Best New World Musket Builds for PvP and PvE

The Musket is one of the 11 weapons available in the New World. One of the Musket’s primary characteristics is dexterity and intelligence. It is a powerful weapon that can help you level up quickly in PvP and solo. In this guide, we’ll be discussing the New World Best Musket Builds.

Best Musket Weapon Combinations

Musket is one of the most versatile weapons in New World. It has a unique skill tree, and once it’s combined with a complimentary weapon, it becomes sick!

Following are our top 4 musket weapon combos that you must try to enhance your playing experience.

Hatchet: Combining Musket and Hatchet allows you to have intense melee damage with the self-healing Berserk. It also allows you to provide your enemies with ranged damage.
Spear: Combing Musket with a Spear allows you to create big damage from range and enables you to crowd control nearby enemies. However, it is to be kept in mind that this combo does not work great against Lost and Angry-Earth types of enemies.
Bow: This Musket combination allows you to use a bow and Musket back to back. This means after you’ve fired your shot, you can quickly switch to the bow and continue your volley.
Rapier: Having a rapier allows you to properly utilize your intelligence attribute points. It also partially lets you convert the damage you’ve received into elemental with the help of socketing gems in your weapons. However, it is weak when it comes to area effect damage.

Musket Attribute Scaling

The Musket Primarily Scales with Dexterity and secondarily with Intelligence

You can invest in both of these if you like to, as it’ll help with the Musket’s basic attacks and special abilities. However, we recommend you have a tilt toward Dexterity when you’re thinking of investing between one of them.

Having more points towards Dexterity helps you with damage and survivability, and it also guarantees a critical strike after dodge rolls.

Best Perks for Musket

Various perks on your gear items further amplify the abilities of your musket builds. Below we have suggested some perks you should be on the lookout for as the best ones to have on your gear if you are using a Musket as a weapon

Crippling Powder Burn: Powder burn is one of the best skills to have for Musket users and this perk allows you to slow down enemies hit with Powder Burn for 5s.

Empowering Shooter’s Stance: This perk is a must-have for PvE if you are playing in a group. Hitting enemies with Shooter’s Stance grants you Empower, further increasing your damage.

Accelerating Traps: You gain a small movement speed bonus whenever you deploy a trap. Useful to get out of a sticky situation in PvE and PvP.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Musket has many strengths and weaknesses that players must know before opting for this weapon.

For Strengths, the Musket is a great weapon when it comes to dishing out powerful headshots. This enables single shot kills and fast encounters.

Musket also provides extreme range, which adds to the shooting abilities. It is also best against Corrupted and Beast enemies.

For Weaknesses, must have good aim to execute the powerful headshots the Musket is capable of doing. It also requires patience as the reload speed is too slow and sometimes can put you in danger.

It’s also weak against Angry-Earth and Lost enemies. Furthermore, it can sometimes obstruct vision and cover up player name plates.

Musket and Hatchet PVP Build

This build focuses on providing players with a ranged melee attack and providing the self-healing Berserk.

Best Musket Masteries

Powder Burn

Powder Burn is required if you choose the Musket build. This ability increases the damage of attacks by 20% for nine seconds. It also overloads the musket, enabling it to deal 100% weapon damage.

Passives to Unlock in Order

Backdraft: Deals 12% additional damage to enemies that are on fire.
Chronic Trauma: If Powder Burn is a Headshot, extend Burn duration for 13 seconds.

Stopping Power

Stopping Power enables to overload musket with gun powder, causing the next shot to deal 120% Weapon Damage, staggering target and knocking them back 3 meters.

Passives to Unlock in Order

Lasting Impression: Targets hit with Stopping Power are Exhausted, reducing stamina regeneration speed by 10% for 8 seconds.
Supplementary Repulsion: Targets hit with Stopping Power are slowed by 10% for 8 seconds.

Sticky Bomb

A sticky bomb throws a short-range bomb that sticks to anything it makes contact with. Detonation will occur 3 seconds after impact dealing 235% weapon damage to all targets within 3m.

