Spear Guide and Builds for New World

The Spear is an incredibly strong crowd-control weapon in both PvP and PvE. It is equipped with a plethora of debuffs that will either increase damage output, or that provide some form of utility. It is a high skill weapon that has great fight control. A Spear can be a primary damage weapon, or a secondary tool strictly for locking down a target.

• Javelin — This is a ranged ability that does a significant amount of damage. It scales its damage based on the distance it is thrown, but it is a powerful close range CC tool that will knock a player down and enable a plethora of combos.
• Skewer — This is a high damage ability that also applies a bleed. It has some subtle mobility that will lunge to the targets, making it easy to chase.
• Vault Kick — This stun will be paramount in crowd-control combinations. It provides you withn enough time to reposition behind a target to quickly burst them down, or enable a follow-up CC ability.

• Sweep — This provides an AoE crowd-control ability that knocks a player down and can be followed up with a downward stab that counts as a heavy attack. This is a strong from of CC that does not count toward diminishing returns since it knocks the target on the ground. Use this if you are not confident in using Javelin.

• Sweep — This provides an AoE crowd-control ability that knocks a enemies down, allowing them to be clumped together and killed quickly.
• Perforate — This is a major source of damage that aplies the highest amount of Rend. It is important to use this on cooldown.
• Skewer — This is a high damage ability that also applies a bleed to increase critical hit chance and apply extra damage pressure.

It is commonly debated as to whether or not you should take Sweep or Vault Kick. Having the AoE crowd-control for trash packs with a Sweep is typically better than single-target stuns.

For a thorough breakdown on the Hatchet and how it can be used, please refer to our Hatchet guide.

This is the standard build option in PvP. It provides survivability and CC escape with Berserk and Social Distancing. It also has single-target CC with Feral Rush and Social Distancing to lockdown players who are trying to escape. This is commonly seen as a utility secondary in PvP that is only used for its abilities.

This will act as a primary PvE DPS weapon that comes with an incredible amount of damage. You should never heavy attack, this is a DPS loss when comparing the time it takes to heavy attack with the damage it does compared to two light attacks. You will want to maintain Berserk, use three light attacks, then use abilities like Raging Torrent for single-target or AoE. You will also maintain Rending Throw to increase damage output.

For more detailed information on Sword and Shield usage and other aspects of its gameplay, please refer to our Sword guide.

This is a great assassin build that can be used for surprise initiations with Leaping Strike. You can then get a target caught in a CC chain ending with Shield Bash. You can then swap to Spear to continue using CC abilities, or deal burst damage.

Tanks will have the ability to flex into many builds, but here is a great build that can be played in a heavy or light tanking setup.

Use this if you prefer to have a burst damage option. At times, this can be significantly better for players using Dexterity builds. It acts similarly to Riposte by staggering the target, and it has a follow up ability that can deal damage or be quick mobility. This can be a great way to pick up quick kills on low health targets.

Use this if you prefer to have a survivability option with Riposte. This ability can be easily at times if used incorrectly. Nonetheless, it will give you a moment of invulnerability and will certainly save your life at times.

For more detailed information on Bow usage and other aspects of its gameplay, please refer to our Bow guide.

This split allows you to take advantage of the 200 Strength passive which increases damage on targets affected by crowd-control. If you prefer, you could go with 200 Dexterity to increase backstab damage. If you scale with Dexterity you will have higher sheet damage, but the passive from Strength will be more potential effective damage. You will want to scale both attributes to get the highest possible damage.

Alternatively, you can scale completely to 300 Dexterity and go 200 Constitution, or stay at 150 and go with 50 Strength. The 300 Dexterity passive guarantees a critical hit, but only applies every 10 seconds.

Play with this attribute split if you choose to use a Bow, or perhaps a Rapier. Alternatively, you can play with this if you want the Dexterity passives and do not care about damage optimization. Feel free to play at 150 Constitution if you are prioritizing your Spear.

In competitive PvE environments, many tanks may play in lighter armor weights with as low as 50 Constitution. This is solely up to you as a player and depends on your skill and comfort. As always, you can lower your Constitution if you are looking to deal more damage.

• Sundering Javelin — (PvP) This perk applies a large Rend to the target to increase burst potential.
• Keen Vault Kick — (Gear) Free critical hit chance in PvP or PvE if you choose to use this ability.
• Enfeebling Skewer — (PvP/PvE) This will apply a weaken to the target which will reduce their damage, but this will also increase the damage you deal to the target because of Exploited Weakness.
• Bleeding Sweep — (Gear) This can be beneficial if you have room in your build. It can apply a high damage bleed.

