Theorycrafting exercise: Optimization of the musket in New World

Exercise Description: At the performance optimization level, theorycraft, or theorycrafting, is the mathematical analysis of game rules and mechanics to develop optimal strategies and tactics (Jobin, 2018; Wikipedia, 2022). In this article, we will seek to theorize the optimal “build” for doing maximum damage with the musket in the video game New World (Amazon, 2021).

Note : This article is a translation. For the original article, click on Français in the menu.

1. Objectives

By the end of this exercise, we will have a better idea of how the game mechanics surrounding the optimization of musket weapon use in New Worlld work. Specifically, we will answer the question: what is the best “build” to use for a player wanting to do Outpost Rush (OPR) with a musket?

2. Methodology

Theorycrafting is a catch-all word that can affect any aspect of the game that the player wants to optimize: finding the most efficient way to get from point A to B, finishing a dungeon as quickly as possible, using the crafting system to make the best amulet possible, setting up your house to get maximum points, being as profitable as possible in the game market, etc. So you will have to be clear about what you are trying to accomplish.

Then, for each goal, it is important to identify the rules of the game that influence what we are trying to improve. This task can quickly become complicated and difficult. Indeed, some games have no comprehensive documentation on how all the components of the game work. Sometimes, and this still happens in New World, the information available in the user interface of the player is not true. Thus, the presence of unknown bugs in a game can make any optimization effort completely futile. In this research, it is important to take into account that online video games are constantly evolving. Not only can an update completely change the look of the game you are trying to optimize, but it is possible that the information you will find on the Internet, even if it is a few days old, is already invalid.

Once you have found as much information as possible and you think you have a good understanding of how the game works, it’s time to do some testing and calculations! To help you, some game studios, or their game communities, have developed tools and sandbox modes for you to experiment with (e.g. CS :GO config, Hs Deck Builder, ou LoL Theory).

3. Observations

3.1 Calculation of the damage

Since we seek to maximize the damage done, it is important to understand how it is calculated.

First, there are different types of damage. The musket does thrust damage.

« Each instance of damage has a damage type attached to it. Damage types are used in the game for resistances and weaknessess, bonuses and penalties and in a few other cases. They are grouped in three broad categories: True Damage, which is not reduced by armor or other effects, Physical Damage, which is reduced by Physical Armor, and Elemental Damage, which is reduced by Elemental Armor. » (New World Fandom, 2022a). This information will be useful later when we evaluate the bonuses given by our abilities and gems.

What we are most interested in, however, is the damage formula before the enemy blocks/absorbs it. « Pre-Mitigation Damage is calculated off Weapon Damage, which is multiplied by coeficients according to the Skill doing the damage, the Ammo equipped (in case of Bows and Muskets), the sum of general damage modifiers (General Mods) and sum of Damage Amplifiers (DMGx). » (New World Fandom, 2022a)

3.1.1. Weapon Damage : This is the number we see when looking at the weapon from the inventory in the game. It is calculated according to the “Gear Score-Based Damage” (which is the smallest damage shown when looking at the weapon) multiplied by the sum of the “Level Modifier” and the “Attributes Modifier”.

3.1.1.1 Sub-calculation  : Level Modifier

We are not able to find the information! However, since we are already at the maximum level of 60, it is not something we can change anyway.

3.1.1.2 Sub-calculation  : Attributes Modifier

For this information, the player DukeSloth (2021a) had published, before the official release of the game, several interesting graphics. However, this information is already more than 8 months old, and it is probably no longer valid.

Here are two excerpts from an image published by DukeSloth (2021b).

We will return to this issue in the section on attributes.

3.1.2. Skill Multiplier : « Skill multiplier is the most basic multiplier found in Weapon Mastery skills. They are displayed as percentages of the Modified Weapon Damage […]. Basic weapon attacks, such as Light Attacks, Heavy Attacks and Charged Heavy Attacks, are all treated as Skills for the sake of calculating damage. » (New World Fandom, 2022a). In the case of the musket, which has only the standard attack, it makes 100% and in thrust damage.

3.1.3. Ammo : only the bow and musket can have ammunition. The highest level of ammunition is the orichalcum one and it is x1.20.

