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

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.

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Contents

• New World Musket build
• Musket Mastery Trees
• Best Musket skills
• Best Musket passives

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New World Musket build

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.

• Read More: Best New World weapons ranked tier list for PvE & PvP

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.

Best Musket skills

 

• 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.

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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