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
The Mastery system is an account-wide PvE progression system for level 80 characters that provides account-wide benefits such as gliding, mounts, fishing, etc. The mastery system interface is accessed through the bottom left tab of the hero panel, and is divided into regional sections, one per expansion.
Each mastery is permanently acquired through the following process:
- Reach level 80 (and complete the required story step for expansions).
- Click on a mastery track to start training it. Earn enough experience in that region to fill the progress yellow bar.
- Collect enough mastery points from mastery insights and eligible achievements.
- Click on a mastery icon to spend the points, which unlocks the trained mastery for your account permanently.
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 and its region sections[edit]
The mastery system is unlocked when a character on the account reaches level 80 and the account owns a live expansion (pre-purchasing an expansion won't unlock the mastery system). When both are true, the mastery system unlocks by giving access to the Central Tyria region section.
To unlock the other region sections, the player must own their pertaining expansion and unlock any mastery track inside that region section. Some tracks are easily unlocked by completing that expansion's early story chapters. For example, the first chapter of Heart of Thorns, Torn from the Sky, unlocks the Gliding track. Other ways to unlock a mastery track include unlocking a mount, entering specific maps, or even killing a raid boss in Heart of Thorns raids.
Check the Mastery track section to see how to unlock a specific mastery track.
Acquiring a mastery[edit]
To acquire a mastery, players will need to select one to start training it, earn enough experience to fully train it, and then spend mastery points to acquire it.
Training a mastery[edit]
To train a mastery, players simply need to access the mastery system interface and select a mastery. If the player does not manually select a mastery, the game will automatically start training the first mastery available.
Once the player is training a mastery from a region, all experience earned in that region (except experience gained from levelling crafting disciplines) will go towards progressing that selected mastery and their experience bar will change to track the current progress.
Moving to a different region will automatically swap to the respective mastery track for that region. Gliding masteries can only be trained in Heart of Thorns and season 3 maps, raptor masteries can only be trained in Path of Fire and season 4 maps, and so on.
Players can switch their mastery in training without losing any progress (experience gained) on it.
Once a mastery has been fully trained, the experience bar will start blinking and the mastery can be unlocked using mastery points. 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).
Mastery Points[edit]
Mastery points are a currency used for acquiring masteries. As players progress through the game, they will earn mastery points. These points are stored in the player's account permanently once obtained (even if the player has not unlocked the mastery system yet).
All mastery points are earned by completing achievements. Most of these require communing with Mastery Insights found in the open world. Other sources include completing certain story chapters or steps, earning silver or gold rewards on adventures, unlocking mounts, etc. Achievements can be filtered to show only those that give mastery points or mastery points belonging to a specific region.
Each mastery region has its own type of mastery point, easily discernible by color (green for Heart of Thorns, purple for Path of Fire, etc.). Masteries can only be acquired by using mastery points of their corresponding region. For instance, the Gliding mastery can only be acquired with Heart of Thorns mastery points, the Raptor mount mastery can only be acquired with Path of Fire mastery points, and so on.
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.
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).
