Once you reach the max level of 80 in Guild Wars 2, you will still get experience from all activities, but all of it will go to the Mastery bar. With it, you can train into all sorts of things depending on the regions you have unlocked.
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With well over a decade under its belt, Guild Wars 2 offers plenty of things to expand your character with this system, so many in fact that they're getting hard to count. Knowing what to level up and in what order will help you get the best experience in the game, be it to traverse the landscape or get an edge in combat.
10 Nuhoch Lore
While specific to the Heart of Thorns maps, the Nuhoch Lore Mastery Line offers great improvements for your character over the other Lore lines. The Exalted mostly give you perks for their solitary map. And while the Itzel’s ability to avoid poison clouds is nice, none of them appear beyond the Maguuma Jungle.
The Nuhoch’s main benefits are stealth detection and chak acid removal. Stealth detection is a must-have since it removes invisibility from enemies within the Heart of Thorns era, including the very coveted Treasure Mushrooms. And chak acid removal will make dealing with these enemies much easier since their main threat is their acidic goo.
9 Ancient Magics
The Mastery Line for Ancient Magics includes a lot of fun toys that can’t really be used in any other maps. They are very creative, however, and the developers do come back to old content to update it every now and again. The Oakheart’s Reach, for example, was updated after release to be usable inside Guild Halls, letting you swing around like Tarzan everywhere.
Yet the real reason this Line is ranked at all is for the Spectral Aid. This was the first ever Mastery to change how a core mechanic works, specifically getting downed. With this Mastery unlocked, you will gain life steal when downed and get a massive attack to knock up all enemies.
8 Fishing
Unlocked during the End of Dragons storyline, the Fishing Mastery might not seem like much at first glance. Yet what seems like a simple mini-game adds a lot, not just to gameplay but to the core systems of the game. Like other mini-games introduced during Guild Wars 2’s lifespan, it has its own mechanics and animations, but you can take it with you as you explore the world.
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And explore you will, since the achievements tied to Fishing make use of maps old and new. Not to mention the change in the economy; the fish you catch have monetary value, meaning this is one Mastery that can help you make more gold. And everyone likes more gold.
7 Skimmer
While all mounts are excellent, most of their abilities are front-loaded; their core abilities are free to use from the moment you get them. Their Mastery Lines tend to focus on improving what the creature can already do, like the Raptor jumping further or doing more damage with its tail spin.
The difference with the Skimmer is both in what it shares and what it gains within its Mastery Line. Nimble Benevolence gives you protection and swiftness when engaging enemies with your mounts, making it one of the best mount improvements in the game. And if you fully master the Skimmer, you can take it underwater, making your travels below the surface a simple breeze.
6 Jackal
If there is one mount you want to max out first, it's the Jackal. Not because of the mount itself (even though it is a great mount) but because of what it gives to all other mounts. You see, the Jackal’s first tier to unlock is Enhanced Evasion, which lets you evade attacks when using the mount’s movement ability.
The real prize is that when you max out the Jackal’s Mastery Line, that Evasion skill is shared with all other mounts. This improves them tremendously, with the Springer being able to evade while charging its jump or the Skyscale evading attacks simply by flapping its wings.
5 Gliding
In a time before mounts, there was the Glider. Introduced at the beginning of Heart of Thorns, the Glider presented a new way to travel through Tyria. Scaling a mountain to glide down toward unreachable places is still something rarely seen in MMOs, and the Mastery Line greatly improved traversal with things like gusts of wind and maneuvers.
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Yet, in a time with mounts, the Glider still has its place. With the verticality the game handles these days, there is always a cliff you can jump to get out of a bad situation. And when you’re in combat, you can’t call your trusty mounts. But you can glide to safety just like the old days.
4 Crystal Champion
Crystal Champion is a Mastery Line introduced during Living World Season 4, and it's all about improving mounts. Bond of Life swaps your mount’s health with your own, so while you can endure more hits while mounted, be careful since getting that pool depleted means getting downed. Bond of Vigor is a blessing for mounts like the Roller Beetle, where boosting more often can help you clear the races.
And finally, Bond of Faith is an incredibly versatile skill since it ejects you upwards from your mount. There are a lot of places this gives you access to, like over invisible walls at the end of certain jumping puzzles.
3 Pact Commander
Unlocked by owning any of the Guild Wars 2 expansions, the Pact Commander Mastery Line is such a must-have for everyone. It's so in demand that many forget its abilities don’t just come with the base game. Even the first perk you can unlock is invaluable, giving you a special map icon to help and organize players in map events without spending hundreds of gold for a Commander Tag.
Yet the real reward, as usual, comes at the end of the Line. Advanced Logistics allows all your characters from this point forward to auto-loot enemies. The time this saves when clearing wave after wave of enemies during events is incalculable.
2 United Legions
The Icebrood Saga wasn’t exactly Guild Wars 2’s greatest achievement. Its events were rushed, and the content was heavily cut down; it was just no replacement for a proper expansion. Yet the gameplay was still fun; it introduced Strike Missions as proper end-game content and gave us the United Legions Mastery Line.
Two things make this Mastery Line alone worth the price tag. First off, it gives your mounts stealth. No amount of words can explain how useful that is. But the real reward is the Portable Waystation. This allows you to place a Waystation anywhere in the game, granting access to massive disruption attacks while focusing on doing as much DPS as possible.
1 Jade Bots
Jade Bots in Guild Wars 2 are so useful it just feels like cheating, making them a must-have, especially for solo players. Its first unlockable perk improves Gliders, already one of the best masteries in the game, giving you an upward boost while in the air. While mounts are still better than the Glider, they can’t be used everywhere or during combat, so this upgrade is certainly welcome.
Its third perk lets you set your own waypoint. While it won’t last if you change maps, there are a lot of clever uses you can give to such technology. But the greatest ability is the final one, Rescue Protocol. The Bot can revive you to full health when downed once every ten minutes. The amount of content you can now solo because of this is simply remarkable.
NEXT: Guild Wars 2: How To Start Your Own Guild
