In this New World article/video I’m going to be talking about PVP. While I’m not the greatest PVP player, I have gained a bit of knowledge by doing it over and over in the game. In this guide, I want to give you guys some tips and some things that I’ve learned that can help you be more successful in PVP than you currently are.

New World PvP Guide: Tips for any Build, How to Win as a Beginner

At What Level Should You Start PVP in New World?

One of the common questions I’m asked a lot on stream (Twitch) is “at what level should I start PVP?” or “I’m not a great player PVP player but when can I start getting into it?”. The reality is you cannot PVP in this game until you join a Faction, so you can’t join before reaching level nine or so. I don’t recommend you start PVP when you hit this level, or when you join a faction as there are a couple of things that can really hold you back from being successful at PVP. If you get into PVP so early on, you may find yourself getting completely throttled, then find you might not enjoy or do it again. I’d recommend starting PVP right when you’re about to hit level 15 or so, not right when you can.

I highly recommend waiting until about level 15 or so before you PVP the reason being as you will have access to your faction’s armor at that level. You will be able to get it early than this but you won’t be able to equip it until you reach level 15 and this is pretty solid armor for that level of the game. At level 15 there isn’t any better armor you can with predictability unless you buy it from the auction hall. At level 15 or so you’ll be able to get to this if you do some faction quests, and have a little bit of gold which isn’t too much. Once you have this armor I think that’s the point in time when you should decide to give this a go.

Prepping for PVP in New World – Level 9 to 15

Things you should do between level 9 and 15 is sort of prepping yourself for PVP would be to decide which weapons you want to use and getting some Skills unlocked for those weapons. Figuring out which weapon you want to use is probably one of the hardest decisions to make in this game as there are quite a few options. For the sake of this guide, we’re going to assume you already know which weapons you have decided to use, as this is a guide focusing on PVP not choosing a weapon.

Ready for PVP

Once you have three active skills for both weapons, maybe a couple of couple passive skills you’re maybe looking at level 5 or 6 for each weapon hopefully that lines up with the Armor you get. You should be ready for PVP with a fighting chance.

Choosing Your Armor

One thing to note is that once you choose which faction armor to get, you should get either:

a) Heavy Armor – To gain as much armor as possible, so you get as much protection as possible so you’re harder to kill and damage. But you will sacrifice that dodge roll, a very good dodge in order to do that.

b) Light Armor – To go all-in on damage and mobility, sacrificing protection.

This is your call to make, but I would suggest if you’re not very good at PVP to pick heavy armor, the reason for that is it will keep you alive longer so that you can learn more. When you go into PVP and die within seconds you don’t learn much. Doing that over and over again, even if you only manage to stay alive for only two seconds, you will learn as you go. If you can stay alive for 20 seconds or even a minute you will learn more and learn what enemies/players use against you and that will help you get better. You can always swap to light armor when you’re more comfortable.

Using the Right Skills

Once you have enough skill points to get skills it’s important to have the right skills. In PVP particularly early on in the game, (but it’s also true later on) you need to have a way if you’re a melee character, to close the gap between you and ranged players. If you’re a ranged character, you need a skill to get away from melee characters. If you do not have the appropriate skills to do these things then you’re going to be in trouble.

If you’re using a Great Axe for instance you’re going to want to have the Charge ability, as this is one of the best abilities in PVP. Not only does it allow you to get in range of the opponent, but it will actually move you faster across the battlefield periodically. So even if you are three lengths of charge behind your opponent, if they keep running while you keep moving fluidly and even though you know you’re not going to hit them, eventually you’ll close the ground.

The same thing goes for ranged characters. A good ability on the Musket for instance is the Trap ability, you throw it down and anyone who runs at you gets stuck in it, and then you can run away. Or the Fleche ability from the Rapier, this ability gives you mobility allowing you to teleport through an opponent. This means you can get behind them, run in the other direction while they’re confused about what’s going on. You need to have abilities like these if you’re going to play ranged so you get away.

Besides a gap-closing ability, another ability that is a must-have for most builds is some form of crowd control. If you’re using a Great Axe then this is ability is Gravity Well. If you’re using Warhammer then this is the Shockwave ability. If you’re talking about Ice Gauntlet then this is an ability like Ice storm. What this does is it catches targets and it’s slowing or preventing their movement allowing you to dictate what happens on the battlefield. So that means that you can prevent them from catching, you can get them all bottled up and so other teammates can’t get out or even dog pile onto them.

You should have at least one gap closer ability and one crowd control ability of some kind or an escape ability if you’re ranged instead of a gap closer.

Crafting Is Important

Once you’ve got your skills sorted out and you have your faction armor, another really good thing you should do is that you should craft food, potions, or you should buy these. Food and Potions are both key to winning PVP battles. A lot of times PVP battles simply come down to who has more food or who has more health potions or stronger health potions. I know that sounds lame, but that’s just a reality. So when you go out to PVP, make sure you have some food and some potions hopefully the best ones you can because otherwise, you’re going to have a hard time.

Keep in mind that when you eat Food, it’s going to give you a health regen over the next 20 seconds or so, that’s much stronger health effect than you normally have. So don’t be afraid to eat food mid-battle either in order to give you better heal over time, when you need it most. Having a lot of food can really go along way as well.

You Will Die A lot

So when you go do PVP inevitably you’re gonna die, that’s just a reality you’re going to die several times when you do PVP there’s no getting around it and you’re going to learn a lot from it. But a couple of things you should keep in mind is that you will have to repair your equipment because your equipment is going to lose durability each time you die.