3.1.4. General Modifiers : This is the sum of most of the damage modifiers. In those that will have a potential influence in our calculation:

• 150 Dexterity: +5% thrust damage
• 50 Intelligence: +10% damage light and heavy magic attacks
• 150 Intelligence: +15% to elemental damage
• 300 Intelligence: +10% damage on first hit on full Health target (?)
• Musket: Called Shot
• Light/Medium Equip Load: 20%/10% bonus damage

3.1.5. DMGx : « DMGx a multiplier category that encompasses different conditions that often change during the fight, such as status effects (Empower and Weaken), damage buffs, Critical Hits, Headshots, Backstabs, and so on. They stack additively among themselves » (NewWorld Fandom, 2022a). For us :

• Musket: Heightened Precision
• Musket: Empowering Headshot
• 100 Intelligence: +10% to critical hit damage.
• 250 Dexterity: +10% bonus critical hit damage on stunned, slow or rooted enemies
• Vicious perk.
• Vorpal perk.

3.2 Elements that we can adjust ourselves

3.2.1 Equipment

(1) Weapons

• Weapon types: There are 13 weapon types in New World. We have chosen the musket, a weapon designed to fight from afar and requiring enormous precision from its user.
  

• Base Damage : Conflicting information. The way to know the base damage of a weapon varies from source to source. For example, it is mentioned that the base damage of the musket is 80 on New World Fandom (2022a), 82 on New World Database (2022a), and other numbers on older sources (e.g. DukeSloth, 2021b). It is also possible that the “Base damage” in some sources, such as the bunzaga file (bunzaga and OJ of Steel, 2021), is actually the Weapon Damage, which includes the base damage and several modifiers.
• Critical Hit Chance : Basic percentage chance that a standard attack is a critical.
• Critical Damage Multiplier : Used in the damage calculation in the DMGx section.
• Block Stamina Damage : Too bad about the shields and those that block.
• Type of damage: As mentioned above, this is “thrust” for us.
• Attributes bonus : Used to increase one of the attributes.
• Gemstones : Use of the offensive characteristic of one of the gemstones (New World Wiki, 2022)
• Perks : Various types of passive bonuses available (New World Wiki, 2022).

(2) Expertise

• Starting at 600, a new mechanic makes it possible to spend a resource called “shard” to go up to 625. The higher the expertise and gear score of an item, the better the stats.

(3) Armor

• Emplacement : Emplacement : Five pieces of armor are possible : head, body, hands, legs, and feet.
• Weight : Influences the overall weight
• Armor Bonus
• Attribute bonus : Used to increase one of the attributes
• Gemstones : Use of the defensive characteristic of one of the gemstones (New World Wiki, 2022).
• Perks : Various types of passive bonuses available (New World Wiki, 2022).

(4) Overall weight

• There are three weight categories. We are going to be “light” or “medium”.

(5) Jewelry

• Emplacement : Three jewelry spaces are available : amulet, ring, and earrings.
• Attributes bonus : Used to increase one of the attributes.
• Gemstones : Use of the defensive characteristic of one of the gemstones (New World Wiki, 2022).
• Perks : Various types of passive bonuses available (New World Wiki, 2022).

(6) Ammunition

• See above in the damage calculation “Ammo”.

(7) Consumables

• Multiple products can be consumed to add temporary bonuses.

(8) Other non-numbered items

• Cosmetics (Skins): Purely cosmetic elements.

3.2.2 Attributes

The attributes we are most interested in will be dexterity (main attribute of the musket), intelligence (secondary attribute of the musket), and constitution which is linked with total life points (New World Fandom, 2022b). There are 190 points that you can assign directly via the attribute menu. Basically, each attribute has a minimum of 5 points. At the moment, with unoptimized equipment, we have 244 extra points. If needed, it is always possible to take food to get the missing points, but this is a temporary solution (45 minutes) and expensive in the long run.

DukeSloth (2021c) had published a chart 8 months ago, but the information may no longer be valid. Here it is:

As explained by the researcher Faltin Karlsen (2021, cited by Jobin (2018), theorycrafting is similar to reverse engineering. In this sense, there are indeed people who have used “datamining” to go and extract information directly from the game source code (e.g. navarroj00, 2021). This type of information has been used by other members of the game community to create theorycrafting tools to help other interested players optimize their performance. Sometimes these are calculation files (e.g. Bunzaga, and OJ of Steel, 2021), but more often they are websites, such as New World Tools (2022), Build Calculator (New World Fans, 2022b), or New World Skill Builder (New World Database, 2022c).

