New World FIRE STAFF Guide and Best Builds

Want to learn how to turn your enemies to smoldering piles of ash in New World? This guide is in-depth dive into all things Fire Staff weapon

This guide dives deep into the Skills, Passives, and some builds for the Fire Staff in New World. This guide can be considered a more advanced version of our New World Guide to Weapons for Beginners. By the end of this guide, you should have a through understanding of the Fire Staff and with practice be able to fully master it.

The Guide is up-to-date for Patch 1.9.2

At the end of the guide you will find a section that lists all changes to this weapon that AGS has implemented as they maintain and support the game in the long term.

Fire Staff Overview

The Fire Staff is a DPS weapon that heavily focuses on Area of Effect Spells and Damage over Time effects. Most every ability has its use and purposes, and can deal incredibly high damage. Combining them in just the right ways will determine your success with the Fire Staff.

The Primary use of this weapon falls into the Damage Category. With high AoE and decent burst options available, the Fire Staff is very easily able to compete with many other weapons for damage output. The Fire Staff’s AoE option make it great at mobbing, so long as you’re not the focus. The burst options allow it to easily still take 1v1 encounters easily.

The Secondary uses of the Fire Staff are Area Denial and Utility. The high amount of AoE skills make it very easy to make it next to impossible for an enemy to get through tight areas unscathed. This in particular make it fairly strong in Wars or other large scale PvP situations. With a spell like Burn Out, the Fire Staff becomes a strong option for mobility regardless of weapon pairing.

Fire Staff Skills, Passives and Perks

Fist we’ll lead off with the skills and passives. We’ll talk a bit about each, their uses and how effective they are. There’s a lot to cover here, so we’ll break it down per tree to keep things organized.

Alongside the general information, They’ll be given a Rating from C up to S tier for both PvE and PvP. C tier is exclusively for the passives that are not that great, either being forced by another upgrade or generally useless. A and B Tiers are middling tiers, putting them between the worst passives and the best, leaning one way or the other. S tier are the good passives, the ones you’re almost always going for if you pick up a skill or want to because it’s useful in many scenarios.

The Fire Mage Tree

The Fire Mage Tree is absolutely loaded with raw damage and strong AoE skills, making it have a ton of use for both PvE and PvP. The Active Skills for the Fire Mage Tree are Pillar of Fire, Meteor Shower, and Fireball. So let’s cover these skills first and then we’ll tackle the passives that aren’t tied to any Skills.

Pillar of Fire

Pillar of Fire allows you to target a 2.5m area and make a pillar of flames erupt for it for 165% Weapon damage.

Pillar of Fire is a fairly reliable skill that has its fair share of usage in PvE and PvP. Thanks to its high weapon damage ratio, it’s one of the strongest skills the Fire Staff has for raw damage.

At cost of 15 Mana and a cooldown of 10 seconds, this spell is up pretty often.

Pillar of Fire Rating: S – PvE and PvP

With changes introduced in Update 1.9, Pillar of Fire has become one of the Fire Staff’s most reliable spells. While it hit only a small area, this skill hit hard, and with its faster casting speed, it’s tough to avoid. This makes it exceptionally good for both PvE and PvP

Strike the Match

Strike the Match increases the damge dealt by Pillar of Fire by 5% for each stack of Smolder on the target, up to 25% max.

Strike the Match adds to Pillar of FIre’s already exceptional damage, allowing it to scale with the use of the passives like Watch it Burn.

First Strike Rating: S – PvE, A+ – PvP

In PvE it’s exceptionally easy to stack Smolder. This makes this a very reliable damage boost, especially against bosses where it’s needed the most.

It’s still great in PvP, but you may not be able to consistently stack Smolder to full effect. Even with just a couple stacks though, its more than enough to make an impact.

Arson’s Advantage

Arson’s Advantage restores 15% for your maximum Mana per enemy hit by Fire Pillar.

This was buffed to full refund the spell’s cost if you hit just one target, which can make this ability really strong in many situations. Paired with the also buffed CDR perk for it, and you can almost chain cast this skill.

Arson’s Advantage: S – PvE and PvP

It’s a full refund as long as you land the spell on just one target. Hitting multiple targets is only capped by how many people can fit in the small cast area. This makes it exceptionally good at recovering your mana, especially in big PvE pulls or War situations.

Meteor Shower

Meteor Shower casts for a full second, after the cast is complete the Meteor Shower appears. Meteor Shower deals 100% Weapon Damage with an additional 50% Weapon Damage per second in a 4.5m AoE over 4 seconds.

Meteor Shower is an exceptionally strong AoE Spell for the Fire Staff, as it was changed from a channeled spell to a delayed cast, removing any restriction on movement.

With a Mana Cost of 30 and a cooldown of 18 seconds, this is the fire Staff’s most expensive cooldown, while also being the second longest.

Meteor Shower Rating: A – PvE, B+ – PvP

The thing that hurts this spell the most is the one-second cast time. This doesn’t set you back much at all in PvE, as the damage payout is worth it for large pulls. It can still be tricky to use in some situations solo, but can be a decent opener thanks to it no longer being a channeled spell.

The cast time really hurts this as a PvP skill. While it’s overall better in War situations than before, that’s also the only place it can be used reliably. It can be difficult to predict where an enemy will go in advance, but if you’re just dumping it on a bunch of people trying to hold an objective, then there’s little risk.

Immolation

Immolation restores 3% of mana for every hit dealt by Meteor Shower.

In the right situations, this can eliminate the Mana Cost, and even recover mana. This can make it a really good overall option, while making Meteor Shower a much more viable option.

Immolation Rating: A – PvE and PvP

This passive requires at least a few targets to be useful, but in those situations, it’s nice at mitigating the skill cost. You need at least two targets caught in it for the full duration to get a full refund from this, but this is also very achievable in most practical scenarios. The more people it hits, the less time it has to hit them to get the full refund.

Judgement of Helios

Judgement of Helios inflict Smolder when you hit a target affected by Meteor Shower with a Light or Heavy Attack. Smolder deal 10% Weapon damage per second for 6 seconds, stacking up to 5 times.

This is a little bit niche, but can work exceptionally well in the right situation when paired with Flare.

Judgement of Helios Rating: B – PvE and PvP (A with Flare)

On its own it’s far from impressive, often feeling niche or borderline not worth using. Combined with Flare though, there’s high potential to use this to ramp up Smolder and by extension Pillar of Fire which can be a great way to dish out tons of AoE damage very quickly.

Fiery Determination

Fiery Determination adds Grit to Meteor Shower, making you unable to be staggered during the cast animation.

With the long cast time, Grit can be very impactful. It makes the skill more reliable in more situations, but its better for PvP situations.

Fiery Determination Rating: B+ – PvE, S – PvP

In PvE the best use case for this is increasing the skill’s usability while solo. While this is good and allows it to be a decent option, it’s generally not something you’ll often cast more than once per encounter outside of maybe Elites.

In PvP however, this can be vital to ensuring the ability goes off. Since you’re basically a sitting duck for a full second, this is needed to make the skill work reliably in any PvP context.

Fireball

Fireball lobs a heavy fireball that deals 150% Weapon Damage in a 3m AoE.

