Gems in New World are a valuable part of every great build. They can be used to enhance any weapons and armour that have an available Gem Socket.
Mostly, this means buffing offence or defence depending on the gear in question but New World has a lot of gems that offer a lot of different bonuses you can see below in this guide. We will also cover gem compatibility as it is proving confusing for many players.
New World Gems Guide
Before you can make use of gems, you need to get your hands on some. Gems are found as a rare drop while mining, but if you mine a lot you’ll likely have more gems than you know what to do with, at least early on.
The odds of getting these lucky finds can also be increased by armour and tool perks, which are specific to mining or chomping down on some potato-based foods that increase your luck by a considerable amount.
New World Gem Crafting
Once you’ve found some gems you need to cut them at a Stonecutting Table. This also requires some motes/wisps/essence/quintessence - depending on the level of gem you want to cut - and these are alchemy ingredients found in magical plants and alchemy stones.
Both motes and uncut gems can be combined into higher tiers at the Arcane Repository or the Stonecutting Table, and higher-level gems provide the same type of bonus as the lower, but to a higher degree.
This is important to consider when crafting your gems, as you might be able to get away with lower-tier bonuses, especially on gear you may be replacing regularly as you cannot remove gems without destroying them.
For example, the damage conversion on staffs can be really useful for mitigating some of the losses caused by enemy damage type resistances. However, unless you’re min/maxing for specific opponents, the higher level bonuses aren’t really worth the cost.
New World Weapon Gems
- Amber - Converts a fraction of damage to Nature
- Amethyst - Converts a fraction of damage to Void
- Aquamarine - Converts a fraction of damage to Ice
- Carnelian - Taunts are active/generate far greater Threat
- Diamond - Increases damage and outgoing healing while at full health
- Emerald - Increases damage against low health enemies
- Jasper - Increases damage when hit 3 times in a row
- Malachite - Increases damage against CC'd enemies
- Moonstone - Increases damage when health below 30%
- Onyx - Increases damage against full health enemies
- Opal - Increases damage when Stamina not full
- Ruby - Converts a fraction of damage to Fire
- Sapphire - Converts a fraction of damage to Arcane
- Topaz - Converts a fraction of damage to Lightning
New World Armour Gems
- Amber - Reduces Nature damage
- Amethyst - Reduces Void damage
- Aquamarine - Reduces Ice damage
- Carnelian - Reduces Threat generation
- Diamond - Increases damage resistance 3:1 Physical:Elemental
- Emerald - Reduces Thrust damage
- Jasper - Increases Strike resistance
- Malachite - Reduces Elemental damage
- Moonstone - Reduces Slash damage
- Onyx - Increases Physical resistance
- Opal - Increases Elemental resistance
- Ruby - Reduces Fire damage
- Sapphire - Reduces Arcane damage
- Topaz - Reduces Lightning damage
New World Gem Compatibility
When attempting to slot a gem into a socket, you might sometimes get a message that the “gem is not compatible with that item.” This can be confusing to players as it gives no reason why.
From testing, it looks as though this occurs when trying to add an Elemental bonus to gear that already features an Elemental Perk. That said, a gem that matches the perk damage will be compatible.
This does not mean you can’t covert some base elemental damage to another type though, as it only seems to apply to effects provided by a Perk.
If you’re still curious about what weapon is right for you, check out our quick guide to the different weapons here.
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