Guild Wars 2

I just started Season 3 and logged out after my toon had crashed in Bloodstone Fen. Now I learn that there is a new Mastery exclusively for this Living Story, so of course I will want to work on Mastering it as soon as possible (I hear it is necessary for some boss fights). However, I also have been hearing people mentioning lots of glider usage in this new map. Therefore, can anyone tell me which HoT Masteries are either suggested or mandatory to successfully navigate the new map/play Episode 1?

In terms of gliding, I only unlocked Basic Gliding and Updrafts since those were the only ones that were absolutely needed to play the HoT story.

EDIT: I also have Bouncing Mushrooms and Speed Mushrooms.

Thanks!

All HoT maps are a lot more fun with all the gliding masteries unlocked. That’s even more true with Bloodstone Fen. I don’t see any BF uses for the other masteries.

However, in your shoes, I wouldn’t grind to get further. Play what and how you want and you’ll progress quickly enough.

If I had to do HoT masteries over again, I’d stick to pretty close the same plan that I used:

• Unlock gliding.
• Unlock tier 1 of each mastery
• Finish gliding
• Unlock the other masteries in parallel, adding +1 to each before working on the next tier of any of the others.

(There are good arguments for varying the last step, even though I won’t be making them.)

FYI central Tyrian masteries are also useful, notably auto-looting from Pact Master.

I think if you’ve done the core story up until the Mordremoth fight, you’re good to go in Bloodstone Fen. Maxing out gliding is probably a good idea, but I only have up to Updrafts and can get around well enough. You definitely want to have mushroom bouncing, if you somehow skipped getting that, as there are a lot of chained mushrooms to get back up from some of the lower levels.

The new mastery unlocked is mandatory for the last two story steps. You can get around the zone without it, but be careful of some bosses that will trigger it.

There are hidden mushrooms found in the zone, so if you want to do everything, you may want the spot-hidden mastery, but it’s not needed.

I don’t think any of the other masteries have any effect in the new zone. I could be wrong on that, though. Someone will probably correct me on that soon enough.

Ley Lines are common and very useful, as is permanent gliding, but updrafts and bouncing mushrooms will get you everywhere you need to go

I’m really regretting not maxing out gliding now. One of the aerial skills involves ley-line gliding and you can’t get it unless you have ley line gliding.