• Keenly Empowered — This will add great burst damage to any damage-oriented build. The Sword and Shield have very high critical hit chance so this will be active frequently.
• Attunement Perks — This adds a great burst of damage to every attack.
• Vicious — The Spear has many sources of passive critical hit chance, this will be a large damage increase.

• Health — This provides free damage reduction against all sources and is one of the most beneficial PvP options.
• Shirking Heals — Incredible source of self-healing and allows for great survivability regardless of build.
• Shirking Fortification — Can be a great complement to Shirking Heals. Will add increased armor to improve overall defensiveness.
• Freedom — This will allow you to play more aggressively by reducing the duration of crowd-control. You should play with either 3 or 5 stacks.
• Elemental Aversion — Use this perk for elemental damage reduction from weapons like the Fire Staff.
• Refreshing — This can be an optional third perk when you want a source of cooldown reduction in your build.
• Harnessing Perks — Stack these for increased damage if you chose to forgo defensive options.
• Mortal Empowerment — This will be the preferred option for maximum damage output in PvP.

In most light armor builds, or ranged builds, it can be very strong to snowball kills with Mortal Empowerment, and drastically increase your damage potential. With that being said, it is important to note that this will not stack if a the weapons have persistent damage source, or DoT, deal the final blow. This means if Attunement or any Runeglass gem secure the kill, you will not receive a stack. This makes it inconsistent and not worth using in some builds.

When making this decision you also have to think about your likliness to be killed. If you are playing a light armor build, or one that is frequently diving into melee, you have high chances of dying. At that point if you lose your stacks, it is a wasted perk, especially if this happens multiple times, or in the middle of building stacks. As such, it may be more advantageous to use Invigorated Punishment.

TLDR: If you are medium armor, want more consistent damage, or you have a high chance of death, Invigorated Punishment is the better option. If you want to snowball and have insanely high damage, you have a pocket healer, you are a dedicated ranged build, or you simply do not care and want to gamble, Mortal Empowerment is the better option.

• Elemental Aversion — This perk is a viable alternative in PvP as well, but is overshadowed by other PvP options. It provides great defensein mutated expeditions to help mitigate magical effects.
• Physical Aversion — Only projectiles that do physical damage will be mitigated by this perk. As such, it can be useful in PvE as another potential option. It alsoprovides a small amount of PvP value, but Elemental Aversion and enemy Ward perks are certainly more defensive options.

• Health — This is the standard pick for all builds, it is free health that will add to the defensiveness of your kit.
• Divine — This is important for PvE.
• Stamina Recovery — This is a backpocket save when being focused and taking heavy damage. You will receive a burst of stamina that will allow you to potentially get a quick dodge that can save your iife and continue the fight.
• Slash Protection — This acts as a third perk slot that provides more defensiveness against Greatswords, Great Axes, Hatchets, and Swords.
• Elemental Protection — This can be a PvE replacement for Slash Protection. Use whatever elemental type you need for the mutator being ran.

• Thrust Damage
• Invigorated Punishment
• Keen Awareness
• Mortal Empowerment
• Hearty
• Refreshing

• Refreshing Toast
• Healing Heart
• Nimble
• Refreshing

• Scorpion's Sting

• Tumbler Feetwraps
• Featherweight

• Ankh

For most builds that are looking to dive backlines, it is best to use Minor Heartrune of Stoneform to help with having additional survivability in addition to your Hatchet passives. This will save your life and allow for you to escape frequently. It can also be used as a tank in PvE.

There are two viable upgrade options:

• Cunning Heartrune of Stoneform provides two defensive buffs to reduce damage.
• Stalwart Heartrune of Stoneform provides one defensive buff and a significant healing over time effect.

Brutal Heartrune of Detonate should be used when you are prioritizing burst damage.

When using Cunning Heartrune of Stoneform, or other variants, you should save this for times where you are stunned or affected by other forms of CC. Alternatively, you can use this right before pushing through a doorway or chokepoint to negate the potential of being affected by CC.

Try to avoid using Brutal Heartrune of Detonate while you have low health or are being focused on. The goal is to start the ability and wait a short duration and attempt to dive in right as the ability detonates so you can catch enemies off guard and not be bursted down.

You can activate your Detonate and then use a movement ability to "deliver" your explosion and time it right as you meet a clump of players. This will catch them off guard and will not be dodged in many cases.

Save your Detonate for when there are multiple targets stacked on top of one another. Preferably the targets will already be under some kind of CC effect, or exhausted and unable to dodge out of them. It is best paired with something like Gravity Well or Shockwave.

When using Detonate try to time it right as you hit an enemy with a crowd-control ability combo, such as Sundering Javelin into a Vault Kick. This will prevent the target from avoiding the damage.

Take advantage of down time to charge your heartrune. For instance if you are far away you might as well continue to try hitting targets or structures to build charge.

