Since the introduction ofGuild Wars 2’s first expansion pack, “Heart of Thorns,” mastery lines have allowed players to train special skills that enable them to reach new places, enhance their combat abilities in some way, or interact with the world differently than before. Mastery lines were spread out between releases, both living world and expansions, and each mastery is tied to the newly introduced regions.
Masteries become available once a character hits level 80, the level cap, and require “Mastery Points,” which can be obtained across the world. Once unlocked, they can be used for all a player’s characters, regardless of their level. While masteries were a great way to expandGuild Wars 2' prioritization of horizontal progressionover the “gear treadmill,” most fans consider some masteries more useful than others. These masteries are ranked based on their general in-game usefulness, execution, and game-changing potential.
7The Pact Commander Mastery
A Tremendous Quality Of Life Mastery Line
Thanks to years of living world and expansions, Core Tyria has been somewhat left behind. However, the Pact Commander line is one mastery line that adds enormous quality of life, available from the maps of the core game to players with at least one expansion. Its final unlock, Advanced Logistics, allows players to pick up loot automatically like a treasure magnet rather than having to go from one defeated foe to the next.
The line also grants the player the ability to revive others at an accelerated rate, as well as bonus crafting experience, speed in major cities, and a special “Mentor” icon on the map intended to be used for coordinating parties and helping new heroes and as they begin their adventure,ideal for making new online friends.
6Fishing Mastery
A Relaxing And Financially Rewarding Downtime
While the Fishing mastery line does not revolutionize the activity, available to players with “End of Dragons,” maxing it out does make fishing worthwhile, thanks to five consecutive 20% boosts to Fishing Power (double after eating a meal).
While there are other ways to increase Fishing Power, maxing out this line makes the fishing spots found all across Tyria, Cantha, the Maguuma Jungle, and beyond all the more accessible and viable spots forcatching a few whoppers, which can be used to turn a profit or further progression towards special mounts and weapons.
5The Ancient Magics Mastery
A Real Lifesaver In A Desperate Situation
The Ancient Magics line, available to players with both “Heart of Thorns” and the “Living World Season 3” episodes unlocked, is chock full of fun abilities from Thermal Propulsion to Oakheart’s Reach, expanding the already-extensive traversal masteries from “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 skill for a player when downed that allows them to use Channeled Agony. The downed skill is an extra-powerful attack with a wide area of effect. Most enemies with three-quarters of their health remaining will likely be taken down by the attack, reviving the player. It also knocks down foes, which is helpful for preventing a beatdown from several attacking foes at once and can be used to reduce a boss' break bar as well.
4The Homesteading Mastery
For Those Who Just Want To Settle Down
Like the Fishing mastery skill, player housing was both a long-requested feature and something that would appeal to a subsection of theGuild Wars 2player base. Its mastery line, too, does something similar to fishing in that it gradually enhances the player’s ability to do more of it.
Homesteading mastery opens up more crafting recipes for designing a perfect home, access to instantaneous gathering methods in the homestead, and, of course, extra space to expand thatplayer housing real estate, which anyone with a taste for home decor will massively appreciate.
3The Jade Bot Mastery
A Mastery Bursting With Tech Utility
While the Jade Bot mastery line unlocks Cantha-specific powers for a player’s Bot, it also enhances some of the player’s old masteries and abilities, including giving gliding players a little bump up in the air when they need it and offering a revival aid for downed players with a short ten-minute cooldown.
However, the most exciting feature of this unlock line is “Jade Tech Waypoint,” which unlocks a personal teleporter marker. The ability to set a personal waypoint in a map (for as long as the player character remains on that map) is indispensable, especially forGuild Wars 2’s jumping puzzles.
2The Gliding Mastery
From Freefalling To Freeflying
Gliding was packaged as one of “Heart Of Thorn”’s most prominent features, and it’s easy to see the appeal. Spending a single mastery point in gliding allows players to avoid an instant death by gravity and look good on the descent. Not only that, butthe ability to flyallows players to reach difficult-to-reach areas in Tyria with a greater degree of ease.
The line contains plenty of other gliding-related unlockable abilities, 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 endurance limit.
1The Skyscale Mount Mastery
An Almost Game-Breaking Advantage
In many ways, the Skyscale mastery line is a capstone of all the other mount masteries from “Path of Fire” and “Living World Season 4.” Just unlocking the skyscale requires the player to unlock all the mastery lines of the other mounts (an enjoyable task considering how wellGuild Wars 2’s mountswere implemented).
Once unlocked, the Skyscale’s first and final mastery abilities, “Air Rescue” and “Wall Launch,” make many other mounts and traversal masteries (especially from “HoT”) redundant. Although unlocking all the line’s features requires a lot of time, preparation, and gold, it is the most useful inGuild Wars 2by far.
