How to increase your PvE damage in New World

 I wrote up this long reply on Reddit and figured I'd copy and paste it for the blog record. Here is my checklist for increasing PvE damage

• Bane weapon (increases damage against specific target type) - +15% damage melee weapons / +24% damage ranged weapons

• Powerful Honing Stone - +7% damage increase - applies to both weapons by using one stone

• Infused Corrupted/Lost/Angry Earth/Ancient/Beast/Human Coatings - +15% coating only applies to one weapon so need to apply to each weapon

• Minor/Basic/Major/Ultimate Combat Trophies - 3/4/5% x 3 (so up to 15% total) extra damage against specific types. Note: ultimate trophies simply combine major trophies together so are still the 5% per trophy increase as majors were.

• Equip load also impacts damage

  • Light equip load = 20% bonus damage

  • Medium equip load = 10% bonus damage

  • Heavy equip load = no bonus damage

• Runeglass gems on armor (not recommended; too expensive and you swap gems all the time for mutations - but noted here) - +2% per gem on armor; so in theory +10% damage increase if on all armor pieces

• Runeglass gems on weapon (also not recommended; expensive but unlike armor you rarely have to swap your weapon gems so it is at least OK to invest - though a regulary gem is more raw damage %) - many of the runeglass gems can apply a damage over time (DoT) ability so for some builds this can be a net gain in damage

Other tips

• Make sure damage attributes are maxed; eat max level food and you should be getting to a total of at least 500 attributes.

  • A common split for newer players is 300 in your main damage skill and 200 in CON.

  • Then over time you reduce CON and keep pumping damage attributes as you get comfortable with not dieing.

  • The end end end game is to be in the "5 CON club" where you have no CON other than the base 5 and all 500 invested into damage stats. Glass cannon.

• Maximizing damage is also dependent on enemy type, weapon type, skills, and right gem. I recommended the top PvE build site: https://pvebuilds.xyz/ -> they've done the math / work to figure out the best builds to max damage + right gems to use for the right situation. For example; it may not be obvious to use a diamond in your hatchet against Angry Earth but mathematically it is better.