The Group Finder has been released again today, coinciding with the Year of the Dragon event in New World Season 4. So I am going to provide a concise summary to help you know eveything about this system.
The system primarily aims to facilitate group formation for low level mutations, tailored to new players. It offers greater flexibility compared to the OPR system. While M3 isn't included due to gear and gem requirements, the goal is to attract more players to M3 by simplifying group finding.
Although the old Lobby Finders system, their lack of Cross World functionality poses a significant drawback. A more balanced approach integrating Cross World features into the existing system would have been preferable.
Trading is disabled while you are in Cross World, so you can’t just influence other servers’ economies by trading through the Group Finder. And let’s dive a little bit more into what the Devs had to show us.
So, first of all, you have the activity finder system, where you can see all of the options, all of the activities, for the modes tab, there are the new screen which gathers all of any world’s instant content in one place for easy access, similar to Outpost Rush.
Any player from any world within the same region can be matched together to form a new instance. This means significantly less time spent finding groups and more time running Expeditions.
You also no longer need to build your own group by hand. These new activity screens finally allow you to view any Expedition entrance screen and Lobby Finder from a single list instead of the map, also very convenient.
You can also just random queue on the side here or select specific Expeditions. And what you also notice on the right side here is the allow in-progress joining, so participating in an Expedition that has already started.
They do also mention us that you can still build your own Expedition group and Expeditions manually and use the Lobby-based Group Finder if you prefer.
The next point here is how to play Cross World Expeditions. If you’re playing solo or in a group of 4 or less adventurers, you can enter the Cross World Expedition Group Finder in one of 2 ways: either you click random to enter a queue for every Expedition you can currently access, this is the quickest way to find a group and grants a bonus up in completion twice daily, or use the checkboxes on the left of each Expedition to make specific Expedition lists and then click the queue button.
There’s no daily bonus for this option, but you will have more control over the selected Expedition. This is what that selection would, for example, look like. Before you can enter the Expedition queue, you need to choose a role.
We introduced group roles along with our Lobby-based Group Finder, but they were optional. Now, they are mandatory since Expeditions are designed around the classic Trinity of DPS, Tank, and Healer, and there is no group leader to enforce this balance in the new system.
This means that each Expedition must consist of 3 DPS, 1 Tank, and 1 Healer. Any player who signs up as a Tank, go Healer will receive an additional role bonus when finishing the Expedition. In order to sign up as a Tank, go Healer, you must pass a requirement check. These vary depending on the Expedition.
When entering a group, all players must choose a role. The role selection screen will display each player’s selection. They have the DPS with any weapon, you have the tank with any weapon with a Corleone gem, and then you have the healer with a Level 9 Life Staff and 220 Focus. This varies depending on the Expedition.
In normal Expeditions, players receive Expedition bonus cash twice daily. Below Level 65, they obtain 50% XP of their current level upon completion, along with 3 ASO. At Level 65, they earn 125 gold and 2,500 Faction Tokens. Additionally, there's a roll bonus of 50 gold and 500 Faction Tokens, also available twice daily.
Mutated Expeditions offer more lucrative rewards: a daily mutator bonus of 150 gold and 10,000 Faction Tokens, a mutator roll bonus of 100 gold and 1,000 Faction Tokens, and a mutator carry bonus of 100 gold. Considering the potential rewards, especially the 350 gold and 11,000 Faction Tokens from a mutator run, it may be worthwhile depending on the speed and level of mutation.
As for improvements, adding M3 Cross World functionality to the old Group Finder system seems crucial. While the developers hinted at possible Cross World integration for different modes, like Arenas, the feasibility of such changes, particularly for modes like Wars, remains uncertain.
This is a build guide that can help you gain infinite heals and stamina PVP in New World Season 4. I’m going to keep it short for you.
For weapon artifacts, I’m running Finisher Rapier mainly because of its 15% permanent damage buff, which affects both of your weapons, and you can keep it up with the Keenly Jagged on your bow. I’m still using Refreshing Move on it.
