Hatchet Weapon Guide and Builds in New World
A one-handed weapon of relentless fury, the Hatchet user deals out damage to all who come within range. With Berserk, one of the strongest buff Abilities in the game, the Hatchet allows for players to get into the thick of things while recovering health over time. The Hatchet also has the ability to be thrown to offer some light ranged attacks that do not cost ammo or mana.
- 9. Perks
- 10. Hatchet Leveling
- 11. Hatchet Weapon Combinations
- 12. What Attributes does Hatchet scale with?
- 13. Where do you get the Hatchet
- 14. Can you activate Hatchet's Berserk and then weapon swap to keep the buff?
- 15. Can I use cooldown reduction to have permanent uptime on Berserk?
- 16. Can Defy Death activate if I am using another Weapon?
Hatchet Patch 1.1 Changes
With Patch 1.1 of New World having been released on the 19th of November, we have prepared patch notes with commentary for the Hatchet weapon. Please follow the link below for more information.
Hatchet Overview
The Hatchet is a one-handed weapon that scales with Strength and Dexterity. It deals Slash damage with its basic attacks and most skills. Even though it is one-handed you cannot dual-wield them or use a shield. The Hatchet is an aggressive and relentless weapon that allows you focus on fast, powerful melee attacks or medium-distance throws.
Hatchet Strengths and Weaknesses
Fast attacking
Self-healing
Berserk is a great all-around ability
Strong against Angry Earth
Options for ranged attacks
Awkward attack rotation if min-maxing
Throwing tree is somewhat weak
Weak against Ancients
Basic attacks do not easily hit multiple targets
Limited range
Hatchet Attributes
The Hatchet scales primarily with Strength but also scales with
Dexterity, making it able to easily accompany a weapon that scales
either of these Attributes. We recommend that you focus on
obtaining gear that has either Strength or Dexterity and Constitution.
Faction armor in particular does a good job of providing a balance of
Strength or Dexterity and Constitution. If you want to use Heavy Dexterity
armor you can change the Attributes on the Faction armor by using a Seal such
as the Syndicate Brigand Seal. Take this Seal and the piece of faction
gear that you want to Attribute swap to its corresponding crafting bench and
there should be a new recipe for you to complete.
For more information about Attribute scaling check out our
guide on Attributes.
Recommended Hatchet PvE Builds
In PvE content you can use the Hatchet to DPS or as a secondary tank
weapon. Your primary role will be to pump out as much damage as you can to
all foes you can reach in melee range while staying alive. The Hatchet also
can provide a useful debuff, Rend, with Rending Throw that will
make everyone in your party do more damage against a single foe for a limited
time. The Hatchet's melee range is somewhat limited, so proper positioning
will be important to make sure that you hit as many foes as possible and that
you are getting consistent backstab-crits against bosses. We
recommend
Berserk,
Rending Throw, and
Raging Torrent
for abilities, unless you care about having a gap closer for which you can
switch out
Raging Torrent for
Feral Rush. Berserk will heal you
for 10% of your maximum health every 4 seconds so keep that in mind if you are
in dire straits. The best gem for your Hatchet is
Cut Pristine Diamond because with your self-healing you are likely to be
at full health while fighting. For armor gems we recommend either
Cut Pristine Onyx,
Cut Pristine Malachite, or
Cut Pristine Diamond to provide generic damage absorption. To see what
weapons best pair with the Hatchet, check out our
Weapon Combos section below.
We recommend taking the following mastery points:
On The Hunt
Berserking Refresh
Against All Odds
Dispatch
Fortifying Strikes
Aggressive Approach
Final Blow
Berserking Purge
Uninterruptible Berserk
Defy Death
Relentless Fury
Accumulated Power
Enraged Strikes
Critical Throw
Rejuvenating Crits
Desperate Refresh
Recommended Hatchet PvP Builds
In PvP content the Hatchet is used for chasing down foes and unleashing
fast attacks on them. Berserk provides a sizable advantage to the
Hatchet user due to its increased attack damage, movement
speed, self-healing, and Grit. This can be used to catch up to other
players in order to Root them with
Feral Rush's
Crippling Strikes. If you would die
Defy Death can give you a
small window of time to get away or activate a healing potion. We recommend
using
Berserk,
Feral Rush, and
Raging Torrent. If you
are having a lot of problems with extremely tanky players switching to
Rending Throw can help get through their defenses and
Infected Throw can help fight against healers. The best gem for your
Hatchet is
Cut Pristine Emerald to help finish off low health foes. For armor gems
we recommend either
Cut Pristine Onyx,
Cut Pristine Malachite, or
Cut Pristine Diamond to provide generic damage absorption. To see what
weapons pair best with the Hatchet, check out our
Weapon Combos section below.