After it’s chances, Fireball is in a bit of a rough spot. It lost a lot of it’s more consistent damage from the lingering AoE it previously had, but got some direct damage in exchange.

With a Cost of 25 Mana and a cooldown of 15 seconds, this makes Fireball a moderately long cooldown with a high cost.

Fireball Rating: A – PvE and PvP

This skill remains a strong burst option, and paired with Pillar of Fire leaves you with a quick two-hit combo that’s sure to deal some serious damage.

Scorched Earth

Scorched Earth applies Smolder to all targets hit. Smolder deals 10% weapon damage per second for 6 seconds.

While not quite as reliable as the previous lingering AoE, Smolder does still add that threat of constant damage over time.

Scorched Earth Rating: A – PvE and PvP

It’s not the lingering AoE, but it sure as heck does add more reliable damage to the skill, which almost makes this a must-have if you run Fireball.

Catch

Catch restores 10% of your maximum Mana and reduces fire staff cooldowns by 7% when Fireball lands as a direct hit.

The Direct hit requirement limits the mana return to just a single instance, but does offset the cost of the spell quite well considering you basically have to land a direct hit with it.

Catch Rating: S – PvE and PvP

With a lot of this skill’s damage now being tied to landing direct hits, this will trigger often enough when using the skill to make it worth running if you run Fireball as a spell. Being able to offset its cost as well as reduce your other cooldowns is a great boon.

Fire Mage Passives

Spell Focus

Spell Focus remove the mana cost for Heavy Attacks and restores 5% of your maximum mana on hits with Heavy Attacks.

This helps with the Fire Staff’s mana problems, alleviating the need for potions to get mana back in a lot of cases.

Spell Focus Rating: S+ – PvE and PvP

Since the original effect of Spell Focus (mana recovery) was combined with the original effect of Flare (Free Heavy Attacks), there’s never a reason to be with out this passive. Not only does it give you a reliable way to attack without mana cost or cooldowns, but the mana restoration just makes it that much better.

Spellslinger

Spellslinger increases your critical chance by 10% with abilities.

Having a higher chance to crit with a weapon that’s very burst oriented is very nice. This only affects your abilities though, so you’ll need to also have a fair amount of cooldown reduction to make frequent use of it.

Spellslingerr Rating: S – PvE and PvP

There’s no reason to ever not take this passive. Crit Chance is pretty valuable on it’s own, and paired Watch it Burn it gets even more value. With a lot of your skills having fairly high ratios this makes it very potent.

Flare

Flare makes Heavy Attacks deal 110% Weapon damage in 1-meter AoE on impact.

Whether you’re splashing a target directly or off the ground, this adds a decent amount of value to your Heavy Attacks. It also pairs exceptionally well with Spell Focus, as well as Meteor Shower’s Judgment of Helios upgrade.

Flare Rating: A+ – PvE and PvP

This is great for the extra AoE potential. With the projectile speed returning to normal in 1.9.2 in exchange for slightly weaker AoE damage, this is still a borderline must-have. It’s almost like a free Pillar of fire, but weaker.

Prophet of a Fire God

Prophet of a Fire God increases your Critical Damage by 15% while using a Fire Staff.

Much like how higher critical chance is good, so it crit damage.

Prophet of a Fire God Rating: B – PvE and PvP (S with Spellslinger)

Without Spellslinger, this passive is pretty unreliable. After picking up Spellslinger, it’s very strong passive for increasing your overall damage. Its reliance on Spellslinger means it’s hard to rate highly by itself.

Fiery Restoration

Fiery Restoration reduces Fire Staff Cooldowns by 10% on hits with Heavy Attacks

This is a very nice passive, but reliant on a couple others to be powerful.

Fiery Restoration Rating: B – PvE and PvP (S alongside Flare and Spell Focus)

On its own, it’s a great passive, not particularly strong due to the mana cost of both spells and Heavy Attacks. When combined with Spell Focus, it allows the passive to be used freely with no mana cost. Flare increases the potency of the effect against groups, letting you get multiple hits per Heavy Attack.

Singe

Singe makes Light Attacks and Heavy Attacks inflict Smolder on hit. Smolder deal 10% Weapon Damage each second for 6 seconds, stacking up to 5 times.

This passive is pretty good on its own now, thanks to applying to both types of attacks. You can combine it with Meteor Shower’s Judgment of Helios effect to apply two stacks of Smolder per attack. It can also be combined with Flare to give you a reliable way to stack and refresh stacks of Smolder on multiple targets.

Singe Rating: A – PvE and PvP

Since Smolder plays a part in increasing your overall damage, having more options to apply and refresh it can be very useful. While it’s not going to be a mandatory passive for every build, it has quite a bit of synergy with some other common passives which can make it very good to have.

Clear Casting

Clear Casting increases your damage by 5% if you haven’t received damage in the past 3 seconds.

This is a fairly good PvE passive, but has high risk and low reward in PvP.

Clear Casting Rating: S – PvE, B – PvP

In PvE and especially in group content, this will be up most of the time. With careful play and positioning, it can be maintained indefinitely. There’s little reason to go without this passive, despite the low bonus.

In PvP there’s a bit of risk, as you’re less likely to dodge everything, but it can gives your attacks and spells a boost fairly often when spacing properly. If you’re finding yourself not keeping it maintained all too often, it may be worth swapping to a different passive.

Clear Mind

Clear Mind grants Empower, increasing your damage by 5% while above 50% Mana.

By itself, this buff will rarely be up. With the strong support passives this has though, it becomes fairly consistent.

Clear Mind Rating: A – PvE and PvP (S with Flare and Spell Focus

Due to the Fire Staff’s high mana costs, this will fall off at the end first rotation of spells. With the supporting passives like Spell Focus, Arson’s Advantage, Catch, or immolation, you;re able to offset a lot of your high cost spells. With Flare and Spell Focus, there’s never a reason to not take this passive as well and the combination of those two passives offsets many of your mana issue entirely.

Runes of Helios (Fire Mage Ultimate)

Runes of Helios creates a 4m rune on the ground when casting a spell that last for 7 seconds. While standing on this Rune, it grants you Empower, increasing your damage by 20%. This effect has a 30-second Cooldown.

Out of the two Ultimates, this one tends to be much more effective overall thanks to the huge increase of damage it provides. With the increase in area for the effect, it also gives you more wiggle room to avoid attacks.

Runes of Helios Rating: S – PvE and PvP

In PvE there’s little reason to not take this Ultimate. It’s one of the biggest damage increases you have access to and if you manage your skill rotation just right, getting a full rotation off every time this skill is up is incredibly satisfying.

In PvP it’s still great, but since you have to stand in a small area to use it, it can be harder to fully utilize. With the amount of skills that can displace you or otherwise force you out of the zone before it ends, it’s both high risk and high reward. If used well, it’s always worth the pick up.

The Pyromancer Tree

The Pyromancer is all about DPS, rather than raw upfront damage. The Active Skills for this tree are Flamethrower, Incinerate, and Burn Out. So let’s cover these skills first and then we’ll tackle the passives that aren’t tied to any Skills.

