New World RAPIER Guide and Best Builds (2024)

Want to learn how to carve your enemies to pieces in New World? This guide is an in-depth dive into all things Rapier in New World.

This guide dives deep into the Skills, Passives, and the best builds for the Rapier in New World. This guide can be considered a more advanced version of our New World Guide to Weapons and Abilities for Beginners. By the end, you should have a through understanding of Rapier and with practice be able to fully master it.

The Guide is up-to-date for Patch 1.9.2

At the end of the guide you will find a section that lists all changes to this weapon that AGS has implemented as they maintain and support the game in the long term.

Rapier Overview

The Rapier is an extremely potent contender in the DPS category, for both PvE AND PvP. It has the honor of being one of few weapons where you have the potential to make just about any combination of abilities work for any situation. How well each spec does is heavily determined the playstyle you want out of the Weapon.

The Primary use of this weapon is in the Damage category. Between Burst Skills, Damage over Time Skills, and a mix utility skills; the Rapier has just about everything you could want in a weapon. There’s plenty of options to make it fit many different ways of dealing damage for both PvE and PvP.

This weapon can also have a niche secondary use as an Evade Tank. Evade Tanks are a strong mix of Offense and Defense, often packing more damage than defense. This particular playstyle is PvE Exclusive, as tanking in this way tends to be less effective in anything larger than a 1v2 or 2v2.

Rapier Skills, Passives, and Perks

Fist we’ll lead off with the skills and passives. We’ll talk a bit about each, their uses and how effective they are. There’s a lot to cover here, so we’ll break it down per tree to keep things organized.

Alongside the general information, They’ll be given a Rating from C up to S tier for both PvE and PvP. C tier is exclusively for the passives that are not that great, either being forced by another upgrade or generally useless. A and B Tiers are middling tiers, outting them between the worst passives and the best, leaning one way or the other. S tier are the good passives, the ones you’re almost always going for if you pick up a skill or want to because it’s useful in many scenarios.

The Blood Tree

The Blood Tree is where almost all of our damage options are for the Rapier. The three Active skills for the Blood Tree are Tondo, Flourish and Finish, and Flurry. So let’s cover these skills first and then we’ll tackle the passives that aren’t tied to any Skills.

Tondo

Tondo is a relatively simple attack. Your quickly slash your Rapier in an Arc, inflicting a Bleed on enemies up to 5m in front of you. This bleed can be stacked up to three times, with each new application refreshing the previous stacks.

This initial hit deals 50% weapon damage as the Slash Physical type in a 5-meter arc. The Inflicted bleed deals 120% of your weapon damage over 12 seconds, or `10% per second. The Bleed can be extended through passives and has a maximum duration of 20 seconds.

At 6 seconds, Tondo is the shortest cooldown for the Rapier, making it useful as a first skill. With additional passives that reduce the cooldown, this can be cut down quite bit more making it very spammable in the right setups.

Tondo Rating: PvE – B (S with Flourish and Finish), PvP- B (A with Flourish and Finish)

In PvP Tondo is weaker without Flourish and Finish. The fact that this requires another skill to deal significant damage limits its general usefulness. The Bleed does so little damage, that when fully stacked only contributes the damage of a single light attack every four seconds. This skill also lacks a lot of utility. The only good use case for Tondo in PvP is potentially the 50v50 Wars, as it can apply to many targets at once with good spacing.

For PvE, the story is roughly similar, however since there are skills that are less valuable in PvE, it gets slightly more value as your primary AoE option. It still suffers from needing Flourish and Finish to deal meaningful damage, but can still deal somewhat meaningful damage. Combined with Flourish and Finish, it makes for a high single target burst setup, giving it a strong edge over other skills.

Thirst for Blood

This passive for Tondo reduces Tondo’s cooldown by 10% for each enemy receiving their first stack of bleed.

This means that per enemy getting their first stack, Tondo’s cooldown is reduced by 0.6 seconds. There’s no cap on this effect to my knowledge, other than how many enemies can fit in the hitbox for the skill, so it can very easily reduce the cooldown by half or more when used at the right times.

Thirst for Blood Rating: B – PvE, C – PvP

Thirst for Blood shines best in large scale PvP or against large packs of enemies in a PvE Expedition, as hitting many enemies at once can make for a very quick second application. There’s more opportunities for this to happen in PvE which is why it’s rated higher there.

However it suffers greatly in 1v1s, for PvE or PvP, but thankfully the And Again Passive covers that flaw quite nicely. This unfortunately means that for the majority of PvE and PvP it’s a very niche option. Still have to pick it up to have access to And Again.

And Again

And Again reduces the cooldown of Tondo by 25% when hitting a single target, even if the hit is blocked.

Combined with Thirst for Blood, this would reduce Tondo’s cooldown for the first application on a single target down to just 3.9 seconds. Without Thirst of Blood, it will reduce the cooldown to 4.5 seconds.

And Again Rating: A – PvE and PvP

And Again is the passive that helps Tondo perform better in all 1v1 scenarios. It lets you more reliably stack the bleed against bosses in PvE and stack faster in PvP 1v1s. It doesn’t really make Tondo worth taking still outside of a specific PvE Build, but it’s still great at strengthening the skill’s niche as the scaling for a stronger 1v1 attack.

With 1v1 scenarios being much more common in both PvE and PvE, this passive earns a slightly higher rating than Thirst for Blood, despite the similar effect.

Proper Spacing

Proper Spacing increases the initial hit damage of Tondo by 100%, if the enemy is at least four meters away when they’re hit.

This passive is incredibly niche and borderline useless in most scenarios. Spacing four meters away means there’s only a roughly 1-meter wide area along the edge of the skill’s arc that gets this bonus damage. To perfectly position for this, this would be easiest done with a Light Roll directly away from the target, as the roll does send you just about the perfect distance away.

Proper Spacing Rating: C – PvE and PvP

This passive is absolutely not worth a point in PvP and does nothing to help make Tondo a reliable PvP skill. While the extra damage is nice, the more precise positioning require to benefit makes it an unreliable bonus at best, as most Melee weapons will be closer than that range, and Ranged weapons will want to be much farther.

In PvE however, if you’re going for the Flourish and Finish type of build, perfect positioning should allow you to light attack an enemy while still being in the range to get this bonus, If not it’s a quick roll backwards to use Tondo and then get back in position with another roll. Though this is still only going to be useful in Expedition scenarios, much like Tondo itself.

Flourish and Finish

Flourish and Finish is two skills in one. Flourish is a sweeping attack that knocks back foes and deals 60% Weapon Damage as Slash on hit. By pressing Light Attack during Flourish, you will follow it up with Finish. Finish lunges you a short distance dealing 120% Weapon Damage as Thrust and consumes all stacks of Tondo, dealing 110% of their remaining damage immediately.

With passives that extend the Bleed duration to the max of 20 seconds, each stack detonated can deal up to roughly 240% of weapon damage. This is because extending the bleed duration to the max increases the total bleed damage to 240% weapon damage over 20 seconds. Detonating this still has the same 1.1 multiplier per stack. With all three stacks being detonated, it can deal up to 720% weapon damage.