We recommend taking the following mastery points:
On The Hunt
Berserking Refresh
Against All Odds
Fortifying Strikes
Dispatch
Crippling Strikes
Berserking Purge
Uninterruptible Berserk
Defy Death
Frenzied Purge
Accumulated Power
Enraged Strikes
Critical Throw
Rejuvenating Crits
Desperate Refresh
Relentless Fury
Hatchet Abilities
The Hatchet, like all other weapons, has six abilities. However, you can only use three abilities at any give time on your action bars. While you can spend Mastery Points on more than 3, it is a waste of points since respeccing is rather cheap to do.
Feral Rush
Feral Rush — A sprinting melee attack that causes the player
to leap forward, hitting twice. The first hit deals 115% weapon damage and the
second deals 130% weapon damage. This ability is a decent gap closer that can
root foes that are hit in the back once you take
Crippling Strikes. You
can use
Berserk to catch up and then root them for 2 seconds which can
allow you to secure a kill. This works great against Elk and other foes
that run away from you so you have a chance to kill them.
Berserk
Berserk — Triggers a Berserk Mode that increases all attack
damage by 20% while active. Berserk Mode will be active for 12 seconds and its
cooldown will trigger once Berserk ends. This is the cornerstone ability for
the Hatchet and is the primary reason that you would pick this weapon.
Offering a damage increase, movement speed, self-healing, immunity to crowd
control, and grit, this is just hands down the best ability the Hatchet
offers. This ability will also taunt all foes within 8 meters for 8 seconds
if you have a
Carnelian gem socketed in your Hatchet. Note that
switching to your other weapon or sheathing your weapon for any reason,
including opening your inventory or gathering raw materials, will cause
Berserk to dissipate.
Raging Torrent
Raging Torrent — Perform four fast attacks each dealing 90%
weapon damage. This is a fast ability that pumps out a lot of damage but
leaves you open to counterattacks. Partnered with
Relentless Fury, it
can really pump out some serious damage. This ability unfortunately does not
have a large area of effect and does not apply any crowd control, so it is
easy for foes to leave the area before taking the full damage.
Rending Throw
Rending Throw — Throw an axe dealing 110% weapon damage and
applying Rend, reducing target's damage absorption by 10% for
10-seconds. This Ability has an extremely quick animation and fires off an
axe in a straight line. Rend is a powerful debuff that makes
those affected by it take more damage and can be stacked up to 30%. This
Ability is useful in PvE and PvP to soften up a foe's defenses.
Social Distancing
Social Distancing — Throw an axe forward and dodge backwards,
dealing 130% weapon damage and slowing targets by 15% for 3 seconds. This
ability is useful if you are trying to play a ranged-only playstyle because it
can help you gain some ground against a single target or small group.
Infected Throw
Infected Throw — Throw an axe that deals 150% weapon damage
and triggers Disease and Weaken on the target for 5-seconds.
This Ability has a rather long animation which makes it difficult to hit.
This is the only source of applying Disease for players so it can be
an attractive PvP option to reduce incoming healing.
Hatchet Trees Overview
Like all other weapons, the Hatchet has two Mastery trees. You can spend Mastery Points in either tree but must have a Mastery from the preceding row to select deeper Masteries. Likewise, if a Mastery has a vertical line connecting it to a Mastery above it then you must first select the higher Mastery in order to unlock the lower ones. These linked together Masteries typically support abilities which are denoted by a square-shaped icon. While you can unlock all six abilities at once, you will only be able to place three abilities on your action bar at a time. It is unwise to invest in more than three abilities because it is easy to respec. The Ultimate Mastery point will unlock once you spend 10 Mastery Points in its tree. You are unable to add additional Mastery Points, respec your Points, change your action bar, or unequip your weapon while any Ability is on cooldown.
