Rapiers
Rapiers are a type of One-Handed Weapon in New World. It is a light, quick weapon designed to stack up a number of bleeds on your target then consume these bleeds for a huge finishing move. You will find this weapon to have a large skill gap than other weapons and requires you to use skills at the right time to get most out of the weapon. The two mastery trees for rapiers are:
- Blood: an offensive tree focussed around applying and consuming bleeds on your targets
- Grace: A defensive tree designed to be your go to taunting and tanking tree with built in mechanics to take a few hits.
Dealing damage with a Rapier will scale off a player’s Dexterity Attribute so you should focus your points in these areas to improve your damage.
Below you will find a breakdown of each skill in the mastery trees.
Best Damage Types
Each weapon has a unique way of dealing damage on top of their abilities. For rapiers, this is primarily Thurst damage. You should take care to look for perks and gems that prioritise Thrust Damage as other types will provide no additional bonuses to your character.
Rapier Mastery Trees
Active Abilities
- Tondo – Slash so quickly that it extends the reach of your blade. The strike deals direct damage but also applies a bleed that will deal 100% weapon damage over 12 seconds. This can stack up to 3 times refreshing previous applications. Cooldown: 11 seconds.
- Flourish And Finish – Flourish performs an attack knocking back enemies. Pressing ‘Light Attack’ at the end of Flourish will continue this ability by automatically performing ‘Finish’. Finish lunges forward, consuming all Rapier bleeds on any target hit dealing 110% of their damage immediately. Cooldown: 20 seconds.
- Flurry – Enter a posed stance and unleash a series of five quick thrust attacks with each strike dealing more damage. Flurry can be dodge-canceled at any time. Cooldown: 16 seconds.
Active Ability Enhancement Traits
- Thirst For Blood – When applying the first bleed stack to an opponent this cooldown is reduced by 10%.
- And Again – If you hit any target, even on a blocked hit, Tondo’s cooldown is reduced by 15%.
- Proper Spacing– Improve the damage of Tondo by 10% if you are 3.5 meters away from your target or more.
- With Flair – Gain Grit on both Flourish and Finish, preventing you from being staggered.
- Swagger – Recover 20 stamina when successfully hitting a target with Finish.
- Fuel – Each tick of damage from Tondo’s bleed effect reduces the cooldown of Flourish and Finish by 5%.
- Bloody End – Finish deals 150% of the Rapier’s bleed damage instead of only 110%.
- Overwhelm – Each hit of Flurry does 25% more block damage.
- Fleeting Strikes – Each hit of Flurry reduces the cooldown of this ability by 7%.
- To The Bone – Each hit of Flurry extends any active bleeds by 1 second. This will also apply to future stacked applications of the same bleed extending the entire stack.
- Finalize – The last hit of Flurry will cause the enemy to stagger.
Passive Ability Traits
- Refreshing Strikes – Reduce all cooldowns by 1% on any hit.
- Unerring – Deal 6% more damage to targets with a Rapier bleed.
- Heavy Puncture – Any heavy attack on a bleeding enemy will extend their Rapier bleeds by 2 seconds. This will also apply to future stacked applications of the same bleed extending the entire stack.
- Engarde – Deal 10% more damage when your target has greater than 50% health.
- Light Edge – Increase damage from both middle swipe attacks in the light attack chain by 8%.
Active Abilities
- Riposte – Enter a defensive stance for 1 second. If struck while in this stance, counter the attacker, stunning them briefly for 1.5 seconds. You are briefly invulnerable upon a successful Riposte. Taunt Gem Compatible: If you have a Carnelian gem equipped in your rapier, this ability causes a 4s taunt to all foes within 5m. (Taunt causes monsters to focus only on you) Cooldown: 20 seconds.
- Evade – Perform a small, reliable sidestep in your current movement direction that cancels any current activity and provides momentary invulnerability. Light Attacks during Evade are performed exceptionally fast. Cooldown: 6 seconds.
- Fleche – Leave the ground lunging for 10 meters in a stabbing motion, piercing through enemies. Cooldown: 17 seconds.
Active Ability Enhancement Traits
- Insult To Injury – If the Riposte is triggered successfully, all your attacks become uninterruptable for 3 seconds.
- Priority – Reduce the cooldown of other Rapier abilities by 20% when landing a Riposte stun.
- Lasting Consequence – Increase the stun from Riposte to 2 seconds.
- Breathe In – Gain 20 stamina immediately on use.
- Allegro – Gain 20% movement speed for 3 seconds on use.
- Adagio – Evading forward grants 15% increased damage to your next light attack. Ends on hit or after 1 second.
- Crescendo – Individual successful light attacks reduce the cooldown of this ability by 30% each.
- Quick Lunge – Killing with this ability reduces its cooldown by 80%.
- Backside – After performing Fleche, your next critical strike attack will have its damage increased by 15%. Lasts for 5 seconds.
- Interruption – Pressing ‘Light Attack’ any time during Fleche will stop the ability and perform a static, continuation attack.
Passive Ability Traits
- Desperation – Deal 10% more damage when your stamina is below 40%.
- Red Curtains – Critical strikes reduce all cooldowns by 5%.
- Controlled Breathing – +3 stamina on any hit.
- Perfectionist– Deal 10% more damage when your health is full.
- Swiftness – +3% Haste for 4 seconds on any hit. Can stack up to 5 times.
- Momentum – Gain 25% increased damage on your next light or heavy attack after performing an ability. Ends on hit or after 3 seconds.
