How to Quickly Increase Expertise in New World Guide (2024)

An in-depth guide explaining the Expertise System in New World (previously High Water Mark) and the best ways to raise it and progress in the Endgame!

The Guide is up-to-date for Patch 1.9.2

What Is Expertise in New World and how it works

If you’re already familiar with the previous name “High Water Mark”, this system works similarly. However, there are a few additions that can help smooth out your progress if you’re the type that only gets to play a few hours a day.

Expertise is the Gear Progression System for Level 60 Characters. When you first reach Level 60, most gear you come across will be Gear Score 500. The Expertise System let’s you slowly progress up to the max Gear Score of 600.

Each drop you get has a chance of raising your current Expertise Level towards that 600 mark. When you get a drop that raises your Expertise, this is referred to as a “bump”. Each one of these bumps has a minimum increase of 2 Expertise and a max of 5 Expertise. This leaves an expected average of 35 bumps to take any item from GS 500 to GS 600.

Each Weapon Type and equipment type level independently of one another in this system. In total this means there’s 20 different Expertise levels across each character, one for each of the current 12 weapons and 8 for your armor and trinkets.

There’s also a new addition to supplement this system instead of fully relying on drop RNG, the Gypsum Crafting System.

Expertise’s Influence on Gear Scaling

Starting in Early 2022, Expertise will also influence the effectiveness of weapons and armors bought trades for that exceed your current Expertise. Currently, exemptions have been added for self-crafted items, Quest rewards, and Faction Shop Purchases; leaving only trading affected by this system.

This system is more to encourage you to craft your own gear or work your way through the Expertise System by downscaling any market-purchased items to your current Expertise. They will however scale back up to their proper stats as your Expertise increases with drops.

However, this part of the system is in pretty high contention within the community. It’s unclear whether or not AGS will move forward with this change or not due to the amount of feedback and backlash they have gotten over announcing it. At the very least, if it does go live as they stated, it’s not going to too heavily affect existing players or for very long. It will however be a big part of the game’s experience for new players.

What is Gypsum Crafting

The Gypsum Crafting system is a new endgame system that gives you a little more control over your Expertise Bumps. To be precise, more guaranteed Expertise Bumps that can be earned daily though in-game activities without needing to purely grind for them.

This system has you complete various in-game activities ranging from defeating mobs, to doing trade skills, and even participation in Outpost Rush or in-game events. Each activity has it’s own distinct color of Gypsum attached to it, which can be earned daily through that activity.

A total of 8 varieties of Gypsum will be available at all times, with an 9th limited to only being present during events:

• Obsidian Gypsum (3) – defeating level 60+ open world named bosses, typically found in Elite Landmark.
• Sapphire Gypsum (1) – defeating the final bosses of The Lazarus Instrumentality and Garden of Genesis.
• Ruby Gypsum (1) – obtained alongside Outpost Rush Caches.
• Emerald Gypsum (1) – obtained alongside Trade Skill Aptitude Reward Containers.
• Citrine Gypsum (1) – obtained alongside Arena Caches.
• Amethyst Gypsum (7) – obtained alongside Breach Caches.
• Topaz Gypsum (10) – found on hostile creatures Level 55+, but only after consuming a special Topaz Gypsum Attunement Potion that can be crafted at a Tier 5 Camp. This potion can only be crafted once per day!
• Garnet Gypsum (1) – Reward for completing 3v3 Arena Matches. 100% drop for wins, 50% on losses.
• Diamond Gypsum (3) – found only during major events in Aeternum. Collection method will vary per event, but be tied to an event task.

Each of these types requires a different amount of total Gypsum (noted in parenthesis above), with AGS giving a rough estimate of 30-60 minutes per task. This puts all 9 Gypsum at an estimate of 4-8 hours of gameplay to acquire. This could just as easily be done quicker if being done in large clusters, though it may make some of the farming-based ones less likely to drop. It’s also fairly easy to do several at the same time, as we’ll be covering later.

Each of these Gypsum Types is limited to being collected every 18 hours, or once daily with a bit of leeway to account for shifting schedules.

