New World: What Are the Best Trade Skills?

New World‘s Trade Skills system is certainly one of the game’s most interesting features. See, instead of only allowing you to learn a couple of Trade Skills at a time (which are broken down into Gathering, Refining, and Crafting categories), New World lets you learn all 16 available trades at once. On top of that, it turns out that the majority of the game’s Trade Skills are genuinely useful and arguably equally valuable.

While that kind of design approach means that you can (and maybe should) learn as many Trade Skills as possible, the fact of the matter is that most New World players are only going to be able to focus on learning a few trades at a time. That’s naturally going to cause a lot of those players to eventually ask the question “What are the best Trade Skills in the game?”

Well, the truth of the matter is that if there is one Trade Skill to rule them all, we haven’t discovered it yet. However, here are a few early observations we have about some of New World‘s various trades that may help you decide which to focus on on your path to level 60.

You Can’t Go Wrong With Mining and Logging

If you have to focus on just a couple of Gathering trades out of the gate, it’s hard to go wrong with Mining and Logging.

Mining and Logging yield incredibly valuable resources that already seem to be in demand during the early stages of the game and will likely remain valuable for quite some time. Even if your server’s market is eventually flooded with these resources, it will always be nice to be able to rely on gathering them yourself rather than having to trade for them or buy them.

Don’t Overlook Fishing

Fishing may not be the most appealing of the Gathering trades, but part of the reason it’s so valuable is that many players end up overlooking it.

Not only is Fishing a great way to fill your personal food supplies, but you’d be surprised how often other players will end up needing the Fish Oil that only you can provide. Late game Fishing activities will also occasionally reward you with lucrative treasures.

Smelting and Stonecutting Are Almost Always Useful

It’s hard to go wrong with most of the Refinement Trade Skills in New World, but there’s something to be said for the value of Smelting and Stonecutting at this early point in the game.

Not only are these skills directly related to Mining (which is arguably the most valuable overall Gathering Trade Skill), but they yield incredibly useful refined resources that will likely be prized by other players for quite some time.

Woodworking is An Excellent Complimentary Trade

Much like smelting and stonecutting, some of the value of Woodworking comes from its close association with Logging: one of the more valuable gathering trades at the moment.

Beyond that, Woodworking directly benefits the Weaponsmithing, Engineering, and Furnishing trades, which makes it one of the more complete of the complimentary Refining Trade Skills at this time.

Weaving is Surprisingly Versatile

Weaving has proven to be one of the most versatile Refinement trades in the early days of New World, and it’s honestly not hard to see why once you get a feel for how the game’s marketplace and crafting systems work.

Not only is Weaving associated with the Harvesting profession (which is certainly valuable but frustrating enough to scare off many players), but the cloth you get from Weaving proves to be incredibly useful in a surprising number of scenarios.

Cooking Will (Probably) Always Be Useful

If the history of MMOs is any indication, Cooking will likely be the New World trade that excites nobody and ends up being valued by pretty much everyone.

While it’s easy enough to acquire basic food without focusing on Cooking, this trade’s high-end recipes grant incredibly beneficial buffs that will almost certainly be valuable to late-game New World players. Now, it’s just a matter of waiting until enough people reach that point in the game.

Arcana Is a Complicated (But Interesting) Trade Option

At the moment, Arcana might be a tough sell for the majority of New World players. After all, it’s complicated, expensive, and doesn’t necessarily yield the best immediate rewards.

However, the “ace” up this trade’s sleeve is the ability to craft potions. Once New World players start running endgame content, you can pretty much guarantee that potions are going to sell quickly. So far as that goes, it’s almost always more useful to be the supplier than the buyer.

Jewelcrafting Could Be One of New World’s Most Profitable Trades

If you’re committed to that Mining/Smelting/Stonecutting lifestyle, then you pretty much have to focus on Jewelcrafting at some point.

Not only is Jewelcrafting the natural evolution of those other trades, but a Jewelcrafer’s ability to create trinkets means that they can make items that are incredibly useful to every other player in the game regardless of their professions and builds.

Furnishing Could be a Sleeper Hit Trade in New World’s Late Game

On the surface, the ability to create furniture probably doesn’t sound like the most appealing trade. Honestly, it might end up being more of a novelty than anything.

However, there’s something to be said for the fact that certain pieces of furniture not only grant beneficial bonuses but will likely eventually be “overvalued” by endgame New World players who don’t have as much “new” content to explore and will probably end up killing time by filling their homes with exciting new items.

Weaponsmithing or Armoring?

While you can obviously level up both Weaponsmithing and Armoring, you might reach a crossroads where you’ll need to decide whether to focus on one or the other for the time being.

Theoretically, Armorsmithing is the more “valuable” trade due to the fact that more players use armor than use melee weapons, but the popularity of melee weapons at the moment combined with the trade’s upgrade perks means that high-end Weaponsmiths might be incredibly popular in a couple of weeks.