Conquer Aeternum: A Pro's Guide to Grinding in New World

Aeternum, the sprawling, mystical island of New World, is a vast landscape teeming with danger, opportunity, and riches. For players seeking to master the world, whether you're a seasoned veteran or just beginning your journey, grinding is a crucial aspect of progressing in the game. From leveling up your character and gathering resources to crafting gear and enhancing your faction standing, grinding is a central activity in New World. However, it's not just about mindlessly repeating tasks-it's about optimizing your time, making the most of your efforts, and ensuring that each grind session feels rewarding.

This guide will provide you with expert tips, strategies, and insights to help you grind like a pro in New World. Whether you're focused on leveling up your character, gathering resources, or crafting the best gear, this guide will help you conquer Aeternum with efficiency and purpose.

1. Master the Art of Efficient Combat Grinding

Combat is one of the most straightforward ways to grind in New World. It's a fast and effective way to gain experience points (XP), gather crafting materials, and get some valuable loot. However, to make combat grinding efficient, it's crucial to target the right enemies and utilize the best strategies. It can also help you get New World Gold rewards.

Optimal Enemy Selection

To make the most out of your grinding sessions, focus on enemies that give you the best rewards relative to the time it takes to kill them. Here are some tips:

Level Range: Always fight enemies that are within 5-10 levels of your character. While fighting enemies much lower than your level may feel like a breeze, it doesn't yield the best rewards in terms of XP or loot. Conversely, enemies that are too high a level can waste your time if they prove too difficult to kill.

Elite Zones: New World has several "elite zones" where you can find tougher enemies but with better loot and more substantial XP gains. For instance, places like Shattered Mountain and Ebonscale Reach have higher-level enemies that offer excellent rewards.

Use Combat Consumables

Consumables like potions, food buffs, and traps can significantly boost your efficiency. By increasing your damage output or your survivability, you can clear areas faster and more safely. Always have a few Health Potions, Mana Potions, and Food Buffs ready before heading into a grind session.

Focus on Area-of-Effect (AoE) Skills

If you're grinding in a specific area with a large number of enemies, AoE abilities are your best friend. Group up enemies using crowd control and use powerful AoE abilities to take them out in one sweep. This technique is especially useful for grinding in areas where you can pull multiple mobs at once.

2. Maximize Your Gathering and Crafting Efficiency

Grinding in New World isn't just about combat-gathering resources and crafting also play a critical role in your progress. To truly conquer Aeternum, you'll need to level up your crafting professions, gather materials, and craft high-tier items.

Gathering the Right Resources

Whether you're focused on gathering raw materials for crafting or looking to make a profit, focus on resources that are in high demand in the current economy. Here are some resources you should prioritize:

Tier 3-5 Resources: These are the most valuable in terms of crafting and are often in demand on the trading post. For example, materials like Iron Ore, Rawhide, Fibre, Linen, and Wood are essential for crafting mid-to-high-tier items.

Rare Materials: Certain rare crafting materials like Voidbent Ingots or Orichalcum Ore can be sold for a high price, making them highly profitable. These materials are harder to gather, but the payoff is significant.

Optimizing Resource Farming

To efficiently gather resources, target areas that have a dense concentration of the materials you need. For example, forests and plains are great spots for gathering wood and fiber, while caves or specific biomes yield ores and gemstones. Here's how to maximize your efficiency:

Fast Travel: Don't hesitate to spend a bit of Azoth (the in-game currency for fast travel) to quickly reach areas with high concentrations of resources. Once you've unlocked the necessary fast-travel points, you can make grinding sessions much quicker and more efficient.

Use Gear That Boosts Gathering: There's equipment in New World that boosts your gathering skills. For example, certain tools or armor sets can increase your gathering speed, drop rates, or durability when gathering specific resources.

Join a Faction: Faction bonuses can provide a helpful boost to your resource gathering. Factions provide players with PvE missions that often involve gathering specific resources, and completing these can provide you with extra rewards for your efforts.

Crafting for Profit and Progress

Crafting is an excellent way to grind in New World while simultaneously creating valuable items for yourself or for sale on the Trading Post.