Flamethrower

Flamethrower emits a jet of flames from the tip of your staff, dealing 100% Weapon Damage every second to enemies up to 4 meters in front of you. Each hit applies Smolder, dealing 10% Weapon Damage every second for 6 seconds stacking up to 5 times.

With a change to its base damage and tick rate, Flamethrower is capable of exceptional damage. It no longer is broken when used to stack up and reapply Smolder as it was before, but is overall a minor loss.

With a Mana cost of 5 per second, no duration limit, and a cooldown of 8 seconds, this means Flamethrower has the highest potential mana cost and the lowest cooldown.

Flamethrower Rating: A – PvE , C – PvP (B fully upgraded with perk)

With the removal of the Reheat Ultimate, this took a heavy hit to how long it could be kept active. It’s not a big hit though, as it still does fairly well when used on groups of enemies.

The success of this skill in PvP has been reduced a fair bit. Between making Fortify weaker and reducing its tick rate which slows how quickly it applies Smolder it’s not as good as it was. It can still have its uses but is overall a risker skill to use.

Fire’s Reach

Fire’s Reach increases the range of Flame Thrower by 50%, increasing the range to 6 meters.

This upgrade overall is the worst of them, but does make it a little safer to use overall.

Fire’s Reach Rating: A – PvE, B – PvP

It grants a little extra safety in PvE, letting you keep distance away from packs, which helps avoid AoE focused on the tank for Expeditions. The Extra range also allows for Flamethrower to hit larger groups as well, which is always a nice benefit.

This doesn’t make the skill much safer to use in PvP as much as it does PvE. The extra Reach is nice for applying or reapplying Burn stacks. It does make it easier to keep your distance from someone that might hit you back or knock you out of it, especially if used from behind your front liners.

Infernal Flames

Infernal Flames increases the base damage of Flamethrower by 25%, making Flamethrower deal a base of 125% Weapon Damage.

This damage boost is pretty nice, and with the changes to the base damage and tick rate introduced in Update 1.9, this can make Flamethrower a powerhouse of raw damage.

Infernal Flames Rating: S – PvE and PvP

This passive can make Flamethrower an incredibly threatening skill in PvE and PvP. With the skill having a damage ratio of 125% with this passive, it’s gonna hurt. While it’s not going to be insanely bursty, it’s very high and consistent damage.

Where the previous iteration of flamethrower would take 4 second to ramp to 112.5% damage and deal that every 0.75 second, due to refreshing Burn stacks. This deals 125% damage per second right out of the gate, and after the same time ramping Smolder, it’ll deal 165% per second, and will go to 175% after and stay there. Over the same span of 5 seconds, the new version deals 875% weapon damage compared to 750% it did previously.

Pyro Dancer

Pyro Dancer removes the cooldown of Flamethrower, making it a purely toggle skill.

Removing the cooldown of this skill helps it significantly by increasing it flexibility. Without a cooldown to worry about you can use this as more of a means to quickly refresh your SmolderStacks without having to wait for or expend another cooldown.

Pyro Dancer Rating: S – PvE and PvP

There’s less focus on long-duration toggles, instead making it quickly and easily able to reapply Smolder while not being a huge Mana drain. Which gives this a bit more utility in most situations. It even makes it a bit more usable in PvP as you’re able to give it a quick toggle without nearly as much risk, as it no longer puts it on a long cooldown.

Incinerate

Incinerate creates a 3-meter-wide AoE around you, dealing 150% weapon damage and pushing enemies by 3 meters. Hits with Incinerate inflict a Smolder that deals 10% weapon Damage per second for 6 seconds, stacking up to 5 times.

This ability also has Grit, meaning staggers will not interrupt it. When slotted with a Carnelian Gem Incinerate will also taunt all foes hit for 3 seconds.

This skill is pretty decent overall, being a good option for quick burst damage combos. With increased damage and getting Smolder instead of a weaker Burn effect, it’s still capable of decent damage.

With a mana cost of 22 and a cooldown of 12 seconds, Incinerate is a rather high-cost skill that will be up frequently.

Incinerate Rating: A – PvE and PvP

Incinerate is a good skill over all, but lacks the range to always be an incredibly useful spell. However with upgrades, it also can become a strong source of extra damage for certain builds with the changes to Flame Out!

Scorched

Scorched makes each hit of Incinerate inflict 2 stacks of Smolder instead of 1.

This is a Decent damage upgrade, adding another 60% weapon damage dealt over 6 seconds.

Scorched Rating: A – PvE and PvP

With Smolder being a strong mechanic to build around with the Fire Staff, being able to nearly instantly stack the effect with certain combos makes this particularly strong. Just having the additional stack of Smolder which is a direct upgrade of the previous Burn it had before is also a nice boon.

Cauterize Wounds

Cauterize Wounds restores 20% of the damage dealt by Incinerate.

Healing based on the damage dealt from one of the hardest-hitting skills is incredibly potent. It’s slightly weaker than before, with the changes to Flame Out!, but still adds some much-needed recovery to builds that want to go deep into enemy lines.

Cauterize Wounds Rating: A – PvE and PvP

The healing from this should not be underrated at all. With the damage potential this skill has, you can heal for a good chunk of health, especially early on. Later on it can fall off if you don’t have the damage to back it up, which can be tough even with passives and usually requires a lot of stacked damage.

Flame Out!

Flame Out! allows grants 3% Empower per target hit by Incinerate, up to a max of 15%. This effect lasts 7 seconds.

While this seems like its a bit niche, with a bit of cooldown reduction it can be an exceptionally great upgrade and has the potential to have high uptime thanks to Incinerate’s lower cooldown.

Flame Out! Rating: A – PvE and PvP

This makes Incinerate worth taking for some builds, but its short range can hold it back in other builds. Overall the passive provides a strong effect that can be incredibly useful.

Burn Out

Burn Out has you charge forward 18 meters, surrounded by fire which deals 130% Weapon Damage on contact and inflicts Smolder. Smolder deals 10% Weapon Damage each second for 6 seconds, for a total of 60% Weapon Damage.

Burn Out tends to mostly be used for Mobility and positioning, as if you charge at an enemy, they can block it, stopping you in your tracks well within their range to hit back.

With a Mana cost of 30 and cooldown of 20 seconds, Burn Out is one of the most expensive single-use spells while also having the longest cooldown for the Fire Staff.

Burn Out Rating: B – PvE, S – PvP

While dealing fairly decent damage, it’s not a particularly strong option. Even Flamethrower ends up being a better damage option over this skill. So it get limited to strictly mobility.

Despite being Blockable, the mobility this provides makes it a must have in most any PvP build. It’s not something you’d ever really want to be without, as you’re limited in mobility and usually your other weapon tends to be something to fill that melee range better.

All In

All In reduces Fire Staff Cooldowns by 5% for each enemy hit by Burn Out. This can occur a max of 5 times per cast.

It’s a nice bonus if you get multiple enemies lined up, but very niche as it’s generally only used for mobility.

All In Rating: B – PvE and PvP

The situations where you could benefit from this are very limited. However, there are some cases, like Wars, where this has a lot of potential to shine and be a powerful effect.

Heat it Up!

