In this New World Life Staff Build 2024 Guide, we’ll be covering the Life Staff in both PvE and PvP. It’s a ranged weapon mainly used in both PvE and PvP for healing, including self-healing, and it scales with the Focus stat. What makes it unique is that it’s one of the few weapons in the game that scales with Focus, alongside the Flail and Shield and Void Gauntlet.

New World Aeternum Life Staff Build Information

• Scaling Stats: Focus (100%)
• Damage Type: Nature
• Light Attack Damage: 107%
• Heavy Attack Damage: 151%
• Taunt Gem Compatible: No
• Best Focus Pairings: Flail and Shield, Void Gauntlet

New World Aeternum Life Staff Build 2024 – Overview and Strategy

Among all the weapons in New World, the Life Staff has the lowest damage potential because only a few of its abilities deal more damage than its light and heavy attacks. These abilities also come with additional effects like healing or buffs, so their main purpose isn’t damage but rather supporting allies with heals or buffs. This makes leveling the Life Staff slower if you’re playing solo or outside of PvP, as it takes longer to kill enemies. However, you’re incredibly hard to kill with the Life Staff due to the constant healing, so while leveling might not be difficult, it can be more time-consuming.

One thing to keep in mind when leveling New World: Aeternum Life Staff Builds is that you gain experience while grouped with others if they get kills. So, if you’re farming Elite Monsters with a group, you’ll still earn some experience. Also, if you use a Ranged Life Staff attack to open a fight and then switch to another weapon like the Great Axe or Spear, the experience will be split between the two weapons. A good strategy is to pull multiple enemies with the Life Staff, swap to an AoE weapon like the Great Axe, take them down, and heal yourself afterward. Just make sure the second weapon isn’t already maxed on XP, or you’ll miss out on gaining experience.

The Life Staff also deals Nature damage, which is effective early on. Enemies like the undead are weak to Nature damage, while animals take neutral damage, meaning you deal full damage to them and extra damage to undead. This makes the Life Staff great for dealing with undead enemies early in the game.

Another benefit of using the Life Staff while questing is that you can heal between fights. Over time, you’ll take hits from enemies, and your health might not recover quickly enough with food or potions. Having the Life Staff on your secondary weapon bar allows you to heal yourself, top off your health, and jump right back into combat with your main weapon. Even if you’re not maining the Life Staff, it’s a handy tool to keep around.

New World Aeternum Life Staff Pros:

• Strong Healing Abilities
• Strong Buffing Abilities
• Can attack at range

New World Aeternum Life Staff Cons:

• Bad offensive capabilities
• Vulnerable to interruptions
• Focus-based

Healing Skill Tree

Looking at the skill trees, the first one is Healing.

Divine Embrace

The first ability in this tree is Divine Embrace, which provides a flat heal based on 120% of your weapon damage to an area of 0.50m. This ability is excellent for topping off your health between battles, whether you’re questing or in PvP. However, in PvP, it might not be the most effective choice until you’ve fully upgraded it since there are other options that heal multiple players at once, especially in larger PvP engagements where AoE heals are more beneficial. Progressing this skill reduces its mana cost and allows you to heal multiple targets.

Sacred Ground

The next ability is Sacred Ground, which creates a 3m Heal-Over-Time area on the ground that heals anyone standing in it over time. This ability is fantastic for early-game content and dungeons. During a dungeon encounter, if players are stacked around a boss, placing Sacred Ground underneath them can provide substantial healing. You can also throw it below yourself while fighting enemies to absorb damage without needing to move out of the healing area. Progressing this skill line lets you regenerate mana and stamina faster and increases incoming healing while in Sacred Ground.

Splash of Light

Splash of Light is the final ability in this tree, healing anyone within 25 meters for 80% of your weapon damage. While it’s not a massive heal, its long range allows you to heal multiple players simultaneously. It also triggers a blast around your group members, which pushes back enemies. If you’re in PvP and have several healers with this ability, you can quickly distribute healing across your team. It’s also a good way to help your allies out if they’re cornered by enemies. Progressing this skill allows you to recover mana when healing allies, as well as removing 1 debuff they are inflicted with.

The capstone of this line, Divine Blessing, increases the healing for low-health targets, which is always beneficial since those are the players who need it most. This makes it effective for dungeons, PvE, and PvP situations—an overall solid capstone.

