Introduction

Seeing as the Greatsword writeup was well received, it’s time for the Rapier + IG build, which is my favourite build, and the build I’ve used in 4/6 of the Pre-Brimstone speedrun World Records!

This playstyle is what got me sold on the idea of New World as a PvE game, given my background as Feral Druid main back when I played World of Warcraft. It triggered my nerd brain so hard that I couldn’t sleep until 3 am the night I stumbled upon it. The fruits of that night and many more are what I’ve decided to collect and present to the community with this exhaustively long essay.

It’s a build that is rarely, if ever, seen in the PvE m10 “meta”, yet somehow one of the most effective DPS builds in the game. It combines the raw DPS of the Rapier and the utility + burst damage from the IG into a fun, high burst and calculated melee “caster” DPS playstyle. It does require a bit more skill to min-max it (which is a good thing), but at a base level, it’s rather safe and solid all around.

Overview

The core concept is to apply Tondo’s and consume them with Finish as the primary damage source as opposed to the Evade light attack spammer. Thanks to the Blood Letting ring perk and the 250 INT DoT duration perk, our Tondo’s reach a 19-second duration (capped at 20 seconds), which allows us to consume it with Finish immediately for full value.

One of the core benefits of this setup is how well it pairs with Evade Spam builds, seeing as it can consume their Tondos which is a DPS increase for them at no real cost for either of the builds. Other than that interaction is the increased options in 2nd weapon alternatives, namely the Ice Gauntlet (IG) and the Void Gauntlet (VG), thanks to the increased value of INT as a stat. Whilst the VG’s Utility of Scream and Oblivion is usually brought by Cori in our runs, their value is quite on par with the IG in PuG runs where the healer isn’t as proactive with theirs. Our runs are, therefore, with me on the IG 99.9% of the time, though you can also Run Essence Rupture instead of Oblivion as an option to smoothen fights out.

Other than the IG’s Ice Shower being valuable for the Root/slow/Rend, this setup has enough INT for the Ice Storm, Ice Pylon and Ice Spike to do enough damage for them to be worthwhile weaving in both the AoE and ST rotations. It would not surprise me if this build was dealing more overall damage than the standard Rapier+Spear setup over the course of a dungeon, whilst also not being too far from the average hatchet/Great Sword (GS) damage when played optimally. (please AGS, give us an OPR-esque end-of-run stat breakdown)

This Rapier variant results in a somewhat “slower” paced playstyle with more AoE damage and a wider utility weapon pool at the meagre cost of some ST DPS. Lastly, there is also a hyper carry glass cannon variant with Evade, Tondo and FnF, though I really do not recommend running it unless you are extremely comfortable with your healer, the dungeon itself and the mutator effects for the week, so I won’t be covering that for the time being.

Stats, stat perks, Statline variants and IG maining

Attributes

The Rapier scales off of DEX and INT at a ~3/2 ratio (90% DEX, 65% INT), which in a similar way to the Greatsword, opens up some more options in terms of stat variations, of which there is a handful of variants:

• 260 DEX, 250 INT: Most overall DPS and burst
• 210 DEX, 300 INT: Spiked Refresh minmaxer
• 215 DEX, 250 INT, 50 CON: Safety setup #1
• 250 DEX, 165 INT, 100 CON: ST-focused safe variant (requires Blood Letting Rings)
• 165 DEX, 250 INT, 100 CON: AoE-focused safe variant

You lose about 0.8% rapier DPS from going 260-250 as opposed to the standard 300-210 rapier statline. The gain on the IG damage is about 8%, so the AoE damage is way higher, and the ST damage is about equal. In addition to the scaling on the Rapier and Gauntlets, there are also the stat passives to keep in mind:

50 DEX: +10% crit chance 100 DEX: +5% base thrust dmg 150 DEX: -10 stamina cost per dodge 200 DEX: +10% backstab dmg 250 DEX: +10% random crit damage vs cc’d targets

50 INT: +10% crit dmg 100 INT: +10% base basic attack magic damage (works on elemental gems) 150 INT: +15% base magic damage from all sources (elemental gems, Heartrune) 200 INT: +10 mana after a dodge 250 INT: +30% DoT durations

All of the above stat perks benefit the build in some way or another. Both the 200 INT mana passive and the 150 DEX dodge passives are situationally minor DPS increases, be it from more leeway with rolls or giving you enough mana to get repeat casts off with the IG/VG (especially in Mage Hunter mutations).