Heat It Up! triggers an explosion at the end of Burn Out that deals 100% Weapon Damage in a 2.5m AoE.

If you line yourself up just right with this skill to no only pass through a target, but also land this, Burn Out becomes and exceptionally powerful damage option.

Heat It Up! Rating: S – PvE and PvP

While Burn Out is often used to keep distance, this can reward you with strong burst potential for committing to and diving into a fight. If you have a PvE Tank grouping enemies up for you, or a bunch of people on an objective in PvP this has some insane potntial.

Pyromancer Passives

Pyromania

Pyromania increases your Fire Staff damage by 10% while the target is afflicted with Burn or Smolder.

This is a fairly strong and very reliable damage boost. With so many option to apply Smolder in an AoE and deal AoE damage, it’s exceptionally strong.

Pyromania Rating: S – PvE and PvP

Being one of the most reliable damage bonuses of the Fire Staff, there’s little reason to be without this passive. While there is a small amount of setup required (applying Smolder) you have enough option to apply it and keep it active consistently to make it worth having in nearly every build.

Heat Up

Heat Up applies a stack of Smolder when you dodge through an enemy melee attack. Smolder deals 10% Weapon Damage per second for 6 seconds, stacking up to 5 times. This effect can only trigger once per second.

Since dodging is your main defensive tool outside of using Burn Out to create distance, this can be a nice way to get extra damage while still playing offensively.

Heat Up Rating: C – PvE (A while solo), A – PvP

While you won’t need to dodge all too much unless you’re solo, this is still great in those times. If you’re playing primarily group content however, this shouldn’t be used.

In PvP dodging will be something you’ll do defensively and often in some cases, making it exceptionally good. Maybe not good enough to always run this passive, but always worth considering.

Kindle

Kindle Increases the duration of Smolder by 20%, adding 1.2- seconds of duration to Smolder.

Compared to just refreshing Smolder in some way, this is rather weak. It can be sort of useful if you’re having issues refreshing Smolder, but still much weaker.

Kindle Rating: C – PvE and PvP

With Smolder only lasting 6 seconds to start with, and this bumping it to 7.2 seconds, this isn’t enough to justify the passive point. At absolute best, you’re getting a slightly longer window to refresh Smolder, but that’s it.

Trial By Fire

Trial By Fire creates a 4-meter damaging aura around you hit a foe within 4 meters. The aura deals 20% Weapon Damage per second and last for 5 seconds. This effect has a cooldown of 30.

While a bit niche, this passive can have some potential in PvE for some builds, giving you bit of extra damage. It’s still not fantastic but does also trigger more consistently and practically.

Trial By Fire Rating: B – PvE, C – PvP

Despite its buffs, Trials of Fire still fall short in many cases. It can have some niche use in a PvE Flame Thrower Build, but otherwise not great. It short range to trigger and deal damage with the effect holding this back in PvP, much more than PvE.

Let It Burn

Let It Burn grants you Fortify, reducing incoming damage by 10% for 2 seconds, whenever Smolder deals damage.

A free Fortify effect on most of your skills and all attacks with Singe is a pretty nice bonus. It may appear to be a short duration but in reality, it’s the duration of your Smolder plus 2 seconds. So this often last 8 seconds or more.

Let It Burn Rating: B – PvE and PvP

With the changes to Fortify, this isn’t the same defensive boon it was before. It can still provide a bit of extra defense, and considering its free outside of this skill point, it’s a great filler option still. Though not to the same level of being nearly mandatory for most builds.

Watch it Burm

Watch it Burn inflicts Smolder when you critically strike with a Fire Staff spell. Smolder deals 10% Weapon Damage per second for 6 seconds, for a total of 60% Weapon Damage. This effect can stack up to 5 times.

This can be a nice bit of bonus damage when you crit, which can happen fairly often when you use Spellslinger.

Singe Rating: B – PvE and PvP (A with Spellslinger)

While you don’t crit often by default, this can still be a good pickup. It does get much better when you grab Spellslinger, which makes landing critical hits much more reliable and gives more means of stacking Smolder.

Combat Speed

Combat Speed grants Haste, increasing your movement speed by 10%, for 5 seconds after casting a Fire staff ability. This can only trigger once every 10 seconds

While it’s a weak Haste, it does help cover the Fire Staff’s low mobility issues to some degree.

Combat Speed Rating: A – PvE and PvP

In PvE this can be nice to pair with Flamethrower and Incinerate, giving you a bit of mobility to reposition Flamethrower or to get to a safer range after using Incinerate. It does much the Same in PvP, but is more applicable for all skills, making it easier for you to kit.

Backdraft (Pyromancer Ultimate)

When hitting a target that has 5 stack of Smolder with a Heavy Attack, Backdraft will trigger an explosion dealing an additional 100% Weapon Damage in a 2 meter area around the target. This effect consume all stacks of Smolder and can only trigger once every 10 seconds.

Backdraft is quite the unique Ultimate, allowing the Fire Staff to play around building Smolder Stacks quickly, detonating them, then repeating. While the cooldown seems like a limiting factor, it only really hinder’s pairing it with Flamethrower.

Backdraft Rating: A- PvE and PvP

While this doesn’t seem super impressive at first, it’s worth considering for the extra burst potential. If built around properly, you’ll be able to make use of this passive every time it’s off cooldown for plenty of bonus damage.

This also synergizes well with Spellslinger and other passives that enable quicker stacking of Smolder. This allows it to be used in a variety of builds, with the cooldown making more consistent between builds.

Fire Staff Skill Perks

Below is a list of the Skill perks available to the Fire Staff. The range for the effect’s value is determined by the gear Score of the item it is on. The Minimum value is at Gear Score 100, while the Maximum is at Gear Score 625.

Refreshing Pillar of Fire

Refreshing Pillar of Fire reduces Pillar of Fire’s cooldown when hitting enemies, which can occur up to twice per cast. On Weapons, this reduces the skill cooldown by 11-20% per hit, up to a max of 40%. On Armor, this will reduce the cooldown by 3-12% instead, up to a max of 24%.

At all stages, this is a pretty solid Perk to have on hand. It’s much more impactful on Weapons, letting you potentially cast the skill every 6 seconds if you hit 2 enemies with each cast.

Refreshing Pillar of Fire Rating: S – PvE and PvP

In PvE this is insanely good, offering a solid cooldown reduction, which scales to reduce cooldown further as Gear Score increases. Being a fairly high-damage skill, it’ll provide consistent value.

In PvP, this skill can be hard to reliably land. In a situation like Wars, getting it off on unsuspecting targets can let you use it fairly often and get max value. With the high damage ratio, this can rack up damage very easily.

Empowering Meteor Shower

Empowering Meteor Shower grants an empower that can stack up to 10 times, which provides a small Empower per instance of damage dealt. This effect lasts for 6 seconds. On Weapons, this provides 1.9-2.9% per stack, for a max of 19-29%. On Armor, this provides 1-2% per stack, for a max of 10-20% instead.

This bonus requires multiple targets to ramp faster and get max value, as it will not fully stack on a single target. With each hit refreshing the stacks it provides, this makes the overall empower effect last around 10 seconds by itself. With added cooldown reduction from passives like Fiery Restoration, this can be maintained a bit more easily but not reliably.

