Amazon Game Studios launched a new update for New World that marks the beginning of Season Two: Blood of the Sands. This patch is loaded with combat changes and a new blocking functionality that is quite useful in PvP.
Players can now block ranged attacks even when they're not using shields in New World. However, they only mitigate a portion of the damage depending on the weapon they're using.
When blocking with one-handed/magic weapons, only 50% of the ranged attack damage will penetrate the block. Stamina damage will be reduced by 50% when this happens. Besides that, only 30% of the ranged attack damage will penetrate the block when using two-handed weapons. Stamina damage is also reduced by 30% when this occurs.
In addition, the company increased the base movement speed while blocking from 1.65 to two meters per second.
The ability to block ranged attacks using other weapons gives players a ton of flexibility. However, keep in mind that shields are still the best in blocking attacks since they mitigate 100% of the damage.
For balancing adjustments, the bow's poison shot damage per tick has been doubled and its duration halved, meaning that damage is dealt much faster than before.
Incinerate received notable changes as well. For one, the recovery frame of the said attack is reduced, but more importantly, it no longer pushes enemies back. Instead, enemies hit by Incinerate will be staggered, enabling players to safely follow up with another attack.
Here are the other noteworthy balancing adjustments in this update:
Blunderbuss
- Fixed an issue where some blunderbuss status effects were being improperly removed while traversing the world.
- Fixed an issue where the Blunderbuss could grant all stacks of the Empowering Breaker Perk in a single shot.
- Blast Shot
- Increased range by 1 meter
- Net Shot
- Fixed an issue where Net Shot could apply status effects to targets that were Riposting and blocking.
- Fixed an issue where Net Shot projectiles would sometimes impact the ground if fired while rolling up an incline.
Bow
- Increased the duration of Rending Headshot from 3s to 5s.
- Fixed an issue where the player would be in a broken state after exiting Outpost Rush while aiming with a bow
- Fixed an issue where the Impale Bow passive could trigger off of DoTs.
- Rain of Arrows
- Sped up the animation for Rain of Arrows by about 50%.
- Increased bleed damage from the barbed arrows upgrade from 7.1% to 15%,
- Reduced cooldown from 25s to 20s.
- Reduced the time it takes from the arrows to be shot into the air to when the attack lands.
- Increased radius from 3m to 4m.
Great Axe
- Whirlwind
- Moved up block and dodge cancel windows to be after the first spin instead of 2nd spin.
- Increased movement speed while active by 15%
- Increased rotation speed of whirlwind by 20%.
- Reap
- Increased first hit damage from 60% to 80%.
Great Sword
- Skyward Slash
- Skyfall Sword Upgrade: Reduced radius of the ground impact hitbox from 3m to 2m from impact point, and adjusted the circular shockwave VFX that appear to align with the hitbox size better.
Ice Gauntlet
- Ice Pylon
- Will now be destroyed if Ice Gauntlet is unequipped. It will still persist if Ice Gauntlet is equipped, but inactive.
- Windchill
- Moved Grit from the Perk to being on the base ability.
- Increased Windchill's damage from 20% to 24% weapon damage per tick.
So, what can you say about the new blocking functionality for all weapons?
New World Season Two: Blood of the Sands is available on PC.