At 20 seconds Flourish and Finish has one of the longest cooldowns for the Rapier, but also happens to have a relatively easy time reducing its cooldown with passives.

Flourish and Finish Rating: C – PvE (S with Tondo), C – PvP (B With Tondo)

This skill is what make Tondo viable in any sense, especially for PvE. Being able to instantly trigger all of the stacked Tondo Bleed damage instantly can be a very powerful burst option for bosses, making Flourish and Finish a strong and highly recommended option for Expeditions. The passives and subsequently the Ultimate for the Blood Tree make it an incredibly strong skill.

In PvP however, the reliance on both Tondo and successfully landing Finish makes it tougher to perform well. However, if you manage to land Flourish, Finish is almost guaranteed to land. Without any setup though, this can be a tough thing to do.

With Flair

With Flair adds Grit to both Flourish and Finish, reducing the potential to be crowd-controlled out of it.

This is the definition of a passive used to access later passives. Grit doesn’t stop Stuns, but will help you shrug off a lot of things. However, since stuns are ones of the more common hard crowd control effects, it makes the usefulness of this passive debatable.

With Flair Rating: B+ – PvE and PvP

If Grit actually resisted Stuns, this could be a great passive since both parts of Flourish and Finish can leave you vulnerable if you miss. This would at least prevent you from being very easily punished with a Combo in PvP, or random enemy hits in PvE.

Swagger

Swagger restores 20 Stamina on a successful Finish hit.

the nature of this restoring Stamina can give it some limited use, but there is still better stamina-restoring effects in the Rapier’s kit that devalue this extremely precise method.

Swagger Rating: C – PvE and PvP

With the rate at which Stamina regenerates, this is basically not a passive. You’ll have gotten a similar or greater amount of stamina back while performing the attack. The only justification for taking this passive is for the ones that immediately follow it.

Fuel

Fuel reduces Flourish and Finish’s cooldown by 3.5% per tick of Tondo Bleed damage.

This means each enemy can grant a maximum of 10.5% cooldown reduction per second for Flourish and Finish. This can easily reduce the cooldown of the skill to make it easier to combo with Tondo more frequently.

Fuel Rating: A+ – PvE, B – PvP

Fuel helps make the Flourish and Finish able to be used more consistently after Tondo in PvE. This passive lets you immediately detonate bleed stack(s) off and reset Thirst for Blood for Tondo in the process. This passive will fall off in the process, but though other passives it’s not incredibly difficult to reset both skills to use it frequently. However since it does fall off after using Finish, where it’d be the most useful it gets a solid A+. If not for this it’d very easily be an S tier passive in the Tondo Build.

In PvP however, it’s getting a B, specifically for the silly potential it has to allow for Flourish spam in large-scale PvP situations. A knockback isn’t much, but a knockback that can be used rather often? That’s a little cheesy if used well.

Bloody End (Blood Tree Ultimate)

Bloody End increases the detonation value of Finish to 150% of remaining Tondo Bleed Damage, instead of the base 110%.

This means in most situations, Finish will deal at least 165% weapon damage. Coupled with passives and a fresh Tondo application, this means Finish will deal 360% weapon damage per stack, or 1,080% weapon damage for a full three-stack detonation. Due to skill usage being required to trigger this detonation, you’ll get closer to 1,000% weapon damage as a burst.

Bloody End Rating: S – PvE, A – PvP

This passive alone carries the combo of Tondo with Flourish and Finish. Flourish and Finish was already strong in PvE, and since it doesn’t require the same setup and is more consistent compared to PvP, it gets a higher rating.

It amps up the damage significantly enough that it can be worth using in PvP and gives the Rapier a very strong burst option that can justify taking two skills. Paired with another weapon’s crowd control or even Riposte it can be made rather difficult to avoid.

Flurry

Flurry deals 5 quick, consecutive strikes that increase in damage with each hit. This skill can be dodge canceled at any point in the animation. Each of Flurry’s strikes deal 47%, 52%, 57%, 62%, and 83% damage for a total of 301% damage if all hits connect.

Since each attack of Flurry is considered a Light Attack, this gives it a lot of synergies with Perks like Enchanted and Refreshing Move. The rapid hits also allows it to very rapidly trigger a few key passives that give it high utility and DPS potential.

At 16 seconds Flurry has a modest Cooldown. Thanks to its own passive and others available to the Rapier, it can be reduced significantly or almost entirely.

Flurry Rating: S – PvE, A+ – PvP

For Anything PvE, Flurry is a must use skill in my opinion. It does incredibly high damage, and with certain passives, can reset itself entirely or almost entirely, making it highly spammable. Since some of the passives used to reset this skill can affect other skills, you can deal an insane amount of damage to the point you may even need reduced threat perks to not take aggro in expeditions.

This skill is just as strong in PvP for the same reasons, however since half of it’s damage is located in the last two strikes, it’s hard to give it an S. It’s very close and can still deal a lot of damage if you catch someone off guard with it. Since consistent backstabs are less likely in PvP, it also has reduced reset potential.

Overwhelm

Overwhelm increases Flurry’s Block Damage by 25%.

This one is incredibly niche, but does have a potent enough effect to be worthwhile. Against melee weapons without a blocking passive, you will be able to consistently break their block if they try to block this skill.

Overwhelm Rating: C+ – PvE, A – PvP

Since not many enemies have shields or block in PvE this is pretty weak there. However when you do fight those enemies, it is a very good way to quickly break their block and open them up to taking more damage.

Since it almost guarantees a block break in PvP, it makes it a great counter to someone trying to block the skill. It depends on their passives whether or not it will, which keeps this from being an S.

Fleeting Strikes

Fleeting Strikes makes each hit of Flurry reduces the cooldown by 7%. This makes each hit reduce the cooldown by 1.12 seconds.

This passive helps enable this skill to be both a DPS monster and insane utility, or at the very least one of the parts of doing so. This means on a single target, you’re reducing the cooldown by at least 35%, or 5.6 seconds. Since you can hit multiple targets when positioned correctly, it can have very high uptime.

Fleeting Strikes Rating: S – PvE and PvP

If you’re running Flurry, there’s no reason to not get this passive. Even if every hit doesn’t connect for that full 35% reduction, even a 14% reduction can be impactful for PvP.

In PvE however, you’re practically guaranteed that 35% reduction, or more when it comes to expeditions. Hitting just two enemies leave you with a 3 second window where it’s down, which again is pretty good.

To the Bone

To the Bone extends Tondo Bleeds by one second per hit. This also increases the duration of your next Tondo Bleed by the same duration.

This allows Flurry to make Tondo’s 12 second bleed, into a 17 second bleed with a single use. It can even caps out Tondo to 20 seconds with two targets, or a second cast.

To the Bone Rating: C – PvE (S in Tondo Build), C – PvP

If you’re not running Tondo as well as Flourish and Finish alongside Flurry, this passive is effectively useless. Even with just Tondo, there’s little to no reason to extend the bleeds when you can refresh them instead for the same value.

If you are running the Tondo Build however, it becomes an incredibly effective way to max out your bleeds while being an easy way to also reset Tondo. It adds so much potential Damage to that build that it’s not worth passing up.