General Passives

To support the abilities mentioned above, you must have the following passives:

Called Shot: Increase Musket damage by 5% if aimed down sight for more than 3 seconds.
Critical Reload: Landing 3 Headshots within 10 seconds of each other grants an instant reload.
Greater Accuracy: Accuracy penalty while hip firing removed
Ballistic Advantage: Removes damage Fall off from standard musket shots on targets more than 50 meters away.
Sniper: Adds an optional 3x zoom view for all musket aim shots. Use Mouse Wheel up and down to zoom in and out while aiming. It also grants a 15% damage increase to all Headshots.
Hit Your Mark: Increased Headshot and Critical hit damage to target further away from the player. For a max of 15% at up to 100 meters away.
Heightened Precision: While aiming, successful hits with a musket grant a stackable 2.5% damage increase. This effect ends when the player stops aiming down sight or more than 5 seconds pass between shots (Max 6 stacks).
Called Shot Resupply: Standard attack headshots reduce all musket ability cooldowns by 10%.
Salt On The Wounds: +10% increased damage to targets below 30% health.
Weakened Defense: Increases the stamina damage from routine shots dealt with enemies blocking with shields by 50 and deal 10% of Armor Penetration to targets that aren’t blocking with a shield.
Hustle: After a Dodge, gain Haste, increasing movement speed by 10% for 3 seconds.
Tactical reload: Dodging Reloads the musket. (Can only trigger once every three seconds)

Best Hatchet Masteries

Feral Rush

A feral rush is a sprinting melee attack that causes the player to leap forward, hitting twice—the first hit deals 115% weapon damage, and the second deals 130% weapon damage.

Passives to Unlock in Order

Dispatch: If the target is below 30% health, Feral Rush deals 20% more damage.
Crippling Strikes: If Feral Rush hits a target in the back, it causes Root, immobilizing the target for 2 seconds.

Berserk

This skill lets you trigger a Berserk Mode increases all attack damage by 20% while active. Berserk Mode will be active for 15 seconds.

Passives to Unlock in Order

The Hunt: Increases movement speed by 20% when Berserk is in Active Mode.
Berserking Refresh: While Berserk is active, gain a portion of your health back every 5 seconds.
Berserking Purge: Triggering Berserk removes all Crowd Control effects (Stuns, Slows, Roots) from the player.
Uninterruptable Berserk: Attacks are uninterruptible, and you can’t be staggered.

Infected Throw

This skill throws an ax that deals with 150% weapon damage, triggers Disease, and weakens the target for 10 seconds.

Mortal Power: Increases the duration of Disease and Weaken effects to 15 seconds on targets below 30% Health.
Aerial Transmission: 3-meter Disease AOE impact for 6 seconds.

General Passives

To support the abilities mentioned above, you must have the following passives:

Enraged Strikes: If the target is below 30% health, Light and Heavy attacks deal 20% more damage.
Against All Odds: Increase base damage by 10% for every enemy within 5 meters of the player.
Frenzied Purge: When hitting an enemy while your health is below 30%: Remove all Bleed, Burn, and Poison DoT effects from the player.
Fortifying Strikes: Hitting the same target with three light attacks grants Fortify, increasing damage absorption by 15% for 3 seconds.
Critical Throw: Thrown axes can now trigger headshots or random critical hits. It also increases the critical hit chance of all attacks by 5%.
Rejuvenating Crits: Successful Critical Hits with Light Attacks or Aimed Throws regenerate 10 Stamina
Exploitation: All attacks deal 15% additional damage to targets with an active debuff.

Attributes Distribution

Below are the number of points that you will contribute among the different attributes:

Strength: 59
Dexterity: 312
Intelligence: 5
Focus: 5
Constitution: 67

Musket and Hatchet PvE Build

This Musket and Hatchet build focuses on the PvE aspect of new World. It helps you adjust and use your weapons to meet changing challenges.

Best Musket Masteries

Powder Burn

Powder Burn is required if you choose the Musket build. This ability increases the damage of attacks by 20% for nine seconds. It also overloads the musket, enabling it to deal 100% weapon damage.

Passives to Unlock in Order

Backdraft: Deals 12% additional damage to enemies that are on fire.
Chronic Trauma: If Powder Burn is a Headshot, extend Burn duration for 13 seconds.

Shooter’s Stance

The Player enters a shooting aim stance to enhance shooting performance. Shots deal 100% weapon damage. While instance, mobility is reduced to zero, and reload time is reduced by 75%. Mode will exit after three shots.

