Guild Wars 2

I’ve got a level 80 character finishing up season two, but I’ve noticed that my xp bar is “stuck” on full. After looking into the issue, I see now that post-80 levels don’t give you skill points anymore, but they give you mastery points. Fair enough.

However, I haven’t unlocked masteries yet, which must be why the xp bar is “stuck”. The mastery screen says I need to do a certain mission in the Heart of Thorns storyline. But I’m not even sure where to go to get the Heart of Thorns storyline underway. I presume I’ll be breadcrumbed over there at the end of season two. That’s also fair enough.

But my concern is that I’m wasting experience points. Since the xp bar is stuck at full, and since I’m not getting any messages about earning mastery points from leveling up, am I just throwing earned xp down a hole? Or will my xp progress somehow be credited to me when I unlock masteries?

Should I jump ahead and do the prologue and first mission in Heart of Thorns to unlock masteries? If so, where do I go and how do I start the prologue?

These seem like simple issues that should affect a lot of players, so apologies if it’s already been covered here. I’m surprised that I’ve been unable to find the answers by Googling and searching through the wiki.

-Tom

Start the HoT personal story on your hero tab. It will tell you where to go.

Honestly, I don’t understand why the mastry system isn’t simply unlocked by being level 80 and owning HoT.

HoT masteries require play in HoT zones, so they’re already effectively “locked” until you progress that story to where you’d actually use them.

The other mastry lines aren’t, however, tied to story progression or any lore at all, so it doesn’t make sense, especially for new players that might want to do their personal story, LS2 (which, as new players they had to pay for) and possibly a reworked LS1 if they ever get around it it, before HoT in order to not spoil the story for themselves.

It seems like a bad idea to require new players to “skip ahead” in the storyline before they’ve even killed zhaitan just to avoid wasting their XP.

I worried I was “wasting xp” too and now that I’m in the new zone, I find it completely confusing. Unlocking glider mastery has no instructions whatsoever, I’m spending more time trying to read up on the game than playing it at this point.

DarcShriek.5829:

Start the HoT personal story on your hero tab. It will tell you where to go.

Nope. It just tells me what missions I’m supposed to do. Which doesn’t help. I Googled it and it turns out it’s the mission right after the prologue. But as I mentioned, I have no idea where I’m supposed to go to start the Heart of Thorns storyline.

I’ve only recently gotten into the Silverwaste area, or whatever it’s called, so even Googling the location of the missions didn’t help. I figure it’s someplace out here.

But the bottom line is that I am wasting xp, right? If that’s the case, I should have held off buying Heart of Thorns until I’d finished season two?

-Tom

Tom, if you’d held off on buying HoT before getting season 2, you’d have still been ‘wasting’ XP, any XP you earned after level 80 would not have done anything.

A lot of us have been ‘wasting XP’ for the last few months, because when they last changed the levelling process, they took away the skill point on level-up, leaving no reward for filling the xp bar post level 80.

Does it matter?? Not really.

Yes, you could level up your core masteries quicker if you skipped ahead to unlock the system prior to finishing s2. But you don’t really ‘need’ to.

Yeah, I zoned in, did some story part, now I’m at “unlocking glider mastery” and no direction on how to do that. My xp bar went back to 0, I still have a 0 on the level for it.

And when I explore, the mobs inevitably swarm and I die and am left with a huge walk-back. The zone seems deserted.

Tharizdun.3654:

Yeah, I zoned in, did some story part, now I’m at “unlocking glider mastery” and no direction on how to do that. My xp bar went back to 0, I still have a 0 on the level for it.

And when I explore, the mobs inevitably swarm and I die and am left with a huge walk-back. The zone seems deserted.

Open your hero panel.
Open mastery
Choose the glider masteries. If you’re on “0” its because you haven’t got your first point yet.

Kaz.5430:

A lot of us have been ‘wasting XP’ for the last few months, because when they last changed the levelling process, they took away the skill point on level-up, leaving no reward for filling the xp bar post level 80.

Does it matter?? Not really.

Ah, I didn’t realize the change pre-dated Heart of Thorns. I’ve been away for quite a while!

I’m a bit surprised that it doesn’t bother you. I guess I’ve just gotten so accustomed to having some sort of advancement as I’m playing, even with my level 80 characters. You guys had to deal with stopping that advancement until the masteries system was introduced? Yikes.

So can anyone help me jump ahead to the prologue and then first mission for Heart of Thorns? Where exactly do I go? Will I be able to trigger the missions even though I’m only part way through season two? And would it have killed Arenanet to have a “show me” button on the locked mastery screen?

-Tom

If you want to skip ahead, you should be able to activate the first step of the expansion in the story journal, and then there should be one of the usual green instance markers just outside Red Rock Bastion in the Silverwastes.

Note that the expansion storyline continues directly from episode 8, and follows on from plot threads that were introduced in episodes 5 and 6. The second half of LS2 has some important reveals that you might not want to spoil, and you can’t get past the opening cutscene of Heart of Thorns (or even some of the trailers) without spoiling at least one thing.

evilunderling.9265:

The second half of LS2 has some important reveals that you might not want to spoil, and you can’t get past the opening cutscene of Heart of Thorns (or even some of the trailers) without spoiling at least one thing.

Rats, that’s what I was afraid of. Thanks for the heads-up, evilunderling. I’ll see season two through instead of jumping ahead.

-Tom

Following up on this, is there no chance to acquire Mastery Experience without owning HoT? for instance, I got a reward from an achievement, which grants Experience for Central Tyria. If I accept it from the chest reward, I am losing it, am I not?

