#1 In-Depth New World Tank Guide
Master tanking in New World with this in-depth guide. Learn about attributes, weapon choices, armor selection, tanking mechanics, and expert strategies to dominate Expeditions and Arenas.
Table of Contents
Introduction to the New World Tank Guide
Tanking in New World offers a unique hybrid playstyle, blending defensive durability with active combat mechanics. Unlike traditional MMORPGs where tanks rely on standing still and absorbing damage, New World’s action-based combat system demands precise dodging, positioning, and active threat management.
One of the biggest challenges for tanks in New World is its difficult threat and aggro mechanics. The game’s collision system can cause bosses to push you around or break through your position, making enemy control unpredictable. Unlike other MMOs, holding aggro isn’t always guaranteed, requiring a skilled healer and coordinated DPS to support you.
Despite these challenges, tanking remains a vital role in group content. You’ll be required for 5-player Expeditions, Arenas, and larger group raids, where multiple tanks work together to control enemies. Since tanking in New World has a steeper learning curve, skilled tanks are in high demand, making this an excellent role for those who master it.
This guide is not a single Tank build, but rather a complete resource to help you master the tank role in New World. Whether you’re a new player looking to get started or an experienced tank looking to refine your skills, this guide will help you overcome New World’s tanking challenges and become a dominant force in group content.
Let’s dive in and make you an unstoppable tank in New World!
✅ For more detailed information on attributes, skills and gear make sure to check out our New World Tank Build
New World Tank Guide: Taunting & Threat
How to Taunt as a Tank
To effectively taunt enemies in New World, you need a weapon with a gem slot and a Cut Carnelian Gem. You can either cut the gem yourself or purchase a pre-cut version.
- Carnelian Gem – This is essential for enabling taunt skills.
- Gem Casing (Brimstone Sands Update) – Encasing a Carnelian Gem provides additional benefits and customization.
- Equipping the Gem – Drag the Cut Carnelian onto a weapon with an open gem slot to activate its effects.
- Taunt Skills – Only certain weapon abilities apply a taunt, so ensure your weapon has at least one taunting skill.
Understanding Threat & Aggro in New World
Threat determines which player enemies target, with the highest-threat player holding aggro. Using a taunt ability immediately places you at the top of the threat list, but once the taunt expires, your base threat must be high enough to maintain aggro.
If you lose aggro, it’s often due to:
✅ Group mispositioning – DPS or healers engaging enemies before you establish control.
✅ Premature healing – Healers using AoE heals before the group takes damage.
✅ Enemies spreading out – Making it harder to apply AoE taunts and control the fight.
How to Maintain Threat Efficiently
✔ Use a Pristine Carnelian Gem – Increases threat generation by 300%.
✔ Equip an Earring with the Despised Perk – Boosts threat by 146%, which can significantly help newer tanks.
✔ Group Coordination – Stack enemies for better AoE taunts, crowd control, and sustained aggro.
✔ Balancing Light & Heavy Attacks – Use light attacks for faster threat building with Sword & Shield, Hatchet, or Great Axe, and heavy attacks for War Hammer & Greatsword.
How to Identify Aggro in Combat
- Enemies NOT aggroed to you: Their health bar is outlined in grey, meaning you must taunt or generate more threat.
- Enemies aggroed to you: Their health bar is outlined in red, indicating they are focused on you.
🛑 Be aware: The taunt icon above an enemy’s health bar may appear even if another player applied it, so check your threat level and enemy focus rather than relying solely on the icon.