3.2.3 Weapon Mastery

Each weapon has two skill trees and nineteen points to use (New World Fandom, 2022c).

3.2.4 Outpost Rush

Outpost Rush has several PvP and PvE objectives, allowing a lot of freedom on different play styles.

4. Discussions

To be able to identify the best build for a player who wants to do Outpost Rush (OPR) with a musket, it is important to specify the style of play we want to favor. Just because the musket was designed to be used from a distance does not mean it cannot be played in close quarters. Example:

Nevertheless, the style of play we are interested in is mainly focused on supporting from afar, doing maximum damage, eliminating targets that try to run away, and securing the baron.

Before we begin our own analysis from scratch, it may be relevant to look at theorycrafting sites and online guides to guide our thinking. The Icy Veins (2021) guide is good in a general way but seems to be made for Wars and not RPOs. TheGamer’s (Alston, 2021) is much more focused on PvE. The IGN article (2021) seems to have been for the sole purpose of having a musket article. The builds on New World Fans (2022a) or Reddit (e.g. gromz1r, 2022) were done by quite a few people and it is impossible to know the thought behind the choices, unlike the ones on Vulkk (RubyRose, 2022) and Game8 (2021).

4.1 Choosing the main weapon

In a search on the New World Database (2022a), 80 legendary muskets were identified. From then on, we will have to identify the desired “perks”. Here are the ones of interest to us, according to the chosen abilities and relevant attributes (New World Fandom, 2022d; New World Wiki, 2022):

• Crippling Powder Burn – Targets hit with Powder Burn are slowed by 23% for 5 seconds.
• Empowering Shooter’s Stance – Hitting a target while in Shooter’s Stance grants Empower, increasing damage by 22% for 3 seconds.
• Mending Sticky Bombs – Gain 28% of your max HP on kill with a Sticky Bomb Explosion.
• Keen – +11% critical chance
• Vicious – +11% critical damage.
• Enchanted – Light and Heavy attacks deal 9,5% more damage.
• Vorpal – Increase +14% headshot damage
• Keenly Jagged – On Crit: cause Bleed that deals 7% Weapon Damage per second for 10s. (10s cooldown.)

By far, Infamy is the best option (New World Database, 2022b). In terms of gemstone, several options are valid. Vulkk (RubyRose, 2022) and Game8 (2021) recommend diamond, which increases damage by 15% in T4 when we are at 100% life. I have a preference for emerald, which increases damage by 24% in T4 to targets with 30% or less life. Many use gemstones to turn 50% of Weapon Damage into Void, Fire, Ice, Lightning or Arcane. In this type of gemstone, the damage scale is calculated based on the greater of the Intelligence attribute or the weapon’s base stat.

If the base damage is 82 (New World Database, 2022b), then raising the intelligence might be appropriate. Especially since at 150 intelligence, there is a 15% bonus on the elemental damage. Of course, one has to take into account all the different factors that influence the damage calculation. For example, there is already a 5% bonus on the thrust at 100 dex points.

4.2 Choice of the attributes

The musket power scale increases by 90% with dexterity, and by 65% with intelligence. As for the constitution, we have observed on multiple tips and comments towards the need to put at least 50 points in it for survivability issues. Without points or other bonuses, the number of life points is 6599. It increases to 7724 with 50 points, in addition to a bonus that is added where the life consumables are 20% stronger. So far, we’ve played with an amulet with the “Health” perk, giving 9.3% more life, raising the life to 7158. It’s true that this has not only prevented a few deaths, but also sometimes allowed to fire an extra round. However, in most cases, 1000 more or less life points will not make a difference. The important thing is to be mobile and to be able to run away. So for the time being, we will not put points in constitution. We will adjust it after we have tested it in the field.

If the DukeSloth (2021b) information is still up to date, then going 100% in dex is not optimal. Doing a quick first test in the game with only dex giving equipment, 342 dex points and 5 int points brings the weapon damage to 1363. With 300 dex points and 52 int, the weapon damage is 1408. So the increase does indeed vary by decreasing according to the number of points that have already been invested in the category.

