New World Crafting Guide

The MMO New World has a core gameplay mechanic that revolves around gathering resources and crafting items. Seriously, you craft everything in this game, from your hat to your health potions. We’ve already covered gathering in New World in-depth in another guide, so now it’s time to focus on crafting!

In this article, we’ll cover the ins and outs of crafting in New World, detailing how to get started and which items will be the most beneficial to craft.

Let’s get started!

Home Sweet Outpost

In New World, you can do some basic crafting at any campsite you set up in the overworld. Your options are pretty limited this way, so basically all of your crafting will be done at the various outposts. This is where you’ll find all of the crafting and refining stations needed to make your equipment and items.

You’ll want to make sure that the crafting and refining stations are of a high enough tier to make the items you want, but that will only be a potential issue with top-tier equipment. Pick an outpost you like for a home base and get to crafting.

Smelting

Before you craft anything, you first need to refine your resources. You won’t be able to do much with just iron ore! If you want to craft some iron equipment at the forge, you’ll first need to go to the smelting station to turn your iron ore into iron ingots. That’s refining.

Most raw resources you collect in the overworld need to be refined before they can be turned into equipment and items. The game has five different refining skills, each with an associated refining station:

• Smelting is used to refine ores into ingots and wood into charcoal at a smelter.
• Stonecutting is used to refine the various types of stone and turn raw gemstones into cut gems at a stonecutting table.
• Leatherworking is used to refine animal hides and tannin into the various types of leather at a tannery station.
• Weaving is used to refine fibers into the various types of fabric such as cloth or silk at a loom.
• Woodworking is used to refine the various types of wood into timber, lumber, and planks at a woodshop.

How to Craft in New World

In order to craft the items you want, you’ll need the appropriate crafting skills and stations. If you don’t have a high enough crafting skill to make the item you want, you can increase your skill by crafting lower-tier items until your skill is high enough. Here’s a list of the crafting skills and their corresponding crafting stations:

• Weaponsmithing is used to craft all melee weapons (except for the spear) and is done at a forge.
• Armoring is used to craft all the armor in the game and is done at a forge (for heavy armor) or outfitting station (for light and medium armor).
• Engineering is used to craft the spear, ranged weapons, ammunition, and tools, and is done at a workshop.
• Jewelcrafting is used to craft jewels, gems, and trinkets, and is done at an outfitting station.
• Arcana is used to craft potion/tinctures and gauntlets/staffs, and is done at an arcane repository.
• Cooking is used to craft bait, meals, and rations, and is done at a kitchen.
• Furnishing is used to craft all the furnishings in your home and is done at a workshop.

What to Craft

Now that you know how to craft and where to craft, the next question is what to craft.

There are a whole host of things to craft in New World, but how you approach this will be dependent on which weapon(s) you want to use. Any player can use any weapon and equip up to two weapons at once, but most players tend to focus on one or two favorites. However, everyone will need to craft the tools in New World or they won’t be able to craft anything else.

Tools

You’ll want to craft all of the tools in New World, as you need them to gather almost all the resources in the game. You’ll start by crafting the flint versions of each, but it’s a good idea to craft the iron and steel variants as soon as you can for faster gathering. Below is a list of all the tool types.

• A sickle is needed to harvest plants.
• A fishing pole is needed to fish.
• A knife is needed to skin animals.
• An axe is needed to chop down trees.
• A pickaxe is needed to mine minerals.

New World Crafting Weapons

Below are crafting details of the different weapons in New World. We’ll go into the resources needed to craft most versions of the weapons, as well as what kinds of armor and trinkets pair well with each.

Sword & Shield

The sword and shield scales off of Strength as its primary attribute and Dexterity as its secondary attribute, so focus on those when crafting trinkets and armor. Depending on your playstyle, you can go with heavy or light armor, but since the sword and shield make use of blocking more than dodging, heavy armors such as plate are probably preferable.

You’ll need:

• Wood
• Leather
• Iron
• Steel

Great Axes

The great axe is a DPS weapon with abilities that both boost your raw DPS and offer additional bonuses for being at half health or below. This weapon scales off Strength, so focus this stat when making trinkets and armor. Constitution is always useful, too (as is the primary attribute of whatever your secondary weapon is). A light armor build that focuses more on dodging probably works best here, but heavy armor could work too.

You’ll need:

• Wood
• Iron
• Steel

Blunderbuss

The blunderbuss scales off of Strength and Intelligence, so those are the attributes to focus on when crafting trinkets and armor. I generally advocate for light armor when it comes to ranged weapons since it better allows you to keep your distance, but the blunderbuss is called a close-quarters ranged weapon for a reason. It has a variety of damage dealing and tanky options, so it could favor either style of armor.