Threat Generation Methods
You can maintain aggro without taunting by generating the most threat through various means:
| Method | Threat Impact |
|---|---|
| Equipping a Carnelian Gem | Boosts base threat from attacks (up to 300%). |
| Using Taunt Skills | Instantly places you at the top of the threat list. |
| Dealing Damage | Generates threat proportional to damage dealt. |
| Healing (for Healers) | Generates threat equal to the amount healed. |
| Gear Perks (Despised/Hated) | Further amplifies threat generation. |
| Item | Effect | Ingredients to Craft |
|---|---|---|
| Crown Tri-Restoration Potions | Restore Health, Magicka and Stamina plus you gain Health Recovery, Magicka Recovery and Stamina Recovery. | These potions are obtained via the Daily Login Rewards, Crown Store, Crown Crates and Level Up Rewards |
| Essence of Health (Tri-Stat Potions) | Restore Health, Magicka and Stamina plus you gain Health Recovery, Magicka Recovery and Stamina Recovery. | Bugloss, Columbine, Mountain Flower |
| Essence of Magicka (Heroism Potions) | Restore Magicka and Stamina plus you get Minor Heroism which restores 1 Ultimate every 1.5 seconds. | Columbine, Dragon’s Blood, Dragon Rheum |
| Essence of Immovability | Restore Health and Stamina, gain Health and Stamina Recovery, become immune to knockbacks and disabling effects. | Columbine, Mountain Flower, Namira’s Rot |
| Essence of Health (Cloudrest Potions) | Restore Health, gain Health Recovery, gain Health per second and gain 30% healing taken. | Butterfly Wings, Powdered Mother of Pearl, Blue Entoloma |
| Essence of Speed (Cloudrest Potions) | Restore Health per second and you are granted 30% increased movement speed and 30% increased healing taken. | Butterfly Wings, Powdered Mother of Pearl, Scrib Jelly. |
| Essence of Speed (Ultigen Potions) | Restore Stamina, gain increased Stamina Recovery and you are granted 30% increased Movement Speed and 1 Ultimate every 1.5 seconds. | Dragon’s Blood, Dragon Rheum, Blessed Thistle |
Best Practices for Maintaining Aggro
1️⃣ Engage First – Always initiate combat to ensure enemies target you from the start.
2️⃣ Apply AoE Threat – Use crowd control skills and group taunts to gather enemies in one place.
3️⃣ Manage Taunt Cooldowns – Avoid using taunts back-to-back, or you’ll have downtime where you can’t reapply threat.
4️⃣ Light Attack for Consistent Threat – Especially with Sword & Shield, Hatchet, and Great Axe.
5️⃣ Heavy Attack for Burst Threat – With War Hammer & Greatsword, heavy attacks apply more pressure.
New World Tank Guide: Stamina Management
Tanking in New World requires careful stamina management since permanent blocking is impossible. Your stamina bar depletes with every block or dodge and does not regenerate while blocking. If you run out of stamina, you become Block Broken, preventing you from blocking or dodging for 3 seconds.
Some bosses can deplete your stamina in just two attacks, meaning stamina management is crucial to avoid being caught off guard.
How to Manage Stamina
✔ Use the Hearty Perk on Your Ring – Increases maximum stamina, giving you a bigger resource pool.
✔ Equip Sturdy & Sturdy Energy Perks on Your Gear – Reduces stamina loss when blocking and regenerates stamina.
✔ Drop Block When Safe – Only block when necessary. Lower your shield when the boss isn’t attacking or during ability animations to regenerate stamina.
✔ Light Attack Between Skills – Incorporate light attacks into your rotation to allow Stamina to recover while not blocking.
✔ “Heavy After a Heavy” Strategy – Follow up a boss’s heavy attack with your own heavy attack to recover stamina.
✔ Use an Energizing Carnelian Runeglass Gem on Your Sword – This provides additional stamina sustain to keep your block uptime higher.
Block Break Mechanics:
⏳ When block breaks, you cannot dodge or block for 3 seconds.
🔄 Stamina needs to fully reset.
❌ You cannot block at 0 stamina.
Stamina Regeneration Mechanics:
🛡 No stamina regeneration while blocking.
⏳ 1-second delay before stamina starts regenerating after releasing block.