You will also have to respawn either at a Camp or at a nearby settlement. Make sure as you get further and further away from town, or you know closer and closer to wherever the action is, that you either set up a camp or you rest at somebody else’s camp. Set that as your camp so that if you die you can respawn near the action and you don’t have to respawn all the way at the settlement and run all the way back.

Deciding Your Target

Another tip is that you want to be looking at player levels when you first go out you don’t want to be fighting somebody that’s so much higher than you, that you’re absolutely going to get wasted. The game does have PVP scaling meaning it should protect you from very high levels but it’s not going to protect you from like players that are like 5 to 10 levels higher than you. Very much if at all so you’re going to struggle against players that are a bit higher than you, but not so far above you so you don’t want to go out there at level 15 and fight level 20s and 25s or you’re going to have a really really rough time.

Make sure that when you’re going out you’re picking your battles and maybe you’re not engaging with every single player that’s flagged up willy-nilly, and you’re actually selecting targets that you think you can win against. As you get better at PVP you’ll grow in confidence and you’ll start to be able to take on players that are a bit higher level than you, but until you gain that confidence and understanding of how your build plays, and how other builds play it’s a good idea to be very picky about the targets you select.

Mark Targets

Another really important thing to know is that when you’re in a group of people and you’re playing together maybe you’re doing PVP together that you can mark targets by clicking the mouse wheel, so if you see movement of an enemy maybe your teammate doesn’t see it, and your mic is not working or voice chat’s not working because it doesn’t work a lot of the time you can highlight that character with your mouse.

Put your mouse cursor over it and click down on the mouse wheel and it’ll mark it for everyone on your map. It’ll sort of make a click sound and everyone will hear it and they’ll look around when they see the marker, they know there’s a player there and they can go there.

This is a very fast way of communicating visually without having to do anything such as type so that you can maintain in the action and you can mark where they are for your teammates. Also remember that if they mark a target you should be looking around to see where it is so listen for that click sound and if you hear it, start scanning around to find out where it’s coming from and head in that direction.

Target Priority

Another really important thing to understand is target priority obviously if you’re in a one-on-one situation the target priority is the player in front of you but if you’re in a group situation and maybe there are four or five enemies figuring out which one to attack is key to winning.

Now obviously focus fire goes a long way here so if one character is very weak you probably want to focus fire on that character to finish them off as quickly as you can make it so that your numbers grow on the opponent or that they grow weaker in force. However, if your tank is engaged with their tank and you’re wailing on the tank and their healer is sitting behind them healing and the tanks not taking any damage while you’re getting hit by their ranged units, you’re gonna have a hard time.

Keep in mind that even though you know that tank may be engaged with another player, you should focus on the backline like the healer or the range units particularly if you’re a ranged character, so that you can cause them to flee. Then maybe they can’t heal the tank and then you can take the tank down.

Figuring out which target to attack when is a very difficult thing to learn because every scenario is different and you have to sort of evaluate after you succeeded or failed and what you did correctly. Over time this is something you’ll come to understand, you’ll become more familiar with it and feel more confident about.

Remember to Upgrade Your Armor/Weapons and Be Prepared

The last thing I would say is just to make sure you upgrade your gear as you go. Over time that first Armor set that you get you’re going outgrow and maybe you don’t have the best gear. You may not have the best weapons when you go out, maybe you have crappy food still and maybe your Potions are weak, when you should have common or strong potions. Over time other PVP players are going to focus on improving these things and if you don’t take the time to do that as well you’ll gradually fall behind them and when you go out even though you have a better understanding of the mechanics, you feel more confident but maybe you’re just not as well equipped. Make sure you always have you know good gear go buy the latest armor for your level.

While you’re level 25 now and you’ve been wearing level 15 armor, make sure you’re wearing 25 armor make sure your weapons are level 25 or whatever is closer to the level you have. Make you have good bonuses on them and make sure you’re geared well, because even if you understand things very well you might not win if that player is equally matched with you, because they’re better prepared. PVP and New World can be very very hardcore and without knowing exactly how prepared your opponent is going to be you should always assume that they’re going to be as prepared as possible, meaning they’ll have the best potions they can use and they’ll have the best food they can use.

They’ll also have the best gear they can have and if you just assume they will have that and you do that too, you will succeed far more than if you don’t. The same goes for ammunition as well, make sure you have the highest level ammunition you can use, you can use steel at level 20 you can use star metal at level 40, so make sure you’re upgrading your ammo. If you’re using ranged weapons that use ammo so that you’re dealing the most damage possible, as well I hope these beginner PVP tips have helped you and help inspire you to actually wanting to go out in PVP.

I’m not a PVP player generally and I love the PVP in this game, so don’t feel like you can’t do it because you absolutely can and hopefully these tips will make you succeed a lot more than you would otherwise. I’ll probably be doing another PVP video at some point with more advanced tips like how to roll faster, what specific foods to use, what potions you should absolutely have and where to get them. Hoping including further tips like this so that when you do get to the end game, there are things that you know you should do every time you PVP. But for now, I hope these have held you in good stead.

What are some other good tips I forgot to mention for you PVP experts out there? What are some things you think people should absolutely do or not do in PVP? Let us know in the comments below.

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Stay tuned for more New World Build Guides, and be sure to check out the New World Wiki for more information about the game. Be sure to drop by our Fextralife Twitch channel to check out the game with us.