Guild Wars 2 Wiki (GW2W) (2024)

Experience (also exp and XP) is a system of character and account progression in the Player versus Environment game mode. Initially, each new character starts at level 1, and is rewarded experience for participating in various activities and completing objectives. When a character accumulates enough experience, they will gain a level, which increases character's attributes and unlocks new skills. At the maximum level 80, experience becomes an account-wide system shared by all max level characters. At this stage, experience is put towards training available Mastery tracks, or, if no Mastery tracks are available or selected, leveling past 80 will award 1 Spirit Shard. Current character/mastery level and the experience gained towards the next one is displayed on the experience bar in the user interface at the bottom of the screen.

It is possible to increase the amount of experience gained by using special boosters, food and utility consumable items, as well as Guild banners and other effects, see Experience modifiers section below. Character Adventure Guide, a special group of character-based achievements, grants experience for executing various basic gameplay tasks.

World Experience (WvW rank) and PvP Rank are the equivalent systems in the World versus World and Structured PvP game modes, respectively.

Gaining experience[edit]

Experience is awarded for completing different actions in the game. These activities are:

Open world[edit]

• Participating in a Dynamic event
• Slaying creatures
  • Bonus exploration experience is granted depending on how long a creature has been alive in the world.
  • Experience is granted to all players who participated in slaying the creature.
• Gathering from material nodes such as wood, ore, or plant nodes.
• Completing Adventures, which awards bonus experience the first time reaching requisite ranks and then standard experience afterwards. Once daily per account.
• Fishing
• Map completion objectives, including:
  • Renown Hearts
  • Hero challenges
  • Points of Interest
  • Waypoints
  • Vistas

Instanced content[edit]

• Progressing personal story or living story in both instances and open world
• Participating in Dungeons
• Participating in Fractals
• Participating in Raids
• Participating in Strike Missions

Other[edit]

• Reviving players and NPCs
• Completing Achievements
  • Character Adventure Guide
  • Daily Category Achievements
• Crafting
• Consumables:
  • Bundle of Loot
  • Tome of Knowledge
  • Tome of Mentorship
  • Writ of Experience
  • Elixir of Central Tyria Mastery
  • Elixir of Heart of Thorns Mastery
  • Elixir of Path of Fire Mastery
  • Elixir of Icebrood Saga Mastery
  • Elixir of End of Dragons Mastery
• Consumables (PoF only):
  • Raptor Treat
  • Springer Treat
  • Skimmer Treat
  • Jackal Treat
  • Roller Beetle Treat
  • Casino Coin
• Services (auto-consume upon acquisition):
  • Adventure Experience Award: Volume One
  • Adventure Experience Award: Volume Two
  • Adventure Experience Award: Volume Three
  • Adventure Experience Award: Volume Four
  • Adventure Experience Award: Volume Five
  • Pamphlet of Wisdom
  • Stash of Crimson Skull Coins
  • Scrap of End of Dragons Mastery
  • Scrap of Icebrood Saga Mastery
  • Shred of Sea of Jade Mastery
  • Shred of Secrets of the Obscure Mastery
  • Writ of Maguuma Mastery
  • Writ of Tyrian Mastery

Experience modifiers[edit]

There are several ways to increase the amount of experience earned, with different boosters affecting different types of experience gain.

All = all standard experience sources (events, kills, gathering, etc.) with the exception of experience consumables and services;
Kills = experience from creature kills (PvE only);
WXP = World Experience (all sources except consumables and services)