Berserker
The Berserker tree is all about melee and buffing the player after
performing light or heavy attacks. Relentless Fury allows you to use a
heavy attack and then follow it up with three
Empowered light
attacks which sets up
Accumulated Power for your next heavy attack.
This rotation of one heavy followed by three light attacks can take a bit to get
used to, but drastically increases the single-target DPS of the Hatchet.
Fortifying Strikes provides a hefty 15% damage reduction for
3 seconds, which is incredibly powerful for both PvE and PvP content. The
Ultimate Mastery of this Tree is
Defy Death which allows you to avoid a
killing blow and avoid dying for 3 seconds. This is great for escaping a
tough situation; however, that 3 seconds goes quickly and unless
you have gotten some distance or healed you are likely to die right away.
Throwing
The Throwing tree focuses on making the Hatchet a ranged weapon and
applying up to four debuffs. Aimed Throw allows you to change your
block into an Aimed Throw which can be useful for hitting foes at a
distance. This is also the only ranged weapon that does not cost ammo or mana
and instead drains your Stamina. The Ultimate Mastery
Persistent Hinderance causes throwing axe hits to extends the duration
of Hatchet debuffs by 30%. Since you can apply Rend, Slow,
Disease, and Weaken with the Throwing tree and gain several
benefits from hitting foes that are debuffed, this Ultimate pairs nicely
with the rest of the tree.
Refreshing Throws reduces your cooldowns,
Exploitation increases your damage, and
Boot and Rally recovers
your Stamina when you are hitting throws against debuffed foes.
Critical Throw is a great first row Mastery that grants increased
Critical Strike Chance to both melee and thrown Hatchet attacks and should not
be overlooked.
Perks
Every Weapon Ability in New World has a corresponding perk that can be found on armor and weapons. Most perks scale in power with the Gear Score of the item they are on. You can only benefit from one instance of a Weapon Ability perk at a time. These can be rare to find on gear and are mostly just a bonus.
Energizing Feral Rush — Gain Stamina for each successful hit with
Feral Rush. This perk is okay but not gamechanging in any way.
Keen Berserk — Increase Crit Chance by a flat amount while under a set percentage while
Berserking. This perk is rather strange as it requires you to be low health while having a buff active that heals you. It might be nice for PvP but is not as valuable in PvE.
Refreshing Torrent — Every hit of
Raging Torrent reduces all Hatchet cooldowns by a percentage. Since Raging Torrent can hit 5 times, this perk is nice to have when using Raging Torrent.
Energizing Rending Throw —
Rending Throw kills grant Stamina. Rending throw is generally used for its Rend debuff so it would be an uncommon occurrence for you to save it for a kill, making this perk mostly useless.
Vorpal Distancing Throw —
Social Distancing headshots deal additional damage. More damage is always nice, but it can be somewhat hard to land headshots so your mileage with this perk may vary.
Mending Infected Throw —
Infected Throw kills heal for a percentage of your maximum health. While healing for a percentage of your health is always a strong perk, Infected Throw has a long animation and does not hit all that hard so it may be difficult to get consistent kills to take advantage of this perk.
Hatchet Leveling
Hatchet leveling is strong due to having several strong options for early
Masteries. Berserk is an easy pick for your first Point and upgrading
it with
On The Hunt and
Berserking Refresh makes you an
early-game powerhouse. Due to the limited access of mobility and healing at
early levels, the Hatchet is arguably the strongest low-level weapon for leveling.
From there, take
Aimed Throw to allow yourself to hit distant foes.
This allows you to pull foes to you that you would have to run over to
otherwise. This does remove your ability to block with the Hatchet so
keep that in mind. Next,
Feral Rush does a good job providing us with
some additional damage and a gap closer.
Against All Odds provides a
consistent damage buff against foes that only gets better with additional
foes.
Fortifying Strikes makes you more tanky by providing a
15% Fortify effect.
Filling out Feral Rush with
Dispatch and
Crippling Strikes allows you to catch and kill PvE or PvP foes who
are running away from you. A 2-second Root does not sound long but it
can be the difference between an escape and a kill. Next we are going to
complete the Berserker tree with
Berserking Purge and
Uninterruptible Berserk to make our damage uptime more consistent.