In PvP this is useless, as you’d never want to ever run Flurry alongside the Tondo with Flourish and Finish combo. Those skill are already niche for PvP, and there’s much better options. Flurry just wouldn’t reliably offer the needed utility for PvP to make it work, as it’d rely solely on Finalize landing.

Finalize

Finalize makes the fifth and final hit apply a stack of Bleed. This Bleed will deal 10% weapon damage every second for 12 seconds.

As up Update 1.9, this now applies a Bleed instead of staggering the opponent. This gives it a much stronger synergy in the Tondo Build and makes this extra point investment worth it more of the time.

Finalize Rating: S – PvE, B – PvP

You’ll definitely get value out of this bleed in PvE, which allows for this skill to both scale and reapply Bleed. This makes it even stronger in the Tondo Build, which is one of the strongest PvE builds for the Rapier when played well.

This bleed is also slightly more useful in PvP compared to the stagger which would have previously been shrugged off by most Grit effects. While it’s still unreliable at best, it can also make Tondo builds a more viable PvP option.

Blood Tree Passives

These next few passives are located freely on the Blood Tree and are not tied to any skills. Quite a few of these passives are very good, even more so if they can be used often.

Refreshing Strikes

Refreshing Strikes reduces all cooldowns by 1% on hit. Max of 5 reductions per attack.

A 1% cooldown reduction doesn’t seem like a lot, until you remember Flurry exists. This passive, alongside Flurry’s own cooldown reduction means it can reset 40% of it’s cooldown.

Refreshing Strikes Rating: S – PvE, B – PvP

1% isn’t a ton of cooldown reduction, but mixed with Flurry in PvE and it’s enough of a bump to be a good pick up, as each cast of Flurry becomes a 5% cooldown reduction for itself and other skills.

Since this passive relies mostly on Flurry to get a ton of quick benefit out of it, it’s less reliable in PvP. Getting all of Flurry’s hits on someone in PvP is already a tough task to manage without some setup.

Unerring

Unerring increases your damage by 5% to enemies with a Rapier Bleed.

Mostly niche to the Tondo Build, but decently effective there given the burst potential. With Flurry also being capable of applying a Bleed, it can make this a reliable option for damage increases for most builds.

Unerring Rating: A – PvE and PvP

Since this passive now has an option outside of Tondo to apply a Bleed reliably after Update 1.9, this passive is a lot stronger now. Since Flurry is used often as the main offensive skill for Rapier, and is often part of nearly every build, this results in a very accessible damage-increasing passive.

Heavy Puncture

Heavy Puncture allows Heavy Attacks to extend Rapier Bleeds by two seconds on hit. This duration increase also applies to new application of Rapier Bleeds.

This passive is To the Bone’s less efficient cousin. It’s consistently available unlike Flurry, but more niche as Heavy attacks generally see less use on Rapier, outside of PvP, where it’s a little more common.

Heavy Puncture Rating: C – PvE and PvP

This should only be run in cases where you want to run Tondo, but don’t want to commit to also taking Flurry. With Flurry also reapplying Bleed on the final hit in addition to extending it, this passive has lost pretty much all value.

Engarde

Engarde increases damage dealt by 10% to enemies with greater than 50% health remaining.

This is a nice and generally applicable passive. Any build can benefit from it, even for PvP. It works well due to the high threshold, but gives the Rapier a good boost in damage for the first half of an encounter.

Engarde Rating: A – PvE and PvP

This gets a solid A regardless of content. The main reason for this is the threshold is large enough to make it less valuable. 50% Health is a decent chunk, for later stages of PvE and PvP. It’s still a decent damage boost for opening PvP combos and super helpful for bosses in PvE.

Light Edge

Light Edge increases the damage of the second and third hits of the light attack chain by 8%.

Since these attacks make up half of the light attack chain, this is a solid damage increase. Since these two middle attacks deal only 66% damage, This passive would increase that to around 71%.

Light Edge Rating: A – PvE, A+ – PvP

In PvE, this small bit of damage will kind of fall to the wayside. It’s good early while you have very little reset potential through Flurry, but falls off with a higher level weapon. If it were every part of the light attack chain, it’d be an easy S for both categories.

It remains strong in PvP though, where a good majority of your damage can come from Light Attacks. It’s not quite an S tier though, as there’s not always opportunities to get those second and third hits in, but the extra damage is still very nice.

The Grace Tree

The Grace Tree provides most of the Rapier’s utility and mobility. The three Active skills for the Grace Tree are Evade, Fleche, and Riposte. So let’s cover these skills first and then we’ll tackle the passives that aren’t tied to any Skills.

Evade

Evade performs a quick sidestep in the direction you’re currently moving. This sidestep carries invulnerability frames like a standard dodge. Light Attacks performed during Evade are performed faster.

This skill alone can make you exceptionally durable, even more so after upgrading it. A free evade that can also reposition you quickly and easily behind a target with the ability to get in a quick backstab every so often is pretty good.

With a cooldown of 12 seconds, this is one of the Rapier’s shorter cooldowns despite being nerfed from 6 seconds.

Evade Rating: A – PvE and PvP

Normally a skill like this you wouldn’t think is worthwhile for PvE, but this skill is actually fantastic in PvE. It lets you fight most any enemy in the game 1v1 with very little issue. It’s a quick dodge on a very short cooldown that only gets lower with passives.

The fact that it’s a readily available and free dodge to use, though with much less invulnerability frames, makes it exceptionally powerful in PvP. The outplay potential with this skill is pretty high.

Breathe In

Restore 20 Stamina when successfully evading an attack.

This is now a more skill dependent passive, making it very hit r miss at times. Thankfully this passive was also rebalanced to be at the end of the upgrade path for Evade, instead of the beginning.

Breathe In Rating: C+ – PvE, A – PvP

With stamina not being a super huge deal for PvE, it really lowers the value of this passive. That said, extra stamina to dodge is still useful. The additional requirement to dodge an attack only gives it some value in solo play.

In PvP the extra stamina can easily make a difference in how you engage with an enemy. More frequently being able to dodge, or reposition with a roll can be quite potent. The more strict dodge requirement means this is less “free” than it previously was, but still exceptionally good in the right hands.

Allegro

Evade grants 20% Haste for 3 seconds after evading through an attack.

The change to require an attack to be evaded set this passive back a bit. It’s still good but has a much stronger showing in PvP now that it’s not just free mobility.

Allegro Rating: B – PvE , A – PvP

The requirement of doing an attack makes this less useful in PvE, outside of farming mobs. In this case this can let you move from enemy to enemy faster, or evade certain attacks easier.

For PvP however, it’s still plenty useful. Since attacks are thrown at you more frequently, compared to PvP where a tank will often take the bulk of the damage. It can be a great way to briefly disengage from a fight, reposition during a fight, or move to your next target if it triggers near the end.

Adagio

Evading forward increases the damage of your next Light Attack by 15%. Effect ends on hit or after 1 second.

Extra Damage on a utility-packed skill? Little Strong, but it’s a only a single hit boost.

Adagio Rating: S – PvE and PvP

Extra damage is always, this one in particular is pretty good even by itself. The final passive for Evade takes it to a whole new level though. This also rewards you for aggressive play with the ability, rather than defensive play which feels really good to use.

