This guide dives deep into Skills as well as Passives and some of the builds for The Great Axe in New World. This guide can be viewed as a more advanced variation of our New World Guide to Weapons for Beginners. By the end of this guide, it is expected that you be able to comprehend this Great Axe and with practice be able to fully master it.
The Great Axe is a DPS/Tank weapon specifically designed to focus on gathering enemies together and then hitting them with the incredibly massive single-target attacks. Because of the nature of putting enemies up, it has a number of AoE damage tools. It's a strong PvP weapon due to its damage output and incredible catch rate.
The primary function that is made of Great Axe is in the damage Category. Although this Great Axe is a slow weapon and isn't the top of the line in DPS but it does have wide sweeping attacks that can be used to cut through multiple enemies. This makes it a great weapon for dealing with one or multiple targets in most engagements.
The second use for the Great Axe is Disruption and Utility. It comes with a variety of tools to catch enemies and stop their escape from you or from a group. These come together to give an Great Axe strong utility to complement its slow, hard hitting attacks. The same tools can be used to fill an additional role that is not tank-based by pulling and setting several targets.
Great Ability to Axe, Passive and Perks
We'll start with the different passives and skills. We'll go over the various uses of each and the effectiveness they have. There's a lot to talk about in this article We'll break it down by tree to help keep things in order.
In addition to the general information In addition to the general information, players will be awarded a Rating from C up to the S tier for both PvP and PvE. C Tier is reserved for passives that aren't great, either being required by an upgrade or otherwise useless. A and B Tiers are mid and tiers that place them in between the most useless passives as well as the best ones either way, towards one or other. The S tier is the best passives. They're the ones that you'll almost always choose should you decide to learn an ability or wish to because it's useful in many scenarios.
The Reaper Tree
The Reaper tree is specialized in capturing enemies and dealing high single-target damage. The active skills of Reaper Tree Reaper Tree consist of Reap as well as Charge and Execute.
Reap
Your Great Axe is extended 5 meters to draw enemies to you, dealing 110% weapon damage. The ability can also be used in conjunction with a carnelian Gem to give a 4 second taunt after hitting.
This ability is highly favored in PvP with good reason. It lets you quickly move an opponent away from their location, isolating the other, or grouping multiple enemies to make it easy to follow-up from any of AoE skills.
This skill comes with an 18-second cooling time, making it the coolest of the Great Axe's skills.
Reap Rating: A - PvE. S - PvP.
Of the two options to group AI enemies together one, this is the only one that could be used to make them taunt, letting you perform an off-tank job more effectively. Additionally, it has a larger range compared to the radius of Maelstrom. When you add the ability to heal itself from the damage it inflicts and also a second attack, it can be used in a variety of ways.
In PvP, this is a skill that's tough to be without in many matchups and especially when it comes to combating ranged enemies. Combined with Charge and Gravity It contributes to the Great Axe's catch potential to a large extent.
The Collector
The Collector extends Reap's range to 8 meters.
This can make Reap more reliable, as the extra distance helps take on foes that are further away. This additional distance actually to catch enemies who might try to light roll away from you in PvP.
The Collector Rating S - PvE PvP
If you're currently using Reap at all it's not a reason to not get this upgrade. It makes it more reliable and effective at fulfilling its purpose.
Hunger
Hunger will heal you 30% of the damage caused by Reap.
While a 30% rate on a heal from an attack sounds fantastic and all, it's really not that significant for situations where 1v1 is a requirement for PvP or PvE. If you're landing it on multiple enemies, it could make a difference.
Hunger Rating B - PvE and PvP
Healing is beneficial but you're not in a position to heal a lot if you're not hitting multiple targets. Since most enemies in PvP will possess higher armor levels than the majority of AI mobs however, it's not the most effective also, as it only heals for a small fraction from your total health target.
Fatal Attraction
Fatal Attraction also adds an additional spin attack that inflicts 115% Weapon Damage after pulling on a target.
While this adds a second damage that Hunger heals through, this isn't a a more damaging than the first. It does make you a little less vulnerable as the normal recovery time gets moved to after this attack instead of following the pull.
Fatal Attraction Rating: S PvE and PvP
The additional hit makes Hunger extremely useful in PvE situations, allowing it to recover more health when fighting groups of foes. In PvP there's a slight risk against other melee weapons, as blocking can prevent the pull but still allow the second attack to take effect, making you a little more vulnerable. Though, the wide spread of the follow up will prevent a lot of weapons from following up with no damage.
Charge
Charge lets you turn your Great Axe back after which it charges forward for 10 metres that deal 120% damage to your weapon when you are close to an object or press the Attack Key. You're unstoppable during this attack which prevents the skill from being disrupted.
Charge is a surprisingly flexible skill, delivering an enormous burst of speed but also dealing fairly significant damage that will only get stronger as you upgrade.
With a cooldown that lasts 20 seconds Charge ranks among the Axe's cooldowns with a shorter duration.
