Introduction
This New World Greatsword Greataxe PvP build is a powerful melee focused setup. Primarily this build is intended for Outpost Rush and 3v3 PvP Arenas. This build will have incredible hunting capabilities through the use of mobility abilities, however it also boasts a large amount of disruption tools that prevent escape and single out an opponent but also restricts responses.
Pros
- High single-target and cleave damage
- High mobility
- Flexible forms of Crowd Control both single-target and AoE
- Heavy disruption
Cons
- No range flexibility
- Fairly fragile in Onslaught Stance without medium armor
Mastery Points
Greatsword
For this build, the majority of your burst damage will come from the Greatsword but it also pairs as a strong utility tool. The recommended abilities are:
OR
Roaring Rupture if you are wearing medium armor.
Relentless Rush is a great movement ability that not only roots your opponent when fully upgraded, but also deals decent damage as a gap closer. This will be crucial to the ability rotation of this build.
Skyward Slash is a fantastic opener ability in the rotation. As a result of applying rend to your target and applying disease when fully upgraded, this ability is a must have and will start off many of your engages.
Steadfast Strike will pull your target towards you in a micro stagger allowing you to setup a full rotation. Also it is worth noting that you gain a good portion of stamina back on hit!
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Roaring Rupture is an ability that gains more value when you are wearing medium armor. This particular ability is a strong AoE tool that deals strike damage – a type of damage most players do not heavily resist. However the positive effects do not end there! Roaring Rupture also: applies weaken, gives fortify, but also can give full crowd control immunity for 5 seconds! As a result this allows your full combo to be uninterrupted and provides immense survivability for a medium build.
The remaining passives taken will enhance your overall damage output and smooth out the build.
Alternatively, there is also the medium armor mastery build that utilizes Roaring Rupture.
Greataxe
The Greataxe is going to be utilized mostly as both a chasing tool but also a disruptor to help gap close the opponent or prevent healers from casting. The recommended abilities are the following:
Alternatively you can use Whirlwind too instead of Gravity Well however Gravity Well has much more flexibility and functionality.
Every ability in the Greataxe kit is absolutely staple and provides great utility, but also doesn’t skip out on decent damage. You are going to want to push for point allocation within the Reaper tree to obtain Bloodlust. As a result of this maxing out both Reap to boost the range and damage output and Charge to increase instant burst options is a must. However in the Mauler tree you will want to pick up Gravity Well and fully upgrade it. Gravity Well has been and still potentially is one of the best abilities in the game, and as a result of its flexibility to assist teammates or commit to a single-target – is too good to not take.
Most of the time the Greataxe will be your backbar weapon. Using Reap to prevent opponents from disengaging and closing the gap or even disrupting casts from healers. Secondly Gravity Well to commit to a target or assist a clump with immense burst and ranged engage. And finally, Charge to instantly burst a target by following a light attack with a Charge cancel, to chase or even disengage yourself.
Bloodlust is the chosen major passive for this build as it assists you with sticking onto your targets while providing a damage boost.
The remaining passives will help increase your damage and mitigation.
Attributes
In order to gain optimal damage you will want to take the following:
- 350 Strength
- 100 Dexterity
- 150 Constitution
OR
- 350 Strength
- 250 Constitution
With the medium armor build, the second attribute set is recommended but you can also take it on light if you are having a hard time surviving. In this build you can afford to not be full Strength as your Greatsword will be your damage dealer regardless of light or medium. If you feel like you want your Greataxe to be more of a damage source, you can still try full Strength however you will miss Greatsword damage.
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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 either the light equip weight or medium equip weight category. Light will give you additional damage and mobility with the light dodge roll, whereas medium will give you more survivability at the cost of a tiny bit less damage and mobility. The way to obtain light equip weight for this build is the following:
Medium chest, light helmet, gloves, legs and boots.
The way to obtain optimal medium equip weight for this build is the following:
Heavy chest, heavy helmet, medium gloves and boots, light legs.
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 Greatsword and Greataxe build you will want to obtain 5 stacks of Health, and the weapon perks of Relentless Freedom and Insatiable Gravity Well on the armor pieces. You can potentially round off purple gear pieces with Elemental Aversion in the remaining slots as it’s 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.
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Armor
Artifact Armor
For this build, we recommend the following Artifact Armor pieces:
- 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%.
- Unyielding – Hard Head: PvP Only: Receive 20% less damage from critical hits.
Most of the armor you need to run the Greatsword Greataxe build will be obtained through crafting or random drops. Below are the recommended perks for your setup:
- Refreshing (4)
- Elemental Aversion or Enchanted Ward (5)
- Freedom (3)
- Relentless Freedom
- Insatiable Gravity Well
You can also flip Freedom and Elemental Aversion to be 5 Freedom and 3 Elemental Aversion if you prefer additional crowd control reduction.
Weapons
Greatsword
Artifact Weapon
For this build, we recommend using the Artifact Weapon – Serenity. Serenity’s main perk is Balanced Blade: Offense stance: +2% empower per attack for 5s (max 10 stacks) Defense stance: +2% fortify when hit for 5s (max 10 stacks). This Weapon is incredibly powerful and as a result, is a no-brainer choice for the build.
