Introduction
This New World Bow Hatchet PvP build is a powerful ranged focused setup. Primarily this build is intended for Outpost Rush and 3v3 PvP Arenas but is a top tier war spec in hunter or assassin groups. This build will have great hunting and pressure capabilities through the use of ranged abilities. While also having great survivability and utility from the Hatchet.
Pros
- High single-target assassination
- Good mobility
- Heavy poke pressure on squishy targets
- Safety due to range and Hatchet
Cons
- Glass cannon, can die easily if caught out position
- Requires consistent aim and situational awareness
- Struggles outnumbered
Mastery Points
Bow
For this build, the majority of your damage will come from the Bow and your ranged pressure. The recommended abilities are:
OR
Evade Shot for an additional stagger and escape tool.
Penetrating Shot is a great poke ability that deals considerable damage. A strong point of this ability is the piercing mechanic it has, allowing you to hit several targets.
Rapid Shot is a strong source of consistent damage as you pump out a few shots in quick succession. On top of the damage you also have a relatively short cooldown if you consistently hit.
Explosive Shot is a more recent addition to the Bow after a rework. This ability provides a small radius explosion that deals decent burst damage and applies a burn DoT.
Evade Shot is a safety option if you prefer extra survivability over damage, however full damage is recommended. It should also be noted that Evade Shot provides a stagger to the kit.
The remaining passives taken will enhance your overall damage output and smooth out the build.
Hatchet
The Hatchet in this particular build is mostly a defensive backbar option for when you are under fire. Defy Death and Berserk will keep you alive in dire situations but you also carry some utility options. The recommended abilities are the following:
Rending Throw is a nice ranged option that allows you to deal a small chunk of damage to your target. However it also applies rend allowing you to really hammer some damage into them via your Bow.
Social Distancing is a great utility tool for mobility and escape and doubles up as a crowd control option via root. Social Distancing allows you a backward jump i-frame that allows you to get out of sticky situations. Fully upgrade this ability to make use of the haste and root.
Berserk is the main bread and butter of why you pick Hatchet as your supportive weapon, alongside Defy Death. With Berserk you will be able to give yourself a decent bit of life steal and movement speed to keep your distance. Another key reason for taking Berserk is that it allows you to break out of crowd controls that are currently affecting you and gives brief uninterruptable status. As a result, fully upgrade this ability to gain these benefits.
Most of the time the Hatchet will be purely for dangerous situations and helping you get out of them. You can however deal reasonable damage with the weapon too.
The remaining passives will help increase your damage and mitigation.
Attributes
In order to gain optimal damage you will want to take the following:
- 500 Dexterity
- 100 Constitution
OR
- 550 Dexterity
- 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. These stat lines are what the best Bow players in the top few companies of New World currently use. We recommend starting with 500 Dexterity and 100 Constitution to provide you with some extra HP while learning the build. If you are feeling adventurous or ready to go all-in, 50 Constitution is the play.
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 Bow Hatchet PvP build you will want to obtain 5 stacks of Health, and the weapon perk Penetrating Rapid Shot on an armor piece. You can potentially round off purple gear pieces with Elemental Aversion or Refreshing 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 Bow Hatchet PvP build will be obtained through crafting or random drops. Below are the recommended perks for your setup:
- Other Bow Weapon Perks
- Refreshing (4)
- Elemental Aversion (5)
Artifact Armor
For the Bow Hatchet PvP Build, we recommend three potential Artifact Armor choices:
- Tumbler Shoes – Successfully dodging an attack, gives you 15% empower and 25% fortify for 5s, you are also healed for 200 + 2% of your max hp.
- Featherweight Jacket – Weightless: This armor is weightless
- Nimble Leather Coat – Highly Refreshing: Reduces max cooldowns by 10%.
Weapons
Bow
For the Bow you will want to ideally obtain the following perks:
OR
If you are rolling a 2 perk Bow 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. It is also good to note that Keenly Jagged is a great substitute for Keenly Empowered for damage output. Farming the Syncretic Bow is worth while too, allowing an easy 3/3 BIS Bow upgrade.
