New World Rarity Guide: Every Item Rarity and Their Differences


Adventurer with glowing staff walking through town

New World, like any good RPG, is packed full of rare items to hunt for. A character strapped with a full set of high-rarity armour and weapons is an indicator of a player who means business - and much of New World's endgame will revolve around acquiring the best pieces for your avatar. But, if you're starting out you might be wondering: how does item rarity even work?

If that sounds like you - wonder no more! This guide will cover all the different item rarities in the game, and the differences between your common vendor trash and the legendary pieces you'll never want to throw away.

Read More: New World Armour Guide: Every Armour Type, Armour Slots, and the Encumbrance System Explained

What Different Rarities Are There?

In New World, items are split into five distinct rarities. These are:

  • Common (grey)
  • Uncommon (green)
  • Rare (blue)
  • Epic (purple)
  • Legendary (orange)

That might look familiar if you've played another MMORPG like World of Warcraft before. These different rarities are used to differentiate items based on how rare they are, as you'd expect, but also how difficult they are to attain. You'll pick up common items often as you play the game, but Epic or Legendary items will take either a lot of luck or time investment to earn.

What Does an Item’s Rarity Actually Do?

A selection of four swords of increasing rarity, with higher rarity swords equipped with better bonuses
click to enlarge

Aside from being an easy to understand indicator of how valuable an item is, the rarity of a weapon or piece of armour directly affects the number of perks it has. Simply put, the higher the rarity your item is, the more bonuses it provides alongside its core defensive / offensive stat. Perk distribution across rarities works like so:

  • Common - no perks
  • Uncommon - one perk
  • rare - two perks
  • epic - three perks
  • legendary - Have set perks that are always the same.

This means that even if you get a shiny epic item, it might not compliment your character. If you want the perfect build, you best get back to grinding buddy. Even so, that doesn't mean the rare loot you get is necessarily bad! If you have a uncommon and rare sword of the same level, generally speaking the gear score and damage stat will be significantly higher on the rare one. Searching for a high-rarity item with perfect perks is important when trying to make your character as strong as possible, but when levelling you'll find an upgrade in rarity is a great find 99% of the time.

How Do I Get Rare Items?

As you reach higher levels and take on more challenging content, the chances of you finding epic, or even legendary items gets higher alongside you. Content such as Corrupted breaches, elite bosses in the open world, and even chests you find in your travels can contain the valuable items you're looking for. It's worth noting, the higher rarity an item is, the higher level requirement you need to equip it, so it's best to leave any grinding you do until you're at least level 50. Until then, just focus on earning experience points as fast as you can. Alternatively, take your time and enjoy the journey at your own pace.

An additional way to boost your chances is through luck perks, which increase your chances of finding items of higher rarity. If you find or craft any gear with the luck on it, keep it stored away for the moment when you're looking to invigorate your weapons or armour.

With that, we've covered how rarity works in New World! With this newfound knowledge you'll be able to truly understand what you're getting when a great piece of loot drops! If you're interested in the full range of weapons you can find in your travels across Aeternum, be sure to read our basic weapons guide here.

For more articles like this, take a look at our New World and Guides page.