If you’ve just finished leveling up in Guild Wars 2, you’ve got a whole world to explore! While you can use waypoints to travel quickly between regions and explorable zones, mounts are the best and fastest way to get to where you want to go—especially if where you want to go is high in the air, in unfriendly waters, on the other side of a big canyon, or concealed from mortal eyes by centuries of magics. Those places usually have the best treasure.

The maximum character level in Guild Wars 2 is 80. Instead of increasing that cap, expansions include new Mastery tracks, which give your characters new ways to interact with the world. Mounts are part of the Mastery system, and their unique abilities are suited for different tasks and terrain. By filling out your stable of mounts and upgrading their skills with masteries, you’ll be prepared for anything Tyria throws your way.

You can customize your mounts’ coloring with dyes. In the Gem Store, you’ll find a huge selection of cosmetic mount skins to change their markings, their breed, and even their species! These appearance changes have no impact on your mounts’ abilities or power, so choose the looks that tickle your fancy.

You’ll need to be level 80 to unlock mounts, but every character on your account can use your unlocked mounts at any level!

Raptor

• Required Content: Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire™ (unlock and Mastery track) or Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons™ (unlock only)
• Path of Fire Mastery Points to Fully Unlock: 10

The raptor is the easiest mount to unlock if you own Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire and having one of your own will make covering ground in Tyria a breeze.

To unlock the raptor in Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire, just complete the first chapter of the main story, “Sparking the Flame.” You’ll be given a raptor to use to help clean up the devastation Balthazar’s Forged forces leave in their wake, and it’s yours to keep after completing the mission’s renown heart.

Hold the Leap skill while running, and your raptor will leap forward. This is a great way to get across chasms, broken bridges, floors made of lava, and sleeping charr who are blocking your path. After you unlock the Round Up Mastery, the raptor’s Tail Spin engage skill will pull enemies toward you for easy whacking. The Ravenous Strike Mastery increases Tail Spin’s damage, and Ravenous Discipline increases the damage of every mount’s engage skill.

If you only own Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons™, you can unlock the raptor by speaking to Strigidae in New Kaineng City. You’ll need Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire to fully unlock the Mastery track.

Springer

• Required Content: Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire (unlock and Mastery track) or Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons™ (unlock only)
• Required Mastery: Canyon Jumping (Raptor)
• Cost: 50 Trade Contracts and 1 Gold
• Path of Fire Mastery Points to Fully Unlock: 14

Springers are adorable creatures with wiggly noses and powerful legs. Use your springer to hop up cliffsides, bounce onto tall pillars, and terrify anyone who wasn’t expecting to see a giant rabbit at high elevations.

To unlock the springer in Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire, visit Highjump Ranch in Desert Highlands. The expansion story chapter The Sacrifice will lead you to this area, and you’ll need your springer to fully complete it. After you complete Stablemaster Unja’s renown heart for the first time, you’ll find the springer for sale in her vendor list.

You can use the springer’s Rocket Jump skill to bounce straight upward. Hold the skill button to charge up, and you’ll bounce even higher! As you explore, look for cliff faces with tiered ledges. Even if you can’t reach the top of an obstacle with one jump, you can often scale them by bouncing from foothold to foothold.

After you unlock the Forceful Impact Mastery, the springer’s Cannonball engage skill will knock enemies down. The Fortified Descent Mastery decreases the amount of fall damage your springer takes, and Masterful Descent extends the fall damage reduction to all your mounts.

If you only own Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons™, you can unlock the springer by speaking to Lieutenant Zhao in New Kaineng City. You’ll need Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire to fully unlock the Mastery track.

Skimmer

• Required Content: Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire (unlock and Mastery track)
• Required Mastery: Canyon Jumping (Raptor)
• Cost: 50 Trade Contracts and 4 Gold
• Path of Fire Mastery Points to Fully Unlock: 22

Skimmers can carry you safely across water, toxic sulfur, and dangerous quicksand. When you unlock the final skimmer Mastery, Skimming the Depths, you can even ride them underwater and make undead Orrian sailors, krait, and other deep-sea foes eat bubbles.

You’ll unlock the skimmer in Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire during the story chapter The Way Forward. Visit Skimmer Trainer Ardra at Skimmer Ranch in Elon Riverlands and complete her renown heart to purchase it from her.

The skimmer’s Hover High skill boosts it into the air for a short time, making it possible to pass barriers in water. After you unlock the Nimble Recovery Mastery, the skimmer’s Barrel Roll engage skill grants you and your allies protection and swiftness. The Nimble Benevolence Mastery extends this benefit to all your mounts.

Jackal

• Required Content: Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire (unlock and Mastery track)
• Required Mastery: Fully master either the springer or the skimmer’s movement skills.
• Cost: 200 Trade Contracts and 30 Gold
• Path of Fire Mastery Points to Fully Unlock: 14

Jackals are even more wild than the unusual animals you’ve encountered so far. Despite being crafted out of magical sand, they do enjoy treats.

You’ll reach the Desolation during the Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire story chapter Bringing Out the Archon. To unlock a jackal, you’ll need to complete either the springer’s High Vault Mastery or the skimmer’s Ride the Wind Mastery. Visit the Djinn Enclave and complete the renown heart to purchase your jackal from Drojkor, Spirit Squall.

As you explore the Crystal Desert, you’ll encounter mysterious sand portals that are impassable on foot. After unlocking your jackal’s Shifting Sands Mastery, you can use its movement skill, Blink, to investigate them! Some portals are shortcuts to different areas of explorable zones or hidden areas and others lead to puzzles that require careful maneuvering and quick thinking to solve. It’s a good idea to practice using Blink before tackling tough puzzles.

The jackal’s Enhanced Evasion Mastery allows you to dodge attacks while using Blink. The Adroit Evasion Mastery extends this benefit to all your mounts’ movement skills.

Once you’ve got all four of these mounts, take some time to familiarize yourself with their movement skills and fill out their Mastery tracks—and complete the Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire storyline as a prerequisite for unlocking your griffon. The griffon is a hidden mount that costs a total of 250 gold to unlock and requires you to travel across the Crystal Desert to complete collections, so you can prepare by saving up and fully exploring Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire zones.

In the next blog post in this series, we’ll look at how to unlock and use the griffon, roller beetle, warclaw, and skyscale. Happy riding!