New World Tank Build
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Contents
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New World Tank Build Introduction
Welcome to The Tank Club: New World Tank Build
This is a Tank Build designed for completing PvE content in the New World MMO as a Tank and can be used for completing the hardest content including Mutated level 3 expeditions. For a more Beginner friendly setup take a look at the New World Beginner Tank Build.
There are many ways to Tank in New World with a variety of gear, weapon and ability options. In this guide you’ll find information on some of the most effective Tank setups for completing New World content.
Join The Tank Club Discord for all of your New World Tank help and discussion, and more details on New World Tanking see our New World Tank Guide.
New World Tank Build Attributes
The best general Attribute setup is 300 CON with the rest of your points into STR.
300 CON gives you Grit which is useful to prevent you from getting staggered so you can hold your positions much better while using Light and Heavy Attacks. You need to be using Light and Heavy Attacks a lot as a Tank because it’s basically impossible to permanently block as a Tank in New World, so to maintain your Stamina you need to drop block for large portions of time during combat.
Grit is also very valuable since the an essential perk on your Sword is Refreshing Move which reduces your ability cooldowns from Light and Heavy Attacks, so you’ll want to make use of that, and your other weapons benefit greatly from you doing regular Light and Heavy Attacks also.
- STR – is still useful as it increases your damage with almost all Tank weapons meaning it’s easier to maintain Threat and Aggro.
- DEX – can have some use as it gives you damage perks and buffs you Spear, Greatsword and other weapons.
- FOC – this improves the damage and healing from your Flail when using Cleric abilities. Also gain reduced cooldowns and incoming healing.
- CON – also gives you higher Max Health, increased armor and reduced damage.
To reach the maximum Attributes you’ll need level 65 with all attributes allocated, stat buffing food and max level gear.
| Beginner Tank | General Tank | Great Sword/Spear Tank | Experienced Tank |
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*Put remaining points into Strength
New World Tank Build Weapons
Best PvE Tank Weapon Combinations:
- Sword & Shield + War Hammer
- Flail & Shield + War Hammer
- Greatsword + War Hammer
- Greatsword + Spear
- Flail / Sword & Shield + Spear
Flail & Shield is a new weapon option and can replace the Sword and Shield as your main Tank weapon. Ideally you’d combine this with a War Hammer and to optimise further switch the War Hammer to Spear for boss fights.
Sword & Shield is still very useful for PvE Tanking. It offers a lot of benefits to you as a Tank which assist you in damage reductions and has increased damage compared to the Flail. If you take the Leadership route it’s also offering increased group damage passively.
War Hammer is a great utility weapon. You have Rend and Weaken alongside multiple sources of Crowd Control. It’s really hard to drop this weapon as it has so many benefits for your group and it’s a pretty good damage Tank weapon also, amazing for add pulls and AoE situations.
Greatsword is something you can use to replace the Sword and Shield but it comes at a cost. It’s much more difficult to use it but you will provide more group DPS, it’s more useful for advanced Tanks. It pairs well with War Hammer for dealing with adds but combined with a Spear for bosses allows you to optimise Attributes more into Dex and you’ll provide a lot of buffs and debuffs with more DPS.
Spear is a great Tank weapon, Warhammer is more useful on adds but the Spear is better for bosses and provides great DPS and large Rend/Weaken which benefit your group. It will require frequent dodging to utilise it properly and you are more of a Damage Tank than anything else.
Other good weapons include:
Flail and Shield is a good weapon choice for Tanking in New World and should be used as a main hand weapon. You have access to taunt skills plus a lot of weakening application to the enemy, damage reduction, group damage buffs and passive healing.
The Cleric skills seem much more useful than the Bastion abilities so we have options for both, but Cleric abilities scale with Focus meaning you get less healing and damage from them if you don’t have any points into Focus.
Example Rotation:
- Use Arcane Smite to gap close and place down the AoE, it will to apply an 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).
- Activate Arcane Eruption to apply 2 impairments stacks and do a follow up attack to do increase damage and extend the enemies debuff durations.
- 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.
- Regular Light Attacks are essential to reduce cooldowns via the Refreshing Move weapon perk which allows you to recast abilities more often.
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.
See more: Flail Tank Builds