Empowering Meteor Shower Rating: S – PvE and PvP

If you’re already using Meteor Shower, there’s no reason to not take this perk. It’s a solid damage boost to itself and other skills used after. With the Skill also not allowing to to attack, cast and move while it does it thing, it’s exceptionally powerful.

Empowering Fireball

Empowering Fireball increases Fireball’s damage to targets above 50% health. On Weapons, this increases Fireball’s damage by 31-58%. On Armor, this increases Fireball’s impact damage by 5-32% instead.

This is a very solid damage increase overall. The Threshold effect limits its usefulness in some situations, it’s not terrible overall

Empowering Fireball Rating: A – PvE and PvP

In PvE this can be fairly consistent, with it only not helping for boss encounters. You’ll still get plenty of value in the first half of a boss fight to make it worth using, but it may not always be a mandatory thing to use.

In PvP, it’s very unlikely to do a combo that can result in bursting a target to under 50% before using Fireball. It’s still very effective for more of a dive playstyle, and adds a good amount of damage.

Empowering Incinerate

Empowering incinerate increases the damage dealt to targets afflicted with a Burn. On Weapons, this increases damage by 17-30%. On Armor, this increases damage by 4-17% instead.

Empowering Incinerate Rating: S – PvE and PvP

Regardless of the situation, adding extra damage to Incinerate is pretty much always going to be a great option. While it may no longer be the absolute powerhouse it was, this does help with bringing it closer to that.

Accelerating Flamethrower

Accelerating Flamethrower allows Flamethrower to grant a 20% Haste for 2 seconds after applying 2 Smolder Stacks and extends the duration of Smolder inflicted by Flamethrower. On Weapons, this grants 15-19% increased Smolder duration. On Armors, this perk grants 10-15% Smolder Duration instead.

With reduced mobility being one of the biggest drawbacks of using Flamethrower, this can help offset that. With a consistent 20% Haste as well as a bit of extra Burn duration, it’s pretty useful when using Flamethrower.

Accelerating Flamethrower Rating: A – PvE and PvP

With this providing a flat 20% Haste at all levels now, this is a really helpful perk for Flamethrower. The extra Smolder duration doesn’t really do much at all here, since you can use the skill more than often enough to stack and maintain the Smolder.

Fortifying Burnout

Fortifying Burnout grants a stack of Fortify for 5 seconds for each target hit by Burnout, with a max of 3 stacks. On Weapons, this grants 6-13% Fortify, up to a max of 18-39%. On Armor, this grants 3-10% Fortify, up to a max of 9-30%.

This heavily encourages using the skill offensively rather than defensively. While Fortify isn’t as strong as it used to be, it is great for a build that would want to risk using the skill offensively.

Fortifying Burn Out Rating: A – PvE and PvP

Since Fortify isn’t as powerful as it used to be, this doesn’t help nearly as much as it used to. It’s still great for dive-style builds, as the extra protection is still welcomed, but it will not be mitigating the same amount of damage it could before.

Fire Staff Builds

The Builds featured below have not been updated for the Update 1.9 Changes as of yet. Stay tuned for updates coming as part of our ongoing update 1.9 coverage.

Fire Staff Leveling Build

This is a basic leveling setup which uses primarily damage skills to power through enemies as fast as possible. It uses Pillar of Fire, Fireball and Incinerate for its active skills.

This combination of skills give you plenty of effective and reliable damage. On top of the raw burst potential, we’re also able to stack and maintain Burn later on helping with consistent DPS.

Out first points are spent getting our first three skills and a bit of utility, We first grab Spell Focus, as this makes our heavy Attacks refund their mana cost if they hit. This gives us a lot of early consistent damage, and eventually becomes mana sustain later. Then we grab Clear Mind, Fireball, then Pillar of Fire. Then we hop over to the Pyromancer Tree and pick up Pyromania and Incinerate.

This is then followed by Spellslinger and Flare to boost damage and alleviate mana issue by a significant amount, Spellslinger can also be substituted with Scorched Earth for more consistent damage. Flare makes Spell Focus actually restore mana rather than just recover the mana spent on Heavy Attacks. Spellslinger helps with overall damage by increasing critical chance.

Then if we haven’t already haven’t we prioritize the upgrade for Pillar of Fire and Fireball. Then we make sure we have both Spellslinger and Prophet of a Fire God for the huge increase to our overall damage potential. Then we grab Fiery Restoration for the cooldown reduction and Clear Casting for the damage boost. This put us at 10 points in Fire Mage and lets us get Runes of Helios, as our 13th pickup.

After grabbing our ultimate, we can grab Clear Mind and Watch it Burn for their added damage, as both are a little less consistent compared to the other options. From this point we can expand further, and shift some points around to get more damage out of this setup.

As we continue leveling we can trade Pillar of Fire’s upgrade for another passive on the Pyromancer side, while maxing out Incinerate for its maximum damage. Over on the Pyromancer side, we additionally pick up Let It Burn and Singe, giving us an easy way to both apply Burn and get an easy Fortify in doing so.

You can pass on Let It Burn if you’d rather not give up the Pillar of Fire upgrade, but the consistent extra defense helps a ton in Open World PvE and to a limited extent in PvP, despite this not being a strong PvP build.

Skill Perks, Usage and Rotations

Like most leveling builds, this doesn’t have a super complicated damage rotation, and instead just uses each skill independently.

Pillar of Fire will most commonly be your opener, especially when upgraded. If you drop the upgrade in favor of the fortify effect, this will matter much less. It’s still a good opener even without as it tend to be harder to land on an aggro’d enemy due to it’s small AoE. Landing it on a still enemy without having to tank a hit or two is very nice.

Fireball is our main Single Target damage option, offering a lot of upfront damage. This gets even more benefit if you can kite enemies around making them stay in the fire, or in the case of Expeditions or a duo, a tank is holding them still.

Incinerate ends up being our strongest burst, dealing high damage while also inflicting 4 stacks of Burn in a single attack with a quick animation. If we hit multiple enemies, especially if we’re trying to make use of all of our AoE in solo open world content, we also can get a pretty good amount of healing out of it too.

For our Weapon, we’re almost always going to want Keen and Vicious. The third pickup can be Chain Element, Enchanted or Keenly Empowered for the extra damage, Siphoning Blow for a bit of extra mana sustain, or even Refreshing Move for the extra cooldown reduction. Empowering Fireball can be a good consideration if you’re picking this up later on and not leveling it alongside your character.

For our weapon gem, Diamonds are usually the best option. There’s very few situations where you won’t be at full health as a ranged DPS.

For Perks on our Armor, Refreshing Pillar or Fire and Empowering Fireball are both great pickups. Refreshing Pillar of Fire reduces Pillar of Fire Refreshing and Siphoning Incinerate can also be decent pickups, letting you get more skill usage over all.

For Amulets, you’re almost always going to want Slash Protection for anything PvP currently, as Great Axe is still the go-to weapon. These can replaced in PvE to better match the enemy types you’re likely to face, or replaced with Luck. Health and Mana Recovery are nice, generally applicable options to fill the last slot. If you really want to heap on the defenses, Fortified Recovery grants a fairly strong 30% Fortify for 5 second when hit below 50% health, but has a 90 cooldown for the effect.

