Experience gain after all masteries are trained

I noticed that after I finished training all the Central Tyria masteries, earned experience went towards spirit shards. I assumed that the same would happen after I finished training all my HoT masteries but I am not getting any experience at all in HoT maps. The only HoT masteries that I have not trained are the raid ones which are still locked for me. Is this why my HoT map experience is not going towards earning spirit shards?

Welcome to the club. Despite numerous threads and pleas from the non-raiding part of the community, ANet still won't unlock that mastery line for us. I'm sure there's some (weak) reasoning for it, but it is what it is. Find a raid group and defeat a boss if you want to unlock the line.

Ah, I remember this well. I raged against this a long time ago to no avail. Then I spent months prepping for and attempting escort until I beat it. Haven't raided since and couldn't be happier. Just think of it as one of those unpleasant things you have to do now and then in life, like divorcing your ex. Once it's done you'll be so much happier as you move on with your life and they wallow in a hell of their own making. Or something like that.

Originally, we didn't get any reward at all for post-L80 XP, from before HoT released. Even when HoT released, we still didn't get anything after maxing masteries. After popular demand, ANet offered the least reward possible, spirit shards (they drop from all sorts of sources; any veteran is going to be earning them faster than they can spend). And, as you noticed, it only happens when you max the entire branch of masteries: all of classic tyria, all of HoT, or all of PoF.

Since the original HoT was designed to include the Raid mastery line within the HoT branch. To fix things, they'd have to make some sort of major change. I was hopeful when PoF launched, they would have addressed this. Unfortunately, they didn't. There are several potential solutions, although none of them are 'cheap':

• Separate Raids into its own Mastery Branch (probably the most costly).
• Refactor HoT mastery to work like PoF, in that you can get spirit shards if you have maxed all the unlocked lines within a branch. For HoT, that would be everything except raids (which is the only one that starts locked). For PoF, that's the first four mounts (you can gain spirit shards from XP after maxing them, but before you unlock Griffon; after unlocking Griffon, you have to max that line).
• Add a vendor that allows you to spend (maybe spirit shards?) to unlock the raid mastery line. (This might be the easiest to implement, but it still probably requires some annoying code.)

tl;dr The reason non-raiders don't get post-mastery spirit shards is due to a fundamental design problem, rooted in the fact that ANet intended that we get no rewards for XP.

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

Since the original HoT was designed to include the Raid mastery line within the HoT branch. To fix things, they'd have to make some sort of major change. I was hopeful when PoF launched, they would have addressed this. Unfortunately, they didn't. There are several potential solutions, although none of them are 'cheap':

• Separate Raids into its own Mastery Branch (probably the most costly).
• Refactor HoT mastery to work like PoF, in that you can get spirit shards if you have maxed all the unlocked lines within a branch. For HoT, that would be everything except raids (which is the only one that starts locked). For PoF, that's the first four mounts (you can gain spirit shards from XP after maxing them, but before you unlock Griffon; after unlocking Griffon, you have to max that line).

This is not true. I have maxed all mounts except Griffon and Rollerbeetle. Both are "locked" (there is a lock image on them). My XP is set to 0/0 in PoF maps. I cannot gain experience. And therefore cannot gain spirit shards. I feel that GW2 is holding my experience hostage until I fork over 250G for a griffon mount, AND pay gems out for the "back order" Season 4 episodes.

I'm not on a "free to play" account, A-Net. I paid for the game. I paid for the expansions. Holding my XP hostage until I pay you MORE for the roller beetle isn't cool or acceptable. It is ridiculous.

Over a year later and they still haven't fixed this BS problem is even more ridiculous.

@Countess.3267 said:

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

Since the original HoT was designed to include the Raid mastery line within the HoT branch. To fix things, they'd have to make some sort of major change. I was hopeful when PoF launched, they would have addressed this. Unfortunately, they didn't. There are several potential solutions, although none of them are 'cheap':

• Separate Raids into its own Mastery Branch (probably the most costly).
• Refactor HoT mastery to work like PoF, in that you can get spirit shards if you have maxed all the unlocked lines within a branch. For HoT, that would be everything except raids (which is the only one that starts locked). For PoF, that's the first four mounts (you can gain spirit shards from XP after maxing them, but before you unlock Griffon; after unlocking Griffon, you have to max that line).

In fact, you're the only person I've seen reporting this problem. That doesn't make it untrue or less painful. It just means that it's likely to be a rare situation which might be unknown to ANet. Unless you follow up with a support ticket, they might not be able to address it.

Locked? At least the griffon one should be completely hidden until unlocked.

I only started looking for the griffon because my xp bar hit 0/0 after completing the jackal mastery. I was still a few steps shy of finishing PoF (back after a few years away). I was irked because I was getting "moderate" and "substantial" experience reward items that were immediate effect - but my XP was capped, so I couldn't get anything. I have a temporary fix in that I've unlocked/revealed the Chrystal Champion mastery (after skipping ahead in LW S4).

PS I suppose I might have said "not currently true" instead, but the fact remains, my xp bar was locked. That wasn't cool.