Mutated Tank Build – New World Season 9

Mutated 3 expeditions in New World are currently the hardest PvE content in the game, and this Mutated Tank Build for New World Season 9 will help you to stay alive and support your teammates as best as possible. The primary difference between this build and some of the other common tank builds is that it uses the Frigid Dawn gear to help in mitigating damage from ranged archers, who attack with different elements than the given weeks mutated modifier. The Hive of Gorgon’s Tank Build is also very viable for Mutated Expeditions, assuming you modify the Jewelry and Tower Shield to adapt to the weekly modifier.

Mainhand Weapon

Offhand Weapon (options)

Attributes

Strength	fill the rest
Dexterity	5
Intelligence	5
Focus	25
Constitution	350

Armor 

Prioritize armor perks in the following order:

• Enchanted Ward + Elemental Aversion (illegal perk combo only on Frigid Dawn gear)
• Refreshing
• Weapon Perks
  • Sundering Shockwave
  • Accelerated Resolve
  • Contagious Upheaval
• Vital Synergy

Jewelry

Pick the best Protection amulet that matches the current Mutated type of the week, and have multiple amulets on standby to help protect against bosses who do not change their damage based on the weekly mutation modifier. The following Jewelry assumes a nature damage modifier for the week.

Heartrune

Stalwart Heartrune of Stoneform

Typical Buffs and Trophies

In order to do maximum damage and mitigate maximum damage to survive as a tank, the correct trophies and damage boosting buffs should be applied. The example below is for a Corrupted Expedition like Tempest’s Heart, where you should ideally have 5 buffs above your health bar, and Major trophies at each of your 3 houses matching the enemy type.

• 3x Major Corrupted Trophies – 3×5%(15%) Corrupted damage
• Infused Corrupted Coating – 15% Corrupted Damage
• Infused Corrupted Ward – take 10% less damage from Corrupted enemies
• Powerful Honing Stone – 7% Empower
• Desert Sunrise – reduce duration of incoming DoTs by 17.5% 
• +48 food

How to Play

Run into the center of a mob clump, and activate Resolve to taunt as many enemies as possible. In a higher-level mutated expedition your teammates will ideally be waiting on your to engage other enemies.

When you have the clump all on you, activate Whirling Blade to do damage to the entire clump and maintain aggro. On large clumps, the cooldown of this perk will be reduced significantly. If taking too much damage or being staggered to much, activate Stoneform to become uninterruptible for 4s right when you are attacking the clump.

Aim to land a clear and intentional Upheaval on atleast 1 enemy – to reduce resolve’s cooldown by 25%.

After this, rotate 1 heavy attack and 3 light attacks, and repeat to keep Rend and Empower applied.

Offhand abilities are generally best to save for Elite enemies and bosses when you need to apply extra Rend or Weaken.

Empower details

Empowered Stab	30%
Powerful Honing Stone	7%
Leadership	10%
Total	47%

There is potential for other sources of Empower from allies, but these 3 are consistent for this tank build and keep you very close to Cap at all times. To know where your current Empower total stands, check out the Empower Calculator.

Tips to remember

Being fully aware of the damage types you will encounter in each Expedition, and specifically what damage the bosses do will be very important so you can spec your gear and survive accordingly.

I do not use Fortified Shield Rush in this build, because this perk is best suited as a Tower Shield perk, and Tower Shields with the correct protection type AND Fortifying Shield Rush are very rare. And if you ran Shield Rush, you’d be sacrificing either rapid cooldowns or loss of ability to maintain easy mob aggro.

Build made using the free tools at New World Buddy.

For unfamiliar terms, please refer to our terminology guide.