Q:
Doubt about masteries
A:
The Raid track is needed to receive the shards in the HoT regions. It is not needed to receive them in core regions.
You can do what I did, learn the mechanics of the escort (I did it by being in a guild raid group that tried to beat it for a while) then join a pug that knows how to do it. If you don’t have friends that want to learn the mechanics, there should be training runs in LFG or findable in the Looking For part of the forums. Soon as you beat that boss, you’ve unlocked all the tracks and can xp them up in regular HoT maps without ever touching raids again.
Yes.
How to say that in 15 characters…
You can say it in 15 characters by adding spaces after the period, should you so desire.
OT: Yes, it includes every Mastery line that shows either Red Mastery Points or Green Mastery Points.
We may get a new set with the next expansion, though, for a total of 3 distinct groupings.
Good luck.
You will get spirit shards in central Tyria once you’ve completed the masteries for central Tyria.
I don’t know if you lose that ability once you open up the Raid track. Previous posters think you do lose it. I’ll defer to that wisdom. However, I’m getting shards in central Tyria even though I’ve never darkened the door to raids. I’m not done with HoT masteries yet, so I can’t speak to that.
You get spirit shards for post-L80 XP in two circumstances:
- In core Tyria, after completing core Tyria masteries.
- In all other maps (HoT + LS3 maps), after completing all HoT masteries, including Raid masteries.
(There area also lots of other sources of spirit shards, so it’s ultimately not that important to most people.)
Opening the raid track has no effect on core Tyria acquisition-via-XP; it has no effect on acquisition in the HoT maps. The only requirement is that you complete ALL masteries that cover the relevant part of the game.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
(There area also lots of other sources of spirit shards, so it’s ultimately not that important to most people.)
I don’t give a darn about the spirit shards as such. But I have to say, much as I puzzled at people complaining about not getting them from leveling, ever since I completed the raid track and have been zipping through “leveling” again, I have renewed interest in doing content. Something about that big level-up glow, and seeing the xp bar moving very fast, makes me feel more rewarded for my time. So I’m far less puzzled now, and I sincerely hope ANet doesn’t ever again lock it behind specific challenging content.
I think they should have made it possible for non-raiders to continue getting spirit shards after earning all non-raid masteries in HoT zones. I personally took time to take down the Vale Guardian ages ago, it isn’t a skill issue for me, just the fact I can’t predict beforehand how much time I have to do something such as raiding. I have levelled up an immense amount of times since then so honestly for those playing HoT it can be important to just do at least Vale Guardian or the escort mission to unlock the masteries.
Spirit shards have monetary value afterall (if you look up how to convert them to gold, there are many methods with various returns).
I think they should have made it possible for non-raiders to continue getting spirit shards after earning all non-raid masteries in HoT zones.
I agree. It will be a long time, if ever, that I do any raiding. So, I’ll be stuck.
However, there’s something of a saving grace for me: there’s no way I’ll ever complete all of the masteries anyhow, so this is all a moot point (to me).
I do wish you would start getting XP again once you have progressed to the point where you can’t earn a mastery due to missing mastery points (vs. XP). It seems a shame to be wasting all those XP.