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- Best War Hammer Build – The Tank
- PvE And Leveling Tank Build
- Balanced War Hammer Build For PVP Tanking
- Best Weapons To Pair With The War Hammer
The War Hammer is a powerful two-handed weapon in New World, Amazon's upcoming MMO. Currently, in closed beta, players have been experimenting with the different types of weapons and potential builds in the game. The Hammer fits neatly into a tank role, with the potential for high damage, plenty of CC, and the ability to crush defensive enemies.
RELATED: New World: Best Weapons, Ranked
This guide covers the best attribute points to use for the War Hammer, which weapon to pair it with for a successful build, and the masteries that seem the most strong.
Remember, New World is currently in closed beta, and everything you read here is subject to change. We will update once the game fully releases.
Best War Hammer Build – The Tank
We've covered a Tank build in-depth here, but there's no doubt that the War Hammer does favor a more tanky, Strength build. Here are the best masteries for the different styles of play.
PvE And Leveling Tank Build
The War Hammer excels at PvE thanks to its powerful AoE attacks. Both the Crowd Crusher and Juggernaut tree provide plenty in terms of scaling damage, and you'll make short work of large groups of enemies, even though the weapon attacks slowly. This makes a great choice for Expeditions and for solo leveling.
Best Masteries For The War Hammer In PvE
There is a lot of freedom when it comes to picking masteries for the War Hammer. This suggested build makes use of the Crowd Crusher tree predominantly, but the Juggernaut tree – especially the Armor Breaker and its subsequent debuff passives – has its own strengths.
- Active Skills – Clear Out, Shockwave, and Path of Destiny.
- Clear Out – This is the first active skill you pick up and is an essential skill. When used, you swing the War Hammer in front of you, knocking enemies back by four meters and deals 115 percent weapon damage. It's great for making space and for getting out of a swarm of enemies.
- Shockwave – Shockwave is another essential skill for a tank War Hammer build, especially because it is compatible with taunt gems to draw enemies toward you and away from your allies. It will stun enemies and with the second passive, Frailty, it will also inflict a Weakness debuff.
- Path of Destiny – Just a brilliant PvE ability. It has no limit on how many enemies it can hit, and with the final mastery passive, Stimulated Reduction, you can get a serious cooldown buff if you land a hit against multiple enemies.
Though this suggested build is dominated by the Crowd Crusher tree, you can experiment with the Juggernaut side of things, as well.
RELATED: New World: Beginner Tips
Balanced War Hammer Build For PVP Tanking
The War Hammer is not an easy weapon to use in PVP. Used correctly, you have a lot of CC and potential damage, but the slowness of the weapon and the lack of abilities that can close space between you and the enemy makes it difficult to use, especially for single-target PVP. Here's a suggested build to make it a little easier.
- Active Skills – Armor Breaker, Wrecking Ball, Clear Out.
- Armor Breaker – The Armor Breaker skill is ideal for slicing through defensive enemies, and is the tank's method of taking down another tank. It penetrates armor and the second perk, Indomitable, adds Grit to the attack, which means it is unstoppable by block.
- Wrecking Ball – This CC is better for PVP than PvE, as it "flattens" the enemy in place for a short time. If you manage to land a successful Wrecking Ball the opponent will be held in place, which means you can hopefully land some extra heavy attacks or an Armor Breaker.
Best Weapons To Pair With The War Hammer
There are a few options for good weapons to pair with the War Hammer, though we'll focus on two that really stand out: the Sword (and shield) and Bow. The Bow? Yes, really.
War Hammer And Sword And Shield
This is the build we discussed in our tank build guide, and it makes sense to pair the heavy CC of the War Hammer with the defensive abilities of the Sword, particularly under the shield's Defender tree.
- Active Skills For The Sword – Shield Bash, Shield Rush, Defiant Stance.
- The entire purpose of a tank build is to draw enemies away from your main damage dealers and healers. The taunt-compatible Shield Bash and Shield Rush are essential for this.
- Shield Rush also provides that extra bit of mobility that the War Hammer is seriously lacking on its own.
War Hammer And The Bow
This is a PVP build that some players have been experimenting with during the closed beta. It's tricky to use, mostly because it blends the roles of a tank with a more evasive or duelist type of play.
- Active Skills – Evade Shot, Penetrating Shot, Rain of Arrows.
- Evade Shot is the key mobility skill, and it's one of the best to use during single-target PVP. Being able to disengage works wonders for the War Hammer, especially as you can back off and wait for your CC cooldowns to recover.
- Rain of Arrows is useful because of its bleed and slow when you max out its mastery tree.
- Penetrating Shot is a great opener in PVP. If you manage to land the shot it can do massive damage, with a buff to damage for the distance covered.
If you want to experiment with your own builds you can use NewWorldFans, the same platform we used to show these builds off to you.
You can check out some of our other build guides here:
- New World: Best Rapier Build
- New World: Best Tank Build
- New World: Best Bow Build
- New World: Best Ice Gauntlet Build
- New World: Best Spear Build
NEXT: New World Standard Edition Vs. Deluxe – Which Is Better?