At a minimum, we want 300 points in dexterity to get the bonus so that every 10 seconds we can have a guaranteed critical hit after a dodge. This is unique to the musket and the bow (Fayiette, 2021). For a second test, let’s put back the equipment we had that also gave intelligence. At 324 dex and 100 int, the weapon damage is 1558. At 300 dex and 124 int, the weapon damage is 1565. After 300 in dexterity, it is more optimal to put the points in intelligence until 200 int, before returning to DukeSloth dex (2021b). With less of the best equipment, the 150 in intelligence is accessible. At 50 intelligence points, there is the following bonus: “+10% damage light and heavy magic attacks”. However, the musket has neither one nor the other, and its attacks are considered “standard”. Here, does the nomenclature make a difference or not? We have not found the answer.

4.3 Choix des habilités du mousquet

Here are the selected skills (New World Fandom, 2022c).

“Powder Burn”, and its two upgrades, have a higher total damage potential than “Power shot”. In addition, “Backdraft” is complementary with allies that apply malus burning.

Considering that we are fighting from afar, ”Ballistic Advantage”, ”Hit Your Mark” and ”Sniper” are essential.  Considering that we choose our targets before shooting, “Called Shot” and “Heightened Precision” are relevant.

The “Sticky Bomb” is not only the musket’s only area damage option, but it hurts like hell and slows down the enemy with its “Unflinching Walk” and “Sticky Slow” upgrades.

“Salt On The Wounds,” “Weakened Defense,” “Empowering Weakness,” and “Kick ’em When They’re Down” are various interesting offensive passives on targets that are already in combat with another player. “Tactical Reload” cancels one of the musket’s biggest weaknesses, the cooldown, every 6 seconds.

“Shooter’s Stance” and its first upgrade “Shoot More” allow you to quickly fire up to 5 rounds in a short period of time. That’s strong for a sniper who doesn’t move much anyway.

For the last point to spend, it must be put in the sharpshooter branch if we want the famous “Sniper”. The “Marksman” upgrade of “Shooter’s Stance” is interesting because of the 25% cooldown reduction. However, shooting three consecutive bullets at a target that zigzags away without missing is more difficult than shooting at the head. Thus, “Empowering Headshot” is the 19th point. In the trapper branch, the skill “Back It Up”, which increases the player’s running speed by 10% when an enemy is within 8 meters, is very interesting in terms of the mobility and survivability discussed above. If needed, it could replace “Empowering Weakness” or “Kick ’em When They’re Down”.

4.4 Choice in relation to the armor

Here are some potentially interesting perks for what we want to do.

• Armor : Empowering Shooter’s Stance – Hitting a target while in Shooter’s Stance grants Empower, increasing damage by 22% for 3 seconds.
• Armor : Crippling Powder Burn – Targets hit with Powder Burn are slowed by 23% for 5 seconds.
• Armor : Resilient – Critical hits deal 4,8% less damage to you.
• Amulet : Purify – When you are hit while below 50% health you lose all debuffs. (90s cooldown.) Does not trigger off persistent damage or DoT effects.
• Ring : Burning – Burning you apply lasts 15% longer.
• Ring : Thrust Damage (Perk), et autres similaires – You deal 4.8% more Thrust damage.
• Ring : Keen Awareness – +11% critical chance.
• Amulet : Health (Perk) – You have 9,4% more maximum health.
• Earing : Regenerating – You gain 0,48% health every second.
• Earing : Healthy Toast – When you drink a mana potion, gain 9,4% of your max health.
• Refreshing – Reduces max cooldowns by 2,8%.

To be “light” and have the mobility, the 20% bonus to damage, as well as the 30% bonus to healing, the total weight of our armor must be below 13.0. Since it is possible to adjust with the 190 basic attribute points, the attribute points bonus should be as high as possible, no matter if it is in dexterity or intelligence.

In terms of gemstones, the +3.75% Thrust Damage Absorption of the “Thrust Ward IV” (Emerald) is interesting if we play against a lot of muskets or rapiers. To optimize this game, we will have to adapt to the meta.

4.6 Choice of gemstone for the musket

With everything we have identified so far, the last significant element to choose is the gemstone to use in the musket.

