Bloodstyle Rapier, the M10 DPS Build

PART 1 - Introduction

Round 2! Now more than 60% longer & with more pictures!

This playstyle is what got me sold on the idea of New World as a PvE game given my background as a Feral Druid main back when I played World of Warcraft. It triggered my nerd brain so hard, I couldn’t sleep until 3 a.m. 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 was rarely, if ever, seen in the PvE M10 “Meta”, yet somehow one of the most effective DPS builds in the game, which now is about to become the #1 DPS spec for PvE. It combines the raw dps of the Rapier and the utility/burst dmg from the Ice Gauntlet into a fun, high dmg, and calculated melee “Caster” DPS playstyle. It does require a bit more skill to min-max (which is a good thing), but at a base level it’s actually rather safe and solid all around.

SEASON 1: PATCH CHANGELIST

Key Takeaways

Flurry gets a bleed (build defining change)

CDR passive bug fixed (huge)

Flourish no longer pushes mobs away, but deals 33% less dmg. Mage weapons get +10% Bane (i.e the equivalent of 2x major trophies)

Ice Spike loses its stagger on the spike itself (actually a buff)

Ice Pylon is now less of a troll (major buff) Mutators no longer have the generic elemental resistance.

What is Bloodstyle, and how does it differ from Evade Spam?

The core concept is to apply bleeds and consume them with Finish as the main damage source, as opposed to the Evade light attack spam. Thanks to either the Blood Letting ring perk and the 250 int dot duration perk, our bleeds can reach a 16s base duration (capped at 20s), which allows us to consume them with Finish for full value after a Flurry cast.

Other than the dot duration mechanic, this build has a wider array of options for our offhand weapon alternatives, namely the Ice Gauntlet and Void Gauntlet. This is mainly due to the fact that we’re running 250 int in most builds, since the value we get from being able to use a ring with Refreshing as the 3rd perk instead of Blood Letting is rather noticeable in comparison to the slightly better raw stat scaling.

Whilst the Void Gauntlet’s utility of Scream and Oblivion is brought by Cori in my speedruns, the value we bring with our Void Gauntlet is on par with the Ice Gauntlet in random groups where the healer isn’t as proactive with their Voidblade uptime. We’re arguably better off using Essence Rupture instead of Oblivion, but more on that later. Ultimately, in my case I therefore use the Ice Gauntlet 99% of the time since Cori has the Void Gauntlet utility covered.

Other than the Ice Gauntlet’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, both in AoE and some single target (ST) scenarios. It would not surprise me if this build was dealing more overall dmg than a common Hatchet+Spear when played by a skilled player. (pls ags, give us an OPR-esque end of run stat breakdown)

The result of this Rapier variant is a more controlled playstyle with more AoE dmg and a wider utility weapon pool than the more commonly known Evade Spam build, with arguably more room for skill expression and engaging gameplay. So without further ado, enjoy the read!

Build Overview

Blood Rapier

Abilities	Gems
Flurry	Diamond
Flourish and Finish	Mob specific elemental
Tondo

Weapon Perks	Armour Perks
Bane	Leeching Flurry
Vicious/Rogue	Keen Tondo
Keenly Empowered	Refreshing

Pairs best with

1. Ice Gauntlet
2. Void Gauntlet
3. Spear

Evade/Tondo and Pylon/Storm cheat sheet

Presumed dungeon build cheatsheet.

Expedition	Rapier	Ice Gauntlet
Genesis	Evade	Pylon
Lazarus	Evade	Pylon
Dynasty	Evade	Pylon
Depths	Tondo	Storm
Tempest	Evade	Pylon
Barnacles	Tondo	Storm
Ennead	Tondo	Pylon
Starstone	Tondo	Pylon
Forge	Evade?	Pylon

Heartrunes

#1 Brutal Detonate

Standard DPS rune still, though 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 Rending Vines

Also a great option if we intend to double down on the utility side of the build. Locking mobs right after a good clump is a massive dps increase for the whole group and is arguably better than Detonate in many scenarios. We don’t lose much from the stance reset, thus making it better for us to run Vines so that the healer can run Detonate/Stoneform. Be wary of the timing so we don’t cancel our Keenly Empowered procs!

#3 Cunning Bile Bomb

Only in Barnacles, Void/Nature, and Indomitable mutators if the group is low on anti-heal. Does solid dmg over time vs Lost mobs, though the main value outside of that is the anti-heal. The DoT is not strong enough to compare vs Detonate for raw dmg, and is likely to be overwritten on large AoE with how fast the Rapier bleeds charge the heartrunes.

#4 Cunning Stoneform

Mainly just as an option in Fire mutations to counteract the explosion knockbacks. It’s a great rune to run whilst learning the ins and outs of FnF grit management, albeit not too defensively valuable as a light armor user after the fortify nerfs. Usable but far from the best option.

#5 Cannon Blast

Like Detonate and/or Bile Bomb, but with a need to aim and the cost of the animation windup. Can be nice vs the last section in Ennead but arguably a waste elsewhere.

#6 Dark Ascent

A worse version of Cunning Detonate. Looks cool but has too many downsides.

#? Fire Storm

To be determined. Seems to be doing alright damage and has a solid effect of 10% Empower for 6s and a 15% Weaken for 8s. The “Brutal” variant says it deals 200% weapon damage as opposed to Heartrune damage, so if that isn’t a typo then it could be really really good. (not tested it personally)

Rotation / Priority / Combos

SINGLE TARGET

1. Flourish and Finish at 3x bleed stacks

2. Flurry if at <2 bleeds.

3. Tondo if at <2 bleeds.

4. Light Attacks with the Rapier for CDR.

Weave in utility usage from the offhand whenever (i.e Spear debuffs), ideally when we have 3x bleeds ticking so we can refresh them with a Flurry before popping them. This way we get to squeeze in a handful of bleed ticks even when doing other stuff.