Passives to Unlock in Order

Shoot More: Shots fired before exiting stance increased to five.

Sticky Bomb

A sticky bomb throws a short-range bomb that sticks to anything it makes contact with. Detonation will occur 3 seconds after impact dealing 235% weapon damage to all targets within 3m.

Passives to Unlock in Order

Unflinching Walk: Sticky bomb grants players 40 stamina when it deals damage with an explosion.
Slow: Direct hits with the Sticky Bomb cause the target to be Slowed by 15% for 3 seconds.

General Passives

To support the abilities mentioned above, you must have the following passives:

Critical Reload: Landing 3 Headshots within 10 seconds of each other grants an instant reload.
Ballistic Advantage: Removes damage Fall off from standard musket shots on targets more than 50 meters away.
Hit Your Mark: Increased Headshot and Critical hit damage to target further away from the player. For a max of 15% at up to 100 meters away.
Sniper: Adds an optional 3x zoom view for all musket aim shots. Use Mouse Wheel up and down to zoom in and out while aiming. It also grants a 15% damage increase to all Headshots.
Called Shot: Increase Musket damage by 5% if aimed down sight for more than 3 seconds.
Empowering Headshot: On successful headshot, Grant Empower, increasing all Musket shot’s damage by 10% for 5 seconds.
Weakened Defense: Increases the stamina damage from routine shots dealt with enemies blocking with shields by 50 and deal 10% of Armor Penetration to targets that aren’t blocking with a shield.
Empowering Weakness: Hitting a target with an active debuff triggers Empower, increasing the player’s damage by 5% for 5 seconds.
Tactical reload: Dodging Reloads the musket. (Can only trigger once every three seconds)
Kick ‘Em When They’re Down: Deal 10% extra damage to targets with an active crowd control effect. (Slow, Root, Stun)

Best Hatchet Masteries

Feral Rush

A feral rush is a sprinting melee attack that causes the player to leap forward, hitting twice—the first hit deals 115% weapon damage, and the second deals 130% weapon damage.

Passives to Unlock in Order

Dispatch: If the target is below 30% health, Feral Rush deals 20% more damage.
Crippling Strikes: If Feral Rush hits a target in the back, it causes Root, immobilizing the target for 2 seconds.

Berserk

This skill lets you trigger a Berserk Mode increases all attack damage by 20% while active. Berserk Mode will be active for 15 seconds.

Passives to Unlock in Order

The Hunt: Increases movement speed by 20% when Berserk is in Active Mode.
Berserking Refresh: While Berserk is active, gain a portion of your health back every 5 seconds.
Berserking Purge: Triggering Berserk removes all Crowd Control effects (Stuns, Slows, Roots) from the player.
Uninterruptable Berserk: Attacks are uninterruptible, and you can’t be staggered.

Rending Throw

Throw an ax dealing 110% weapon damage and apply Rend, reducing the target’s damage absorption by 10% for 10 seconds.

Passives to Unlock in Order

Targeted: Impact: Rend increased to 15% if further than 8 meters from the target.
Opportunistic: Rending Throw deals an additional 20% damage if the target already has an active Debuff.

General Passives

To support the abilities mentioned above, you must have the following passives:

Enraged Strikes: If the target is below 30% health, Light and Heavy attacks deal 20% more damage.
Against All Odds: Increase base damage by 10% for every enemy within 5 meters of the player.
Frenzied Purge: When hitting an enemy while your health is below 30%: Remove all Bleed, Burn, and Poison DoT effects from the player.
Accumulated Power: After three successful light attacks against the same target: gain Empower, granting a 30% damage increase for 3 seconds or until the next attack.
Defy Death: Upon receiving lethal damage, you will avoid death and instead be reduced to 50 HP while gaining invulnerability for 4 seconds. Cooldown: 60 seconds.
Critical Throw: Thrown axes can now trigger headshots or random critical hits. It also increases the critical hit chance of all attacks by 5%.
Exploitation: All attacks deal 15% additional damage to targets with an active debuff.
Adrenaline Rush: Dodging within 2 seconds of triggering an ability consumes 25% less stamina.

Attributes Distribution

Below are the number of points that you will contribute among the different attributes:

Strength: 50
Dexterity: 365
Intelligence: 5
Focus: 5
Constitution: 50

Musket and Rapier PvE Build

This build ensures player survival against extremely dangerous attacks. It especially helps you when you encounter many enemies at once.

