New World Ultimate Spear Guide

Ultimate Spear Guide (Updated Up To Patch 1.3.4)

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The Spear is a melee weapon with plenty of crowd control options, and one of the strongest Rend applications in the game. Since Spears have more range than any other melee weapon, you’re encouraged to manage your distance during an engagement:

New World Spear Features
Spear is a melee weapon with plenty of crowd control options

The Spear is a weapon that has two types of crowd control: Knockdown and Stun. Knockdown comes from Sweep and Javelin and knocks foes affected by it onto their backs. This effect does end early though if they take any damage. Stun is exactly the same as knockdown with the exception that it goes through Grit. Grit provides almost total immunity to crowd control and displacing effects but stuns as Vault Kick will still apply.

Attributes

Spear is a mixture of a melee weapon and a throne weapon so if you’re going to use it as a main weapon focus primarily on Dexterity unless you want to mix the Spear with some sort of Strength weapon:

New World Spear Scales With Dexterity And Strength
Spear scales with Dexterity and Strength

Also you can reach 50 or 100 Strength breakpoints to get the bonuses to both attack 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:

New World Decent Secondary Attribute For Spear
Constitution is a decent secondary Attribute for Spear

Minmaxing your character for endgame PvP you can also reach 200 Constitution breakpoint 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 Spear

Mostly depends on how you use Spear, as a main or a secondary weapon.

1. If you use Spear for PvE or character leveling as the main weapon you want as much damage as you can get:

New World Spear PvE Build
Spear PvE and character leveling build

In this build, we don’t use Deep Wound since short cooldowns will let us reset bleeds fast enough. You can use Deadly Reach instead of Exacerbating Crits if you are doing the right rotation to apply debuffs before they take off.

For PvP Unerring Precision is an option since you’ll probably meet Great Axe and War Hammer users pretty often.

Leveling:

Start off with grabbing Skewer, Perforate, and Vault Kick to have a nice 3 Ability kit. 

Next take Aggressive Maneuvers, Relentless Blows, and Continuous Motion to empower our Vault Kick and reduce cooldowns even more. Try to dodge before using each Ability to help reduce all your Spear cooldowns. 

Then Precise Jabs, Refreshing Jabs, and Exposed Wounds to help give you a lot of crit and cooldown reduction. 

Rupturing Strikes is next for the Rend increase, this unlocks Exploited Weakness which is a nice damage increase against foes we have debuffed. 

Next, take Deadly Ambush and Follow Through to empower your Skewer. 

Finishing Blows to help do more damage against low-life foes. Exacerbating Crits will extend the duration of your debuffs allowing you to get more mileage out of Exploited Weakness. 

Lastly finish up with Deadly Consistency, Evasive Maneuvers, Refreshing Reach, and Impactful Strikes.

2. In PvP Spear is mostly used as a secondary weapon, so this build is concentrated around mobility and defense. While it’s possible to level with this build, it’s extremely single-target focused which can make it very slow going. It’ll be reasonably safe with the amount of crowd control it has, but it does lack the raw damage of the PvE Builds:

New World Mobility and Defense Spear Build
Mobility and Defense oriented Spear build

The usage of Refreshing Precision and Deadly Distance in PvP is pretty hard, but you can use this option if you feel confident with it. Unerring Precision is also optional, you can take any other passive you like.

As for rotation, it’s possible to stunlock your opponent in PvE with this build. The rotation is pretty simple: Sweep, two light attacks, dodge, Vault Kick, two light attacks, dodge, Sweep, and again.

The reason we don’t pick Coupe de Grace is that you will not be able to do two light attacks if you Sweep someone, so this actually makes your DPS go down. But if you don’t use stunlock rotation you can take it instead of Deadly Consistency.