Crescendo

Crescendo makes all Light Attacks reduce Evade’s cooldown by 30%.

It’s not to be undersold, this passive is what can make Evade an incredibly strong skill. By the time you do just two or three light attacks, Evade will be ready again. With this being move to the start of Evade’s upgrade path, this is going to be a passive you always take when running the skill.

Crescendo Rating: S+ – PvE and PvP

If you plan on using Evade at all, there’s never not a reason to get this passive. It allows more frequent use, as well as higher uptime of Evade’s other passives. Plus more stamina-free dodging is always nice.

Fleche

Fleche lunges you forward 10 meters, dealing 145% Weapon Damage to everything in the dash range.

This skill is a strong repositioning tool as well as a general mobility tool for the Rapier. This makes it worth slotting in when traveling the open world, despite its longer cooldown.

With a Cooldown of 20 seconds, Fleche is one of the Rapier’s longest cooldowns. Like most of the Rapier’s skills though, general passives will typically make this cooldown much shorter.

Fleche Rating: A – PvE and PvP (S when fully upgraded)

Fleche is very good for traversing the Open World, but by itself for PvE combat isn’t amazing. The extra mobility it gives you in the open world make it very worth grabbing, especially since it shapes up to be a strong skill after some upgrades.

In PvP it’s incredibly useful for mobility and repositioning. After it’s fully upgraded though, it becomes a damage threat like most other skills. Being able to Fleche through a target and throw them off balance by forcing them to do a quick turn to face you is quite nice.

Quick Lunge

When Fleche kills a target, its cooldown is reduced by 80%.

Even when used correctly, this upgrade is super niche to make use of. It’s ironically better in PvE for traversal than anything else.

Quick Lunge Rating: B – PvE and PvP (A in PvP with Interruption)

In PvE it will allow you to use the small skinnable creatures like Rabbits and Turkeys as quick and easy resets, letting you use Fleche twice in a row or more more very quickly. Outside of this, the only niche use case it has is to sweep back and forth though a group of enemies in group PvE, where you have a tank holding their attention, but still requires good timing.

Best use case scenario is very similar in PvP, using it to kill an opponent for a quick reset. Then using the reset to gap close on another opponent or create more distance to recover if needed. This particular case gets easier with the Interruption passive.

Backside

After casting Fleche, your next Critical strike will have its damage increased by 15%. Effect end on crit or after 5 seconds.

This is another passive that rewards aggressive play over defensive play. It also pairs very nicely with Interruption.

Backside Rating: A – PvE, S – PvP

Since PvE enemies can react quick and turn quicker to to avoid the backstab, it loses a bit of value there. It’s still useful, though a bit trickier to use in PvE situations, especially in group play.

In PvP however, since your opponent is likely to be instantly react, this ends up often being a solid damage boost. With Interruption it only get better as you can Fleche through someone and proc this with Interruption.

Interruption

Pressing Light Attack during Fleche cancels the dash and performs a quick follow through attack, dealing 115% Weapon Damage.

This passive gives Fleche more damage and makes it a much more threatening skill option. The option to cancel it with a quick attack that’s between a Light and Heavy attack for damage is really nice.

Interruption Rating: S – PvE and PvP

If you’re going to use Fleche, take this passive every time. It helps significantly with making use of both Quick Lunge and Backside and brings all the passives together in one nice little package. For PvP specifically, it makes Backside a really potent passive that can be used fairly often.

Riposte

Riposte puts you into a Defensive Stance for 1 second. If Struck, you counter dealing 50% Weapon Damage and stun the attacker for 2 seconds. You’re also briefly invulnerable upon a successful Riposte. With a Carnelian Gem, Riposte can Taunt PvE enemies within 5m to attack you for 4 seconds.

Riposte is a very situational skill in both PvE and PvP. In PvE since it can be used with a Carnelian Gem, it does enable you to be a bit of an evade tank giving you a very necessary Taunt to use to pull aggro.

At 18 seconds, Riposte is one of the Rapier’s shorter cooldown. Unlike most of the Rapier’s other skills, it doesn’t have anything to reduce it’s own cooldown.

Riposte Rating: B – PvE, A – PvP

Riposte has very niche uses in PvE, mostly limited to 1v1 fights with Elites or other strong enemies. While it does enable Evade Tanking, doing so is a very uncommon strategy and heavily relies on your damage to hold aggro of the mobs.

It’s a much stronger PvP option, but there’s still better options that exist. However it is the Rapier’s only hard crowd control effect. This coupled with being a parry makes it quite valuable.

Insult to Injury

When Rispote lands its counterattack, gain a 10% Empower effect for 3 seconds.

This passive was changed to grant a slight Empower effect. This helps a fair bit more with an evade tank style of play. This also aligns more with the Rapier’s general direction of awarding or encouraging aggressive play.

Insult to Injury Rating: A – PvE and PvP

This is a nice bonus in both PvE and PvP, giving you a good damage boost for parrying an incoming attack. This also allows you to follow up with a heavier-hitting attack like Fleche, or Flourish and Finish. Though much like other passives that require the counterattack to hit, will only work against melee targets.

Priority

Priority reduces the cooldown of other Rapier Abilities by 20% when landing a Riposte counterattack.

This is uniquely helpful, but limited to melee combat. Anything triggering Riposte from range will not be in range of the stun. So using it can be dodgy.

Priority Rating: B – PvE, A – PvP

For PvE, it helps with Evade Tanking, though the other skills you’d be using already have short cooldowns due to passives. Still a nice bonus but difficult to benefit from.

In PvP however, it’s very strong. While you’ll likely be using the same low cooldown skills, you’re less likely to get frequent hits in to lower your cooldowns. However since not every opponent will be in melee range, this gets a solid A.

Lasting Consequence

Lasting Consequence increases the stun duration of a successful Riposte to 2.5 seconds.

An extra half second of stun time on a stun limited to melee opponents, is not worth the passive point. Especially with the mobility Rapier has to be able to very easily abuse the 2-second stun it has by default.

Lasting Consquence Rating: C – PvE and PvP

The Stun is already long enough to capitalize on with practice. The Rapier has enough mobility and mid-range options to reposition and punish the Riposte stun without the extra time.

Grace Tree Passives

These next few passives are located freely on the Grace Tree and are not tied to any skills. A lot of these are pretty niche, but there are a few good ones mixed in here that should not be overlooked.

Desperation

Desperation increases your damage by 10% when below 40% Stamina.

In theory, this sounds good. However, with how quickly Stamina regenerates it can just as easily be pointedly read as 10% damage for ~2 seconds after depleting your Stamina.

Desperation Rating: C – PvE, C+ PvP

In PvE this is basically useless outside of maybe the Tondo Build. But any build involving the Grace Tree nullifies any potential use it has. Though it can still be limited, but still practical for Evade Tanking

In PvP, it’s very niche. With Evade you can intentionally deplete your Stamina and still be able to dodge when needed. So you can use your Stamina up by rolling toward the enemy, then use the window to get a stronger Flurry off. That’s its only good use case.

Controlled Breathing

Controlled Breathing restores 3 Stamina on any hit.

