Ultimate Hatchet Guide (Updated Up To Patch 1.3.4)
- Attributes
- Builds For Hatchet
- Hatchet Active Skills
- Gear
- Gems
- Equipment Perks
- Consumables
- Weapons To Combine With
- FAQ
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.
Attributes
The Hatchet is a mixture of a melee weapon and a throne weapon, so if you’re going to use this weapon, focus primarily on Strength unless you want to mix the Hatchet with some sort of Dexterity weapon.
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.
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:
Min-maxing your character for endgame PvP, you can also reach 200 Constitution breakpoint for a 20% armor increase.
Builds For Hatchet
1. For most PvE builds, the Berserk skill tree basically looks this way:
You can simply pick all the skills in the Berserk tree except the Frenzied Purge.
We start off by grabbing Berserk and its upgrades up to Berserking Refresh. Then we pick up Relentless Fury for the reliable damage boost, followed by the other two abilities for the build – Feral Rush and Raging Torrent.
Next, we finish maxing out Berserk, then pick up Against All Odds and Enraged Strikes. Then we grab Defy Death, which provides safety to the build.
After grabbing Defy Death, we pick up Desperate Refresh. This makes it so if we stay at lower health, we’ll get our cooldowns back faster by dealing damage. After this, we finish capping off our skill upgrades, taking Dispatch for Feral Rush and both upgrades for Raging Torrent.
At this point, we’ve grabbed everything important, and the last few points can be adjusted as desired. I’ve opted for Accumulated Power, Fortifying Strikes, plus Critical Throw from the Throwing skill tree.
Accumulated Power works decently well with Raging Torrent, stacking with Relentless Fury for a strong fourth hit. Fortifying Strikes offers a bit of safety. Critical Throw gives you a +5% critical chance of all attacks.
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 necessary option for PvP.
You can get the Infected Throw with the critical shot and headshot potential or stamina regeneration. 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 help you to kill healers, 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:
Hatchet Active Skills
1. The main skill is actually the Berserk:
It gives you damage boost and health regeneration, increases the movement speed, gives immunity to crowd control, and makes your attacks uninterruptible – all in one, so it’s important to max this skill line.
This ability will also taunt all foes within 8 meters for 8 seconds if you have a Carnelian gem socketed in your Hatchet.
Note that switching to your other weapon or sheathing your weapon for any reason, including opening your inventory or gathering raw materials, will cause Berserk to dissipate.
2. Feral Rush:
Feral Rush is the only actual gap closer the Hatchet has. It can be upgraded to root the enemies if you hit them in the back, which is pretty useful for PvP.
3. Raging Torrent:
This is a fast ability that pumps out a lot of damage but leaves you open to counterattacks. You can use the Relentless Fury by throwing out a heavy attack and then following it up with Raging Torrent because you can hit all four of these attacks within three seconds and get 30% extra damage on every attack. This ability unfortunately does not have a large area of effect and does not apply any crowd control, so it is easy for foes to leave the area before taking the full damage.
4. Rending Throw:
It’s really good against heavily armored characters or if you’re playing against a boss or an elite monster.
5. Social Distancing:
It gives you an extra dodge that doesn’t cost stamina. You can use it point-blank to dodge when you need to. Even if you’re not using dodge (wearing heavy armor, for example), it’s a free dodge that also slows the target.
6. Infected Throw:
This ability has a rather long animation which makes it difficult to hit. This is the only source of applying Disease for players, so it can be an attractive PvP option to reduce incoming healing. It doesn’t stack with Plagued Strikes and Plagued Crits weapon perks.
Basic Rotation
The rotation starts with Berserk to get the damage bonus throughout the rotation. Use the Rending Throw (if taken) while getting closer to the enemy. We start with a Heavy Attack to activate Relentless Fury, then use Feral Rush to put it on cooldown. Then, we use another Heavy Attack to refresh Relentless Fury to use with Raging Torrent (if taken). Raging Torrent will trigger Accumulated Power, making both the fourth hit hurt quite a bit, and the finisher dealing decent damage.
With everything on cooldown, we continually rotate between doing a Heavy Attack to trigger a Relentless Fury and three Light Attacks to Trigger Accumulated Power. The next Heavy Attack should hit with both Relentless Fury and Accumulated Power for a huge chunk of damage.
Eventually, your skill will come back up. Feral Rush can be used on Cooldown. Raging Torrent should only be used in Berserk to benefit from its damage bonus or when Berserk is actively cooling down, so Refreshing Torrent can reduce that cooldown.
Gear
Light armor gives you a +20% damage bonus and the best 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, though Strength and Dexterity are not bad either.
