New World is adding a new weapon, the Flail, along with the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion when it arrives on October 3rd. This week, the team goes into their design goals for the Flail, creating a tanking and healing support-based weapon, and more to know.
There’s both a new devblog and a new Forged in Aeternum episode diving into all things about the new weapon type. One of the words you'll hear a lot with regard to the new Flail, is “versatility”, because this weapon is designed for survivability, and for support functions. In making these choices, giving it medium attack speed and an extended melee range, essentially creating a more of a utility weapon that is useful and support or even defense, they wanted to fill a gap in what was available among the existing roles.
The Flail makes possible more of a Paladin-type build option, and here are two skill trees to accompany the weapon: Cleric and Bastion. Cleric is healing focused, and You'll be able to deep up enemies and also buff and heal your allies. This will help your allies to get more done. Bastion is the tanking side and will be about attacking, then buffing your allies and then increasing your own survivability so you can be an effective support player.
Some of the mechanics reveal more. Extra Range means your Flail tip will extend during attacks, so you'll get a little bit more room for combat. Impairment is a status effect that combines damage over time effect as well as weakening the enemy. Something like Extra Range also takes advantage of the exclusive animations which animate the Flail chain and head to make its impact realistic.
One Bastion ability the team highlighted is called Barrage, and you'll charge forward and pass through your enemies and allies, essentially clearing a path and when you end it, you'll do a flip and fortify yourself when you hit the ground. The Cleric tree has something called Arcane Vortex that also avails itself of the new animations.
The team breaks down how the Flail compares to other weapons, in various situations. Damage will scale to strength, but utility and support on the Flail will connect with Focus and not Dexterity. This follows since the new weapon is designed for support and healing. It’s a useful guide and deep dive to prepare for the new weapon and how they want to complement it.
