New World Beginner Tank Build

Table of Contents

New World Beginner Tank Build Introduction

Welcome to The Tank Club’s New World Beginner Tank Build!

This accessible build is tailored for new players venturing into tanking in New World. It’s designed specifically for Beginner Tanks who are still gaining experience and working toward endgame gear but want a solid foundation to build upon.

With a focus on high defense, survival, easy AoE aggro control, and stability in challenging situations, this build will help you gain valuable experience and start farming the gear needed for high-level Mutated Expeditions.

New World tanking differs significantly from most MMORPGs: rather than prolonged blocking, the gameplay emphasizes dodging and evading to avoid hits. You have only three abilities per weapon, totalling six, so as a tank, it’s essential to time and stagger your ability use. Managing Taunt skills effectively is crucial, as each ability goes on a lengthy cooldown once used.

If you need any help or information please join us on The Tank Club Discord.

New World Beginner Tank Build Attributes

For a Beginner Tank we recommend 300 Constitution (CON) with the remaining points allocated to Strength (STR).

Starting with 300 CON is essential for beginners to gain Grit, which improves stability during attacks. If desired, you can push to 350 CON for additional damage reduction, though this isn’t necessary at lower levels.

Allocating 25 points in Focus provides a helpful cooldown reduction, and reaching 50 Focus boosts incoming healing. However, more Focus will reduce your damage output and threat management, so it’s important to maintain a high amount of Strength.

To achieve these attribute levels, combine stats from your gear, attribute points, and food, ensuring you’re at max level for optimal results.

Constitution Buffs:

  • 25 points: 10% stronger consumables
  • 50 points: +10% physical armor when 50%+ health
  • 100 points: +10% max health
  • 150 points: -10% crit damage taken
  • 200 points: +10 physical & elemental armor
  • 250 points: -60% damage reduction when at full health
  • 300 points: GRIT with basic attacks
  • 350 points: +10% damage reduction with grit

Focus Buffs:

  • 25 points: +5% ability cooldown reduction
  • 50 points: +10% incoming healing

New World Beginner Tank Build Weapons

For this beginner tank build, we recommend using Sword and Shield with either a Hatchet or War Hammer. When used effectively, this combination makes you nearly unkillable, ideal for beginners. You’ll also have access to two AoE Taunt skills, crucial for controlling enemies in group content.

Sword and Shield remains a powerful tanking option, even with the popularity of the Flail. While the Flail provides some defensive benefits and applies a consistent Weaken debuff to enemies (reducing the damage they deal to you and your group), it doesn’t match the Sword’s defensive strength.

Using a Hatchet as a secondary weapon provides great utility, with an AoE taunt, the Defy Death passive, and a Weaken debuff. The Hatchet also allows for solid damage output, making it a versatile choice for beginner tanks. Alternatively, the War Hammer offers excellent crowd control, granting more utility for tanking with powerful debuffs and control abilities.

Starting with the Hatchet means sacrificing the crowd control benefits of the War Hammer or Spear, which you can incorporate once you’re comfortable with New World tanking basics and have mastered fight mechanics. As a beginner, your primary focus should be maintaining aggro and staying alive.

New World Beginner Tank Build Sword and Shield

Main Hand

Gem:

Important Weapon Perks:

Important Shield Perks:

New World Beginner Tank Sword Build

Upheaval

An upwards slice that deals 200% weapon damage.

This ability has grit. (Grit prevents you from being staggered by incoming attacks.)

Cooldown: 20 seconds

Shield Rush

Rush forward 5m, staggering and pushing back foes. This attack deals 100% weapon damage.

This ability has grit. (Grit prevents you from being staggered by incoming attacks.)

Cooldown: 20 seconds

Defender’s Resolve

For 8s, reduce the incoming base damage from attackers by 30%.

This ability has grit. (Grit prevents you from being staggered by incoming attacks.)

Taunt Gem Compatible: If you have a Carnelian gem equipped in your sword, this ability inflicts taunt for 8s taunt to all enemies within 8m. (Taunt causes monsters to focus only on you.)

Cooldown: 45 seconds

Sword and Shield is a great benefit to you as a Tank and you can be pretty much immortal when you play it correctly, this is why as a beginner it is one of the most essential weapons to use.

To make the most from using a Sword it’s recommended to use an Amulet with the Fortified perk. When doing this it makes the Fortify you gain from Fortifying Shield Rush last up to 34% longer meaning you can keep a virtually 100% uptime.

How to use Sword and Shield

  • Always instigate combat with Shield Rush this is because you will generate a good amount of initial threat and also proc your Fortifying Shield Rush perk on your shield to make you very defensively strong.
  • Next use Defenders Resolve to Taunt all enemies in the surrounding area but to also further buff your defence and incoming healing.
  • Once both of those skills are on cooldown use Reverse Stab to proc the Tactician passive which reduces your cooldowns by 25% so you can use the previous skills much sooner.
  • Light Attack as much as possible, when doing so your cooldowns get reduced which will be essential for your survival, you’ll also have better Stamina sustain for Blocking and Dodging.
  • Cast Shield Rush as often as possible, every time you use it you Weaken the enemies by 20% for 10 seconds and you gain fortify which buffs your armor by 35% for 6 seconds.
  • Ensure not to block permanently, each time you block an attack remember “Heavy After A Heavy” – when you block a hit, do a heavy attack back to the boss which helps you regain stamina.