Stamina is helpful for both situations where you’re monsters or opposing players. generally speaking, it will allow you to block some hits and then go on the offensive to get some stamina back.

Controlled Breathing Rating: B – PvE and PvP

With nerfs to Evade’s Cooldown, this extra stamina can give you the edge you need as an Evade Tank for PvE. While it’s not much stamina recovery, it can overall help you maintain enough stamina to be able to dodge attacks that you can just Evade away from.

For PvP, this is slightly stronger as it enables you to maintain stamina much easier, even with frequent dodges.

Red Curtains

Red Curtains decreases all cooldowns by 5% on critical strikes.

Not going to undervalue just how powerful this passive is for Group PvE Content. Consistent access to backstabs makes this free to trigger. Combined with Flurry it’s a quick 30% or more cooldown reduction.

Red Curtains Rating: A – PvE (S in group play), B – PvP

This passive is strong even without a party, but harder to trigger reliably outside of Fleche and Evade. In a party however, there’s no reason to not run it. It’s easily one of the Rapier’s best passive for Expeditions.

In PvP it suffers more from that lack of consistent backstabs but it is still potent as some players react slower to repositioning than AI typically does. While you’re fully relying on Evade and Fleche to trigger it, you’d be lucky to get off a big reset with a full Flurry of backstabs.

Perfectionist

Perfectionist increases your damage by 10% while at full health.

You’ll really have to live up to the name of this passive to benefit from it for an extended duration. Full Health is a very steep requirement outside of group PvE content, where a healer can keep you topped off if you get hit.

Perfectionist Rating: B – PvE (S in Groups), C – PvP

While it’s hard to maintain in solo play, groups it’s hard to not be at full health most times when playing correctly. Solo would be heavily reliant on the Leeching Flurry Perk.

There’s so many things in PvP that can knock you out of full health. Even a DoT can prevent you from using this passive for an extended duration. While you could use Leeching Flurry to help get back there, that’s not going to heal enough to mitigate even a single hit from most weapons, unless you’re dealing very high damage.

Swiftness

Swiftness makes hits grant a stacking 3% Haste buff. This has a limit of 5 stacks, for a max of 15% Haste.

This pairs nicely with Flurry, which can stack it quickly, while using attacks to maintain the stacks. It’s great for repositioning in combat when it is maintained, even if it’s not at max stacks.

Swiftness Rating: C – PvE, B – PvP

In PvE, there’s little need for the extra repositioning. It’s a very short Haste effect that can only effectively be used after Flurry. There’s a high chance that if you’re in range to use Flurry safely, there’s not going to be a reason to reposition after using it.

It’s a slightly more useful passive for PvP, as even a little haste can help you reposition. Repositioning is more important in PvP, but can often be hard to properly maintain Swiftness stacks.

Momentum (Grace Ultimate)

Momentum Increases the damage of your next Light or Heavy Attack by 30% after using an ability. This effect ends on hit or expires after 3 seconds.

This ultimate paired with Evade or Tondo can lead to very high damage output in a very short time. Though Evade will not be able to trigger it as often as it used it, it’s still a strong pairing for it being the lowest cooldown in the Grace Tree.

Momentum Rating: S – PvE and PvP

Combining this Ultimate with low cooldown skills and the insane reset potential of Flurry can allow you to dish out a ton of damage very quickly. The damage this provides is pretty strong, which makes it the best Ultimate for when you don’t run the Tondo Build.

Rapier Skill Perks

These perks can be found on armors and weapons. The perks modify skills beyond passives and can give them additional Utility These are often better slotted on Armor as Weapons have access to better perks overall.

It’s worth noting these perks also scale with Gear Score, so they will be weak early on, but are good at later stages of the game. The value Range shown is for Gearscore 100-625

Deadly Flourish

Deadly Flourish increases the damage of Flourish against targets under 50% health. On weapons, this perk grants 24-39% increased damage. On Armors, this perk grants 10-25% increased damage.

While this grants a fairly good boost in damage, it only affects Flourish and not Finish. Finish is the huge burst of damage, and makes up most of the damage of the Tondo build, whereas Flourish is a very small part. It can have its uses in PvP by some chance, but it’s not great.

Energizing Flourish Rating: C – PvE, C+ PvP

This only boosts the weaker part of Flourish and Finish, which does nothing for you PvE damage. However it does allow the skill to deal slightly more damage without Tondo in PvP, but honestly, you’d be better off with a different skill that doesn’t;t require a perk.

Keen Tondo

Keen Tondo increases Crit Chance against targets with a Tondo Bleed. For Weapons, this effect is 11-21% increased Critical Chance. On Armor, this effect is only 2-12%

This is a pretty good perk for general use. Maybe not the best but it has uses.

Keen Tondo Rating: A – PvE and PvP

In PvE, it helps with making it a little easier to proc Red Curtains more reliably when solo. Which helps slightly fix a big weakness of the Tondo Build for solo play. It’s not a perfect or reliable solution by any means but it helps. Wouldn’t recommend it until higher Gear Scores still.

In PvP, it adds a bit of utility to Tondo, which can make Tondo decently viable for PvP. Again it’s not a great solution as there are other perks that do this easier and without Tondo, but if you wanted to stack Crit for a build, it helps enough to warrant using at higher Gear Scores.

Leeching Flurry

Leeching Flurry returns a portion of the damage dealt by Flurry as Health. On weapons, this perk will heal for 28-47% of the damage dealt. On Armor, it heals for 10-29% of the damage dealt.

Given Flurry is both strong and pretty spammable in most cases, especially in PvE this is a pretty valuable perk. The health recovery also makes it quite good in PvP as well.

Leeching Flurry Rating: S – PvE and PvP

In PvE this makes solo play significantly easier. It has a nice benefit of being able to help you maintain Perfectionist for the extra damage easier. However in groups it’s pretty useless as a healer will be more effective. It can still be helpful; as an Evade Tank, letting you soak more damage easier.

In PvP, any amount of health restore can turn the tides of a fight. However, since fFurry isn’t a single hit and will likely have to fight against Fortify and similar effects, it’s not going to be as strong in PvP, but still quite good.

Omnidirectional Evade

Omnidirectional Evade increases you damage for 2 seconds after using Evade and allows Evade’s Adagio perk to apply regardless of direction. On Weapons, you’ll gain 9.6-19% increased damage for 2 seconds. On Armor, this perk will increase damage by 1-10% for 2 seconds instead.

Given this is a bunch of extra damage on a skill that you’ll be able to use often in most scenarios, this is a great perk. This also makes Adagio a much stronger upgrade, and thus highly recommended for PvP.

Omnidirectional Evade Rating: S – PvE and PvP

If you’re running Evade, this will always be worth a pickup. Being able to use Evade to the side or even for a quick step back and still get Adagio’s 15% damage boost is really nice. Now that it comes with additional damage, it’s even harder to turn down.

Refreshing Fleche

Refreshing Fleche makes a landing Fleche (Or Interruption) as a Backstab reduce Fleche’s cooldown. on Weapon, Fleche’s cooldown will be reduced by 19-33%. On Armor, this perk will only reduce the cooldown by 5-19% instead.