For the Greatsword you will want to ideally obtain the following perks:
OR
If you are rolling a 2 perk Greatsword 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 Empowered is not a worthwhile perk on the Greatsword, as it is usually near or at empower cap all the time.
Some decent farmable options to use as a placeholder are the following:
Fleshripper – Dropped by mobs in the Greater Tribulation area of Shattered Mountain
Heelstrike – Dropped by Tazorjaw in Ebonscale Reach
Putrefaction – Dropped by level 60+ mobs in the open world (farmed easiest in Brimstone Sands, also drops in elite chests in the area)
Sonic Sword – Dropped by Broadpaw and Gnasher
Supplicium – Dropped by mobs in the Opulence area of Shattered Mountain
Slipstream – Dropped from Mozrul the Herald in Great Cleave
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Greataxe
For the Greataxe you will likely have to craft your own or purchase a specific one for this build as it doesn’t quite fit the standard Greataxe meta a bruiser would use. You will want to look for the following perks:
Much like the Greatsword, aim for the purple highlighted perks if you are starting out and don’t want to commit yet. That being said however, you will often find this type of Greataxe to be fairly cheap compared to a bruiser 3-perker.
Jewelry
Amulet – Ideally you will want the meta perks of Health, Stamina Recovery and Slash 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 Slash Damage, Invigorated Punishment and either Hearty or Leeching.
Earring – For your earring, you can farm out the Doom’s Chance from the Lazarus Instrumentality Expedition. However, ideally, an earring with Refreshing Toast, Regenerating and Purifying Toast will be the best option. “Endless Thirst” is another great Artifact choice.
Gems & Runeglass Gem Upgrades
For this build you will want to use Runeglass of Punishing (5) in your armor as you are purely melee based. You can use a mixture of opals and onyx gems to ensure you have at least 15% slash protection and a decent coverage of elemental protection. You can substitute out a couple of opals for emeralds to boost up thrust protection as well versus bows and muskets or even spears.
For weapons, make sure to slot in Runeglass of Electrified Opal into both of your weapons, ultimately you can pick almost any element however.
Heartgem Rune
The Heartgem rune of choice for this build is the Brutal Heartrune of Detonate. Cunning Detonate is rarely the most optimal version of Detonate for this build due to Greatsword being at empower cap or very close to it most of the time. Due to this high uptime, you are losing too much if you do not use Brutal. Another option if you prefer a defensive Heartgem rune that has risen in the meta for melee players is the Stalwart Heartrune of Stoneform. This Heartgem rune prevents you from getting caught up in too much crowd control and gives additional sustain, as you will take a lot of damage usually in melee.
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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 Greatsword Greataxe build primarily focuses on dealing heavy melee damage to single targets, with some flexibility to engage or assist clumps of opponents. The majority of your damage comes from your Greatsword heavy attacks.
Greatsword Usage
More often than not you will want to open your encounters with either Skyward Slash or if you are in a simple situation, land a heavy attack and shift into Onslaught Stance using the Aggressive Shift passive. Should you open with a successful heavy attack your Skyward Slash will provide 5% additional rend. Following Skyward Slash you will want to follow up with Relentless Rush to stay on top of your opponent as they have most likely dodge rolled after Skyward Slash, this will allow you to root your opponent too as you are in Onslaught.
From here you can either crush your opponent with heavy attacks until the kill is picked up or if you are versus an opponent with good mobility, you can opt to roll chase them and catch them with Steadfast Strikes. Landing Steadfast Strikes will disrupt the opponent and allow you to gain stamina back, making your previous dodges essentially free and as a result, pick up the kill.
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Medium Armor Rotation
If you are playing the medium armor build, the opener becomes Roaring Rupture. This is due to the fact that if you initiate with this ability and it lands, you are granted multiple buffs and most importantly immunity to crowd control for 5 seconds. This allows you to pull off your full combo uninterrupted and land a couple of heavy attack before it times out. Unlike Berserk, Roaring Rupture’s immunity prevents even Shockwave or Wrecking Ball from hitting you, which is incredible.
Greataxe Usage
A lot of the time in fights your opponents will find ways to either be healed or escape you, this is where the Greataxe comes into play. The Greataxe is largely a backbar weapon in this build. But it provides great utility to gap close on your target or disrupt other players like healers. For example if your target has survived your initial rotation with the Greatsword, you can switch to Greataxe and have three powerful options to keep on top of your opponent with.
Reap will assist you in stopping healers from casting in certain situations, netting kills for you and your teammates. However Reap can assist you in catching a target off of their roll and leading them back to square one. Gravity Well needs no introduction. It is one of the best abilities in the game. Use it to initiate on clumps or single-target players and pick up easy kills.
And finally, Charge. Charge will allow you to peel back or push forward to chase and finish off enemies and apply constant pressure. You will also have access to a 2-hit combo that deals good damage and is a good finisher. It is as simple as landing a light attack and immediately cancelling into a point blank Charge.
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