Gems
The best gems for your Hatchet are:
1. Cut Pristine Opal:
Fits more for PvP, where you’ll be dodging a lot.
2. Cut Pristine Diamond:
With all your self-healing, you are likely to be in full health while fighting. Fits more for a group play.
3. Cut Pristine Emerald:
This will help finish off low health foes.
If you’re fighting mostly 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:
Equipment Perks
1. Hatchet Skill Perks
These perks can be found on armors and weapons but often slotted on Armor as Weapons have access to better perks overall.
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:
Vorpal Distancing Throw:
In theory, this can be useful if you’re using the Distancing Throw, but wasting time for targeting to land a headshot before using this ability is not a great idea.
Energizing Feral Rush:
Not really a useful perk since Stamina regenerates very fast.
Energizing Rending Throw:
The stamina bonus is not great by itself. Besides, you have to kill your enemy exactly with Rending Throw to get it.
Mending Infected Throw:
This could be viable, but other perks are much better. Besides, you probably already have health regeneration with Berserk.
2. Armor Perks
Refreshing with Resilient can be a universal choice depending on your secondary weapon:
Refreshing Evasion is useful if you’re dodging a lot:
Physical Aversion is useful for PvP against Musket and Bow users:
3. 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 give you a lot of damage if you have 300 Strength:
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. They don’t stuck with Infected Throw.
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:
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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. 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. Powerful Honing Stone will increase your damage. They can be bought or crafted at Smelter if you reach 170 Weaponsmithing level:
4. Powerful Gemstone Dust can be also bought or crafted at level 170 Jewelcrafting:
5. Powerful Oakflesh Balm can be bought or crafted at 170 Armoring level as well:
6. Powerful Incense requires 170 Furnishing levels to craft. Otherwise, it can be bought for cheap from the Trading Post:
7. 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 increase your damage absorption against certain enemy types. They can help you mitigate heavy incoming damage:
9. 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 remove afflictions and give 97,5% resistance to these afflictions for 5 minutes:
11. 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.
Weapons To Combine With
The Hatchet is a great weapon to combine with any weapon that is looking for self-healing or melee damage.
- Great Axe scales primarily with Strength. While Hatchet is used for single targets in PvE and for healing the Great Axe, getting you close to foes, and giving AoE damage. For example, you can run down in PvP with Blood Lust and then use Feral Rush to root them in place due to Crippling Strikes. The Great Axe also has a longer range of its attacks. Both these weapons deal Slash damage and will be weak when fighting Ancient-type enemies.
- War Hammer gives a lot of crowd control options. Armor Breaker applies a powerful Rend; you can combine that with the Sundering Shockwave perk and hit the 30% Rend cap. Besides, War Hammer is strong against Ancient-type foes.
- Spear scales primarily with Dexterity and has Strength as a secondary attribute. It provides a lot of crowd control with Sweep and Vault Kick but lacks gap closing power which Berserk can provide. One downside would be that both of these weapons have limited area-of-effect capability.
- Sword and Shield is more about PvE tanking. Berserk has a relatively short cooldown and provides both self-healing and an area-of-effect taunt, which can be useful for gathering multiple foes. Hatchet’s ranged abilities are also nice for aggroing distant foes as the Sword does not have any ranged Abilities. A downside would be that both weapons deal slash damage and are weak against Ancient-type foes.
- Bow scales with Dexterity – it does great damage at a distance. The Hatchet allows Bow users to have a melee damage option and a self-healing ability. The Bow also provides some area-of-effect damage. One downside would be that you would want to scale Dexterity instead of Strength, reducing the Hatchet’s overall damage.
- Musket scales primarily with Dexterity. It is great at a long distance and can even provide some crowd control with Traps. A downside would be that Musket is extremely single-target-focused and does not provide any area-of-effect damage, so you’ll have two single targeted weapons.
- Life Staff. This build is centered around high mobility and AoE healing while increasing the amount of healing you do and your own survivability with the use of the Life Staff as a secondary weapon.
- Void Gauntlet provides great utility and lots of buffs and debuffs for you and your team. Single target build for solo play is also possible. Even more, it gives you the ability to cool down your skills fast.
FAQ
For the current moment, this is the best weapon for PvE and farming, but also could be used for open-world PvP.
Strength for more damage and Constitution for surviving. You can also pick 50 Dexterity to increase the critical chance.
Whatever you need most, mobility or defense. You can mix different armor parts and find armor combinations that fit your own playstyle best.
Great Axe has enough defense, area-of-effect attacks, and decent crowd control skills. It also has a gap-closing ability, but it is pretty slow with long cooldowns. Life Staff will give you, even more, healing and survivability.
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