In New World, there's far more to dealing damage than just swinging your sword and hoping for the best! There is actually a wide variety of different damage types available for you to test out in combat, providing bonuses that could just make the difference between overcoming a strong foe in the world of Aeternum and getting bodied.
In this guide, we'll run you through each damage type present in the game, why they are important, and how to implement them into your character's loadout. These damage types will be split into appropriate categories, so that you can jump to the different sections quickly.
Read More: New World Offensive Perk List: Every Damaging Perk and What They Do
Physical Damage Types
Physical damage types in New World refer to different forms of damage your weapon deals on hit, and all non-magic based weapons have a physical damage type attached to their attacks. These damage types include:
- Slash
- Strike
- Thrust
Without any added modifiers, these damage types can be found on weapons naturally (such as the sword's heavy attack dealing thrust damage). However, they can also be enhanced through specific perks found on rings.
Elemental Damage Types
Elemental Damage types are where things start to get interesting. Only found by default on magical weapons like the fire staves and ice gauntlets, and not only the vast number of weapons 100% of the time. These damage types include:
- Arcane
- Fire
- Ice
- Lightning
- Nature
- Void
These elemental damage types can be added to your weapons either through gems or perks. This could come in the form of converting a portion of your weapon damage into an elemental damage type, adding a small amount of elemental damage in addition to weapon damage, or having elemental damage chain to nearby enemies on hit.
What Are the Uses of Adding or Enhancing Damage Types?
You may be asking "yeah that's great and all, but why are these important?" Well, aside from potentially increasing your total damage done, certain damage types deal additional damage to enemies weak to those types. When you hit an enemy, you may see arrows next to the damage number that indicates whether or not they're resistant or weak to the type of damage you're hitting them with.
For example, one of the enemy factions in the game is The Lost. These soulless ghouls wander around the world, unable to die and violently attacking anyone they meet. Enemies from this faction have partial protection from thrust and void damage, but take additional damage strike, ice, and nature damage.
What this means is if you're planning to go into some difficult PvE content, like an expedition or a powerful world boss, you can prepare your equipment beforehand to significantly boost your damage against the enemies you're about to face.
Now that you've learnt about all the different damage types in New World, you'll be better able to take on the more challenging end-game content with the right perks and gems turning your standard weapon into an elemental powerhouse. Speaking of perks, be sure to check out our offensive perk list, or our weapon tier list!