The rapier is one of 11 weapons that are currently usable in Amazon’s MMO New World, serving as one of the highest damage options among the melee weapons.
This light sword, one of three one-handed weapons, is the perfect option for players that want to get up in the face of their opponent but also want to show off their finesse. Along with a number of dodge and parry abilities, the rapier is highlighted by quick attacks and damage-over-time bleeds that allow players to skillfully get in and out of their opponents’ melee range while still dealing damage.
When considering the best possible build for a rapier, it’s important to consider four aspects of your character: personal attributes, weapon mastery, equipped armor, and second weapon.
In New World, every player has five core attributes. Each weapon is made to work well with a particular attribute (or even two). Meanwhile, your weapon mastery determines what active and passive abilities your character has when using a specific weapon. Your character can equip up to two weapons at a time, so it’s important to consider what other weapon might pair well with what you’re using.
Here is everything you need to know to put together the best rapier build in New World.
Personal attributes
The rapier comes from two stats, Dexterity and Intelligence. While Dexterity is its main attribute, you may veer toward putting points into Intelligence if your second weapon doesn’t benefit from Dexterity.
If you’re making the rapier your main weapon, you will want to load up all of your points into Dexterity as you level to maximize the damage you can do with the weapon.
Once you’ve reached 300 points in Dexterity, you can start to put points into either Intelligence or Constitution. Intelligence will increase your rapier damage further, and Constitution will give you more health so you aren’t too much of a glass cannon.
Second weapon and armor
The rapier is a high damage weapon that lacks much in the way of crowd control and cannot be used at range.
While some players might look to pair a rapier with something that has crowd control capabilities, it will typically be more beneficial to pair it with a ranged weapon.
Pairing your rapier with a musket or bow will be ideal because the two benefit from Dexterity as a main stat.
Using these weapons, you can open up on your enemy from range with a couple of shots before swapping to your rapier at close range.
You’ll want your armor to fit into the “light” weight category. While it protects you less than heavy armor, light armor gives you more mobility and damage.
Being in the light armor category makes it so your character rolls when they dodge, a level of mobility that’s essential to the rapier’s effectiveness. Meanwhile, it gives a 20-percent bonus to your damage, making you that much more lethal.
Weapon mastery
The rapier’s two skill trees are divided between evasive abilities and high damage abilities.
Whatever specific abilities you end up personally using will depend on the content you’re trying to play, but a few of them will be a lock no matter what you’re doing.
Tondo is the rapier’s primary bleed ability. Not only does it debuff your opponent, dealing damage over time, but its range is slightly further than most melee abilities, letting you use it from a safe range.
In the Blood tree, your other active abilities have high potential for damage, but because of your light armor, you will want to grab abilities from the Grace tree to improve your survivability.
Evade is the lowest cooldown ability you get using a rapier and effectively serves as an extra dodge. It also makes you invulnerable for a split second.
The last ability you’ll want to spec into is either Fleche or Riposte.
Riposte’s short stun is the best crowd control you can get with a rapier, and it provides will be useful in PvP and solo PvE content. The only downside to Riposte is that it only works if an enemy hits you. If you have a teammate to tank enemy NPCs, it won’t be of any use.
Fleche is a perfect combination of mobility and damage. Spiraling forward 10 meters, you can use this to get to a target, get away, or even go through an enemy. If you use it to hit an enemy, it can be devastating.
Most players will spec into Tondo and use it as an opening ability. From there, they will Grace abilities and light attacks in-between Tondo cooldowns, restacking Tondo bleeds as much as possible.
For this reason, players will want to spec into passive abilities that reduce their cooldowns so they can stack bleeds from Tondo.
Here is an example of what you might want your Mastery Tree to look like:
