Arcana might be the hardest crafting trade skill to level in the world of Aeternum. Even if the materials needed can be acquired from all gathering trade skills, you will need specific items to be efficient when leveling Arcana.

In this New World Arcana leveling guide, I’ll show you how to level up Arcana in New World as efficiently as possible.

Please note, it will still be grindy. But there are ways to ensure you’re not wasting time and I’ll share everything you need below.

If you already know the basics of this craft, skip the first couple of sections and move straight to the best way to level Arcana for each skill level bracket.

Let’s get into it, shall we?

What is Arcana Crafting?

Arcana 400 Focus Potions

Arcana is a whole new branch of the crafting tree in New World. It deals with all things magic and alchemy. This can be compared to Alchemy in other MMORPGs — it’s basically the same thing. Arcana is New World alchemy.

Leveling up Arcana will allow you to craft potions, Arcana resources (Motes and Wisps), staves, ice gauntlets, and other intelligence-based weapons. You will have a wide variety of potions to craft and while most of them are niche, some of them are extremely profitable.

This is because most potions are used for combat where they just give you an advantage over a player who does not use them.

Materials Needed for Arcana

Rivercress

My strategy for getting all the resources to level my Arcana skill is loosely based on my gathering guides. I did the fastest way to level up harvesting skills guide where the routes I farmed gave me a ton of Tier 2 Reagents as well as thousands of Motes (mostly Water Motes) to use.

I was able to gather around 100 Blightroot Stems and close to 300 Rivercress Stems. Among other things, you will also get the Oil used from the harvesting route and a ton of Tanglewisps and Fronded Petalcaps.

Now, we need more than herbs to level up your Arcana skill so you would also need a ton of mining resources. Luckily, I also did our fastest way to level up mining skills guide, so I had a ton of mining materials.

In fact, the harvesting route also had a lot of Iron Veins and Seeping Stones which greatly helped me build up resources for this. Here are the materials you will need and most of them are generalized because you would have more options for Arcana crafting anyway.

  • Oil (Here’s how to get oil in New World)
  • Hyssop (only around 60)
  • Tanglewisps (only around 100-120)
  • As many Tier 2 and Tier 3 Magical Plants, you can gather (Rivercress Stems, Lifebloom Leaves, Shockbulb Leaves, etc.)
  • Fresh Water (easily farmed in the settlement anyway)
  • Coarse Leather (as many as you can)
  • Steel Ingots (as many as you can)
  • Motes (Any kind of motes but I used Water and Light)

Note: Coarse Leather is from Rawhides which you should have a lot of from questing when you skin enemies. Steel Ingots are from Green Wood (for Charcoal), Iron Ingots, and Sand Flux (Level 2 Faction Rewards – Common Material Converter to Smelter Sand Flux Recipe).

While Arcana might be one of the hardest crafts to level up, it is extremely flexible as you use almost all the gathering resources in the game. This includes fishing, mining, harvesting, and skinning resources.

Choosing the Right Location

Yes, you will need to choose the right location to do all this crafting. Why? Your storage shed is separate from each of the settlements in New World. You might have some of your materials in Monarch’s Bluff, Everfall, and Windsward so you will not be able to utilize all of them.

Location is important because not all settlements will have an Arcane Repository Tier 3 or above. This crafting tier is required for getting your Arcana skill from 60 and above.

If you have most of your materials in a certain place without an Arcane Repository Tier 3, a good trick is buying a house for your main storage shed. If most of your items are in Windsward, buy a house there.

When the only available Arcane Repository Tier 3-4 are in another town like Everfall, run to that settlement and set your Inn/respawn there.

You will now have the option to recall to your Inn and recall to your house. Both have long cooldowns but you can transfer as many items as your character can carry from one settlement to another in a blink of an eye.

The Best Way to Level Arcana in New World

Arcana Common Mana Potion

Arcana Skill 1-60

Arcane Repository Tier 2 needed

  • +55 weak health potions (+6 Arcana each)
  • +40 common mana potions (+24 Arcana each)
  • +17 common ancient coating (+36 Arcana each)
  • +144 common corruption tincture (+36 Arcana each)
  • +419 common focus potions (+24 Arcana each)

This might be a little overboard on common focus potions but I really had a ton of resources for it. After all this crafting, you will reach exactly Arcana Skill 60. As you may have noticed from the crafts, none of these are giving you high enough Arcana points for leveling. Save your Life Motes if you can.

Arcana Skill 60-100

Steel Life Staff

Arcane Repository Tier 3 needed

  • Steel Life Staff (+690 Arcana)
  • Steel Ice Gauntlet (+690 Arcana)

You can start as early as Arcana Skill 50 for this staff and gauntlet but I maximized all the materials I had to make it easier for what is coming next. These are by far the most efficient ones because it is so easy to get the materials for them.

Steel Life Staff gives +690 Arcana skills per craft for 12 Steel Ingots, 5 Coarse Leather, and 6 Life Motes. Most materials can be farmed in the early stages of the game which should give you a lot of crafting opportunities.

Steel Ice Gauntlet also gives +690 Arcana skills per craft for 12 Steel Ingots, 5 Coarse Leather, and 6 Water Motes.

Steel Ingots will need a little bit of work since you will need some Sand Flux. The Iron Ingots can all be farmed through the harvesting route guide before. The same goes for the Life Motes as there are a lot of Lifeblooms too.

Arcana Skill 100+

Arcane Repository Tier 4 needed

  • Starmetal Life Staff (+1725 Arcana each)
  • Starmetal Ice Gauntlets (+1725 Arcana each)

If you want things a little faster and you are high level enough to farm these materials, you can opt to get Starmetal Ingots and upgrade your staff crafting. This gives +1725 Arcana for each craft and the only main difference is the Starmetal Ingots.

You are using the same Coarse Leather, Water Motes, and Life Motes for each craft, but add an additional Blessed Crucible for the recipe. You will need to maximize your mining skill for this one though as Starmetal is hard to find in bunches.

You can alternate between crafting both staves and gauntlets until you reach your desired level. You can also go for other crafts where you have the materials. You can check the lower-right section of the crafting page to see how much Arcana you will receive for crafting an item.

Tips for Arcana Crafting

Territorial Incentives

Territory Incentives

The discount for taxes will save you a lot of coins but this is only for players who are in the company that owns the settlement. Take advantage of this if you are able to. Global Luck will also be a factor just for the additional crafting procs.

Do not turn Motes to Wisps

Once you unlock this transmute at Arcana level 25, you might be tempted to craft this as you have a ton of Elemental Motes from your gathering.

If you are using this for a particular craft/quest, you can do it. If it is for leveling your Arcana skill, steer away from this. You will need these Motes as you can see above. Even Fire and Death Motes have good recipes.

It is just that the Life Staff and Ice Gauntlet are more efficient. If you happen to have other resources, capitalize on them and craft other materials that give high Arcana skills.

Crafting too many potions is bad

It is hard but if you get to a certain level, these potions do not matter as much. Crafting Tier 2 potions when you are at Arcana level 50 is a little unreasonable. My 400 Focus Potion crafts barely made a dent.

It was for the experiment because of the number of resources I had but, you should stick to the staves and gauntlets.

Depositing your resources at a specific location

You should really pay attention to all the crafting levels of each settlement. If you want to focus on Arcana first, you can deposit all these resources at a settlement with a maxed-out Arcane Repository.

It will save you a lot of time from transferring resources from one location to another. The same goes for other crafting trade skills such as Cooking, Weaponsmithing, Armoring, etc. However, Arcana uses resources from almost all materials.

This is why it is hard to manage your storage strategically. You need to plan ahead of time if you really want to level up your Arcana skill.

Based on the Territorial Incentives above, if your current faction is controlling a settlement with an Arcane Repository Level 4, that will be the ideal location for leveling up your Arcana skills. If not, you can deposit your items at a settlement your faction owns to make it easier as well.

Settlement changes ownership frequently so it is hard to be specific.

Final Thoughts

As an experienced MMORPG player playing on and off for almost 20 years, the crafting system in New World introduced a fun element by intertwining it with other features.

You will need to control forts, manage settlements, and be more active socially. This can directly impact your crafting skill just by the strategic locations of these Tier 4 Arcane Repositories alone.

If you just want a free-flowing style of gameplay, you can craft whatever you want as long as you find the most efficient way to level Arcana skill. You can find it by just looking at the materials needed for the craft, Arcana skills received per craft, and calculate if it is worth it or not.