Steamed Abaia Serpe
Food To Increase Intelligence by 40

You can use food with both Dexterity and Intelligence bonuses:

New World Poacher's Pie
Food with Dexterity and Intelligence bonus
New World Filet in Mushroom Sauce
Food with Dexterity and Intelligence bonus

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

New World Rabbit Stew
Food To Increase Dexterity And Constitution
New World Blackened Ray-Finned Barb with Fondant Potatoes and Barley
Food To Increase Dexterity And Some Constitution
New World Pork Belly Fried Rice
Food To Increase Constitution And Intelligence
New World Glazed Bear with Sauteed Vegetables
Food To Increase Intelligence And Constitution

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

New World Roasted Rabbit with Seasoned Vegetables
New World Constitution Food NWNEWS.INFO

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:

New World Powerful Honing Stone
Powerful Honing Stone

4. Gemstone Dust

Powerful Gemstone Dust can be also bought or crafted at level 170 Jewelcrafting:

New World Powerful Gemstone Dust
Powerful Gemstone Dust

5. Oakflesh Balm

Powerful Oakflesh Balm can be bought or crafted at 170 Armoring level as well:

New World Powerful Oakflesh Balm
Powerful Oakflesh Balm

6. Powerful Incense

Powerful Incense requires 170 Furnishing level to craft. Otherwise, it can be bought for cheap from the Trading Post:

New World Powerful Incense
Powerful Incense

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:

New World Infused Ancient Coating
Infused Ancient Coating

8. Ward Potions

Ward Potions increase your damage absorption against certain enemy types. They can help you mitigate heavy incoming damage:

New World Infused Ancient Ward Potion
Ancient Ward Potion

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:

New World Infused Void Absorption Potion
Void Absorption Potion

10. Corruption Tincture And Blight Tincture

Corruption Tincture and Blight Tincture remove afflictions and give 97,5% resistance to these afflictions for 5 minutes:

New World Infused Corruption Tincture
Corruption Tincture
New World Infused Blight Tincture
Blight Tincture

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. 

New World Infused Encumbrance Potion
Encumbrance Potion

For more Potions, you can check our Arcana Guide.

FAQ

What is Musket and Rapier weapon combination used for in New World?

This weapon combination is effective at every range and has a high burst single-target DPS, so it fits mostly for Invasions, mass PvP, Wars, Fort Sieges.

When Musket and Rapier combination should be used?

Musket to keep your enemies at a distance, Rapier in close combat, and for repositioning

Which attributes do I need while using Musket and Rapier weapon combination in New World?

Dexterity for leveling, then you can change your build to the hybrid one, and max Intelligence using the damage converted Gem in your weapon or max the Dexterity and get 150 Intelligence for +15% elemental damage.

Which armor should I wear while using Musket and Rapier weapon combination in New World?

This build is mostly about high mobility and damage, so light (for PvE) or medium (for PvP) armor is recommended. But you can mix different armor parts and find armor combinations that fit your own playstyle best.

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