New World Beginner Tank Build Hatchet

Off Hand

Gem:

Important Weapon Perks:

New World Beginner Tank Hatchet Build

Berserk

Enter a berserk mode that increases all attack damage by 20% for 12s. (Cooldown for this ability will not start until the mode ends.)

Taunt Gem Compatible: If you have a Carnelian gem equipped in your hatchet, this ability inflicts taunt for 8s to all enemies within 8m. (Taunt causes monsters to focus only on you.)

Cooldown: 18 seconds

Raging Torrent

Perform 4 fast attacks, each dealing 90% weapon damage.

Cooldown: 15 seconds

Infected Throw

Leap into the air and throw a hatchet that deals 150% weapon damage.
This attack inflicts 30% disease and 10% weaken to your target for 10s.

(Disease reduces target’s incoming healing efficiency and outgoing healing efficiency by half the incoming value.)
(Weaken reduces target’s outgoing damage.)

Cooldown: 15 seconds

The huge benefits of using a Hatchet for a beginner are that Berserk gives you a second AoE Taunt skill along with some lifesteal. Combining Raging Torrent with the Refreshing Torrent weapon perk means you’ll be able to reduce all of your Hatchet cooldowns super quickly, which also means being able to use that taunt again sooner.

The most integral part of the Hatchet is the Defy Death passive which means you can avoid dying, and it gives you the opportunity to learn and make mistakes without having a detrimental impact on your group.

You still offer some group support with weaken from Infected Throw which also allows you to range aggro enemies but for all of these benefits you lose out on crowd control and rend.

If you use the suggested weapon Fury which has the hated perk then you can use a Runeglass Gem to give you some additional Stamina return.

How To Use Hatchet

  • Instigate combat with Infected Throw which can be done from range and does a good amount of damage also applies weaken and disease
  • Once you reach the enemies you use Berserk to gain taunt and lifesteal
  • Hit enemies with Raging Torrent for damage and to proc your Refreshing Torrent weapon perk
  • You should regularly do a Heavy Attack which will give you a 15% fortify and when an enemy is under 30% health your heavy will do 20% more damage.
  • Use plenty of Light Attacks, 3 in a row gives you empower and crit light attacks regenerate Stamina helping you to sustain more block and dodge.

New World War Hammer Tank Build

War Hammer

Off-hand Weapon

Gem:

Weapon Perks:

Best Named War Hammer:

New World War Hammer Tank Build

Armor Breaker

A powerful swing that penetrates 35% of the target’s armor and deals 160% weapon damage.

Cooldown: 12 seconds

Shockwave

Slam your war hammer into the ground, causing a 3m radius earthquake that deals 60% weapon damage, staggering and stunning all impacted targets for 2s.

This ability has grit. (Grit prevents you from being staggered by incoming attacks.)

Taunt Gem Compatible: If you have a Carnelian gem equipped in your war hammer, this ability inflicts taunt for 6s to all enemies hit. (Taunt causes monsters to focus only on you.)

Cooldown: 20 seconds

Clear Out

A wide swing that knocks back targets 4m and deals 100% weapon damage.

This ability has grit. (Grit prevents you from being staggered by incoming attacks.)

Cooldown: 15 seconds

War Hammer is the best general secondary weapon for Tanks in New World, especially for add pulls. In niche situations you might use Great Axe but this should usually be used by a DPS. When fighting bosses it can be replaced for a Spear, especially if your group are missing a Spear user.

If you have a group member using a Spear, then you won’t need to use the Armor Breaker ability because Rend will be covered so use Wrecking Ball instead.

This weapon is an absolute monster for add pulls due to the crowd control benefits and the ability to apply Area of Effect Rend and Weaken debuffs to the enemy.

It’s also generally a good Tank weapon due to the survival and sustain on offer via the Warhammer passives.

War Hammer rotation:

  1. Run into an add pull and use Clear Out to crowd control enemies and apply Sundering Clear Out, this also provides your group with Fortify.
  2. Light Attack to proc the Acceleration passive
  3. Next use Shockwave this will combine an AoE taunt, stagger, stun, Weaken and Rend all into one fantastic skill. Ideally have the Sundering Shockwave perk on one armor piece.
  4. Light Attack to reduce ability cooldowns.
  5. To keep control of the enemies use Wrecking Ball which smashes them all into the ground to keep them in place longer and buffs you up with Fortify.
  6. Use Armor Breaker once enemies are stacked and CC’ed if you’re using this skill to apply another Rend debuff source.
  7. Light Attack between every skill cast to proc the Acceleration passive, this is vital so you can use Crowd Control abilities to keep enemies endlessly stuck on the spot.
  8. On boss fights use Heavy Attacks to benefit from passives that increase your damage.

New World Beginner Tank Build Gear

Since this is a beginner build, we’ll assume you don’t yet have access to top-tier gear—but there are plenty of farmable sets and items available to get you started.

