New World leveling guide – the quickest way to level up your character and trade skills

How to level up your character and trade skills explained

A corruption portal in New World is a big ring with blackness oozing from it.

Want to know how to level up in New World? It’s not every day that we get a brand new, big-budget MMO game, and this one has been on our radar for months. Its pirate theme is very different from your usual fantasy setting. With more focus on PVP, you may feel there’s a need to level up quickly to match your competition.

There are three different leveling systems in New World: one to increase your base character stats, one for your weapon skills, and one for trade skills. Each one has optimal methods for ranking them up quickly, but knowing how to do this without help can be tricky.

Once you’ve managed to find a relatively stable New World server, we’re here to help. This guide will go through all ways you can get XP to level up your character, trade skills, and weapon skills. Doing so will enable you to explore the first of the MMO’s raids (known in-game as ‘expeditions’) sooner. If you want to level up quickly so you can take on the New World Amrine Excavation, then read on.

New World leveling attributes

Whenever you level up, you can put a point into one of five attributes. This means there are a total of 71 points you can spend via level up. Equippable items also give points while you’re wearing or wielding them. In addition, there are item socket slots where you can place jewels to further increase your attribute stats.

Make sure that you put points into attributes that directly benefit your method of attack. For example, melee weapons increase their attacking power if you buff the strength attribute, magic by focus, and ranged weapons by dexterity.

Here are all of the New World attributes and what they increase:

  • Constitution: increases base health
  • Dexterity: increases base ranged weapon damage
  • Focus: increases base mana and reduce cooldown durations
  • Intelligence: increase base magic attack
  • Strength: increase base melee weapon damage

New World leveling tips

Here are our top New World leveling tips:

  • Whenever you log off from New World, make sure you’re in a settlement: you’ll get a rested XP bonus when you come back
  • Quests found in the Town Project Board are the fastest way to level up. You can sometimes complete quests by buying items in the auction shop in town
  • Build up your town standing and increase the amount of XP you can gain in that area to get a bonus to XP rewards for completing any quest
  • Pick up side-quests to complete alongside the main quest. You can finish these along the way
  • Hit a monster if another player is fighting it once to gain XP and weapon mastery. Other players still get XP and weapon mastery for defeating them, so you aren’t griefing them
  • You can accept up to 12 town missions at a time. This will give you plenty of XP, coins, and settlement reputation
  • Finishing faction missions from your respective New World faction representative in every town provides you with some XP. In addition, faction missions scale with your current area, so higher-level regions give you more XP
  • You get bonus XP from faction quests if there are any Daily Bonuses available in the faction board (shown at the top of the screen when talking to your faction’s representative)
  • Finding fast travel shrines will help you warp to different regions quickly. Also, consider owning a home in a separate town from the inn that you’ve signed up for to have more options for fast travel
  • If you’re leveling up trade skills, you also get a nominal amount of general XP
  • New World weapons level up separately to your character level, and PVP fights are the best place to get experience quickly and learn new skills

The leveling rewards screen in New World shows unlocked features.

New World leveling rewards

You also unlock new modes, quests, and even item slots whenever you reach a particular level. Here are all of the New World leveling rewards:

  • Level 5: second weapon slot and survivalist quest (camp tier upgrade)
  • Level 10: Duels and first bag slot
  • Level 15: first house, third consumable slot, and survivalist quest (camp tier upgrade)
  • Level 20: ring slot and main story quest (Azoth Staff tier one)
  • Level 25: fourth consumable slot and survivalist quest (camp tier upgrade)
  • Level 30: second bag slot and main story quest (Azoth Staff tier two)
  • Level 35: second house
  • Level 40: earring slot, survivalist quest (camp tier upgrade), and main story quest (Azoth Staff tier three)
  • Level 45: third bag slot
  • Level 50: Invasions
  • Level 55: third house and survivalist quest (camp tier upgrade)
  • Level 60: Outpost Rush

Territories

You can also get an indication of which areas you can safely travel to by looking at the leveling rewards screen:

  • Level 5+: Firstlight, Everfall, Monarch’s Bluffs, and Windsward
  • Level 25+: Brightwood and Cutlass Keys
  • Level 30+: Weaver’s Fen
  • Level 40+: Restless Shore and Great Cleave
  • Level 45+: Mourningdale
  • Level 50+: Edengrove and Ebonscale
  • Level 60+: Reekwater and Shattered Mountain

Crafting an item such as the iron musket in the workshop gives you XP towards New World leveling.

How to level up trade skills

For every single trade skill, you need to perform a specific action to increase its XP level. For example, crafting skills require you to make items using a relevant facility in town. Likewise, refining skills need you to turn raw materials into valuable crafting items.

These two trade skill types level up relatively quickly compared to gathering skills, which slowly go up after performing specific actions.

Crafting

Making new weapons and armour is resource-heavy. If you want some of the materials you used back, immediately salvage any equipment you craft.

  • Weaponsmithing – make weapons at a forge
  • Armoring – make armor at an outfitting station or a forge
  • Engineering – make any item that grants engineering at a workshop or forge
  • Jewelcrafting – make any amulets and other jewellery at an outfitting station
  • Arcana – craft items and potions at an arcane repository
  • Cooking – cook food at any camp or ingredient in a kitchen
  • Furnishing – make any item that grants furnishing at a workshop

Refining

  • Smelting – turn ores into bars or wood into charcoal at a smelter
  • Woodworking – turn green wood into planks of timber at a woodshop
  • Leatherworking – turn rawhide into coarse leather at a tannery
  • Weaving – turn fibres into linen at any loom
  • Stonecutting – turn mined minerals into blocks at a stonecutting table

Gathering

While you only need the basic flint/wood tier-one tool to gather resources, higher tier tools that you can craft with iron or treated wood will make the tasks go a bit faster. It’s also worth noting that the size of the resource you gather reflects how much XP you get towards that gathering skill. For example, a thick tree gives you more XP when chopped down than chopping down one with a thinner trunk. You can also use lures with fishing poles to increase the rate at which fish bite. You can consult our in-depth guide to New World fishing as it can be one of the most profitable ways to make money at New World trading posts.

Here is how you can level up every New World gathering trade skill:

  • Logging – use a logging axe to chop wood from trees
  • Mining – use a mining pick to mine rocks
  • Fishing – use a fishing pole for fishing at any pond, river, or coastal location
  • Harvesting – gather certain herbs from any farm or land-based location
  • Tracking & Skinning – kill and skin any animal with a skinning knife

Those are all of the trade skill levels unlocks and how to level up trade skills in New World. We have a guide for how to play with friends in New World and the New World servers list to help you get started.