This opens up
Defy Death which helps you avoid lethal damage; however,
the immortality window is only 3 seconds, which is not a lot of time. After
that we grab
Rending Throw and some of the Masteries we have been
passing over like
Relentless Fury,
Accumulated Power, and
Enraged Strikes. With Relentless Fury and Accumulated Power you can
now rotate one heavy attack followed by three light attacks for a solid damage
boost. Note that this is best accomplished against bosses and single targets
that are attacking another player. Rending Throw applies Rend which
is a powerful debuff that removes an enemy's damage absorption. Lastly, finish
up with
Critical Throw,
Rejuvenating Crits, and
Desperate Refresh.
Hatchet Weapon Combinations
The Hatchet is a great weapon to combine with any weapon that is looking for self-healing or melee damage. There are a few weapons that pair extremely well with it:
- Great Axe — Scaling primarily with Strength, this is a
great pairing with the Hatchet. The Great Axe does a great job of gap closing
and getting close to foes. There is something really satisfying about
running someone down in PvP with
Blood Lust and then using
Feral Rush to root them in place due to
Crippling Strikes. The Great Axe also has a longer range on its attacks which makes it easier for you to hit backstab-crits against bosses when there is another melee player attacking. One downside is that both these weapons deal Slash damage and so both will be weak when fighting Ancient-type foes.
- War Hammer — Where the Hatchet lacks crowd control the War Hammer
has it in excess. This two-handed weapon's greatest weakness is its lack of
gap-closing power which
Berserk can help remedy.
Armor Breaker is an especially nice ability that allows you to get a quick attack off that applies a powerful Rend; you can combine that with the
Sundering Shockwave perk and you can easily hit the 30% Rend cap which will make your attacks hit incredibly hard. This weapon is strong against Ancient-type foes which covers up for Hatchet's inherit weakness against them. One downside would be that you have no movement ability so traveling over rivers will be a bit of a pain.
- Spear — This weapon scales primarily with Dexterity
and has Strength providing secondary scaling. This complements
Hatchet's primary Strength and secondary Dexterity scaling by allowing both
stats to not feel as wasted when you get them on gear. The Spear provides a lot
of crowd control with
Sweep and
Vault Kick but lacks gap closing power which
Berserk can provide. One downside would be that both of these weapons have limited area-of-effect capability.
- Sword and Shield — This weapon combination is more about PvE
tanking than anything else.
Berserk has a relatively short cooldown and provides both self-healing and an area-of-effect taunt which can be useful for gathering up multiple foes. Hatchet's ranged abilities are also nice for aggroing distant foes as the Sword does not have any ranged Abilities. A downside would be that both weapons are Slashing weapons and are weak against Ancient-type foes.
- Bow — Scaling with Dexterity, the Bow does a great
job of doing damage at a distance but can struggle when foes get too close.
Having the Hatchet to switch to can allow Bow users to have a melee damage
option. Hatchet's self-healing abilities are nice for Bow users as they have
extremely limited self-healing. The Bow also provides some area-of-effect damage
with
Poison Shot and
Rain of Arrows which is useful since Hatchet is somewhat limited in this regard. One downside would be that you would want to scale Dexterity instead of Strength, reducing the Hatchet's overall damage.
- Musket — Similar to the Bow, the Musket scales primarily with
Dexterity but also scales with Intelligence. The Musket
excels at long-range strikes with its hitscan attacks and can even provide
some crowd control with
Traps. A downside would be that Musket is extremely single-target-focused and does not provide any area-of-effect damage.
What Attributes does Hatchet scale with?
The Hatchet scales with primarily Strength and Dexterity secondarily
Where do you get the Hatchet
You can get your first Hatchet either from killing foes or chests. If you do not find one then you can craft it for yourself at the Forge. We recommend crafting a Great Axe after completing your 'craft a weapon' introduction quest if you have not yet found one. For more information about crafting check out our Crafting guide.
Can you activate Hatchet's Berserk and then weapon swap to keep the buff?
No. Berserk will be removed if you weapon swap or sheath your weapon,
including opening your inventory or gathering raw materials.
Can I use cooldown reduction to have permanent uptime on Berserk?
No. Berserk will not start its cooldown until its effect has expired.
Can Defy Death activate if I am using another Weapon?
No. Your Hatchet must be in your hand in order to gain any benefits from
it, including Defy Death.
Changelog
- 19 Nov. 2021: Added link to Patch 1.1 Hatchet changes.
- 28 Sep. 2021: Guide added.
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