Everything Rapier, mastery breakdown, Evade v Flurry, ST and AoE “rotation”.

Skills

Rapier TLDR

Tondo - Wide hitbox, DoT value, Energy generator and Crit chance booster

Flurry - Burst dmg, self healing, dot extender and CDR refresher.

Flourish - Wide hitbox, staggers and pushes slightly. Spammable in AoE.

Finish - A dash that staggers consumes all Tondo DoTs for insane burst dmg.

MASTERY BREAKDOWN

BLOOD

Tondo

• The bread but with no butter. The ability itself is very stacked, but the perks down the line are too good to pass up, especially when compared to the other options if you ever were to consider doing so.

KEY NOTES:

The damage dealt is based on what buffs/passives are active when you cast the Tondo, primarily Empower effects. When consuming it with Finish, the damage is based on what Rend the target has when you pop it, not the rend it had when you applied it.

Thirst for Blood

• This passive alone is probably the most valuable perk in the tondo tree. Hitting a large clump can often result in a near-instant Tondo cdr reset. This is part of why we wait for two stacks until we pop the Tondo’s with Finish so we can squeeze out the extra 10% cdr every other cast during boss fights. And Again
• 25% more tondos on boss fights basically. It allows you to keep up on ST DPS. Proper Spacing
• Might seem like a “bait” perk at first, similar to the bow Poison Shot upgrade, but over the course of a dungeon, it adds a substantial amount of DPS. It adds way more than Desperation or Light edge ever will

Flourish and Finish (FnF)

• Similar to Tondo as in seemingly being a good 1-point wonder, but again the following perks are too good to pass up. With Flair
• Adds a very underrated grit to it, which allows you to stay relevant during Fire mutations when played right. It might bait you into tanking some hits you’d rather be dodging, but overall an excellent addition that provides good safety and uptime.

Swagger

• By the time you get around to hitting the 2nd in your stamina regen it has usually kicked in as well as the Controlled Breathing from the Tondo stacks. So rather than thinking of this as a +20 stamina, it feels closer to +40, with all things considered. In some rare scenarios, it’s worth using FnF for this to proc the stamina at targets with 0 tondos. Underrated but worth keeping an eye out for. Fuel
• 3.5% cdr on FnF for every tick of your tondos (0.7s) that scales in AoE. With enough Tondos running in an AoE pull, you can effectively spam Flourish for AoE damage and pop one stack at a time. Alternatively, in extreme pulls, you can chain Flourish>dodge>light attack>flourish > Repeat and save the Finishes for when targets get low. Bloody End
• This makes the Tondo effectively do 15% weapon damage per second when consumed. Adds that much-unexpected oomph to the bleed pops.

Flurry

• 298 % weapon damage in total. Take note that you can dodge out of this animation for safety, but also that the last hit does the most dmg. Overwhelm
• Breaks blocks faster than charged heavies, but at the loss of some good DPS. Utilize at your own discretion. Fleeting Strikes (math time)
• 7% per hit, up to 45% at all five hits, or 50% with Refreshing Strikes. When hitting two or more targets, you effectively go infinite. Factor in the “Red Curtains” value, and Flurry’s cd can easily be reduced by up to 75% per cast (12s). The cast itself takes 1.3s, leaving 2.7s/17%cdr for a full reset on ST. 1 crit is 6%cdr/ 0.96s, resulting in the remaining cooldown duration being filled by either FnF, one light + Tondo or two light attacks where you cancel the 3rds animation with the flurry animation

TLDR - Goes infinite on 2+ targets, is near infinite on st in a way that leaves room for some fast Tondo / FnF weaving between Flurries.

To The Bone (the one perk you can switch around)

• It might seem redundant when at 250 INT and with a blood-letting ring, but it allows for flexibility in the flurry spam ST rotation. With this, you never have to worry about losing potential damage when both FnF and Flurry are off CD, making it so that the priority is always Flurry into FnF since you don’t lose any Tondo Pop value.

