Mastery is a system that is unlocked when you first reach Zone 181. That's when you unlock the Scryer formation and become able to use it to harvest Dark Essence from the world.

In this guide, Mastery names written in underline are Masteries that are far more powerful than other Masteries in the same row. Those are especially sought after.

Some Mastery picks outlined in this guide you may want to choose in a different order depending on your playstyle. In this guide I assume you do 1 Daily per day overnight using Time Warp and properly set up Map at Zone, and as many quick non-Daily runs (also called filler runs) as you can during the day (ideally 3 or more).

This guide contains spoilers, especially when reading the Terminology section or reading high tier Masteries, so beware.

In this guide some terminology is used that you may not know, so I will explain it here.

• Filler run - A quick non-Daily run. These runs dont usually take more than 2 hours. Used for farming Helium and Fluffy Exp outside of Dailies.
  
• Push run - A long run where you try to progress as far as you can. Push runs are used to farm Dark Essence and increase Highest Zone Reached for Liquification.
  
• BW - Bionic Wonderland
  
• Raiding - Raiding for gear means farming maps for equipment prestige upgrades above your current zone level, using either the Extra Zones map chamber modifier or Bionic Wonderlands.

1. Bounty Hunter - This mastery is excellent as you can finally stop having to remember about running The Wall.
   
2. Portal Generator / Turkimp Tamer I / Bionic Magnet I / Explorer Aura I - Pick whichever you like.
   
3. Home Detector - Weakest one as at this point in the game you no longer need the early housings.

1. Headstart I - Greatly increase your Helium income from Lead and any other future Helium challenges.
   
2. Herbalist - Good damage improvement.
   
3. Scryhard I - Helps greatly with Dark Essence gathering.
   
4. Metallic Coat - Helps moderately with survivability in the world.
   
5. Heirnuum I - Slightly improves all Heirloom stats.
   
6. Void Power I - Slightly increase stats in Void Maps.

1. Headstart II - Another very good chunk of Helium coming in from Helium challenges.
   
2. Legs for Days / Map Reducer I / King of Bones I - Legs for Days is great if you're keeping up with your Dailies. Map Reducer I makes it easier to farm map stacks. King of Bones I slightly improves your bone generation.
   
3. Void Power II - Small improvement to Void Map clears.
   
4. Safe Mapping - Health buff in maps, not really needed much.

1. Hyperspeed I - Hugely improve the speed of filler runs, as well as increase resources from map farming.
   
2. Randimp - Great source of more resource income, max Trimps, and more health.
   
3. Headstart III - Headstart III when taken 3rd provides a small (~10%) boost to Helium that drops off completely if taken 6th.
   
4. Blacksmithery I - Blacksmithery I improves the speed of your filler runs.
   
5. Map Battery - Doubles your attack in the world when pushing.
   
6. Turkimp Tamer II - Turkimp Tamer II permanently provides you with additional Metal generation.

1. Expert Gen - Great source of additional Magmite.
   
2. Magma Flow - Great for both more fuel generation and more Magmite generation.
   
3. Hyperspeed II - Great for speeding up filler runs.
   
4. Blacksmithery II - Great for speeding up filler runs.
   
5. King of Bones II - Big improvement to bone generation.
   
6. Explorer Aura II - More fragments is nice, but you shouldn't have too much trouble affording maps.

1. Scryhard II - Significant boost to Helium earned.
   
2. Void Power III - Decent strength increase for Void Maps and improves the speed of your fillers by speeding up Void Map clears.
   
3. Blacksmithery III - Improves the speed of your fillers and lets you free up a M@Z row that you might've had for farming prestige upgrades.
   
4. Liquification I - Improves the speed of your fillers.
   
5. Heirnuum II - Slight improvement to everything Heirloom related.
   
6. Map at Zonier - While nice, this one doesn't really give you anything you can't do yourself so it is last.

1. Still Rowing I - Significant increase to Helium earned.
   
2. Magmamancermancy - Good damage boost, especially when pushing.
   
3. Patience - Good attack boost.
   
4. Kerfluffle - Good attack boost.
   
5. Map Reducer II - Fair boost to resources earned from map caches.
   
6. Natural Diplomacy I - Not really needed too early. You will still be levelling all Natures and won't need trading.

Beyond this point, there will be three distinct Mastery specializations, each with their purpose. If you intend to play optimally, you will end up using all three at some point, so you should examine them carefully.

