Robert Baratheon won the Seven Kingdoms by rocking up at the Trident and being the biggest dude with the biggest hammer there. So, if you want to do the same and simply dominate foes with your massive girth in New World, you’re in luck because part seven of the weapon guide series is here, and we’re going to cover the War Hammer. Grab your breastplate stretcher and get ready to plan your massive hammer-wielding New World character now.
If you’re unfamiliar with the series thus far, we’ve been going through each weapon mastery in Amazon’s new MMO game, New World. MGN was lucky enough to be invited to the closed beta for the game, and subsequently, we’ve put in some time getting to know the feel of the weapons within the game, and how they behave in general. The purpose of these guides is to allow players to have a keen understanding of how a particular weapon will operate within the game, and give you an opportunity to plan which skills, augments, and passives you’d like your character to focus on when the game launches. Specifically, this part will focus on the two-handed weapon, the war hammer.
Why is this important? Well, the weapon mastery system has two different skill trees that have quite varied playstyles. And while you’ll be able to get a lot of skills from both of those trees, you won’t be able to get them all. This picking and choosing between skills is what will set your hammer-wielding character apart from the next person’s, along with your gear, your stats, your secondary weapon, and things of that sort. You get the idea. You can’t have everything, so planning a build is key.
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!
When focusing on where to allocate your stat points and which attribute you should be focusing on with your gear choices, it’s important to remember that war hammers benefit solely from your Strength attribute, and will get no contribution from any other points. However, it’s never a bad idea to grab plenty of points in Constitution, especially if you’re going to play a melee character – which, naturally, your hammer-wielding warrior will be. You’re going to be in the thick of the fight, and you’re going to be getting aggro from more than one mob at a time, so you’ll want to be able to take a few hits without getting sent to the death screen.
As far as secondary weapons, I’d recommend sticking with a weapon that benefits highly, if not solely, from your Strength stat. This means that you don’t have to dilute your potential statistically by investing some points in Intelligence or Dexterity and somewhat gimping your potency.
As such I’m going to HIGHLY recommend pairing the war hammer with the hatchet as a secondary weapon. The two work great together for a few reasons:
- The hatchet provides a method of pulling mobs to yourself, with the option for multiple.
- You can apply debuffs and DoT effects whilst the mob and you travel from a pull.
- Hatchets also benefit solely from Strength, so there’s no diluting your stats.
- Hatchet skill trees provide access to cleanse and Stamina regen aplenty.
Like I mentioned earlier, the weapon mastery system is split into two skill trees. The leftmost for the war hammer is referred to as “Juggernaut” and focuses on the dealing and surviving of damage. The rightmost tree is referred to as “Crowd Crusher” and apart from having one of the coolest skill tree names, this focuses on crowd control effects like stunning, knockdown, and so on.
We’re going to take a look at the active abilities of the Juggernaut skill tree first, and then the augmentations that you can select along with those actives, before swapping over to the Crowd Crusher tree and doing the same, and then going over the passives for both of those trees:
Juggernaut
Active Skill 1: Armor Breaker
A powerful swing that ignores 35.0% of the foe’s armor and deals 140.0% weapon damage.
Cooldown: 12 Seconds
Armor Breaker Augments:
Indomitable
Makes the attack unstoppable and unblockable.
Lasting Trauma
Armor Breaker now causes rend, reducing the foe’s damage absorption by 15.0% for 10.0 seconds.
Opening Act
Increases Armor Breaker damage by 15.0% if the target is at full health.
Active Skill 2: Mighty Gavel
Overhead swinging attack where you leap forward and smash the hammer down for 160.0% weapon damage.
Cooldown: 22 Seconds
Mighty Gavel Augments:
Summary Judgement
Increased gavel damage by 20.0% against targets under 30.0% health.
Impact Fracture
Increased Stamina damage of the gavel by 25.0%.
Expedite
After connecting with the gavel, gain 30.0% more movement speed for 3.0 seconds.
Justice for All!
Pressing light attack during the gavel animation will cause a secondary follow-up smash.
Active Skill 3: Wrecking Ball
Strike the ground with your hammer and deal 120.0% weapon damage, knocking down the target.
Cooldown: 15 Seconds
Wrecking Ball Augments:
Hitting a target with wrecking ball grants you 20.0% damage resistance for 4.0 seconds.
Breathing Room
Turns wrecking ball into a 1.5 meter AoE attack.
Crowd Crusher
Active Skill 1: Clear Out
A wide-swinging attack that knocks enemies back 4.0 meters and deals 115.0% weapon damage.
Cooldown: 15 Seconds
Clear Out Augments:
Power Cleaner
Connecting with Clear Out now grants a 6.0 meter AoE buff to yourself and allies, increasing defence by 10.0% for 4.0 seconds.
Clean and Refreshed
Cooldown for Clear Out is reduced by 5.0% for each enemy hit with the swing.
Swing Away
Hitting with Clear Out grants you increased movement speed by 30.0% for 3.0 seconds.
Active Skill 2: Shockwave
Slam the ground with your hammer and inflict an AoE 2.0-second stun in a 3.0-meter radius from impact, dealing 80.0% weapon damage.
Cooldown: 20 Seconds
Shockwave Augments:
Frailty
Shockwave now inflicts weaken, decreasing damage dealt by foes by 10.0% for 10.0 seconds.
Meteoric Crater
Increases the shockwave radius to 4.0 meters.
Active Skill 3: Path of Destiny
Strike the ground and cause an eruption that travels forward and deals 110.0% damage to all enemies hit.
Path of Destiny Augments:
Seismic Waves
Path of Destiny now staggers all hit.
Stimulated Reduction
All abilities cooldowns are reduced by 5.0% for each enemy hit with Path of Destiny.
Passives
Hardened Steel
Heavy attacks are now unblockable and uninterruptible, gaining 20.0 damage reduction.
Epitome of Bonk
War Hammer basic attacks have 10.0% more armour penetration.
Exhaustive Attacks
All War Hammer abilities now reduce foes’ stamina regeneration by 15.0% for 5.0 seconds. This is capped and will not stack.
Quick Recovery
Cooldowns are reduced by 7% when landing a heavy attack.
Hammer Time
Heavy attacks grant 20.0% increased damage for 4.0 seconds.
Contemption
Heavy attacks deal 15.0% more damage against targets under 30.0% health.
Power Through Pain
Deal 35.0% more damage for 1.0 second after taking damage.
Acceleration
Connect with a light attack against an enemy with any active debuff reduces all War Hammer cooldowns by 7.0%.
Outnumbered
Damage absorption increased by 10.0% if 2 or more enemies are within 5.0 meters.
Facilitated Expedition
Attacking a target with any active debuff will increase your movement speed by 15.0% for 3.0 seconds.
Resurgence
After landing two light attacks with your hammer, reduce the length of your debuffs held by 25.0%
Cooldown: 5 Seconds
I Can Do This All Day
Reduce Stamina consumed when blocking melee attacks by 30.0%.
Guarded Sprint
Reduce damage taken by 10.0 while sprinting.
Concussive Impact
Targets that have your hammer-induced debuffs take 15.0% more damage from your attacks.
Prevailing Spirit
Crowd Crusher abilities gain 35.0% lifesteal.
Aftershock
Whenever you induce a CC effect with your hammer, the target is also slowed by 20.0% for 4.0 seconds.
Closing
That just about wraps things up for our overview of the War Hammer 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 8 – Life Staff
Credits
| Program | Founding Writers |
| Author | Luke Cowling |
| Publisher | MGN |
| Game | New World |
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