Introduction
This New World Blunderbuss Mortar PvP build is a powerful ranged setup. This build is intended for larger scale battles such as Outpost Rush and War. This build will have great supportive pressure through the use of ranged bombardment abilities. While also having fairly decent survivability due to the Rapier and Blunderbuss mastery tree.
Pros
- High AoE damage from range
- Easy to use
- Heavy poke pressure on squishy targets
- Extremely fun
Cons
- Glass cannon, can die easily if caught out position
- Fairly one dimensional gameplay
- Struggles outnumbered
Mastery Points
Blunderbuss
For this build, the majority of your damage will come from the Blunderbuss mortars and your ranged pressure. The recommended abilities are:
Mortar Charge is the bread and butter and sole purpose of this build. Your role as a mortar player is simply to keep at range and launch mortars into clumps or light targets. However you do not need to put points into the ability outside of just picking it up.
Azoth Shrapnel Blast is a staple burst damage ability you should always pick up on the Blunderbuss as a DPS player, typically try to use this when you are in kill range or close enough range to players. Another interesting option with the ability is you can use it from above on walls or platforms and drop the bomb you receive from the upgrade, onto the ground below. As a result of this, fully upgrade the ability.
Finally, Splitting Grenade is another powerful bombard style ability. Splitting Grenade being a strong burst option while having some utility with perks, we recommend taking all available upgrades.
The remaining passives taken will enhance your overall damage output and smooth out the build.
Rapier
The Rapier is your perfect defensive tool. Perfect for when your opponent creates enough space to gap close you. The Rapier also deals pretty reasonable damage however this build isn’t made to focus on that damage. The recommended abilities are the following:
Riposte is a long-standing ability that has been used as a top tier defensive play since launch. Whenever you are in a pinch, a well-timed Riposte will keep you alive! As a result of this, fully upgrade the ability to reduce cooldowns and increase stun duration.
Evade is a quick and easy invulnerability frame dash to further create space and avoid damage taken. This ability is fairly low cooldown and can be used frequently as a result. Fully upgrade Evade to obtain a haste buff and potential stamina gain via dodging through attacks.
Flourish and Finish is an interesting tool, recently being picked up more often after Riposte balance changes. It servers as a slight damage tool, but also another survivability and crowd control + mobility tool. Flourish and Finish will provide you with the ability to gain stamina on successful hit and grit by taking the first two upgrades.
Fleche is also an option instead of Flourish and Finish for mobility purposes and ease of use. Due to the fact that Flourish and Finish could be considered a bit harder to master.
The remaining passives will help increase your damage and mitigation.
Attributes
In order to gain optimal damage you will want to take the following:
- 300 Strength
- 150 Intelligence
- 50 Constitution
As is tradition with light armor glass cannon builds, you quite literally are a glass cannon. As a result you sacrifice a lot of your maximum HP pool for immense amounts of damage. However, due to this build being ranged focused, the low HP should not be an issue providing you are not under heavy ranged pressure yourself. With this stat line you should quite easily nuke opposing clumps if left to free-fire.
Equipment
In this section of the Build, we will break down what equipment you will use. This includes things such as armor perks, weapon perks and equip weight.
You will want to be in the light equip weight category. Light will give you additional damage and mobility with the light dodge roll. The way to obtain light equip weight for this build is the following:
Medium chest, light helmet, gloves, legs and boots.
Barrier to Entry
Obtaining best in slot (BIS) gear can be a very daunting and expensive task. The recommendations below are ultimately what you should aim for. However, if you’re new to the build with no existing gear and perhaps want to try the Blunderbuss Mortar PvP build you will want to obtain 5 stacks of Resilient, and the weapon perks Plagued Splitting Grenades and Resupplying Mortar Charge on an armor piece. You can potentially round off purple gear pieces with Refreshing, Elemental Aversion or Physical Aversion in the remaining slots as its a pretty affordable 2-perk piece now.
This will allow you a competitive entry point to try and test the build before committing and progressing to better gear.
Armor
Most of the armor you need to run the Blunderbuss Mortar PvP build will be obtained through crafting or random drops. Below are the recommended perks for your setup:
- Resilient (5)
- Refreshing (5)
- Resupplying Mortar Charge
- Omnidirectional Evade
- Elemental Aversion/Physical Aversion (3)
You can decide on whether Elemental Aversion or Physical Aversion is best for you based on what type of ranged poke you are dealing with more.
Weapons
Blunderbuss
For the Blunderbuss you will want to ideally obtain the following perks:
If you are rolling a 2 perk Blunderbuss to start off with, focus craft or purchase the perks highlighted in purple until you can get a legendary or BIS version. This will have to be a crafted weapon.