Effect	Source	Bonus experience	All	Kill	WXP	Notes
Consumables
Black Lion Boost	Black Lion Booster	50%	0	1	0	Purchased with Black Lion Statuettes
50% Experience Bonus	Experience Booster Communal Boost Bonfire Kite Fortune Enchanted Reward Boost	50%	0	1	0
Killstreak Experience Booster	Killstreak Experience Booster Enchanted Reward Boost	0-100%	0	1		Requires killing foes to gain stacks of Active Kill Streak! The Active Kill Streak! effect does not stack with the Active Kill Streak! of the Experience Booster (see notes)
Experience Booster Active Kill Streak!	Experience Booster Experience Booster (masterwork) Heroic Booster Candy Corn Gobbler	50-150%	1	1	1	50% is the default bonus experience, the remaining 100% requires killing foes to gain stacks of Active Kill Streak! The Active Kill Streak! effect does not stack with the Active Kill Streak! of the Killstreak Experience Booster (see notes)
Celebration Bonus	Birthday Booster Celebration Booster	100%	0	1	1
Winter's Blessing	Winter's Blessing	10%	1	1	0	Doesn't grant extra experience in WvW despite its tooltip description.
Nourishment	Food consumables	10-15%	1	1	1	Ascended feasts provide 5% all experience gained and 10% WXP gained
Enhancement	Utility consumables	10-15%	0	1	0
New Year's Gift	Lunar New Year fireworks such as Lucky Draketail	5%	0	1
Blessings of the New Year	Lucky Firecracker	10%	1	1	0	Doesn't grant extra experience in WvW despite its tooltip description.
Festival Gobbler Boost	Zhaitaffy Gobbler Snowflake Gobbler	25%	0	1	1
Banners
Guild Experience Bonus	Guild Exp Banner	5%	0	1	0	Does not stack with other experience bonuses from guild banners
Guild Experience Banner Bonus	Guild Karma and Experience Banner Guild Heroes Banner Guild Anniversary Banner	15%	0	1	0	Does not stack with other experience bonuses from guild banners
Zone-specific bonus
Bloodstone Empowerment	Bought from Natto	10%-30%	1	1	0	Only works in Bloodstone Fen
Perseverance	Completing Ember Bay renown hearts.	10%-50%	0	1	0	Only works in Ember Bay
Seraph Morale	Completing Lake Doric events	1%-10%	0	1	0	Only works in Lake Doric
Blessing of the Harvest Forest	Eating Magic-Imbued Peach gained from Nature's Watcher	20%	0	1	0	Only works in Lake Doric
Draconis Mons Empowerment	Bought from Supplymaster Hanjo	10%-30%	1	1	0	Only works in Draconis Mons
Explorer's Respite	Bonfire (Priory Historian Elisa)	5%		1	0	Gained from standing near Priory Historian Elisa's bonfire after Gather wood for the fire for an Experience boost (80) has been completed. Removed when you leave the instance.
Boon of the Wishing Well	Wishing Well	3%	0	1	0	Chance to gain one stack when offering coins to the Wishing Well in the Domain of Vabbi, up to 5 stacks. Removed when you leave the instance.
Empowerment	Bought from Nalar, Ethall, Alaleh, Trader Hyacinth, Kynon and Mist Warden Quartermaster Earned from the achievement In a Grain of Sand	10%-30%	1	1	0	Only works in Living World Season 4 maps
Time-specific bonus
Bonus Weekend Event	Automatic	100%	1	1	1	Experience earned in open world and World vs. World maps is doubled (excluding instances, dungeons, and activities).
Extra Life Bonus	Automatic	3%				7 stacks applied account-wide after the conclusion of the 2018 Extra Life event.
Extra Life Bonus	Automatic	5%	1	1	0	10 stacks applied account-wide after the conclusion of the 2019, 2020 and 2021 Extra Life event.
New Hero Jump Start Boost	Automatic	50%				Given to all characters during the Welcome Back event.
Miscellaneous
Guild XP Gain	Guild bonus	3%-10%	1	1	0
Experienced Enrichment	Experienced Enrichment	20%	0	1	0	Bonus active while equipped
XP Gain	Achievement rewards	3% per 2,500	0	1	0	Permanent account bonus based on total achievement points earned
Ancient Canthan Secret	Purchased from Grand Master Kyren after completing Monastery Training	10%	0	1	0
Enlightenment	Completing Monastery Training	20%	1	1	0
Rested	Resting in Arborstone, The Wizard's Tower, or Resting in Chair	5%-25%	1	1	0	Earn an additional 5% for each level of Arborstone Revitalization unlocked or maximum with Astral Amenities, up to a total of 25%. Player can receive the buff while logged out in Arborstone or the Wizard's Tower.
Volunteer's Blessing	Volunteering to switch to a more populated map.	10%	0	1	0	The bonus lasts for 10 minutes.
Total		+495%				This total does not include the account bonus, time-specific bonuses or zone-specific bonuses.

Retired consumables[edit]

Retired items that are not available anymore, can still be used to further increase the total amount of bonus experience if the player still has the item.

Effect	Source	Bonus experience	Notes
30% Experience Bonus	Laureate Experience Booster	30%	Replaced with Experience Booster (masterwork)

Modifier notes[edit]

• Theoretically, the maximum possible amount of bonus experience is currently +550% (account modifiers excluded). This includes the bonuses from Ember Bay Perseverance and retired consumables.
• If both the Killstreak Experience Booster and the Experience Booster are used at the same time, the Active Kill Streak! stacks gained per killed foe is doubled, but it's still capped at a total of 10 stacks.
• While the Experience Booster (fine) and the Experience Booster both grant 50% bonus experience and have the same icon, they are treated separately and can be used at the same time to get a combined bonus of 100%.

Leveling mechanics[edit]

World activities award a dynamic amount of experience to different players of different levels. The goal of this approach was to make gaining the experience required for each level take a similar amount of time, provided the player sticks to activities and areas appropriate for their level.^[1]

For example, getting the "gold" participation reward for a dynamic event will award 7% of the XP required for reaching next level, which for a level 16 player completing a level 16 event gives 616 XP out of the 8,790 XP needed to reach level 17, and for a level 26 player completing a level 26 event it gives 1043 of the 14,900 XP needed to reach 27.

Experience gained is modified by the difference in the content level and your character level. This modifier begins with a base of 50% and scales linearly as the difficulty decreases. For example, a level 50 character completing a level 25 event will receive 52,500 * 0.07 * 0.75 = 2757 XP. This does mean a high level character will receive more experience for the same content as a low-level character, but the percentage of a level gained is higher for the lower level character. For example, a level 25 character completing the same event will receive 14,100 * 0.07 = 987 XP. While this is almost one third that of the level 50 character, it is 7% towards the next level compared to the 5.25% the level 50 receives.

Leveling table[edit]

The following is the table of experience needed to level up.

Experience per activity[edit]

The following are percentages used for various activities. Area levels are not stated directly but can be determined by the creatures, hearts, and events in the area, or subtracting one from the player's dynamic level.

Effective leveling table for level 1-15[edit]

When calculating experience rewards for the first fifteen levels, the following table is used instead. This is due to changes made in the September 9, 2014 game update, where the total experience required to level up was reduced, but the rewards were kept as percentage of the previous experience required, such that the rate of leveling was accelerated. ^{[verification requested]}

After max level[edit]

As the maximum level is 80, gaining experience when at level 80 will not provide further levels.

If a mastery track is selected and incomplete, experience goes towards that. Once all mastery tracks for a region have been filled, or if the player hasn't unlocked masteries yet, gaining 254,000 experience will instead grant a Spirit Shard.

While the selected mastery track is full, experience goes to a hidden experience bar which will award spirit shards once the player has unlocked all the masteries.^[2]

References[edit]