Most combat in New World revolves around the seemingly inescapable holy trinity of tank, DPS, and healer. Solo and PvE activities are primarily reliant on this tri-pronged composition. While there is no shortage of musketeers and other damage mains out there, you won’t always find a partner willing to take up the mantle of healer. Sometimes you just have to do it yourself, which is why having a good Life Staff healer build is paramount to effectively grinding Expeditions and other New World content.
New World healer basics
There is currently only one dedicated healer weapon you can build around in New World, and it is the Life Staff. Regardless of which Life Staff you are using, you want to primarily raise your Focus since that’s the stat the weapon’s damages scales with. The weapon’s damage also determines how effective your outgoing healing will be, so buffing Focus first is key. Eventually, you should also build up your Intelligence stat to improve mana management, which is key when playing healer in New World.
If you are playing as dedicated support in New World, it goes without saying you need to build the Healer skill tree rather than the Protector. You can build multiple valid combinations of abilities and passives around as a New World healer, but some of them stand a cut above the rest in PvE activities.
Best New World healer build
Out of the two main Life Staff abilities, Sacred Ground is the more efficient one for Expeditions and other high-level activities in New World. This is because it heals persistently over time, rather than in a single burst, letting both the healer and their teammates manage their health states better. The area-of-effect works well for dungeon encounters in New World, where players tend to pile on around tougher enemies and bosses.
For the best New World healer build, you want to invest points into the Life Staff Healing skill tree until you hit the Blessed node. This adds a 1.5 multiplier to all healing received by allies in the Sacred Ground area of effect, including your other healing spells and their own healing abilities and passives.
Your secondary weapon choice is up to you, but the Sacred Ground build synergizes better with melee weapons (since you will want to fight while hanging out inside your own Sacred Ground), especially with the Hatchet. The Hatchet Berserk skill tree gives you access to the Uninterruptible Berserk node, which makes you uninterruptible and unstaggerable. This will help you stay put and constantly healing allies, and yourself. When you fully max out the Berserk skill tree, you can also unlock Defy Death, which automatically prevents you from getting knocked out once every 75 seconds.
With good mana management, this Hatchet-Life Staff combo is currently the best healer build in New World. That said, we expect the build diversity will improve over time as new weapons and abilities are added to the game.