Your heartrune will charge fast. While it is obviously beneficial to hold for times where there are large clusters of enemies. Do not wait too long and continue to waste your cooldown when you would have had the time to get another one recharged. Get familiar with how quickly you can get it back online and do not hesitate to use it to secure high priority kills.

A Heartrune in PvE is significantly different than PvP. This will charge incredibly fast due to the sustained damage output on single targets. When using something like Brutal Heartrune of Detonate this is best used on large numbers of enemies instead of single target. With that being said, use this as many times as possible in a boss fight since it will be available and otherwise wasted.

For more information on how to manage your cooldown hotbar, what consumables to use, what foods should be eaten, or tips on how to be more effective with your consumables in PvP and PvE, please refer to Spear Consumables guide.

For any type of PvP damage build it will be best to use any Runeglass variant of Cut Pristine Opal that applies a damage over time effect. For example : Runeglass of Arboreal Opal

In PvP combat your optimal resistance distribution is going to prioritize Slash resistance, then Physical, and lastly Elemental. This is the standard for any build where you will frequently be in melee range.

At times, it may not be beneficial to use a full Runeglass setup, for example using: Runeglass of Punishing Onyx. This results in marginal offensive gains for some because of hidden internal cooldown effects. As such, it is preferred to take the defensive gains instead. (See FAQ).

To hit a 22.5 (Slash)/12.5 (Physical)/7.5 (Elemental) resistance setup you will need:

• Cut Pristine Onyx x5 + Cut Pristine Opal x3 + Slash Protection on Amulet

When using Runeglass, you will want to use a 20 (Slash)/10 (Physical)/7.5 (Elemental) setup:

• Runeglass of Punishing Onyx x5 + Cut Pristine Opal x3 + Slash Protection on Amulet

In PvE combat, more specifically mutators, elemental resistance is the main concern.

You can use the following gems in your gear:

• Elemental Resistance Gem x8 + Amulet Protection Perk (Based on mutator elemental effect.)

For more information on how to manage your cooldown hotbar, what consumables to use, what foods should be eaten, or tips on how to be more effective with your consumables in PvP and PvE, please refer to Spear Consumables guide.

In PvP, a Spear will be focused on trying to dive backlines a kill squishy targets, or healers.

In PvE, it will either be used for crowd-control and other debuffs, or it can be a primary damage weapon.

• Dodge and use Javelin to knock a target down.
• Dodge again and use Vault Kick.
• Dodge again and get behind the target, then use Skewer.
• Light attack and repeat the combo when it is available.

• Dodge and use Vault Kick to stun the target.
• Dodge again and use Sweep, follow this up with a light attack to use Coup de Grâce.
• Dodge again and get behind the target, then use Skewer.
• Light attack and repeat the combo when it is available.

• Use Perforate to apply Rend.
• Use Skewer to apply Bleed.
• Swap to second weapon if applicable
• Light attack with Spear

To learn how to use your second weapon properly, and complete rotation, please refer to our PvE and PvP build pages:

In PvP it is incredibly important to quickly dodge between each ability you use. You will always want to dodge before using an ability because of Aggressive Maneuvers. This will result in a high level of cooldown reduction which will allow you to chain several abilities together as long as you hit the target.

Stamina should be monitored, but it can be very easy to cap your stamina due to Invigorating Crits, Strong Conditioning, and Stamina Recovery. With that being said, pace yourself, do not spam dodges simply because you are able to recover it quickly. If you are caught with no stamina it can be very dangerous with a Spear.

The Spear has many synergistic abilities that can be combined to create crowd-control loops that prevent a player from moving, even with diminshing returns. If you have enough Refreshing and properly reset cooldowns with Aggressive Maneuvers and Continuous Motion you can mix together knockdowns and stuns that a player cannot escape from. For example, Keen Vault Kick will stun a player, this is affected by diminshing returns. Abilities like Javelin will knock a player down, but they are not affected by diminishing returns. Rotating between these abilities can allow you to keep a player locked down and result in an easy kill.

In both PvP and PvE, it is important to always try and strike a target from behind. This will result in increased damage. This is easy to do with a Spear as you have many crowd-control options that will buy you time to position correctly.

Abilities like Javelin or Sweep will knock a player onto the ground. Be aware that there will be a window where they can be hit without being able to actually dodge roll. The enemy is able to be hit by any ability while they are on the ground. This opens up great windows to use a burst damage ability, like Skewer, or use another crowd-control ability, like Vault Kick, to keep them CC'd.

The light attack on the Spear comes out very quickly and its animation will actually allow for two very quick auto attacks. You can use this to your advantage to sneak in quick bursts of damage while you are moving around a target. You should never heavy attack in PvP because it has an extremely long animation and its damage is outpaced by the two light attacks in overall DPS and speed.

