Best Healer Build In New World

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Best Healer Build In New World

Best Masteries For The Life Staff

Best Masteries For The Void Gauntlet

Gems, Gear, And Other Tips For A Life Staff/Void Gauntlet Build

Solo Life Staff/Paladin Leveling Build

A healer build is one of the best builds in New World, both for leveling and for running endgame PvE and PvP. Our best healer build combines the Life Staff and the Void Gauntlet for damage, heals, debuffs, and more.

This guide will cover the path you should take through your masteries and attributes, as well as how you can effectively use a support build to level up your character fast. We will also include some variations on the build, so you can experiment with your playstyle.

We updated this guide on September 16 to bring it more in-line with the current meta of New World ahead of the 2022 Brimstone Sands expansion. A lot has changed, and so has our guide to the best healer builds in the game.

The main focus of this build is a combination of the Life Staff and Void Gauntlet. It can be tricky to level up with this combination at the start of the game, but by the time you reach Expeditions and beyond, it should make for a very effective healer build.

Best Masteries For The Life Staff

The Life Staff is going to be your main source of healing and support. You want to focus on these three abilities:

Skill	Effect	Recommended Masteries
Divine Embrace	Direct heal – heals a target for 120% weapon damage	Privilege Shared Struggle
Sacred Ground	Creates an area of healing on the ground	Holy Ground Anointed
Orb Of Protection	Fires a projectile – heals, provides fortify and regeneration	Protector's Blessing Shared Protection Aegis

Sacred Ground

This is one of the biggest sources of AoE healing at your disposal. The base-level ability creates an area of healing (which does not move) that heals for 20 percent of weapon damage every second for 15 seconds. It tiers into Holy Ground (buffs mana and health regen up to 100 percent while stood in Sacred Ground's aura) and then into Blessed (all allies get an extra 50 percent buff to all incoming healing.)

Sacred Ground is situational. Unless you're running with a reliable group, in an Expedition, for example, it can be tricky to get your allies to actually stay within your aura of healing. It's an ability that will likely be less useful in PVP because of the number of Bow/Spear kiters. It is, however, useful for the tactic known as "pocket healing" where everyone piles into one area for consistent heals.
Sacred Ground is useful for solo-leveling because it offers consistent sustain, but you will have to stay in its aura. It can be difficult to tackle large groups of enemies that might swarm you and stagger you out of the area.

Orb Of Protection

Arguably one of the best abilities for the Life Staff, this is going to be one of your biggest sources of damage and healing. It grants Fortify to allies, healing, and also deals up to 146 percent weapon damage when it hits an enemy.

You probably want to take this mastery ability first.
Its third-tier of mastery progression, Aegis, provides further AoE healing, ideal if you're frequently running Expeditions or PVP, but less useful for solo levelers.

For the third ability, you've got a choice between Light's Embrace and Beacon.

Divine Embrace

Light's Embrace is a targeted heal ability that will make up the bulk of your easy healing/support during combat.

Beacon

Beacon is incredibly strong. This is better for large-scale PvE, like Portals and Elite runs, as it provides AoE healing rather than targeted healing. Watch out for your threat scaling. Healing lots of your allies with this during an Elite, for example, will cause many adds to aggro on you if the tank is not pulling their taunts.

Passives For The Life Staff

Here are the passive choices in the order you should pick them up:

Passive	Description	Reasoning
Absolved (Healing Tree)	Lifestaffs Light and Heavy Attacks no longer tank mana.	This is essential if you want any kind of sustainability with your Life Staff mana usage. The Ice Gauntlet does help this with its "Entombed" ability, but it's not enough.
Mending Touch (Healing Tree)	Heavy attacks now remove 1 debuff. Can be useful during Expeditions in particular.	Mending Touch allows you some more versatility with your Heavy Attacks, and it also stacks with the Intensify passive below.
Blissful Touch (Healing Tree)	Light attacks now heal the target for 20 percent weapon damage.	This is one of the best passives for the Life Staff. It turns your regular auto attacks into healing bursts. Keep spamming your light attacks.
Desperate Speed (Healing Tree)	When you heal an ally with less than 50 percent health, all cooldowns are reduced by -10 percent. Triggers once every 5 seconds.	Generally a useful passive, one that you'll immediately notice when you pick it up.
Sacred Protection (Healer Tree)	While holding a Life Staff, all incoming healing to you and your party is increased by 5 percent.	Keep your Life Staff out for the majority of the fight to make use of this passive. Only swap to the Ice Gauntlet for occasional AoE and to utilize Entombed.
Revitalize (Healer Tree)	When you hit a Light Attack, reduce all cooldowns for – 5 percent.	Very simple and incredibly important. Keep spamming light attacks to proc Blissful Touch and Revitalize.
Bend Light (Protection Tree)	After a dodge you will get better healing for 5s	You are wearing light armor and will be dodging a lot
Protector's Strength (Protector Tree)	If you have a buff, you will heal for 20% more	More healing is good! You will pretty much always be buffed.
Divine Blessing (Healing Tree)	When you heal an ally below 50% health, they are healed for 30% more	N/A

