Best Weapon Perks in New World 2023 - Most Effective Hatchet & Great Axe Weapon Perks New World

In New World, every weapon ability has a corresponding perk that can be found on armor and weapons. If you equip the perk on a weapon, it will scale better and deal more damage. Today we talk about some of the most effective weapon perks in New World 2023 for any build, Hatchet and Great Axe weapon perks. 

New World Best Weapon Perks 2023 - Most Effective Hatchet & Great Axe Weapon Perks New World

Weapon perks in New World are weird, once upon a time they used to be equally strong on weapons and on armor and eventually they changed that, so the weapon perks would be more effective on your weapon. However, at the time some people wrongly assumed that all weapons would get the same increase compared to the armor which is not at all the case. Some perks are nearly twice as strong when put on a weapon while others are not even one and a half times as strong. They're also directly competing with other perks that you can have on your weapon that often directly increase your damage more. So overall, the effectiveness of each weapon perks strongly differs between different weapons and different perks and is absolutely worth talking about. Here, we go through some of these perks, focusing on the Hatchet and the Great Axe weapon perks New World 2023. Interesting perks on the Hatchet include Refreshing Distancing Throw, Empowering Rending Throw and Refreshing Torrent. On the Great Axe, Insatiable Gravity Well, Enfeebling Maelstrom, Fortifying Whirlwind and Refreshing Charge all deserve our attention.

New World Hatchet Weapon Perks 2023

The first melee weapon is the hatchet, we'll go through the skills from the left tree to the right tree and then in the order of which you unlock them. So in this case, the first perk is Keen Berserk. 

Hatchet (Berserker Tree)

- Keen Berserk: This one increases our crit chance while under 50 HP while berserking. So on a weapon this provides us with a 27% crit chance and on armor this gives us 14% crit chance. What is important to know is the difference between weapon and armor, in this case the weapon perk provides 193% of the value that the armor perk provides. So if the armor and weapon perk rally was exactly the same, it would be everything above the 100% is the difference in favor of the weapon. There are only 3 perks right now that even reach 190% difference between weapon and armor and Keen Berserk has the highest difference of them all. But the difference value alone doesn't tell us if the perk is strong or not, we also have to consider what is increased. In this case, the weapon gets an extra 13% crit chance increase and you have to fulfill two conditions, you have to be berserking and under 50 HP. Meanwhile, if you get keen on your weapon instead, you would have a guaranteed 12% crit chance all the time, no conditions. And both crit chance and Keen are not particularly valued perks at the moment. As such, this is not a good perk at all. In PVE, you're mostly backstabbing and in PVP there isn't particularly much value in crit on a hatchet, as such not really a good perk.

- Crippling Feral Rush: It applies a slow when you successfully hit an enemy with Feral Rush. This lasts for 3 seconds and on your weapon this is a 29% slow while on your armor this is a 20% slow. The difference here is just a 45% increase, so very much on the bottom end and it's also just a slow. It is a slow you want to have in a PVP Hatchet build but not one that requires you to have it on your weapon. So putting this on your armor and never on your weapon. 

- Refreshing Torrent: It reduces all hatchet cooldowns with every hit. On your weapon, this is an 8.5 reduction per hit, whereas on your armor this is a 4.8 reduction. With a quick forehead combo that most people use, that is a 34% reduction when on weapon and a near 20% reduction when on armor. The difference on weapon here is 77%. Refreshing Torrent has relatively limited use in PVP, some people do the long sword and shield combo and do the root into raging torrent, but in that case you don't really need the coolant reduction because after that combo you're going to wait for cooldowns anyways. But for PVE, if you're using rage in torrent this is absolutely worth having at least on your armor. You can also use it on your weapon and I think that is an effective choice, but you can also use refreshing move instead because you're going to use a lot of normal basic attacks too. Since you typically run bane and rogue or another damaging perk, you will have to choose between those two for your third perk for a DPS build.

Hatchet (Throwing Tree)

- Empowering Rending Throw: It increases the ranged hatchet damage against Target targets that have been hit by a rendering throw. The damaging crease is 31% on your weapon and 21% on your armor. This is only a 148% increase which is towards the lower end, however this is still a very effective perk. In any pure throwing hatchet situation like at the end of any AD, this increases all of the damage that you're doing by an additional 10% when on your weapon. Running throws duration is longer than its cooldown, so you can consistently keep this up. What is worth keeping in mind though is that Enchanted will give you a similar damage increase, but excludes the throne hatchet abilities and only focus on the basic attacks. So if you're just using throwing hatchet as an off thing with only running throw, then enchanted might give you a little bit more value, but in other situations empowering running throw may be better. If you're using running throw in PVP, this is obviously also something you can put on your armor. But it would require you to use more throwing hatches after that which many people don't necessarily do or often they will just have social distancing in the first place.

