New World PvE Armor & Perks

This Section of the website we will help you know what armour to run but also show you the logic behind it so you can adjust things to work for your playstyle on your first visit here please read all of the following to understand how armour and builds work in New World Aeternum.

Armor & Perks in New World are split between 3 different armor weights, Light, Medium & Heavy. Light armor is designed for more mobile high dps builds, Medium for a good balance between damage and Survivability where Heavy armour is mainly for tanking. The way New World armor perks works means that across all roles, builds and armor weights you will be looking at essentially the same perks with just adjusting armor weights and adding build specific perks. When it comes to specific perks for your build they can go on any armor piece, usually try get your mandatory perks in first then fill any gaps with your required perks.

head , hands & feet all have the same weight so can be interchangeable.

Meta Armor Perks

The following are the mandatory perks you want to be looking for, early in your journey this will help you decide which pieces of armor to keep where later on you will have specific builds you are working towards

Enchanted Ward is the most important armor perk you want to be looking for on each of your armor pieces as it will offer the widest range of flat damage protection against all areas in Aeternum

Refreshing is an important armor perk for reducing your abilities cooldowns, refreshing has a maximum of 4 stacks.

Health works as it says and increases your health by a % based on your gear score, the higher your Constitution the more effective this perk is, this is a good option when you already have enchanted ward, refreshing cap and the armor perks your armor requires.

Conditioning can be a good perk in certain situations, there are a physical and elemental conditioning for each damage type, usually protects you better for consistent damage like a burn. This protection goes towards your abs cap which is in the same bucket as armor gems which is capped at 50% protection.

As a tank or solo open world slash conditioning can be nice as most trash mobs do slash damage.

New World Artifacts

There are many artifacts in New World but the following are the main ones you will be using in your journey.

Featherweight

Featherweight is a great artifact for all weight classes as it is weightless while still providing the same protection as a light chest piece it allows you to run higher weights on other pieces for a higher overall protection, this can be a great option for casual dungeon runners to run featherweight chest with 2 frigid dawn pieces greatly increasing your survivability.

Attuned Leather Pants

Arguably the best artifact in the game giving you extra stats in all areas allowing you to have higher build diversity and higher over all dps / survivability

Void Darkplate

One of the best options for all medium and heavy sets for those of you that want some extra protection :)

Noteable Armor Sets

There are many different armor sets to be found and used in new world, with that in mind below are some of the easiest / best options for you.

Azoth Crystal

This is one of the most diverse sets of armor as is comes in Light, Medium & Heavy, it comes base with 2 of the most useful perks and can have either a weapon perk , health or conditioning added to it as required.

Frigid Dawn

Frigid dawn pieces are some of the best heavy armor items in the game as it doubles up on enchanted ward and elemental protection, this can either be used in a featherweight light set or a full heavy set. This item is obtained from glacial tarn dungeon or crafting with Materia.

Crafted / Bought Armor

If there is something specific you need that is not on a drop table or you want easily you can always craft or buy items from other players/ trade post with the perks you require.

Nimble Coat

Arguably the best artifact for Rapier players & Healers due to its huge cooldown reduction.

Top Tier Armor

Hoplite armor is from the new raid, this armor is going to be the best you can get without crafting, as you can see the perks meet our mandatory perks and the our improvement is the gear score and stat points.