⚔ Stamina regenerates while attacking
📈 Base stamina regeneration rate is 20 stamina per second
Key Takeaways for Stamina Efficiency
✅ Only block what is necessary – Don’t waste stamina on weak attacks.
✅ Use heavy attacks strategically – Recover stamina while still applying damage.
✅ Equip the right perks – Hearty, Sturdy, and Sturdy Energy help significantly.
✅ Let go of block to regenerate – Holding block permanently will leave you vulnerable when stamina runs out.
New World Tank Guide: Damage Absorption
In New World, there are various methods to reduce incoming damage and increase your survivability. One effective approach is to utilize Fortify skills and perks, which provide armor buffs however Fortify is capped at 50%.
A great way to setup us by using a Sword and Shield along with the Shield Rush ability with a Shield that has the Fortifying Shield Rush perk, and an Amulet with the Fortified perk. When you use Shield Rush, you gain a 33% armor boost for 8 seconds. The base cooldown for Shield Rush is 20 seconds, but this can be reduced by equipping gear with Refreshing perks or by using light attacks or reverse stab, allowing you to maintain nearly 100% uptime on the extra 33% armor.
When you combine this with gems and other absorption or armor buffs, you’ll easily be at the 50% cap.
Gems also play a role in reducing incoming damage. Using a full set of opal gems, combined with Fortify, can help you reach the resistance cap of 50% for all magic damage types. However, you can adjust your gem choices to suit your specific needs.
It’s important to note that when stacking damage absorption for certain Expedition Mutations and Raids, each individual resistance is effectively capped at 50%. If you already have 50% resistance to a specific damage type, gaining additional Fortify effects won’t provide further benefits for absorbing that particular damage.
Certain bosses in the game deal significant damage of specific types. It’s wise to equip an Amulet with a protection perk matching the damage type inflicted by those bosses. For example, when facing bosses in Empyrium Forge, having Flame Resistance at 50% or more would be highly beneficial. Similarly, for bosses in Barnacles, stacking Slash Protection would provide the most advantage. A comprehensive list of bosses and recommended protection perks can be found here: New World Ward & Protection Article.
Potions and consumables can also contribute to damage reduction. If your resistances are below the cap, you can use Incense, Oakflesh Balm, or Gemstone Dust to further reduce enemy damage.
In New World, the Ward potions play a crucial role in reducing damage from specific enemy types. they remain essential for optimizing your Tanking performance.
Each PvE content area features specific enemy types, and you can use Wards to decrease the damage inflicted by those enemies. For example, during a Mutation Ancient Expedition like Lazarus, enemies split their damage 50/50, with 50% of their damage being Ancient Damage. Using Ancient Ward perks and potions in this scenario provides a significant damage reduction.
it’s vital for Tanks to take full advantage of Wards to maximize their survivability and effectiveness in various PvE encounters.
It’s important to combine the appropriate Ward with other damage reduction sources. For instance, a Corrupted Expedition may involve bosses dealing Strike damage, so you would need both Strike reduction and Corrupted Ward sources. If you enter a Mutated Expeditions, you will have to contend with the additional effects for example a nature Mutation. In this senario you would require Corrupted Ward potions, Strike Protection Amulet and Amber Gems for the Nature Ward for full coverage to maximize your damage reduction and ease your tanking experience.
New World Tank Guide: How To Tank Adds
Maintaining aggro of enemies is the most essential and challenging aspect of tanking in New World. It’s important to note that losing aggro is not always the tank’s fault but can result from the group’s positioning and lack of cooperation. As a tank in New World, you must take the lead and manage your group effectively. Failure to position correctly or follow instructions can lead to chaotic situations and rapid loss of aggro.
The basics of tanking involve always being ahead of the group, leading them into combat. Add pulls can be particularly difficult due to the game’s design, room layouts, and the spread of enemies, especially ranged foes. Typically, as a tank, you’ll run into a pack of adds, hitting each one with a light attack as you pass by. Then, you’ll focus on a specific ranged enemy, gathering all the other enemies around it. Ranged enemies are challenging to move effectively due to limited range on skills like Reap (which pulls enemies to you) or the faster and easier option of stacking on the ranged enemies themselves.