3. If you prefer more survivability, you can take Perforate instead of Javelin and combine it with Fortifying Perforate perk:

New World Spear Build For Survivability
Spear build for survivability

4. For mass PvP like wars you might want a full crowd control build with the Cyclone:

New World Spear Build For Mass PvP
Spear build for mass PvP

5. If you want a ranged attack in PvE you can use this build:

New World Spear Build For Long Range Attack
Spear build for a long-range attack in PvE

You can take Refreshing Precision and Deadly Distance instead of Deep Wound and Defensive Stand, for example, since it’s easier to land a headshot in PvE.

New World Spear Build With Refreshing Precision and Deadly Distance
Spear Build with Refreshing Precision and Deadly Distance

Or take Deadly Consistency and Deadly Reach instead.

Optional Passive Skills

A bit of explanation about arguable skills.

  1. Deadly Consistency
New World Deadly Consistency
Deadly Consistency

This passive can stack three times for an additional 30% damage for however long you choose to spam the heavy attacks. It doesn’t matter which type of heavy attack you do, both are going to count.

New World Deadly Reach
Deadly Reach

Since the auto-attack range is 4 meters you have only a 1-meter window.

New World Strong Conditioning
Strong Conditioning

Stamina regeneration is pretty fast by itself, this skill will only grant you 1 second faster stamina regeneration, but you can use this skill if you need points to get to Reserved Strength.

New World Unerring Precision
Unerring Precision

Can be useful mostly dealing with Hatchet, War Hammer, and Great Axe players, but since these weapons were buffed in patch 1.2, this ability becomes more necessary in PvP.

Spear Active Skills

1. Cyclone:

New World Cyclone
Cyclone

Decent damage, knockback, and the strongest slow in the game in a single skill make this highly valuable for maintaining your spacing in PvP and still a decent PvE skill. Strong Momentum also adds Grit to this ability which allows you to avoid crowd control.

2. Javelin:

New World Javelin
Javelin

This Skill is excellent at attacking and knocking down enemies that are hitting you from range. It can be decent as a finishing option for someone attempting to run away. 

Being one of the few high damage ratios on the Spear, this ability can really hurt with practice and getting those headshots. It will take a while to build that consistency, but it can be worth it once upgraded.

3. Sweep:

New World Sweep
Sweep

This crowd control move feels pretty fast and consistent; however, the Mastery Coup de Grâce is not that great because this is basically the same damage as a Heavy attack.

When activated, Sweep will knock your enemy’s legs out from underneath them, disabling them for a short period. This is very effective in PvP.

It has a rather short cooldown, and you can reduce cooldowns further by Light Attacking, so you should be able to use this quite often.

New World Perforate
Perforate

Perforate is one of those skills that you’ll always want in PvE but will be a little dicey in PvP if you don’t combine it with Fortifying Perforate perk. This Ability is the only one in the game that can hit the 30% Rend cap by itself. In PvP, it is rather hard to hit all three strikes because foes can just move away.

New World Skewer
Skewer

Skewer is a pretty good ability, although this skill is fairly fast it is still rather hard to hit in PvP. It applies a Bleed that with just a bit of cooldown reduction can be maintained indefinitely. This Bleed is what gives it a spot on most builds, as it enables Exposed Wounds, which increases your Critical Chance, letting the weapon handle better when solo.

New World Vault Kick
Vault Kick

This crowd control move is pretty great because it moves you forward and can Stun through Grit. In PvE this skill leaves a lot to be desired due to the narrow range that it hits compared to Sweep’s knockdown.

In PvP, this skill functions as both a Stun and a small gap closer. The most useful thing in this ability is its passive Continuous Motion which decreases cooldowns greatly and is a core of many builds.

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 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.

New World Equip Load
Equip Load

Also, you can combine different types of armor, light with medium staying under 13 kgs, or medium with heavy, staying under 23 kgs. 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 with Dexterity and Constitution if you need 50 points to unlock 20% effectiveness to all health consumables.

Gems

Your Spear Gems can change playstyle a lot.

