New World Best Flail Tank Builds for PvE & PvP in Season 3

New World Best Flail Tank Builds for PvE & PvP in Season 3

10/9/2023 5:19:59 PM

We've conducted extensive testing on the new weapon - the flail in New World. This weapon works exceptionally well with both tanks and healers. We'll be sharing our top tank builds for using a flail.

New World Season 3 Best Flail Tank Builds (PvE & PvP)

The flail is one of the newest weapons introduced in the New World through the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion. It is a versatile one-handed weapon that offers a range of combat options. The flail can be paired with an offhand shield, and its attacks can be enhanced with arcane magic. One of its abilities is the "Arcane Vortex," where the player swirls the flail above their head, dealing rapid hits of weapon damage in a radius around them. The flail has been praised for its strength and effectiveness, especially when used in conjunction with a support weapon like the Life Staff. Now it is considered a powerful weapon option for tank builds in New World. Here we will break down the best skills, passive, and gear perks for flail tank builds to set up the strongest builds in Season 3!

Best Flail Tank Build Skill & Passives

First we're going to take a look at the general Flai tank setup and we've gone mostly into Cleric now the reason for this is that these are very useful skills and passives:

New World Best Flail Tank Build Skill Tree

Cleric Skills

Arcane Smite - It is our first ability, you're going to Leap Forward strike the ground, you're going to do damage. It's going to leave behind a hazardous area at the impact point that inflicts a stack of impairment to all targets that enter impairment deals weapon damage per second and inflicts weaken by 10% up to a max of 3 stacks. So Impairment is something that you're going to see a lot of within this build, so we're going to be able to maintain a lot of weakening on the enemies as an area of an effect because we're going to be able to apply lots of different ways of this impairment
Epic Flail - Smite hits reduced cooldown, so we get the reduced cooldown
Ironclad Superiority - If you're using a Tower Shield we get 30% fortify for 6 seconds so that's going to be really strong.
Deflecting Frailty - Then we also get again here stacking weak to enemies, so lots and lots of weaken. We additionally get lifesteal which is also useful because we're able to gain more Health back and so we're our allies in our group
Arcane Vortex - This is a group buff so we swirl the flail above the player's head dealing damage after the first spin is complete it puts an AOE on the ground that gives 10% in power for 5 seconds to all allies so our allies all gain 10% in power and then we've got this one here to apply a route immobilization for enemies that are inside it as well. So we get a group buff and we get an enemy debuff with this route and immobilization.
Weighted Superiority - With heavy armor, we're going to get reduced Cooldowns when we get hit. If you decide to go with a medium or light armor tank build, you're also going to benefit from this as well.
Spiky Impairment - This one's another useful one so being hit or blocking a hit from a melee attack while above 9% Health inflicts a stack of impairment so again another impairment stack. So the more we stack that up, the more we have weaken the longer we have weaken for in the enemy, the less damage the enemy is going to do.
Vital Embrace - We've also got this one so while below 30% Health attacks gain 3% life steal and while above 50% extend the duration of damage over time effects on the Target by 7%, so it's one of the more useful passives in the cleric section for a tank but also we're try to unlock this last one here
Leader of the Pack - When no allies are within 5m, you get 10% more base damage when one or more allies are within 5m they gain in power, so again we we're buffing our group members with more inow, so we got 10% from that we got 5% from that as well. So leader of the pack another group buff.
Better Together - While within 4m of one or more allies you grant passive healing to self and all allies that heals for 16% weapon damage every 3 seconds, now it does scale with Focus but it still provides a really really nice amount of passive healing, so you're basically just passively healing yourself and group members with these various different things that you've got running here with the lifesteal and the heal. So it's not going to replace the Healer but it's nice additional healing especially if you need it.

Bastion Skills

Warding Bludgeon - You've got to have this great skill, it is an AOE Taun and it's also going to do reinforced fortify to yourself and all allies within 3m increasing armor by 50%, so your melee range damage dealers are going to get reduced damage. Stamina damage taken is reduced by 25% for 0.5 seconds after activating blocking not exactly super useful for half a second but it's something.
Stable Impairment - While we've got reinforced fortify active, we get impairment stacks for that weaken, so obviously even more stacks of weaken coming in with the impairment.
Best Friends - This is a good little group buff, so activation nearby Ally within 6m is selected and you become linked to them. While the connection is active they gain power increasing their base damage by 15% and you both gain damage absorption reducing damage taken.
Vital Suppressant - The other little passives here we've gone with while above 50% Health reduces your damage taken and while below 50%, reduces the attack of stamina damage dealt while blocking by 10%. So it just means you can block for longer because you're taking less stamina damage.
Cured Flailment - This is also another one that's going to give more impairment Stacks so the first Target hit with a heavy attack within 3 seconds of using an ability will cleanse one stack of any debuff from self and will inflict a stack of impairment.
Reductive Superiority - We got this one here so especially with the Tower Shield decreases the duration of crowd control effects on the player by 10%, it's going to give us a buff no matter what type of Shield we're using. We have to take this passive, you have no choice because you cannot get to this skill without this passive.

