New World Bow and Hatchet Build Guide: Ranged Assassin (PvP)

This New World build guide features the Bow and Hatchet. The Ranged Assassin Build focuses on damage as its primary playstyle.

These weapon pairings are building off our other Weapon Guides, so if you’re not entirely sure why are or aren’t recommending a certain passive, be sure to give those a look as they give a lot of context to the decisions made for these builds.

Ranged Assassin Build Playstyle

This build is pretty much the staple ranged build in wars, especially with the Season 1: Fellowship and Fire Patch. Muskets have essentially been nerfed into the ground, so Ranged Dex Groups are going to heavily favor bows. The biggest thing in the build is we want to ALWAYS be heavy attacking so never fire light attacks or our damage potential falls off massively. 

Bow

The main weapon in this build is the bow, this can be devastating if used correctly, and if we have the aim we can fly up the leaderboard.

The skill tree is just pure damage; there is very little survivability in this build with the bow that’s what we have our secondary weapon for.

Penetrating Shot is the main high-damage ability for the build. This ability can get us so many takedowns if used correctly, the ability can also pass through enemies giving us the extra chance to lock in some takedowns if we see people stacked up in a line.

Your secondary ability is Rapid Shot. This ability is very good at helping to finish off targets and potentially saving us or our team mates lives. It fires 3 arrows in rapid succession which is very useful as it is much faster than auto attacking and deals high damage. The last node in the skill tree for Rapid Shot, Final Blow, deals an additional 25% extra damage on top of the 125% weapon damage this ability already does. So once we take it, we will stagger the enemy with the last arrow which can cancel their attack and deal 150% of your weapon damage to them.

Last ability is Explosive Arrow, this is an AOE (area of effect) ability. Meaning if we make someone very low essentially one shot and they hide behind a bit of cover we can fire this ability on the ground and finish them off without having LOS (line of sight) of the target. It’s very beneficial as when they get low HP your natural instinct is to hide behind cover and wait for your potions or a heal.

Being a long-range weapon, there are a lot of passives that help compliment the build and the setup we are going for, for example, Impale. If we hit a target with 100% health we will inflict a slow for 10 seconds, which can help us focus that target down and hit your shots. This passive is ideal for situations where we’re alone, and are relying solely on our own damage.

As an alternative, we can pick up Closing In instead of Impale. While we lose the slow, we’ll also have greater CDR in situations where we’re working with an ally to defeat someone else. With their added damage it’ll be more likely to trigger and benefit from this passive compared to Impale.

Mark which deals 10% more damage to people with a debuff. In a war setting, this will be most people most of the time and anyone we hit with Impale as the slow we cause is a also a debuff.

Another passive we will be taking is Long Range, which deals 10% more damage to foes more than 10m away, which should be almost everyone unless we play super aggressive.

Aim True also helps us out massively here as heavy attacks deal 10% more damage and fly faster. Another good passive is Finishing Shot which deals 20% more damage to foes under 50% hp.

If we combine all the passives listed here, that is an additional 50% weapon damage to someone who is half hp which should be enough to finish them off and secure the takedown.

For a deeper look into the Bow itself, check out our Bow Weapon Guide. This guide covers everything you might need to know about the Bow in a solo environment in-depth.

Hatchet

The secondary weapon is the Hatchet. No doubt about it, this weapon will save our life countless times. In a war setting this should always be equipped. It offers a lot of great defensive utility that can help us survive.

The weapon tree’s for Hatchet is the following, Berserk, this ability is our bread and butter. It will save us from Crowd Control, it gives us Haste, it removes all roots from us; this ability is amazing. Once we have Berserk we will spec all the way down to Defy Death, this ultimate is the reason we run hatchet, it gives us a small immortality window also heals us for a chunk of our max hp.

Secondly, Rending Throw this ability will help just weaken people overall, as it applies Rend, reducing a targets damage absorption by 10% for 10 seconds. This doesn’t sound a lot but if we hit someone with it then call it out to our group, that 10% less damage absorption is insane. We will also take the passive Targeted Impact, which increases the duration of rend.

Lastly, Social Distancing is our life-saving ability if we are getting pushed by an assassin. Upon key press this ability will throw us backwards and it will reduce the target’s movement speed by 30% for 5 seconds which is more than enough for us to turn around and get away. We will want to take all passives for this ability as they are all very important.

With Quick Power, if we hit someone with the Social Distancing we will gain 20% haste for 6 seconds. We also take the third node, Stay Back as if we are being pushed and notice in time, if we hit someone with this ability when they are more than 6m away we can apply root for 1s which will be enough on top of the haste to stay alive.