- Refreshing Distancing Throw: Social distancing attacks within 6m reduce the cooldown. By 49% on your weapon and by 30% on your armor. So a 63% difference. Generally, a nice to have perk in PVP which is where you mainly use social distancing at a close distance. But relatively hard to justify on your weapon unless you specifically play a kiting build where you're constantly zoning letting enemies into your distance and then damaging them again over and over. That's where it would have a niche benefit being on the weapon. But otherwise, the 30% from the armor are pretty good already.

- Exhausting Infected Throw: It makes direct hits infected throw causes exhaustion reducing targets stamina regeneration by -20% for 10 seconds. And the regeneration is reduced by 30% on the weapon and by 20% on the armor. This is a 50% increase but the base value here is too low. The 20 value in armor is once again nice if you are using infected throw, but the 10% increase is just not noticeable enough in most situations and also quite laughable when compared to exhaustive net shot. As such, running it on your weapon.

Best Great Axe Weapon Perks in New World 2023

The next weapon we're looking at is the Great Axe.

Great Axe (Reaper Tree)

- Refreshing Charge: The first perk here is refreshing charge, hitting an enemy with unpredictable strike reduces the cooldown and it only counts once per hit, so multiple targets don't matter. When your weapon this reduces the cooldown by 54% while on your armor it's a 30% reduction. The difference here is definitely towards the top end with 180%. The downside is that you have to spec all the way into unpredictable strike which many people don't enjoy just to unlock this extra effect. If you're running a more Bruiser oriented build where you often use charge as your escape, then this is not worth it. However, if you're running a very aggressive chasing build where you spec into unpredictable strikes and often use it to engage, then there is definitely a value in even having this on your weapon. 

- Crippling Reap: If a Target hit with Reap is below 50% health, they are slowed, reducing their movement speed for 4 seconds. The slow is 50% on your weapon and 31% on your armor. This is a 61% difference, but we wouldn't rate having this perk on your weapon highly. If you want to run a chaser build where you're using reap, then running unpredictable strikes and running refreshing charge just offers a much more effective method to chase more consistently. Crippling Reap is more conditional since the enemy has to be below 50% health, and on top of that, the difference between a 50% and a 31% slow to not be very noticeable in New World unfortunately. This is partially due to many people using escapes and mobility tools when they get slowed, so that makes the effect of the slow itself diminish a lot and this particular slow is also only for seconds. It's a good perk to have on your armor when chasing. 

- Mending Execute: Gain some of the damage dealt back as health with execute. This is 49% on the weapon and 30% on armor. Having that healing is a nice little bonus for the handful of people that are using execute now that sped up, but it's not worth putting that on your weapon for just a little bit more healing from one of your attacks. Even though it's a 61% increase, other perks like trenchant recovery or leeching on your ring just do this job a lot more effectively.

Great Axe (Mauler Tree)

- Enfeebling Maelstrom: It makes Maelstrom apply a weaken to targets hit by the attack, reducing their damage output for 8 seconds. On your weapon this is a 25% weaken while on your armor is 14%. This is a 79% increase and this perk was slapped on for way too long. But now it has been recognized and is being used in wars a lot though. Because it is simply an extremely effective perk to reduce the damage output the enemies can do while in a clump.

- Fortifying Whirlwind: It gives you fortify with each hit and also increases your slash damage for 2 seconds, this is a maximum of 5 stacks. On your weapon this is 10% per hit and on your armor this is 6.6% per hit. So the weapon has a 52% bonus. The amount of armor and damage it provides is very strong, the problem is that you run into situations where you over cap especially on damage because the Great Axe tree is full of empowers of various kinds. So you are already hovering nem power cap without using this perk quite often, which makes this a little bit less effective than it could be even though it allows you to get two and power cap quicker. Problem is any logical build that's running Whirlwind is also running Maelstrom and Maelstrom on the weapon is simply stronger than Whirlwind overall because it's an instant application, it can't be interrupted in the same way and it applies on every enemy around you, so it also affects to allies. The Fortify can be nice if you're getting hit by a lot of range damage and that's a situation where the Whirlwind could be better. But overall, it is a lot more conditional. If you're running Whirlwind in your build, you should definitely put this on your armor though, it is a very effective perk to have, just not that good for your weapon.

- Insatiable Gravity Well: It returns a portion of your damage done by the ability back as health, and also cast another burst around you if you hit an enemy with a detonate of your Insatiable Gravity Well dealing 100% weapon damage. The secondary part the detonation is entirely unaffected by where you have this perk slotted. Only the cell feel is increased to 52% on the weapon while there's only 34% on the armor. This is a 53% increase but there isn’t much value in that., that's just a little bit more lifesteal. In a chasing build, you're better off having refreshing charge on your weapon and in a group build, you're better off having Maelstrom on your weapon. That is assuming you want a weapon perk on your Great Axe in the first place, you can also go with things like refresh refreshing move plus thwarting strikes, plus chain and never worry about those. None of which should be replaced by insatiable gravity well. At the same time it is absolutely a must have on your armor if you're using Insatiable Gravity Well.