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wNew World's March Update brings with it a brand-new weapon - the Blunderbuss. This old-school rifle pumps out a lot of damage, has a good balance of CC and mobility, and scales primarily with Strength. This makes it a very interesting ranged weapon to pair with brawlier builds, like the Great Axe or Hatchet.

RELATED: New World: Complete Guide And Walkthrough

This guide will cover the main skills of the Blunderbuss as well as some sample builds. We ran the Blunderbuss in a couple of Tempest Heart Expedition PTR runs (the new Expedition) to get a feel for the weapon, as well as a few duels to figure out if it's any good in PvP.

Blunderbuss Overview

  • Role - DPS and CC
  • Range - Long, Medium, Close-Range
  • Attributes - Strength (Primary), Intelligence (Secondary)
  • Good Weapon Pairings - Great Axe, Hatchet

The Blunderbuss is a brand new ranged weapon in New World. It has a range of abilities designed to provide long-range damage, debuffs, CC, and mobility. The two trees, Containment and Chaos, are quite balanced in this regard - as in there are options on both sides of the tree for different types of abilities, which will be chosen based on what ultimate skill you want to pick up with the Blunderbuss.

Containment can be considered the closer-range tree of the two: abilities like Net Shot and Claw are designed to close the gap between you and the enemy/provide CC and damage at close range. Chaos is more about dealing longer-range bombardment damage with abilities like Splitting Grenade and Mortar Charge.

We played the Blunderbuss in two key roles: Tank and DPS.

Blunderbuss Tank

We had the most fun with a tanky, strength and Constitution-focused Tank Blunderbuss build, alongside the Sword and Shield, Hatchet, or Great Axe. For the new Expedition, we ran it with Sword and Shield and played as the tank. The Carnelian gem on the Claw Shot ability is fantastic for drawing aggro at distance, whereas the general CC of Net Shot and some fortification passives along the Containment tree felt fun to use.

Recommended main abilities:

  • Claw Shot and Net Shot from the Containment tree
  • Blast Shot from the Chaos tree

Passives and Ultimate:

  • Aim for the Double Down ultimate (cooldown reduction is just so powerful)
  • This means you need to pick up Chaos passives, like Buck Shot and Artillery

You can run a tank build with the Sword and Shield for more consistent taunts/defense.

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Blunderbuss PvP

We also ran a few duels using a DPS Blunderbuss setup, pairing the weapon primarily with the Hatchet. We ran Azoth Shrapnel blast for close-range damage, Bouncing Grenade for ranged damage and area control, and Blast Shot, which knocks down enemies and provides CC in PvP. This build felt like a lot of fun to use. Alternatives include replacing Bouncing Grenade with Claw Shot for better CC and gap-closing.

Double Down is an explosively strong mastery passive (reduces cooldown significantly), but the damage from Unload cannot be ignored. Because of this build's focus on Bouncing Grenade and Blast Shot it does make sense to go into Double Down. Experiment with the two and see what suits you better.

Recommended main abilities:

  • The Blunderbuss is really fun to use at close range, so we picked up the Claw shot ability to close gaps
  • Blast Shot is fun to use from range and for controlling areas in group PvP - Azoth Shrapnel Blast is probably better for one-on-ones
  • Net Shot is good CC and will slow enemies down

We took a full stack of Opal gems on this build. For DPS in Dungeons, we took a full stack of Carnelians for reduced threat. This helped us kite easier and benefited the tank.

NEXT: New World: Complete Guide To Gems