MULTI TARGET

1. FnF if there is a 3 stack bleed.

2. Flurry on cooldown on the priority target(s)

3. Flourish on cooldown

4. Tondo on cooldown when hitting more than 4 mobs

5. Flurry on cooldown if hitting 2 or more mobs

Below is a chart made to help get an understanding of what to use when in AoE scenarios. It assumes backstabs for everything, and Adagio + Momentum for the Quick Evade. The better we get at animation weaving (i.e instant Flourish after Flurry) the more the raw value goes up.

Rule of thumb: Look for clumps to Flurry, Tondo + Flourish spam otherwise.

Generic Tips & Tricks

Having to dodge away from a clump to stay safe or recover hp is hardly too big of a dps loss, both 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 dmg 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 rather than the one we aim at when we’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. Most often we can get a fast Tondo > Flourish > Tondo or 2x Tondo, which then allows a clean IG/VG quick combo before going back to the Rapier for the 3rd Tondo > Flurry > FnF.

PART 2 - Rapier Mastery Breakdown

Mastery Breakdown

BLOOD TREE

TONDO

The ability is decent on its own, but the passives attached are quite impactful, especially when compared to the other options if we ever were to consider doing so.

Thirst for Blood

This passive is probably the most valuable perk in the tondo tree by itself. Hitting a large clump can often result in a near instant Tondo CD reset. This helps a tiny bit whilst getting the reapplications of the bleed during bosses, but not to the degree where it’s worth trying to minmax this passive by Finishing at 2x stacks instead of 3.

And Again (less recommended)

Mostly relevant on bosses we can’t backstab (i.e in Lazarus), but with some Refreshing on our gear, the fix to the “Refreshing Strikes” as well as the new bleed on Flurry; the importance of this passive is heavily downplayed. I’d consider it for Lazarus, but skip elsewhere.

Proper Spacing (not recommended)

Might seem like a “bait” perk at first similar to the bow Poison Shot upgrade, but over the course of a dungeon it can add a noticeable amount of dmg. In cases where we get to make use of the passive it will add way more than Desperation or Light Edge ever will, but it is undoubtedly one of the few perks we can skip in favor of other passives. It’s generally better to play around positioning to hit more mobs than it is to position for more dmg per hit.

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 in this build.

With Flair

Adds a very underrated grit to it, which allows us to stay relevant during Fire mutations when played right. It might bait us into tanking some hits we’d rather be dodging, but overall a great addition that provides good safety and uptime.

Swagger

By the time we get around to hitting the Finish our stam 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 stam, 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, as a rare lifesaver.

Fuel

3.5% CDR (0.7s) on FnF for every tick of our Tondo bleeds (not Flurry bleeds) that scales in AoE. With enough Tondos running in an AoE pull we can effectively spam Flourish back to back for AoE dmg, which is more dps than a Flurry would do depending on how tight/spread the clump of mobs is. Though realistically, we’ll find ourselves casting a quick Flourish before every Flurry in AoE when it’s off cooldown.

Bloody End

This makes the Bleed ticks effectively do 15% dmg as opposed to 11% when consumed, i.e 50% more dmg instead of 10%, adding that much unexpected Oomph to the bleed dmg. A 6k dot now pops for 9k instead of 6.6k.

FLURRY

298 % weapon dmg in total. Take note that we 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.

Fleeting Strikes (math!)

7% per hit, up to 45% at all 5 hits, or 50% with Refreshing Strikes. When hitting 2 or more targets, we 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, Tondo or some mixed light attacks. Now factor in the Refreshing perk (2.9%) on the armor and we see how easily Flurry goes near infinite on backstabable mobs/bosses.

To The Bone

Might seem redundant when at 250 int and with a blood letting ring, but it opens room for flexibility in gearing and for the rotation. This makes it so we don’t need both of the bleed extending perks (ring/int), thus enabling bloodstyle with a GS or Spear offhand, or alternatively a ring with a better perk. With this, we never have to worry about losing potential dmg when both FnF and Flurry are off CD, making it so that the priority is always Flurry into FnF, since we don’t lose any Bleed Pop value.

Finalize

The rework to this passive is so sweet that even Jesus Christ gives AGS a thumbs up. The last hit now applies a 10%x12s dot (same as Tondo, going up to 20s max) to all targets hit. This is a MASSIVE dps boost, and is the equivalent of making Flurry do ~75% more dmg when factoring in the Finish interaction. The new bleed Bloodstyle gameplay is now more about Flurry optimization rather than Tondo and Animation weaving optimization.

This passive also opens up the Evade, Flurry, FnF build which I will touch on properly this time!

BLOOD PASSIVES

Refreshing Strikes

1%-5% CDR per hit adds up real fast in both AoE and in regards to Flurry hits. 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 gamechanger.

Engarde

+10% to any rapier damage done to targets above 50% HP, i.e 5% dmg on average. This passive makes the Tondos we apply on the start of a mob pack hit extra hard, and the dmg stays on the bleeds until we pop them, as long as they get popped above the 50% mark. If we pop 3 bleeds, and the sum of 2 bleeds is enough to bring the target below 50%, then the 3rd bleed won’t be affected on pop.

Unerring

5% more dmg when either of the Rapier bleeds are on a target. Works on the bleeds themselves which is neat. Fits perfectly in the loadout since our priority is already to have bleeds everywhere anyhow.

Light Edge (not recommended)

Our light attacks, let alone the middle swipes, are such an abysmally small portion of our overall dmg that this passive is not worth considering. At best it adds 2% more dps to our light attacks, which is such a miniscule amount of our dmg profile that this is 100% skipped. (not even picked on the Evade variant)

Heavy Puncture (not recommended)

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.