Once the enemies are stacked, use skills for taunting and crowd control as your group engages in combat. At this point, you should have the highest threat level and an active taunt. It is crucial that healers avoid placing AoE healing on the ground before you reach the final stacking position, as it will be wasted and can draw aggro away from you. Healers who prematurely cast AoE healing can create difficulties for tanks.
During add pulls, taunt abilities have limited durations, making it necessary to control enemies, deal significant AoE damage, and maintain threat. The War Hammer is exceptional for these scenarios. Skills like Shockwave are ideal as they stagger and stun enemies while taunting and applying debuffs, whereas Clear Out can be problematic as it pushes enemies away. Wrecking Ball is useful for smashing enemies into the ground, preventing them from escaping or dealing damage. With the Sword and Shield, Shield Rush staggers enemies, and Defenders Resolve provides an 8-second taunt, although it has a 45-second cooldown. Following up with Reverse Stab and light attacks, along with the refreshing move perk on your sword, can further reduce cooldowns.
In some cases, it may not be feasible to stack enemies using the method described above, especially when dealing with numerous ranged enemies. In these situations, you can direct your entire group to stack in a location where enemies cannot see you, such as behind a wall or obstacle. This forces the enemies to gather in a stack within your line of sight, allowing you to hit them with AoE abilities for aggro and crowd control while your group eliminates them.
Mini boss fights frequently occur during add pulls, posing challenges, particularly when dealing with ranged enemies. It is important to communicate with your group to stack the mini boss on the ranged enemies and ensure proper positioning. It’s sometimes also an option for group members to purposfully gain aggro of ranged enemies and then run away from them slightly so that they move on top of the boss, this then allows for the Tank to maintain a static position but aggro enemies as they get pulled within range of taunt, in these situations it’s ideal for the Tank to not burn through all taunt cooldowns too early in the fight.
When dealing with add pulls you realistically want to use the War Hammer as if it’s your main hand weapon because the abilities, passives and threat generation you’ll get are better than with other weapons.
New World Tank Guide: How To Tank Bosses
Like in most MMORPGs, it is advisable to turn enemies away from your group once you have established aggro. This helps reduce cleave damage and allows your group members to take advantage of backstab or flanking damage boosts.
Boss fights require a different approach compared to add pulls. In New World, you cannot play as a traditional defensive tank by rotating cooldowns or solely relying on blocking attacks. Instead, you need to adopt an evasive tanking style, utilizing dodge to avoid damage rather than relying heavily on blocking. This aspect can be challenging for new players, as bosses unleash powerful attacks that require careful dodging. To maintain aggro, you must deal substantial damage between taunts to stay ahead of healers and damage dealers. Understanding boss mechanics and animations is crucial for successful dodging. Gaining this expertise comes from repeatedly engaging in boss fights and learning to recognize sound and animation cues, enabling you to anticipate and dodge specific attacks with precision. This level of experience is crucial for becoming a successful Tank in New World.
If you’re new to Tanking or entering new content, begin by rotating your blocks, using short bursts of block between ability casts and light attacks to prevent being overwhelmed by big hits. Follow up a blocked attack with a heavy attack to regenerate lost stamina. Throughout boss fights, remember the “Heavy After A Heavy” principle, which means following a blocked heavy attack or mechanic with your own heavy attack, as bosses typically do not chain attacks in rapid succession, providing a window for stamina regeneration. Utilize Shield Rush combined with the Fortifying Shield Rush perk on a Tower Shield to boost resistances and reduce damage taken.
