Mastery

“

You have earned your first Mastery Point! Masteries are abilities that can be trained by level-80 characters with access to expansion content.

— In-game description

Mastery interface:
(1) Total amount of spent mastery points,
(2) Current regional block,
(3) Current mastery track,
(4) Number of available (unspent) mastery points for this region block,
(5) Permanently acquired masteries,
(6) The mastery currently being trained, and the progress experience bar (full),
(7) Number of mastery points needed to permanently acquire the mastery after it is fully trained.

The Mastery system is an account-wide progression system for level 80 characters that provides players with account-wide benefits such as gliding, mounts, etc. The mastery system interface is accessed through the bottom left tab of the hero panel, and is divided into regional blocks: Central Tyria mastery tracks, Heart of Thorns mastery tracks, Path of Fire mastery tracks, Icebrood Saga mastery tracks, and End of Dragons mastery tracks.

Each mastery is permanently acquired through the following process, further detailed below: 1: Start training a mastery, earn enough experience to fill the progress yellow bar. 2: Earn enough mastery points. 3: Spend your mastery points to permanently acquire the trained mastery for your account.

See Mastery point unlocks for a full list of all the mastery points in the game. There are far more mastery points than are needed to acquire all masteries.

Unlocking the mastery system

To unlock the mastery system, you must own any expansion and unlock one of its mastery tracks. This can for instance be done by completing certain story chapters:

• Heart of Thorns, Act 1: Torn from the Sky
• Path of Fire, Act 1: Sparking the Flame
• The Icebrood Saga, Episode 1 (Whisper in the Dark): Silence
• End of Dragons, Act 1: Old Friends

Alternatively, some mastery tracks can also be completed outside of the story in order to unlock the system, such as killing a raid boss in Heart of Thorns raids, entering some Living World zones, or completing certain achievements in strike missions.

Unlocking any mastery track will also unlock all mastery tracks in the Central Tyria mastery category. However, other mastery tracks and regions must be unlocked separately. For example, a player that completes the first chapter of the Heart of Thorns story unlocks the first two Heart of Thorns mastery tracks and all Central Tyria mastery tracks for their account, but will not unlock the Path of Fire mastery category—they will need to do the first chapter of the Path of Fire story to unlock this. Similarly, unlocking the "Raids" mastery track first will also unlock the Central Tyria mastery tracks but not the rest of the Heart of Thorns or other categories.

Note: Certain mastery tracks within each category may be locked until certain conditions have been fulfilled (e.g. enter a map for the first time). See the mastery tracks table for more details.

Players should note that mastery points (explained below) are saved forever in their account, and are never lost, even if they haven't unlocked the mastery system.

Acquiring a mastery

To acquire a mastery, players will need to start training it, earn enough experience to fully train it, and then spend mastery points to acquire it.

Training a mastery

To train a mastery, players simply need to access the mastery system interface and select a mastery. Up to one mastery track can be trained per region (i.e. Central Tyria, Heart of Thorns, Path of Fire, etc.) at one time.

Once the player is training a mastery, all experience earned will go towards progressing the selected mastery for that region and their experience bar will change to track the current progress (does not include experience gained from leveling crafting disciplines). If a level 80 player has not yet unlocked the mastery system, earned experience will go towards a track that rewards spirit shards when completed (i.e. the normal "level up" reward). If the mastery system has been unlocked but no mastery track has been selected, any experience earned will go towards the first untrained mastery track for that region.

Moving to a different region will automatically swap to the respective mastery track for that region. It is not possible to train a mastery track in a region that is not where the mastery is from. Players can switch their mastery in training without losing any progress (experience gained) on it.

For example, a player training the Raptor Mount mastery will only be able to earn experience towards said mastery within any region belonging to Path of Fire. Experience earned in Heart of Thorns or Central Tyria regions will not train the raptor mastery—instead, they will train the mastery track that was selected for that particular region.

Once a mastery track has been fully trained, it may be unlocked using mastery points (see below). If a player does not have enough mastery points to unlock the mastery, additional experience gained in that region will spill over to the next available untrained mastery track (or a player can select the next track to train manually). In the case where every remaining track has a full experience bar and the player does not have enough mastery points, additional experience will go towards a track that rewards spirit shards when completed (i.e. the normal "level up" reward).

Players that have acquired all the masteries that are available to them but have not completed the prerequisites for the hidden tracks for the region they are currently in will return to the usual experience bar that rewards a spirit shard upon completion.

For example, for Path of Fire masteries, only the Raptor, Springer, Skimmer, and Jackal mastery tracks are available at the start. The Griffon, Roller Beetle, Skyscale, and Crystal Champion mastery tracks are hidden until their requirements have been met (see below for unlock requirements).

Mastery Points

Mastery points are a currency used for acquiring masteries. As players progress through the game, they will earn mastery points. All mastery points are earned by completing achievements. These points are stored in the player's account permanently once obtained (even if the player has not unlocked the mastery system), and may be spent to permanently acquire a mastery once the yellow experience bar for the currently-tracked mastery is filled. Achievements can be filtered to show only those that give mastery points or mastery points belonging to a specific region.

Achievements that reward mastery points include but are not limited to:

• Communing with Mastery Insights.
• Completing certain story chapters or steps.
• Finishing various scavenger hunt and exploration achievements.
• Defeating certain world bosses.
• Earning silver or gold rewards on adventures.
• Earning world completion.
• Purchasing mounts from renown hearts.

Each of the mastery regions has its own type of mastery point, easily discernible by color (red for Central Tyria, green for Heart of Thorns, etc.) Each mastery can only be acquired by using mastery points of the corresponding region. For instance, the Gliding mastery can only be acquired from the Heart of Thorns mastery points, while Raptor mastery comes from earning Path of Fire mastery points, and so on.

