New World Expertise Guide

Introduction

NOTE: NEW WORLD NO LONGER USES THE EXPERTISE SYSTEM. FOR PROGRESSION POST LEVEL 65 CHECK OUR PROGRESSION GUIDE HERE. THIS GUIDE IS ARCHIVED FOR REFERENCE

New World has a system called the Expertise System that affects your in-game gear score. Expertise refers to your maximum gear score of a particular item. In our New World Expertise Guide, we’ll walk through everything you need to know to get your Expertise to 600!

How the Expertise System Works

The Expertise system starts once you hit level 60. At that point, you will need to increase your Expertise in each type of armor, weapon, and jewelry to 600. You will do so through loot drops and the Gypsum system (more on this later).

For example, if you have a helmet that has a gear score of 500, you kill a mob and that mob drops a helmet with a gear score of 510, the 510 is now your new Expertise for your gear score for your helmet slot. So, moving forward as long as you’re killing mobs that are capable of dropping items in that range, the range of items dropped for your helmet will now be in the 510 range.

Each type of item, including weapons, armor, and jewelry has its own expertise. The exception to this rule is each weight of armor. Light, medium, and heavy armor all share the same Expertise score for that slot (helm, gloves, etc). Each Weapon has its own expertise score as well.

You CAN equip items of a higher gear score, however, it will NOT increase your expertise for that gear slot. We will talk more about how Expertise affects the performance of your gear later. Each level beyond level 60 enemies has a soft upper limit on the likelihood of receiving an Expertise increase.

Event reward containers, such as outpost rush, will respect your current Expertise and will also have a chance of increasing it.

[ad]

Expertise Increase vs Enemy Level Chart

Expertise Drops	Level of Enemy
500-530 gear score items	level 61 Enemies
530-560 gear score items	level 62 Enemies
560-591 gear score items	level 63 Enemies
590-600 gear score items	Level 64+ Enemies

You can also utilize Gypsum for a guaranteed increase for a particular item slot (more about Gypsum below)

The system is not fully random. Each time you defeat a “level-appropriate” enemy you have a chance at an Expertise increase. If you do not receive an Expertise increase, you’re slightly more likely to see an increase the next time.

Enemies found in elite landmarks and expeditions have a higher base chance of increasing your Expertise score. As do level 60+ named enemies and Expedition Bosses will ALWAYS drop an item that increases your Expertise. Expeditions themselves will always provide 3 items (1 from the aforementioned bosses) through each run. The chance of receiving an expertise drop from an Elite Chest is higher than from defeating an Elite enemy.

How to Increase Your Expertise / Gear Score

A great way to increase your Expertise is via the Gypsum System because crafting a Gypsum Cast will guarantee an Expertise Boost for your chosen gear slot.

Two Gypsum that you will want to obtain daily is both the Sapphire and Citrine Gypsum. This is because bosses in all of the end game dungeons will give you a guaranteed random bump in Expertise score, along with a Sapphire Gypsum that can be crafted into a Gypsum Cast for another guaranteed bump. You will also have the opportunity to receive additional bumps via the chests located in the dungeons.

Also, in order to obtain the Citrine Gypsum, you will have to defeat an Arena boss. Upon defeating the arena boss you will receive a random guaranteed Expertise bump and your Citrine Gypsum that can be crafted into a Gypsum Cast.

Chest Runs

If you can manage to get into a chest run train each day this is optimal for expertise increases. If you can only do one thing a day this is what you would want to shoot for. You will see people posting things like “X in chat for train or world tour”. Just join the train and follow them around.

During the chest run you can use a topaz potion to obtain your topaz gypsum, but the success varies depending on the train (some skip mobs, some might have too many players to get any loot). You can also obtain your 3 obsidian gypsum during the run. However, the reason chest runs are great is for the random expertise increases you will receive from looting the elite chests as well. Therefore, you can get a few gypsum to increase the specific gear you want, and quite a lot of random expertise increases. As a fresh level 60 there are a few spirit shrines you will want to obtain for these chest runs:

Imperial Shrine – Southern Ebonscale Reach
Mountainhome Outpost – Southwest Shattered Mountain
Elysian Shrine – Eastern Edengrove
Cleave’s Point Outpost – Western Great Cleave
Lazarus Shrine – Northern Reekwater
Crossroads Shrine – West Shattered Mountain (For Brimstone Sands Chest Runs)
Shrine of the Nine – Brimstone Sands

Locations to Increase Expertise per Level

500-525 Gear Score (Elite 61+)

549-577 Gear Score (Elite 63+)

577-591 Gear Score (Elite 64+)

Reekwater: Siren’s Stand

591+ Gear Score (Elite 65+)

591+ Gear Score (Expeditions)

It’s very important to keep in mind that the Elite Chests are on a daily cooldown. So, you can run your routes to farm the Elite zones, and then you can move into 60+ Portals to increase your gear score as well. You can also run Outpost Rush for gear score increases and gypsum, but the matches can be fairly long, so it’s not an optimal way to increase your Expertise.