GRACE PASSIVES

Desperation (not recommended)

It’s one of the better 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 stamina as opposed to below 100 stamina. We can use this instead of Controlled Breathing at the cost of overall stamina/mobility if we so please, though I really don’t recommend doing so.

Controlled Breathing

3 stam on any rapier hit that works on Tondo/Flurry bleed ticks, even in AoE. This passive alone lets us 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 dmg (more on gems later). This passive is so strong that it is part of what enables Bloodstyle to be played at 5con even after the Fortify changes.

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 slaps. Pair this with the guaranteed backstabs from crits and the stamina gained from Controlled Breathing and suddenly we have a “rogue-esque” playstyle.

Swiftness

Super fun and surprisingly useful! Allows us even more freedom in positioning as well as speed to keep up/get ahead after a pack is finished.

Below is the standard Full Blood Tree setup. Not too much room for change.

EVADE VARIANT

Pros: Good option if no leadership SnS Tank/DPS, skill expressive as fuck, visceral gameplay, we feel cool, looks dope on YouTube, energy drink sponsorships(?)

Cons: No Keen Tondo, less AoE, harder to pull off, ping / internet speed reliant, fuck-up factor, carpal tunnel, caffeine addiction

Rotation

1. Flurry on cooldown at all times

2. FnF at 3 stacks of bleeds.

3. Evade on CD to creatively cancel animations.

4. Light attacks for CDR.

Advanced Rapier Tips & Tricks

Bleed Damage, Rend and Finish

The damage a bleed does when popped is based on a handful of factors. I’ve seen misinformation all over the place and thus I’m gonna need to over-explain this. It really isn’t that complicated folks:

Bleed dmg x 1.5 x remaining seconds (1-20) x bleed stacks (1-3) x target armor

Bleed DMG	Effect	Value
Empower (50% cap)	Keenly Empowered	15%
	Omni. Evade	10-19%
	Oblivion	15%
	Leadership	10%
	Insult to Injury (Riposte)	10%
Base DMG	Perfectionist	10%
	Desperation	10%
	Unerring	5%
	Engarde*	10%
	Punishing Runeglass*	5-8%
	Opal/Diamond	15%
	Medium/Light Loadout	10-20%
PvE only	Trophy/Bane/Coating	up to 45%

The effects we have on us when we APPLY the bleed, the remaining duration of the bleed(s) when Finish hits, and lastly what armor the target has after factoring in Fortify/Rend are the only things that matter.

Whatever Empower or Base DMG effect we have active when we land the Finish has ZERO say in how much dmg the bleed pop does. Only the dmg from the Finish itself is affected. Therefore, min-maxing the Keenly Empowered windows then becomes crucial since it also boosts the bleed dmg by 15% when active, which then lasts the whole duration of the bleed. Any refresh to that bleed will not overwrite a stronger bleed, ever.

AoE Optimization

The build’s biggest weakness is its AoE dmg when compared to other builds. Putting in the extra effort to min-max the AoE dmg we do is most likely the most important thing to making this build work. The damage we do on bosses is extreme, but not to the point where it’s justified to bring a Rapier to a group unless they perform well in AoE, which is most of the time spent in an M10.

This is why the build is best paired with an Ice Gauntlet or Void Gauntlet, not only to add some very efficient AoE with Storm/Spike or Orb/Scream, but also for the added mob pack control that Ice Shower and Scream bring. The option to run a Greatsword as an Offhand also comes into play here. All three of these Offhands both help with setting up and maintaining a clump, as well as bringing really efficient AoE in the process.

Whilst we won’t be the #1 AoE DPS anytime soon, I’d presume we’d be on par with the other DPS in terms of overall dmg when playing well.

Delayed 4th Bleed

If a 3 stack bleed has less than 12s (20s) remaining, then overwriting them with a new bleed is a dps gain. A Tondo would add 3x8s (24s) worth of damage to the FnF pop. Otherwise it’d be a 34s pop instead of the 58s pop after the 4th bleed. The new change to Finalize has made this decision process really straightforward, seeing as it both extends a bleed by 5s (15s on 3x), and adds a new full bleed (20s). If we ever have leftover bleeds on a mob in an AoE encounter, then the play is always to Flurry or Tondo to refresh any bleeds to full before FnF.

5th Hit Flurry

The 5th hit of the Flurry cast can be animation canceled so that it goes off just as we queue another ability, thus removing the tiny wind-down animation. Evade, Flourish and Tondo all fit into this window nicely. This opens up for some nice min-maxing that can add up some extra casts over the course of a bossfight. 0.1s here and there quickly add up to another 1s worth of uptime. However, if we fuck it up, we’ve lost the vast majority of our damage for that Flurry cast.

Flourish Spam

With enough Tondo stacks on an AoE pull we can have a ~0s Cooldown on Flourish and Finish. With this we can spam Flourish for efficient AoE by holding Block or dodging between each Flourish. Whilst the damage nerf from 90% to 60% is noticeable, the width and spammable nature of the ability make it worth weaving into the AoE scenarios. *With the removal of the pushback from Flourish this is now also a solid cc spam tool.

Unless the Flurry spam is hitting more than 2-3 mobs, weaving in Flourish in between each Flurry is a great optimization for making use of the 5th Flurry hit cancel, and will skyrocket your overall AoE dmg when done well.

Tondo Animation Cancels

A well known optimization for the old Evade spam setup is to use Evade to cancel the wind-down animation of Tondo. However, with how certain Heartrunes have their own special animation, we can shoehorn their animations over the Tondo wind-down. The only two drawbacks to this are that you’re canceling whatever Keenly Empowered proc we have active, and if we use the heartrune too soon, the Tondo won’t go off, making us recast it again for an embarrassing optimization loss.