Finalize

-Skipped. The stagger is minuscule and not worth the DPS loss from sacking Proper Spacing nor Refreshing Strikes. The 1 point we’d possibly switch around is the 1 point we’d need to even get this. Rip.++

PASSIVES

Refreshing Strikes

• 1%-5% cdr per hit adds up really fast in both AoE and in terms of the Flurry 5x hits. It might seem like a skippable passive at first when compared to Red Curtains, but by itself, it’s often the equivalent of 2-3x Refreshing perks on ST, and far more in AoE. The gameplay feel with and without this passive is a game-changer.

Engarde

• +10% to any rapier damage done to targets above 50% hp, i.e. 5% damage on average. This passive makes the Tondos we apply at the start of a mob pack hit extra hard, and the damage stays on the tondos until you pop them, so you don’t have to worry about needing to pop them

Unerring

• 5% more damage when Tondo is on a target. It works on Tondo itself, which is nice. It fits perfectly in the loadout since our priority is already to have Tondo’s everywhere anyhow.

Light Edge

• Our light attacks, let alone the middle swipes, are such an abysmally small portion of our overall damage that this passive is not worth considering.

Heavy Puncture

• Similar to how we don’t value Light Edge, this is even further down the list seeing as Flurry already does what this does but better. Effectively just a PvP talent. I wouldn’t pick it even with an Evade, Tondo+FnF glass cannon setup.

GRACE

Desperation

• It’s the best of the dmg-boosting alternatives outside of what we pick; it effectively competes with Perfectionist. It’s the same as an Opal but at a more annoying stamina threshold, i.e. below 40/44(w/hearty) stamina as opposed to below 100/100 stamina. You can use this instead of Controlled Breathing at the cost of overall stamina/mobility if you please.

Controlled Breathing

• 3 stamina on any rapier hit, which also works on Tondo ticks even in AoE. This passive alone lets you roll around for backstabs and safety at hardly any drawback whatsoever. The strength of this is so notable via our Tondo hits that playing Opal is hardly ever considered, even if it boosts the tondo damage (more on gems later)

Perfectionist

• Literally a Diamond gem as a passive point. Also, the only option available when going for the next passive, which we need.

Red Curtains

• This passive alone carries the build, making it more of a caster melee than a left-click enjoyer. Try playing without it on a target dummy, and you’ll see why this passive fucks.
  25% cdr from a full flurry into a boss’ back, more so when in packs.

Swiftness

• Super fun and somewhat useful perk, but not to the point where anything else is worth dropping for it.

Rotation/Priority/Combos

• Tondo if at 0-2 Tondo stacks.
• Flurry when available.
• Flourish and Finish if at 2-3x Tondo stacks.
• IG/VG combos, if available/reasonable(i.e. AoE or boss movement)
• Light Attacks with the Rapier for CDR.

Having to dodge away from a clump to stay safe or recover hp is hardly too big of a DPS loss. Tondo and the IG/VG abilities are great options to weave in when being forced to safety. Tossing an Ice Storm and sending an Ice Spike into a boss or a pack is very valuable CC and damage and is just as much a part of the build as the Rapier DoT/CDR management.

Beware of Tondo and Finish’s “auto-aim” for when targets are in melee range, as the game often wants to prioritize the closest target over the one you aim at when you’re trying to get the ideal Tondo/Finish angles lined up.

Take note of the near-instant Tondo CDR refreshes when opening up on an AoE pull. We can most often get a fast Tondo>Flourish>Tondo or 2x Tondo, allowing a clean IG/VG quick combo before returning to the Rapier for the 3rd Tondo>Flurry>FnF.

If you kill a target with either the initial damage of Finish or the DoT portion of it, then the ability will pierce through the killed target and follow through to whatever mob is behind the initial target as long as it is in range. This only applies when there are mobs behind the target you score the kill on that are within the range that Finish would reach them in.

IG, VG, Spear, GS (Bow/Musket?)