[ad]

Solo/Small Group Options for Increasing Your Expertise / Gear Score

Utilizing the Gypsum System is the optimal method of increasing your Expertise as a solo player. You can solo queue daily for Outpost Rush for guaranteed Expertise Increases via the Gypsum system. You also have the options as a solo player to obtain Emerald Gypsum and to obtain Topaz Gypsum by farming level 55+ hostile creatures.

You can also farm certain enemies that are level 63. These enemies have a chance to drop up to gear score 600 items. You can utilize our interactive map to find the locations of all named enemies in New World. However, listed below are a few options to choose from.

Edengrove – Baines, Cael, Adjorjan
Old Myrkgard Forest – Unhallowed Soul of Myrkgard
Nihilo Visage – High Priest Oseguera
Balebane Maw – Articulon the Unshackeld, Mozrul the Herald
Caminus – Caminus Gate Lord, Overseer Levy
Spilaio Cavern – Tzi-Wang the Immovable, Dau-Shen the Unstoppable
East Illurmin – Corrupted Excubitor Luca
West Illurmin – Pit Lord Daehi
The Congregation – Mirepaw
Lambent Muskeg – The Blight Bringer
Maria’s Rest – Smoothbore Samuel
Ska Makogai – Thorn of the Heartwood
Serenity Monastery – Gnasher
Skysong Crypt – Ivan the Inevitable, Mordici the Mortician, Slayer Rosellen, Farley

How Luck Affects Your Expertise in New World

Higher Luck does not directly increase the chance of increasing your Expertise. However, luck does improve your chances of getting rarer drops when farming for a higher Expertise.

Expertise Affect on Gear Performance

Expertise also governs the effectiveness of your gear. If your Expertise is lower than the equipped item for that gear slot, the effective gear score for that piece of gear will be in the middle of your Expertise and the gear score of that item. For Example, if your Hatchet Expertise is 500, and you equip a 560 Gear Score Hatchet, then your effective gear score for that weapon will be reduced to 530.

Exceptions to the Expertise System

Any item obtained prior to the down scaling patch made in early 2022 will be grandfathered in. So, any items that have been crafted, earned for a quest, or purchased from the faction shop will not be affected by this change. So, if you purchase a Gear Score 600 timer prior to the change it will NOT be scaled down to your Expertise (if lower than 600).

Other items that are exceptions to the scaling down rule are dropped items from elite monsters. Any named item that you obtain will maintain it’s gear score value. However, simply equipping that item will not bump your expertise up to that level.

Crafted Artisan items and legendary gypsum cast items also maintain their gear score when equipped. These also do not increase your expertise to that level when equipped.

Expertise and Gear Scaling

It’s important to point out that the item will retain its inherent Gear Score. Therefore, as your Expertise increases for that slot, the effective Gear Score will also scale up for that item. So, using the same example above, if you have Expertise 520 for your hatchet and equip the 560 hatchets once you reach 530 Expertise for the hatchet your power will increase to 530 for that same 560 hatchets.

Also important to note that you will still gain benefits from all perks and attributes on the higher gear score item. However, they will be scaled down in power as well. This is important because perks are very powerful. So, when you equip a Legendary Item you will not receive full effectiveness, but you will still be at an advantage because of the perks associated with that Legendary item. You can then grow into the item as your Expertise Increases.

Gypsum and Gypsum Casts

Gypsum is a resource that is found by doing a variety of end-game activities. It can be crafted into Gypsum orbs which are then crafted into Gypsum Casts. A Gypsum cast is crafted for a specific type of gear, and when it’s opened it will guarantee an Expertise increase for that specific gear type, and you will receive an item of that type that will have the corresponding gear score.

For example, if you really want to increase your fire staff Expertise then you can craft a fire staff Gypsum Cast and receive a guaranteed increase to your fire staff gear score along with a fire staff that has that increase of gear score associated with it.

