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

Connor Knudsen
new world rapier

If you want speed and deadly damage in New World, then the Rapier may just be the weapon for you. Here are some of the skills and passives that can help you make the best New World Rapier build possible.

There are tons of different builds in New World thanks to the game’s unique class system that people can use to create strong characters in the MMO.

Some have found Strength and Constitution to be their desired path, while others have leaned more towards Dexterity and the weapons that utilize that attribute.

For those wanting to be quick, deadly assassins, the Rapier is the premier weapon choice in New World, due to the game’s current lack of a dagger.

New World Rapier build

rapier new world
The Rapier is one of the most fun close-combat weapons in New World.

The Rapier is among the best in New World at providing quick bursts of lethal damage and applying ‘Bleed’ to enemies caught in its wake.

Using Dexterity and Intelligence, many players have found themselves pairing the Rapier alongside a Bow or a Musket, since they all take advantage of Dex tree skills.

For the slender two-edged blade, there are two different Mastery Trees for players to pick and choose their perks from. Each with its own unique strengths and weaknesses.

Rapier Mastery Trees

With your new Rapier in hand, you now need to understand the two skill trees that you can use to upgrade it: Blood and Grace. Each have a very different purpose in mind but can be equally as deadly.

The Blood mastery tree focuses on precision and offense centered around applying a Bleed or Rend to enemies and stacking damage.

Grace focuses more on evasion, counter-attacks, and being quick-footed. Often, this is paired with a Life Staff in order to escape harm’s way at the last second.

Best Rapier skills

newq world rapier
Perfecting the skill tree will help you to be much more lethal with the Rapier.
  • Tondo: Slash so quickly that it extends the reach of your blade up to 5m. This strike deals 50.0% direct weapon damage but also applies a bleed that will deal 85% weapon damage over 12.0 seconds. This can stack up to 3 times refreshing previous applications.
  • Flourish and Finish: Flourish performs an attack knocking back enemies. Pressing ‘Light Attack’ at the end of Flourish will continue this ability by automatically performing ‘Finish’. Finish lunges forward, consuming all Rapier bleeds on any target hit dealing 110.0% of their damage immediately.
  • Flurry: Enter a posed stance and unleash a series of five quick thrust attacks with each strike dealing more damage. Flurry can be dodge canceled at any time.

Each of these abilities falls into the Blood Mastery Tree, due to the tree’s emphasis on damage output.

It’s best to open up big encounters with Tondo. This will apply an initial Bleed to the enemy that will begin ticking their damage down.

From there, open up the floodgates of DPS with your other two attacks, Flourish and Finish and Flurry.

Best Rapier passives

The passives are what really help to open up the damage on the Rapier. For players looking to use this weapon as their primary DPS in the build we’re suggesting, we recommend making sure you have the Heavy Puncture, Unerring, and Engarde passives equipped.

These, alongside the skills above, will help to chop down enemies’ initial health significantly, utilizing Bleed and extra damage significantly.

  • Heavy Puncture: Any heavy attack on a bleeding enemy will extend their Rapier bleeds by 2.0 seconds. This will also apply to future stacked applications of the same bleed extending the entire stack.
  • Unerring: Deal 5.0% more damage to targets with a Rapier bleed.
  • Engarde: Deal 10.0% more damage when your target has greater than 50.0% health.

So, there you have it, everything you need to know to get started on your New World Rapier build.

Interested in other weapons and how best to use them? Make sure and check out our other build guides:

Life Staff | Ice Gauntlet | Great Axe | Sword and Shield | War Hammer | Bow | Hatchet | Musket | 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.