Piercing Finish

If we kill a target with either the initial dmg of Finish or the DoT portion of it, 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 we score the kill on, that are within the range that Finish would reach them in.

PART 3 - Offhand Weapons

ICE GAUNTLET

TLDR;

Spike - Literally a nuke. Helps manage Cooldowns more than Storm.

Shower- Rend, Root, Slow for clumps and speed for us.

Storm - Wide AoE dmg and enables the 200 STR /250 DEX perks for everyone.

Pylon - Free dps, can be tricky to optimize. Is likely to draw mobs to it as well as boss mechanics. (might bless your run, might curse your run)

Ice Gauntlet Rotation

1. Ice Shower when needed/beneficial.

2. Ice Storm on Cooldown in AoE / Ice Pylon on boss fights

3. Ice Spike on Cooldown in ST, or after mobs are grouped with Shower/Storm in AoE.

4. (if we get a Iced Refresh proc) Spike #2 > Storm #2 > Rapier

Ice Shower is the main reason we’re running Ice Gauntlet in the first place. It’s a very controllable Root, Slow and AoE Rend that has a great effect on clump management. We can spread or tighten it with movement and moving the camera left/right. The Rend is applied to everything that enters the wall (except bosses), and stays on for 3s after leaving, thus with a well placed Ice Shower we can do a 10% Rend for 11s on a clump. That is massive since the Fortify/Rend rework raised the cap from 30% to 70%, making every percentage count on packs.

Ice 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. It makes a nice difference, but with the recent fixes to the rapier CDR it’s gonna be less windows to replace/dodge proc the fire rate passive.

Ice Spike is my preferred 3rd since it is fast and has the potential CD reset. It’s more dps than Storm on bosses, and makes Ice Shower CDR management easy when standing in the Pylon frost zone. I can hit up to 15k on one mob, so it also doubles as a niche AoE option, making it comparable to Storm if used well.

Ice Storm is fast and easy AoE dps. It’s my default pick if I’m not using Ice Pylon. This opens up the Ultimate Chill passive (+25% frost dmg) for the Ice Spikes, which is huge since we most often run the 20% elemental damage gems outside of Lost expeditions, essentially giving the Ice Spike a neat little boost. It enables the 200 str/250 dex “if cc’d” damage passives, although those are often enabled by other effects as well. The only real drawback from using Ice Storm is the visual clutter it adds, making it harder for everyone to see what the mobs are doing inside the Storm.

Weapon Mastery Passives

We want all passives available to all the abilities regardless of what combination we use.

We skip Cold Reach since we rarely use basic attacks. 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 chance with Spike/Pylon into Frost Areas.

Whilst the Mana on Crit might seem inferior to the +10% crit dmg or 15% on basic attacks, it’s the more consistent option when factoring in the mana needed for Ice Spike Chaining and the rare Mage Hunter weeks. Forcing weird movement we otherwise wouldn’t, to get the extra 10% crit dmg on Pylon/Spike isn’t worth it from my experience, you’d rather get a faster and better positioning for the Ice Showers and Pylon placements, to then get back to the Rapier in a better spot. Good mobility is a massive dps increase overall!

The “Refreshing Spikes” passive works in a similar way to the Tondo “Thirst For Blood” passive, i.e giving 10% cdr for each mob hit with the Mighty Spike. In most cases this allows a fast 2nd spike, and in extreme cases (Depths) it makes Ice Spike go infinite. This is especially crucial to keep in mind after the Flourish damage nerf.

Quick Tips

Keen Tondo works across weapons as long as we have it on the armor, thus making it also give Ice Spike / Ice Pylon the 12% extra crit chance.

Use dodges to cancel the long wind-down animations, especially for Ice Storm.

Ice Spike is often your “safety/uptime” optimizing option. I.e when you’re forced out of a clump is when it shines, since it makes us not lose substantial dps. In sketchy conditions, there’s no shame in staying back and sending a basic attack+spike while assessing the situation.

STANDARD

PYLON

VOID GAUNTLET

TLDR;

Orb of Decay - Rends, slows and deals passable AoE dmg.

Petrifying Scream - Roots, fortifies, passable dmg, situational disease.

Essence Rupture - Absurdly strong lifesteal, 15stam / 1s on hit.

Oblivion - 15% Empower, free stamina and potential 15% weaken.

VG Rotation

1. Rupture the priority target / Oblivion.

2. Scream if it’s an AoE scenario or something needs to be rooted.

3. Orb + Orb detonation.

4. Heavy Attack for CDR for more CC / 2nd Rupture is needed, otherwise back to Rapier.

Communicate with your healer to know if they’re running Oblivion + Blade. If they aren’t Void Blading then feel free to run Oblivion, otherwise stick to Rupture and try not to overwrite any Ruptures before they pop. The healing it provides is on par with the dmg gained from Oblivion in regards to reducing the time to kill a pack of mobs. Having everyone else get the 20% lifesteal will often lead to people not dying as well as staying in and having more uptime. This makes it way easier for the Healer to dps, since there is much less for them to heal, essentially making us an off-healer.

Lastly, if we do run Oblivion, make sure that it’s under the mobs we intend to hit with Scream + Orbs so that they get the Weaken Debuff.

Weapon Mastery Passives

ANNIHILATION TREE

Forsaken Pact is overcapping empower most of the time.

Keen Humility really isn’t needed as we have +10% crit chance from 50 dex.

Efficient Harvest’s health gain is irrelevant.

Fortifying Echoes can technically be skipped, but it’s arguably the better alternative between all the other options.

DECAY TREE

Mending Evasion will proc Aggro on mobs, so it can be counterproductive during the pre-clump running.

Overflowing Essence gets priority since it heals for ~400 hp in a wide radius which can be enough to prevent a rare death.

Cleansing Harvest doubles as a “Purifying Toast” which is very handy.