Hatchet
Artifact Option
For the Hatchet, we recommend using the Artifact Hatchet named Freya’s Francisca. Currently, there is not a Bow Artifact Weapon to potentially use. As a result, the Hatchet is a nice addition to the build. Freya’s Francisca has the unique perk “Thrown Mastery”. Thrown Mastery makes Thrown Axe projectiles reduce all axe skill cooldowns by 25% with a 5-second cooldown. As expected, this perk fits in perfectly with our double-thrown axe skills!
Non-Artifact Alternative
For the Hatchet, you will likely have to craft your own or purchase a specific one for this build at first as it is fairly required to have the Refreshing Distancing Throw perk on the weapon itself along with two mandatory other perks. You will want to look for the following perks:
OR
Much like the Bow, 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. For an artifact, we highly recommend “Ankh”.
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 Thrust Damage, Invigorated Punishment and Hearty.
Earring – For your earring. However, ideally, an earring with Refreshing Toast, Regenerating and Purifying Toast will be the best option when not using an Artifact. “Endless Thirst” is another great Artifact choice.
Gems & Runeglass Gem Upgrades
For this build you will want to use Runeglass of Sight (5) in your armor as your most consistent damage source is ranged. 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 Electrified Opal into both of your weapons, ultimately you can pick almost any element however or even Stamina gain in the Hatchet.
Heartgem Rune
The Heartgem rune of choice for this build is the Stalwart Heartrune of Stoneform. Almost every other Heartgem rune available does not suit the playstyle of the Bow. Where most of the time you will be playing too far away to utilize Detonate or Grasping Vines. As a result make sure to use Stalwart Stoneform to provide yourself a safety net to sustain yourself and avoid death as a squishy DPS.
Consumables
You will want to utilize the following consumables for this build:
Dexterity Banana Food
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 Bow Hatchet PvP build primarily focuses on dealing heavy ranged damage to single targets. With some flexibility to engage or assist clumps of opponents. The majority of your damage comes from your Bow attacks and abilities.
Bow Usage
More often than not you will start most engagements by searching out a high priority target. Such as a light armor healer or another ranged player, potentially a melee assassin too. Firstly once you find your first target, try to abuse the many perks available to you in your mastery tree to enhance damage. If you find a target that is 100% health, make the most by opening with a dodge roll gaining Evasive Tactics, into a heavy bow shot gaining Aim True and Opening Strike. This opening will allow you to make a very strong chunk of damage, make sure to be aware of all the modifiers you have that give you damage buffs based on distance and headshots. You can follow this up with Penetrating Shot too immediately after for more damage.
The best filler ability available to you with your bow is the Rapid Shot. Most of the time your opener into Rapid Shot is more than enough to secure a kill. Failing that, Explosive Shot will easily finish a player off and is fairly easy to hit. You can also hit clumps with Explosive Shot and Penetrating Shot for good cleave.
Ultimately, make sure you are very aware of your surroundings so you do not get surprised by an assassin. Readily have cover available to you when being counter-shot and always keep up your major damage modifiers such as dodge rolling for Evasive Tactics. As a final note, if you are with a premade Bow group in a War or OPR, communicate your targets so you can effectively team-fire the opponent, netting huge fast kills.
Hatchet Usage
The Hatchet can also be utilized as an opener to root a target if the opportunity is there with Social Distancing. If you can land this you can then follow up with a Rending Throw to fully set-up an easy kill on your rend-inflicted opponent. More often than not however, the Hatchet will be for defensive usage. When you are under heavy fire or collapsed on by melee players, pull out the Hatchet as soon as you can so you are ready to Berserk out of crowd control or survive a huge burst that would otherwise kill you.
It is worth noting too that with a bit of practice you can cancel Berserk’s animation by dodging and pressing Berserk + light attack in quick succession. This is an advanced skill to learn and helps save time.
Ultimately, remember to keep an eye on your Defy Death cooldown and when to utilize the Hatchet to either set-up a kill, or to escape with it.
Check out more builds like the Bow Hatchet PvP Build here.