For Earrings, Focused is a strong option for helping with Mana regen, with Mana Toast being a pretty close second. Refreshing is a solid all around pick up for helping with cooldowns. Purifying Toast and Refreshing Toast are both great utility options for open world PvP where health consumables tend to be used more. These all also help in PvE as well.

For Rings, Fire Damage or Keen Awareness are always great options thanks to the damage they provide. Leeching can be a nice way to keep your own health topped off. Siphoning is also a great pickup, helping with Fire Staff’s mana issues even more. Refreshing can also be taken here for even more cooldown reduction.

The Smoldering Comet Build

This build is more PvP oriented, focusing on skills are highly powerful for most PvP situations. It focuses on the use of Fireball, Incinerate and Burn Out.

The whole purpose of this build is to get on top of someone and nuke them for a large part of their health. It’s a very high risk style, that does also work in both PvE and PvP, though excels in PvP.

With the Update 1.9 changes, this build is still pretty solid. While it shifts away from Runes of Helios, it’s gotten a bit stronger overall.

For Leveling this build, we’ll start as we always do by picking up all of our skills, which takes our first 6 points, picking up Spell Focus and Clear Mind on our way to Fireball. Next we’ll head back over to the other side of the tree.

Here, we’ll grab Pyromania, then our remaining two skills. We’ll fully upgrade both and grab the Let it Burn and Watch it Burn. Ideally of this set of passives, Incinerate is upgraded last, as its passives won’t be super helpful over others until we grab Backdraft. We’ll grab Backdraft immediately after finishing off Incinerate then head back to the Fire Mage side of the tree.

Here we’ll be grabbing our remaining passives and upgrading Fireball. We’ll do that first, then grab Spellslinger and Prophet of a Fire God as our high-priority passives. then we can round off by picking up Clear Casting and Singe.

Skill Perks, Usage and Rotations

This setup does have a skill rotation it uses. It’s very simple and nothing overly complicated. It does require learning Burnout’s Range though.

Burnout will always be our opener. The goal is to Burnout into an enemy or through them, near enough to them to hit both Heat it Up! and Incinerate. We need to hit Burnout for the additional Smolder stack which makes this build

Incinerate should always be second in line of priority, as with short range it’s easy to escape, at least for light armor. This in the biggest chunk of our damage, so this absolutely has to land.

Fireball is last, since it actually has range. This means even if an enemy re-positions after getting hit by Incinerate, you’re still able to follow up with this.

For Armor Perks, Empowering Incinerate and Fortifying Burnout are both helpful. The Incinerate perk increases damage slightly, but is not worth using on our weapon. Fortifying Burnout adds a bit of extra safety, granting some Fortify as you go in and start your comb. While It’s not super strong after the 1.9 Update, it’s still enough to help with surviving.

For Weapon Perks, Keen and Vicious are still a strong pair of go-to perks, as we’ll need to land critical hits consistently, while Vicious helps deal extra damage. Ideally, the third perk is Empowering Fireball, to add a ton of burst damage.

For our weapon gem, Jasper is usually the best here. Since you’ll be diving in and getting close, you’re very likely to have this activated, if unintentionally. For Runeglass Gems, you’ll want to take Sighted on your weapon, and Ignited on your armor. You can also run Ignited on your weapon if you want the additional DoT, but you won’t be able to trigger it as reliably.

For Amulets, you’re almost always going to want Slash Protection or Thrust Protection, as they cover the majority of weapons in the game, at least with their default damage types. These can be replaced in PvE to better match the enemy types you’re likely to face. Health is a great second slot, granting additional health. Stamina Recovery is going to be the ideal third perk here, as you’ll need a means of survival after going it, which will mean plenty of dodging.

For Earrings, Refreshing alongside Refreshing Toast and Healthy Toast will be your best-in-slot. We’re not really hurting for Mana enough to really need Focused or Mana Toast, so taking Healthy Toast and Refreshing Toast lets us focus on removing additional health. If desired Refreshing can be replaced with Regenerating, but CDR helps smooth out our rotation.

For Rings, we’ll want Keen Awareness, Refreshing and Hearty. We’ll need the help of Keen Awareness to consistently crit. We give up Fire Damage in doing so, but Crits not only help us deal more damage they also help us consistently stack Smolder. Hearty helps to give us a little extra stamina, giving more breathing room for when we need to dodge often.

The Comet Rotation

1. Heavy Attack
2. Burnout
3. Incinerate
4. Fireball
5. Heavy Attack
6. Repeat as cooldowns allow

This is fairly straightforward and simple. We lead with a Heavy Attack to trigger Singe and apply Smolder for the full rotation. Then wefollow this wioth Burnout, to close the distance and make use of Heat it Up to hit your enemy with some extra damage and Smolder. While you’re on top of them, hit them with Incinerate to deal damage and trigger Flame Out!. Follow up Incinerate with Fireball for a huge Burst of damage. Follow up with a Heavy Attack to detonate Backdraft.

In total before factoring in any damage bonuses or perks, this full combo including the Smolder deals 820% Weapon Damage . This is incredibly high damage potential for a single rotation of skills. As a rough example, this means a weapon with 1000 base damage would deal a total of 8200 damage before resistances.

In the perfect scenario, where you have every possible buff up for the rotation this damage potential jumps quite a bit. You gain a total increase of up to 20% in overall damage. Additionally, Fireball will deal an additional 58% damage, as well as up to 15% extra from Flame Out!. This results in a minimum of 10,416 damage and a max of 10,596 damage, using the same weapon as the previous example.

Fire Staff Weapon Pairings

Since the Fire Staff only Scales with Intelligence, this limits its pairing to other magic weapons, or weapons with Intelligence as a secondary stat. Thankfully there are enough weapon with Intelligence to bring enough diversity to pairing options.

The Top 4 weapons to pair with the Fire Staff are the Ice Gauntlet, Void Gauntlet, Rapier, and Blunderbuss.

Ice Gauntlet and Void Gauntlet

The Ice Gauntlet and Void Gauntlet work similarly, offering a close-range damage option that has Intelligence as a main stat. The Ice Gauntlet is a little stronger, since it also only scale with Intelligence, but the Void Gauntlet offers far more utility. Both are very strong pairings that make them well worth consideration.

To learn more about the Ice Gauntlet or Void Gauntlet, you can check out our Ice Gauntlet Guide and Best Builds or Void Gauntlet Guide and Best Builds. This will help you plan out a strong build, should you opt for either of these pairings.

Rapier

The Rapier is a strong melee offering, giving a variety of offense, defense, and utility. It’s a very quick weapon, capable for raw DPS or huge burst potential based on build. It also packs a lot of mobility options, which can cover up the Fire Staff’s lack of mobility options. Then there’s its defensive offerings like Riposte, which can help cover the Fire Staff general frailty.

To learn more about the Rapier, you can check out our Rapier Guide and Best Builds. This will help you plan out a strong build, should you opt for this pairing.