Radiant Efficiency saves us a ton of mana and will let us do Orb/Scream spamming consistently. Lastly I prefer the 20% extra healing on heavy attacks as a situational self sustain option in clutch moments over the mana/dmg/duration increases.

RUPTURE

OBLIVION

SPEAR

Nothing new or revolutionary here. Standard Perforate/Skewer/Sweep setup.

Has been covered so many times on so many guides that it’s not worth going in-depth, it’s very straightforward. Use elemental gems in it, enjoy the extended bleeds, and enjoy having to be the Skewer bot on bosses.

GREATSWORD

In the rare case where the team needs more clumping (i.e with a FireStaff + IceGauntlet dps) then you’re in a great spot to run Greatsword. Running GA would be silly.

300 DEX, 210 INT : T5 gems 250 DEX, 250 INT: T2 INT gems (T5 for ambers)

The general combo is to Skyward Slash for the Onslaught Stance activation, ideally while rending and doing damage, then roll into a Rupture position to pull the mobs in, and finish it off by using Relentless Rush out of there into a solid backstab angle on the clump for the Rapier. Skyfall Sword also becomes really valuable since it hits a ton of mobs, as opposed to the rapier.

FIRESTAFF?

With the Season 1 rework to Firestaff, it becomes more of an option than previously, albeit still falling behind in terms of utility.

Fits the same niche as Blunderbuss does in the Greatsword DPS builds, albeit with more focus on the AoE dmg than the quirky dps uptime optimization. We lose a ton of utility by not going Ice Gauntlet or Void Gauntlet, but we gain some pretty hefty AoE Burst that we would struggle to pull off with the Rapier unless the packs are super tight. If anything, it’s a borderline niche pick for speedrun scenarios.

BOW?

Only ever as a niche option vs IG/VG on the last bosses in Ennead. Otherwise it brings no utility and nothing major in terms of AoE vs the other options. Ice Shower+Ice Storm is a more overall dmg contribution than a fat pen shot + rain of arrows. The more mobs are clumped, the more they get hit by cleave from everyone, which in turn is more overall dmg than some extra raw dmg from a Bow would add.

MUSKET?

Now take what I said about bow, but it’s even worse. Legit no real utility or AoE, was only used bc I thought it would do more dmg than the bow thanks to the scaling and Powder Burn dot, but boi was I wrong.

BLUNDERBUSS?

Brings nothing that a FS or a VG ever wouldn’t.

AoE burst? - Fire Staff

Mobility? - Fire Staff w/ Burnout

Antiheal? - VG w/ Scream Perk

Ranged Ammo weapons need major buffs to be worth considering as offhands, let alone main hands.

PART 4 - Stats & Gearing

Optimized loadout reference sheet.

IdealLoadout	#1	#2	#3
Rapier	Bane	Vicious	Keenly Empowered
Head	Ward	Refreshing	Aversion
Chest	Ward	Refreshing	Aversion
Gloves	Ward	Tondo/Evade	Refreshing
Legs	Ward	Refreshing	Shirking Energy
Feet	Ward	Leeching Flurry	Refreshing
Amulet	Health	Ele Protection	Empowered
Ring	Thrust dmg	Leeching	Refreshing
Earring	Beloved	Ref. Toast	Refreshing

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 are a handful of variants, albeit in light of the fortify changes brought in March 2023, we’re now running 50 con unless we are really comfortable with the build and expeditions.

STAT SHEET	Dex	Int	Con
Full Glasscannon	260	250	5
VG/IG	215	250	50
Spear/GS/Bow	300	150	65
Safer Mage	265	150	100
Safer Fighter	215	200	100

We lose about 0.8% Rapier dps from going 260/250, as opposed to the standard 300/210 Rapier statline. The gain on the IG/VG dmg is about 8%, so the AoE dmg is way higher and the ST dmg is about equal. Now with 50 Con being more relevant, we’re then comparing 215/250/50 vs 300/150/65, which isn’t even a 1% difference for the Rapier. So going for the Intelligence stat setups is preferred thanks to the viability they open up for the offhands.

In regards to Constitution, we “lose” ~5% dps from adding another 50 con to the setup, as opposed to more int/dex, with the tradeoff being about 15% more “effective HP”. The 5% dps decrease is worthwhile in any scenario where the 50 Con allows us to stay in on a pack/boss where we’d otherwise die/dodge. 95% dps is better than 5% dps (which is also why the ranged options from the VG/IG are so valuable as 2nd weapons).

If you try to run 5 Con in a pug, you deserve any incoming flame or blocks if you fuck up. Anything more than 1-2 downs in a M10 pug is trolling, save the 5 Con setups for proper premade groups.

In addition to the scaling on the Rapier and Gauntlets, there is also the stat passives to keep in mind:

50 dex: +10% crit chance

100 dex: +5% base thrust dmg

150 dex: -10 stam cost per dodge

200 dex: +10% backstab dmg

250 dex: +10% random crit dmg vs cc’d targets

50 int: +10% crit dmg

100 int: +10% base basic attack magic dmg (works on ele gems)

150 int: +15% base magic dmg from all sources (ele gems, heartrune)

200 int: +10 mana after a dodge

250 int: +30% DoT durations

ALL of the above stat perks benefit the build one way or another. Both the 200 Int mana passive and the 150 Dex dodge passives are situationally minor dps increases, be it more leeway with rolls or giving us enough mana to get repeat casts off with the IG/VG (especially in Mage Hunter mutations).

In the cases where we’d be running a Spear or Greatsword offhand, you’d drop the excess Intelligence in favor of more Dexterity and or Constitution. Stick to 150 Intelligence for the elemental damage increase and Rapier scaling, then run T5 elemental gems on the Spear/GS since they don’t get either of the 50 str/100 str bonuses in this build.