Abilities, masteries-lite and combos What, why, where, when. (utility, expedition, mutations)

Ice Gauntlet TLDR

Spike - Literally a nuke. More Utility than Storm and doesn’t obscure visibility. Shower - Pure Utility. Rend, root, slow for clumps and speed for us. Storm - Wide AoE DPS that boosts spike damage and enables the 200str/250dex perks. Pylon - Free DPS but difficult to optimize. It is likely to draw mobs to it as well as boss mechanics. (might bless your run, might curse your run)

IG Rotation

• Ice Shower when needed/beneficial.
• Ice Storm on Cooldown in AoE / Ice Pylon on boss fights
• Ice Spike on Cooldown in ST; or after mobs are grouped with Shower/Storm in AoE.
• (if you get an Iced Refresh proc) Spike #2 > Storm #2 > Rapier

9/10 times you’re going to be running Spike, Storm and Shower. Pylon is mostly used to cheese certain bosses (Cilla/Chardis), and the Rapier does more than enough ST DPS that won’t need Ice Pylon to do competitive boss DPS. Only rarely will you go Spike/Storm/Pylon for pure damage unless the team is already super clean with the setup and CC during pulls.

Weapon Mastery Passives

We skip Cold Reach since we aren’t using the IG basic attacks, nor will we ever be 15m away. Heavy Freeze and Gathering Storm are, therefore, also skipped. Energized Critical is also skipped for similar reasons, as we’d rather have full liberty with our dodges as well as having Opal as a solid option. This leaves us with Critical Rejuvenation and Critical Frost, giving us practically infinite mana and +15% crit with Ice Spike into Ice Storms and/or Ice Showers. (does not stack when targets are in both at the same time)

We want all passives available to all the abilities regardless of what combination we use. Only the Spike, Shower and Pylon build use the Pylon ultimate passive. Otherwise, the 25% frost damage is too good to pass up.

Tips and Tricks

Tondo > Storm > Spike

52% crit chance for an AoE spell with up to 451% weapon scaling at 62% crit dmg. 80% of that damage is boosted by 25% via ultimate chill since we run t2 in gems, or alternatively, 100% when we run an Opal (Barnacles + Amrine part of Starmine).

Needless to say, this thing nukes even at just 250 INT, thanks to all the passive interactions. Getting a kill reset with it and chaining back-to-back spikes into a pack is arguably as satisfying as popping a fat 3x tondo stack, and often better damage in AoE than a Flurry + FnF pop.

Not too much to say here; pop AoEs whenever it suits the encounter and send a Storm/Spike into bosses’ asses when you’d otherwise be light attacking for cdr. (If you’re loaded on Refreshing perks, then you might not ever do the IG combo in ST)

Void Gauntlet TLDR:

Orb of Decay - Rends, slows and deals passable AoE dmg. Petrifying Scream - Roots, fortifies, passable damage and the situational disease. Essence Rupture - Absurdly strong lifesteal, 15stam/1s on hit, fast as fuck. Oblivion - 15% empower, free energy, and potential 15% weaken.

Communicate with your healer to know if they’re running Oblivion + Blade. If they don’t, feel free to run Oblivion, otherwise, stick to Rupture and try not to overwrite their ruptures before they pop. The healing it provides is on par with the damage gained from Oblivion in terms of securing a solid kill of a pack of mobs and requiring less time spent on the VG for the full value, i.e. the 2nd Oblivion with the Oblivion setup. Lastly, if you run Oblivion, then make sure it’s under the mobs you intend to hit with Scream + Orbs so that they get the Weaken Debuff.

VG Rotation

• Rupture the priority target / Oblivion.
• Scream if it’s an AoE scenario.
• Orb + Orb detonation.
• Heavy Attack for cdr for more CC/2nd Rupture is needed. Otherwise, back to Rapier.

Gearset optimization, BiS weaponry, BiS Jewelry

Armor

Standard stuff: #1 Full set of x/y/z mob Ward. #2 Relevant Weapon perks on armor. #3 3 or more Refreshing perks. Otherwise Elemental Aversion

Rapier users practically want all 3 of their weapon perks on their armor. Although the build is playable at 0 perks, their impact on the damage done and survivability is undeniable, and hardly anything else compares with the output they provide.