By taking a +20 int food, we were able to test the difference between the two gemstones directly in the game.

Scenario A : Opportunist IV – +20% damage against targets with less than 30% Health.

Scenario B : Abyssal IV – 50% of damage is converted to Void. Damage scales off base weapon stat or INT, whichever is higher.

The results are very similar, with a slight advantage for B: 1607 for scenario A and 1641 for scenario B. However, scenario B has two shortcomings. First, there is no 20% damage bonus for attacks on enemies with less than 30% life. Secondly, any bonuses affecting a particular type of damage (e.g. thrust, physical, elemental, etc.) will only affect 50% of the damage done. Thus, taking into account that we will be prioritizing targets with the least amount of life possible, the Opportunist IV is a better option.

4.7 Other considerations

4.7.1 Second weapon 

When it comes to the second weapon, there are several options. Some will play with bows to maximize damage at distance and play more mobile. Some will use the spear, hatchet or rapier for hand-to-hand combat. There is even the option to use the life staff to heal yourself. In our case, we will use the rapier for those escape and evasion options.

4.7.2 PVE aspect

While our focus has been on the players so far, there is one aspect of PVE in RPOs that we are very interested in: being the one to kill Baroness Hain (New World Fans, 2022c). Several games have been won because of this. Unfortunately, being a Lost creature, it is resistant to 15.0% of Thrust damage; which we do. Using a perk just for this would not be ideal. However, it is possible to have up to three “Damage Vs Lost T3” trophies, which would each increase the damage done to the Baroness by 5%. As a second passive, those versus the Corrupted would be useful against creatures that lurk near the sniper position that has a view of the Baroness.

4.7.3 Cosmetics

Cosmetics (skins) were not designed to give an advantage to those who use them. However, like almost any game mechanic, it is possible to optimize it to gain an advantage. First of all, it is important to take a cosmetic that does not attract too much attention. This will make it easier to camouflage yourself in the background. Secondly, some cosmetics make the hitbox look bigger than it really is. For example with the picture below, by experiences, it is not uncommon that other muskets tried to make headshots by shooting in the top hat; making the bullets simply pass through. It is also possible to hide the fact that we are in “light” by not rolling and having a cosmetic of large metal armor. Finally, there is the psychological aspect of appearance and the feelings that can be associated with it. When you think you look good, it has an effect on your morale. In some cases, it can also create a certain intimidation in the opponent.

5. Conclusion

A theorycrafting exercise has its strengths and weaknesses. Even if an update can ruin the results obtained, the reflections made remain valid because they can easily serve as a basis for a future analysis. In the context of this article, there are already many optimizations that have been made to the build initially played. The reflections have also allowed for a better understanding of the overall functioning of the game. Although there are some sites with tools to facilitate theorycrafting, we did not use them because they do not all give the same information. So we based our tests in New World directly.

So, for a musket “build” suitable for RPO’s and having the goals of supporting group fights from afar, eliminating enemies who try to run away and being the one who kills the baroness, we have chosen :

• The Infamy musket with an emerald gemstone
• 300 points in dexterity, with the rest in intelligence (up to 200)
• Light equipment where the priority will be put on attribute bonuses, then some perks

Sources

Alston, H. (2021). New World: Best Musket Build, TheGamer, https://www.thegamer.com/new-world-best-musket-build/ (mis à jour le 2 décembre 2021, consulté le 23 avril 2022)

Bunzaga, et OJ of Steel (2021). New World Damage Calculator 2 by bunzaga and modified by OJ of Steel, Google Sheet, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tz2PFABkykuhBxZ3MoJEO9KNwY0X20qs0gII-x370AA/edit#gid=1097157556 (consulté le 23 avril 2022).

DukeSloth (2021a). Weapon damage in New World explained! INFOGRAPHIC & graphs in comment – Weapon scaling, modifiers and true damage scaling on level 60. Why mixing 2 attributes has multiple benefits!, Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/newworldgame/comments/pc2ciq/weapon_damage_in_new_world_explained_infographic/ (mis en ligne le 26 août 2021, consulté le 23 avril 2022).

DukeSloth (2021b). New World Weapon Scaling by DukeSloth, Imgur, https://imgur.com/a/Vc8GPMH (mis en ligne le 26 août 2021, consulté le 23 avril 2022).