Progression Tips:

  1. Main Story and Faction Missions: Progress through the Main Story Quest and complete Faction missions. Faction missions are key, as they grant access to strong gear for all content up to Mutation 2 Expeditions. Only once you reach M3 Expeditions will you need higher-level gear. Increase your rank and gather tokens to purchase the 675 gear score Faction gear, which is an excellent starting set for tanking.
  2. Woodgrain Set: Alternatively, you can farm the Woodgrain Set in Edengrove by defeating named enemies. This provides a decent gear set while you work toward Best-in-Slot items.
  3. Elysian Wilds Main Story Quest: Complete the Main Story in Elysian Wilds, where you’ll find some useful items and easy-access artifacts included in this build to provide extra buffs and benefits.

Preparing for Harder Content:

When advancing to tougher content, focus on optimizing your Protection by collecting Shields and Amulets that offer resistance to specific damage types, tailored to each boss and fight.

To make tanking even smoother, consider using the Lost Stopwatch artifact. This item dramatically simplifies threat and aggro management, allowing you to hold enemy attention with ease—particularly helpful when grouped with high-DPS players.

Alternative Gear for other Factions: Marauder Marshal Breastplate, Covenant Paladin Breastplate

Easy to Farm gear if you don’t want to buy the Alliance gear:

  • Woodgrain – Super easy to farm but the Elemental Aversion perk is not great, just solo kill Baines.
  • Keratin – Harder to farm but has better perks, you’ll need to farm the Heli Elite Area which will require a group most likely.

Where to Obtain:

For more information on Tank Gear, please see our New World Tank Gear Guide.

New World Beginner Tank Build Heartrune

A Heartrune may not be accessible for you but if you can obtain one it allows you to have an emergency button that you can use in really difficult situations.

For a beginner this one will give you amazing safety and ability to survive, just activate it when low on health or when you are dealing with a really challenging situation and you can pretty much go from almost dead to full health within a few seconds.

Stoneform Heartrune

Stalwart Heartrune of Stoneform

  • Harden yourself with layers of stone, cleansing all crowd control debuffs and granting immunity to both stagger and crowd control debuffs for 5s.
  • Fortifying Form: Damage absorption is increased by 10% while active.
  • Mending Form: Heal for 75% heartrune damage per second while active but outgoing damage is reduced by 20%.

New World Beginner Tank Build Consumables

There are a number of useful consumables you should use as a very minimum including Food, Potions, Regen Potions, Ward Potions and Honing Stones.

If you have a house (or 3) then you should use Combat Trophies even basic ones and then you have Weapon Coating, Incense, Gemstone Dust and Oakflesh Balm that have their uses too.

Food

Use whichever food is relevant to your individual needs based upon your gear and attribute distribution.

Honing Stones

Use a Honing Stone at the start of any expedition to give you increased damage throughout which is necessary to help you generate threat and maintain aggro of enemies. There is no reason not to use one even as a Tank since its easy additional extra damage and even if you can’t afford to buy or craft the powerful version, using any Honing Stone is worth it for the additional damage.

Potions

Your potions don’t share a cooldown, so you are able to combine the use of a Health Potion, a Regeneration Potion and a Ward Potion all at the same time and you should do this to keep yourself alive.

Weapon Coating

Coatings are applied to your weapon to increase the damage you do to a specific enemy type. You can find a full list of enemy types for each expedition on our Ward & Protection Guide.

The reason you need to use coating is because you apply it once to your weapon at the start of an expedition and then you do increased damage to the enemy. By increasing your damage you will have a much easier time maintaining aggro while also killing enemies faster and the extra damage will stack with the damage gained from Honing Stones and Combat Trophies in your houses.

Trophies

You can place 1 of each trophy per house and you can own 3 houses.

Use either Ancients, Angry Earth, Beast, Corrupted, Human or Lost trophies depending on the enemy type in the Expedition you are doing.

There is no reason not to use trophies to boost your damage because it’s free damage, even just using the Minor trophies is worth it because that is 9% increased damage and they are extremely cheap to buy and you’ll obtain them fairly easily from each specific enemy type.

Incense

Incense is a good way to increase your overall resistance to afflictions so use them to assist you with reducing incoming damage. These are long lasting benefits of up to 50 minutes with Powerful Incense so it will help you to reduce damage to things such as Poison, Disease, Bleed, Frostbite, Curse and Blight.

Oakflesh Balm

When you are dealing with physical damage, using Oakflesh Balm can be used to give you increase absorption to physical damage types. The main problem is they have a really short duration time so you would need to use them in a controlled and timed way to benefit from the properly. The most effective use of these would be when you are against bosses that do Strike, Slash or Thrust damage.

Gemstone Dust

When you are dealing with elemental damage, using Gemstone Dust can be used to give you increase absorption to elemental damage types. The main problem is they have a really short duration time so you would need to use them in a controlled and timed way to benefit from the properly. The most effective use of these would be when you are against bosses that do Acid, Arcane, Fire, Lightning, Void, Nature or Ice damage.