Ultimate New World Rapier Guide

Ultimate Rapier Guide (Updated Up To Patch 1.3.4)

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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 gamers that prefer not getting hit rather than trying to soak up the damage:

New World Rapier Weapon Stats
Rapier is single target weapon with extreme mobility and DPS

The rapier doesn’t offer too much in the way of crowd control or area of effect skills – it’s best suited to one-on-one situations.

Attributes

The Rapier scales from the Dexterity primarily at x0.9 and has a secondary stat of Intelligence (x0.6):

New World Rapier Scales With Dexterity
Rapier Scales with Dexterity and Intelligence

First of all, the choice of the main Attribute depends on what weapon you’ll use as a primary and secondary one. If you’re leveling with the Rapier, you’d better put all your Attribute points in Dexterity to get maximum raw damage.

If you’re going to use it pairing with Musket or Fire Staff / Ice Gauntlet, hybrid Intelligence build is also possible. Using the Gems in your weapon will let you convert your damage partially to the magic one, cover the weaknesses of the bosses 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 Constitution Is A Decent Secondary Attribute For Rapier
Constitution is a decent secondary Attribute for Rapier

Minmaxing your character for endgame PvP you can also reach 200 Constitution breakpoints for a 20% armor increase:

New World 200 Constitution breakpoint for a 20% armor increase
200 Constitution Breakpoint For A 20% Armor Increase

Builds For Rapier

Due to the pretty straight skill trees and a low number of passives, there’s not so much variability in Rapier builds.

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.

Leveling:

If you’re focusing on PvE content, you grab all three skills with your first three points. After that, you grab the additional two passives for Flurry, Red Curtains, then Max Evade, followed by Fleche. Finally, you grab the Momentum Ultimate.

In the end, you can pick passives from the Blood skill tree – Refreshing Strikes, Engarde, Light Edge, take Overwhelm, and Fleeting Strikes in Flurry tree; since you don’t have blood debuffs you don’t need to max it. Then, Perfectionist and the last passive you chose.

Rotation:

This build is fairly straightforward, with no complex or complicated skill usages or rotations to maximize damage.

In PvE, Evade and Flurry should just be used off cooldown. Evade to reposition for Flurry and try to get as many backstabs as you can. Fleche can be used off Cooldown too. When solo, you’d be aiming to Fleche through a target and get backstab with Interruption before carrying on with Evade and Flurry spam. In groups, you ideally want to Fleche into the enemy’s back, but not through them, landing both parts as backstab.

In PvP, the usage is very similar, though Evade should be used more tactically. Since it can be spammed though, you should be trying to use it often to abuse Momentum while avoiding key abilities and trying to land backstabs. Flurry and Fleche are still used pretty much the same way; just need to be careful with timing their usage.

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.

Rapier Active Skills

New World Tondo
Tondo

The range doesn’t change with Proper Spacing ability. The Bleed can be extended through passives and has a maximum duration of 20 seconds.

In PvP, it can be used for 50v50 Wars, as it can apply to many targets at once with good spacing. For PvE, it can be also applied to many targets and can be your primary AoE option.

New World Flourish And Finish
Flourish And Finish

The Ability pairs together with Tondo to create a Bleed-stacking playstyle.

Tondo’s bleed does 85% weapon damage over 12 seconds and, with Bloody End, you can consume it to do 150% of the Bleed’s damage instantly.

With passives that extend the Bleed duration to the max of 20 seconds, each stack detonated can deal up roughly 185% weapon damage. Detonating, this still has the same 1.1 multipliers per stack. With all three stacks being detonated, it can deal up to 555% weapon damage.

This skill is what makes Tondo viable in any sense, especially for PvE. In PvP, however, the reliance on both Tondo and successfully landing Finish makes it tougher to perform well.

New World Flurry
Flurry

Each of Flurry’s strikes deals 46%, 52%, 56%, 62%, and 82% weapon damage for a total of 298% weapon damage.

Since each attack of Flurry is considered a Light Attack, this gives it a lot of synergies with Perks, like Enchanted and Refreshing Move. For Anything PvE, Flurry does incredibly high damage, and with certain passives, can reset itself entirely or almost entirely, making it highly spammable. 

This skill is just as strong in PvP for the same reasons. However, since half of its damage is located in the last two strikes, it’s hard to land it fully.

New World Ripsote
Riposte

Riposte is a very situational skill in both PvE and PvP. In PvE, since it can be used with a Carnelian Gem, it does enable you to be a bit of an evade tank giving you a very necessary Taunt to use to pull aggro. It’s a much stronger PvP option; it is Rapier’s only hard crowd control effect.

New World Evade
Evade

This Ability allows you to do a miniature dodge on command. Once you have unlocked Crescendo paired together with Momentum, it makes possible an extremely fast and light playstyle.

In PvE, it lets you fight any enemy in the game 1v1 with very little issue. 

The fact that it’s a readily available and free dodge to use, though with much fewer invulnerability frames, makes it exceptionally powerful in PvP.

