Introduction

A lot of progression components are changing for New World. The way you progress is now going to be completely different. Expertise is no more, and you will now need to obtain items at a specific gear score. The way you upgrade items has completely changed. This guide will walk you through the new progression systems and how to get to 700 gear score in New World.

What’s Changing

Before we dive into how you get to 700 gear score, let’s break down what’s changing in case you are a new or returning player to the game. Prior to the expansion players would progress by obtaining level 60. Then, grinding up their expertise level for each slot of gear. Beyond that, you would utilize umbral shards to upgrade your gear from gear score 590+ up to a maximum of 625.

With the expansion, both the expertise system and umbral shards are going away. This means that once you hit max level, which is now level 65 after the expansion, you will no longer need to grind expertise. You will simply need to obtain gear at a higher gear score in order to increase your power, and that gear score is now capped at 700. 

With umbral shards going away, this obviously means that you will no longer be utilizing them to upgrade gear. So, after the expansion you will be able to salvage your umbral shards at a rate of .10 gold per each umbral shard. So, 1,000 gold per full stack of umbral shards. 

However, this does not mean that gear is not upgradeable at all. After the expansion certain pieces of gear can still be upgraded, but not as freely as the previous system. This can be done by utilizing a new material implemented called Dark Matter. 

Dark Matter & Upgrading Gear

Dark matter can be obtained by salvaging gear, the pvp reward track, looting elite chests and stockpiles, completing quests. It’s also rewarded from the following encounters:

• Rafflebones
• Shah Neshen the Devourer
• Zygormet
• Avarice
• The Siren Queen

Once you have obtained some dark matter (and a few other items) you can make your way over to a gypsum kiln. You’ll need to scroll to the bottom of the kiln menu. Here you will see all the NAMED items you have available in your inventory that can be upgraded. 

It’s important to note that only NAMED items that are 650+ gear score can be upgraded to 700 utilizing this new system. 

You will also need gypsum orbs and another new item introduced in the expansion called a “Matrix” in order to upgrade the gear. There is a weapon matrix, armor matrix, and jewelry matrix. The one you use will, of course, is determined by the piece of gear that you’re trying to upgrade. A matrix can be crafted utilizing azoth and 2 other crafting components that can be found in the respective aptitude crate. The components can also be crafted. But, you must be at  250 crafting in the respective trade and crafting them requires some prismatic materials. 

Along with this new system you will also be able to choose your final perk for the piece of gear you are upgrading. Essentially all named items will now have 2 fixed perks, and one perk that can be changed. This is done by utilizing the appropriate craft mod at the gypsum kiln when you’re upgrading the item. After it’s upgraded you can also go back and change the final perk again if you choose. However, it will still cost the same resources as before. 

How to Get to 700 Gear Score in New World

Now that we’ve discussed how you upgrade your gear let’s talk about how you actually obtain the new named items and how to get to 700 gear score in New World. 

There’s several different methods to get to 700 gear score. You can do this through the Main Story Quest, PvE, PvP, and crafting. 

The Main Story quest for the Elysian wilds will bump your gear score up to roughly 640-650 depending on how many extra side quests and other activities you do as you progress through the story. This will bump your gear score up enough in order to open up some additional content for you, such as the base level expeditions. These expeditions are now basically story mode expeditions and are fairly easy to complete. These base expeditions will drop gear that caps at gear score 685. Getting up to 685 will allow you to do some of the mutated versions of the expeditions. 

Mutations

Any mutation level can drop up to 700 gear score gear. However, the minimum gear score that drops from a mutation increases as the level of mutation increases. This means you are much more likely to obtain gear score 700 gear from a mutation level 3 than you are from a mutation level 1. For example, mutation level 3 has a minimum dropped gear score of 695.

However, bear in mind that the difficulty and required gear score to run mutations increase with the mutation level as follows:

• (1) Intermediate – Requires 650 gear score
• (2) Hard – Requires 675 gear score
• (3) Elite – Requires 700 gear score

So, in reality Elite mutations, or tier 3 mutations, will be utilized to obtain variations of gear and artifacts versus grinding your gear score up to 700.

Open World PvE & Corrupted Portals

The open world drops depend on the difficulty of the enemy. If you go to the highest level zones in the game you will be able to obtain drops up to 690 from normal high level mobs. The named enemies and chests in those areas will drop up to 700 gear score gear. This means going on chest runs though those zones will be a very lucrative activity, at least early on in the expansion. 

High level corrupted portals also have a chance to drop up to 700 gear score from the reward caches.

PvP

It is possible to obtain 700 gear score solely from PvP. However, it will be much slower than some of the other methods. The reward caches from both OPR and Arena have a chance to drop up to 700 gear score gear. However the range of gear dropped from those caches is very wide. This means the likelihood of getting a 700 piece is fairly low. So, you would need to obtain a ton of caches in order to get to 700 by only utilizing this method. 

The influence race will also reward a cache and quite a lot of PvP experience and PvP salt. It also has a chance to drop up to 700 gear score gear. 

The PvP reward track is also another method to obtain gear score 700 gear, and named items. Every 10 levels you are guaranteed to get a level 690 piece of gear. As mentioned before, those named items can be upgraded to 700 utilizing the gypsum kiln.

Crafting

Crafters will have 2 main ways to get to gear score 700:

• Prismatic Scarab Crafting – This is the more expensive way and is on a weekly cooldown. However, this is a guaranteed method of obtaining a 700 gear score item along with every perk you want on the item. Therefore, a guaranteed method of obtaining a BiS item. 
• Chromatic Seal Crafting – This is a cheaper option and on a daily cooldown. However, this only guarantees 2 perks and 1 random third perk. 

How to Get to 700 Gear Score in New World Conclusion

That does it for the guide on how to get to 700 gear score in New World. In summary, level to 65 and grind gear to get to gear score 700. Expertise and Umbral shards are gone. However, you can still upgrade named items with use of Dark Matter.