New World Weapon Mastery Guide Part 2 – Musket

Welcome to part TWO of the Weapon Master guides that I’m putting together for Amazon’s new MMO, New World. MGN was lucky enough to be invited to the closed beta for the game, and as such, I’ve gotten some hands-on experience with the weapon mastery system. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, essentially the more that you use a specific weapon type, the more points you can allocate to that weapon’s two skill trees. And now we’re tackling the Musket!

You will not be able to select every single skill and passive, this is where the difference in characters lies, and where your choice as a player comes in. To that end, we’re going to go over every weapon’s skill tree, so that those who are excited about the game’s launch and would like to plan out their character ahead of time will be able to do so. And if you’re just curious about a weapon type that you haven’t tried out a lot either, well, you can get a sneak peek at the skills and passives that are aligned with that particular weapon.

Over the course of the series, we’ll be looking at every weapon type that is available and how to accentuate them with your statistical decisions. So, if we haven’t covered your preferred weapon or character archetype yet, fear not! I’m going to do them all!

Okay, so let’s get started with the Musket weapon specifics. If you’re wondering what stat attributes you’ll need to focus on to make the most of your Musket-wielding character, you’ll benefit most from Dexterity but also your Intelligence stat will contribute to your weapon performance as well, and it’s never a bad idea to grab a few points in Constitution, in case something gets close enough to inflict harm – you don’t want to be taken out in one shot!

So, those are where your should focus your attribute points, but as far as play-style goes, you have a few different options. I say you have a few different options because Muskets can be played dramatically different depending on what you want to do with your other weapon slot. If you’re a melee-focused character, and you want to be on top of your enemies and in the thick of it, Muskets make for a great additional weapon choice.

Why? Because you can use the range in your Musket to “Pull” mobs to yourself before swapping to your main weapon once the mobs have come close enough to be affected by your follow-up AoE attacks. Shoot a bunch of different mobs to pull them with your Musket, without the need to invest in the weapon or its associated statistics because that’s not where your focus or damage is coming from – it’s just there for the utility.

The other option is to utilize the trapping and sharpshooting benefits as your main damage-dealing source. Set traps to stop mobs getting too close and inflicting damage on your squishy ranged self, and follow up with high-damage headshots. This method requires a bit more practice in terms of dodging, timing reloads, and aiming, than the alternative in using Muskets simply to pull for your melee character, but it is some of the most satisfying and fun gameplay to be had in New World.

Like every weapon mastery, the Musket is broken up into two trees which are pretty functionally different, but unlike some other weapons, work well in unison. So don’t feel like you’re gimping your character by investing in a little of both, rather than rushing through one tree to get to the later skills. The leftmost tree is referred to as “Sharpshooter” and focuses on, as the name suggests, taking single shots for the most damage as possible. The rightmost tree is referred to as “Trapper” and this tree is focused on trapping foes and just crowd control in general – very beneficial to keeping you alive whilst lining up shots.

We’re going to take a look at the active abilities of the Sharpshooter skill tree first, and then the augmentations that you can select along with those actives, then the passive abilities that you can pick up along the way, before swapping over to Trapper, and doing the same:

Sharpshooter

Active Skill 1: Power Shot

Overload musket with gun powder, causing the next shot to deal 150.0% weapon damage.

Cooldown: 15 seconds


Power Shot Augments:

Initial Engagement

When you hit with power shot, gain Empower, causing attacks to deal an additional 10.0% damage for 5.0 seconds.



First Blood

10.0% additional damage to targets with full health.



Bullseye

Power Shot headshots reduce Power Shot’s cooldown by 15.0%.


Active Skill 2: Powder Burn

Overload musket with gun powder, causing the next shot to deal 110.0% weapon damage and cause burn status effect for the next 9.0 seconds.

Cooldown: 15 Seconds


Powder Shot Augments:

Backdraft

Backdraft

Standard musket shots deal 12.0% additional damage when the target is on fire.



Chronic Trauma

If Powder Burn lands a headshot, extend the burn duration to 13.0 seconds.


Active Skill 3: Shooter’s Stance

Enter a shooting aim stance to enhance shooting performance – shots deal 100.0% weapon damage. Mobility is reduced to zero and reload time is reduced by 75%. Mode will automatically exit after three shots are taken.

Cooldown: 20 seconds


Shooter’s Stance Augments:

Shoot More

Shots fired before automatic exit increased to five.