As with any of our New World build guides, this is a suggested build that we've seen success with in the game. You should definitely experiment and see what fits your playstyle.

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Best Masteries For The Void Gauntlet

The Void Gauntlet is basically designed to complement a healer build. Not only does it provide some situational healing, but the Void Gauntlet also has some fantastic damage buffs and debuffs that can make shredding through elites and bosses much easier in Expeditions. For some high level mutations, the Void Gauntlet is pretty much necessary for the success of the run.

Skill	Effect	Masteries
Petrifying Scream	Deals damage and roots the enemy in place	Bone Chilling Voice Fortifying Echoes
Oblivion	AoE that causes Empower on team and reduces damage/induces weakness	Withering Oblivion Invigorating Oblivion
Orb Of Decay	Debuffs the enemy but also can be used for healing at max range	Draining Orb Slowing Orb Detonating Orb

Petrifying Scream

Petrifying Scream is a great ability that roots the enemy in place, super useful for some boss and Elite-level monsters. With Bone Chilling Voice, the root lasts for three seconds in total. You can open with Oblivion and then Petrifying Scream to hold enemies within the circle.

Oblivion

Oblivion is your opener for the rotation of abilities as it Empowers you and your allies. The rotation should go Oblivion, into Petrifying Scream, into Orb of Decay.

Orb Of Decay

Orb of Decay is a great situation ability as it can be used to damage/heal depending on when you choose to activate it. Mostly, as the healer, you should be using this to heal.

Passive Abilities For The Life Staff

Here's a closer look at how to fill out the Void Gauntlet tree.

Passive	Description	Reasoning
Keen Confidence (Annihilation Tree)	You get an extra 10% critical strike chance when above 50% health	This is to combine with Refreshing Precision (read below)
Refreshing Precision (Annihilation Tree)	You get 5% cooldown on all abilities per crit hit	Keen Confidence and Refreshing Precision help to reduce the window between healing bursts and debuffs across both the Life Staff and Void Gauntlet
Keen Humility (Annihilation Tree)	Extra crit chance of 10% when abilities are on cooldown	More crit = more cooldowns = more healing/debuffs
Empowering Proximity (Annihilation Tree)	You get Empower on yourself when you cast abilities near enemies	Empower is very strong and helps with extra damage
Refreshing Frailty (Annihilation Tree)	Cooldown reduction if you hit enemies with 3 or more debuffs	You and your team will be applying debuffs throughout the fight, which makes this a must-pick passive for cooldown reduction
Refreshing Harvest (Decay Tree)	Cooldowns are reduced when performing Harvest Essence (left click mana-regen)	Cooldowns are your worst enemy, so anything that increases mana + provides cooldown reduction is quite strong
Fervent Thirst (Decay Tree)	More mana per hit on an enemy afflicted with your Void Gauntlet debuffs	Mana management is crucial with the Void Gauntlet, so this helps you out a little bit
Mending Evasion (Decay Tree)	Dodging with full mana heals you for 80% weapon damage	Your heals should mostly be focused on your team, so any passive that a) keeps you alive and b) allows you to focus healing on your team, is very strong
Voidcaller (Annihilation Tree)	Aura heal and damage after successful ability hits (stacks)	It's a tough call between Voidcaller and Glimpse of the Void, but because the healer Void Gauntlet build scales more in the Annihilation tree, it has to be Voidcaller.

Gems, Gear, And Other Tips For A Life Staff/Void Gauntlet Build

Gems and gear make up a huge part of a successful build in New World, especially for endgame content that is more difficult. Here's how we set-up our Life Staff/Void Gauntlet build.