These Gypsum can be taken to Gypsum Kiln, and used to craft a Gypsum Orb. Gypsum Orbs have an Independent cooldown per type, allowing you to make up to 7 every 22 hours, or 8 every 22 hours during events.

These Orbs can also be used at the Kiln as desired to turn Gypsum Orbs into Gypsum Casts. Gypsum Casts are simply just a guaranteed Expertise Bump for the chosen item type, which always cost a single Gypsum Orb.

There’s a total of 20 different Casts; one for each weapon type, armor piece and jewelry piece. Each individual Cast has a 22 hour cooldown allowing you to only craft one per type, per day regardless of how many Gypsum Orbs you have.

Once you open the Cast, you receive the equivalent of a random drop. The only guarantee here is that you get an Expertise Bump. As the below example shows, it can just be a green item.

These will be the most reliable Bumps that occur, and will be in addition to any natural bumps you get while doing the activities that do reward Gypsum. Even though the Casts themselves aren’t always the most stellar of rewards outside of that bump.

How to quickly increase your Expertise with Gypsum

Now, for this section we’ll primarily be more focused on quickly gathering Gypsum, as they’re guaranteed bumps. Optimizing the grind methods mostly relies on knowing where the Elite Chests are and moving between them quickly, which we’ll cover briefly later

The Routes below are intended for use with groups of five, for ease of execution and already having a party to clear an Arena as well as an Expedition. They also require one or several Gathering Trade Skills to be Level 200 for Aptitude Caches.

PvP portions are recommended, as they provide four Gypsum Orbs alone but are entirely optional. Still, four out of the fifteen Orbs is a pretty sizable amount to lose out on for a small bit of suffering with PvP.

The Reekwater Gypsum Route

Before we detail the Route, here’s a quick summary of where you’ll be going for Gypsum and in which order as well as a map.

1. Reekwater Start
2. Eternal Pools
3. Protector Arena
4. Lazarus Expedition
5. Outpost Rush
6. Corrupted Breaches
7. Gather for Aptitude

Group(s) will start from Reekwater, setting their inn here and heading North towards Protector Arena and Lazarus. They’ll pop the Topaz potion when they get to the area leading up to the Arena, and clear out everything in their way to the arena, likely earning enough Topaz between the way in and pathing back out to have Orb 1, as well as Enough Named Elites for the Obsidian and Orb 2. As well as the Critrine Gypsums for Orb 3 and 4 from the Arena itself.

After this, they’ll farm out the rest of the Topaz they didn’t get in the Elite POI, if they didn’t get enough. They’ll run Lazarus, getting the Sapphire Gypsum for Orbs #5 and #6.

Then, it’s back to Reekwater to queue for Outpost Rush for Ruby Gypsum and Orbs 7 and 8. While in Queue, they’ll take out any and all Breaches for Amethyst Gypsum and Orb 9, and gather To earn the Emerald Gypsum from gaining Trade Skill Aptitude for Orb #10 if they haven’t already.

Optionally, the route is rounded off with 3v3 Arena queues and Events. This grants Orbs 11-13. Additionally, if you have the reputation Orbs 14 and 15 can be acquired from the Faction Vendor

Finally, they recall to inn to craft their Orbs and Casts, as Reekwater contains a Kiln to do so. This route will take an estimated 4 hours with overlapping objectives. The actual time depends on how quickly you complete Orbs 5 through 9.

Alternate Reekwater Gypsum Route

This is a slightly slower route than can be used in Reekwater, going from the other arena that’s further away.

1. Start in Reekwater
2. Outpost Rush
3. Gather for Aptitude
4. Corrupted Breaches
5. Siren’s Stand
6. Siren Arena
7. Lazarus Expedition

Groups Start from Reekwater, setting their inn there and immediately queuing for Outpost Rush to get Ruby Gypsums and Orbs 1 and 2. They head South toward the Siren Stand Arena, gathering to get the Emerald Gypsum for Orb 3 and clearing any nearby breaches for Amethyst Gypsum and Orb 4.

After exiting OPR, they continue heading towards Siren Arena, clearing out Elites while using Topaz potion to get both Topaz Gypsum and Obsidian Gypsum for Orbs 5 and 6. They Clear the Siren arena for the Citrine Gypsums and Orbs 7 and 8.