You’ll need:

• Wood
• Leather
• Iron (you’ll want extra for crafting ammunition)
• Steel (you’ll want extra for crafting ammunition)

War Hammer

The war hammer is a big two-handed weapon that can really dish out the damage, but it also has some nice crowd control options in the Crowd Crusher tree. It scales off of Strength, so that should be the attribute you focus on when crafting trinkets and armor. Its versatility means that an argument can be made for both light and heavy armor.

You’ll need:

• Wood
• Leather
• Iron
• Steel

Hatchet

The hatchet scales with Strength as its primary attribute and Dexterity as its secondary attribute, so focus on those when crafting trinkets and armor. It has two very distinctive skill trees — the Berserker tree that focuses on tanking, and the Throwing tree that focuses on…well, throwing. As such, heavy armor is most likely better if you go more the Berserker rout, and light armor if lean towards the Throwing tree.

You’ll need:

• Wood
• Leather
• Iron
• Steel

Spear

The spear scales off of Dexterity as its primary attribute and Strength as its secondary attribute, so when crafting trinkets and armor, those are the attributes to prioritize. It’s a DPS weapon, and as such may favor lighter armor for increasing your dodge.

You’ll need:

• Wood
• Iron
• Steel

Musket

The musket scales with Dexterity as its primary attribute and Intelligence as its secondary attribute, so those should be the focuses when crafting trinkets and armor. The two musket skill trees focus on sniping and setting up traps, respectively. Both playstyles lend themselves more towards light armor than heavy armor.

You’ll need:

• Wood
• Leather
• Iron (you’ll want extra for crafting ammunition)
• Steel (you’ll want extra for crafting ammunition)

Rapier

The rapier scales off Dexterity as its primary attribute and Intelligence as its secondary attribute, so focus on those when crafting trinkets and armor. It’s a light and quick DPS weapon that primarily favors light armor.

You’ll need:

• Wood
• Leather
• Iron
• Steel

The Bow

The bow scales off of Dexterity, so that’s the primary stat you want to focus on when crafting trinkets and armor. Bows favor sniping and shoot-on-the-run playstyles, both of which favor light armor over heavy armor to keep as much distance as possible from your enemies.

The bow has the most varied resource requirements, with each bow being a bit different. You’ll need various woods, fabrics, and minerals, but the following resources will be the most helpful overall:

• Wood
• Leather
• Iron (you’ll want extra for ammunition)
• Steel (you’ll want extra for ammunition)

Ice Gauntlet

The ice gauntlet is a solid crowd control weapon. It scales off Intelligence, so that should be your main focus when crafting trinkets or armor, followed by either Constitution or whatever your secondary weapon’s primary attribute is. The ice gauntlet favors light armor, helping to keep your distance as you slow your enemies and pelt them with ranged attacks.

You’ll need:

• Leather
• Fabrics
• Iron
• Steel
• Water motes

For a full guide on ice gauntlet builds, check out our other New World article!

Fire Staff

The fire staff is a powerful ranged weapon. It scales off of Intelligence, so you should focus on that when crafting trinkets and armor, followed by either Constitution or your secondary weapon’s primary attribute. As with most ranged weapons, I recommend going with light armor to maximize your dodge.

You’ll need:

• Wood
• Leather
• Iron
• Steel
• Fire motes

Void Gauntlet

The void gauntlet scales off of Intelligence as its primary attribute and Focus as its secondary attribute, so those should be your main attributes when crafting trinkets and armor. This weapon can focus on crowd control or on melee, so it can work well with either heavy or light armors.

You’ll need:

• Leather
• Cloth
• Iron
• Steel
• Death motes

Life Staff

The life staff’s skill trees focus on healing and buffing. It’s the only weapon that primarily scales off of Focus, so that should be the main attribute considered when crafting trinkets and armor, followed by Constitution or your secondary weapon’s primary attribute. This weapon shines primarily in group play, but can be used for soloing as well. As such, the life staff can work well both with light and heavy armors.

You’ll need:

• Wood
• Leather
• Iron
• Steel

Join the High Ground

Your weapons, armor, and tools are the most important things you will craft in New World, but you can also focus on catching fish and making tasty food, or making the most well-furnished home in the New World. The choice is yours. For more New World guides, keep visiting our ever-expanding site, and subscriber to our (never spammy) newsletter for the latest.

Happy crafting, explorer!

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