Rapier	Ice Gauntlet	Void Gauntlet
Leeching Flurry	Iced Refresh	Refreshing Rupture
Keen Tondo	Unending Thaw/Pylon Burst	Putrefying Scream (Nature/Void mutations)
Deadly Flourish	Deadly Frost	Nullifying Oblivion (Genesis)
* Bold are highly suggest/required perks

Although we already have loads of CDR reduction from passives with all three weapons, having three or more Refreshing perks makes us reach the point where we hardly ever have to do light attacks in between the rapier abilities for cdr, as well as making it more likely that we get the instant cdr reset on Oblivion/Rupture without needing the Mana drain passive or the Heavy Attack cdr passive. 1x Refreshing is hardly noticeable, 2x might save a rare light attack in the rotation, and 3x Refreshing is the sweet spot where you will find yourself light attacking a lot less out of nowhere. The vast majority of your damage comes from abilities, and the value of Refreshing skyrockets since our abilities are being spammed, so the 9% on every use quickly adds up over the course of a fight.

If we don’t have three or more Refreshing perks, we want Elemental Aversion over Refreshing if available. It works on many of the mutator effects (Toxic Pool/Paranoia Pools) and the elemental portion of any ranged shot/spell. We’d rather avoid some surprising one-shots from high health than have 1-2 Refreshing.

JEWELRY

Amulet

Health + Elemental Protection, then Empowered/Refreshing/Divine

Empowered adds another 1.5s to your keenly empowered, making it last enough for a hit or two more, which substantially boosts its effectiveness and your overall DPS. However, if you do not have a Keenly Empowered Rapier, then Refreshing is technically better, though unless you have some of them on the gearset already, then feel free to grab Divine for that extra clutch healing value.

Farmables

Item	Stat	Perks	Drops from
Waterlogged Amulet	INT	Health, Refreshing + random elemental protection	Barnacles & Black Powder M10
Legate’s Amulet	INT	Health + Shirking Cleanse + ONLY element protections	The Ennead M3+
The Mark	DEX + INT	Health + Mana Recovery + Frozen Protection	Myrkguard
Glass Oculus	DEX	Health + Alacrity + Void Protection	Brimstone chests
The Last Prophecy	INT	Health + Empowered + Refreshing	Oracle of Crassus

Ring

Ele dmg>=Thrust dmg>Keen, Leeching, Refreshing>Blood Letting*

Item	Stat	Perks	Drops from	Notes
Heart of Anhurawak	DEX	Keen + Blood Letting + Thrust Damage	Anhurawak the Proud	is our absolute BiS for just about any dungeon and mutator: 5% Thrust dmg(empower*), 12% crit (bis for IG/VG), and blood letting is just too perfect of a fit for the overall damage profile of the build, farm it and enjoy it while it lasts!
Heart of Ailuros	DEX + INT	Keen + Hearty + Lightning Damage	Ailuros the Eastern Wind	get the job done for Ancient Boss Fights, be mindful of the +16int when swapping from Anhuwarak.
Heart of Aviva	DEX	Leeching + Blood Letting + Thrust Damage	Brimstone chests	is the go-to farmable “legal” ring.
Gash	DEX	Keen + Hearty + Blood Letting	Borvarn	is also a good option.
Shipyard Rings	DEX	Hearty + Blood Letting + Random Damage Perk	Dynasty Shipyard M1+	are also worth keeping an eye out for. (80% chance to be a damage mod when at 600)

• You could also look for any damage/Keen, Refreshing and Leeching Old Ring / Crafted Ring. Check the TP for old rings with blood Letting and Leeching at 600gs and get lucky, IDK.

Blood letting is a must if running less than 250 INT (-900 damage per Finish without it). When at 250 INT, then the Bloodletting can be dropped for another perk in terms of ST damage, mostly relevant when swapping for elemental damage rings at boss fights. Generally speaking, it’s worth running the Blood perk since it makes Finish do more damage to mobs without needing a full Flurry first, as well as making it less likely that the Tondo falls off a mob that lives long enough for whatever reason. It just so happens to be on the best available Dmg+Keen ring, so enjoy it while it lasts.

Earring

Beloved>=Evasive, Refreshing Toast, Refreshing > Regenerating / Purifying Toast (preference).

The Anti-Threat perks are more important than everything else. If we get the aggro of 1 or more mobs, then we lose both backstabs insane value but also the positional value needed for ideal and safe Tondo/FnF angles. We will often hit more things than the tank has hit when using the Gauntlet spells anyhow, so the likelihood of stealing aggro is notably high (especially in pugs).