Finally, they recall to their inn after Siren Arena to head up to Lazarus and clear it for the Sapphire Gypsum and Orb 9. After the completion of Lazarus, finish collecting your Ruby Gypsum and Garnet Gypsum from the PvP tasks, as well as Diamond Gypsum from any ongoing events for Orbs 10-13.

If you have the Faction Reputation for it, Orbs 14 an 15 can be purchases from the Faction Vendors upon your return to town to craft.

The Edencleave Gypsum Route

This is essentially the same thing, but with a different location. It will be slightly slower (and likely cost more Azoth) just due to travel time alone. Since we have to trek or Quick Travel to Great Cleave for Corruption.

1. Start at Valor Hold OR Last Stand Outpost
2. Outpost Rush
3. Malevolence
4. Gather for Aptitude
5. Monoecious Arena
6. Garden of Genesis
7. Great Cleave/ Shattered Mountain Breaches

Group(s) start at Valor Hold Outpost or Last Stand Outpost. Then immediately queue for Outpost Rush (OPR) before leaving. Depending on the server population, this would likely pop near or around the time they reach Malevolence (unless they Quick Travel to Elysian Shrine). Outpost Rush and the Ruby Gypsum become Orbs 1 and 2.

Then after OPR, they head into Malevolence to grab Obsidian Gypsum and Topaz Gypsum for Orbs 3 and 4. After getting these two orbs, they’ll make their way East towards Monoecious Arena, gathering to get the Emerald Gypsum for Orb 5 and clearing the Arena twice for the Citrine Gypsum and Orbs 6 and 7.

Then they Quick Travel to and clear Garden of Genesis for the Sapphire Gypsum and Orbs 8 and 9 and then use the Spirit Shrine again afterwards to head over to Great Cleave to do Corrupted Breaches for Amethyst Gypsum and Orb 10.

At this point, we’re left with 3v3 Arenas for 2 Citrine Gypsum and Events for Diamond Gypsum to get a total of 13 Gypsum Orbs. Additionally, if you have Faction Reputation, this can be used for an additional 2 Gypsum Orbs for a total of 15.

How to quickly Increase your Expertise by Farming

While these are harder to give a ton of detail on, beyond focusing on Gypsum Orbs and Gypsum Casts, you can just outright grind for Expertise Bumps too. While performing the methods below, keep in mind that an enemy’s level determines their upper limit for the expertise of the gear they drop, according to the table below.

Elite Chest Runs and World Tours

Your Primary options here are the Elite POI that are 60+, with the level 65-66 areas being the best. This means Myrkgard in Shattered Mountain, Malevolence in Edengrove, and the Imperial Palace in Ebonscale Reach will be the best places to go. Some of the nearby areas in Shattered Mountain will also work decently well too despite being lower leveled.

The whole purpose is to beat down as many Elites as you can while clearing out your Elite Chests. You typically only want to do this while you have the Elite Chests available, as they provide more of the Expertise Bumps as compared to the random and infrequent drops.

Keep an eye out in World Chat for these, as people typically run them daily for various loot and not just Expertise. They will also call out World Tours (WT), which consists of multiple Elite Chest Runs back to back. These are often very large groups that will sweep through the areas very quickly making it a reliable and easy way to get Expertise.

Expedition and Mutator Runs

Elite Points of Interest aren’t the only areas to find Elite Chests, as they also appear in Expeditions. With the removal of Tuning Orbs and the addition of the Expedition Group Finder in Update 1.6, this became a fairly reliable way to grind out Expertise Bumps.

While these have a limit to how many can be run per week, it can prove to be an effective way to get some much-needed Expertise bumps. It’s a fairly high limit, sitting at 105 normal Expeditions per week and 25 Mutated Expeditions per week.

It can be a great way to get some gear, while also building up material to craft Heartrunes or other items as well.

Here at VULKK.com we have a great selection of New World Guides, including Beginner Guides, Weapon Guides and Builds and Expedition Guides. Check back regularly as we build our New World archives with more helpful content for you.