1. Flail + Tower Sheild & Sword + Tower Sheild or Hatchet (Beginner Flail Tank Build)

As a beginner, a nice little setup would be the Flail with Tower Shield alongside a Sword and a Tower Shield or a Hatchet. With this kind of setup.

Attributes:

Strength: Everything Else
Focus: 50
Constitution: 350

The reason why you do this is that you get grit increased armor, Health, and damage reduction. The points into Focus are also useful because it reduce your cooldowns and increase your incoming healing. And then obviously strength will increase your damage which helps you to keep higher threat and hold AG grow of enemies.

Gear (Perks):

Alliance Gear or Cheap Refreshing/Health Gear - As a beginner, you want to start with Alliance gear obtained or purchase cheap gear from the market that has Refreshing and Health perks you've also got phys physical and Elemental aversion which are also good at this stage so those are worth getting as well.
Weapon: Refreshing Move & Lifestealing - Good weapon perks include refreshing move and lifestealing
Necklace: Health & Divines
Ring: Leeaching & Hearity
Earring: Refreshing Toast
Shield: Fortifying Shield Rush, Shield Defense, Sturdy, Sturdy Energy - The only other thing you really need for a beginner tank setup using this build would be a shield ideally with the perks that include Shield Defense, Sturdy, and Sturdy Energy. But the main perk would be Fortifying Shield Rush.

Sword and Shield Perks & Skills

For this setup, you combine the Arcane Smite of the Flail and Shield with the Sword and Shield. The sword and shield provide an AOE taunt and additional damage reductions. With the Flail offering a tankiness group Buffs have defensive benefits and crowd control.

If you don't want to double up on one hand and shields then you could use a Hatchet and that provides the perfect alternative for a beginner tank. As it still provides an AOE taunt via Berserker but more importantly you have the Defy Death passive which allows you to not die and you've got access to debuffs with infected throw as well and a lot of really good passives in there.

New World Season 3 Best Flail Tank Builds

The sword and shield would be set up like this using Shield Rush as your Gap closer and your combat starter, it applies weaken and utilizes your fortifying Shield Rush perk on your Shield to give you the Fortified buff which reduces your incoming damage. You also have Defenders resolve as an AOE taunting skill and damage reduction and then reverse stab to reduce the cooldowns on both of those skills via the Technician passive.

2. Flail + Tower Shield & Spear or War Hammer Build (General Flail Tank Build)

Now the more General setup would be a Flail with Tower Shield alongside a Spear or Warhammer. We utilize a spear on bosses and a Warhammer on trash even in this new patch.

Attributes:

Strength: Everything Else
Focus: 50
Constitution: 300

Attributes would be a little bit different, we would take down Constitution to 300 just to access the grit, keep the 50 in Focus because those benefits are really good, and then put a few more points into strength.

Gear (Perks)

Ward gear is out of here, which leaves us with some difficult decisions on perks.
Armor: Refreshing & Health - Here we are focusing on Refreshing which you can only use a maximum of 4 pieces now. Also, get Health perk since you can just face tank so much damage.
Weapon: Crowded Bludgeon, Physical Aversion, Elemental Aversion, Grit Ward, Elemental Conditioning, Freedom, Vigor and Invigorated, Weapon Ability Buffing Perks

When you have a huge health pool you really want to be using weapon ability buffing perks such as Crowded Bludgeon which will reduce the cool down of your Flail taunt and group buff and enemy debuff skill warding bludgeon. Other useful perks include Physical Aversion, Elemental Aversion, Grit Ward, and Elemental Conditioning such as slash conditioning which reduces your incoming damage to that specific damage type. You've also got things like Freedom Vigor and Invigorated. But those weapon ability buffing perks are super important.

Best Flail Tank Artifacts

With the new artifact gear coming with this patch, there are some truly great-looking options that you could use with a Flail Tank build:

Odo (Flail) + The Wall (Tower Shield) + Voild Darkplate (Heavy Chestwear) + Ankn (Amulet)

New World Best Flail Tank Artifacts

Odo is a flail artifact that comes with refreshing move and life stealing which are both great perks, but it also heals you when you block and you do more damage to stun enemies. when you upgrade your Odo in the Gypsum Kilns, you need to make sure you choose a gem slot and not a park, you'll need a gem setting pin to do this. And if you choose a park instead, you will not be able to slot a Carnelian gem so then you won't be able to tailor with your flail weapon.

Now if you paired Odo up with artifacts such as the Wall which is a shield artifact, the Voild Darkplate which is a heavy armor, and an Ankn which is an amulet you suddenly have a huge amount of reliable damage reduction increased armor and incoming healing. In theory, you could become unbelievably tanky and have no problem dealing with higher damage fights, you'll be able to face tank a lot of damage and just power through it.