In PvE, this is also the case. It is a waste of time to try and get a heavy attack off. Instead, light attack for higher DPS and Refreshing Jabs.

You can feint attacks with melee weapons to try and bait an enemy into dodging and wasting their stamina. This can be done to try an exhaust enemies so that you can get free hits in. To do so, charge a heavy attack and block before the attack is initiated. This will make it look like you are swinging, and then you cancel the attack until you can strike at the correct opportunity.

Effective movement is incredibly important in a build like this, especially when playing in medium. Do not panic and use your entire stamina bar and exhaust yourself, as it may result in death. You can take advantage of jumping, diving (going prone while moving), and changing direction by quickly moving your mouse or taking advantage of quick inputs on your movement keys.

There are many movements in New World that will stagger you in place for a moment when quickly changing direction. If you move left and right or if you jump left and right you will notice there is a momentwhere you will be standing still. To prevent this you will need to use a key input while your character is in the animation. For example, if you hold your left directional key and jump then right before you land you hit your right directional key and jump, you will quickly jump left and right. If you simply run left and right using your directional keys your character will respond similarly. To avoid this you can move left and then right before you pivot to go right, hit the backward directional key and instantly follow up with your right directional key. If you continue doing this back and forth you will avoid the sliding animation.

To learn more about ability usage and how to use the Hatchet, please refer to our Hatchet guide.

When paired with a Spear, this will make for strong backline dive PvP builds. These two weapons will give you endless options for crowd-control and make it easy to secure kills.

Please refer to our Sword tips for more on this playstyle.

This weapon pairing makes for incredibly mobile PvP builds that are difficult to catch. The Rapier has unmatched mobility with quick damage options and supplemental crowd-control.

To learn more about ability usage and the intracies of the Rapier, please refer to our Rapier guide.

The Bow can be an option to pair with the Spear. While this combination lacks mobility, it does have great crowd-control and damage potential for anyone who is trying to pressure you.

Please refer to our Bow tips for how to use it properly.

The Spear is a very cooldown dependent weapon, and because of this it has some of the best cooldown reduction in the game. When you use Aggressive Maneuvers this provides very high active cooldown reduction after dodging and then hitting an enemy with an ability. This is the pivotal piece to all PvP Spear combos. It is the sole reason as to why you have so much control within a fight. You can quickly reset crowd-control abilities to keep a targeted CC'd.

Most builds that focus on the Spear as a primary weapon can be played in both medium or light armor weights. Light will obviously provide the most burst damage and mobility. But, medium loadouts can much more easily use Aggressive Maneuvers because of the quick, shorter distance dodge. Medium also gives you a good amount of survivability while also maintaining great damage output. This becomes a choice of personal preference.

Generally, in all Spear builds you should focus on getting Refreshing for cooldown reduction. This synergizes very well with all of the Spear's active cooldown reduction passives. These passives will apply its percentage of cooldown reduction toward the ability's max cooldown. If you reduce a cooldown with Refreshing, then you can see more of a benefit because the cooldown is lowered and still has the same amount of time taken off its cooldown because it is still reducing it based on max cooldown, not the adjusted cooldown.

Vault Kick can be nice to increase critical hit chance with Keen Vault Kick. As such, it does have boss fight viability. Although that is true, Sweep is a great trash clearing option. This applies an AoE knock down to all targets that can be quickly reset to repeatedly do this over and over again. This makes most Spear users choose Sweep to help keep trash packs grouped so there can be better AoE damage focus and an overall faster clear.

Javelin provides very high damage, a rend, and knocks the target down. Additionally, it can also be used from a far distance away. The problem is that this is an aimed ability that can be completely wasted if you do not consistently hit enemies with it. In general, Javelin is the better damage and CC option, but if you feel that you can not hit it consistently, it may be better to take Sweep. It is also up to personal preference.

When playing a physical damage build it will be tempting to use Runeglass of Punishing Onyx. While this will provide a damage increase, there is an internal cooldown which will only allow it to proc every other hit. So, this will not actually be as much of a damage increase as it was thought to be. In most cases, just use regular gems for more defensiveness. The marginal damage loss will be made up for by survivability.

It is best practice to use a magic damage type that is the least likely to be countered. While most players tend not to focus on a specific magic damage type like they do for physical damage, it is still possible. In most cases, players may use extra Ice damage protection due to the Ice Gauntlet, or Fire due to the Fire Staff or Blunderbuss. As such, Nature, Arcane, or Lightning damage can be beneficial options. Nature specifically is beneficial because it will always work in PvE environments because it is never weak to any enemy types.