The primary issue in New World PvP revolves around team imbalance. There has been extensive discussion about the game’s current state, with arguments about Ankh disrupting the balance, the perceived overpowered nature of shirking heals, and the contentious strength of life staff healing. Ultimately, these concerns stem from team imbalances, with the most glaring issue being the disproportionate number of life staff users on each team.
This imbalance is particularly evident in two prominent PvP formats:
1, Public arenas (excluding premade 3 stacks) – When one team has a healer while the other lacks one, it almost guarantees victory for the team with the healer. Most healers possess the skills to move and evade, making it challenging for a group of random players to coordinate effectively in countering them through crowd control (CC) or focused damage.
2, Outpost Rush – Here, premade groups with healers, as well as teams with more healers, tend to dominate the game. Facing a group of players who coordinate and target solo players is already tough, but adding a pocket healer makes victory nearly impossible unless the entire opposing group is inexperienced.
So, what does this mean for New World PvP?
Solo players often find themselves grappling with problems beyond their control. While it’s unrealistic to prevent players from queuing together, there are ways to address the situation. The solution isn’t necessarily to find a healer to group with, as many players, including myself, enjoy casually jumping into PvP group activities solo.
Players lacking pocket healers require a form of self-sustain to help them stay competitive, especially if life staff healing remains as potent as it currently is. Shirking heals provided a degree of balance, but when coupled with Ankh and life staff healing, it became excessively powerful.
Ankh has, in fact, caused more harm than good in PvP, even with its previous nerf from 50% to 25% of its healing bonus and changes to consumables and outgoing heals. Even if you remove shirking heals’ interaction with Ankh, there’s still a significant problem. Pocket healers become even more potent, while solo players find themselves in a worse situation.
In my opinion, implementing several changes could significantly improve the situation:
1, Completely remove Ankh in its current form, at least for PvP.
2, Leave shirking heals as they are but cap the number of armor pieces at 4. This change, combined with the removal of Ankh, would restore a better balance.
3, Introduce a system that prevents life staff healing and shirking heals from synergizing to the point where players become nearly unkillable. Removing Ankh will help, but a mechanism for more balanced healing in PvP would mitigate the issue of teams stacking players in an uninteractive, low-FPS spam fest.
I believe that New World’s current PvP balance and build diversity are quite commendable. While some aspects are strong or annoying, the overall balance is the best it has ever been, with every weapon being legitimately viable. I hope AGS considers removing Ankh and addressing issues like Stopwatch stunlock in PvP. However, I urge them not to overcorrect shirking heals while leaving life staff healing untouched, as it may disproportionately affect solo PvP players and contribute to a declining player base. Thank you for your consideration. By the way, Many players buy New World Gold coins from MMOexp.com to get stronger quickly and gain an advantage in PVP.