Mastery Points

[dontlook.1823]

I just want Anet to know that......... All these achievements for 1 mastery point is really tedious and annoying. Please do something. Thank you.

[kharmin.7683]

Mastery points aren't like Pokemon. You don't have to catch them all.

[Fueki.4753]

Arenanet has intended for you to grind for them.

It's even in the name of _The Grindbrood Saga._

 

But I don't care for that pointless grind.

I couldn't even bother getting all the necessary exp to unlock the latest essence tiers yet.

[LucianDK.8615]

So far -only- icebrood saga is stingy with mastery points, seemingly because of people QQing over too many 'wasted' mastery points.

There is insane amounts of core, hot and pof mastery ponts.

Got everything maxed out and definitely -NOT- having all the points available.

23 core left over

20 hot left over

18 pof left over

3 ibs left over

Ibs takes a rather serious amount of grinding and work to gain the mastery points. And I often would sit with the exp bar full and waiting for the points. There was a few truly unpleasant in Ibs I skipped, such as the trials of koda or the lights puzzle in the complicated labyrinths. Ive better things to do with my time.

[Danikat.8537]

Do you actually need all the Icebrood Saga masteries trained up? I haven't got them yet because I've been focusing on other things, but (as with previous masteries) a lot of the higher tier ones seem pretty trivial. For example the final tier of the Raven mastery just gives you slightly higher bonuses from opening gates and barriers and the 3 Essence masteries just increases the bonus damage against some enemies and gives you a special attack to use on bosses, but you can still kill those enemies without the mastery, it just takes a bit longer.

 

The new United Legions ones do seem a bit more useful, but even then only if you're going to be playing in Drizzlewood Coast a lot, in which case you'll probably train them up as you're playing anyway.

 

It was the same with the previous masteries. I think PoF had actually been released before I finished all the HoT ones, and it was only at some point towards the end of Season 4 that I hit a point where I actually had all the masteries trained and unlocked (which didn't last long of course). I'm sure I could have done it sooner, but I didn't feel any need to prioritise them because the later tier masteries are typically less useful. If there's one I really want I'll prioritise it, but a lot of them I only unlocked because I happened to have the points available or was looking for a goal and decided that was a good one to aim for.

[Astyrah.4015]

> @"Danikat.8537" said:

> Do you actually need all the Icebrood Saga masteries trained up? I haven't got them yet because I've been focusing on other things, but (as with previous masteries) a lot of the higher tier ones seem pretty trivial. For example the final tier of the Raven mastery just gives you slightly higher bonuses from opening gates and barriers and the 3 Essence masteries just increases the bonus damage against some enemies and gives you a special attack to use on bosses, but you can still kill those enemies without the mastery, it just takes a bit longer.

 

true you don't need all of the Icebrood Saga stuff maxed but you at least need tier2 (please correct me if i'm wrong) of each essence so you can open up most, if not all coloured chests in bjora -or- you end up like that one person in drakkar meta one time who was complaining in /map (at the mastery system) on why they can't open anything from the rewards.

 

and the masteries menu doesn't even tell you that you need them until you try to open a chest and get a popup that you can't

[LucianDK.8615]

From the wiki about resillience chests, which is repeated for the other types too:

Large Chests of Resilience are essence chests hidden in the Bjora Marches. They require Essence of Vigilance Tier 2 to open. They give better loot if Essence of Vigilance Tier 3 is mastered.

No word on t4 mastery effect on chests. But I wouldnt be suprised if they add another chest tier in the upcomming map.

[Jokubas.4265]

The reaction to Mastery Points is certainly going to have some variety because a lot of it relies on what you want out of a game and how much you care to put into it.

 

For me, Path of Fire and the following season was nice. You never really had to worry about them and that's how I like it. I'll admit that I just don't like putting a lot of time into the games I play anymore (not that I don't play seriously when I play, but it seems every game nowadays expects to be the only game you play, and I've got other things going on in my life). One of the things I like about Guild Wars 2 is that it doesn't keep invalidating my progress like level cap increases in other MMOs, and the lack of a subscription fee means I can play when I feel like it.

 

I didn't really like Heart of Thorns' use of Mastery Points either, but I could forgive it because it invented the system. There are some really great Masteries in there, Gliding and its upgrades were an amazing addition to the game that organically weaved in, but a lot of them felt like filler or seemed only to exist for a specific objective. Point-wise, it seemed easy at first. So many things granted them it was kind of exciting, but as you get down to the last few Masteries, and they start requiring huge amounts of points, you get more and more desperate. I hated that moment. It's easy to say that you don't _really_ need them, but a couple of those last ones are still important, like Adrenal Mushrooms for that one Skill Challenge (and I know there are ways around that, but it's much nicer to have the intended solution). Plus, I like being in the position where you can just earn Spirit Shards again.

 

By then, it stops being "get rewards for the playstyle you like" and starts being "is there any of these I'm not into that I can still manage to pull off", at which point it's no longer fun. It's not like the Masteries are just prestigious. They all have a use, even if it's not an absolutely necessary use.

 

For the Icebrood Saga, I've been dreading each chapter because of the Masteries. It's been much more stingy with points than last season and it feels less worthwhile. A good chunk of the Masteries feel like they were made up just to pad the list, which feels like overcompensation to Path of Fire only having a few for each mount and then one per chapter for the season, but quality definitely counts over quantity for Masteries.

 

Worse, a lot of the content seems designed to justify the Masteries, not the other way around. For instance, the break bars for most enemies this season are designed with the Essence moves in mind. This means that players new to the season, or just not up for the grind, are dead weight in certain fights. A lot of people start yelling at each other for failing to CC, as normal, but that isn't the problem here. CC can barely move many of these bars in order to make the Essence moves worthwhile, but it means that you're in a bind if you don't have them. This is also a problem because even if you have the Mastery unlocked, it's not always easy to have the Essences maxed out when you need them. I actually like the idea behind the mechanic, the rock-paper-scissors nature is great, collecting the essences hits the right spot, and firing the beam is fun, but it falls apart in a lot of places.

 

Point-wise, this season is stingy again. A lot of points come from super grindy things, like repeating meta events a whole bunch of times, or collecting every weapon in a set. The former sucks because, for instance, the first Bjora Marches meta is often abandoned, I've seen it fail a lot, and last time I went to do it everyone got kicked from the map when it was reaching the end. The second is annoying because I hate crafting, only have decent craft skills on one character, and the alternative of buying them is super expensive (I can afford it, but I don't really care about the skins so I'm putting all that money into a Mastery Point). It's also inconsistent. The meta I've actually done a bunch doesn't give any rewards.

 

Even some of the most accessible, you're-in-control, points just take forever. I've done five of the six commendation achievements now, because I needed so many points last chapter that I was pretty much going to have to do a couple of them anyway. Doing the final one seems feasible, by this point, but I feel like I'm never going to want to play the game again if I keep running this same map that many times.

 

I still have that Grothmar Valley one they added later to do, but I'm really not looking forward to having to do it even though it's technically "easy". Six bosses that only show up every once and awhile and you have to hope you get the ones you haven't already killed? That's actually one of the things I find the most frustrating, but it's hard to explain.

 

Right now I've managed to be one point ahead for this chapter, but I started this chapter one point ahead and still had to grind past the point of fun to catch back up. I'm really nervous about what the next chapter is going to expect.