Welcome to The Tank Club: New World Beginner Tank Build!

We’ve put together a very accessible build for new players to begin Tanking in New World.

This build is designed especially for Beginner Tanks in the New World MMO who might not yet have obtained the experience or gear required for endgame Tanking but want to progress towards it.

This build offers high defence, survival, easy AoE aggro of enemies and safety in difficult situations that will help you to obtain the valuable experience and farm the necessary gear needed to progress onto top level Mutated Expeditions in the future.

One thing to remember about New World Tanking is that it’s very different to most other MMORPG games. The game is designed in a way where blocking for long periods of time is not possible and you’re actually expected to spend more time dodging and evading attacks rather than actually getting hit.

You only have 3 abilities to use for each weapon so 6 abilities in total. You’ll need to time and spread out your ability usage, especially as a Tank when using Taunt skills because once a skill is used it goes onto a long cooldown.

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

For a Beginner Tank we suggest:

• 300 CON
• 300 STR
• Alternative: 300-350 CON, 0-50 Focus, everything else STR.

It’s important to go to 300 constitution as a beginner to gain grit. If you want you can push to 350 for the extra damage reduction but this is not essential.
25 points in Focus gives a really strong buff reducing your cooldowns and at 50 you gain more incoming healing but this will lower your potential to do more damage and maintain threat which is why you need to have a large amount of strength.

To reach these numbers you’ll need to combine the stats from your gear, attributes and food while also being max level.

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

For this build we’ll be using Sword and Shield combined with Hatchet or Flail. When played correctly you’ll be virtually unkillable with this combination making it the best for beginners, and you have access to two AoE Taunt skills which is also really important.

Sword and Shield is still super strong with the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion but many people have switched to Flail. The Flail is really strong because it gives you some defensive benefits and allows you to maintain a lot of Weaken on enemies which reduces the damage they do to you and your group but the Flail is not as strong defensively as the Sword.

Using a Hatchet for the secondary weapon is useful because you gain access to a great AoE taunt, the Defy Death passive and the Weaken debuff while also being able to do generate a good damage output. If you want to use a Flail then replace the Hatchet rather than the Sword as this seems like the most beneficial from a Beginner Tank perspective.

Playing this build, you lose the utility of a War Hammer or Spear so that’s something you’ll need to switch to once you have the fundamentals of New World Tanking under control and have learnt fight mechanics but for a beginner your priority is mainly maintaining aggro and staying alive.

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.

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.

The main strength of the Flail is the ability to apply a lot of weakening stacks and the easily accessible fortify buff. You can maintain a really high value of weaken on enemies fairly easily which means then do consistently less damage.

How To Use Flail

• Use Barrage to gap close to an enemy, taunt and providing a group fortify buff.
• Heavy attack with 3s to gain an Impairment stack (weaken).
• Place down Arcane Smite to apply another Impairment stack, apply Deflecting Frailty and 10% lifesteal to your group and give you another source of fortify.
• Heavy attack again with 3s to gain an Impairment stack (weaken).
• Use Warding Bludgeon to apply an AoE Taunt while also giving yourself reinforced fortify, buffing a nearby ally and applying more Impairment stacks.
• Heavy attack again with 3s to gain an Impairment stack (weaken).
• 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.

Outside of this rotation of abilities and heavy attacks you don’t really have much incentive to stay on this weapon – you gain benefits by blocking or being hit so your best bet is to run through abilities on both weapons, focus on being active with your other weapon and when you need to turtle up and take damage or you are on low health, make sure you are on your Flail.

This is a beginner build so we’ll assume you don’t have access to the perfect gear – but there are plenty of farmable gear sets and items you can use even as a beginner.

You’ll want to progress through the Main Story Quest combined with completing Faction missions. Faction missions are important because you can instantly gain really good gear that you can use for all content up to Mutation 2 Expeditions, only when moving onto M3 Expeditions will you require better gear. You’ll need to increase your rank and collect tokens to buy the gold gearscore 675 faction gear and this will get you started perfectly for Tanking.

You will also need to do the Elysian Wilds Main Story Quest. Some of the items you need will be in this zone along with some easy to access artifacts which we’ve put into this build to give you some extra buffs and benefits.

When you want to progress onto harder content – it will be essential to optimise your Protection which is when you’ll need to collect multiple Shield and Amulets that protect you against different damage sources dependant on boss and fight you are doing.

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:

• Attuned Leather Pants – Rise of the Angry Earth Main Story Quest.
• Syncretic Amulet – Brimstone Sands named enemies.
• Blooddrinker – Starstone Barrows M1.
• Soul Shroud Ring – Shattered Mountain Myrk elite area.
• Sporelight Earring – Elysia Wilds Tribunal elite area.
• Taiyi Longsword – Ebonscale Reach named enemies.
• Odo – Vanash Elysian Wilds boss.
• Fury – Overgrown Guardian Elysian Wilds boss.

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

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.

Helpful links for New World Beginner Tanks:

• New World Tank Guide
• New World Tank Gear Guide
• New World Taunting & Threat
• The Tank Club Discord