Armoring is one of New World’s more unique crafting skills because you can level it through both the Forge and the Outfitting Station. You can craft Light and Medium armor at the Outfitting Station and Heavy armor at the Forge. If you’re delving into this skill, you may realize it’s going to be quite the grind. In this New World Armoring leveling guide, we cover the most efficient way to level the Armoring skill.
The most efficient way to level Armoring depends on what type of materials you like to farm or have in abundance. I find the best method to be farming Hemp and Leather using our Harvesting and Skinning guides. Once you are fully stocked on those items, you can begin the process of leveling Armoring in New World.
Check out our New World Crafting and Gathering wiki for more leveling guides and resource locations.
New World Armoring Leveling Guide
The fastest way to level Armoring is by visiting the Outfitting Station and choosing between making Linen Shoes or Coarse Leather Boots. We pick these two items because it is the most bang for your buck in terms of experience per materials.
Here are the recipes for those two items:
- Coarse Leather Boots
- Coarse Leather x5
- Linen x3
- Iron Ingot x1
- Outfitting Station Tier 2
- Armoring Skill Lv. 0
- +108 Armoring
- Linen Shoes
- Linen x5
- Coarse Leather x3
- Iron Ingot x1
- Outfitting Station Tier 2
- Armoring Skill Lv. 0
- +108 Armoring
Each of these items rewards you with +108 to Armoring, which means you’re going to need to craft hundreds of them. You will end up salvaging all of them since nobody will want to buy these low-tier items at the Trading Post. You’ll get back some linen for each one and can re-use it to make more.
Crafting other items is typically not worth it unless you have an abundance of materials or find an item in high demand on the Trading Post. In that case, you can make those items and rake in some cash to fund your armoring endeavors.
The boots at the Outfitting Station scale up as you get higher in armoring skill, so you’ll be able to move up and craft these over time:
- Sateen Shoes
- Tier 3 Cloth x5 (Sateen)
- Leathers x3
- Metals x1
- Outfitting Station Tier 3
- Armoring Skill Lv. 50
- +270 Armoring
- Silk Shoes
- Tier 4 Cloth x5 (Silk)
- Leathers x3
- Metals x1
- Outfitting Station Tier 4
- Armoring Skill Lv. 100
- +675 Armoring
New World Armoring Level 0-100
To get to armoring level 100, which is a milestone many players want to hit to craft the Tier IV Layered Leather Bag, you will need 97,375 XP. That translates to roughly 902 pairs of Linen Shoes or Coarse Leather Boots (108 Armoring per piece). That means you will need the following materials to get your armoring from 0-100:
- 18,040 Rawhide or Fibers
- 10,824 Rawhide or Fibers
- 902 Iron Ingots
Your overall raw materials cost will be slightly less since you will be salvaging all of these crafted items and receiving 1-2 Linen or Leather materials back per item.
Note that you will not need to craft these two items exclusively. The optimal leveling method depends on a few factors:
- Do you play with friends who can pool materials?
- Are you a bag crafter for your group or company?
- Do you have a ton of gold you can use to purchase materials?
Bags and Town Project Board quests reward a lot of Armoring skill, so that will drastically lower the sheer number of Linen Shoes or Coarse Leather Boots you will need to make to get to Armoring level 100.
Iron is one of the more annoying pieces to acquire for leveling armoring, which is why we avoid doing this process at the Forge. You can refer to our guide on where to find Iron if you want some help finding good farming spots.
New World Armoring Level 100-200
Once you reach Armoring level 100, you can continue on the path of making higher tier Light and Medium armor, or you can move on to the metal items at the Forge. It is much more manageable to farm Starmetal since there is lower competition for it at this point in the game. Again, we recommend making boots.
- Starmetal Plate Boots
- Starmetal Ingot x5
- Coarse Leather x3
- Linen x1
- Forge Tier 4
- Armoring Skill Lv. 100
- +675 Armoring
Once you grind that out and reach Armoring level 150, it’s time to move on to Orichalcum Plate Boots.
- Orichalcum Plate Boots
- Orichalcum Ingot x5
- Coarse Leather x3
- Linen x1
- Forge Tier 5
- Armoring Skill Lv. 150
- +1395 Armoring
To get from Armoring level 100 to 200 in New World, you will need 1,784,050 XP. That means you will need to craft 600 pairs of Starmetal Plate Boots and 989 pairs of Orichalcum Plate Boots. Again, this is assuming you only craft boots, which will not be the case. You will likely be completing lots of story quests, Town Project Board quests, and making various other items to gain a lot of armoring XP. That means you won’t need to craft anywhere near the full amount of boots to get your Armoring maxed.
There are also some powerful green and blue items you can make along the way that can grant anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 XP per piece.
Influencing Gear Score for Armoring in New World
Each item you craft in New World requires primary ingredients and secondary ingredients. The secondary ingredients allow you to choose between common and rare materials, such as Coarse Leather, Rugged Leather, or Shifthide, for example. Using rare materials will increase the potential gear score.
Take the example above, for instance. The image on the left shows a potential gear score of 225-275 using basic materials. However, if we switch out the metal for Voidmetal, a rare metal, it increases the gear score to 235-280. The overall potential gear score will increase for the more rare items you use, so we could get that even higher if we had Rare Leathers or Epic Metals.
The resulting item you craft can fall anywhere within that range, and it’s completely random. You can add Azoth to add perks and use special resources to influence those mods. Also, the higher your overall Armoring skill level, the higher the potential gear score. The concept is explained by hovering your mouse over the meter underneath the gear score numbers.
The same concepts apply across all crafting skills in New World, not just Armoring. It is something to keep in mind as you reach the higher skill levels and can begin crafting Epic and Legendary gear!
That concludes our New World Armoring leveling guide! I hope this helps some of you adventurers out there who are looking to max out that Armoring skill. Feel free to check out our New World section for more related content, guides, and builds.
