By adjusting the power of WC target, novel TiN-WC films with different proportions of WC phase were prepared on TiN interlayer using the hybrid technique of arc ion plating (AIP) and magnetron sputtering (MS). The TiN-WC films were characterized by XRD, XPS, AFM, FESEM, Nano-indenter, and UMT-2MT tribometer. The TiN-WC film that is composed with TiN and WC phases was grown by 15-25 nm nano-dotes along the primarily growth direction TiN (1 1 1) in AIP interlayer. Among the three TiN-WC films deposited at various powers of WC target, the TiN-WC2 (500 W) has the highest deposition rate of 1.4 nm/min. The content of WC phase increases as WC target power increases in the TiN-WC films. However, the deposition rate of TiN-WC film gains at first and then declines when WC target power exceeds 500 W because of the addictive poisoning of Ti target. In the present case, the incorporation of WC into TiN is found to result in a slight decrease in friction coefficient. Furthermore, the wear mechanism of multilayer AIP TiN films and MS TiN-WC/AIP TiN films was transformed from "severe wear" to "mild wear". As a result, the 48TiN52WC film of 35 GPa hardness exhibits better tribological performance. Crown Copyright (c) 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.