The Mastery system is only available with the acquisition of Heart of Thorns. So, yes, accepting the reward means the XP goes nowhere if the character is L80.

Still, gaining XP in Core Tyria, or anywhere else, is quite easy.

Good luck.

Elendhur.1724:

Following up on this, is there no chance to acquire Mastery Experience without owning HoT? for instance, I got a reward from an achievement, which grants Experience for Central Tyria. If I accept it from the chest reward, I am losing it, am I not?

You would be losing that reward, yes, but experience flows like water in this game. If you were truly worried about wasting experience, then you’d have no choice but to sit in a city, afraid to move and uncover new points of interest because the experience from discovering them would be wasted too without Heart of Thorns.

You can always get more experience. Everything in the game gives you experience. Don’t worry about wasting it!

I just hit lvl 80 with my first character, and have a full xp bar that is “stuck” as well. I suppose this is normal, and I know after reading this thread that I will eventually unlock mastery points through the story. But the game is prompting me to spend my point with a huge flashing arrow at the bottom of the screen pointing to my mastery point and saying that I have earned one and to click here to spend it. This happens frequently after I earn some sort of experience, and when I click on it it just says that mastery points are locked. Can’t help but feel like I am missing something.

tomchick.6739:

I’ve got a level 80 character finishing up season two, but I’ve noticed that my xp bar is “stuck” on full. After looking into the issue, I see now that post-80 levels don’t give you skill points anymore, but they give you mastery points.

That is not correct. The XP bar is stuck because you are expected to level Masteries with your XP instead. It is a stupid system: it will stay locked/stuck until you have all Masteries maxed out. After that, you will continue to receive XP normally again (i.e., receiving one Spirit Shard upon each level-up).

Mastery Points, however, are not provided by leveling up. You need to obtain them either per achievements, certain story missions, or by communing with those located on HoT maps (including Living World Season 3).

AtheWunder.2301:

I just hit lvl 80 with my first character, and have a full xp bar that is “stuck” as well. I suppose this is normal, and I know after reading this thread that I will eventually unlock mastery points through the story. But the game is prompting me to spend my point with a huge flashing arrow at the bottom of the screen pointing to my mastery point and saying that I have earned one and to click here to spend it. This happens frequently after I earn some sort of experience, and when I click on it it just says that mastery points are locked. Can’t help but feel like I am missing something.

In your case, you must already have HoT. If you do the first HoT story, Torn from the Sky, that starts in the Silverwastes, you will unlock masteries in general. Until then, you can set a mastery to train and rack up XP for it, but until you unlock them and spend points on them, you won’t be able to use them. (For Core Tyria masteries, I reccomend the Pact Commander line, as it ends in auto-looting.)

Likewise, if you’re in HoT maps then you will be training HoT masteries with your XP but you still need to unlock and spend points to use them.

For all players— HoT or not— you can still earn mastery points in Core Tyria and they will be banked so that when you do buy/explore HoT, you won’t have missed out on those rewards.

Tharizdun.3654:

Yeah, I zoned in, did some story part, now I’m at “unlocking glider mastery” and no direction on how to do that. My xp bar went back to 0, I still have a 0 on the level for it.

And when I explore, the mobs inevitably swarm and I die and am left with a huge walk-back. The zone seems deserted.

Couple of things here that haven’t been touched on yet (and some expansion on those that were touched on):
– HoT is hard compared to Central Tyria. Be prepared to die, often, until you learn how the mobs work, if in doubt, just ask in Map chat (just be prepared for idiots).
– bring AoE/Cleave in HoT or be prepared to get eaten by Pocket Raptors, I suffered a lot on my thief until I fully unlocked Daredevil (was playing sword/pistol before). One other enemy you defnitely want to research (since many players still don’t know how they work): Smokescale
– learn about breakbars and how to break them (iow: bring CC skills if at all possible)
– the zones are not empty, but they’re huge and multi-layered so you won’t be seeing many players until you know the zones and know where they are likely to congregate (or when, since many HoT zones revolve around huge meta events that are on timers)
– even if you unlock the mastery system by skipping ahead you’ll very quickly be “wasting” XP again as you’ll quickly run out of Mastery Points (which, as has been mentioned, are mostly obtained through HoT achievements). XP is not the limiting factor here. Iow, if you care about the story I’d just let it slide and just play through LS2, you’ll be better prepared for the HoT difficulty and you won’t spoil anything for yourself.

You know that this thread is one year old?

Rhiannon.1726:

You know that this thread is one year old?

Nope, only looked at the timestamp of the last few replies…

Rhiannon.1726:

You know that this thread is one year old?

I knew this thread was old. I hit lvl 80 and had to google wth was going on with my xp bar because it kept telling me to spend my mastery points via huge flashing arrow that wouldnt go away and covered up my chat, yet my mastery points were locked and i couldnt spend them. So via google i found this thread, and it is still very relevant.

So to update, i did do the HoT torn from the sky and I did unlock mastery point. No more huge flashing arrow yay. Was a very confusing, and still is to some degree, transition from hitting lvl 80 for the first time to how this new system works. I realize that had I been playing gw2 years ago before HoT came out this transition would have been different, but for new players it is wierd and the explanation on how to do it is not readily available in game. Outside sources are needed.

AtheWunder.2301:

I realize that had I been playing gw2 years ago before HoT came out this transition would have been different, but for new players it is wierd and the explanation on how to do it is not readily available in game. Outside sources are needed.

Unfortunately, this goes for about 90% of the content. This game is anything but self-explanatory. Took me a long time to grasp every aspect of it myself, which is especially frustrating for newbies because everyone expects you to “know things”.