Best Musket Masteries

Powder Burn

Powder Burn is required if you choose the Musket build. This ability increases the damage of attacks by 20% for nine seconds. It also overloads the musket, enabling it to deal 100% weapon damage.

Passives to Unlock in Order

Backdraft: Deals 12% additional damage to enemies that are on fire.
Chronic Trauma: If Powder Burn is a Headshot, extend Burn duration for 13 seconds.

Power Shot

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

Stopping Power

Overload your musket with gun powder, causing the next shot to deal 120.0% weapon damage, staggering the target and knocking them back 3.0m.

Passives to Unlock in Order

Lasting Impression: Targets hit with Stopping Power are Exhausted, reducing stamina regeneration speed by 10% for 8 seconds.
Supplementary Repulsion: Targets hit with Stopping Power are slowed by 10% for 8 seconds.

General Passives

To support the abilities mentioned above, you must have the following passives:

Called Shot: Increase Musket damage by 5% if aimed down sight for more than 3 seconds.
Empowering Headshot: On successful headshot: Grant Empower, increasing all Musket shot’s damage by 10% for 5 seconds.
Called Shot Resupply: Standard attack headshots reduce all musket ability cooldowns by 10%
Heightened Precision: While aiming, successful hits with a musket grant a stackable 2.5% damage. This effect ends when a player stops aiming down sight for more than 5 seconds between shots. (Max 6 stack)
Sniper: Adds an optional 3x zoom view for all musket aim shots. Use Mouse Wheel up and down to zoom in and out while aiming. It also grants a 15% damage increase to all Headshots.
Hit Your Mark: Increased Headshot and Critical hit damage to target the further the target is away from the player, for a max of 15% at up to 100 meters away. Do not forgo damage fall off.
Ballistic Advantage: Removes damage Fall off from standard musket shots on targets more than 50 meters away.

Best Rapier Masteries

Tondo

This ability lets slash so quickly that it extends the reach of your blade up to 5m. This strike deals 50% weapon damage and applies a bleed to deal an additional 85% weapon damage over 12s. This bleed can stack up to 3 times, refreshing previous applications.

Passives to Unlock in Order

Thirst For Blood: When applying the first bleed stack to an opponent, this cooldown is reduced by 10%.
And Again: If you hit only one target, even on a blocked hit, this cooldown is reduced by 25%
Spacing: Improve your direct damage from Tondo by 100% if you are 4m away from your target or more.

Flourish and Finish

Flourish performs an attack, knocking back enemies. Pressing ‘Light Attack’ at the end of Flourish will continue this ability by automatically performing ‘Finish.’ Finish lunges forward, consuming all Rapier bleeds on any target hit, immediately dealing 110% of their damage.

Passives to Unlock in Order

With Flair: Gain Grit on both Flourish and Finish.
Swagger: +20 stamina when successfully hitting a target with Finish
Fuel: Each tick of damage from Tondo’s bleed reduces the cooldown of this ability by 3.5%.
Bloody End: Finish deals 150% of the Rapier’s bleed damage instead of only 110%.

Fleche

It leaves the ground lunging forward for 10m in a stabbing motion piercing through enemies dealing 145% damage.

Passives to Unlock in Order

Quick Lunge: Killing with this ability reduces its cooldown by 80%.
Backside: After performing Fleche, your next critical strike attack will increase its damage by 15%. It lasts for 5 seconds
Interruption: Pressing ‘Light Attack’ during Fleche will stop and perform a static, continuation attack dealing 115% damage.

General Passives

To support the abilities mentioned above, you must have the following passives:

Refreshing Strikes: Reduce all cooldowns by 1% on any hit.
Unerring: Deal 5% more damage to targets with a Rapier bleed.
Engarde: Deal 10% more damage when your target has greater than 50% health.
Light Edge: Increase damage from both middle swipe attacks in the light attack chain by 8%.
Desperation: Deal 10% more damage when your stamina is below 40%.
Controlled Breathing:+3 stamina on any hit.

Attributes Distribution

Below are the number of points that you will contribute among the different attributes:

Strength: 5
Dexterity: 150
Intelligence: 5
Focus: 5
Constitution: 50

Musket and Sword PVP Build

Combining a Musket and a Sword provides tons of CC and Zoning potential. It also provides players with a solid range that is helpful in outposts and wars.