Refreshing toast shaves off the much-needed cdr on our health pots and ward potions, giving them 20-second and 90-second cooldowns, respectively. For healing potions, this can easily result in saving our lives, and for ward potions, it allows us to use them more often on crucial pulls, so we won’t have to worry about random one-shots during the initial grouping phase.

Refreshing gets us to the godly 3+ Refreshing breakpoint fast and is the only direct DPS boosting perk available. Nice and simple.

Regenerating has the chance to buy you enough time to get a potion of or receive any other heal from the healer before dying. Especially nice in fire/void mutations and generally nicer than purifying toast since we often use the regen pot at the start of a pack for that extra layer of safety at the beginning.

Purifying toast carries more value than Refreshing/Regenerating in Nature and Ice mutators since it’s your only way of getting out of the Toxic pool/Icicle root. In fire/void, where you take more damage from ground AoE, then the other two options will be of more value. Refreshing gets us to the godly 3+ Refreshing breakpoint fast.

• No good beloved/evasive DEX/INT farmable earrings exist. Look on the TP for good ones, or do some scarab opal earring crafts (DEX, Beloved + Ref Toast for resale value)

Item	Stat	Perks	Drops from
Reflecterd Mayhem	DEX	Ref. Toast, Puri. Toast, Refreshing	Entropy
Invoked By Her Two Lands	DEX	Ref Toast, Regenerating, Refreshing	High Priest of the Twin Doors
Hardened Tear of Avarice	DEX	Ref. Toast, Regenerating, Puri. Toast	Avarice (Eternal Pools Trial)

WEAPONS

RAPIER

Bane, Rogue >= Vicious

Keenly Empowered > Refreshing Move > Attunement > Jagged > Chain > lifesteal

The 15% emp will never go to waste since the Rapier is empower starved af, and it affects all our damage (tondo snapshots it).

• 7% stone
• 5% Thrust (partial)
• 10% leadership
• 15% oblivion
• 37% at best, with 5% being partial, so at worst, you get ~14% of the 15%.

Keenly jagged is strong on bosses (200-600dps) but can be confusing when looking for how many tondo stacks you have on the target at any given time. It deals the same damage as Tondo, has the same debuff icon and deals damage at the same pace. Attunements are also an option for ST and somewhat nice for AoE (430-500dps).

The same thought process that the Greatsword had for Jagged vs Attunement applies here, notably that attunements get the +15% base magic damage from 150 INT, whereas jagged doesn’t. Jagged will pull ahead on bosses since we can 3x stack it by ourselves, but overall damage is where attunement shines.

Refreshing Move needs testing but should be a very fun option if that’s the best you have. It would not surprise me if it were on par with overall damage with attunement, or close to equal on one light attack backstab would equal 9% cdr as opposed to 6%, then the three hits would equal 27%. This would make the spec feel like it has near 0 cooldowns, and you could throw tondos all over the place.

We do runeglass gems on our Rapier since our damage profile is slower than Evade spam builds, so there is more room between our output, making runeglass dots worthwhile. Also, the damage gained from the elemental gems outweighs the damage gained on Tondo + FnF from opal/diamond since the total damage done from the bleeds/pops is less than the damage done from basic attacks and abilities.

Rapier	vs Lost	vs Ancient	vs Corrupted	vs Angry Earth
Fire mutator	Augmented Aquamarine	Augmented Topaz	Augmented Sapphire	T5 Opal/Diamond
Ice mutator	T5 Amber	Augmented Topaz	Augmented Sapphire	Augmented Ruby
Void mutator	Augmented Aquamarine	Augmented Topaz	Augmented Sapphire	Augmented Ruby
Nature mutator	Augmented Aquamarine	Augmented Topaz	Augmented Sapphire	Augmented Ruby

ICE GAUNTLET

Bane, Vicious + Keen/Iced Refresh

Pylon does not proc Keenly jagged, Attunements nor Runeglass dots when not active. Nor does it benefit from the Energized Critical perk in any way. It does proc the mana on crit passive whilst using the IG (i.e. when you want mana)

Iced Refresh is more valuable than keen for two reasons:

1. We’re most often at 50% crit factoring in Keen Tondo. Any more crit is hardly noticeable in the overall scheme of things
2. Just 1 Spike Refresh to reset all our IG CDs (Spike is always the last we use) for another spike. Shower and storm is WAY more damage and utility than keen or anything else would ever provide the playstyle.