This is a little more Niche, but does help the skill become stronger by giving it a slightly more reliable cooldown reduction method.

Refreshing Fleche Rating: B – PvE, A – PvP

It’s slightly weaker in PvE except when used as an opener. It’s harder to land backstabs otherwise without setup. Though if you get lucky enough to backstab a small prey like a rabbit while using it for a Fleche reset it is extra reduction. At max Gear Score, this would instantly reset the skill combined with Quick Lunge.

In PvP getting backstabs in 1v1 with Fleche can be tough, but this rewards you for pulling them off. If you manage to land both Fleche and Interruption as a backstab, that’s more than half of the cooldown refunded.

Sundering Riposte

Sundering Riposte inflict Rend when you land Riposte’s counterattack. On Weapons, this will inflict a 14-24% Rend for 10 seconds. On Armor, this will inflict a 5-15% Rend for 10 seconds instead.

This gives Riposte a bit of extra Utility it was otherwise missing. Rend can be effective in both PvE and PvP.

Sundering Riposte Rating: B – PvE, A – PvP

Given the skill isn’t often used in PvE, outside of attempts at an Evade Tank build it make sit hard to rate this high, even though rend helps general DPS. As a Tank this can help enable your party to do more damage. Though not likely to see much use.

In PvP, this can help offset Fortify effects while making the follow up punish from landing a Risposte Stun absolutely deadly. It’s actually one of the strongest Rend effects out there.

Rapier Builds

These builds focus specifically on the Rapier and do not account for other weapons. The use of other weapons can enable extended combos and other unique combinations.

Flexible Leveling (13-19 Points)

This is a general Tree that’s great for leveling, as it’s flexible and works for PvE or PvP Content. It Focuses making use of Evade, Flurry and Fleche.

This combination of skills is very flexible and you change the order of how you upgrade. It’s worth noting that as Evade and Flurry are your main damage and utility, Fleche tends to have lower priority on its upgrades. Fleche is purely used as mobility until the final points needed to pick up Momentum.

If you’re focusing on PvE content, you grab all three skills with your first three points. After that you grab the additional two passives for Flurry, Red Curtains, then Max Evade followed by Fleche. Finally you grab the Momentum Ultimate.

PvP follows a different route however. After grabbing all three skills, the main change is maxing Evade First. Evade is a better PvP skill overall. Then you Max Fleche and grab Red Curtains. This allows you to grab Momentum much sooner. Then you put points into Flurry.

We stop Flurry at two upgrades because Fleeting Strikes is the passive we care about most. To the Bone and Finalize offer little to this setup. Though in the maxed version shown below, Finalize can be an option for the final two points for the PvP side of things.

The key pickup to prioritize after using the leveling orders above is Refreshing Strikes (Top left passive next to Tondo). This gives you more reliable cooldown reduction compared to Red Curtains, but Red Curtains is the best passive to grab when leveling to reach Momentum. You can delay Momentum by one weapon level if you wish to grab it early as well.

After Refreshing Strikes, I’d pick up Light Edge (Lower passive next to Flurry), followed by Engarde (Directly next to Flurry). For the Final points, they go to Perfectionist and Desperation over in the Grace Tree. If you’re focusing PvP, Controlled Breathing and Swiftness can be better options.

Skill Perks, Usage, and Rotations

This build is fairly straightforward, no complex or complicated skill usages or rotations to maximize damage.

In PvE, Evade and Flurry should just be used off cooldown. Evade to reposition for Flurry and try to get as many backstabs as you can. In group play, they’d be used in the opposite order to help bring Flurry off cooldown faster.

Fleche can be used off Cooldown too. When solo you’d be aiming to Fleche through a target, and get a backstab with Interruption before carrying on with Evade and Flurry spam. In groups, you ideally want to Fleche into the enemy’s back, but not through them, landing both parts as a backstab.

In PvP the usage is very similar, though Evade should be used more tactically. Spamming it mindlessly will just make it predictable. Evade is easily the best iframe you have, so using it properly is important. Since it is can be spammed though, you should be trying to use it often to abuse Momentum while avoiding key abilities and trying to land backstabs. Flurry and Fleche are still used pretty much the same way, just need to be careful with timing their usage.

For Perks, Leeching Flurry and Omnidirectional Evade are both great options for armor perks regardless if going for PvE or PvP. You can also pick up Refreshing as another good general pick up on armor.

For Weapon Perks you always want Enchanted, as it boosts basic attacks which makes both Flurry and Evade stronger. In PvE, Rogue and Vicious make strong combo to amp your backstab Damage. In PvP, Keen and Keenly Empowered will give you a reasonable increase in damage. Keen and Refreshing Move can be a good option for consistent damage.

For gems, the best ones you can use for the Rapier are Emeralds or Jasper. Emeralds will be the most consistent option for PvE, due to it being easier to reach the damage threshold for them. Jaspers are more effective for PvP, as you’re more likely to take damage. When upgrading to a Runeglass Gem, Punishing tends to be the best upgrade option. Leeching or Energizing can be a decent substitute, but more situational.

For Amulets, there are mostly Defensive. Slash Protection and Fortified Recovery make a nice set of general coverage perks to reduce most incoming damage. Health and Divine are a strong combo for PvE, increasing your maximum health and incoming healing; while Fortified Recovery is still a solid option here as well.

For Earrings, Regenerating is a very strong option overall, giving you nice passive health regeneration. Beloved and Evasive can be great for reducing the odds of accidentally pulling aggro.

For Rings, Thrust Damage is always great options thanks to the damage they provide. Leeching can be a nice way to keep your own health topped off. Keen Awareness is great for solo PvE and even PvP.

Tondo Build (19 Points)

This skill setup is all about the Blood Tree. It’s very heavily PvE oriented, and works best in Expeditions. It focuses heavily on setting up Tondo Bleeds and using Finish to detonate them for huge damage, with Flurry to help with getting both our faster.

This set of skills have some ridiculous synergy, and can deal incredibly high single target damage, but does decent AoE damage as well thanks to all of these skill cleaving. The leveling order for the skills is pretty static, and can be adjusted as desired if you feel like grabbing a certain sooner works better for you.

For Leveling, the standard way to go is to start by grabbing all three skills. Then I’d go for the Tondo Upgrades, Then Flurry upgrades followed by Flourish and Finish Upgrades. You can delay To the Bone until after you pick up Bloody End as they both significantly boost your damage, but To the Bone is more single-target focused. By this point you’ll be level 13, and only have passives to grab.

You want to grab Refreshing Strikes first, then head over to the Grace Tree to make your way down to Red Curtains. After this, Unerring, Light Edge, and Engarde should be taken in that order. These last three can be grab in any order, but they’re grabbed in the broadest coverage of boosts first. Since Tondo should be the opener skill at all times, bleed should be on everything you hit.

The combination of Refreshing Strikes and Red Curtains makes a full Flurry of backstabs reduce cooldowns by 35%. This goes up to 40% with the Refreshing Move perk.

Skill Perks, Usage and Rotations

Unlike the Leveling build above, this one actually has pretty fixed skill rotations. It’s still largely using skills off cooldown, but its Flourish and Finish usage varies based on what you’re hitting.