While training a mastery, the icon for that 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[edit]
Mastery tracks are split into sections; each section 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 section (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 | Any expansion |
Pact Commander | 19 | Unlock a mastery track from another category or earn a central Tyria mastery point at level 80. |
Legendary Crafting | 19 | Unlock a mastery track from another category or earn a central Tyria mastery point at level 80. |
Fractal Attunement | 11 | Unlock a mastery track from another category or earn a central Tyria mastery point at level 80. |
Heart of Thorns | 144 | |
Gliding | 31 | Complete the story chapter Torn from the Sky. |
Itzel Lore | 31 | Complete the story chapter Torn from the Sky. |
Exalted Lore | 19 | Enter Auric Basin. |
Nuhoch Lore | 31 | Enter Tangled Depths. |
Raids | 8 | Kill a boss in the Forsaken Thicket or Bastion of the Penitent raids. |
Ancient Magics | 24 | Enter Bloodstone Fen or Ember Bay. |
Path of Fire | 110 | |
Raptor Mount | 10 | Unlock the raptor by saving Seeker's Village during the story chapter Sparking the Flame. |
Springer Mount | 14 | Purchase the springer from the Highjump Ranch task vendor in the Desert Highlands. |
Skimmer Mount | 22 | Purchase the skimmer from the Skimmer Ranch task vendor in the Elon Riverlands. |
Jackal Mount | 14 | Purchase the jackal from the Sand Jackal Run task vendor in the Desolation. |
Griffon Mount | 12 | Unlock the griffon by completing the Path of Fire story and the Open Skies collections. |
Roller Beetle Mount | 12 | Unlock the roller beetle by entering the Domain of Kourna and completing its collections. |
Skyscale Mount | 12 | Unlock the skyscale by completing the War Eternal story and the subsequent collections. |
Crystal Champion | 14 | Enter any Living World Season 4 zone. |
Icebrood Saga | 63 | |
Raven Attunement | 6 | Complete the story chapter Silence, enter Bjora Marches or gain an Icebrood Saga mastery point from strike mission achievements. |
Resilience Essence Manipulation | 7 | Unlock Raven's Light in the Raven Attunement track. |
Valor Essence Manipulation | 7 | Unlock Raven's Light in the Raven Attunement track. |
Vigilance Essence Manipulation | 7 | Unlock Raven's Light in the Raven Attunement track. |
United Legions Waystation Synchronization | 16 | Enter Drizzlewood Coast. |
Dragon Slayer | 20 | Complete the story chapter Tidings and Misgivings. |
End of Dragons | 89 | |
Fishing | 20 | Complete the story chapter Old Friends. |
Skiff Piloting | 14 | Purchase the skiff from the Hall Director Soohee task vendor in Seitung Province. |
Jade Bots | 15 | Complete the story chapter The Scenic Route. |
Arborstone Revitalization | 20 | Complete the story chapter Fallout. |
Turtle Mount | 20 | Unlock the siege turtle by acquiring a Turtle Egg and completing the subsequent collections. |
Secrets of the Obscure | 88 | |
Heart of the Obscure Research | 20 | Unlock the Heart of the Obscure during the story chapter Hell Breaks Loose. |
Flight Training | 25 | Complete the story chapter Hell Breaks Loose. |
Astral Ward | 27 | Complete the story chapter The Missing Facet. |
Inner Nayos | 16 | Complete the story chapter Duress. |
Janthir Wilds | 57 | |
Warclaw Mount | 20 | Subdue and return the Warclaw during the story chapter Unknown Territory. |
Lowland Kodan | 27 | Introduce yourself to Mists of Dawn during the story chapter Diplomacy and Discovery. |
Homesteading | 10 | Complete the story chapter Home Sweet Home. |
Total | 600 |
Excess experience and Spirit Shards[edit]
Experience earned at level 80 is never wasted. In the following circumstances, experience earned will go towards a 254,000 experience repeatable track to gain 1 Spirit Shard when completed, like a normal level up reward.[1]
- Level 80 players on an account that has not purchased any expansion and thus has not yet unlocked the mastery system.
- Level 80 player with the mastery system unlocked but all masteries fully trained. This includes:
- tracks trained and acquired.
- tracks trained but not acquired.
Tracks that have not yet been unlocked don't count. For example, a player who has fully trained the Raptor mastery track and has no other Path of Fire mastery track unlocked will start earning Spirit Shards in Path of Fire and Season 4 maps.
Gallery[edit]
Notes[edit]
- A total of 219,568,158 experience is required to reach mastery rank 600, including the 4,860,359 necessary to reach level 80.
- The mastery point system was introduced with Heart of Thorns and requires an expansion.
- It is possible to change your current mastery in training while in combat by opening the hero panel through the UI icon or by pressing H. Out of combat, it can also be opened by clicking the experience bar.
- Masteries are active regardless of level, a level 2 character can glide if Glider Basics has already been unlocked on a Level 80 character on the same account. Spectral Aid is an exception and only becomes active at level 80.
- Dungeons, Fractals of the Mist, Southsun Cove, and Living World Season 2 regions contribute to Central Tyria Mastery experience.
- Living World Season 3 regions contribute to Heart of Thorns mastery experience.
- Living World Season 4 regions contribute to Path of Fire mastery experience.
- Raids, Dragon Response Missions, Strike Missions, etc. all contribute mastery experience to their pertaining expansion.
- The mastery system is exclusive to Player versus Environment content.