1. Cut Pristine Opal:

New World Cut Pristine Opal
Cut Pristine Opal Gem

Since Aggressive Maneuver reduces all Spear cooldowns by 20% after a successful hit with an ability for 2 sec every time you dodge, you will find yourself on low stamina quite often. This option may give you the most all-around damage output anywhere in the game.

2. Cut Pristine Onyx:

New World Cut Pristine Onyx
Cut Pristine Onyx Gem

You will be able to open with your most powerful ability against full health foes. 

3. Cut Pristine Emerald:

New World Cut Pristine Emerald
Cut Pristine Emerald Gem

This will help you to execute enemies running away.

4. Cut Pristine Diamond:

New World Cut Pristine Diamond
Cut Pristine Diamond Gem

Fits more for a group play.

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:

New World Cut Pristine Amethyst
Cut Pristine Amethyst Gem

2. Cut Pristine Aquamarine against the Lost:

New World Cut Pristine Aquamarine
Cut Pristine Aquamarine Gem

3. Cut Pristine Ruby against Angry Earth:

New World Cut Pristine Ruby
Cut Pristine Ruby Gem

4. Cut Pristine Sapphire against Corrupted:

New World Cut Pristine Sapphire
Cut Pristine Sapphire Gem

5. Cut pristine Topaz against Ancients:

New World Cut Pristine Topaz
Cut Pristine Topaz Gem
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 against other Bow and Musket users:

New World Cut Pristine Emerald
Cut Pristine Emerald Gem

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

New World Cut Pristine Pearl
Pristine Pearl Gem

For other situations to provide generic damage absorption:

1. Cut Pristine Onyx

New World Cut Pristine Onyx
Cut Pristine Onyx Gem

2. Cut Pristine Malachite

New World Cut Pristine Malachite
Cut Pristine Malachite Gem

3. Cut Pristine Diamond

New World Cut Pristine Diamond
Cut Pristine Diamond Gem

Equipment Perks

1. Spear 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. Leeching Cyclone:

New World Leeching Cyclone
Leeching Cyclone

If you are using Cyclone then this can be a nice self-heal that you should not pass up. Healing is decently useful in PvE, but the skill itself leaves much to be desired over other options. In PvP and War especially, this has a chance to really shine, as it can be a pretty strong boost of healing, while also applying strong crowd control and pushing targets away from you.

2. Sundering Javelin:

New World Sunderin Javelin
Sundering Javelin

Rend is a powerful debuff and if you are using Javelin then you certainly should try to get this perk for both PvE and PvP.

In PvE, you’ll be less likely to use Javelin, but this can also be a reason to slot it into a PvE build. Being capable of a near-constant 30% Rend at all stages of a boss fight will be very noticeable.

3. Bleeding Sweep:

New World Bleeding Sweep
Bleeding Sweep

This is one that’s simply not worth using in PvE due to duration alone, the low damage also makes it very unfavorable outside of using it in a PvP build in place of Skewer for a consistent Bleed.

The one saving grace this passive has is that it provides a consistent Bleed to set up Exposed Wounds. It’d still likely have to be paired with Keenly Jagged for a consistent uptime with Exposed Wounds, but outside of that, it’s a pretty lackluster effect.

4. Fortifying Perforate:

New World Fortifying Perforate
Fortifying Perforate

This is one of the stronger self-Fortify effects. Granted it takes multiple hits for the full effect; at the higher end, it doesn’t need to be fully stacked to be useful.

Fortify is great in PvP, in skirmishes or wars you may even be able to get more value out of the skill by hitting multiple targets and stacking it up faster or higher.

5. Enfeebling Skewer:

New World Enfeebling Skewer
Enfeebling Skewer

Reducing incoming damage is always nice and this perk is great for solo or group content. If you are using Skewer then this is a good pickup. While not a super potent Weaken, it’s definitely not a weak one either. Considering this comes attached to a skill that already inflicts Bleed, it’s another status that will count for Exploited Weakness. In combination with Fortify, it can reduce incoming damage from a target.

