The Mastery System - Guild Wars 2 Guide - IGN (2024)

The Mastery system is an account-wide progression system available once players reach level 80, the maximum level available. Masteries are abilities unlocked through the mastery system and are each associated with a mastery track. Mastery tracks are organized by region. Each mastery point need only be obtained once per account and has an associated achievement marked with the relevant mastery point symbol in the achievement UI. Mastery training progress is also account-wide, allowing progression to be made on any level 80 character that gains experience.

Players unlock masteries by fully training a selected mastery track and spending the requisite number of mastery points in the mastery tab of the Hero window. Once a character reaches level 80, its experience bar is replaced with the mastery training bar, and players train a selected mastery track by gaining experience.

Mastery Track

Mastery tracks are split between regions; each region has a separate set of mastery points earned from different achievements, which can only be spent on the respective masteries. Before masteries from a given track can be trained, the entire track must be unlocked by completing a certain task.

Mastery Points

Mastery points can be spent on selected Mastery tracks; they are earned from completing achievements within the game, but may only be spent after reaching level 80.

These achievements include but are not limited to:

• Interacting with Maguuma Mastery Insight locations
• Completing achievements for a story chapter or step (a maximum of one point per chapter on an account basis, up to a total of 11)
• Finishing various scavenger hunt/location hunting achievements
• Defeating certain world bosses
• Earning silver or gold in an adventure
• Achieving world completion

Here is a list of Mastery Insights in Crystal Desert, Heart of Maguuma and Central Tyria.

Mastery experience

When you own Heart of Thorns, and one of your character reaches level 80 and completes the story chapter Torn from the Sky, the Masteries tab will unlock in the Hero panel for your account. You can also open this panel by clicking on the experience bar. In this tab, you can select one unlocked mastery track per region as active by clicking on the check mark icon on the left of the chosen mastery's row. There are currently two mastery regions: Heart of Maguuma and Central Tyria.

All experience gained on any level 80 character on your account while in one of the regions will be applied to the respective active mastery. You can freely switch the active masteries without any cost, as the amount of experience previously gained will be saved until you return to train that mastery. Once the current active mastery is fully trained by obtaining enough experience, the experience bar will start blinking and you can spend a certain amount of mastery points in the Masteries tab to permanently unlock the mastery on your account. Before you spend the points or switch to train another mastery, any experience gained will be redirected to train the first unlocked, untrained, least progressed mastery track in the list for the same region instead, if one is available

Notes

• 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.
• 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.
• Any experience acquired in Heart of Thorns maps will only contribute to Heart of Maguuma masteries. Experience acquired elsewhere will give experience to your current Central Tyria track.
• Experience received in WvW currently does not contribute to any mastery track.
• Once all tracks in a region are completed, experience goes towards a 254,000 repeatable track to gain 1 Spirit Shard.