New World: Best support healer builds

New World is fast becoming one of the best additions to the MMORPG genre. Yet while not completely following the typical MMO formula of leaning heavily into role classes, the concept and design are still present with players able to design their character with a defined role, such as healer or tank, in mind.

Particularly useful in the game’s PvP and Expeditions modes, support healer builds are one of the game’s most highly-demanded roles. This guide will include details on how to build two distinctive support healer builds as well as advice for players designing or looking for a good support healer build.

New World: Support healer builds explained

Support healer builds are one of the best roles in MMORPGs, designed to assist their team or party by providing support for more offensive and defensive role classes, dealing ranged damage to enemies whilst healing their team.

With the game’s dual weapons system, support healer builds become more effective still as they can easily adapt to the many playstyles within your party during battle. However, to be effective, players will need to have the right build to meet the needs and demands of your party.

The most important part of the support build is designing one that is effective when mastering weapons, boosting player attributes and assisting with levelling up rapidly. Especially once players have reached New World's Expeditions, players should aim for a support build focusing on their Focus, Dexterity and Constitution attributes.

New World: Life Staff/Hatchet support healer build

As of now, the Life Staff/Hatchet is one of the best support healer builds, centred around the Life Staff weapon class. It's a weapon players will need to spend time mastering, it can be paired up with some secondary weapons to support it.

The Life Staff has two skill trees: Healing and Protector which grants support healer builds more stamina when encountering challenging bosses. Similarly, it has an effective cool-down rate which players utilise between fights to heal their party.

To support the Life Staff, add the Hatchet as a secondary weapon which will mainly be used to debuff if players aren’t healing your party at that time. There are three skills to add to your Hatchet, the first being Rending Throw.

This allows players to throw their hatchet to deal 110% of weapon damage while applying Rend to reduce damage absorption. Social Distancing will slow down incoming enemy attacks and Infected Throw will apply weapon damage while activating Disease and Weaken for further damage.

This build’s main focus is to keep your party members alive while buffing their stats simultaneously. From a healing standpoint, there are a few Life Staff mastery skills players will need to include in their build, mainly Sacred Ground, Orb of Protection and Light’s Embrace.

• Sacred Ground: creates an area of healing that when active, heals 10% of weapon damage every second

• Orb of Protection: creates a light projectile that grants 15% Fortify for 20 seconds, heals a party member for and deals 95% of weapon damage onto an enemy

• Light’s Embrace: heals your party for 100% of weapon damage plus 30% more for every buff

New World: Life Staff/Warhammer support healer build

The Warhammer is more for players aiming for a Paladin-like build. This build supports a more aggressive playstyle as players can heal while dealing weapon damage with the Warhammer.

To take into battle, players will want to add the Armor Breaker, Mighty Gavel and Shockwave skills for maximum weapon damage dealt to enemies, debuffs and stun purposes. While the Armor breaker will attack the enemy’s armour, the Mighty Gavel will deal the most damage with an overhead attack dealing 160% of weapon damage. The Shockwave skill causes an earthquake radius which stuns enemies within the radius with added weapon damage.

Using the masteries from the previous build, however, swapping the Orb of Protection for Beacon which deals 95% of weapon damage to enemies while healing your party for 20% of weapon damage every second.

New World: Advice for designing support healer builds

Presently, New World does not have a class-based levelling system however, it does have various classes available in-game. Taking into account your main and supporting weapons as well as masteries you wish to include in your build, there are a few things to keep in mind when finding the right support build for your character.

Irrespective of your build, support characters will still require a full set of heavy armour. Players are encouraged to swap out pieces to improve mobility while adding movement bonuses to your build. 

From the start, add as many points towards your Focus as it will improve your healing capabilities. If you’re aiming for more aggressive combat support, try adding some points to your Constitution.

Since we’re talking about Focus, ensure that you have enough points allocated to various attributes for an effective support build. This will come in handy in Expeditions as highly skilled support builds are a rarity. Spend those points wisely and upgrade your weapons.

• Read more: New World mining guide: How to mine, craft pickaxe, track resources and more

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Featured image courtesy of Amazon Games.