I’m also using Energy Aura as the third perk on my bow, but you can use Enchanted if you really want to. This is a stamina surplus build, as you’ll see in a second, so it’s all up to personal preference. I just end up preferring the stamina.
For gems, I’m choosing to split my damage 50/50, as it’s the best of both worlds and has the least amount of counters. The 8% damage over time (DOT) is mandatory, but make sure the element of that DOT is different on both your weapons because they don’t stack.
Regarding armor artifacts, I like Tumblers because it’s a 600 heal on no cooldown. The reason I prefer it over Featherweight is that of the potential it has. Featherweight offers around a 5% extra effective hitpoints (EHP) difference, which is around 900 health. So if I proc Tumblers at least twice in a fight, it’s automatically better than Featherweight, and any proc behind that just makes the gap bigger.
For accessories, Endless sounds good on paper, but you can’t put Healthy Toast on it, which is really, really bad. Ankh is nice, but it makes you pick between protection or stamina recovery, and obviously, you have to pick stamina recovery, so you’re going to miss protection. I like the universality of having different protections, so I’d rather not use Ankh.
The actual perks on my ring and earring are the exact same as they usually are. Everything here is pretty self-explanatory. Gear we’re looking at 5 Shirking Heals. The buff to 7 seconds turned it from a good perk to an almost mandatory perk, but you’ll find a lot of people don’t agree with that because they’re stubborn and invested a lot of their money in a build that’s not good.
For my secondary perk, I’m running Fortify, and the rest is just normal stuff: one skill perk (Siphoning Energy), and then the random perk that Tumblers have. In whatever leftover slots I have, I put Health on, which in this case amounts to two health.
For armor gems, I’m running 4 Opal and one Onyx with full Energizing Runes. The Rune choice is a bit up to personal preference, but I highly recommend using at least one Energizing Rune, mainly because there are lots of clutch scenarios where you’re one stamina away from stamina-ing yourself out. The rest you can put range damage, but I would definitely not recommend Leeching Damage unless you’re using Boltcaster. The Leeching version is a flat 18% damage reduction against Boltcaster, Fire Staff, and other fully Elemental range weapons, and it’s a 9% damage reduction against bows, muskets, and B-buses who use a split gem. My Opals additionally cover 8% less damage from all Elemental sources.
Regardless if it’s melee or ranged, that’s 8% less damage from weapons like Abyss, Boltcaster, Firestaff, and 4% less damage from weapons that have split gems. The 3 Onyx I have covered some additional defense against melee players. This is purely optional and up to your playstyle. If you’re fine with playing super defensive and ratty, you can drop the Onyx for some thrust and lightning resist instead.
For the necklace, I’m obviously going with fire resist because that’s the easiest range weapon to get hit by. You can do movement tech or whatever movement cancels you want against other bows and muskets, and they’ll end up missing 90% of their shots. But it’s hard to do movement tech against Firestaff when they have a hitbox of a Boeing 747. Plus, the fire resist also reduces explosive shot damage from bows.
My completely honest recommendation is to have a set of amulets and maybe even some accessories that you can easily swap in and out. This way, you have the freedom to swap to another resist if you’re ever when there is no Firestaff. For example, let’s say you’re getting hunted by a melee assassin squad. Then, you should obviously switch to your slash necklace. Let’s say the enemy team has 10 Boltcaster players. Obviously, switch to a lightning or thrust necklace.
If your build is threatened by a simple swap of a necklace and maybe a ring or accessory, then maybe you should reevaluate your build.
Moving on to attributes, this does get a little interesting. 25 and 50 strength are still bugged but no longer in a good way. 50 strength doesn't do anything, and 25 strength, on the other hand, previously boosted heavy damage by 10% and light damage by 5%. Now it only boosts both damages by 2%. Classic AGS, honestly. But anyways, because of that, I'm dropping 25 strength and then also dropping 35 con to get 50 focus. This 10% extra healing affects all the pots I use and even tumblers, and I can justify the 900 Health loss from going to 240 to 2115 con with that 10% extra Health. As long as a fight lasts long enough where you go through two rotations of pots, then this 10% prevails, not even accounting for any sharing or tumbler procs.
