Guide:How to spend WvW Ability Points

Introduction

Where you put your WvW mastery points should be determined by your personal playstyle. The guide aims to explain why you might want particular upgrades, but feel free to use the sidebar to jump to suggested builds if you prefer. Throughout the guide you'll see mastery names accompanied by a fraction (#/#), which indicates the number of ranks out of the maximum in that mastery. This is because it is often more efficient to take some ranks in a mastery without maxing it out until later. The point costs of abilities jumps dramatically at later levels and isn't always accompanied by a corresponding leap in value.

Each mastery will be color coded as follows:

• Red: Bad option, not worth taking until everything else is finished
• Yellow: Average option, sometimes useful or niche but best to wait till later unless it fits your playstyle exactly.
• Green: Good option, should be taken early.
• Blue: Strongest option, critical for every playstyle and should be taken first.

See the wiki page for a reference on the abilities.

Types of Upgrades

Account Upgrades

Provisions Master

• 4/6 gives access to autoloot, making this the biggest convenience upgrade in the entire mastery system.
  • Green for roamers who are rarely killing large amounts of enemies at once.
• 6/6 is an important mastery but can be taken on an unused alt for full benefits without spending points on main characters

Warclaw Mastery

• 1/7 is critical to unlock warclaw use.
  • Make sure to take a look at the Warclaw Mount Unlocking Guide once you've spent this point to help finish the unlock
• 3/7 makes it very difficult to fall behind groups
• 7/7 the dismounting lance is an extremely important upgrade for roamers, but not very important for zerging, especially with the steep cost.
  • If there was a color above Blue it would be that for roamers

War Gliding Mastery

• 1/5 is very important to unlock gliding
• 3/5 the extra speed is useful to make a few glides but more importantly to avoid falling behind allies
• 5/5 infinite stamina is not strictly needed except for a couple niche situations and could be delayed, but it is very convenient

Combat

Defense Against Guards

• Reducing lord damage is nice for zerging, but for those that want to solo camps this is even more important
• Take this before siege bunker if roaming focused, but take siege bunker first if zerging focused

Guard Killer

• Extremely useful for all styles of play, this is bigger DPS increase against NPCs than the jump between rare and ascended gear.

Mercenary's Bane

• There are very few mercenaries in the game, most players will only ever see the ones in EBG at the hylek and dredge camps. Because of their low impact this should be one of the last masteries you take.

Siege Bunker

• Massive damage reduction against siege makes this a critical early upgrade.

Utility

Build Master

• Faster build speed is nice and the early points are cheap, but diminishes in value for each subsequent point. 1/5 or 2/5 is enough until late in your mastery progress.

Repair Master

• Similarly to Build Master, 1/5 or 2/5 is enough until late in your mastery progress.

Supply Capacity

• This mastery is extremely expensive, but since most large groups will have many people with maxxed masteries it can be one of the best upgrades for new players to support their team.
• If you plan to use siege yourself this needs to be delayed until after the critical siege masteries are done.

Supply Master

• 1/5 is a nice convenience, making gathering supply instant
• 4/5 is the most valuable part of this mastery and very cheap. It isn't much extra supply but is way more efficient than Supply Capacity.
• 5/5 is ok for commanders and anyone else dropping their own siege, but otherwise useless.

Siege

Arrow Cart Mastery

• Arrow carts are one of the most used pieces of defensive siege and they are used in the highest numbers of any defensive siege, which makes this a good choice to take early.
• 4/5 is all you really need here, unlocking extra damage and radius
• 5/5 Toxic Unveiling Shot is rarely useful and can be left till much later

Ballista Mastery

• Ballista are useful for destroying enemy siege, but a bit niche and not often used en masse. For general play this is a mastery best taken later unless you really enjoy siege vs siege gameplay, but roamers may want it sooner.
• 4/5 is very important for using ballista due to the extra range
• 5/5 is only a minor improvement and can be delayed

Burning Oil Mastery

• With only one oil per gate it is very likely another player with masteries will be able to man it. That said, oil is extremely powerful at clearing a sneaky ram attack and has very strong masteries, so can be worth picking up early if you like scouting and defending.
• 3/5 provides CC immunity while manning the oil and massive damage reduction, making it a solid breakpoint
• 5/5 is useful, but largely redundant with the damage reduction from 3/5

Cannon Mastery

• Much like oil, cannons will often be used by other players. Unlike oil however the cannon masteries are less useful since the base siege is already very powerful.
• 2/5 is usually more than enough
• 4/5 gives a radius increase that may allow you to hit some siege positions just beyond the max range.

Catapult Mastery

• Probably the most important piece of siege in the game, this mastery should be taken early if not first by anyone that wants to use siege
• 4/5 is a good breakpoint before swapping to Siege Might for max DPS
• 5/5 is useful to stop siege disablers.

