New World Defensive Perk List: Every Defensive Perk and What They Do


Three Adventurers fending off a giant brown bear

Staying alive can be tricky in New World. Thankfully for you, the perk system is a fantastic avenue for making your tough character a bonafide tank. On the other hand, they can keep you and your friends sustained with better buffs and heals. Flexibility is key and with the right use of defensive perks, you can ensure you're staying in the fight for as long as you need.

This guide, which goes over every defensive perk in the game, is here to help you maximize your character's potential, and help you stand up to anything the world of Aeternum can throw at you. Even if you're playing a damage-focused character, we promise some of the perks here will come in handy.

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

What Are Defensive Perks?

A defensive perk provides a small bonus to your characters defensive or survivability on equipment that's of uncommon rarity or higher. These can come in the form of flat damage reduction from a variety of sources, improved resilience to debuffs and crowd control, or boosts to potions and self-healing. While a defensive single perk won't suddenly make you considerably tougher, a full set of weapons, armour, and trinkets with the proper perks can significantly impact the performance of your character.

Defensive perks can be found randomly on gear you find and craft, or manually added to equippment via gems. If you want to find the perks that are right for you, you may have to dedicate some time farming them out.

Below we'll list out every defensive perk you can find in New World, split into sections based on how they go about protecting your character. We'll use the following format to convey important information about the perks:

  • Perk Name: Brief description of what it does. What equipment it can be found on.

Blocking Bonuses

These perks grant bonuses to your character while they are blocking, rewarding defensive play.

  • Sturdy: Lose slightly less stamina when blocking. Found on rings.
  • Sure Footing: Significantly improves moves speed while blocking. Found on shields and melee weapons.

Buff Enhancements

These perks improve your ability to buff yourself and other players

  • Alacrity: When you buff someone with haste, it lasts slightly longer. Found on amulets.
  • Empowered: When you buff someone with empower, it lasts slightly longer. Found on amulets.
  • Fortified: When you buff fortify, it lasts slightly longer. Found on amulets.

Damage Absorption

These perks allow you to absorb a portion of incoming damage, depending on its elemental or physical type.

  • Abyssal Ward: Increases void damage absorption. Found on armour and trinkets.
  • Arcane Ward: Increases arcane damage absorption. Found on armour and trinkets.
  • Elemental Ward: Increases elemental damage absorption. Found on armour and trinkets.
  • Fire Ward: Increases fire damage absorption. Found on armour and trinkets.
  • Ice Ward: Increases ice damage absorption. Found on armour and trinkets.
  • Lightning Ward: Increases lightning damage absorption. Found on armour and trinkets.
  • Nature Ward: Increases nature damage absorption. Found on armour and trinkets.
  • Physical Ward: Increases physical damage absorption. Found on armour and trinkets.
  • Slash Ward: Increases slash damage absorption. Found on armour and trinkets.
  • Spectral Ward: Increases both physical and elemental damage absorption, primarily elemental absorption. Found on armour and trinkets.
  • Strike Ward: Increases strike damage absorption. Found on armour and trinkets.
  • Thrust Ward: Increases thrust damage absorption. Found on armour and trinkets.
  • Wilderness Ward: Increases both physical and elemental damage absorption, primarily physical absorption. Found on armour and trinkets.

Party of adventurers of different armour types, looking ahead.
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Damage Reduction

These perks reduce incoming damage from specific sources. It's worth noting that absorption and reduction are not the same. Absorption negates a portion of incoming damage, while reduction reduces the damage you take.

  • Arcane Protection: Take less damage from arcane. Found on amulets.
  • Flame Protection: Take less damage from fire. Found on amulets.
  • Frozen Protection: Take less damage from ice. Found on amulets.
  • Lightning Protection: Take less damage from lightning. Found on amulets.
  • Nature Protection: Take less damage from nature. Found on amulets.
  • Resilient: Reduces damage taken from critical hits. Found on armour.
  • Slash Protection: Take less damage from slash. Found on amulets.
  • Strike Protection: Take less damage from strike damage. Found on amulets.
  • Thrust Protection: Take less damage from strike damage. Found on amulets.
  • Void Protection: Take less damage from void. Found on amulets.

Debuff Resistances

These perks provide an amount of resistance against incoming debuffs

  • Blight Resistance: Grants resistance against blight. Found on armour.
  • Corruption Resistance: Grants resistance against corruption. Found on armour.
  • Freedom: Slows, stuns, and silences expire earlier. Found on armour.
  • Invigorated: Weaken, disease, rend, and exhaust on you expires quicker. Found on armor.
  • Vigor: Burns, bleeds, and poisons expire faster. Found on armour.