Blunderbuss

Finally, we come to the Blunderbuss, which is a bit more of a strange pairing but has its advantages. This mid-range weapon offers a lot of crowd control, and some additional range options that the Fire Staff itself doesn’t have. It also offers mobility, which can be used aggressively but is often better defensively.

To learn more about the Blunderbuss, you can check out our Blunderbuss Guide and Best Builds. This will help you plan out a strong build, should you opt for this pairing.

This is the end to this very in-depth guide to Fire Staff in New World. We hope you have learned everything you need to know about this weapon, its usage, skills, perks, builds, combos and ability rotations. The icons used in this guide are pulled from newworldfans.com‘s database.

Patch Notes Changes

This segment will help you keep track of what has changed for this weapon with the patches as AGS maintains the game in the long-term.

Update 1.1 “Into the Void”

• Pillar of Fire
  • Increased damage scaling from 134% to 170%.
  • Fixed an issue where Pillar of Fire targets the caster when activated using the ability key.
  • Fixed an issue where Pillar of Fire failed to trigger Runes of Helios when activated using the ability key.
  • Fixed an issue that caused Pillar Of Fire to hit twice against targets near the edge of the effect radius.
• Meteor Shower
  • Fixed an issue where Runes of Helios triggered on targeting Meteor Shower rather than on casting it.
• Fireball
  • Added additional clarity that the Fireball ability is not able to crit. Previously it would show the crit damage color, but not actually deal increased damage. It will no longer show orange damage numbers, and an additional tooltip was added.
• Flame Thrower
  • Increase damage scaling from 34% to 50%.
• Passives
  • Clear Casting: Reduced damage bonus from 10% to 5%.
  • Clear Mind: Reduced empower effectiveness from 10% to 5%.
  • Runes of Helios: Reduced damage bonus from 30% to 25%.
  • Prophet of a Fire God: Reduced crit damage bonus from 20% to 15%.
  • Spellslinger:
    • Reduced the crit chance bonus from 15% to 10%.
    • Fixed an issue where crit chance was increased for standard attacks and not just abilities.
  • Pyromania: Reduced damage bonus from 20% to 15%.
  • Kindle: Fixed an issue causing Kindle to increase buff duration by the incorrect amount.
  • Reheat: Reduced the time (without activating an ability) to trigger Reheat from 6s to 4s.
  • Updated the Singe and Watch it Burn passives to mix up the functionality:
    • Singe went from inflicting Burn on critical hits to triggering Burn on light attacks.
    • Watch it Burn now inflicts burn on critical hits from abilities only.

You can find the full patch notes for New World Update 1.1 “Into the Void” in our New World Patches archives.

Update 1.2 “Winter Convergence Festival”

• Burnout: Updated how this ability interacts with gravity to prevent it from being used to traverse up steep inclines.
• Meteor Shower: Fixed an issue that allowed this skill to deal damage to targets through Fort Gates and War Camp gates.
• Watch It Burn: Fixed an issue that prevented this passive ability from functioning.

You can find the full patch notes for New World Update 1.2 “Winter Convergence Festival” in our New World Patches archives.

Update 1.3 “Expedition Mutators”

No significant changes.

Update 1.4 “Heart of Madness”

For the starting beach experience in Windsward, the Watcher now offers players a choice of 4 weapons from a weapon rack to better suit their playstyle.

• Players can choose between a Warhammer, Fire Staff, Bow, or Hatchet.

• Fixed an issue that prevented players from interrupting repeated light attacks with a block.
• Burning: Updated the burning debuff applied by several fire staff abilities.
  • Increased damage tick rate from 1.5s to 1s.
  • Decreased maximum stacks from 10 to 5.
  • Increased damage per stack from 3% weapon damage per tick to 6%.
  • Updated tooltips for all affected abilities.
• Burn Out: This ability now ends early if it traverses into deep water.
• Flamethrower:
  • Accelerating Flamethrower (Item Perk): Fixed an issue where this perk did not properly scale its potency with gear score.

• Refreshing Pillar of Fire (Item Perk): Fixed an issue that caused this perk to grant cooldown reduction when dealing damage with DoT effects.

Update 1.5 “Arenas”

• Burn Out: Fixed an issue which caused a desync when moving immediately after using the ability.
• Meteor Shower: Increased casting range from 15m to 20m.
• Meteor Shower: Increased damage from 20% to 25% weapon damage.
• Judgment of Helios: Increased damage from 25% to 30% weapon damage.
• Pillar of Fire: You can now move during the casting animation.
• The Clear Casting status effect now properly removes when the Fire Staff is sheathed, unequipped or out of combat.
• Updated Clear Casting passive so that it will now automatically trigger when combat starts instead of when you first take damage.
• Clear Casting, Clear Mind, and Reheat status effects are now properly categorized as buffs.
• Removed all mention of the Reheat status effect incorrectly listed as an Empower.
• Fixed an issue that caused Flamethrower to inadvertently cancel when strafing while a Haste buff was active.
• Fixed an issue that caused Flamethrower (as well as other sustained, aimed abilities) to cancel through automated traversal (e.g. step-ups).
• Reduced Flamethrower’s block stamina damage by 85%.
• Fixed an issue where Cleansing Elixir was not properly removing certain status effects applied by Ice Gauntlet and Fire Staff abilities.

Update 1.7 “Summer Medleyfaire”

• Increased the number of decimal places shown in a weapon’s Critical Damage Multiplier tooltip so that Fire Staff and Blunderbuss can display their correct multipliers. (Previously showed 1.2, but was actually 1.25)

• Fixed an issue that caused the “Efficient Burnout” perk to trigger even if the Burnout ability was interrupted.
• Increased the initial impact of Meteor Shower from 34% to 75%. Description updated to clarify 0.75s tick rate.
• Increased the damage of Judgment of Helios from 30% to 40%.
• Fixed an issue that caused Pillar of Fire to go on Cooldown if interrupted before the cast.

• Empowering Meteor Shower: Now grants damage per hit for 10s. (max stacks 10).
  • On armor: 1% to 2% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 1% to 2.9% based on Gear Score.
• Siphoning Incinerate: Renamed to Stable Incinerate. This perk now grants grit to Incinerate, and causes Incinerate to deal more damage.
  • On armor: 3% to 12% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 3% to 20% based on Gear Score.
• Accelerating Flamethrower: Now also increases burn duration from flamethrower:
  • On armor: 10% to 15% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 10% to 19% based on Gear Score.
• Efficient Burnout:
  • Deals more damage:
    • On armor: 5% to 19% based on Gear Score.
    • On weapon: 5% to 33% based on Gear Score.
  • Grants the following mana regen. This effects ends after your first hit:
    • On armor: 20% to 77% based on Gear Score.
    • On weapon: 20% to 132% based on Gear Score.
• Refreshing Pillar of Fire: Now has increased cooldown while on a Fire Staff:
  • On armor: 3% to 14% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 3% to 25% based on Gear Score.
• Empowering Fireball: Now deals increased damage while on a Fire Staff:
  • On armor: 5% to 32% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 5% to 58% based on Gear Score.