Using a Sword and Shield makes this learning phase easier, and it’s important to maintain debuffs on the enemy, such as Weaken to reduce their damage output and Rend to increase the damage they receive. Spreading out skill casts during boss fights is advisable, avoiding the excessive use of taunt skills in quick succession. Instead, initiate combat with basic attacks to gain threat on a target and then use a taunt skill to secure aggro. Rotate Sword skills with light attacks to benefit from the refreshing move perk. For example, start with Shield Rush for buffing and Weaken, followed by a light attack, Defender’s Resolve, light attack, Reverse Stab, light attack, and then switch to your secondary weapon. If using a War Hammer, heavy attacks are beneficial, taking advantage of an active taunt and weaken. Start with Armor Breaker, followed by a heavy attack, Wrecking Ball, another heavy attack, and use Shockwave to taunt and weaken enemies.
As you gain experience, you’ll rely more on dodging big attacks rather than blocking, which is more sustainable since certain attacks can deplete 80% of your stamina in a single hit. Dodging allows for three consecutive dodges before running out of stamina, and not blocking enables more stamina regeneration. If you run out of stamina, you become “block broken,” rendering you unable to block or dodge until your stamina reaches 100%. This makes tanking particularly challenging for new players.
Dodging is superior to blocking in New World due to the game’s collision issues. When you hold block, you often experience being pushed around and sliding along the floor as bosses with large hitboxes exert pressure. Additionally, bosses tend to spin around and clip through your character, posing a threat to melee damage dealers in your group. Dodging, on the other hand, allows you to maintain your position more effectively. The dodge animation prevents the boss’s attack animation from making contact with your character, thereby keeping you in place.
New World Tank Guide: Beginner Tanks
Fortunately, in New World you are able to cause damage even as a Tank. Obviously, you won’t be hitting the top end of DPS, but you can level up your character and progress as a Tank.
Personally, I like to begin the early levels by using a War Hammer. This is a very solid Tank weapon but also gives you a good amount of damage.
Once you unlock the second weapon slot then using a Sword and Shield is the next important thing to do.
If you are serious about Tanking and progressing as a Tank then the best way to level up is by completing expeditions and by completing Alliance missions. Expeditions all have suggested levels in which they should be done so running Amrine at level 25 to 35 gives you chance to practice Tanking while also collecting gear suitable for your current level. Then at level 35 you move onto Starstone.
In-between that the Alliance missions are important because this is where you’ll pick up your main Tank gear and fill in any gaps where you don’t have a good piece of gear. Alliance gear always drops with specific perk so if you’re in need of a weapon, shield or armor to match your current level then you can always pick up something decent here. You also want to progress your Alliance rank so you can purchase Gypsum Orbs later down the line which will help you to boost your gearscore.
Once you reach level 60, again the Alliance gear is good to pick up as a first set of gear. But you’ll need to be pushing up your gearscore so you can get better gear and complete harder content. To do this you’ll need to do two main things.
- Elite Chest Runs
- Gypsum Orb Farming
- Completing easy Expeditions such as Lazarus and Genesis
Elite Chest Runs are usually mass events where many people run around an Elite PoI together, burning down bosses and looting Elite Chests that can be opened once each day. At lower levels you get gearscore increases from these quite often but as you get closer to 600 gearscore you’ll notice it slows down.
Always use Gypsum Orbs to at the Gypsum shrine to open Weapon Cache of the specific weapons you’re using, so most likely War Hammer, Sword and Shield. You can farm a lot of Gypsum Orbs by doing quests in Level 60+ areas, especially Brimstone Sands. And you should also try to farm some daily so you can just guarantee gearscore increases by opening specific boxes daily.
Completing easy Expeditions is also really useful as you’ll get more gearscore increases from these more often than doing the Elite runs.
Once you have all items at 590+ Gearscore you can finally collect some good gear, either looted named gear or crafted/purchased gear. This gear can be upgraded to 625 with Umbral Shards to improve your gearscore past 600. Focus on 1 item at a time when upgrading, starting with Weapons is good.
