In this guide, our team has prepared New World hatchet build content for you. Follow the guide step by step. You can find other new world builds on our website.
The official version of New World is out today. Thanks to the beta testing phases, players have an idea about the weapon selections in the game and what is best for them.
New World Hatchet Build
The Hatchet is among the greatest melee choices in New World. On its own, it’s reasonably strong. But when integrated with the right secondary alternatives and passive abilities, it can be particularly deadly.
Players will frequently be searching for a backup alternative to couple with the Hatchet to get the most out of the weapon. While it’s strong by itself, the Hatchet is best coupled with a varied weapon to produce the best DPS results. Ideally, you’ll wish to match the Hatchet with a weapon like the Bow or Musket to keep your stats and associates constant.
Still, there’s a lots of room for customization in New World. You can get away with practically any combination of attributes and stats that you desire when utilizing the weapons of your choice. As far as the Hatchet goes, however, here are the attributes and construct you’ll wish to use to make the most out of the weapon.
New World Hatchet Personal Attributes
Your personal attributes will always define your New World character regardless of what weapon you’re using. When equipped with a Hatchet, you’ll want to be prioritizing Dexterity above all other attributes.
Even though Strength is the main attribute that the Hatchet scales off of, Dexterity is still more desirable due to the bonuses that it gives for every 50 points spent on the attribute. Bonuses to your Critical Strike chance, as well as your capabilities to dodge, make Dexterity extremely strong for Hatchet players.
Here’s the general build you’ll want to play with when using a Hatchet.
- Strength: 15
- Dexterity: 150
- Intelligence: 0
- Focus: 0
- Constitution: 50
New World Hatchet Secondary Weapons and Armor
When using a Hatchet in your primary slot, you’ll want to opt for a Bow as your secondary weapon. The Bow makes the most out of the bonuses given to you by Dexterity and is an overall strong choice for when you need to duck out of a fight and deal damage from the backline while you build your health total back up.
In terms of the armor you wear, you’ll most likely be wearing medium or heavy armor. But you’ll mainly want to focus on the attributes and bonuses that the armor pieces bring to your character. Above all else, if a piece of armor applies a buff to one of your Hatchet’s attributes, you’ll want to be wearing it. Beyond that, look for armor that can give you extra Damage Reduction, Cooldown Reduction, and Critical Strike chance.
New World Hatchet Best Skills (Masterys)
When playing with a Hatchet, you’ll want to keep yourself focused on dealing as much damage as possible while keeping yourself alive. If you ever fall to a low hit point total, passive abilities like Frenzied Purge and Defy Death will allow you to stay alive and deal as much damage as you physically can.
Hatchet players will find themselves relying on the strategy of jumping in and out of fights to deal damage in sporadic bursts. Even while you’re in the backline of an encounter regenerating to full health, you’ll still be able to keep your DPS numbers up with your secondary options.
Plus, with active abilities like Berserk and Raging Torrent, you’ll be able to dish out a ton of damage in a short amount of time before having to inevitably fall back and deal damage from the backline through the Hatchet’s Throwing tree, as well as your Bow.
New World Hatchet Skill Tree
Best Hatchet Abilities
The Hatchet’s abilities are all pretty well-rounded, and this will mostly come down to your own style of play. During the Open Beta, we ran with a Berserk, Feral Rush, and Raging Torrent build, before experimenting with some of the ranged abilities under the Throwing tree. Both have their pros and cons.
Berserk
Berserk feels like a must-have, especially for any sort of PvE and PvP content. If you’re using the Hatchet as a primary source of damage, the Berserk tree provides sustainability, movement speed buffs, and CC reduction. You want to make straight for the On The Hunt passive, which increases movement speed by 20 percent, and the Berserking Refresh passive, which grants you health regen.
Feral Rush
Feral Rush is a powerful ability, but we noticed that it can be hard to land this against opponents in PvP. However, if you do, you’ll deal massive damage, and its third-tier perk, the Crippling Strikes passive, will root your opponent on the spot if you manage to hit them in the back.
Raging Torrent
Another source of damage, the Raging Torrent ability stacks damage but also grants you haste after successfully landing some hits. This makes it great for kiting powerful PvE enemies, especially during the Amrine Expedition. It also pairs well with the Light Attack passives in the Berserker tree.
New World Hatchet Throwing Build
Despite the strengths of the Berserker tree, the Throwing tree for the Hatchet shouldn’t be ignored.
Rending Throw
Rending Throw increases the damage your opponent takes, as well as its passive stacking off of other debuffs. This ranged attack is a great way to open a fight, although probably works better as a follow-up to Infected Throw, thanks to the extra debuff damage.
Infected Throw
Infected Throw is a bit like the Bow’s poison shot, but it’s a targeted debuff rather than an AOE. That being said, its final perk (Aerial Transmission) does create an AOE poison cloud. This makes it great for both PVE and PVP. A pretty strong ability that shouldn’t be slept on.
Social Distancing
A high mobility ability, Social Distancing is all about creating space between you and the enemy. You get a decent movement speed buff with the second passive, too. Pair this with the mobility of the Bow and you’ll be dancing all over the place.
New World Best Hatchet Combinations
The Hatchet pairs well with an assortment of different weapons. We saw it paired with the Fire Staff, Bow, Rapier, Ice Gauntlet, the Great Axe…it’s so versatile and useful for getting around the map that it was probably one of the most common weapons during the Open Beta. Here are some of our favorite weapon combos for the Hatchet.
Hatchet and Bow
We’ve actually got this listed as our favorite leveling build, although that is subject to change ahead of the game’s release. There is an argument that other weapons, like the Great Axe or War Hammer, or more suited to PVE farming and quest completion. However, the Hatchet and Bow are still useful.
- The Hatchet and Bow are suitable for PVE. You can deal big damage if you spec into Strength for the Hatchet and use the Bow to get those killing shots on passing animals and mobs, as well as snagging hits on limited-spawn boss mobs that can otherwise take ages to kill when everyone else is trying to.
Hatchet and Great Axe
Axes, axes everywhere. A full Strength build with a bit of Constitution, this is a tanky build that can deal massive damage. Check out our best Great Axe build guide here for more info.
- You basically fill out the Berserker tree for the Hatchet and then head into the Reaper tree for the Great Axe.
- Great for PVP if you can close the gap to your opponent, and ideal for PVE.
- Ranged weapons like the Ice Gauntlet or Bow might be the end of you in one-v-one PVP.
- Heavy or Medium armor is suitable for this build — it really depends on how tanky you intend to be.
- A split between Strength and Constitution is recommended for a PVP build. That extra HP goes a long way.