Update 1.7 “Brimstone Sands”

• Fixed an issue that allowed the Empowering Meteor Shower perk to be activated from the Watch It Burn passive’s damage ticks.
• Fixed an issue that would restart Clear Casting’s timer when it expired.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Reheat Ultimate effect to be stuck on a player indefinitely.
• Activating Burnout no longer triggers a sprint delay or cancels auto-run.

You can find the full patch notes for New World Update 1.7 “Brimstone Sands” in our New World Patches archives.

Update 1.8 “Winter Convergence Festival 2022”

• Increased the damage of the “Smolder” damage over time effect applied by the Flamethrower ability, and the Singe and Watch it Burn passives from 6% to 10%.
• Increased the base damage of the Fire staff weapon by 3.5%.
• Updated the Meteor Shower description to include information about how the initial burst of damage is upon entering the volume and not just on initial cast. Also updated tooltip to include casting distance.

You can find the full patch notes for New World Update 1.8 “Winter Convergence Festival 2022” in our New World Patches archives.

Update 1.9 “Season 1: Fellowship and Fire”

Magic and ranged weapons have fallen behind melee weapons in PvE content, most noticeably in end game content like Mutators. We will continue to strive for viability across all weapons through the following changes:

• Increased Bane power on magic and ranged weapons. (10% higher than what’s possible on melee weapons).
• Adjusted Mutations will no longer disproportionately affect magic users (Removed the Elemental Damage Reduction of 50-75%).
• Added in Taunt Gem compatibility to several weapons and abilities to create additional choices when tanking:
  • Incinerate (3s on hit taunt)

• Ability Updates
  • Pillar of Fire
    • Increased the size of the AoE from 2m to 2.5m.
    • Reduced the time it took to trigger the attack from aiming from 13 frames to 7 frames (6 frame reduction).
    • Removed a 3-frame delay from when the attack actually cast to when the damage was dealt.
    • Reduced damage from 170% to 165%.
  • Arson’s Advantage Upgrade
    • Increased Mana gain amount from 10% to 15%.
  • Meteor Shower
    • Updated ability to channel for 1s then cast the ability. The spell will remain active in the world for 4 seconds post-cast.
    • Increased damage of initial hit from 75% to 100% weapon damage.
    • Updated status effect to tick at once per second instead of once every 0.75s.
    • Increased the tick damage while inside from 25% to 50% weapon damage.
    • Updated mana to all be consumed at once upon activation.
  • Immolation upgrade
    • Increased Mana gain per hit from 1% to 3%.
  • Judgment of Helios upgrade
    • Hitting targets inside of the Meteor Shower effect with light or heavy attacks will now inflict a stack of Smolder.
  • Fiery Determination Upgrade
    • Moved upgrade to be the final upgrade of Meteor Shower (This will force respec all Fire Staff mastery trees).
  • Fireball
    • Updated ability to no longer leave behind the burning AoE on impact. Damage is now focused on the Impact and Smolder DoTs.
    • Increased attack damage from 140% to 150%.
  • Scorched Earth Upgrade
    • Now applies a stack of Smolder on hit.
  • Incinerate
    • The attack start up is now faster.
    • Increased damage of the attack from 130% to 150%.
    • Added Grit to the base ability.
  • Flame Out upgrade
    • Removed 2nd hit, changed functionality to grant a stack of Empower for 7s per target hit with the attack. 3% Empower per stack (5 stacks max)
  • Burnout
    • Set the distance increase upgrade to be the base movement distance.
  • Updated the damage over time effect that is applied by the ability to be the same Smolder that the rest of the weapon uses.
  • Increased damage from 129% to 130% (Nice round number).
  • Fixed issue where the fortifying burnout perk was not functioning consistently when used with all other fortify status effects.
  • Heat It Up Upgrade
    • Now triggers an explosion right as the ability ends (if distance is timed properly, extra damage will be achieved).
  • Flare –
    • Added a trade-off to the Flare Upgrade: When upgrading the AoE, the projectile speed will now travel 25% slower.
    • Fixed an issue where the Flare upgrade allowed heavy attacks to backstab, and where Flare attacks could not be blocked.
  • Flamethrower –
    • Reduced how frequently Flamethrower can hit and then increased damage accordingly. This was to fix an issue where Flamethrower was making DoTs tick twice as fast, greatly increasing damage.
      • Flamethrower was changed from 50% weapon damage every half second to 100% weapon damage every second.
  • Updated the Accelerating Flamethrower Perk to be more clear on the activation condition and reduced the amount of stacks of Smolder that need to be on the target to trigger the effect from 3 to 2.
  • Heat Up –
    • Fixed an issue where no damage was occurring when Fire Staff’s Heat Up DoT ability was applied to an enemy.
• Additional Passive Updates
  • Combine functionality of Spell Focus and Flare into one passive, heavies don’t consume mana, and grant 5% mana on hit.
  • Changed Singe from just light attacks to light and heavy attacks.
  • Flare now triggers a 1m splash on impact.
  • Pyromania now increases damage by 10% instead of burning enemies
  • Dodging through an attack with Heat Up now inflicts a stack of burn on the target.
  • Changed activation condition of Trial by Fire from being hit, to hitting a target within 4m of player. Increased damage over time damage from 5% to 20%, Decrease duration from 10s to 5s, Decrease cooldown from 120s to 30s.
  • Updated all tooltips referencing the specific “Smolder” Burn to mention “Smolder” instead of “Burn”. Burn will still apply to all general Fire DoT status effects, including smolder, but Smolder is a unique Burn.
• Ultimate Updates
  • Rune of Helios
    • Increased radius of the AoE from 2m to 4m and reduced damage bonus from 25% to 20%.
  • Reheat Ultimate
    • Changed to hitting a target with a Heavy Attack that has 5 stacks of Burn will pop all Burn stacks and deal 100% weapon damage in an AoE explosion around the player. (10s Cooldown)
• Notable Fixes
  • Fixed an issue where Meteor Shower’s Immolate upgrade was not properly functioning when using the Keenly Jagged perk.
  • Fixed an issue where the Fire Staff Incinerate ability was not able to apply additional stacks of Burn with the Scorched upgrade, or additional stacks with the Flame Out upgrade.
  • Fixed an issue where the Fire Staff combat speed passive and Reheat ultimate 4s timer would sometimes trigger without activating an ability or putting it on cooldown.
  • Fixed an issue where players couldn’t ability cancel the pre-casting aiming pose of Pillar of Fire and Meteor Shower. Those abilities should now be in line with the functionality of similar aiming poses of other magic weapons.
  • Fixed an issue where Mana consumption was sometimes not handled as expected when using Flamethrower.
  • Fixed an issue where the Haste from the Fire Staff passive Combat Speed could persist through weapon swap.
  • Fixed an issue where Meteor Shower could sometimes apply multiple stacks on a target.
  • Fixed an issue where Pillar of Fire could prematurely trigger Rune of Helios.
  • Fixed an issue where Runes of Helios’ cooldown displayed incorrect values when entering a game mode.

You can find the full patch notes for New World Update 1.9 “Season 1: Fellowship and Fire” in our New World Patches archives.

Here at VULKK.com we have a ton of useful New World Guides and more and more are being published regularly. We also have all of the news and updates covered to keep you up-to-date with all things New World!