Gem cheatsheet

Ice Gauntlet	vs Lost	vs Ancient	vs Corrupted	vs Angry Earth
Fire mutator	T5 Opal	T2 Topaz	Augmented Sapphire	T5 Opal
Ice mutator	T5 Amber	T5 Topaz	Augmented Sapphire	Augmented Ruby
Void mutator	T5 Opal	T2 Topaz	Augmented Sapphire	Augmented Ruby
Nature mutator	T5 Opal	T2 Topaz	Augmented Sapphire	Augmented Ruby

VOID GAUNTLET (AoE burst + utility)

Bane, Vicious + Keen/Ref Move/Scream/Rupture

Keen is the generic BiS (and way cheaper). Ref move is strong but mostly when you need to chain CC mobs (i.e. Lazarus entry). Scream is excellent on the VG for the extra anti-heal value for when that matters. Otherwise, having Rupture on it allows you to get 3+ Ruptures out during the pulling phase. Rupture > Oblivion for pugs, the extra healing is worth more than the extra dmg, and if the healer uses Oblivion a lot, then it’s a waste for you to also use it.

Void Gauntlet	vs Lost	vs Ancient	vs Corrupted	vs Angry Earth
Fire mutator	T2 Aquamarine	T2 Topaz	T2 Sapphire	T5 Opal
Ice mutator	T5 Amber	T2 Topaz	T2 Sapphire	T2 Ruby
Void mutator	T5 Aquamarine	T5 Topaz	T5 Sapphire	T5 Ruby
Nature mutator	T2 Aquamarine	T2 Topaz	T2 Sapphire	T2 Ruby

SPEAR (Utility)

yall know this by now: Bane, Skewer + Vic/Rogue

Skewer for the Weaken on Cooldown (mostly on bosses/big mobs) Perforate for the Rend (and/or fortify) Sweep for some CC

It can be done in any order, just don’t die by being locked into some animation.

GREATSWORD (Utility)

For the runs where there already is a spear. Allows you the option of bringing the Mini-Grav Well, 10% weaken, 10% rend and the occasional anti-heal. You’d rather run this and get the DEX value than have to buy/craft some meme int/dex GA.

Bane, Slowing Rupture, Vicious (for real, we aren’t heavy attacking) Bane is a must. Rupture>Vic for a 2/2, but the rupture perk isn’t mandatory, although it helps a ton. No shame in using your main GS weapon as the Utility GS here.

Skyward for Onslaught Stance, get a good Rupture, then Rush out into a good Rapier positioning.

Blunderbuss (ultra-rare Genesis burst+utility)

Less CC than the VG/IG, more/faster burst than the VG. Bane, Vicious, Plagued nades

Same as IG/VG rotations: 4.1 Basic shot into Nades 4.2 Basic shot into Shrapnel blast 4.3 dodge > back to Rapier quickly after splitting nades go off

Bow?

Bane, Vic + ??? Penetrating Shot, Poison Shot + Rain/Explo

Musket?

Last boss Ennead tech, nothing else atm.

Bane, Enchanted, Attunement/Keen/Shooter Stance/Vorpal Powder Burn, Shooter Stance, Stopping Power.

Heartrunes

#1 Brutal Detonate

Standard DPS rune still needs some more care since we’re already low on fortify. Keen Tondo works on it as well as the 250 DEX perk, so expect huge crits.

#2 Cunning Bile bomb (it gets +3 hits with the 250 INT perk)

Only in non-nature Barnacles and/or Void mutators if the group is low on anti-heal. i.e. Healers not using Scream often enough nor using the bile bomb themselves. Hatchet users without Infected Throw. Otherwise, we don’t use it since it can’t crit.

This rune bugs out your rapier masteries (i.e. no cdr on FnF from Fuel), hard pass until fixed.

#3 Rending Vines for Dynasty Bridges (we don’t lose much from the stance reset)

#4 Cannon Blast in non-Fire genesis. (it gets +2 hits with the 250 INT perk).

Ideally, Cunning but brutal also works.

Gameplay Example

Here are some VoDs you can use to get a sense of how the build plays.

Rapier + IG

Rapier + VG