There are a lot of passives to take here with many notable ones. Frenzied Purge removes all bleeds, burns, and poison effects from ourself if we hit someone while under 30% HP.

Critical Throw, to increase the chance of ranged throws to crit by 10% which will massively help with the fact we have keen speed on the hatchet.

Rejuvenating Crits, to regenerate 10 stamina with light attacks, which also helps us as the aim of the game is not to be “stammed out” or have your stamina depleted.

For a deeper look into the Hatchet itself, check out our Hatchet Weapon Guide. This guide covers everything you might need to know about the Hatchet in a solo environment in-depth.

Stats and Gearing

This section will go into detail on how to set up this build. We’ll be talking about armor, gems, and attributes here.

Armor Choices

Light armor is the best option here. Being a mainly ranged PvP build, we need the movement capabilities in light armor as we will be hunted a lot by the enemy assassins. Medium Armor doesn’t give us the maneuverability that light armor provides. We are able to take more hits in Medium Armor, but we won’t be able to get into the correct positions as easily as we can in Light Armor.

Attribute Points

As the bow will be the weapon we use 95% of the time we want to fully spec into Dexterity. Ideally we want to be 450 Dexterity and 50 Constitution or for a bit more survivability 400 Dexterity and 100 Constitution. We really are a glass cannon here with around 8.5k health but we can easily do insane damage. 

We can go even more glass cannon if we are really good at using the Hatchet to survive and go 500 Dexterity and 5 Constitution. This is not recommended, as it’s very high risk. If we pull it off though, the damage can be very satisfying.

Gems

For our weapons, we’ll be making the use of the Pristine Opal in the bow and the Hatchet. This is because we are rolling so many times to proc the extra 15% damage on the Bow it only makes sense to use an Opal. The same applies to the Hatchet as we’ll essentially be rolling out of the way of damage so it will be procc’d most of the time.

For our armor, the gem setup should be the following. Five Pristine Emeralds for the high thrust protection since we’ll mainly be fighting against bows/muskets. Depending on what we are fighting, the remaining slots in our jewelry we can mix with Pristine Opals or Pristine Onyxs. If we are fighting more Greatswords, opt for more Onyx; if not, try triple Opal there is no must-have when it comes to the mix of Opal and Onyx

I am personally fighting against mainly thrust damage so I have specced into 35% thrust, 10% slash for greatswords and 2.5% elemental. 

For Runeglass Gems, we’ll want to go for purely the Sighted enchantment. Since the Bow is the majority of our damage, we’re not concerned with the damage from our Hatchet.

In the weapons we want to really work with the attunement we are using, add an extra damage type that doesn’t match our attunement. In the bow I am personally using Frost Attunement, so I have put in an Arboreal Runeglass for that extra elemental damage applied.

Then in the Hatchet I decided to go for a Runeglass of Empowerment because that’s another piece of elemental damage that people don’t usually go to protect as it deals 8% Arcane damage, but Arboreal or Abyssal Runeglass also work.

Perk Options

Perks are a big part of the weapons in New World, they take some of the more unimpressive skills and make them into much bigger threats. Which perks you take and where you place them can alter how a skill gets used.

There is also some rarer named gear that can be found in New World that can have perk combinations that makes them stronger than any gear you could craft, or at the very least give you an alternative way to get a great gear. These notable items will be listed in their respective sections after the general perk layout is covered.

Weapons

For the bow we will be looking to get Vicious, Attunement, Keenly Empowered or Keenly Jagged. We want Vicious over Enchanted because Enchanted only applies to basic attacks and not abilities. Whereas Vicious applies to basic attack crits and ability crits. When we’re just starting out and we are looking for a two-perk bow we will want to go for Vicious and Attunement. I play on Abaton (EU) and a vicious abyssal attunement bow is going for 1.1k so they are dirt cheap.

The third perk bow depends on how we want to play, Keenly Empowered is an option as it gives us empowerment after every second or third shot due to crit potential. But Keenly jagged also works to give us extra heart rune charge and to apply the bleed effect to the person we are fighting.

For the Hatchet we will want the following, Keen, Keen Speed, and Refreshing Distancing Throw. The reasoning for this is Keen to gives us more chance to proc keen speed which can essentially save our life

We will also want to add Refreshing Distance Throw as if we connect Social Distancing for the 1s root, we get the ability cooldown reduced by 49% which is very important to have Social Distancing ready to go as much as possible. We are not striving for this to be a damage weapon, we are using this for utility. 

Notable Weapons

For Bows we will lose out on damage going for a named drop rather than a bought one, but for those doing an ironman run or something we can go with the Lazarus Bow due to the fact it rolls with Vicious and Enchanted it will help us with some damage but most people have moved on from the Lazarus Bow a long time ago.