New World Fleche
Fleche

You can change the direction of your dash in the middle of it. While it does have a slight delay before activation, this Ability is great for getting out of difficult situations and preventing you from being body blocked into a corner.

This skill is a strong repositioning tool as well as a general mobility tool for the Rapier, which makes it worth slotting in when traveling the open world, despite its long cooldown.

After it’s fully upgraded, though, it becomes a damage threat like most other skills. Being able to Fleche, through a tar upgraded, get and throw them off balance by forcing them to do a quick turn to face you is quite nice.

Gear

Light armor gives you a +20% damage bonus and the best amount of movement with a quick roll since, normally, you don’t soak damage:

New World Equip Load
Rapier 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 on it for best results, or with Dexterity and Constitution if you need 50 points to unlock 20% effectiveness to all health consumables.

Gems

Your Rapier Gems can change your playstyle a lot, and you should become comfortable switching between them depending on the situation, if you’re using the damage convert Gem to make your Rapier damage scaling with Intelligence or Focus.

For using Rapier as the main weapon:

1. Cut Pristine Diamond:

New World Cut Pristine Diamond
Cut Pristine Diamond

It fits more for a group play since you are likely to be in full health.

2. Cut Pristine Emerald:

New World Cut Pristine Emerald
Cut Pristine Emerald

This one will help to execute enemies running away.

3. Cut Pristine Opal:

New World Cut Pristine Opal
Cut Pristine Opal

In PvP, you might be dodging a lot in addition to your positioning skills.

If you’re mainly fighting against one enemy type or using the Intelligence hybrid build due to your main or secondary weapon, you can use it 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 SlashThrustStrikeFireIceNature VoidLightningArcane
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 PvP, while fighting mostly against Bow and Musket users:

New World Cut Pristine Emerald
Cut Pristine Emerald

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

New World Pristine Pearl
Pristine Pearl

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

1. Rapier Skill Perks

These perks can be found on armors and weapons, but often slotted on Armor as Weapons have access to better perks overall.

1. Energizing Flourish:

New World Energizing Flourish
Energizing Flourish

Combined with Fuel, it’d restore to max 39 Stamina if both parts of Flourish and Finish connect. Given Flourish and Finish is primarily a PvE Skill, there’s little reason to use this perk.

2. Keen Tondo:

New World Keen Tondo
Keen Tondo

In PvE, it helps with making it a little easier to proc Red Curtains more reliably when solo. 

In PvP, it adds a bit of utility to Tondo, which can make Tondo decently viable for PvP. Again, it’s not a great solution as there are other perks that do this easier and without Tondo, but if you wanted to stack Crit for a build, it helps enough to warrant using at higher Gear Scores.

3. Leeching Flurry:

New World Leeching Flurry
Leeching Flurry

In PvE, this makes solo play significantly easier. It has a nice benefit of being able to help you maintain Perfectionist for the extra damage easier. However, in groups, it’s pretty useless as a healer will be more effective. Since flurry isn’t a single hit and will likely have to fight against Fortify and similar effects, it’s not going to be as strong in PvP.

4. Omnidirectional Evade:

New World Omnidirectional Evade
Omnidirectional Evade

If you’re running Evade, this will always be worth a pickup. Being able to use Evade to the side or even for a quick step back and still get Adagio’s 15% damage boost is really nice.

5. Refreshing Fleche:

New World Refreshing Fleche
Refreshing Fleche

It’s slightly weaker in PvE, except when used as an opener, but it’s hard to backstab. In PvP, getting backstabs in 1v1 with Fleche can be tough, but this rewards you for pulling them off. If you manage to land both Fleche and Interruption as a backstab, that’s 38% of the cooldown refunded.

6. 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. Armor Perks

Refreshing with Resilient from the Faction armor is a nice combination:

New World Refreshing
Refreshing
New World Resilent
Resilient

Refreshing Evasion is useful because you’re dodging a lot:

New World Refreshing Evasion
Refreshing Evasion

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

New World Physical Aversion
Physical Aversion

3. Weapon Perks

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

New World Rogue
Rogue
New World Vicious
Vicious

Keenly Jagged is a good choice since you’ll crit a lot:

New World Keenly Jagged
Keenly Jagged

Refreshing Move helps a great deal with getting more skill rotations out, especially combined with Flurry:

New World Refreshing Move
Refreshing Move

Alternatively, you can use Enchanted (also synergized with Flurry) or Keen and get plenty of damage that way as well:

New World Enchanted
Enchanted
New World Keen
Keen

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

New World Lifestealing
Lifestealing

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:

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

Trenchant Rend:

New World Trenchant Rend
Trenchant Rend

Or Trenchant Recovery for surviving:

New World Trenchant Recovery
Trenchant Recovery

4. Amulet Perks

Slash Protection and Thrust Protection cover most PvE and PvP incoming damage:

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 it hits below 50% health, but has a 90 cooldown for effect.

New World Fortified Recovery
Fortified Recovery

5. 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 also help in PvE:

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

You can also grab Refreshing here, as well, if you don’t manage to get it on your armor.