For PvE, your entire goal is to get 2-3 Tondo stacks on an enemy and pop them at or near max duration with Flourish and Finish. Your skill rotations would look something like this:

Burst Combo

1. Tondo
2. Flurry
3. Tondo
4. Flourish and Finish
5. Attack until Tondo or Flurry is up
6. Repeat

Tondo to apply Bleed, then use Flurry to reset it and apply a second stack of bleed. Use another Tondo when it’s ready for a full three-stack bleed. Immediately detonate with Flourish and Finish. Use Flurry and Attacks until Tondo is back up. Repeat the sequence.

With the changes in Update 1.9, this is the bread-and-butter combo for the Tondo Build. You’ll be able to quickly stack up and detonate bleeds for huge damage. It’s fantastic single target damage and has very little overall down time

Extended Rotation

1. Tondo
2. Flourish Only
3. Flurry
4. Light Attack(s)
5. Tondo
6. Flurry
7. Light Attack(s)
8. Tondo
9. Flourish and Finish
10. Repeat

Tondo on the Target, followed immediately by Flourish, skipping the use of Finish. Use Flurry to Lower Cooldowns and fill with attacks until Tondo is back up. Use Tondo again, Followed immediately by Flurry. Use attacks until Tondo comes back up. Immediately use Flourish and Finish to have the timer on Tondo stacks as high as possible (should be 18+ seconds) for maximum damage

This setup uses more regular attacks and goes for the big detonations, . It makes use of the fact you can Flourish without using Finish, getting extra damage out of it while still keeping the bleed stacks. This rotation on really works for Expedition bosses or mid/mini bosses, as most other enemies will die during the setup usually.

For Perks, this build uses some more specific options, because it’s very cooldown reliant. That said, you will always want Refreshing and Keen Tondo on your Armor. Keen Tondo increases the chances of being able to use the Burst Combo effectively in the Open World. Refreshing also does so by reducing cooldowns.

For Weapon Perks, this build will always want Refreshing Move. For PvE, Rouge or Vicious provide the most damage, running Keen alongside Rogue can also make the Burst Combo more reliable and quicker to perform while maximizing damage. For PvP, Keen and Vicious would be the go-to options.

Being a PvE-focused build, Diamonds will be the most consistent damage bonus. Emeralds also work well combined with the burst potential of this build. When Upgrading to Runeglass, you’ll absolutely want to go for Punishing for the extra damage.

For Amulets, there are mostly Defensive. Slash Protection and Fortified Recovery make a nice set of general coverage perks to reduce most incoming damage. Health and Divine are a strong combo for PvE, increasing your maximum health and incoming healing; while Fortified Recovery is still a solid option here as well.

For Earrings, Regenerating is a very strong option overall, giving you nice passive health regeneration. Beloved and Evasive can be great for reducing the odds of accidentally pulling aggro.

For Rings, Thrust Damage is always great options thanks to the damage they provide. Leeching can be a nice way to keep your own health topped off. Keen Awareness is great for solo PvE and even PvP.

Evade Tank (19 Points)

This is a very experimental setup focused on being a durable tank rather than dealing raw damage. You’ll still do pretty good damage, but nothing super amazing. This setup may actually be decent for Open World PvP as well. It features the only skill absent from the other two example builds, Riposte. Alongside Riposte are Evade and Flurry.

This is going to be a very strange skill set overall, but there is a bit of synergy to how it all works.

For Leveling, you start out by grabbing all three skills as usual. Following that, It’s recommended to upgrade Flurry, picking Fleeting Strikes before the nodes in Grace for consistent early damage. Following Flurry is Evade’s upgrades, Riposte’s Upgrades and the other passive to reach Momentum. At this point the Rapier will be Level 15.

After getting Momentum, it’s back to the Blood Tree to grab the remaining passives, starting with the three open ones. Refreshing Strikes is a obvious choice, we need the cooldown reduction for this to work. Engarde and Light Edge serve to boost out damage output which will be very needed. Finally we cap off with Finalize, how fitting. To the Bone and Finalize could be swapped for Swiftness and Perfectionist if you prefer, but this leaves you with one less crowd-control option for small packs.

Refreshing Strikes and Red Curtains are still carrying this build, and making things more reliable. Desperation is a weird choice here, but since you’re playing the role of a tank, you have the option to block small enemies to hit the threshold. You can swap in Perfectionist, but this will likely be even harder to use.

Skill Perks, Usage and Rotations

Each skill has an intended use and purpose. The whole concept of making this work relies on trying to make sure any time Riposte is used it’s back up as soon as possible. Riposte and Evade are used to mitigate as much damage as possible. Flurry is used on cooldown to maintain aggro.

Riposte should be used primarily to block hits on Bosses or Elites. Since it fully mitigates the damage, you want it to block as much as possible. It may not stun them, or if it does it won’t be for long. The secondary goal is to maintain uptime on the Rend from Sundering Riposte.

Evade will almost always be used backwards or to the side to keep the boss as still as possible, timed to evade damage. This lets your DPS get consistent backstabs and in general lets them deal more damage. So Evade can’t just be spammed freely against bosses unless there’s no risk of falling, in which backwards is the best option.

Your consistent damage rotation will consist of attacking and using Flurry. Flurry will need to be properly spaced between boss attacks so you don’t need to interrupt it and you can get maximum damage from it.

For perks, Refreshing and Refreshing Ward are both essential general armor perks. You’ll also want to grab Leeching Flurry, Sundering Riposte and Omnidirection Evade on armor too. Ancient Ward, Angry Earth Ward and Corruption Ward are all great to pick up too.

For your Weapon, Keen and Refreshing Move are absolute musts. Keen helps make Red Curtains more consistent. Refreshing Move helps reduce cooldowns. The Last slot should honestly be any one of the Chain Element perks. The chain perks will help you hold aggro on packs without the need for Hated.

Being designed for tanking, Carnelian gems are going to be preferable for PvE. In PvP situations, Emeralds are likely going to be the best option.

For Amulets, there are mostly Defensive. Slash Protection and Fortified Recovery make a nice set of general coverage perks to reduce most incoming damage. Health and Divine are a strong combo for PvE, increasing your maximum health and incoming healing; while Fortified Recovery is still a solid option here as well.

For Earrings, Regenerating is a very strong option overall, giving you nice passive health regeneration. Despised can help you hold aggro easier in PvE, which is a helpful bonus. Purifying Toast can be a nice option, especially paired with Refreshing Toast to help cleanse yourself of debuffs.

For Rings, Keen Awareness or Thrust Damage are always great options thanks to the damage they provide. Leeching can be a nice way to keep your own health topped off.

Rapier Weapon Pairings

The Rapier primarily scales with Dexterity, and uses Intelligence as a secondary stat. This allows it to pair well with a few Melee weapons like the Greatsword or Spear as well as be a decent pairing with most ranged weapons and magic weapons.

The Top 3 weapons I recommend pairing the Rapier with are the Greatsword, Bow, and Ice Gauntlet.

Greatsword

The Greatsword serves as a strong option to increase your offense, defense, or both. The Greatswords can be a great tool to have as a backup if you’re playing as an Evade Tank. It’s a much more defensively orientated weapon, but could act as a Burst damage option if DPS is your thing.