The Lazarus Bow drops from Cilla in the Lazarus Instrumentality Expedition. Additionally, if we have Lazarus Materia, we can use that to craft the bow.

For Hatchets there aren’t any utility-based hatchets out there, they are all designed for raw damage. The best one I can think of that’s named would be the Berserker’s Axe. It rolls with Vicious, Keenly Empowered, and Penetrating Backstab which is a very-high damage spec hatchet but if we were going for one I would aim for that one.

This Hatchet can be dropped from the PvP track by just farming levels.

Accessories

Our Best-in-Slot amulet will be, Stamina Recovery, Health, and Thrust Protection or Slash Protection, it depends on the situation and what we’re dealing with. This helps to keep us protected by boosting your maximum HP as well as giving us Stamina in a pinch. Which defensive option we use depends on what gives us the most trouble, with Thrust Protection being for opposing Bows and Slash Protection for melee attackers.

Our Best-in-Slot ring will be Mortal Empowerment, Refreshing Evasion, and Thrust Damage. Our two-perk ring will be Mortal Empowerment and Thrust damage. Mortal Empowerment boosts our damage per takedown and Thrust Damage gives us an extra 5% damage on every shot as well as our runeglass that’s an extra 10% damage from basically nothing.

Our Best-in-Slot earring will be Refreshing Evasion, Refreshing Toast, and either Regenerating or Healthy Toast. Regenerating is just 0.49% health every second, Healthy Toast is so we can get heal with mana pots. Both are very good, work with what we can get. For two-perk, I would go with Refreshing Toast with Regenerating or Healthy Toast.

Notable Accessories

It’s far from Best-in-Slot but the Champion’s Amulet from the PVP reward track can be a very good starting point. Once we’ve progressed enough on the track to get it to drop, it is rolled in Constitution so we have to be quite careful in speccing the rest of our build as we are still aiming for between 50 and 100 Constitution.

As this build functions off using Mortal Empowerment, we’ll need to use a crafted ring with that perk, as it doesn’t appear on any named drops.

For Earrings, the best option is Invoked By Her Two Lands which drops from the High Priest of the Twin Doors from “The East Wall of Nebet-Het” in Brimstone Sands. As it is a perfect named drop and very similar to Doom’s Chance Earring but has Dexterity in place of Strength.

Armor

When it comes to our armor, our two-perk armor will be Elemental Aversion and Resilient. Both of these perks help protect us from opposing Ranged/Magic users. We’ll still want to have Penetrating Rapid Shot as well, replacing Elemental Aversion on one piece of armor.

When it comes to Best-in-Slot, we want to add Refreshing Evasion to your armor. So we will have 5x Resilient, 4x Elemental Aversion, Penetrating Rapid Shot, and 5x Refreshing Evasion. This gives us a lot of defensive power for the enemies that are a bigger threat to us, while also taking advantage of our frequently rolling to reduce our cooldowns.

Notable Armor

There aren’t any great farmable options for armor. Thankfully, with Elemental Aversion being in the meta, we may be able to pick up decent two-perk gear for very little, since it’ll be crafted often.

Skill Rotations and Combos

Quick Burst Combo

1. Evade
2. Heavy Attack
3. Penetrating Shot

This quick combo is great for catching unaware players off guard, or quickly eliminating opponents that stand still. We roll to trigger Evasive Tactics for a damage bonus to our Heavy Attack. Between that, Opening Strike and Surprise Attack, this will easily chunk down most targets. This then sets up Penetrating Shot to often take advantage of Finishing Shot and Closing In.

Full Burst Combo

1. Evade
2. Heavy Attack
3. Penetrating Shot
4. Evade
5. Crouch x2
6. Heavy Attack

This is an extension of the Quick Burst Combo that adds an extra Heavy Attack at the end. It has all of the same benefits and uses as the Quick Combo, but with that little extra punch.

The reason we roll and then quickly double-tap crouch is to quickly reset our attack animation after firing Penetrating Shot, letting us get this second heavy Attack out faster. This gives us very high burst potential when we have Penetrating Shot available.

This is the end of this very in-depth build guide for New World. With everything from the stat breakdown, skill choices, and the provided combos; you have everything you need to make this build work. We hope you enjoy trying this unique weapon pairing.

This guide was created in collaboration with vRiddler. vRiddler is an experienced PvPer in New World, having played since launch and taken part in every meta on the EU servers. Information was sourced by vRiddler from their own experience as well as other experienced PvP players that have been part of the top companies on the EU servers.

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