Weapon Gems

Most of the time we will be using a T5 Diamond. Approximately 40% of our damage on bosses is bleed damage, which makes the 15% base damage from Diamond more valuable than the bonuses gained from elemental gems even with mediocre uptime. The bleed from Flurry is applied on the last hit, which makes it near guaranteed to have 100% uptime on diamond for it, which is massive.

The exceptions are when the mutator effects make it really challenging to maintain the 100% health condition, in which we use the mob relevant T5 elemental gems. With proper gear and positioning this should rarely be necessary.

We can use runeglass gems on the Rapier, but it really isn’t recommended. It makes some sense for the Tondo build but no sense for the Evade build. We’d rather have full effect from the T5 elemental gems or a diamond since we’re min-maxing animation cancels/overlaps anyhow.

*For Spear/GS offhands, T2 Ruby/Sapphire beats out Opal at 200 Int or more. At 300 Dex/150 Int, use Opals.

Weapon Perks

RAPIER

Bane, Rogue >= Vicious, Keenly Empowered

Keen Emp > Attunement/Jagged > lifesteal > Chains

Diamond / T5 Elemental Gems

The 15% Empower will never go to waste since the rapier is empower starved af, and it affects all our dmg (Tondo snapshots it).

Keenly Jagged is strong on bosses but can be confusing when looking for how many bleed stacks we have on the target at any given time. It deals the same dmg as the Rapier bleeds, has the same debuff icon and deals dmg at the same pace. You’re gonna get used to counting to 3 anyhow, but Keenly Jagged makes it important to know which ability/perk the bleeds on your screen are from. Attunement is also an option for ST and somewhat nice for AoE.

The same thought process that the Greatsword had for Jagged vs Attunement applies here. Notably, Attunements get the +15% base magic dmg from 150 Int, whereas Jagged doesn’t. Jagged will pull ahead on bosses since we can 3x stack it by ourselves, but overall dmg is where Attunement shines, even after the nerfs.

Lifesteal is to be more important in regards to the Fortify nerfs, thus making every heal count, so we don’t get 2-3 shot by random hits or effects. We would never run Lifestealing over Keenly Empowered, but we would consider it vs Attunement/Jagged.

Chain perks are now more competitive with Attunement, but still far behind any of the other options. Most of your time is spent on abilities and we can often go several seconds between each light attack unless running the Evade setup.

Alternatively we can use any Bane, Vicious + Omni Evade rapiers as budget rapiers, or Bane, Vicious + Leeching Flurry as another budget rapier, if you don’t want to invest too much gold whilst trying it out.

Unless they change how the “Deadly Flourish” perk works, it won’t be worth going for. 25%/39% more dmg for a small fraction of the time this is active is absolutely nothing compared to the value that a 3rd refreshing or a Keenly Empowered adds.

ICE GAUNTLET

Bane, Vicious, Iced Refresh > Pylon Burst > Keen

Pylon does not proc Keenly Jagged, Attunements, or Runeglass dots when not active UNLESS the Rapier has the same perks itself. This then procs based on the Ice Gauntlet damage and is a dps loss.

If you run the Storm, Shower, Pylon setup, feel free to use either of the 3 skill perks on the IG to make room for more Refreshing on the gear itself.

Iced Refresh is more valuable than Keen for 2 reasons:

1. We’re most often at 50% crit factoring in Keen Tondo, and in regards to the crit chance rebalancing it isn’t as important to reach the crit breakpoints. More crit chance is nice, though there are other solid options.

2. Just one Spiked Refresh resetting all our Ice Gauntlet CDs is more dps and utility than any of the other options can provide.

VOID GAUNTLET

Bane, Vicious + Rupture > Keen > Scream > Ref.Move

Rupture on the Void Gauntlet allows us to get 3+ Ruptures out during the pulling phase, which is a major increase to the healing done. Keen is the next best option (and often the cheapest) since it helps both CDR management and Damage. Consider the Scream perk if the group needs anti-heal and you’re tight on armor perks in terms of Refreshing stacking. Refreshing Move also works but is less ideal in our setup (doubles as a healer BiS).

SPEAR

Bane, Vicious, Skewer.

We’re using it for the debuffs, having a 3rd perk be a damage perk is not preferred but still somewhat usable in speedruns.

GREATSWORD

Bane, Vicious, Slowing Rupture > Keen > dps perks.

We’re not basic attacking so Trenchant Strikes is a no-go. The 3rd perk is either Slowing Rupture for the utility, or anything that adds some damage during the combo. Ideally Keen, Keenly Empowered (since we Rush last) or Attunement Perks.

If you have a BiS Mainhand dex Greatsword, you can use that for AoE dmg if the situation allows for it.

FIRESTAFF

Bane, Vicious, Incinerate / Fireball > Pillar > Keen/Keenly Empowered. Use whatever 3rd perk makes the most sense in regards to how you find yourself using the FS.

JEWELRY

Amulet

Health, Elemental Protection, Empowered > Refreshing/Divine

Always Health + Elemental protection, never fall for buying a Health + Empowered amulet.

Empowered adds another 1.5s to your Keenly Empowered, making it last long enough for another hit or two, which is a substantial boost to its effectiveness and your overall dps. However if you do not have a Keenly Empowered Rapier then Refreshing is technically better, but still not something I would spend tons of gold on.

To get these you either have to craft them or hope for lucky Old Amulets on the TP, M10 dungeon drops, or the rare Gypsum Cast opening.

For the crafters: craft them with Intelligence since they double as BiS for Ice Gauntlet Voidblade Healers. STR / DEX builds can farm their Myrkgard amulets, which makes the demand for the Dex/Str amulets lower than the Int variants.