I also want to highlight the Absolved passive in this skill tree. You should aim to get this early on, ideally around levels two or three with your Life Staff. It lets you restore 5% of your mana when you let your heavy attacks pass through your allies.

Protector Skill Tree

Orb of Protection

Moving on to the Protector skill line, the first ability is Orb of Protection. This skill is fantastic and only gets better with upgrades. It deals more damage than a regular attack, but its real strength lies in providing damage reduction to a nearby player, along with a small amount of healing. Once upgraded, Orb of Protection not only heals and buffs you if it passes through a player but also affects everyone around the target you hit. This means you can heal and protect your teammates from damage while dealing damage yourself and applying heal-over-time effects. While it may not be super strong at first, it becomes increasingly powerful and is essential for any healer in a group dungeon. Progressing this skill line grants you fortify when you heal someone, and spreads its effect within a 3m radius.

Light’s Embrace

Light’s Embrace functions similarly to Divine Embrace. It is a spot heal that targets a specific player. You can also target yourself, which costs less mana but heals for a smaller amount. However, its healing effectiveness increases based on how many buffs the target has. For example, using Orb of Protection before this ability will enhance its effectiveness. You can also extend the duration of these buffs by using this ability if you have the capstone. This skill shines in dungeons, especially when healing your tank, as upgrading it allows you to restore stamina, which tanks expend when blocking. It becomes trickier to use in group settings, such as PvP, where you need to single out one player amidst many.

Beacon

The final ability in this line is Beacon. This shoots a projectile that embeds itself in an enemy and applies a heal-over-time effect around them. It functions similarly to Sacred Ground but is mobile. You can place it on an enemy, and as long as they stay near you, everyone around them will receive healing. This ability is particularly effective in dungeon settings—throw it on a boss or mini-boss, and everyone packed around it will benefit from healing. In PvP, you can launch it at an enemy surrounded by multiple players, ensuring everyone gets healed. It’s also useful for soloing; you can attack an enemy, throw Beacon into them, and then tank their hits while receiving healing. Progressing this skill line increases its radius and duration as well as buffing allies with 20% haste.

The capstone for this skill tree, Magnify, which lets you extend an ally’s buffs when you heal them with Light’s Embrace.

New World Life Staff Builds 2024

Solo PvE & PvP Life Staff Build – New World Aeternum

Group PvE & PvP Life Staff Build – New World Aeternum

New World Aeternum Life Staff Build – Weapons & Armor

When considering what weapons to pair with your New World: Aeternum Life Staff Build, it’s important to note that only a few other weapons in New World scale with Focus—specifically, the Flail and Shield and the Void Gauntlet. This can make pairing options more limited. However, many weapons have gem slots, allowing you to insert gems, like a Nature Gem, to scale a weapon with Focus and deal Nature Damage. While I can’t recall the exact gem that provides this effect, using one can help match your weapon to the Life Staff. Keep in mind that the effectiveness won’t be as high as with a weapon that naturally scales with its original stat, but it’s still a viable option. You can apply this to any weapon with a gem slot. For instance, many players enjoy creating a Paladin build using a Life Staff and Sword and Shield, adding a Nature Gem to their sword to scale off Focus while healing effectively with the Life Staff. This setup allows for experimentation with other weapons to find what suits your playstyle.

Now, let’s discuss armor choices. If you’re playing as a healer in a dungeon, wearing Light Armor is optimal for maximizing healing for your teammates. However, when questing in the open world, there are two schools of thought. On one hand, wearing light armor enhances your healing output. On the other, if you opt for Heavy Armor, you can drop AoEs on the ground or on enemies while tanking and potentially take less damage overall. Although light armor allows you to deal more damage, which can help kill enemies faster, the Life Staff has a lower damage output.

If you’re running solo in the landscape, any armor type will generally work well. However, if your goal is to eliminate enemies quickly, light armor is the way to go. In PvP, many players successfully use heavy armor with a Life Staff. The extra protection from heavy armor can compensate for lower healing output, allowing you to sustain less damage per hit while engaging multiple opponents. So, if you’re in PvP and plan to be a frontline player with a Life Staff and a Great Axe or Warhammer, consider using heavy armor. Heal yourself with the Life Staff, drop some heal-over-time effects, and then switch to your Warhammer to engage aggressively.

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That wraps up our Life Staff Build guide. We’ve got more weapon guides on the way, so keep an eye out for those. If you have any more questions about the game, feel free to check out the New World Wiki. What do you think of the Life Staff? Let us know in the comments!