Icon	Type	Total
	Central Tyria mastery points	83
	Heart of Thorns mastery points	198
	Path of Fire mastery points	130
	Icebrood Saga mastery points	76
	End of Dragons mastery points	115

See Mastery point unlocks for a full list of all the mastery points in the game. There are far more mastery points than are needed to acquire all masteries.

Acquiring a mastery

Once a mastery is fully trained by obtaining enough experience, the experience bar will start blinking and players will be able to spend the required amount of mastery points to permanently acquire the mastery on their account. All acquired masteries are available to all characters in the account, regardless of their level (except Spectral Aid which is only active for level 80 characters).

Before spending the points to acquire a mastery, or switching to train another mastery, any additional experience (up to one full XP bar) gained will be redirected to training the next unlocked, untrained, least progressed mastery track in the same region, if one is available.

While training a mastery, the icon for the mastery appears in the bottom right corner of the screen, to the right of the experience bar. If no track is currently selected, the icon area will be blank. If all Mastery Tracks are completed, the spirit shard icon will be shown instead.

To the left of the experience bar, the total number of mastery points spent will be displayed, referred to as your "Mastery rank".

Mastery track

Mastery tracks are split into blocks; each block has a separate set of mastery points earned by playing its content, which can only be spent on the respective masteries. Before masteries from a given track within a block (such as gliding) can be trained, the entire track must be unlocked by completing a certain task.

Category / Track	Total	Unlock requirement
Central Tyria	49
Pact Commander	19	Unlocking a mastery track from another category
Legendary Crafting	19	Unlocking a mastery track from another category
Fractal Attunement	11	Unlocking a mastery track from another category
Heart of Thorns	144
Gliding	31	Completing Torn from the Sky
Itzel Lore	31	Completing Torn from the Sky
Exalted Lore	19	Entering Auric Basin
Nuhoch Lore	31	Entering Tangled Depths
Raids	8	Killing a boss in the Forsaken Thicket or Bastion of the Penitent raids
Ancient Magics	24	Entering Bloodstone Fen or Ember Bay
Path of Fire	110
Raptor Mount	10	Unlocking the raptor by saving Seeker's Village during Sparking the Flame
Springer Mount	14	Purchasing the springer from the Highjump Ranch task vendor in the Desert Highlands
Skimmer Mount	22	Purchasing the skimmer from the Skimmer Ranch task vendor in the Elon Riverlands
Jackal Mount	14	Purchasing the jackal from the Sand Jackal Run task vendor in the Desolation
Griffon Mount	12	Unlocking the griffon by completing the Path of Fire story and the Open Skies collections
Roller Beetle Mount	12	Unlocking the roller beetle by entering the Domain of Kourna and completing its collections
Skyscale Mount	12	Unlocking the skyscale by completing the War Eternal story and the subsequent collections
Crystal Champion	14	Entering any Living World Season 4 zone
Icebrood Saga	63
Raven Attunement	6	Unlocked during the Silence story step, upon entering Bjora Marches, or when gaining an Icebrood Saga mastery point from strike mission achievements
Resilience Essence Manipulation	7	Unlocking Raven's Light in the Raven Attunement track
Valor Essence Manipulation	7	Unlocking Raven's Light in the Raven Attunement track
Vigilance Essence Manipulation	7	Unlocking Raven's Light in the Raven Attunement track
United Legions Waystation Synchronization	16	Entering Drizzlewood Coast
Dragon Slayer	20	Completing Tidings and Misgivings
End of Dragons	89
Fishing	20	Completing the chapter Old Friends in the End of Dragons story
Skiff Piloting	14	Purchasing the skiff from the Hall Director Soohee task vendor in Seitung Province
Jade Bots	15	Completing the chapter The Scenic Route in the End of Dragons story
Arborstone Revitalization	20	Completing the chapter Fallout in the End of Dragons story
Turtle Mount	20	Unlocking the siege turtle by acquiring a Turtle Egg and completing the subsequent collections
Total	455

Notes

• A total of 170,292,158 experience is required to reach mastery rank 455, including the 4,860,359 necessary to reach level 80.
• The mastery point system was introduced with Heart of Thorns, and requires an expansion.
• The hero panel to change your current mastery cannot be opened by clicking on the experience bar while in combat; the current mastery can, however, be changed at any time in the hero panel if it's opened previously or by any other means.
• Almost all obtained Masteries are active regardless of level. That means even a Level 2 character can glide if Glider Basics has already been unlocked on a Level 80 character on the same account.
  • Spectral Aid only becomes active at level 80.
• Experience acquired in a region will only contribute to the masteries of that region:
  • Central Tyria regions (core game), Southsun Cove, and Living World Season 2 regions will contribute to Central Tyria Mastery experience.
  • Heart of Thorns and Living World Season 3 regions will contribute to Heart of Thorns Mastery experience.
  • Path of Fire and Living World Season 4 regions will contribute to Path of Fire Mastery experience.
  • Icebrood Saga regions will contribute to Icebrood Saga Mastery experience.
  • End of Dragons regions will contribute to End of Dragons Mastery experience.
• Once all the available masteries of the region are acquired, experience goes towards a 254,000 experience repeatable track to gain 1 Spirit Shard.
  • If all masteries have been trained but not acquired, any experience earned will be sent to a hidden experience bar that will give spirit shards once all masteries in that region have been acquired.

Gallery

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  Mastery Insight.

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  "Mastery Point Earned" notice.

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  Mastery interface during Heart of Thorns beta weekends.

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  Mastery interface locked before level 80.

External links

• Reimagining Progression: The Mastery System