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With the Expertise system getting dumpstered, gearing up in New World is much better now. You simply need to get items at the desired Gear Score, without having to level up each item slot at a snail's pace.
There are multiple ways to get the max Gear Score items, including looting them at that level, purchasing, crafting or upgrading.
Looting higher Gear Score items
Obtaining items at 700 Gear Score is pretty straightforward - you just need them to drop or obtain them as a reward, no need to bother with watermarks or Expertise. In other words, if an item with a higher Gear Score than yours dropped but you don't consider it practically useful, you don't need to lug it around in your inventory in order for even higher Gear Score items to drop.
Base Expeditions will drop items up to Gear Score 685, which will get you ready for Mutated Expeditions. Any of the three difficulty levels in Mutated Expeditions can drop 700 Gear Score items but the higher the difficulty, the higher the chance of 700 Gear Score drops.
Looting Elite Chests is also a good way to get higher Gear Score items so make sure you join those daily chest run trains.
Purchasing
The simplest way to get 700 Gear Score items is to grab them on the trading post. You will need a bit of money to buy them but this also means avoiding jumping through all the hoops with upgrades or random drops. Simply go to the TP, find the item that satisfies your preferences and buy it.
Crafting
Similar to purchasing, it will bypass the drop rate RNG and upgrading but you do need the corresponding trade skill to be at 250 and then you need a bunch of items that boost the level of your crafted gear. You also can't upgrade it anymore since Umbral Shards are gone.
Upgrading
You can now only upgrade named items that have Gear Score 650 or higher. To upgrade them, you will need Gypsum Orbs, Dark Matter and a corresponding Matrix.
Here is a quick rundown on where to get Dark Matter and Matrices.
Dark Matter
- Completing some quests
- PvP reward track
- Salvaging gear
- Drops
- Rattlebones
- Sandwurm
- PvE Arenas
Weapon / Armour / Jewelry Matrix
- Aptitude Crates
- Crafted (very expensive and requires 250 crafting in that weaponsmithing, armoursmithing or jewelcrafting)
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