To learn more about the Greatsword, you can check out our Greatsword Guide and Best Builds. This will help you plan out a strong build, should you opt for this pairing.

Bow

The Bow is a phenomenal Ranged DPS tool, for those fights where you just can’t get close. It also offers a lot of slows and DoTs to contribute damage even when its not the active weapon. Combine this will the Rapier’s flexibility to be offensive or defensive and it’s a strong pair overall.

To learn more about the Bow, you can check out our Bow Guide and Best Builds. This will help you plan out a strong build, should you opt for this pairing.

Ice Gauntlet

The Ice Gauntlet is a bit weaker pairing, but can provide a lot of the crowd control the Rapier needs to succeed. Between Slows, Roots, as well as DoT offerings; the Ice Gauntlet is a very functional Pairing for the Rapier. Throw in a Runeglass of Frozen Aquamarine and it’ll definitely deal fantastic damage without too much need for Dex.

To learn more about the Ice Gauntlet, you can check out our Ice Gauntlet Guide and Best Builds. This will help you plan out a strong build, should you opt for this pairing.

Other Pairings

This section will aim to share any future build guides that are created featuring the Rapier.

The “Elemental Assassin” build does a great job of combining the fantastic close-range strengths of the Blunderbuss with the Rapier. You can check out additional details by reading our Blunderbuss and Rapier “Elemental Assassin” Build Guide, which covers this pairing in-depth.

This is the end to this very in-depth guide to Rapier in New World. We hope you have learned everything you need to know about this weapon, its usage, skills, perks, builds, combos and ability rotations. The icons used in this guide are pulled from newworldfans.com‘s database.

Patch Notes Changes

This segment will help you keep track of what has changed for this weapon with the patches as AGS maintains the game in the long-term.

Update 1.1 “Into the Void”

• Fixed an issue where Tondo, Flourish, and Fleche had their cooldown begin 1 frame before the hitbox would appear. This resulted in the abilities going on cooldown if the attack was interrupted early even if it did not hit.
• Flurry
  • Improved the homing of Flurry to fix an issue where subsequent attacks would frequently miss or be hard to hit.
  • Overwhelm: Fixed an issue where this upgrade was incorrectly applying stamina damage instead of just block damage.
• Tondo
  • Reduced cooldown from 11s to 6s.
  • And Again: Fixed an issue that caused this upgrade to only function on blocking targets.
• Riposte
  • Cooldown reduced from 20s to 12s.
  • Base Stun duration increased from 1.5s to 2s.
  • Lasting Consequence: Stun duration increased from 2s to 2.5s
• Passives
  • Momentum: Increased bonus damage from 25% to 30%.
  • Swiftness: Fixed an issue where this passive was granting haste from bleed damage ticks instead of actual weapon hits.

You can find the full patch notes forNew World Update 1.1 “Into the Void”in ourNew World Patchesarchives.

Update 1.2 “Winter Convergence Festival”

• Tondo: Fixed a typo in the description.
• Fleche: Updated how this ability interacts with gravity to prevent it from being used to traverse up steep inclines.
• Heavy Attack: Slightly reduced recovery time.
• Swiftness: Fixed an issue where the haste granted by this passive ability was applying at a shortened duration with each use.

Update 1.3 “Expedition Mutators”

• Updated the Rapier Tondo Ability and the Bow Barbed Arrows Rain of Arrows upgrade tooltips to state the damage per second instead of overall damage for the damage over time effects.

Update 1.4 “Heart of Madness”

• Tondo: Fixed an issue where using Evade to cancel Tondo could result in the damage being dealt without showing the VFX.
• Flurry: Fixed an issue where this ability was unable to be canceled using Fleche.
• Fleche: This ability now ends early if it traverses into deep water.
• Momentum: Fixed an issue where the visual effects for this passive would persist even if the rapier was sheathed or swapped.

Update 1.5 “Arenas”

• Tondo: Increased bleed damage from 7% to 10% weapon damage per tick.
• Riposte: Fixed an issue where Riposte could be triggered by abilities from players that had AoE taunts active.
• Riposte: Fixed an animation desync that triggered when hit in Riposte.

Update 1.6 “Summer Medleyfaire”

• Fixed an issue that caused the Riposte taunt duration to not match the 4s ability description.
• Updated the homing on Rapier’s Flourish and Finish attacks, to more closely match the ability’s hit areas.
• Reduced Flurry’s base stamina by 25% to 75% depending on the attack.
  • Previously the stamina damage increased with each attack of flurry.
• Reduced Rapier base stamina damage based on weapon tier from a range of 26 to 32 to a range of 22 to 28.

• Energizing Flourish: Renamed Deadly Flourish. Now deals more damage vs targets below 50%:
  • On armor: 10% to 25% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 10% to 39% based on Gear Score.
• Omni Direction Evade: Now deals bonus damage after using evade:
  • On armor: 1% to 10% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 1% to 19% based on Gear Score.
• Keen Tondo: Now has increased critical chance while on a Rapier:
  • On armor: 2% to 12% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 2% to 21% based on Gear Score.
• Sundering Riposte: Now has increased rend while on a Rapier:
  • On armor: 5% to 15% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 5% to 24% based on Gear Score.
• Leeching Flurry: Now has increased life steal while on a Rapier:
  • On armor: 10% to 29% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 10% to 47% based on Gear Score.
• Refreshing Fleche: Now has increased cooldown while on a Rapier:
  • On armor: 5% to 19% based on Gear Score.
  • On weapon: 5% to 33% based on Gear Score.

Update 1.7 “Brimstone Sands”

• Allegro and Breathe In will no longer trigger immediately upon activating the ability. They will now only trigger when successfully evading an attack.
• Riposte:
  • Added additional recovery to the counter-attack and cancel animations.
  • Reduced invulnerability window slightly at the end of the counter-attack.
  • Reduced counter-attack hit box size to make it less likely to hit multiple targets.
  • Increased counter-attack homing to make it more likely to only hit a single target.
• Updated the distant weapons sounds for Rapier Fleche based on player feedback.
• Insult to Injury: On successful Riposte, you will gain empower, increasing damage for 10% for 3s, you will no longer be uninterruptible.
• Tondo and Flourish now use Slash damage instead of Thrust damage

You can find the full patch notes forNew World Update 1.7 “Brimstone Sands”in ourNew World Patchesarchives.

Update 1.8 “Winter Convergence Festival 2022”

No significant changes made in this update.

You can find the full patch notes forNew World Update 1.8 “Winter Convergence Festival 2022”in ourNew World Patchesarchives.

Update 1.9 “Season 1: Fellowship and Fire”

• Reduced damage of Flourish from 90% to 60%.
• Flurry’s final upgrade Finalize upgrade no longer staggers and was reworked to apply a stack of the bleed used by the rest of the tree on successful hit.

You can find the full patch notes forNew World Update 1.9 “Season 1: Fellowship and Fire”in ourNew World Patchesarchives.

Here at VULKK.com we have a ton of useful New World Guides and more and more are being published regularly. We also have all of the news and updates covered to keep you up-to-date with all things New World!