In a new blog, ArenaNet explains how the new mastery system will work in Heart of Thorns.

Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns will not be raising the level cap, but will instead use a new progression system called Mastery. Mastery is an endgame progression solely for PvE content that intends to expand with the world, giving more meaning to its progression than simple stat boosts from gaining higher levels that other MMO expansions would give. In a new blog post released today, ArenaNet gave more information as to how this system will actually work.

Any player that owns Heart of Thorns will be able to train Masteries on any level 80 character. At level 80, players' experience bars will be replaced with the new Mastery bar that will show their progress on the currently active Mastery track. As such, players will no longer continue to earn skill points every time they fill their experience bar, but skill points will still be available as new rewards from high-end content. The Mastery bar will work off of experience, showing the abilities you are working toward as well as those already earned on the track.

To select a track as the current active Mastery track and gain experience for it, players will first need to unlock them using Mastery points acquired through content such as the personal story, challenging achievements, hard-to-find locations, challenging encounters, adventures and 100% map completion. Each point can only be earned once per account (but all Mastery progress will also be available across the account) and will be awarded retroactively with HoT's release. Alongside the experience bar change, level 80 players will not display their level next to their nameplate, but instead the number of Mastery points acquired on the account as a true sense of a player's progression beyond levels.

Each region will have its own set of Masteries. At the launch of HoT this will be two separate regions: a set for the Heart of Maguuma and a set for the core areas of Guild Wars 2. Mastery points will only unlock tracks for the region they were acquired in, and Mastery tracks can only be progressed while in the appropriate region. Players will be able to select one active Mastery track for each region and the Mastery bar and progression will update for the appropriate region based on where the player currently is.

Masteries for both regions will cover many types of content including:

1. Lore: Attune with new ally races and learn their language, unlocking secret locations and battle techniques.
2. Legends: Learn how to create precursor weapons for existing and new legendary weapons.
3. Exploration: Unlock the ability to hang glide to previously unreachable locations as well as use special mushrooms to traverse the Heart of Maguuma faster.
4. Combat: Hunt new enemies, master abilities to defeat champions and become more deadly against new creatures awaiting in the jungle.
5. Fractals: Uncover new depths in the Fractals of the Mists with powerful new abilities, greater rewards and more powerful infusions.

The blog post continues on to give an example with the hang glider. Unlocking the Gliding Mastery track will allow a player to pull out their hang glider whenever they are in free fall in the Heart of Maguuma. This will allow players to glide instead of fall to a crushing death, but not indefinitely as players will only have a limited amount of energy to glide. Once out of energy, players will once again fall. Progressing through the Gliding Mastery track will then allow you to fly longer, jump higher, use wind currents and launch into the air.

For more Heart of Thorns information, check out our PAX South interview with Colin Johanson and Mike O'Brien as well as the Outpost and Adventures overview of yesterday's blog post. Then, check out Points of Interest tomorrow, Friday, February 6, at Noon Pacific on the Guild Wars 2 Twitch page for a first look at Heart of Thorns gameplay!

Matt Adams aka the Mattsta

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