Best Musket Masteries

Powder Burn

Powder Burn is required if you choose the Musket build. This ability increases the damage of attacks by 20% for nine seconds. It also overloads the musket, enabling it to deal 100% weapon damage.

Passives to Unlock in Order

Backdraft: Deals 12% additional damage to enemies that are on fire.

Traps

Deploys trap that lasts for 20 seconds. When triggered, it causes the target to be Rooted, immobilizing it for 3 seconds.

Passives to Unlock in Order

Trapped Damage: Traps apply Rend to target, increasing damage to trapped targets by 20% for 3 seconds.
Scent of Blood: Regen 100% of weapon damage done as health when dealing damage to trapped targets.
Double Trap: Ability to have two active traps.

Sticky Bomb

A sticky bomb throws a short-range bomb that sticks to anything it makes contact with. Detonation will occur 3 seconds after impact dealing 235% weapon damage to all targets within 3m.

Passives to Unlock in Order

Unflinching Walk: Sticky bomb grants players 40 stamina when it deals damage with an explosion.
Sticky Slow: Direct hits with the Sticky Bomb cause the target to be Slowed by 15% for 3 seconds.

General Passives

To support the abilities mentioned above, you must have the following passives:

Ballistic Advantage: Removes damage Fall off from standard musket shots on targets more than 50 meters away.
Called Shot Resupply: Standard attack headshots reduce all musket ability cooldowns by 10%.
Weakened Defense: Increases the stamina damage from routine shots dealt with enemies blocking with shields by 50 and deal 10% of Armor Penetration to targets that aren’t blocking with a shield.
Salt On The Wounds: +10% increased damage to targets below 30% health.
Hustle: After a Dodge: Gain Haste, increasing movement speed by 10% for 3 seconds.
Empowering Weakness: Hitting a target with an active debuff triggers Empower, increasing the player’s damage by 5% for 5 seconds.
Tactical Reload: Dodging Reloads the musket. (Can only trigger once every three seconds)
Kick ‘Em When They’re Down: Deal 10% extra damage to targets with an active crowd control effect. (Slow, Root, Stun)
Lethal Combo: Increases Musket Damage by 20% against targets affected by Trapper Tree status effect.

Best Sword Masteries

Leaping Strike

This skill enables leap for 4 meters and deals 150% weapon damage.

Passives to Unlock in Order

Final Strike: If you hit a foe below 30% health, deal 50% more damage
Cowardly Punishment: If Leaping Strike hits a target in the back, it inflicts a 50% slow for 8s.

Shield Bash

This skill deals 50% weapon damage and stuns foes in front of you for 2s.

Passives to Unlock in Order

Intimidating Bash: Shield bash causes greatly increased threat and 100% more damage.
Concussive Bash: Shield Bash stun duration increased by 1s

Defiant Stance

This skill reduces the incoming base damage for attackers for 8sc by 30%.

Passives to Unlock in Order

Final Count Down: If your health is above 50% damage reduction, increase by 20%
Restoration: Gain 15% of your max health when Defiant Stance ends.

General Passives

To support the abilities mentioned above, you must have the following passives:

Precision: Swords’ critical strike chance increased by 10%.
Empowered Stab: Successfull Heavy Attack grants you 30% Empower for 5 seconds (Empower increases damage).
Achilles Heel: The final attack in your light attack chain causes a 20% Slow for 2 seconds (Slow reduces movement speed).
Sturdy Shield: Shields provide 15% more armor.
Elemental Resistance: Reduce damage from all magical types by 10%.
Final Blow: The 3rd in your light attack combo deals 15% more damage and generates more threat.
Sturdy Grip: Stamina damage is reduced by 15% when blocking a melee attack with a shield.
Defensive Formation: While blocking, reduce damage to all other allies within 2 meters by 30%.
Defensive Training: When you block an attack, gain 10% Fortify for 5 seconds.
Recuperation: All incoming healing and regeneration increased by 10%.

Attributes Distribution

Below are the number of points that you will contribute among the different attributes:

Strength: 5
Dexterity: 150
Intelligence: 5
Focus: 5
Constitution: 50