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Even though New World doesn't have classes, a player can build any character to be a healer using a Life Staff as their main weapon. Healers play an essential role in any party, whether it's as part of an Expedition, an elite quest, or PvP action. Characters with these abilities can combine their talents and weapons to fill other party roles to be defenders and damager-per-second (DPS) wielders.
The Life Staff, and its healing abilities, are the foundation of several character builds that include combination classes along with more focused healing builds. Creative players can put together complex builds comparable to Shamans, Druids, Priests, and Paladins in MMOs with conventional classes. Due to the number of Attribute points required to equip the Life Staff and other weapons, it can be a progression that requires more patience, but that depends on the player's ultimate choices.
Acquiring A Life Staff
Players that want to start leveling with the life staff have several options from which to choose, even at the start of New World at level 1.
- Crafting. The Iron Life Staff is the lowest level craftable life staff. Players at this level can gather simple resources, such as iron, wood, and a few life motes, and craft their first life staff. Make a few at the same time for a chance at random perks, extra abilities, or a higher level of quality.
- Drops. It's possible to pick up a life staff before reaching a settlement or a crafting station. Enemies will occasionally drop weapons along with a variety of other loot, so depending on how many enemies a player kills between the shipwreck and the first settlement, it's possible to equip a life staff very early in the game.
- Rewards. The first few quests that every player does upon getting washed up on a beach in Aeternum are more of a tutorial than conventional leveling, but everyone gets quest rewards all the same. Like drops, the chests that are given as rewards for quests hold random objects that could include weapons.
Attributes That Scale With The Life Staff
The Life Staff is one of few weapons that scale with a single Attribute score as opposed to two of them, which makes it an ideal weapon to have at lower levels. When New World was first released, it was the only weapon that scaled with Focus at all. This was ideal for those building a healer, but it made diversity with the class slightly more difficult, along with limiting some of the options available for single PvE play.
Few other magical weapons scale with only one Attribute point, but several choices for physical DPS exist in both the melee and ranged variety.
Life Staff Mastery Trees
Plenty of the abilities in each of the Life Staff Mastery Trees can do damage as well as heal. This kind of damage has a bonus against Lost but is limited against the Corrupted.
- Healing. Plenty of choices for damage and crowd control along with healing on this side of the table. Absolved is one of the first abilities players should unlock regardless of the build, so their light and heavy attacks no longer cost mana, a precious commodity needed for healing the player and their allies. Sacred Ground is an essential and useful AoE healing spell, and Divine Embrace is a simple, single-target healing spell for those more interested in solo play.
- Protector. This tree has an edge when it comes to healing allies and damaging enemies. Orb of Protection heals party members and absorbs damage, and Beacon damages enemies and heals allies. Follow this branch of the tree to Speed of Light which adds a haste buff to this spell.
Life Staff Weapon Combos
- Void Gauntlet. Another option for those specializing in healing who want a ranged and magical DPS option. It also scales with Focus along with Intelligence.
- Bow. A popular choice for healers who are also hunters and survivalists since this ranged DPS weapon doesn't rely on mana and only uses one Attribute. In this case, it's exclusive to Dexterity.
- Warhammer. Players that are considering a Paladin or Shaman build with some melee DPS clout can put a few Attribute points in Strength and pick up a warhammer. Another option here is the Battle Axe, but the choice is entirely up to whether the player would prefer slicing or bludgeoning damage.
- Ice Gauntlet. Scaling only with Intelligence, this is the only other magical weapon in the New World armory that scales with only one Attribute point. It would be a good investment for a healer who also wants to build a character with ranged magical damage since the Fire Staff, and Void Gaunlet are also connected to Intelligence.
New World is available on PC.