Before I talk about those, an important concept must be explained:

At this stage of the game, your primary way of acquiring additional pushing power is collecting equipment prestige upgrades. To go beyond the +10 limit of the Extra Zones map modifier, we use Bionic Wonderland for this purpose. It may seem like completing BW's 15, 30 or even 45 levels higher than current zone is impossibly difficult, but this is where Poison Nature comes in. Once your level and transfer rate of Poison is high enough, fighting enemies in high BW's will be slow at first, but will quickly ramp up as you stack ludicrous amounts of Poison on the enemies.

Whenever climbing BW's is relevant, if possible, the Bionic Magnet II Mastery is highly recommended. You can do some BW climbing without this mastery, but this mastery increases the speed of BW clears tremendously. Normally without this mastery you have to clear a BW three times before you can get to the first attack upgrade (Dagger), whereas with this mastery you only have to clear it once to start ramping in speed.

Now, onto the specs:

This is the default multipurpose specialization, designed mainly for farming Helium. In Helium Spec, you:

• use AutoGold Voidlium to maximize Helium
  
• Gain Fuel only for 20-40 zones
  
• If you use Perky[grimy.github.io] to assign your Perks, your ideal weights for Helium/Attack/Health/Fluffy are 500/50/1/500.

This specialization is designed for farming Fluffy Experience. In Fluffy Spec, you

• use AutoGold Voidtle to maximize attack power without compromising Nullifium gains
  
• Gain Fuel only for 20-40 zones
  
• If you use Perky[grimy.github.io] to assign your Perks, your ideal weights for Helium/Attack/Health/Fluffy are 1/50/1/500.

This specialisation is most frequently used:

• At Fluffy Evolution 7, after reaching about 2-5Sx total Helium, to reach E7L10 (Evo 7 Level 10). At E7L10 you gain an immensely powerful Helium farming ability that will let you start farming Helium again.
  
• At Fluffy Evolution 8, after reaching 50-100Sx total Helium, to reach E8L10 (Evo 8 Level 10) and unlock Universe 2.

This specialization is designed for progressing as far as possible, used for clearing Spires for the first time, farming DE and improving Liquification and Challenge² bonus. In Battle Spec you

• use AutoGold Battle or AutoGold Voidtle
  
• Gain Fuel throughout the entire run
  
• If you use Perky[grimy.github.io] to assign your Perks, you should use the "Other c²" Preset
  
• Utilize Bionic Wonderland climbing

1. Void Specialization I - Immense improvement to Helium earned.
   
2. Strength in Health I - A significant amount of additional damage.
   
3. Still Rowing II - A high amount of additional damage.
   
4. Liquification II - Increase the speed of your fillers.
   
5. Amalgagreater - A moderate amount of additional damage.
   
6. Natural Diplomacy II - Decent improvement to Nature stack transfer, bringing it from 80% to 85%.

When farming Helium, pick the order outlined above.

When farming Exp, we focus on damage and run time:
Strength in Health I -> Still Rowing II -> Liquification II -> Amalgagreater -> Others

When pushing, we focus on damage:
Strength in Health I -> Still Rowing II -> Amalgagreater -> Natural Diplomacy II -> Others

1. Void Specialization II - Immense increase to Helium earned.
   
2. Flufffocus - Immense increase to Exp earned.
   
3. Flufffinity - Fluffy Abilities are powerful, so this will frequently give early access to a strong ability.
   
4. Bionic Magnet II - Required when doing push runs. Can cut down time spent climbing Bionic Wonderlands threefold or more.
   
5. Excessive / Charged Crits - Excessive improves the speed of your filler runs. Charged Crits is a decent amount of damage, great for push runs.

When farming Helium, pick the order outlined above.

When farming Exp, we focus early on Excessive to improve run time:
Flufffocus -> Excessive -> Flufffinity -> Others

When pushing, we focus early on damage and ability to climb Bionic Wonderland:
Bionic Magnet II -> Charged Crits -> Flufffinity -> Others

1. Mesmer - An enormous increase to Helium earned, and a great boost to attack and health.
   
2. Strength in Health II - A huge increase to Helium earned.
   
3. Master of the Void - A large increase to Helium earned, and a speed increase for filler runs.
   
4. Still Magmamancing - An immense increase to damage dealt, especially in filler runs.
   
5. Liquification III - Significant speed increase to filler runs.
   
6. Angelic - Very powerful health regeneration. Useless in Universe 1. Required in Universe 2.

Pick the order outlined above. Remember that you must have Angelic if you are entering Universe 2.

When farming Exp, we focus on damage and run time speed.
Mesmer -> Liquification III -> Still Magmamancing -> Master of the Void -> Others

When pushing, we focus on damage.
Mesmer -> Still Magmamancing -> Others