Best New World Musket build: Skills, Mastery tree, passives & more

Connor Knudsen
new world musket

New World’s aspiring deadeyes take notice – we’ve got all the tips and tricks you need to make the best Musket build in all of Aeternum.

The Amazon Games MMO, New World, has continued to maintain an impressive player count since its September 2021 launch.

This comes, in part, due to its beautiful landscape and graphics, but also because of its unique, open-ended character builder. This puts all of the onus on weapon mastery to determine how your character will turn out.

If New World’s Musket is one that you’re interested in trying out, here are all of the best skills and passives in the weapon’s Mastery Tree that will help you get started with the best build possible.


Contents


New World Musket build

new world musket
New World’s Musket allows for players to do some real damage from afar, along with having some nice utility to boot!

One of the only two purely ranged weapons in New World, the Musket is a massive asset for territory defense PvP and can make for a great Dexterity-focused leveling weapon.

The Musket can be a rewarding weapon in New World at just about any stage of the game. However, players wielding it need to be able to hit enemies reliably, which can be more of a challenge than you might think.

There is a lot of diversity in how players can choose to use the Musket. On the one hand, it can be paired with the Bow to produce a deadly sharpshooter build. On the other, pair it with a Spear or Rapier to fully enable the Dexterity stat boosts that the Musket utilizes.

No matter how you choose to pair it, the Musket’s Mastery Trees can help you get the most value out of each shot.

Musket Mastery Trees

Staring down the barrel, players will be able to choose from skills and passives in either the Sharpshooter Mastery Tree or the Trapper.

Each has its own unique purpose that will greatly change the way you use the Musket. So, here’s a little about each Tree and some noteworthy skills we recommend using.

Mastery Tree Description
Sharpshooter The Sharpshooter Mastery Tree focuses on large amounts of damage output from single shots, best used to bring down large targets.
Trapper The Trapper Mastery Tree is all about the preparation that comes from laying traps causing crowd control (CC) and extra damage.

Best Musket skills

new world musket mastery tree
The Musket has a lot of great skills and passives to offer in its Mastery Trees.

 

Skill Description
Shooter’s Stance Player enters a shooting aim stance to enhance shooting performance. Shots deal 100% Weapon damage. While in stance, mobility is reduced to zero, and reload time is reduced by 75%. Mode will exit after three shots.
Powder Burn Overload musket with gun powder, causing the next shot to deal 110% Weapon Damage and cause a Burn status effect that deals 20% Weapon Damage per second for 9 seconds. Does not stack or combine with other overload shots.
Traps Throw a trap that lasts for 20 seconds. When triggered it causes the target to be Rooted, immobilizing the target for 3 seconds.
  • Shooter’s Stance: Shooter’s Stance is especially good for PvP or boss fight encounters when a player can reliably know they have a moment or two of safety. This can allow for some quick and accurate shots to pierce through enemies, especially when “Shoot More” is unlocked allowing for five shots to be fired.
  • Powder Burn: Powder Burn is a great way to initiate a series of shots against an enemy, and goes great when used on either Mastery Tree.
  • Traps: This is one of the handiest crowd control abilities in all of New World and can be great to get through solo leveling. Plus, Traps has tons of great upgrade options.

Best Musket passives

Passives will help Musket players to shoot straighter and will reward player’s that can hit headshots with tons of extra damage. But, the best of these are Heightened Precision, Tactical Reload, and Greater Accuracy.

All are mainstays for a solid Musket build and can help those utilizing either the Trapper or Sharpshooter Mastery Tree.

  • Heightened Precision: While aiming, successful hits with a musket grant a stackable 2.5% damage increase. This effect ends when the player stops aiming down sight or more than 5 seconds passes between shots. (Max 6 stacks)
  • Tactical Reload: Dodging Reloads the musket. (Can only trigger once every 6 seconds)
  • Greater Accuracy: Accuracy penalty while hip firing removed.

With these tips and tricks established, you should be all set to begin taking aim with the Musket in New World. Remember to take advantage of the game’s Respec feature before you hit weapon mastery level 10 so you can try out different combinations of abilities for free.

Or, if you’d prefer to try another weapon as you explore Aeternum, be sure and check out our other build guides!

Life Staff | Ice Gauntlet | Great Axe | Sword and Shield | Rapier | Bow | Hatchet | War Hammer | Spear | Fire Staff

About The Author

Connor is a former writer at Dexerto based in Oklahoma City who covered Overwatch, New World and more. A lifetime gamer, he has been covering gaming and esports since 2018, and has competed since 2010. Yet, despite all of that, he still can't aim.