Farmables for the budget gamers: 1. Waterlogged Amulets: Intelligence: Health, Refreshing + Elemental protection (Mutated Barnacles)

2. Legate’s Amulets: Intelligence: Health, Shirking Cleanse + Elemental Protection (Mutated Ennead)

3. The Mark: Dex/Int: Health, Frozen Protection (Myrkgard)

4. Glass Oculus: Dexterity: Health, Void Protection (Brimstone Chests)

5. The Last Prophecy: Intelligence: Health, Empowered, Refreshing (Oracle of Crassus)

Ring

Thrust dmg/Elemental dmg > Leeching > Refreshing > Blood Letting

In light of the Fortify changes paired with the crit chance changes, we’re now ultimately valuing Leeching over Keen Awareness. The only exception is with bosses that can’t be backstabbed, of which there are a few. “Heart of Aviva” is now considered the default Blood Rapier ring since we need the extra healing to not get randomly 2-3 shot, now more than ever.

In regards to Blood Letting and changes to how I’ve ended up min-maxing AoE dps, there really is no point in having it on the ring unless you’re not running 250 Int, during which it becomes mandatory, since it allows us to reach the 20s dot cap. Blood Letting adds another 45% weapon damage per blood pop, i.e 135% damage per 3stack Finish Pop.

Bleeds are 40% of your overall damage with the Tondo build. The remaining 60% is mainly Thrust dmg, making it the default dmg modifier to look for. When using the Evade build we can look at the more mob type specific elemental modifiers, but then you may as well use Thrust Damage.

Alternatively, if the mutation is bad for Diamond uptime, having a ring with the corresponding elemental damage perk would be neat. Although it’s not something I recommended spending tons of gold for. A Thrust damage ring will get most of the job done even with elemental gems.

Last but not least is Refreshing, of which we want to have as much as we can fit onto our gear.

What we end up with as the ideal “one ring to rule them all” is

Thrust Damage, Leeching, Refreshing (250int)

or

Thrust Damage, Leeching, Blood Letting (<250int)

The Refreshing ring will have to be crafted or dropped as an Old Ring, the Blood Letting BiS is farmable-ish from Brimstone Chest runs, or as the “Tempestuous Ring of the Ranger” from the Tempest Heart Questline.

My previous recommendation of “Heart of Anhuwarak” is still a great ring if you find yourself using a lot of Ice Spikes or VG spell spamming, just from the fact that it has both Thrust Dmg and Keen Awareness.

Earring

Beloved >= Evasive, Refreshing Toast, Refreshing > Purifying Toast (preference)

The anti-threat perks are quite likely more important than anything else. If we get the aggro of 1 or more mobs, we lose both our backstabs’ insane value, as well as the positional value needed for ideal and safe angles. With how much our damage is getting buffed, we’re the most likely candidate for stealing the Tank’s aggro on named mobs and bosses.

So the value and relevance of the Threat perks are dependent on the Tank’s ability to manage mobs. 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).

DPS/Tank Threat Ratio	Carnelian	+Despised
Base	400%	546%
Beloved	727%	993%

This lil’ table shows the ratios between how much more dmg we can do vs the Tank before we take aggro. The base ratio is 4:1, which means as a DPS we can do 4k damage for every 1k damage the tank does before stealing aggro. Our estimated max dps is looking at 15k ish, so we’d need our Tank to do at least ~3.7k dps consistently to prevent ripping aggro at base levels.

Beloved prevents already messy pulls (or runs with Tanks in learning) from being messier than they need to be, and prevents us from losing the potential uptime needed to be relevant in otherwise decent pulls. If we know our Tank is the shit, feel free to skip Beloved/Evasive and see how it goes. There are plenty of smaller threat multipliers on the SnS/GS, so the ratios are even more in the favor of the Tank, but y’all should get the point by now. Better safe than sorry.

Refreshing Toast shaves off the much needed CDR on our health pots and ward potions, making them have 20s and 90s 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 1 shots during the initial grouping phase.

Refreshing gets our Refreshing stacked up real fast and is the only direct dps boosting perk available, any additional Refreshing perk will be felt on our gameplay. Nice and simple.

Refreshing Evasion/Ward are both so irrelevant that we may as well not have them.

Regenerating has the tiny chance to buy us enough time to get a potion off, 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 start.

Purifying Toast carries more value than Refreshing / Regenerating in Nature and Ice mutators since it’s our only way of getting out of the Toxic pool/Icicle root. In Fire/Void where we take more dmg from ground AoE, the other 2 options will be of more value. Getting stuck means lost uptime, which makes it a more reasonable option than Refreshing.

Farmables:

1. Reflected Mayhem (Malevolence)

Dexterity

Refreshing Toast

Purifying Toast

Refreshing

Get this if you trust your Tank. It’s everything we could ever ask for when Beloved isn’t needed.

2. There is no good Beloved/Evasive Dex/Int farmable earring. Look on the TP for good ones or do some scarab opal earring crafts (Int/Dex, Beloved + Ref Toast for resale value)

Alternatively if you’re in a premade group, sponsor your Tank with a Despised, Refreshing Toast + Refreshing/Refreshing Ward/Purifying Toast/Regenerating earring if they don’t have one already.

3. Invoked By Her Two Lands (Nebet)

Dexterity

Refreshing Toast

Regenerating

Refreshing

4. Hardened Tear of Avarice: Dexterity: Refreshing Toast, Regenerating, Purifying Toast (Pools Trial)

Armor Rating

Since the reworked Fortify now scales off armor instead of being its own damage reduction multiplier, as well as the go to gemming strategy for M10s being to stack the elemental resist up to 58.1%, the ideal physical vs elemental armor ratio is even more so in favor of the physical armor rating. The Armor difference between a balanced set (762) and a fully physical armor set (917) is ~155 points, or roughly 20% more physical armor.

