Hatchet Tank Information

The Hatchet is a weapon that is popular for Tanking and dealing damage but it’s also a great weapon for beginners, it’s used in our New World Beginner Tank Build.

You have the ability to survive fatal blows when using a Hatchet thanks to the Defy Death passive combined with Berserk’s AoE Taunt capabilities and the debuffs you can provide make it beginner friendly.

You would combine a Hatchet with a Sword and Shield or Greatsword usually but this does mean you lose the benefits of Crowd Control from Warhammer. If you used Hatchet with a Warhammer you’d then potentially struggle for Stamina sustain and you wouldn’t be as strong defensively.

Below you’ll find the best abilities, passives and perks when using the Hatchet for Tanking in New World.

Abilities

  • Berserk
  • Raging Torrent
  • Infected Throw

Perks

  • Refreshing Torrent
  • Bane: Ancients, Angry Earth, Beast, Corrupted or Lost
  • Keenly Empowered

Gems

  • Pristine Carnelian

Hatchet Tank Build

Hatchet

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 120% weapon damage.
This attack inflicts 30% disease and 10% weaken to your target for 10s.

(Disease reduces target’s incoming healing efficiency.)
(Weaken reduces target’s outgoing damage.)

Cooldown: 15 seconds

The way you play a Hatchet Tank is you use Infected Throw to instigate combat and debuff enemies, you want to maintain this on enemies as much as possible.

You use Berserk for it’s AoE taunt and the number of benefits it gives you especially the lifestealing and preventing you from being interrupted or staggered to name just a few.

Raging Torrent gets used in combination with your Refreshing Torrent perk because this reduces your Hatchet cooldowns so you can recast your abilities much faster.

Hatchet gives you some nice passives but the Defy Death passives means if you make a mistake and take lethal damage, you avoid death which is what makes this such a good weapon for new Tanks.

Named Hatchets

These are obtainable Hatchets that you can farm, there are not many good Hatchets for Tanks that can be found easily.

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