[ad]

How to Obtain Gypsum

You can obtain Gypsum by engaging in 10 different activities as follows:

Gypsum Type	Daily Max	Obtained
Obsidian Gypsum	3	Defeating level 60+ open-world named bosses, typically found in Elite Landmarks
Sapphire Gypsum	2	Defeating the final bosses of end game expeditions
Ruby Gypsum	2	Awarded when completing an Outpost Rush match (must get at least 501 points in the match)
Emerald Gypsum	1	Found in Trade Skill Aptitude Reward Containers
Citrine Gypsum	2	Awarded for completing PvE arenas
Amethyst Gypsum	7	Awarded for closing corrupted breaches
Topaz Gypsum	5	Requires consuming a special Attunement Potion. This potion can be crafted at an Arcana Station or Tier 5 camp. Once consumed, you simply need to kill level 55+ mobs until the Topaz Drops.
Diamond Gypsum	3	You can obtain Diamond Gypsum by gathering any type of node in Aeternum. This usually changes during Seasonal Events such as the Winter Convergence.
Garnet Gypsum	2	Earned in 3v3 PVP Arenas
Faction Vendor	2	Purchased from the faction vendor

Each type of activity is a unique Gypsum, meaning you can not mix and match the Gypsum to Create an Orb. It takes 1 orb to create the Cast. Therefore, you must complete the above activities enough times to gain enough Gypsum to create an Orb of that type as follows:

Number of Gypsum required to make a Gypsum Orb by Color

The below is how many Gypsum is needed to craft 1 Gypsum Orb.

Obsidian – 3 Gypsum
Sapphire – 1 Gypsum
Ruby – 1 Gypsum
Emerald – 1 Gypsum
Citrine – 1 Gypsum
Amethyst – 7 Gypsum
Topaz – 5 Gypsum
Diamond – 3 Gypsum
Garnet – 1 Gypsum

You can also purchase 2 Gypsum orbs each day from the faction vendor, and can obtain special orbs that can exceed the daily limit of orbs from a perfect salvage.

After crafting the Orb you can then use the Orb to create a Cast of your choosing. Each type of Cast requires 1 Orb to craft. You can obtain multiple casts in a day by performing multiple of the above activities.

For example, you can run 2 Outpost Rush matches and receive 2 Gypsum to create your 2 casts. If you run a 3rd Outpost Rush match you will not receive a Gypsum. It will then be on cooldown and you will have to wait until the next after server cooldown reset time to obtain another Gypsum from that activity. You could, however, then move on to running corrupted breaches to earn additional Gypsum of that type for an additional cast.

You can obtain and keep Gypsum to later craft the Gypsum Orbs and Casts. There is no limit on the amount of Gypsum orbs you can craft per day. However, you can only craft 7 Gypsum Casts per type (piece of armor, piece of jewelry, weapon) per week.

Topaz Gypsum Attunement Potion

The Topaz Gypsum works slightly differently than the other Gypsums. Obtaining the Topaz Gypsum only requires killing hostile enemies (not elites, any enemy) level 55+. Therefore, it is one of the easier Gypsum to obtain.

You will have to craft an Attunement potion in order to be eligible to receive the Topaz Gypsum Drops. This potion can only be crafted once per day and only lasts for 120 minutes. You can craft it with 5 of any Alchemy Critter.

How to Use Gypsum

Once you have received enough Gypsum to craft an Orb you will then need to locate a Gypsum Kiln. The Kilns are only available in the End Game Zones:

Ebonscale Reach Settlement
Reekwater Settlement
Great Cleave Outposts
Edengrove Outposts
Shattered Mountain Outposts
Brimstone Sands

Once at a Kiln you can then use it to craft your Orb and craft your Cast. Crafting Both the Orb and the Cast will cost a minimal amount of coin. After you have your cast you can then use it to obtain your guaranteed bump in Expertise for that particular gear slot.

Legendary Gypsum Casts

There are also legendary versions of gypsum casts available to craft at the kiln. In order craft a legendary cast it will cost you 5 gypsum orbs and 1000 umbral shards. Opening one of these will give you an expertise bump just as a normal gypsum cast. However, you will be rewarded with a guaranteed legendary item.

The item is not guaranteed to have your desired perks or attributes. When you equip the item you will receive the power of a 600 gear score item. Your expertise in that slot will not immediately be bumped to 600.