Spirit Shard Acquisition Question

Hi all,

So I'm in a bit of a sticky situation where I have all of the pieces to make several sets of Ascend amor but very few spirit shards.

Now, I haven't really played on the HoT maps in a while but a long time ago I used to be able to get a Small Bag of Spirit Shards from gaining a certain amount of experience on each map?Does this still happen?

I believe they might have changed it so that you need to have completed all Masteries in addition to having the map 100% completed?Am I wrong in assuming this?

A little bit of clarification would help greatly,Thanks.

The wiki has all the info you need.Article

• Random drops for level 80 characters
• Tome of Knowledge, used by a level 80 character
• Dessa's Experiment Journal
• A Small Bag of Spirit Shards is the reward for the Daily Completionist meta-achievement
• Gaining 254,000 experience after completing all masteries in the region in which you are gaining experience
• Randomly from every type of champ bag in the game.

Basically:

• Kill stuff, lots of stuff
• Ideally, do so in areas in which you already have maxed all masteries
• Also open any champ bags you have laying around.

Maxing masteries means

• In Classic Tyria, spending 49 m-points on Pact Mastery, Legendary Crafting, & Fractal Attunement (fractals are a great source of XP)
• In HoT Tyria, 144 m-points on Gliding, Itzel Lore, Exalted Lore, Nuhoch Lore, Ancient Magics (i.e. LS3 masteries), and Raids (requires defeating any raid boss to unlock)
• In PoF Tyria, 52 m-points on 4 basic mounts. After unlocking the fifth mount (whose identity has been spoiled by the head of ANet, but this poster chooses to keep secret a tad longer), you'll need to invest another 12 m-points (thanks to @Drarnor Kunoram.5180 for pointing out this nuance).

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:The wiki has all the info you need.Article

• Random drops for level 80 characters
• Tome of Knowledge, used by a level 80 character
• Dessa's Experiment Journal
• A Small Bag of Spirit Shards is the reward for the Daily Completionist meta-achievement
• Gaining 254,000 experience after completing all masteries in the region in which you are gaining experience
• Randomly from
  every
  type of champ bag in the game.

• Kill stuff, lots of stuff
• Ideally, do so in areas in which you already have maxed all masteries
• Also open any champ bags you have laying around.

• In Classic Tyria, spending 49 m-points on Pact Mastery, Legendary Crafting, & Fractal Attunement (fractals are a great source of XP)
• In HoT Tyria, 144 m-points on Gliding, Itzel Lore, Exalted Lore, Nuhoch Lore, Ancient Magics (i.e. LS3 masteries),
  and
  Raids (requires defeating
  any
  raid boss to unlock)
• In PoF Tyria, 64 m-points on 4 basic mounts plus the fifth mount whose identity has been spoiled by the head of ANet, but this poster chooses to keep secret a tad longer.

Cool! So it no longer matters if you have the map of the area completed only the Masteries.

But does it require you to have ALL the HoT Masteries or just the masteries for a single map, like Auric Basin, for example?

@PANIC ITS WILL.2748 said:But does it require you to have ALL the HoT Masteries or just the masteries for a single map, like Auric Basin, for example?

To earn spirit shards from XP alone, yes, you do need all the HoT masteries (including raids) to earn in HoT maps, but only Classic Tyria masteries to earn in Classic Tyria (same with PoF). But from the start, shards dropped from all those other sources.

That is, you'll get more shards than you'll ever be able to use ...eventually, just by playing the game. Earning via XP just shortens the time until you find you can't spend them fast enough.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

• In PoF Tyria, 64 m-points on 4 basic mounts plus the fifth mount whose identity has been spoiled by the head of ANet, but this poster chooses to keep secret a tad longer.

Not entirely true. Until you have the fifth mount yourself, it doesn't count as a mastery track.

So, once you have the masteries for Raptor, Springer, Skimmer, and Jackal maxed out, your XP gain goes toward spirit shards until you aquire the 5th mount for yourself.

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

• In PoF Tyria, 64 m-points on 4 basic mounts plus the fifth mount whose identity has been spoiled by the head of ANet, but this poster chooses to keep secret a tad longer.

Oh, that's very interesting. So you can complete the PoF story and wait to finish the No-Longer-Hidden Mount acquisition quest chain? That's probably not worth it for most people, but might be useful for the OP, @PANIC ITS WILL.2748

Thanks for the tip.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

• In PoF Tyria, 64 m-points on 4 basic mounts plus the fifth mount whose identity has been spoiled by the head of ANet, but this poster chooses to keep secret a tad longer.

Yup. Did it myself. I didn't acquire mount 5 until a few repetitions of the Spirit Shard track once I finished the masteries for the other 4 (not for a lack of trying of course, but I was doing the occasional other thing).

Really wish they could change the Raid mastery track to work the same way. Wouldn't affect me at all, but it would make people happy.

@"Drarnor Kunoram.5180" said:Really wish they could change the Raid mastery track to work the same way. Wouldn't affect me at all, but it would make people happy.

Absolutely. I was convinced that they were going to "fix" that with the launch of PoF by separating out Raid Mastery entirely from the HoT mastery tree or at least, simply making it possible to unlock it through other sources (e.g. spending spirit shards or a mastery point or something).

Given how they handled the No-Longer-Secret Mount, I agree with you: that's a great solution — hide the raid mastery line until you beat your first encounter. That would allow everyone who doesn't raid the same spirit shard acquisition method as raiders have.

(Mind you, in the end, everyone playing long enough wills still end up with hundred or thousands of shards for which they have no use.)

Thanks both of you ;)