Introduction

In our New World Flail Guide, we’ll explain everything you need to know about New World’s latest support Weapon.

General Information

The Flail and Shield Weapon is a melee weapon that scales from Strength and Focus. The Flail excels at close combat and is strongest when used to support allies. It does so in an aggressive manner where the effects are applied to allies while up close and personal with the fight. The flail utilizes a variety of strike and arcane magic attacks. This results in lower damage, but the oppressive nature of the flail allows the wielder to be a force to be reckoned with during the fight.

The two mastery trees for the flail consist of the Cleric and Bastion mastery trees.

Cleric Mastery Tree

The Cleric Mastery Tree is focused on Group support and Dealing AOE Arcane damage. Below is a breakdown of the Active Skills and Key Passive of the Cleric Mastery Tree.

Arcane Smite

Leap forward and strike the ground with arcane force dealing 130% weapon damage to all targets within 2.7m of the impact. Arcane Smite leaves behind an AOE that inflicts a stack of impairment (10% weapon damage per second and 10% weaken) for 6s to all targets that enter.

Upgrades to Arcane Smite allow it to decrease its own cooldown. apply weaken and life steal, and add even more bonuses if you have one of the three different shield types equipped.

• Round – 20% increased weapon damage
• Kite – Stagger on hit but decreases damage by 10% weapon damage
• Tower – 30% fortify for 6 seconds

Arcane Vortex

Swirl the flail above the player’s head dealing 4 rapid hits of 75% weapon damage in a 3m radius around the player. After the first spin is completed, trigger a 3m blast of energy granting 10% empower for 5s to all allies inside the radius. This ability has grit.

Upgrades to Arcane Vortex will add roots, Apply Haste to self, and empower Arcane Vortex to cleanse and heal allies in the area.

Arcane Eruption

Drag the head of the flail against the ground causing an eruption of arcane energy in front of the player, dealing 120% weapon damage and inflicting two stacks of Impairment for 6s to all targets hit. Automatically follow up with an additional melee attack that deals 150% weapon damage.

Upgrades to Arcane Eruption allow the ability to apply a 40% slow to enemies. The final upgrade allows players to choose between extending current debuff and status effect times on enemies OR adding a heal that consumes stacks of Impairment.

Key Passive – Better Together

While near 1 or more allies, grant passive healing to self and all allies that heal for 16% weapon damage every 3 seconds. Healing Scales with Focus. The range of the aura is based on what equip loadout the player is utilizing. Light equip load has the largest radius and heavy has the smallest.

Bastion Mastery Tree

The Bastion Mastery Tree is built around supporting your group with life sharing, CC, and mitigation. Below is a breakdown of the Active Skills and Key Passives of the Bastion Mastery Tree.

Barrage

Sprint forward up to 10m. Upon reactivating the ability, pressing basic attack, or reaching the end of the sprint, leap forward up to an additional 3m and slam to the ground, dealing 30% weapon damage to targets in range of the flail during the leap and 80% weapon damage upon landing, staggering targets on impact. Barrage IS taunt gem compatible.

Upgrades to Barrage include adding 30% fortify on hit, allow Barrage to block incoming damage while pushing enemies back, and another buff that depends if and which shield you have applied

• Round – Increased weapon damage
• Kite – Inflicts 20% slow
• Tower – Barrage gains Grit

Trip

Swing the Flail forward latching onto a target dealing 50% weapon damage and knocking them to the ground.

Upgrades to Trip include a follow up heavy attack that deals 145% damage, a debuff on target that allows allies to attack them to remove DOTs on themselves, and an upgrade that applies a 15% rend to enemy and 15% fortify to self if target is weakened with Trip hits

Warding Bludgeon

Perform a spinning leap then swing the flail down to strike targets, dealing 100% weapon damage.

The Upgrades to Warding Bludgeon are Stable impairment which allows Stamina damage taken is reduced by 25% for 0.5s after activating block. Additionally, blocking hits while the reinforced fortify from Warding Bludgeon is active will Inflict a stack of Impairment for 6s on the attacker, dealing 10% weapon damage per second and weakening them, reducing their base damage by 10%, and a BUFF that increases an allies damage WHILE giving you damage absorption.

