A Comprehensive Guide to Armor in New World

Introduction

In the world of Amazon’s New World MMORPG, armor plays a critical role in shaping your character’s abilities and performance during combat. It goes beyond mere protection, influencing your character’s agility and granting special bonuses through perks and gem slots. Our New World Armor Guide covers everything you need to know about this essential aspect of the game.

Tiers & Rarity

In New World, gear is categorized into different tiers and assigned gear scores. Each piece of gear, including armor, also comes with a level requirement based on its gear score. Here’s a breakdown of the tier levels and their corresponding level requirements:

• Tier 2: Level 1-19
• Tier 3: Level 20-39
• Tier 4: Level 40-59
• Tier 5: Level 60

Furthermore, it’s worth noting that higher rarity gear has a lower level requirement compared to lower rarity gear with the same gear score, making rare gear even more valuable.

Armor Rarities

In New World, armor comes in various rarities, following this progression:

• Common (Gray)
• Uncommon (Green)
• Rare (Blue)
• Epic (Purple)
• Gold (Legendary)

Each perk on your armor counts as a rarity point, including gem slots and attributes. A piece of armor can have a maximum of 5 rarity points, which classifies it as Legendary. The rarer the item, the higher its gear score will be within the respective tier range. Here’s the number of perks (rarity points) associated with each tier of rarity:

• Common: 0
• Uncommon: 2
• Rare: 3
• Epic: 4
• Legendary: 5

It’s important to note that a piece of gear can have either 1 or 2 attribute bonuses, and both count as 1 rarity point.

Gear Score

In New World, gear score significantly impacts your overall build strength. Gear score ranges vary depending on the gear tier:

• Tier II: Gear Score 100-299
• Tier III: Gear Score 250-399
• Tier IV: Gear Score 350-499
• Tier V: Gear Score 450-600

Using Umbral Shards, it’s possible to increase your gear score beyond 600. Umbral Shards can elevate your Gear Score from 590 to 625. For more information, refer to our Expertise Guide and Umbral Shard Guide.

Both physical and elemental resistances scale with the gear score, meaning higher gear scores result in heightened mitigations. Consult our Gear Score Guide for a comprehensive understanding of how Gear Score functions in New World.

Physical vs Elemental Armor

Armor in New World provides two types of resistance: Physical and Elemental. Physical resistance mitigates physical damage types like melee, ranged attacks, and axe throws. On the other hand, Elemental resistance mitigates magic damage types such as fire, void, and lightning.

Physical and elemental armor ratings consistently scale across all armor classes. Heavy armor offers the highest ratings for both physical and elemental resistance, while light armor provides the lowest. Additionally, light and medium armor offer advantages discussed under the “Armor Weight” section.

The amount of physical and elemental resistance each piece of armor provides is determined by a “prefix” system. For further details, refer to the “Prefix and Suffix Section” below.

Armor Weight

Armor weight is a fundamental mechanic in New World. It directly affects your mobility in combat. Every piece of armor in the game has an assigned weight, and equipping armor accumulates that weight. Here’s a summary of the benefits associated with each equip load:

• Light Load:
• Medium Load:
• Heavy Load:

Note that you can achieve balanced mitigations by mixing and matching armor pieces while staying within the lightweight category, allowing you to perform dodge rolls. Explore the chart below to understand the optimal pieces of gear for achieving maximum mitigation. Remember, shields do not provide any benefits unless you’re actively using them. Equipping a shield adds unnecessary weight unless you plan to incorporate the sword and shield into your build.

Equip Load Alternatives

Keep in mind that there are alternative combinations that can achieve a medium load of 22.9 weight, such as using a light helmet, heavy chest, light gloves, heavy pants, and medium boots. This setup slightly reduces your mitigation but offers flexibility in transitioning between light and medium builds based on available gear pieces.

Prefix and Suffix System

Every armor piece in New World comes with a specific name, consisting of a prefix and a possible suffix. These naming conventions provide valuable information about the armor, including the type of mitigations and attribute point bonuses it offers. For a full list of prefix and suffix bonuses, refer to our comprehensive Prefix and Suffix Guide.

For example, let’s examine the “Steel Heavy Boots of the Barbarian”:

The “Heavy” prefix indicates that these boots primarily provide physical resistance, with a secondary focus on elemental resistance. The “Barbarian” suffix indicates that the boots grant a primary attribute bonus of strength and a secondary attribute bonus of constitution. It’s essential to note that not all items have suffixes, but if present, they guarantee the primary attribute bonus and often include the secondary attribute bonus as well. Consult our Affix Chart for a comprehensive list of available affixes in New World.

How to Obtain Armor

In New World, armor can be obtained through various methods, including drops, crafting, the trading post, faction vendors, outpost rush armor crates, and special armor quests. Enemies in Aeternum drop armor with predetermined gear scores, tiers, and potential perks. Dropped armor may also feature empty gem slots that can be utilized for additional attribute points, while some armor may have pre-slotted gems.

Generally, defeating higher-tier mobs yields higher-tier gear with elevated gear scores. However, lower-tier armor still holds value as it can be salvaged to obtain repair parts, which are essential for maintaining and repairing damaged gear.

Crafting, trading post, and faction vendors also offer avenues to acquire armor in New World.

Furthermore, specific armor quests exist that allow you to obtain unique armor sets. These quests consist of a chain of 5 child quests, each guiding you to forge a piece of the set. Each successive quest requires a new level threshold, ranging from 40 to 60. Upon completing a child quest and gathering the required ingredients, you can craft a piece of the set. Equipping multiple pieces from the same set grants set bonuses, enhancing your stats.

Dropped vs Crafted

The primary distinction between dropped armor and crafted armor lies in the flexibility of perks. Dropped armor comes with fixed perks that cannot be changed, whereas crafting allows you to choose which perks to apply to a specific piece of gear.

Bind-on-Pickup Items

All equipable items in New World are either Bind-on-Equip or Bind-on-Pickup. This feature aims to safeguard the item economy and maintain the demand for high-quality items. When an item is equipped and becomes bound to a player, it is removed from the economy, creating space for similar items to be sold on the trading post or salvaged for repair parts.

Bonuses

Armor in New World can receive two types of bonuses: perks and gem slots. Perks provide specific buffs to your armor, such as lightning ward for lightning damage absorption or crafting and gathering perks that enhance those respective activities. Gem slots in armor can be filled with cut gems to further enhance your gear. For example, a cut brilliant onyx provides additional physical damage absorption.

Conclusion

That concludes our comprehensive New World Armor Guide. For more information on optimizing your armor equip load, consult our New World Equip Loads Guide.