This build shines in fights that last long, which is pretty much any fight against good players. It's also a very solo-centric build. The second you involve a pocket healer that lets these micro heals matter in the long term, at that point, you're better off running Featherweight and more pure damage reductions.
If you're investing in dex after 350, then I would still get 25 strength first. Simply because the 25 points here end up doing more damage than 25 dex after 350. So if your build is 400 dex and zero strength.
The healer is part of the Holy Trinity and Expedition and Trial Explorations. Your main goal is to keep your teammates alive. The primary target is your tank and then your DPS buddies. This build will make sure you have the highest chance of survival and PVE content.
First, we will talk about three essential perks for any healer in PVE. These are Health, Enchanted Ward, and four stacks of Refreshing. Health is good in all situations as it increases your maximum HP and it is the best way to protect yourself against any form of damage. Enchanted Ward is very useful as the most common form of the enemy's offense is a light or heavy attack. Element Aversion is a good substitution for these perks. However, compared to light and heavy attacks, spells are much less frequent. Therefore, the Enchanted Ward is a better form of protection. The last perk that you want to have at maximum stacks is Refreshing. A lower spell cooldown means that you heal more often.
Let's take a look at almost the best in slot gear that is very strong in PVE situations. It is your faction gear. It is Health and Enchanted Ward and Refreshing — all of the perks that you need. If you buy all five gear slots, you already have the very strong gear to complete at least M2 as the recommended gear level is 675. I am fully aware that you will waste a perk slot because you will use more than four stacks of refreshing. But their turn for having health and an Enchanted Ward as your other two perks is much more valuable than not having them. New World Items are meant as a placeholder until you get a higher gear score with health and an Echanted Ward or you will get an artifact of your choice.
On the topic of artifacts, I recommend two of them. One is Featherweight. This one allows us to wear two heavy gear pieces on the head, gloves, or feet. This will give us more Armor overall and we will take much less damage and the game will be easier to play. So our gear will now look like this. You will have a heavy or light head. Featherweight as your chest piece. Then heavy or light gloves, light pants, and heavy or light feet. Up to a maximum of two heavy pieces, if you want to stay in light equip load. The next artifact that I would use as a Healer is a Nimble coat. It is a medium chest piece that gives us more refreshing. With four Stacks plus the unique perk, we will be sitting on a maximum of 24% cooldown reduction. This will allow us to spam more skills and in certain situations with a refreshing move on your weapon and life stuff passive you can have almost zero cooldowns on your skills.
I will now cover some of the New World Items that are very strong and can replace your faction gear. One of them is the Azoth Crystal set that can be crafted with mutation Material in the gypsum kiln. This set gives you an Enchanted Ward and Refreshing. It is guaranteed a gear score of 700 and the third perk is randomly picked. With health having a 15% chance of being picked. But do not worry, you can change the perks later with some other items as well. The other set that is easy to get can help you and it is two perks you want to focus on is the Empress Joe's set. It is healthy and refreshing as its primary perks and the enchanted ward has a rather small percentage of rolling at 3%, but you can change it later.
With all the gear covered, now let's talk about the weapons. For the life stuff, you have many options that can be crafted from a gypsum kiln. You just pick your favorite one, of all the three options is hard to pick the one stuff that is the best. The corrupted one can be farmed in Merk guard and the other two can be crafted with material in a gypsum kiln.
When it comes to Gems, each mutation has one element that is more prevalent and generally you will want to slot in the Gem that is resistant to it, however. I would just take the general Elemental Gem that has less resistance against one element, but has against many. In the long run, this is much cheaper than wasting your New World Coins on getting all your gems replaced each time you want to do a mutation.