Rapier
For the Rapier you will likely have to craft your own or purchase a specific one for this build. You will want to look for the following perks:
Much like the Blunderbuss, aim for the purple highlighted perks if you are starting out and don’t want to commit yet.
Jewelry
Amulet – Ideally you will want the meta perks of Health, Stamina Recovery and Thrust Protection. However a farmable option would be the Champion’s Amulet from the PvP track.
Ring – For your ring, you can utilize the Champion’s Ring from the PvP track if you are starting out. Ideally however you will want to look for Fire Damage, Mortal Empowerment and Hearty. This will boost all of your damage output due to most of your damage in this build originating from fire damage sources.
Earring – For your earring. However, ideally an earring with Refreshing Toast, Regenerating and Purifying Toast will be the best option Doom’s Chance Earring is also a good alternative.
Gems & Runeglass Gem Upgrades
For this build you will want to use Runeglass of Igniting (5) in your armor as your most consistent damage source is fire. You can use a mixture of opals and emerald gems to ensure you have a strong mixture of high percentage resist versus elemental damage and thrust damage. Typically you do not have to worry about resists such as Slash as you will mainly try to avoid being poked out or ranged to death by opposing Bow or Musket players.
For weapons, make sure to slot in Runeglass of Ignited Malachite into the Blunderbuss and Runeglass of Ignited Ruby to make the most out of your Rapier.
Heartgem Rune
The Heartgem rune of choice for this build is the Brutal Heartrune of Cannon Blast. Almost every other Heartgem rune available does not suit the playstyle of the Mortar build. Where most of the time you will be playing too far away to utilize Detonate or Grasping Vines. When using the Cannon Blast Heartrune, make sure to weave in the blast between Mortar cooldowns for maximum bombardment. Alternatively, should you find yourself taking too much damage and not surviving, Stalwart Heartrune of Stoneform is an option.
Consumables
You will want to utilize the following consumables for this build:
You can opt to use Gemstone Dust of any tier or Oakflesh Balm.
Along with the above consumables make sure to use an attribute food depending on the attribute distribution you have on your gear and what you require as a result. You can check a full list of consumables by checking out our consumables guide.
How to Use Build
The Blunderbuss Mortar PvP build primarily focuses on dealing heavy ranged damage to clumps of targets in AoE and occasionally to disrupt light players. The majority of your damage comes from your mortar and grenade abilities and the opportunity to stack Mortal Empowerment with low risk.
Blunderbuss Usage
This particular build of the Blunderbuss plays very much the opposite to how a usual Blunderbuss player would engage the game. Firstly, a standard Blunderbuss build would be looking to get up close and personal with opponents to burst them with abilities, potentially killing a target within one ability rotation. With the mortar build however, it is important to search for a good section of ground with good space from your opponents. From here – search out for clumps of players or easy targets and begin letting the mortars loose! You quickly find that mortar damage stacks up immensely fast and as a result, should not be underestimated. Make sure to use your Mortar Charge off cooldown and pump the clumps or execute low retreating targets. Keep in mind that any kills with Mortar Charge will proc Resupplying Mortar Charge. This allows you to fire additional shots with a damage buff!
Between cooldowns make sure to throw out your Splitting Grenade to assist with burst and anti-heal. While it might be tempting to use Double Down to half your Splitting Grenade cooldown, try to proc it as much as possible on Mortar Charge for uptime. Finally, keep Azoth Shrapnel Blast in your back pocket for emergency situations such as fending off an attacker at melee range.
Rapier Usage
As previously mentioned, the Rapier is primarily and most definitely the backbar weapon. For proper usage, keep away from having your Rapier out as much as possible into a situation occurs where you need all defensive options immediately. Save Riposte for a key defining moment that could otherwise get you killed, this can allow you to stun your target, deflect the danger and obtain a brief moment of reprieve. Secondly, do your best to keep an eye on animations of dangerous spells like Wrecking Ball or something similar, you can use Evade to easily avoid any danger and gain stamina back to keep moving. Finally, if you decide on using Flourish and Finish – we highly recommend practicing to make usage of this ability and the understanding of when to use it perfect. Flourish and Finish can be used as a disruption tool to interrupt an opponent mid combo, a grit-gainer to prevent knockdowns and also as a mobility tool to gain space. Eventually, with some practice you can do advanced movement such as using Flourish to stagger the opponent and spin your camera to Finish away from the target to gain space while disrupting!
Check out more builds like the Blunderbuss Mortar PvP Build here.