Dodge Bonuses

These perks provide bonuses upon dodging an attack.

  • Evasive: Reduces threat generation on a successful dodge. Found on earrings.
  • Refreshing Evasion: Reduces cooldowns after dodging. Found on shields, armour, and trinkets.

Healing Enhancements

These perks improve both the healing you receive and the healing you do for other players.

  • Divine: Gain more health from all incoming healing effects. Found on amulets.
  • Sacred: Increases your outgoing healing. Found on rings.

Maximum Stats Boosts

These Perks increase the maximum cap for specific stats your character has.

  • Brilliant: Gain additional maximum mana. Found on rings.
  • Health: Gain additional maximum health. Found on amulets.
  • Hearty: Gain additional maximum stamina. Found on rings.
  • Refreshing: Reduces maximum cooldowns by a small amount. Found on shields, armour, and trinkets.
  • Reinforced: Increases durability significantly. Found on armour.

On-Kill Bonuses

These perks grant temporary bonuses once you kill an enemy, which can be used to make yourself stronger for a short time.

  • Mortal Energy: When you kill something, gain a small amount of stamina. Found on shields, main hand weapons and two-handed weapons.
  • Mortal Fortification: When you kill something, gain fortify for a short period of time. Found on shields, main hand weapons and two-handed weapons.

Potion Enhancements

These perks improve potions by adding new bonuses on potion consumption.

  • Duplicating Toast: Small chance when you use a potion that it isn't consumed. Found on earrings.
  • Healthy Toast: Gain some health when you drink a mana potion. Found on earrings.
  • Mana Toast: Gain some mana when you drink a health potion. Found on earrings.
  • Purifying Toast: Lose a debuff when you drink a potion. Found on earrings.
  • Refreshing Toast: Potion cooldown is significantly faster. Found on earrings.

PvE Faction Absorption

These perks allow you to absorb a portion of incoming damage, depending on the PvE faction the attacking enemy belongs to.

  • Ancient Ward: Increases damage absorption against Ancient Guardians. Found on armour.
  • Angry Earth Ward: Increases damage absorption against Angry Earth. Found on armour.
  • Beast Ward: Increases damage absorption against Beasts. Found on armour.
  • Corrupted Ward: Increases damage absorption against Corrupted. Found on armour.
  • Lost Ward: Increases damage absorption against Lost. Found on armour.

Tree man holding magical staff in swamp.
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Recovery Bonuses

These perks provide strong bonuses upon being taken below half health. These bonuses are on a cooldown, so you can't trigger them repeatedly.

  • Fortified Recovery: When you're hit below half health, gain fortify for a short amount of time. Found on amulets.
  • Mana Recovery: When you're hit below half health, gain a large burst of mana. Found on amulets.
  • Purify: When you are hit below half health, remove all debuffs. Found on amulets.
  • Stamina Recovery: When you're hit below half health, gain a large burst of stamina. Found on amulets.

Resource Regeneration Boosts

These perks provide passive regeneration for important resources your character uses in combat.

  • Focused: Gain a small amount of mana regen. Found on earrings.
  • Nimble: Gain a small amount of stamina regen. Found on earrings.
  • Regenerating: Gain a small amount of healing regen. Found on earrings.

Threat Generation and Reduction

These perks either increase the threat you generate when attacking enemies, or reduce the threat you generate.

  • Beloved: Gain a small amount of threat reduction. Found on earrings.
  • Calming: Makes you generate less threat. Found on both main-handed and two-handed weapons, armour, and trinkets.
  • Despised: Gain a small amount of additional threat. Found on earrings.
  • Hated: Generate more threat. Found on main-handed weapons, two-handed weapons, and shields.
  • Kind: Generate less threat. Found on main-handed weapons, two-handed weapons, and shields.
  • Taunting: Activates taunts. Makes you generate more threat. Found on both main-handed and two-handed weapons.

Miscellaneous Perks

This perk doesn't fit into any of the above categories, but still provides defensive bonuses that can prove helpful in combat.

  • Refreshing Ward: Reduces cooldowns after being hit five times. Found on shields, armour, and trinkets.

With that, we've covered every defensive perk in New World! With a comprehensive understanding of what options are available to you, there shouldn't be any enemy in the game that will prove too much to handle. If you want to learn even more about perks, be sure to read our offensive perk guide, our weapon perk guide, and our profession perk guide!

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