New World Armor Guide

Introduction

Armor in New World Aeternum plays a huge role in how your overall character functions in the game. It doesn’t just provide mitigations but also determines how agile or slow your character becomes during combat. It can also provide your character with special bonuses and additional attribute points through the use of perks and gem slots. We cover all this and more in our New World Armor Guide.

Tiers & Rarity

The gear system in New World Aeternum is based on different tiers and gear scores. However, all gear including armor has a specific level requirement as well. The level requirement for a specific piece of gear is based on its gear score.

Tier 2 – Level 1-19
Tier 3 – Level 20-39
Tier 4 – Level 40-59
Tier 5 – Level 60+

Also worth noting is that higher rarity gear has a lower level requirement than lower rarity gear with the same gear score, which makes the rarity of gear even more valuable.

Armor Rarities

There are different gear rarities in New World Aeternum, and armor is no exception. The progression of rarity in gear is as follows:

Common (Gray)
Uncommon (Green)
Rare (Blue)
Epic (Purple)
Gold (Legendary)
Red (Artifacts)

Each perk on your armor counts as a rarity point. A gem slot and attributes also count as a rarity point, which results in a potential total of 5 rarity points. If an item has a maximum of 5 rarity points then it will be a Legendary item. Also, the rarer the item the higher the gear score will be within the gear’s tier range. The number of perks (rarity points) associated with each tier of rarity is as follows:

Common: 0
Uncommon: 2
Rare: 3
Epic: 4
Legendary: 5
Artifacts: 6

It’s worth noting that there can be either 1 or 2 attribute bonuses associated with a piece of gear, and both 1 and 2 attribute points are considered 1 rarity point.

Gear Score

In New World Aeternum, gear score is important to the overall strength of your build. Gear score follows a range per tier of gear:

Tier II: Gear Score 100-299
Tier III: Gear Score 250-399
Tier IV: Gear Score 350-499
Tier V: Gear Score 450-725

Both your Physical and Elemental resistances scale with the gear score. The higher the gear score the higher your mitigations.

Physical vs Elemental Armor

Amor in New World Aeternum is composed of 2 different types of resistances, Physical and Elemental. Physical resistance helps mitigate all physical damage types, such as melee, ranged musket, ranged bow, axe throws, etc.

Elemental resistance helps mitigate all magic damage types, such as fire, void, lightning etc.

Physical and elemental armor ratings both scale consistently across armor classes. So, heavy armor has the highest armor ratings for both physical and elemental while light armor has the lowest for both. There are however other advantages to light and medium armor that are noted below under the “Armor Weight” heading.

Armor Weight

Armor weight is one of the most important mechanics in New World Aeternum. The weight of your armor determines how mobile you will be. Every piece of armor in New World has an assigned weight, and for each piece of armor, that’s equipped that weight accumulates. Below is a list to summarize the benefits of each equip load in New World:

Light Equip Load:
- Base Damage +15%
- Outgoing Healing +30%
- Block Stability -10%
- Your Dodge is a Quick Roll
- Dodge Stamina Cost 50
- For 1 second after taking a melee hit, dodge distance is reduced by 20% and you cannot run
- PVP Crit Damage Taken -15%
Medium Equip Load:
- You Dodge is Quick Hop
- Dodge Stamina Cost 50
- Incoming Crowd Control Duration -10%
- For .75 seconds after taking a melee hit, dodge distance is reduced by 20% and you cannot run
- PvP Crit Damage Taken -20%
Heavy Equip Load:
- Base Damage -15%
- Outgoing Healing -30%
- Block Stability +10%
- Incoming Crowd Control Duration -20%
- You Dodge is a Directional Step
- Dodge Stamina Cost 55
- For .50 seconds after taking a melee hit, you cannot run
- PvP Crit Damage Taken -25%

Keep in mind that you can mix and match your armor to obtain pretty balanced mitigations by piecing together a mixture of light, medium, and heavy while staying in the lightweight category and still being able to dodge roll.

It’s important to note that the shield does NOT provide any benefit in terms of attributes, perks, or mitigation unless you are actually using it. Simply having it equipped does not provide you with many benefits. It only adds weight to your load. Therefore, if you are running light or medium you do not need to have a shield equipped unless you planning on incorporating the sword and shield into your build.

It’s also important to note that there are exceptions to the below rules. For example, certain artifacts weigh less allowing you to mix heavier pieces and still stay in a light or medium equip load. Also certain armor such as gathering armor follows different weight rules.

New World Equip Loads

The below table lists the weight of each piece of armor within each weight category:

Armor Slot	Light	Medium	Heavy
Head	1.5	2.6	4.7
Chest	3.5	6.2	11.0
Gloves	1.5	2.6	4.7
Pants	2.0	3.5	6.3
Boots	1.5	2.6	4.7
Shield	2.7	5.4	11.0

The below table lists the armor pieces you would need to wear for maximum mitigation in the light equip load category:

Amor Slot	Weight
Light Head	1.5
Medium Chest	6.2
Light Gloves	1.5
Light Pants	2.0
Light Boots	1.5
Total Weight	12.7

The below table lists the armor pieces you would need to wear for maximum mitigation in the medium equip load category:

Amor Slot	Weight
Heavy Head	4.7
Heavy Chest	11.0
Medium Gloves	2.6
Light Pants	2.0
Medium Boots	2.6
Total Weight	22.9

Equip Load Alternatives

It’s important to point out that there are other possible combinations that will provide you with 22.9 weight for the medium load, such as a light helmet, heavy chest, light gloves, heavy pants, and medium boots. This setup only reduces the mitigation you have slightly but can be a viable way to switch between a light and medium build slightly easier depending on the gear pieces you are able to obtain.

How to Obtain Armor

Armor in New World can be obtained from drops, crafting, the trading post, faction vendor, outpost rush armor crates, and by completing special armor quests. You can earn armor from drops by killing different enemies in Aeternum. Armor that drops from these encounters will have a set gear score, tier, and possibly perks. Dropped armor can also have empty gem slots that you can utilize with a gem to gain additional attribute points, and some armor is dropped with a gem already slotted.

Typically the higher tier mobs that you defeat, the higher tier and higher gear score items will be dropped. However, as you level up lower tier armor (and other gear) still plays an important role in New World. Obtaining lower-tier armor is valuable because you can salvage it to gain a small amount of gold and resources.

Armor can also be obtained through crafting, the trading post, and the Faction Vendors.

Dropped vs Crafted

The primary difference between dropped armor and crafted armor in New World is that armor that is looted will come with a specific set of perks that can’t be changed, and when crafting gear you can choose which perks to apply to that specific piece of gear.

Bind on Pickup Items

All equippable items are either Bind-on-Equip or Bind-on-Pickup. This is a feature put into the game in order to protect the item economy and keep demand for quality items high. By ensuring that an item (once equipped) is removed from the economy by being bound to a player and unable to be resold, space is then created in the economy for similar items to be sold to other players on the trading post or scrapped.

Bonuses

There are 2 different types of bonuses that can be applied to armor in New World. There are perks and gem slots.

Perks will give your armor-specific buffs, such as a lighting ward that gives that piece of armor lightning damage absorption. There are also crafting and gathering perks that can be added to your armor that will enhance your gathering and crafting.

Gem slots are slots in armor that can be equipped with a cut gem that will give you add enhancements to your gear. For example, a cut brilliant onyx will you additional physical damage absorption.