Best Gear Weight

We want to have a light equipment load for two main reasons: you get extra healing buffs with a light-load equip, and you will need the mobility during fights to make sure you're staying alive/kiting enemies.

That means you want everything Light except for the Chestpiece as this makes the most of your allotted weight limit and gives you the most defense

Best Perks

These are the best-in-slot perks for this build, and not necessarily what you'll be able to get your hands on easily.

Light Staff – In terms of perks, the best for the Light Staff is undoubtedly Blessed – extra healing is massive, and as this is your main role it makes sense to specialize in this. You should pair this with a weapon perk of your choosing, and if you have Legendary gear, something like Refreshing Move (light and heavy attacks reduce cooldown) can really help with your rotation.
Void Gauntlet – Void Gauntlet should also have Blessed if possible, a weapon perk of your choice, and again, something like Refreshing Move is great.
Armor – Balance out your weapon perks, basically if you've got one weapon perk on your Life Staff/Void Gauntlet, grab another for your armor. Fortifying Sacred Ground is also a fantastic perk

Best Gems

For your weapons, you want to grab Diamonds. Brilliant Diamonds are a great starting point if you're working your way towards Stonecutting for Pristine Diamonds (the scaling isn't massively different anyway). These provide Rally which grants you extra healing.
For armor, the gems will largely depend on which Expedition you're running for PvE. Typically, though, you should strike a balance between Physical and Elemental protection which is a combination of Onyx and Malachites.

Solo leveling with the Life Staff and Void Gauntlet can be a bit tricky. To make it easier, we recommend sticking an Amber gem into your Void Gauntlet so it scales with Focus and grabbing the Void Blade ability for extra damage.

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Solo Life Staff/Paladin Leveling Build

The above build is a bit tricky to level with, just because your damage output with the Life Staff and Ice Void Gauntlet isn't going to be enough to single-handedly deal with higher-level mobs. That's why you switch out the Void Gauntlet for the Sword.

This is the classic Paladin build. You can't really be killed during PvP, and you will survive the big hits in Elite runs and Portals much easier if you opt for a full heavy-armor build.

This build is no longer as effective because of the nerfs to healing in Heavy Armor. We have kept it here because it's still a playstyle some players want to experiment with. Not recommend for Expeditions, though.

There are two options for your Sword masteries:

Swordmaster – Abilities like Whirling Blade and Leaping Strike give you some mobility, which the Life Staff is seriously lacking. This is a more offensive choice.
Defender – Taunt up and bash your way to victory. Ideal for a more tanky build with your Life Staff, but does give you enough fighting power to take down larger groups of mobs.

Out of the two, it's the Defender tree that provides the sort of tanky playstyle that turns this support healer build into more of a tank role. Ideal for solo leveling, this one.

Your masteries for the Sword might look like this:

This healer/tank build is not recommended for Expeditions but rather large-scale PvP and open world PvP. You're basically invincible.

New World: Best Sword Build

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Life Staff And Hatchet Support Healer Build

The close of the first week in New World saw this build become very popular. These two weapons work brilliantly with each other. Here's a guide on how to make it work.

Pick up Sacred Ground, Orb of Protection, and Beacon for the Life Staff.
For the Hatchet, you want to go Rending Throw, Social Distancing, and Infected Throw. This focuses on debuffing your enemies.
Stack points into Focus and then into Constitution.
Orb of Protection and Protector's Touch should help to keep you alive.

Passive Choices

You want to pick up these passives as a standard: Enchanted Justice, Sacred Protection, and Diving Blessing. Remember, these passives are only active while you have the Life Staff out, so only switch out to the Hatchet if you absolutely need to.

New World: Best Hatchet Build

For a more in-depth look at the best build to level up with, check our guide:

New World: The Best Build To Level Up Fast

Tips For Playing As A Support

Although New World has a classless leveling system, the typical MMO classes are still present in the game, you just need to spec into the right tree.

Light armor provides significant boosts to healing.
You want to chuck as many points into Focus as you can, all the way up to 300 Focus. For more tankiness, go for Constitution. Experiment a bit with the attribute points to see what best suits your playstyle.
It's your job to focus on healing your allies. High-level Expeditions basically require a Healer, so if you do decide to play as one, you know you'll always be in high demand.
Remember, any time you switch out of the Life Staff your passives will end. Keep it out at most times during boss fights and elite fights.

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