So you’ve just jumped back on the game after a long hiatus, or you just hit 60 recently, some people may be confused on where to go from here.
Step 1: At this point you will most likely be in low 500gs gear with every task ahead of you seeming like an immense hurdle, The climb to 600gs looking like mount Everest in a blizzard. So to begin, we want to look at getting some better gear to start out with your climb.
Start your journey to 600gs by looking at the trading post. Gear between 580-590gs is fairly cheap these days. You want to find a full set of either Light/medium armor. The Light armor should have a Medium chest piece, The medium armor should have light legs, a heavy chest, and a heavy head gear. These will give you the best armor values going forward. Look for pieces with Strength and Con, as well as weapon perks for Hatchet/Warhammer. Additionally the perks Angry Earth Ward or Bane is a nice addition, but really any 2nd perk is fine, the weapon perks for hatchet/hammer are the important aspect.
Step 2: Search the trading post for a Hatchet with 590+ Gs with the perk Angry Earth Bane, the 2nd perk is not as important but Rogue/Enchanted is always a cheap and good option.
Put a Cut Pristine Ruby in the Hatchet
Additionally try to find a Hammer with Trenchant Recovery and Leeching Path of Destiny, If you cannot find Leeching path of destiny on any hammers try to get an armor piece with it.
Put a Cut Pristine Ruby in the Hammer, Later you will switch this out.
Step 3: Start running Garden of Genesis on repeat through the group finder, Every time you kill a major boss in the expedition you have a huge chance to get an expertise bump. The first 2 runs you do each day will give you 500g each as well as a sapphire gypsum each.
When waiting on a group for Genesis make sure to farm some stone/wood outside the settlement you are in for the free Diamond Gypsum.
Before entering genesis make sure to bring a Topaz Gypsum Potion for that extra gypsum.
Try to prioritize using your Gypsum on jewelry (and Shields if you are interested in tanking) as these are the least frequent drops and will lag behind your other gear as they increase in expertise.
Step 3: Once you are 590-600 expertise Buy a new hatchet with Corrupted Bane, and rogue/enchanted. Make sure to slot a Cut Pristine Emerald into the Hatchet. Slot a Cut Pristine Sapphire into the Hammer you still have.
Step 4: Begin running Tempest heart and completing the quest line associated with it. Completing the quests will give you stashes with armor and weapons. Hold onto these, DO NOT OPEN THEM until you are 600gs. Buy some corrupted tinctures, The Dot during the final boss fight can be severely lessened by popping one.
DO NOT SALVAGE THE GEAR The gear given in the Tempest heart stashes is great entry pve gear for mutations, it comes with corrupted ward and elemental aversion and has a set for Medium Strength, Medium Dex, Light Focus, Light Dex, Heavy Strength.
All of these sets are upgradeable to legendary! once you are 600gs, gypsum casts will give you a small amount of umbral shards so make sure to keep farming your gypsum
Step 5: Begin Running the Corrupted Mutated Dungeons using the Corrupted ward gear you have acquired. Buy some potions for the Element type that is active that week, these can reduce up to 50% of the damage taken for a short time, as well as slotting gemstones for that week’s element type. If you want to be more spending savvy just slot Malachites/Opals, all your armor/jewelry and leave it. Let your tank pull the mobs, do not hit anything until your tank has clumped up the enemies. Focus on hitting the boss/enemies in the back with your hatchet, if you get low start spamming your hammer abilities and heavy attack with hammer, the Trenchant recovery + Leeching path of destiny will function as your own personal dungeon healer. This will let the healer prioritize the tank and make your runs more efficient and easier. Eventually in higher tier mutations you will learn to do runs without a tank or healer when done at the top level of play.
If your entire group is running the same setup, you can all just hammer spam your way through the dungeon without even needing the healer to heal. You rarely take dmg as the enemies are staggered/knocked down the majority of the time.
Make sure if you are running with a tank and a healer, if your tank is dealing with a boss, prioritize protecting your healer if they pulled agro on any small adds. Just go bonk them a few times or cc them with hammer and they should either re-target the tank during his next taunt or switch to agro on you. both of these are fine. Just dodge and keep bonking. Even if pull to many mobs to handle off your healer and go down you are doing your job perfectly. If the healer or tank goes down, you are in a much more difficult situation than if you do. The loot is the umbral shards at the end of the dungeon, chasing frags on trash mobs is not work losing out on those sweet sweet red shards.
Step 6: Mutated dungeons don’t really get harder. Once you get the idea of how to run a dungeon “correctly” and play around your tank/healer, they become very easy regardless of mutation lvl. Each tank will most likely run a dungeon a little different, Tanking is a difficult job as it can Make or Break a dungeon run. A Bad healer with low heals will quickly kill the whole party, you being able to heal yourself with your hammer will help the bad healer at least prioritize the tank. There are many people who will slap on a sword and shield claim to be running tank in dungeons, they will have issues with agro and keeping mobs pulled. You will also have tanks that are just beginning to tank. These 2 are not the same. A tank that is actually interested in tanking even if they are horrible on the first few runs will be a great asset later down the line. Running m3-m8 it become a lot more difficult to find a tank, if you can assist in teaching one and get them to do regular runs with you, it will cut your group finder time by 10/15 minutes.
Thank Your Healers, Thank Your Tanks, you bring nothing to the Table but bonking things. If you help them out, they will appreciate you in return. Forming a regular dungeon group will make your time in New World 100x more enjoyable than doing PUG runs.