6. Keen Vault Kick:

New World Keen Vault Kick
Keen Vault Kick

In PvE, you’re less likely to use Vault Kick. However, if you do, this can be a great perk to help with your DPS while soloing. Thanks to Backstabs, you won’t need it much in groups.

In PvP, you’re almost always going to run Vault Kick. It’ll also be much harder to get Backstabs in most PvP situations, so the increased Critical Hit Chance will be much more noticeable.

2. Armor Perks

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

New World Refreshing
Refreshing
New World Resilient
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 group play:

New World Rogue
Rogue
New World Vicious
Vicious

Keenly Jagged is a nice choice since you’ll crit a lot. Besides, it’ll let you use Exposed Wounds passive without using Skewer:

New World Keenly Jagged
Keenly Jagged

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

New World Refreshing Move
Refreshing Move

Alternatively, you can use Enchanted 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

Empowered is nice as at the high end it can extend our Empower from Skewer by an additional second and a half:

New World Empowered
Empowered

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 has a 90 seconds cooldown for the effect:

New World Fortified Recovery
Fortified Recovery

5. Earrings 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 as well:

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.

Nimble helps the somewhat excessive use of Stamina from this build by boosting Stamina Regen slightly:

New Wolrd Nimble
Nimble

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

New World Refreshing
Refreshing

Thrust Protection can be useful against other Bow and Musket users:

New World Thrust Protection
Thrust Protection

Hearty will add you enough Stamina for one more additional dodge. If the bow player has 109.5 total stamina and each dodge takes 40 stamina (with 150 Dexterity attribute bonus), a player can dodge twice (leaving the player at 39.5 stamina), wait a fraction of a second for stamina to regenerate to 41, then dodge twice more for a total of 4 dodges:

New World Hearty
Hearty

Blood Letting works great with Skewer 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

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 DPS

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 Coating
Weapon Coating

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

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. Bow can deal massive damage at a distance while also scaling with Dexterity. This is an extremely flexible build that excels in some key areas: you have both ranged and melee damage, is effective for PvP as well as Expeditions, and has a fair amount of control and sustain.  One downside of this pairing is that both weapons deal Thrust damage, which is weak against Lost and Angry Earth-type foes. Besides, this build has few defensive abilities.
  2. Hatchet is a great pick as it deals devastating damage up close, while also packing a movement skill and self-healing abilities so you don’t need to use restorative items like Potions or food as often. It also scales with Dexterity secondarily so it shares Spear’s points. One downside is that both weapons are melee with limited ranged options.
  3. War Hammer. This build uses the DPS and disables of the Spear and combines it with more crowd control and debuffs of the War Hammer. The War Hammer will make up for Spear’s lack of multi-target attacks and skills. But both these weapons are melee and don’t have enough movement skills or self-healing abilities.
  4. Rapier. This build uses the huge single target potential of the Spear and the Rapier. The Rapier will be your opening weapon and will be used to deal damage and apply bleed, then follow up with the Spear’s strong single target damage and disables.
  5. Sword and Shield. This combination is mostly about tanking and applying Rend for your DPS to increase overall damage. Vault Kick can taunt foes and stun them but since stuns and knockdowns are broken on hit you cannot rely on this crowd control in group content besides as a temporary peel.

FAQ

What is spear used for in New World?

Mostly as a secondary weapon due to its crowd control and melee options. It also can be used for PvE with a certain build.

Which attributes do I need to handle a spear in New World?

The Spear scales with Dexterity mainly. Constitution is a decent secondary Attribute, especially for PvP.

Which armor should I wear with spear New World?

Depends on how you’re using this weapon. If you’re pairing it with a Bow, it is mostly about high mobility and damage, so light or medium armor is recommended. If you’re using it as a main weapon, you can try heavy armor for more defense and crowd control effects length. Also, you can mix different armor parts and find armor combinations that fit your own playstyle best.

What is the best secondary weapon for a spear in New World?

The Bow provides a lot of ranged and area of effect damage with high mobility and shares Dexterity points.

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