New World Fire Staff Build Guide

Image: Amazon Games via HGG / Joel Stadler

Human Made

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Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

Goodness gracious, great balls of fire! If you want to rain fiery death down on your opponents with direct DPS and DOTs, then the Fire Staff is the weapon for you. Today, we’ll be going over the Fire Staff in New World, covering the best builds for this hot weapon.

Let’s get started!

About The Fire Staff Builds

The Fire Staff, unsurprisingly, does basically one thing — damage. It doesn’t matter whether you go down the Fire Mage or the Pyromancer skill tree; the question isn’t if you’re playing DPS or not, it’s if you’re focusing more on direct damage or on direct damage paired with DOTs to get your kills. As such, we’ll be breaking down our builds into the best options for solo play and group play.

For starters, though, let’s look in depth at the skills the Fire Staff has to offer.

New World Fire Staff Skills

1. Pillar of Fire

Image: Amazon Games via HGG / Joel Stadler

Pillar of Fire is the first row active skill of the Fire Mage skill tree. It is a basic ranged AOE that hits a 2m radius area centered on your target for 170% weapon damage. This costs 15 mana and has a 9.8 second cooldown.

The damage on this is great, and gets even better with the upgrades. There’s not a lot else to say about it, as it’s a pretty straightforward damaging move and a solid AOE. With the First Strike upgrade, it becomes a good opener that’s definitely worth the investment.

2. Meteor Shower

Meteor Shower is the second row active skill in the Fire Mage skill tree, and it rains fire from above. It lasts for 6s and hits a targeted 4.5m area. It deals 34% weapon damage on the initial hit, plus 25% weapon damage to each enemy who remains in the attack radius for the remaining seconds. This costs 5 mana per every second you maintain the skill, and has a 17.7 second cooldown.

This attack can do a lot of damage to a lot of enemies, but it requires you and said enemies to stand still to really get the most out of it. It’s situationally quite useful, but otherwise not worth picking up.

3. Fireball

Fireball is the third row active skill in the Fire Mage skill tree. This skill combines burst damage with a bit of DOTs. Fireball hits the target for 140% weapon damage and leaves behind a 3m radius burning area that lasts for 6s and does 10% weapon damage per second to all enemies who stand within it. This costs 25 mana and has a 14.7s cooldown.

The damage is fairly solid with a nice extra attached, but the mana cost is high and the cooldown is a bit longer than I would like. Overall, it’s alright, but not amazing.

4. Flamethrower

Flamethrower is the first row active skill of the Pyromancer skill tree, and does pretty much what it says on the tin. You create a 4m jet of fire in a straight line that deals 50% weapon damage every half second. Each hit inflicts a stack of burn, which deals 6% weapon damage every second and lasts for 6s. You can have up to five stacks of the burn status effect on any given target at a time. This costs 5 mana per second and has a 7.9 second cooldown. However, if you fully upgrade this skill you remove the cooldown entirely.

This is a great source of raw damage, especially when fully upgraded. You can mow down most enemies pretty quickly. Unfortunately, it does severely hamper your mobility while Flamethrower is active and makes it easier for enemies to hit you. A bit risky, but very powerful and worth picking up.

5. Incinerate

Incinerate is the second row active skill in the Pyromancer skill tree. Deal 130% weapon damage in a 3m radius area centered on yourself. This attack pushes back all enemies hit 3m and inflicts a stack of burning which does 6% weapon damage per second and lasts 6s. This costs 22 mana and has an 11.8s cooldown.

It’s a solid option if you find yourself surrounded by enemies, but the mana cost is a bit high and the range is rather limited, so can be hard to hit enemies some times. It’s situationally quite useful and worth grabbing.

6. Burn Out

Burn Out is the third row active skill of the Pyromancer skill tree. Dash forward 11 meters, running through enemies and dealing 129% weapon damage to all you pass through. You also inflict a burn that deals 10% weapon damage a second and lasts for 8s. This costs 30 mana and has a 19.6s cooldown.