This is the equivalent of always having 20% Fortify, which means you get another 20% physical armor from any following Fortify. Any PvE gear should now be crafted as Shadewalker or Infused Leather sets. Technically this has always been the case, but it really didn’t make a noticeable difference. However, now it makes a major difference totaling a 5% increase in eHP vs physical dmg.

Armor Perks

Rapier weapon perks are best slotted on the armor since we need Bane, Vicious, and Keenly Empowered on the Rapier. The build is playable at 0 perks, but the impact the Rapier perks have on damage done and survivability is undeniable, and hardly anything else compares with the output they provide. Get them.

Although we already have loads of CDR from passives with all our weapons, having 4 or more Refreshing perks makes us reach the point where we hardly ever have to do more than 1 light attack in between the Rapier abilities for optimal CDR. The more Refreshing we have, the more likely it is to get the instant CD resets on Tondo, Ice Spike and Ice Gauntlet abilities.

The more the merrier. We go through our abilities so fast that the value of each Refreshing perk feels damn near multiplicative. Quite simply, for each stack we get, the more value we get from the next stack, each Refreshing speeds up the time it takes to get the next CD reset, which then further speeds up the next one and so forth.

If we don’t have 3 or more Refreshing perks, we want Elemental Aversion over Refreshing if available. It works on a lot of the mutator effects (Toxic Pool/Paranoia Pools), as well as the elemental portion of any ranged shot/spell. We’d rather avoid some surprising 1 shots from high health than have 1-2 Refreshing early on in the learning curve.

PART 5 - MUTATION EFFECTS

Elemental

FIRE: Hard

Arguably the most challenging for the Rapier. Playing around the Explosion knockbacks is tricky but doable. Other than that we can lifesteal through most of the dmg with Leeching Flurry. A Fire week will make you appreciate every other week afterwards.

ICE: Mildly Annoying

The Slow from getting hit can be a pain in the ass, but nothing major. The AoE Ice dmg on Named can also be a pain, but is rarely an issue, just forces us to play more aggressively to lifesteal, rather than having safe rollbacks to use potions. Change to a Purifying Toast earring for these if you aren’t already using one, they will get you out of the ice crystal roots. Can’t benefit from the Refreshing perk if you’re not hitting anything!

VOID: Easy!

Try not to tank too many “Paranoia” void puddles to keep Diamond uptime good. Otherwise our best Mutation, have fun!

NATURE: Mildly Annoying

Do your best to knock mobs out of Compost healing pools with Flourish or Charged Heavy attacks if possible. Wear a Purifying Toast earring and pray for good Roomba (Moving Toxic Pool) RNG. Save your regeneration potions for the root cleanse when unlucky.

Modifiers

BARBARIC: Easy

We will stack the effect fast, but kill stuff so fast it hardly matters. Mobs getting huge is already a good enough indicator for you to play a bit safer.

OPPRESSIVE: Very annoying

The mana drain procs on bleed ticks, so you will often have no mana for any followup IG/VG casts. A poorly placed silence zone will make it hard for you to min-max dps properly. It’s doable, but it’s a skillcheck for us. When paired with other effects (like Ice/Nature roots), it becomes a nightmare.

SAVAGE: Potentially annoying

The anti-heal can be noticeable on a long encounter, but otherwise no real threat. The Slicer laser will cut some Diamond uptime, and combined with the anti-heal this effect makes us want to consider running an Elemental Gem in the Rapier for that week.

INDOMITABLE: Easy

Don’t get hit by stuff. Consider Ice Storm instead of Ice Spike. If paired with a Nature mutation we would also consider running a Void Gauntlet w/ Putrefying Scream, as it helps counteract healing and isn’t blocked by the shields, with the exception of Essence Rupture, which we just aim above the shields and we’re good.

Curses

DESICCATED: Easy

Hug your friends. Pay attention to whose health is lowest when it’s about to proc so you know who will get it. Remind the Healer that they can force it on themselves by using the Void Gauntlet health drain.

CENSORED: Very annoying

We will activate this effect so fast that our team might ask us to play something else, especially with the Evade variant. If the team is coordinated it can easily be played around, but if it gets procced at a bad time, our dps takes a fat hit most of the time. Try to cast abilities from the edge of the silence zones so you get dragged back in via homing, or simply just getting a Tondo + FnF.

FIENDISH: Easy

The dot after using an ability might mess a bit with the Diamond uptime, but the lifesteal added makes it a breeze. Play safe as to not get 1 shot when weary procs, otherwise go wild!

FRENZIED: Hard

This thing will shred our Diamond uptime as well as our health bars with how much we dodge to reposition, it really really hurts for us as a dodgespec. Run Elemental Gems and pray for easy positioning.

And that’s it folks! Enjoy not getting invited to pugs because people think the Rapier is a PvP crutch weapon!

END - CLOSING WORDS

I realize by writing this that I’ve made a guide that is already twice the size of my upcoming exam’s word limit, now more than 3x that limit. This is arguably rather fascinating, as the Flurry change makes the spec way more straightforward and less demanding to learn. By posting this I hereby acknowledge that I resign any claim I’ve pretended to have in regards to “not being a nerd”, and to whoever actually reads the whole damn thing: so do you. If you wish to remain even slightly “normal”, this is your last chance to turn around and touch some grass.

Find me on streams!

https://www.twitch.tv/hrodgirr

Generic info for New World PvE

https://pvebuilds.xyz/

Massive thanks to …

Benedict G and the gang for letting me degen this build for the last months

5 Con Club for hosting the guide on their website

MagnaCastor and the gang for somehow making me end up in the speedrun group

b4bot (baibai) for structural quality assurance on the guide as a whole!

Corisola for proofreading!

Last but not least: [HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED] for [REDACTED]. He knows who he is and that’s all that matters.

• Hrodgir