Key Passive – Human Shield

Hitting a target with an ability while within 6m of an ally, applies a status effect linking yourself and a single ally to each other for 5s. While the effect is active the ally will only take 50% of the incoming damage, causing you to inherit 35% of the incoming damage they didn’t take.

Flail Recommended Roles

The Flail is best used as a back-bar weapon in a support or tank role. The Flail can apply a variety of status effects to enemies as well as buff and heal allies. Read more below on our current recommendation for Weapon Pairings to where Flail fits in to the meta.

Weapon Pairings

As stated above, the Flail scales with Strength and Focus and has significant synergy with quite a few weapons in New World. Below are our recommendations for weapons to use with the Flail and Shield.

Life Staff

The Cleric Dream is alive and well! Life Staff / Flail is a viable build that allows healers to jump into the fray and support Teammates in melee range with Buffs and healing. This build works in light armor but shines when you push into Medium armor and increase your CON to 200 or even 250, making you nearly unkillable as you stand in your sacred and support your teammates up close.

Sword and Shield

This combo allows players to utilize the shield on both the front and back bar of their build. This should create a new viable tank build for both PVE and PVP and could bring some interesting CC flank builds with Light Armor in PVP.

Void Gauntlet

This marriage of weapon looks to take over the Support Mage build. Flail has access to a 15% rend (5 more than IG) and has a knock down. Where Flail shines most is its Key Passives Better Together and Human Shield. These two passives shine as supporting players in the clumps while greatly increasing the survivability of your group.

How to Level the Flail in New World

Leveling weapons in New World consists of pulling a large number of mobs and using AOE damage to kill them, rinse, and repeat. For a list of our preferred locations to level weapons check out our Weapon Leveling Guide.

What the flail lacks in damage, it makes up in AOE skills, CC, and Cooldown reduction allowing you to keep the XP train moving. While leveling make sure to wear Light Armor, round shield, and use a 2 to 1 STR to FOC split. (EX. 400 STR 200 FOC.)

Below is the order in which we recommend spending your skill points as you level the Flail.

• Arcane Smite
• Arcane Vortex
• Arcane Eruption
• Epic Flail
• Weighted Superiority
• Crippling Strike
• Leader of the Pack
• Vital Embrace
• Iron Clad Superiority
• Spiky Impairment
• Deflecting Fraility
• Better Together
• Flailbird
• Vital Embrace
• Accelerated Advantage
• Vital Suppression
• Reductive Superiority
• Flail Mary
• Mitigated Protection

Flail Perks

Below is a list of Perks you can place on you’re armor and weapons that will affect your Flail Abilities. To the Right is the Crafting Mod you’ll need to use to obtain the Perk if Crafting

Weapon Ability Perk	Description	Armor	Weapon	Crafting Mods
Burdening Smite	PvP Only: Smite hits against targets extend their active cooldowns by X%.	16%	35%	Steel Flail Charm
Mending Vortex	Every 2 hits with Vortex will heal you for X% of the base weapon damage.	25%	45%	Starmetal Flail Charm
Powerful Eruption	Eruption hits deal X% increased damage per stack of Impairment on the target (3 stacks max).	6%	10%	Orichalcum Flail Charm
Accelerating Barrage	After hitting a target with Barrage’s main attack, gain X% haste for 5s.	20%	35%	Reinforced Steel Flail Charm
Thwarting Trip	If Trip’s first attack hits a target with active grit, the attack deals X% more base damage.	20%	30%	Reinforced Starmetal Flail Charm
Crowded Bludgeon	If 2 or more targets are hit with warding bludgeon, even if the hits are blocked, reduce its cooldown by X%.	15%	25%	Reinforced Orichalcum Flail Charm

Recommended Flail and Shield Gems

The type of gem you will want to slot into your blunderbuss is heavily dependent upon your build and what you’re trying to accomplish. It’s also going to vary based on PvP vs PvE activities. (You can check our quick reference guide for gems for a full list of gems and their effects).  

Conclusion

That Concludes our New World Flail Guide! For more guides on New World’s Weapons, check out our New World Home Page