The damage isn’t bad, and the burn effect is better than any other you will get. Unfortunately, the mana cost is the highest of all the Fire Staff skills and one of the highest in the game. The cooldown is also a bit high, and using the move leaves you vulnerable to enemies. It’s fun, flashy, and not altogether bad, but you have better things to be doing with your skill points.

Best Fire Staff Builds

Now that we’ve covered the skills, let’s get into our recommended builds for the Fire Staff in New World.

1. The Solo Fire Staff Build

This is a run-and-gun style build meant for playing without a party.

The Attributes

The Fire Staff scales off Intelligence, so that’s the primary attribute to focus on. As always, I recommend Constitution as a good secondary for any build because bonus hit points are nice, but that’s less important in this build than some others.

The Equipment

For this build, prioritize keeping your equipment load light so as to maximize your dodge. That means almost exclusively light armor. Running, dodging, and keeping your distance while pelting enemies with fire from afar is the name of the game.

The Active Skills

Pillar of Fire is your opener. It is a great way to start any fight. Flamethrower is also a very good choice — it does mess with the run-and-gun nature of this build a bit, but the raw power is well worth it. Finally, grab Incinerate. Ideally, you won’t ever be cornered by multiple enemies at once, but it’ll be your best friend if you ever find yourself in that situation. It’s your contingency skill for when the run-and-gun approach is failing you.

The Passive Skill

First off, you’ll want to fully upgrade all three of your active skills. Both Pillar of Fire and Incinerate get massive damage boosts you don’t want to miss out on, and the lack of a cooldown makes Flamethrower the spammy-as-hell skill it was always meant to be.

Beyond upgrading all three active skills fully, you basically want all the passive skills from the Fire Mage skill tree. Get as many as you have points for. Starting out though, both Spell Focus and Fiery Restoration from the first row are great picks. Having your heavy attacks restore mana and reduce cooldowns respectively is always good. Pyromania from the Pyromancer skill tree is also a nice pick, but prioritize the Fire Mage passive skills first.

The Capstone

Rune of Helios is the clear pick for this build. The damage boost is nice, though having to stand in the magic circle is not great when you’re moving around a lot. But even with the spec into Flamethrower, you just aren’t going to have the points invested in Pyromancer to unlock Reheat, so Rune of Helios it is.

2. The Group Play Fire Staff Build

This is the Fire Staff build for when you have a full party. Stay in the back and rain a scorching demise on all who would oppose you and yours.

The Attributes

This build has the same attribute recommendations as the solo play build does.

The Equipment

This is where the group build begins to depart strongly from the solo build. Here, I recommend the heaviest of armors. You’re basically going to be walking artillery in this build, and” walking” might even be a bit of a stretch. You want to focus on damage-dealing rather than avoiding enemies — after all, you have a tank for that.

The Active Skills

Again, the damage of Pillar of Fire is just too good to pass up. This skill remains your opener, so cast it early and often. Meteor Shower is also a very good pick here. Normally the move isn’t great, but if you have a tank gathering a large number of enemies and keeping them in one place, it suddenly becomes a whole lot better. The final pick may surprise you a bit, but I have to go with Fireball. I wasn’t initially thrilled with the skill, but the other options require you to be closer to the action than I personally recommend. I wouldn’t prioritize it, but if you need a third active skill, it is the one to go with.

The Passive Skills

The upgrades to Pillar of Fire and Meteor Shower are solid picks for this build. Again, much like with the solo Fire Staff build, I recommend pretty much all of the Fire Mage passive skills. Not a lot more to say there. All of them are solid choices.

The Capstone

Rune of Helios is again the clear choice. Having to stand in that one spot to get the damage boost isn’t much of a downside here like it is in the solo Fire Staff build. Ideally, you have a tank who is drawing all the aggro and you can just sit back and plonk away. If you’re sitting in a circle of fire that boosts all your damage while you plonk away, so much the better.

Join the High Ground

That’s it for our New World Fire Staff build guide — you’re now ready to reduce all the enemies in the New World to ashes. Please hurl fire responsibly. If you liked this article, leave a comment or ask a question below, and sign up for our newsletter for more content like this.

Happy gaming!

Related Reading: New World Weapons Guide

New World Fire Staff Build Guide

About The Fire Staff Builds