The same as with the previous gear set with the body gear covered let us focus on the jewelry. My Amulet of choice that is always good is the passage of time. It has a constitutional attribute. It is guaranteed a gear score of 700 when it is crafted from a gypsum kiln. The primary perk is refreshing and stamina recovery. As a third perk, you can pick the element ward of the mutation you are doing or you could just Select Health. It will not be as perfect as element Ward perks such as fire or Abyssal. But it will do. As for the ring, I like using Vivify. It has focus as its attributes and has refreshing and Healing Breeze as its primary perks. I like taking sacred as the third perk as this gives us more healing. my favorite jewelry artifact is Endless Thirst. It gives you a big potion drink in a time of need. Usually, you do not need to drink one, but when you do you need a strong one. As a third perk, I like picking a healing heart as it heals us when we use the Heartune.
When it comes to Heartrunes, you have two options Stalwart Heartrune of Stoneform or brutal Heartsrune of Grasping Vines. Stoneform is more defensive and Vines are a more offensive option. I would use Stoneform in critical situations. Vines I would use in more offensive situations when the DPS of the group needs to be as high as possible.
When it comes to the skills, I would use the a healing skills such as sacred ground orb of protection and Beacon. I would cycle through them and then swamp to your other weapon. This playstyle would come in handy if all of your teammates are melee DPS. I would slot in the Divine Embrace if you have one or more ranged ones as it has very strong single target healing. Remember that your light attacks also can heal.
As our secondary weapon, I love taking lifetaker. It is a Void Gauntlet Artifact. Its unique perk is that it applies to disintegrate on ranged attacks on both weapons. Disintegrate is a DOT and a 10% rent that stacks up to three times. Giving us up to 30% rent, as the final perk I would take blessed as we are a healer and none of the weapon perks are suited for PVE situations. Now let's take a look at the skill tree for the VG. The primary skills that I like taking is Oblivion. It gives you and your teammates 15% in power among other buffs. Next I would take the orb as it heals your group and it applies disintegrates to your enemies. I also like using the blade for non-boss fights and essence rupture for the boss fight.
Greetings, adventurers!
A knight of the Round Table has discovered forbidden knowledge from the Ancients. Their goal is to use this knowledge to bring about an eternal winter and subjugate humanity. It is up to you and your team of Silver Crows to gather and persuade Daichi, a fire mage with a grumpy demeanor, to aid you in tracking down and defeating the knight before they can cause destruction in the realm of Aeternum. Take the opportunity to get acquainted with the new characters introduced in Eternal Frost, and then continue their thrilling journey in-game starting from December 12th.
He grew up admiring King Artorius and later served as a loyal Knight of the Round Table, driven by youthful courage and passion. He embarked on the journey to Aeternum's shores alongside the rest of the court. However, a falling out with Artorius during the Wars of Crimson Madness led to his banishment. This devastating blow stripped him of his entire identity, leaving him adrift and searching for meaning in life.
For decades, he lived in seclusion, consumed by vengeance and lost in the depths of his own madness. He has now formed an alliance with Ser Loth, a Knight who has tapped into ancient forces beneath the mountains of Great Cleave. As the new commander, he leads an army of mutated Varangians called the Frostbound, seeking powerful artifacts to unleash a terrifying force upon Aeternum and the world at large.
Daichi was a skilled warrior in feudal Japan, quickly rising through the ranks. However, his rebellious nature and disdain for authority grew as he honed his samurai skills. Eventually, he became disillusioned with his feudal lord and decided to become a ronin, frustrated by what he perceived as incompetence.
Being pursued for his betrayal, Daichi sought refuge in Aeternum, hoping to find new opportunities. There, he found guidance from Jubei Mori, the master of a Fire Temple. Although Daichi proved to be quite stubborn, Mori helped him find clarity. However, witnessing his master's defeat at the hands of his own students only deepened Daichi's mistrust of others. He developed a chip on his shoulder and became quick to anger and judge.
Even after joining the Crows, Daichi's rebellious tendencies persist. His aversion to authority immediately clashes with Grace. Despite his challenging personality, Daichi can still be a formidable and loyal ally.
Please share with us what you are anticipating the most from the Eternal Frost narrative. Thank you for your support and we look forward to seeing you in Aeternum.