New World Weapon Mastery Guide Part 6 – The Bow

You cannot roleplay as Thranduil the Elvenking while wielding an AK-47, thankfully, New World features the mainstay of MMORPG ranged weapons, the bow and arrow. Strictly speaking, given the choice between the two in a fight, I’m probably going to take the assault rifle. However, bows are a mainstay in fantasy games for a reason: they’re cool and they’re satisfying as hell to use. Something about accounting for the drop in an arrow’s flight to hit a far-away enemy’s skull is incredibly rewarding. Skyrim achieves this really well, but that game isn’t based in a setting that’s as technologically advanced as the New World, so how does the weapon fit? We’ll get into that.

The intention of these guides is to allow the planners among us to have access to all the information you might need to, well, plan out your character. MGN was lucky enough to be invited to the closed beta for New World, and consequently, we’ve had the opportunity to get some hands-on experience with the weapon mastery system and the weapons themselves.

The weapon mastery system rewards players for repeatedly using the same weapon, allowing them to pick perks from the two skills assigned to that particular weapon. Now whilst you can pick a lot of these skills, augments, and passives, you cannot pick them all. Therein lies the difference between your bow-wielding character and the next person’s. Using these guides, you can plan out and get a feel for what you can expect when leveling up when New World launches.

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 type or character archetype yet, fear not! I’m going to do them all!

Leap into action with the Skirmisher skill tree!

Especially with bows, your character will benefit solely from their Dexterity stat when it comes to bow performance. You will gain no bonus from having any points in Strength or Intelligence. So, if you’re looking to have the bow as your secondary or pulling weapon, perhaps look into a weapon that also benefits from Dexterity like the Spear or swords. Pairing the Bow with a Spear makes a lot of sense, both focus on Dexterity and you can use your bow to pull mobs toward yourself before swapping to the Spear for close combat. This applies to swords as well, but the combination is less min-maxed, with the latter needing points in Strength.

Much like every other weapon in the game, the two Bow skill trees offer quite varied methods of play, and which you prefer and invest in entirely depends on the role you assign your bow to. If you want to focus on dealing ranged damage, and the bow is your main method, then the rightmost “Hunter” tree is for you. This focuses on making the bow as potent in DPS as possible. The leftmost tree will suit as a secondary or pulling weapon more, as this tree focuses on utility in mobility, debuffs, and DOTS, and is referred to as “Skirmisher”.

We’re going to take a look at the active abilities of the Skirmisher skill tree first, and then the augmentations that you can select along with those actives, before swapping over to the Hunter tree and doing the same, and then going over the passives for both of those trees:

Skirmisher


Active Skill 1: Evade Shot

Leap back 5.0 meters and shoot an arrow that deals 125.0% weapon damage.

Cooldown: 15 Seconds


Evade Shot Augments:

Evasive Knockback

Evade Shot now knocks the target hit back by 2.0 meters.



Go the Distance

Evade Shot now grants haste for 5.0 seconds, improving movement speed by 15.0%.


Active Skill 2: Rain of Arrows

Shoot a wide array of 7 arrows that deal 150.0% weapon damage.

Cooldown: 25 Seconds


Rain of Arrows Augments:

Barbed Arrows

Rain of Arrows now causes bleed, dealing 85.0% weapon damage over 12.0 seconds. Can stack up to three arrows.



Hooked Arrows

Rain of Arrows now causes a 15.0% slow to targets hit for 4.0 seconds.


Active Skill 3: Poison Shot

Shoot a poisoned arrow at a target enemy or area that creates a 3.0 meter AoE of poison that lasts for 6 seconds. Foes inside or entering are dealt 10.0% weapon damage per second for 20.0 seconds.

Cooldown: 35 Seconds


Poison Shot Augments:

Infected Arrows

Poison Shot damage increased to 12.0% weapon damage per tick.



Direct Hit

Directly hitting an enemy, rather than an area, causes the foe hit to take 200.0% more poison damage.


Hunter


Active Skill 1: Penetrating Shot

Shoot an arrow that deals 150.0% weapon damage that can collateral targets for 100 meters.

Cooldown: 18 Seconds


Penetrating Shot Augments:

Blood Soaked Arrow

Damage increased by 10.0% for each target hit up to 50.0%.



Deep Strike

Damage increased by 20.0% against targets more than 20.0 meters away.


Active Skill 2: Splinter Shot

Shoot an arrow 10.0 meters, before splitting into three shafts covering an area and dealing 50.0% weapon damage each.

Cooldown: 22 Seconds


Splinter Shot Augments:

Scatter Shot

Splinter into 5 arrows instead of 3.



Calculated

Reduce cooldown per shaft landed against a foe by 10.0%.


Active Skill 3: Rapid Shot

Shoot three arrows quickly. The first two deal 100.0% weapon damage per shot. The last deals 125.0% weapon damage and knocks the foe back.

Cooldown: 20 Seconds


Rapid Shot Augments:

Rapid Accuracy

If all three arrows hit the same target, reduce Rapid Shot’s cooldown by half.



Final Blow

The last arrow deals an extra 25.0% damage.


Passives

Catch Me If You Can

If surrounded by three or more enemies within a 3.0-meter radius, gain 20.0% movement spend.



Evasive Tactics

Deal 20.0% more damage after successfully dodging an attack for 5.0 seconds.



Closing In

Hitting an enemy below 50.0% health reduces bow ability cooldowns by 5.0%.



Hunter’s Insight

Hitting a foe with any active debuff grants 5.0 stamina. (Doesn’t need to be your debuff.)



Archer’s Speed

Gain 10.0% movement speed for 5.0 seconds after swapping to your bow weapon slot.

Cooldown: 10 Seconds



Battle Precision

Your debuffs and DoTs last 20.0% longer.



Impale

Hitting a foe that is at 100.0% health, with any attack, causes them to be slowed by 10.0% for 2.0 seconds.



Dodge and Weave

After you successfully dodge an attack, gain 10.0% movement speed for 2.0 seconds.



Mark

Deal 10.0% more damage to foes suffer from any debuff, not including your own inflicted debuffs.



Knee Shot

Leg shots cause the target to be slowed by 10.0% for 2.0 seconds.



Long Range

Deal 20.0% more damage against foes further than 10.0 meters away.



Finishing Shot

Deal 20.0% more damage against enemies below 50.0% health.



Surprise Attack

Deal 20.0% more damage against foes that you haven’t damaged for 10.0 seconds or longer.



Hawkeye

Headshot are granted lifesteal. Heal for 10.0% of the damage done via headshots.



Aim True

Heavy attack arrows fly faster and deal 30.0% more damage.



Unbreakable Focus

Take 20.0% less damage whilst aiming.



Opening Strike

Heavy attacks do 20.0% more damage against enemies with full health.



Arrow Range

Increased range of arrow before gravity falloff by 100.0%.



Bullseye

Bow shots critical chance increased by 10.0%.



Concussion

When you land a headshot, deal 20.0% more damage with a chance of not consuming an arrow.



Closing

That just about wraps things up for our overview of the Bow mastery for Amazon’s new MMO, New World. We hope that you’ve found the information useful in planning out your character, and we 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 7 – War Hammer

Credits

ProgramFounding Writers
AuthorLuke Cowling
PublisherMGN
GameNew World

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