Charge Rating: S - PvE and PvP
Charge is among the abilities that is highly recommended to utilize in nearly every situation. The mobility boost is always welcome at lower levels, allowing for faster movement. It also has the potential to cause damage, which makes it a fairly decent skill to weave between different attacks
Frenzied Momentum
Frenzied Momentum is a scale that increases Charge's damage with distance traveled. Charge deals 120 - 140% damage to weapons dependent on distance.
The PvP Build
This is the one you've been searching for the most. This is the usual Reap Charge, Reap, and Gravity Well type of build used in PvP.
This build employs Light attacks for most of its damage, opting to rely on skills that have high catch power in order to give them an advantage in any PvP battle they are involved in.
We start the leveling process by choosing Greed for the continuous damage it could cause. Also, it gives us the choice of Reap or Charge as our first skill, of which Charge tends to be better for speed and mobility.
After you've mastered these two skills, we head over to the Mauler Tree, grabbing Mauler's Resolve and Enduring Strikes to get to Gravity Well. You can also get the Crowded Well Upgrade if you desire, however it's not the most important thing to do for this, since the majority of PvP matches are 1v1 unless you're involved in a huge skirmish or war. It's helpful in leveling though, so it's an option. It can be obtained at any time after picking up Blood Lust if you don't need to hold off on getting Blood Lust another level.
After you've gotten Gravity Well, it's back to Reaper Tree. Reaper Tree to Upgrade Reap and Charge. These upgrades can add tons of damage to these skills, and can make them deal far more damage than you expected at the moment.
The next step is to grab Critical Condition and Keen Edge to give us a bit more consistency with critical hits and to make them harder to hit. After this, we have an access point to Blood Lust.
The remaining passives that are left after Blood Lust can be taken in any order. Critical Gains as well as Feed gives us additional sustain. Frustration and Death's Emblem give us additional damage.
If you are looking for a more war-like or larger skirmish-focused build, switch Frustration and Feed to get The Center of Attention as well as Crowded security for the Mauler Tree. Center of Attention will provide more consistent damage compared to Frustration. Crowded protection is a better reliable defense because you'll be getting healed frequently. If you'd like, you can change Critical Gains to Frustration if you're looking for more damage but want to completely rely on healers to help you.
Use, Skill Perks and Rotations
Charge is generally employed to gain access to use blood Lust or to activate Gravity Well. It could also be used to chase or damage if you are able to get into an individual without the need to use it. Just because it does high damage does not mean it should be used to cause it.
Gravity Well is usually used to close a short distance or deter escape attempts. When it comes to Large Skirmishes and Wars, it's often utilized to interrupt enemies' backlines in which all the squishy DPS and healers are. It can also be used defensively as a zone to block enemies from a defense point or to prevent them from entering your own backline.
Reap is typically used to disrupt the backline of foes in wars and skirmishes. It can also be used to forcefully knock your opponents off a point. Reap is a great solution to die-skills. Most dash skills can be interrupted, and it offers a sufficient range that if you're already in control and they run away in a predictable fashion, you could interrupt them or catch them and pull them right back to you.
We absolutely want Keen, Vicious and Insatiable Gravity Well. Keen and Vicious aid in consistent critical hitting and damage. The only reason insatiable Gravity Well must be attached to the weapon is the fact that it currently isn't working properly when it's located on armor. If this gets fixed and it's not been changed to reflect as an issue, switch it out with Enchanted.
In our Armor, Resilient and Freedom are two worth stacking. Most of the time, you'll be on the front lines, taking a beating, so Refreshing Ward can help you gain cooldowns. It can also help you out of an impasse or create further havoc.
To make our Amulet it is recommended to get Slash Protection, Strike Protection and Health. Slash and Strike Protection cover most of the melee strikes we'll take in these huge battles. Health allows us to absorb some of the damage from magic or at a distance that strikes us.
We can use them for the Earring, Regenerating and Nimble are two great picks. Regenerating helps us recover health slowly. Nimble can give us a bit of Stamina Regen and allows us to block more melee hits when necessary. The last slot can be Refreshing or Refreshing Ward for cooling down recovery.
For our Ring we'll certainly need Slash Damage, Keen Awareness and Leeching. Slash Damage, and Keen Awareness assist us in getting the most damage for PvP. Leeching helps us sustain decently because we'll be attacking a lot of players simultaneously. Alternately, we could go to Refreshing and Refreshing Ward with Slash Damage.
Skill Rotation
The build doesn't come with the option of a rotation since each skill is unique and doesn't fit into an organized rotation. Check out the section on usage above to get an idea on how each one should be used. In skirmishes or war, listen for your group leader's instructions on what to do, because they'll determine the ideal time to use Gravity Well. The other abilities are personal judgement calls.
This is the final chapter of this in-depth guide on The Great Axe in New World. We hope you've gained all the information you need to know about this weapon, how it is used abilities, skills combinations, builds and abilities rotations. The icons used in this article are sourced from newworldfans.com's database.
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