Crafting Materials: Craft items that are in demand on the market, such as high-quality weapons, armor, potions, and tools. Crafting gear that aligns with the needs of the server economy will help you profit while grinding.

Tiered Crafting: Focus on crafting higher-tier materials and weapons when possible. This can often lead to gaining more XP and producing high-quality items. As you level up your crafting professions, aim for crafting endgame items like Voidbent Armor or high-level Weapon Mods.

3. Focusing on Faction Missions and Territory Control

Faction missions are a rewarding form of grinding in New World, as they provide consistent XP, cheap New World Gold coins, and faction tokens. Additionally, controlling territories offers substantial benefits that can improve your grinding efficiency.

Faction Missions

Faction missions offer a variety of objectives, including PvE missions (killing enemies, gathering resources) and PvP missions (capturing territory, engaging in combat with other factions). These missions are a great way to farm consistent rewards while helping your faction gain control over Aeternum.

PvE Missions: These often require you to kill specific enemies or gather resources. Completing these is an efficient way to grind XP and faction tokens. Aim to stack missions of the same type (e.g., killing enemies) for more efficient grinding.

PvP Missions: If you enjoy PvP combat, PvP faction missions give you the opportunity to engage with other players while earning faction tokens and other rewards. Even if you're not particularly PvP-focused, completing these missions can provide high XP gains.

Territory Control

Territory control is a key aspect of New World, as each controlled area offers substantial rewards to its faction, including lower taxes, fast travel benefits, and access to high-tier resources. By engaging in faction wars, you can help your faction gain control of new territories, improving your grinding efficiency.

Defend/Attack Forts: Participate in fort wars to help your faction gain or maintain control over territory. A successful capture rewards your faction with valuable bonuses, including enhanced crafting stations and territory buffs.

Territory Taxes and Perks: Higher-tier territories offer significant perks that benefit your resource gathering, crafting, and overall grind. Make sure to contribute to your faction's goals, as these bonuses directly impact your grind.

4. Optimize Your XP Grind: Expeditions and Group Content

While solo grinding can be effective, group content like Expeditions (dungeons) and Outpost Rush can provide higher rewards and allow you to level up faster.

Expeditions (Dungeons)

Expeditions are high-level PvE dungeons that offer some of the best rewards in New World, including high-tier loot, XP, and crafting materials. Completing these dungeons efficiently will allow you to level up quickly while also gearing up your character for endgame content.

Group Coordination: Expeditions require a coordinated group effort, so make sure to assemble a balanced team of DPS, tanks, and healers. Focus on crafting your character and equipment to support the group's needs, ensuring your participation is vital to your team's success.

Efficient Runs: Expeditions can take a long time, so ensure your group has a strategy in place. Focus on minimizing downtime and optimizing your runs to maximize loot and XP per hour.

Outpost Rush (PvPvE Mode)

Outpost Rush is a 20v20 PvP and PvE hybrid mode that rewards players with XP, gold, and high-tier loot. Completing this mode efficiently will allow you to grind quickly while engaging in both PvE and PvP content.

5. Gear and Perks: Grinding with the Right Tools

Grinding efficiently in New World requires the right gear and perks to maximize your time and effectiveness.

Gathering Perks: Equip tools with gathering perks to increase yield and reduce gathering time. Tools with the "Gathering Luck" or "Harvesting" perks are especially useful for gathering resources.

Crafting Perks: When crafting, look for perks that boost your chances of crafting higher-quality items or increase your crafting speed. These perks will help you maximize XP gains and resource usage.

Conclusion

Grinding in New World can be both a rewarding and intense experience. Whether you're leveling your character, gathering resources, or crafting the best gear, understanding the mechanics of grinding will significantly improve your efficiency. By focusing on optimal combat grinding, mastering gathering and crafting, utilizing faction missions, participating in group content, and equipping the right gear, you'll be well on your way to conquering Aeternum and becoming a true expert in New World. Always keep an eye on the in-game economy, adjust your strategy based on your goals, and most importantly, enjoy the journey through the vast and ever-evolving world of New World. Happy grinding!