Which new mastery should I level up first?

[TheQuickFox.3826]

Which mastery do you consider to be the most useful for:

1. The EoD expansion
2. General usage outside of Cantha

[KurokouNekoki.7891]

If I should give you a priority list.
Core: Pact Commander - Fractal - Legendary
HoT: Glider and then the Rest
LS3: Get at least the Agony Mastery
PoF: All the mounts
LS4: Get the Dragon Champion and Roller/Skyscale (equally)
IBS: Skip
Cantha: Start with Boat and Jade Bot, then the rest.

[IAmKnotMax.9026]

Without question, Jade Bot mastery is very useful in general. Even more-so if you have a level 400 Jeweler to craft the other parts that will give you more items or various other effects like increased mount stamina regeneration. The other masteries don't really seem to have much influence outside of the EoD expansion, except for turtle of course, but the siege turtle is locked behind the notoriously difficult Dragon's End meta plus the other things you need to do to unlock it. If you can get the siege turtle however, that would be second in line. Then the Fishing mastery, then Skiff, then Arborstone.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Jade Bot should probably be your highest priority just because it's so useful.  After that, I've been a bit indecisive. I'm mostly a solo player, so the skiff is just a more awkward skimmer to me that lets me fish in different locations instead of move faster underwater.

 

I've switched to Arborstone, since that's necessary to max for crafting gen 3 legendaries.  Fishing unlocks merchants that sell another component, but that component can also be gained by completing fishing collections.  I also don't have a siege turtle yet, but, as I said, I'm mostly a solo player so it's less useful to me than other mounts.

Edited March 3, 2022 by Drarnor Kunoram.5180

[castlemanic.3198]

here are my recommendations

Core Tyria:

Pact commander all tiers (final tier gives you autoloot), this is the only core tyria track that casual players should max out imo

Fractal attunement track is only useful for fractals. If you do fractals, definitely take all tiers

legendary crafting track is only useful for crafting legendaries. if that's one of your goals, you should level this up.

 

heart of thorns:

gliding up to tier 5. Gives you infinite gliding capabilities by that point. there's i think only one map outside of hot/season 3 that uses leylines.

itzel lore isn't useful outside of HoT. The bouncing mushroom occasionally makes an appearance in a select few maps but it's required for story progression so you'll get it anyway.

Exalted lore isn't very useful outside of HoT

Nuhoc lore isn't very useful outside of HoT

raids are only useful for, well, raiding. it doesn't even show up as an option until you beat your first raidboss from the first 4 raid wings. raiding is a requirement for pve legendary armor acquisition though, so if you're legendary hunting this will be useful.

 

season 3:

ancient magics only has one mastery that's actually useful, which is the tier 4 one. gives you a bonus ability to use when you're downed. other than that, you're only gonna find uses in season 3 maps.

 

path of fire:

raptor mastiers are useful, get all of them

springer masteries are useful, get all of them

skimmer masteries are useful, get all of them. once you beat path of fire there's an extra mastery that lets you use the skimmer underwater, which isn't that useful unless you're playing core content on a new character. however i still recommend getting it because who knows when anet will add more underwater content in the future.

jackal masteries are helpful, the tier 4 mastery gives evade frames to all mount specific movement abilities (leaping for raptor, high jump for springer, floating for skimmer, wing flaps for griffon, speed boost for roller beetle and barrel roll for skyscale. the warclaws leap naturally has evade frames so it's essentially useless on a warclaw)

griffon is fun, but not very useful. Not sure i'd recommend getting the griffon for most players. the mastery track doesn't even appear until you get the griffon (which is a 250 gold sink to get). works as an all terrain mount until you get skyscale, then it becomes obsolete. very useful for speeding around a map if you have a high jumping off point, but otherwise not as useful now that we have skyscales.

 

season 4:

crystal champion honestly these are all useful since you get abilities to use for your mounts

roller beetle is not one i actually recommend getting. it's useful for zooming throug a map but the roller beetle gets caught on small bumps that slow it down. i don't remember if the mastery track is hidden or not until you get the roller beetle.

skyscale is a must get. however the skyscale is the mount that requires the most work and requires you to have all of season 4 to get. very worth it though imo, works better as the all terrain mount.

 

icebrood saga/season 5:

raven attunement isn't useful outside of IBS

resilience essence, valor essence and vigilance essence are not useful outside some IBS maps.

united legions waystation synchronization has a few useful masteries. I often see people using waysations in metas with breakbars to use the EMP for breakbar damage. however for me personally there's a far more useful mastery, which is the mount stealth mastery. tier 4 gives you mount stealth, but tier 5 upgrades mount stealth and the other materies in this track too. mount stealth has saved my hide a decent number of times, so i'd actually recommend getting this one.

dragon slayer isn't useful outside of the final episode of icebrood saga.

 

end of dragons:

fishing is only useful if you really like fishing.

skiff piloting has a few useful masteries, but it's main purpose is to assist in fishing so if you like fishing definitely upgrade your skiff

jade bots has actually a number of useful abilities that seem to also be useful outside of end of dragons, especially that jade bot revival one at the max tier. don't do my mistake by completing skiff first, you definitely want to prioritize jade bots over the skiff.

arborstone revitalization apparently this gives you a LOT of useful stuff, including the ability to craft gen 3 legendary weapons. prioritize this over jade bots once you unlock it in the story.

siege turtle is locked behind the final meta in EoD, waiting for the nerf before investing time in doing this meta. i would argue mostly useful if you play with at least one other player, but even then i don't see siege turtles being very useful outside of certain metas or world bosses.

 

final notes:

in short, the core masteries are essentially pact commander, gliding to tier 5, ancient magics to tier 4, raptor, springer, skimmer, crystal champion, skyscale, united legions waystations, jade bots and arborstone revitalization. those will give you the most out of core pve experiences if you're not focused on raids, fractals, or strike missions

since it doesn't have a pve mastery track, the warclaw is available in wvw and is only useful in wvw. You CAN use it in pve but in pve it's just a novelty mount. if you wvw a lot, definitely recommend getting the warclaw but if you're pve focused like me, there's generally no need to get the warclaw.

regarding strike missions, i actually have a question for any readers. do you know if the raid masteries affect strike missions? if they do please respond, would be useful to know if another thread like this comes up in the future.

 

Edited March 3, 2022 by castlemanic.3198

[Xorthos.6947]

32 minutes ago, castlemanic.3198 said:

arborstone revitalization i dont know much about, can't really recommend or not recommend.

 

Looking back, I would have prioritized arborstone had I known what it unlocked.   Arborstone is kind of the new Eye of the North, so it unlocks all the merchants and stations there.   Maxed unlocks the merchant that allows you to purchase items required for legendaries.

 

There's also an Asura gate there, which will hopefully alleviate some of the ridiculous 8-10 silver costs of waypointing from Cantha back to Tyria.

[castlemanic.3198]

5 minutes ago, Xorthos.6947 said:

Looking back, I would have prioritized arborstone had I known what it unlocked.   Arborstone is kind of the new Eye of the North, so it unlocks all the merchants and stations there.   Maxed unlocks the merchant that allows you to purchase items required for legendaries.

 

There's also an Asura gate there, which will hopefully alleviate some of the ridiculous 8-10 silver costs of waypointing from Cantha back to Tyria.

Whelp, that's one more mastery track to prioritize over fishing for me.

ETA: also adjusted my ratings accordingly. thanks for letting me know!

Edited March 3, 2022 by castlemanic.3198