Marksman

If 3 consecutive shots hit the same target, reduce cooldown of all other Musket skills by 25.0%


Trapper

Active Skill 1: Traps

Throw a trap that lasts for 20 seconds, and when triggered, causes an enemy to be rooted for 3.0 seconds.

Cooldown: 20 seconds


Traps Augments:

Trapped Damage

Traps apply Rend to the target – increasing their damage taken by 20.0% for 3.0 seconds.



Double Trap

Have two active traps.



Scent of Blood

Regenerate 100.0% of weapon damage done as health, when dealing damage to wrapped targets.


Active Skill 2: Stopping Power

Overload musket with gun powder, causing the next shot taken to do 120.0% weapon damage, staggering the target and knocking them back 3.0 meters.

Cooldown: 18 Seconds


Stopping Power Augments:

Lasting Impression

Targets hit with Stopping Power are exhausted, losing 10.0% Stamina regeneration for 8.0 seconds.



Supplementary Repulsion

Targets hit with Stopping Power are slowed by 10.0% for 8.0 seconds.


Active Skill 3: Sticky Bomb

A bomb that can be thrown short-range that will stick to anything it makes contact with.

After 3.0 seconds the sticky bomb will explode, dealing 175.0% weapon damage to targets within 3.0 meters of the explosion.

Cooldown: 20 Seconds


Sticky Bomb Augments:

(Cool guys don’t look at explosions, BTW.)

Unflinching Walk

Sticky Bomb grants the player 40.0 Stamina when it deals damage with an explosion.





Sticky Slow

Direct contract with the Sticky Bomb projectile causes the target to be slowed by 15.0% for 3.0 seconds.


Passives

Critical Reload:

Landing three headshots within 5.0 seconds of each other grants an instant reload.



Called Shot

Increase Musket damage by 5.0% if you have aimed down the sight for more than 3.0 seconds before shooting.



Greater Accuracy

Accuracy penalty whilst firing from the hip is removed.



Ballistic Advantage

Removes damage fall off from standard musket shots on targets more than 50.0 meters away.



Called Shot Resupply

Standard attack headshots reduce all musket skills cooldowns by 10.0%.



Heightened Precision

While aiming down the sight, all successful hits with your musket grant a 2.5% damage increase, stacking.

This ends when the player stops aiming down the sight or 5.0 seconds passes without the player shooting.



Hit Your Mark

Increased headshot and critical hit damage to targets further away. The longer the distance, the more the bonus, up to a max of 15.0% at 100.0 meters away.



Empowering Headshot

On successful headshot, grant empower, increasing musket shot’s damage by 10.0% for 5.0 seconds.



Sniper

Adds an option to zoom 3x down the side with all musket aimed shots. Players can zoom in and out with an assigned key. Headshot damage is also increased by 15.0%.



Weakened Defence

Increase the Stamina damage from all standard shots dealt to enemies whilst they are blocking by 50.0 and deal 10.0% armour penetration to targets that aren’t blocking.



Hustle

After a hit, gain haste, increasing your movement speed for 3.0 seconds.



Energy Burst

Attacking a target that is debuffed restores 5.0 of your stamina.



Empowering Weakness

Hitting a target that is debuffed increases your damage by 5.0% for 5.0 seconds.



Tactical Reload

Dodging an attack reloads your musket.

Cooldown: 6 Seconds



Kick ’em When They’re Down

Deal an extra 10.0% damage to targets who are either slowed, rooted, or stunned.



Salt On The Wounds

Damage increased by 10.0% to enemies with below 30.0% health.



Back It Up

Walking or strafing movement speed is increased by 10.0% when an enemy is within 8.0 meters.



Lethal Combo

Increase musket shot damage by 20.0% against targets affected by any trapper skill tree status effect.



Closing

That just about wraps things up for our overview of the Musket mastery for Amazon’s new MMO, New World. We hope that you’ve found the information useful in planning out your character and hope to see you online! If you have any suggestions or comments, we’d love to hear from you on the MGN.gg blog, our YouTube channel, of course, the new MGN Twitter @MGN_TV, and our Discord – links for all of which can be found within the description of the video overview.


Read Next:

New World Weapon Mastery Guide Part 3 – Ice Gauntlet

Credits

ProgramFounding Writers
AuthorLuke Cowling
YouTuberLuke Cowling
PublisherMGN
GameNew World

Leave a Comment