How to increase your PvE damage in New World

 I wrote up this long reply on Reddit and figured I'd copy and paste it for the blog record. Here is my checklist for increasing PvE damage

UPDATED 4/17/2024 for Rise of the Angry Earth expansion changes and Season 5 changes to armor weights

• Bane weapon (increases damage against specific target type) - +15% damage melee weapons / +24% damage ranged weapons

  With the rise of the Angry Earth expansion and level cap rising to 65 and GS cap to 700 the Bane perks are no longer relevant.
   

• Powerful Honing Stone - +7% damage increase - applies to both weapons by using one stone

• Infused Corrupted/Lost/Angry Earth/Ancient/Beast/Human Coatings - +15% coating only applies to one weapon so need to apply to each weapon

• Minor/Basic/Major/Ultimate Combat Trophies - 3/4/5% x 3 (so up to 15% total) extra damage against specific types. Note: ultimate trophies simply combine major trophies together so are still the 5% per trophy increase as majors were.

• Equip load also impacts damage (changed with Season 5)
  

  • Light equip load = +15% bonus damage

  • Medium equip load = no bonus damage (default equip load as of Season 5)
    

  • Heavy equip load = -15% damage
    

• Runeglass gems on armor (not recommended; too expensive and you swap gems all the time for mutations - but noted here) - +2% per gem on armor; so in theory +10% damage increase if on all armor pieces

• Runeglass gems on weapon (also not recommended; expensive but unlike armor you rarely have to swap your weapon gems so it is at least OK to invest - though a regulary gem is more raw damage %) - many of the runeglass gems can apply a damage over time (DoT) ability so for some builds this can be a net gain in damage

Other tips

• Make sure damage attributes are maxed; eat max level food and you should be getting to a total of at least 500 attributes.

  • A common split for newer players is 300 in your main damage skill and 200 in CON.

  • Then over time you reduce CON and keep pumping damage attributes as you get comfortable with not dieing.

  • The end end end game is to be in the "5 CON club" where you have no CON other than the base 5 and all 500 invested into damage stats. Glass cannon.