Flame Ram Mastery

• Flame rams are the most used offensive siege alongside catapults. Picking up some early points here is useful, though if you play a squishy build and zerg often it may be better to let tankier players take on the burden.
• 3/5 is the most important mastery for rams since the cooldown reduction gives extra DPS
• 5/5 if you have points to spare Iron Hide is useful when using rams while under siege

Mortar Mastery

• Mortars are pretty difficult to use and generally only helpful for counter siege. Unless you love mastering difficult siege v siege gameplay, leave this one until later.
• 4/5 is all you need for maximum damage on mortars
• 5/5 makes mortars much easier to use by letting the siege aim itself

Shield Generator Mastery

• Shield generators don't get used in large numbers often and generally require either all 5 points or none at all to do their job, making this a good mastery to skip until later.
• 4/5 cooldown reduction is very important for defensive countersieging
• 5/5 arrow cart protection is crucial for enabling sieges under heavy pressure
  • Taking the final upgrade causes Force Dome to not pulse Stability, making this final point a downgrade for defending

Siege Golem Mastery

• Golems are a somewhat rarely used siege but do get thrown down for sneak attacks and to defend camps.
• 2/5 gives you every damage increase for the golem which is enough for sneak attacks, but get to 5/5 if you can

Siege Might

• Very important but always secondary to catapult mastery.

Trebuchet Mastery

• Much like the mortar, this is usually a pretty niche anti-siege weapon and often a safe place to skip on spending points. That said, it does have some use as both offensive and defensive siege that makes it a better place to spend points than mortars.
• 3/5 is enough to get everything useful, don't take the last two points until much later

Build Orders

All builds start with similar initial point distribution since the account upgrades they give are too good to pass up. After the initial ranks there are three paths: The generalist that wants access to a bit of everything, the zerger that wants to run with large groups only and doesn't much care about using siege themselves if it helps their team win, and finally the roamer, for those that know they want to play in a small group at most and need to rely on themselves to do everything.

Make sure you keep an alt with 6/6 Provisions Master so you can save the points on your main.

The Generalist

First Points

1. Warclaw Mastery 1/7
2. War Gliding Master 1/5
3. Provisions Master 4/6
4. Warclaw Mastery 3/7
5. War Gliding 3/5
6. Defense Against Guards 5/5
7. Siege Bunker 5/5
8. Guard Killer 5/5
9. War Gliding 5/5

Secondary Priorities

1. Supply Master 4/5
2. Build Master 2/4
3. Repair Master 1/4
4. Provisions Master 5/6
5. Catapult Mastery 4/5
6. Siege Might 5/5
7. Arrow Cart Mastery 4/5
8. Flame Ram Mastery 3/5
9. Warclaw Mastery 7/7
10. Repair Master 4/4

Tertiary Priorities

1. Supply Capacity 5/5
2. Shield Generator Mastery 5/5
3. Burning Oil Mastery 5/5
4. Cannon Mastery 5/5
5. Golem Mastery 5/5
6. Trebuchet Mastery 5/5
7. Mortar Mastery 5/5
8. Ballista Mastery 5/5

The Zerger

First Points

1. Warclaw Mastery 1/7
2. War Gliding Master 1/5
3. Provisions Master 4/6
4. Warclaw Mastery 3/7
5. War Gliding 3/5
6. Defense Against Guards 5/5
7. Siege Bunker 5/5
8. Guard Killer 5/5
9. War Gliding 5/5

Secondary Priorities

1. Supply Master 4/5
2. Build Master 2/4
3. Repair Master 1/4
4. Provisions Master 5/6
5. Supply Capacity 5/5
6. Warclaw Mastery 5/7
7. Build Master 4/4
8. Repair Master 4/4

Tertiary Priorities

1. Catapult Mastery 5/5
2. Siege Might 5/5
3. Arrow Cart Mastery 5/5
4. Flame Ram Mastery 5/5
5. Shield Generator Mastery 5/5
6. Burning Oil Mastery 5/5
7. Cannon Mastery 5/5
8. Golem Mastery 5/5
9. Trebuchet Mastery 5/5
10. Mortar Mastery 5/5
11. Ballista Mastery 5/5

The Roamer

First Points

1. Warclaw Mastery 1/7
2. War Gliding Master 1/5
3. Defense Against Guards 5/5
4. Guard Killer 5/5 - (Roamers should take this before Siege Bunker)
5. Warclaw Mastery 3/7
6. Siege Bunker 5/5
7. Provisions Master 4/6
8. Retrain ability points here to take Warclaw 7/7
9. War Gliding 3/5
10. War Gliding 5/5

There is an important modification for roamers. Warclaw Mastery 7/7 gives access to the Dismounting Lance ability which is critical for engaging fights. It is worth retraining your ability points as soon as you reach rank 166 so that you can use it as soon as possible. Retraining can be done at the World Ability Master NPC found in the spawn area of any WvW map. Your first retraining is free while subsequent retrainings cost 25 spirit shards. Once you have Warclaw 7/7 simply restart from step 2: War Gliding Master 1/5, then progress from there.

While we didn't include Supply Capacity in the pre-Warclaw recommendations, this mastery could also be rather valuable depending on your playstyle. Being able to carry more supply allows you to build siege with fewer people, which makes this mastery well suited for people who prefer to play in smaller groups but still want to take on more than just a few enemy players and lesser objectives. For more info on how to be a roamer check out our Beginner's Guide to WvW Roaming.

Secondary Priorities

1. Catapult Mastery 4/5
2. Siege Might 5/5
3. Catapult Mastery 5/5
4. Build Master 2/4
5. Supply Master 4/5
6. Provisions Master 5/6
7. Build Master 4/4

Tertiary Priorities

1. Arrow Cart Mastery 5/5
2. Flame Ram Mastery 5/5
3. Burning Oil Mastery 5/5
4. Ballista Mastery 5/5
5. Cannon Mastery 5/5
6. Shield Generator Mastery 5/5
7. Golem Mastery 5/5
8. Trebuchet Mastery 5/5
9. Mortar Mastery 5/5