Since its introduction Guild Wars 2Its first expansion pack, “Heart of Thorns”, mastery lines allowed players to train special abilities that allow them to reach new places, improve their combat skills in some way, or interact with the world different than before. Mastery lines have been spread between releases, both the living world and expansions, and each mastery is tied to newly introduced regions.
Mastery becomes available once a character reaches level 80, the level cap, and requires “Mastery Points”, which can be obtained throughout the world. Once unlocked, they can be used on all of a player's characters, regardless of their level. While masteries were a great way to expand Guild Wars 2's prioritization of horizontal progression over the “treadmill,” most fans find some masteries more useful than others. These feats are ranked based on their overall in-game utility, execution, and game-changing potential.
7 Mastery of the Pact Commander
A line of extraordinary quality of life craftsmanship
- Total mastery point cost: 19
- Available with: any extension
Thanks to years of living worlds and expansions, Core Tyria has fallen somewhat behind. However, the Pact Commander line is a mastery line that adds enormous quality of life, available from the base game maps to players with at least one expansion. Its final unlock, Advanced Logistics, allows players to pick up loot automatically like a treasure magnet instead of having to go from one defeated enemy to another.
The line also gives the player the ability to revive others at an accelerated rate, as well as bonus crafting experience, speed in large cities, and a special “Mentor” icon on the map meant to be used to coordinate parties and help new heroes and as they begin their adventure, ideal for making new friends online.
6 Mastery of fishing
A relaxing and financially rewarding downtime
- Total mastery point cost: 20
- Available with: “The End of Dragons”
While the fishing mastery line doesn't revolutionize the activity available to Dragons' End players, maxing it out makes fishing worthwhile thanks to five consecutive 20% increases in Fishing Power (double after eating).
While there are other ways to increase fishing power, maxing out this line makes the fishing spots found throughout Tyria, Cantha, the Maguuma Jungle, and beyond more accessible and viable places to catch some pits, which can be used for to return a profit or further progression to special mounts and weapons.
5 Mastery of ancient magic
A real savior in a desperate situation
- Total mastery point cost: 24
- Available with: “Heart Of Thorns” and “Living World Season 3”
The Ancient Magics line, available to players with both “Heart of Thorns” and “Living World Season 3” episodes unlocked, is full of fun abilities from Thermal Propulsion to Oakheart's Reach, expanding on the already extensive traversal masteries of “HoT. ” However, the most evergreen of these unlocks, and a power that can be used elsewhere in the rest of Guild Wars 2, is Spectral Aid.
This adds a fifth ability for a player when knocked down that allows them to use channeled agony. Knocked Down is an extra-powerful attack with a wide area of effect. Most enemies that have three quarters of their health left will likely be knocked down by the attack, reviving the player. It also knocks enemies down, which is useful for preventing a hit from multiple attacking enemies at once, and can also be used to lower a boss's breaking bar.
4 Mastery of the household
For those who just want to settle down
- Total mastery point cost: 10
- Available with: “Janthir Wilds”
Like the fishing mastery, player housing was both a long-requested feature and something that would appeal to a subsection of Guild Wars 2 player base. His mastery line also does something akin to fishing in that it gradually improves the player's ability to do more.
Mastering the household opens up more crafting recipes to design the perfect home, access to instant household assembly methods, and of course, additional room to expand that player hosting real estate, which anyone with a taste for home decor will greatly appreciated.
3 Mastery of the Jade Muzzle
A mastery full of technological utility
- Total mastery point cost: 15
- Available with: “The End of Dragons”
While the Jade Bot mastery unlocks Cantha-specific powers for a player's Bot, it also enhances some of the player's old masteries and abilities, including giving players who glide a small mid-air boost when they need it and giving a revival aid for the downed. players with a short cooldown of ten minutes.
However, the most interesting feature of this unlock line is the “Jade Tech Waypoint”, which unlocks a personal teleporter marker. The ability to set a personal waypoint on a map (as long as the player character stays on that map) is indispensable, especially for Guild Wars 2jumping puzzles.
2 Gliding Mastery
From free fall to free flight
- Total mastery point cost: 31
- Available with: “Heart of Thorns”
Gliding has been packaged as one of the most prominent features of “Heart Of Thorn” and it's easy to see the appeal. Spending a single mastery point on gliding allows players to avoid instant death by gravity and look good on the descent. Not only that, but the ability to fly allows players to reach hard-to-reach areas of Tyria with greater ease.
The line contains plenty of other unlockable abilities related to gliding, including speed control, invisibility, and the power to take advantage of updrafts. However, the most useful is the penultimate unlock, Advanced Gliding, which removes the ability's stamina cap.
1 Skyscale Mountain Mastery
A near-breaking advantage
- Total mastery point cost: 12
- Available with: “Path of Fire” and “The Living World Season 4” or “Secrets of the Dark”
In many ways, the Skyscale mastery line is a cornerstone of all other mount masteries in “Path of Fire” and “The Living World Season 4”. Only unlocking the skyscale requires the player to unlock all the mastery lines of the other mounts (a nice task considering how well Guild Wars 2his mounts were implemented).
Once unlocked, Skyscale's first and last mastery abilities, “Air Rescue” and “Wall Launch”, make many other mounts and traversal masters (especially from “HoT”) redundant. Although unlocking all the features of the line takes a lot of time, training and gold, it is most useful in Guild Wars 2 far.