6. 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 Rapier and Musket users:

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

Blood Letting works great with Tondo, Flourish and Finish, and Keenly Jagged on your weapon:

New World Blood Letting
Blood Letting

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

New World Leeching
Leeching

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:

New World Hearty Meal
Health Regeneration Food Example

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. This food gives you an option to put 40 points from Dexterity to another Attribute.

New World Fried Albenaja
Food To Convert 40 Points From Dexterity To Another Attribute

You can use food with both Dexterity and Constitution bonus to increase your health and damage at the same time.

New World Rabbit Stew
Food To Increase Dexterity And Constitution

Constitution / Dexterity combination with more Dexterity is also available.

New World Blackened Ray-Finned Barb with Fondant Potatoes and Barley
Food To Increase Dexterity And Some Constitution

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

New World Roasted Rabbit with Seasoned Vegetables
Constitution Food To Maximize Your Health

To find more food, for hybrid builds please check our Cooking Guide.

3. Powerful Honing Stone will increase your damage and, as a result, threat level. They can be bought or crafted at Smelter if you reach 170 Weaponsmithing level.

New World Powerful Honing Stone
Powerful Honing Stone

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

New World Powerful Gemstone Dust
Powerful Gemstone Dust

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

New World Powerful Oakflesh Balm
Powerful Okflesh Balm

6. 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 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 Coatings
Weapon Coating Example

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

New World Infused Ancient Ward Potion
Ward Potion Example

9. 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
Absorption Potions Example

10. 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 will help you a bit with bringing your sack to the nearest warehouse. It lasts 3 minutes and increases the Encumbrance Limit by 100.

New World Infused Encumbrance Potion
Infused Encumbrance Potion

I know that feeling, bro, even one Flint or Green-Wood must not be discarded. 

Weapons To Combine With

  1. Musket provides significant ranged damage. Both the Musket and Rapier scale with Dexterity and Intelligence, pairing them fantastically. This weapon combination is effective at every range and has a high Intelligence, single-target DPS. But, at the same time, they both get thrust type of damage weak against Undead type enemies and don’t have AoE options.
  2. Bow. You’ve got the extreme mobility of the Rapier paired with the ranged damage of the Bow. This build comes with more flexibility than the Musket, as you won’t be slowing down to take shots often. It’s really a fast-paced duelist PvP build. The Bow also has multiple area-of-effect damage options, which can help the primarily single-target-focused Rapier. One downside of this pairing is that both weapons deal Thrust damage, which is weak against Lost and Angry Earth-type foes.
  3. Spear. Scaling primarily with Dexterity, this is a strong crowd control and defensive weapon whose primary weakness is the lack of movement tools, which Rapier can offer. Both these weapons have thrust damage type.
  4. Ice Gauntlet. You can lock down foes with your Ice Gauntlet and burst damage with the Rapier. This build is more about dealing big damage while evading your enemy’s attacks. One downside of this combo is that you lose a small amount of damage with the Rapier since you are scaling Intelligence, but you can use Gem converting the damage.
  5. Fire Staff. You can use the Rapier to disengage or use Riposte to set up a devastating Pillar of Fire. Thanks to gems, you’ll be able to focus mostly on Intelligence to scale the damage to both weapons. This will give you enough AoE damage and mobility, combined with close combat opportunities. One downside of this combo is that you have limited crowd control.
  6. Hatchet is a great pick as it deals devastating damage up close while also packing self-healing abilities, so you don’t need to use restorative items like Potions or food as often. It also scales with Dexterity, so it shares Rapier’s points. This combination could be nice for PvE, but it doesn’t have ranged options important for PvP.
  7. Life Staff also can be mixed with Rapier, if you’ll place the Cut Pristine Amber in it making the damage to your Rapier scaling with Focus. It’ll give you lots of AoE offensive skills and high survivability. This combination is more about giving the Life Staff the tools it needs to stay alive in PvE and PvP. We recommend this combo for players who would like to heal in both PvP and PvE, as it gives a hard-to-catch and a hard-to-kill combination. One downside of this combo is that it does not provide any area crowd control or AoE damage.
  8. Void Gauntlet provides great utility, lots of buffs and debuffs for you and your team. Even more, it gives you the ability to cooldown your skills fast. The main downside of this build is the lack of crowd control and AoE, so this combo is mostly PvP and solo target oriented.

FAQ

What is Rapier mainly used for in New World?

Mostly, it is used as a secondary weapon due to its extreme mobility and single-target melee burst damage. The rapier doesn’t offer too much in the way of crowd control or area of effect skills – it’s best suited to one-on-one situations.

Which attributes do I need for Rapier in New World?

If you’re leveling with the Rapier, you’d better put all your Attribute points in Dexterity to get maximum raw damage. If you’re going to use it pairing with Musket or Fire Staff, hybrid Intelligence build is also possible.

Which armor should I wear with Rapier in New World?

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

What is the best secondary weapon in New World?

Musket provides significant ranged damage. This weapon combination is effective at every range, has a high burst single-target DPS, but has no AoE damage.

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