DukeSloth (2021c). New World Damage relative to level 60, NOT weapon damage, https://imgur.com/a/4BO2if0 (mis en ligne le 26 août 2021, consulté le 23 avril 2022).

Fayiette (2021). New World – Weapon Damage Modifiers, https://fayiette.com/guides/nw-wep-dmg-mods/ (mis à jour le 12 novembre 2021, consulté le 24 avril 2022)

Game8 (2021). Best Musket Builds for PVE and PVP (Update 1.2.1) | New World, https://game8.co/games/New-World/archives/345317 (mis à jour le 29 décembre 2021, consulté le 23 avril 2022)

gromz1r (2022). Drop Your Musket Builds, Reddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/newworldgame/comments/u6edfx/drop_your_musket_builds/ (mis en ligne le 18 avril 2022, consulté le 23 avril 2022)

Icy Veins (2021) Musket Weapon Guide and Builds in New World, https://www.icy-veins.com/new-world/musket-weapon-guide-and-builds (mis à jour le 19 novembre 2021, consulté le 23 avril 2022)

IGN (2021). Best Musket Build, https://www.ign.com/wikis/new-world/Best_Musket_Build (mis à jour le 1 novembre 2021, consulté le 23 avril 2022)

Jobin, A. (2018). Theorycrafting : analyse des stratégies élaborées par les joueurs pour optimiser leurs performances dans le jeu World of Warcraft. Mémoire. Montréal (Québec, Canada), Université du Québec à Montréal, Maîtrise en communication. https://archipel.uqam.ca/12460/

navarroj00 (2021) new-world-datatables, Github, https://github.com/navarroj00/new-world-datatables (mis à jour le 4 février 2022, consulté le 23 avril 2022).

New World Database (2022a) Recherche sur les mousquets, https://nwdb.info/db/items/weapons/musket/page/1?sort=rarity_desc (consulté le 23 avril 2022)

New World Database (2022b) Infamy, https://nwdb.info/db/item/2hmusket_infamyt5 (consulté le 23 avril 2022)

New World Database (2022c). New World Skill Builder, https://nwdb.info/build (consulté le 23 avril 2022)

New World Fans (2022a). https://newworldfans.com/ (consulté le 23 avril 2022)

New World Fans (2022b). Build Calculator, https://newworldfans.com/builds/new (consulté le 23 avril 2022)

New World Fans (2022c). Baroness Hain, https://newworldfans.com/db/creature/baroness-hain-78f3d1 (consulté le 24 avril 2022)

New World Fandom (2022a). Damage, https://newworld.fandom.com/wiki/Damage (consulté le 23 avril 2022)

New World Fandom (2022b). Attributes, https://newworld.fandom.com/wiki/Attributes (consulté le 23 avril 2022)

New World Fandom (2022c). Musket Mastery, https://newworld.fandom.com/wiki/Musket_Mastery (consulté le 23 avril 2022)

New World Fandom (2022d). List of Trophies, https://newworld.fandom.com/wiki/Trophies (consulté le 23 avril 2022)

New World Fandom (2022e). Musket Ability Perks, https://newworld.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Musket_Ability_Perks (consulté le 24 avril 2022)

New World Wiki (2022). Perks, https://newworld.wiki.fextralife.com/Perks (consulté le 23 avril 2022)

RubyRose (2022). New World MUSKET Weapon Guide and Best Builds, Vulkk, https://vulkk.com/2021/11/13/new-world-musket-guide-and-best-builds/ (mis à jour le 4 février 2022, consulté le 23 avril 2022).

Wikipedia (2022). Theorycraft, https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theorycraft (consulté le 23 avril 2022

Reading suggestions

Greenberg, F. (2021) How Gem Damage Scaling Works in New World, Gamer Journalist, https://gamerjournalist.com/new-world-gem-damage-scaling/ (mis en ligne le 8 octobre 2021, consulté le 24 avril 2022)

Paul, C. A. (2011). Optimizing Play: How Theorycraft Changes Gameplay and Design, Game studies, http://gamestudies.org/1102/articles/paul (mis en ligne en mai 2011)

WoWWiki (2022). Theorycraft, https://wowwiki-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Theorycraft