Guides/Starting out
Hero points: 250 per elite specialisation and how to gather them in an evening
How many points levelling gives, why expansion challenges are worth 10 and core Tyria ones only 1, and why the points cannot be shared between characters.
On this page
Hero points are the currency that unlocks your skills and traits. Without them a level 80 character stays half empty, and an elite specialisation will not open at all.
How many you need
Two numbers worth remembering:
398 fully unlocks a core profession: every skill and every trait.
250 is what each elite specialisation costs on top.
So a class plus one elite is 648 points, plus two elites is 898, and so on. Every class has four (what they do).
Where they come from
Levelling. The road from 1 to 80 gives exactly 398 points. The core class therefore unlocks itself, purely for reaching the end (how to get there faster).
Hero challenges. Marked points on the map, available from level 11.
🔴 And the detail that matters: a core Tyria challenge gives 1 point, an expansion challenge gives 10.
Where they are
| Region | Each challenge | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Core Tyria | 1 | 189 |
| Heart of Maguuma (HoT) | 10 | 400 |
| Crystal Desert (PoF) | 10 | 290 |
| Cantha (EoD) | 10 | 310 |
| Castora (VoE) | 10 | 300 |
With levelling included, 1,912 points exist. That is three times what a class with all four elites requires.
What this means in practice
Unlocking an elite takes 25 challenges in an expansion instead of 250 points in the core game.
The difference is an evening against a week. So the standard route runs: reach 80, go to an expansion map, collect 25 points, unlock the elite.
Expansion challenges are harder and some are built for groups, especially in Heart of Thorns. That is rarely a problem, because trains of players run those same points all day. Ask in map chat or use the group finder.
🔴 Points do not carry between characters
Hero points belong to the character, not the account.
Roll a second character and you gather everything again. The challenges reset per character too.
This is one reason players rarely keep ten active characters: every new 80 means another 25 points in the jungle.
Types of challenge
Not all of them involve fighting:
- Single combat against one opponent
- Group combat, the hardest of them in Heart of Thorns
- Communing with a place of power: walk up and hold a key
- An item to use
- A dialogue with a choice
- A mini-game
Combat challenges in expansions also drop a bonus chest once a day. They give no further hero points on a repeat, and the chest is a reason to come back.
Challenges in WvW
They exist on WvW maps too, across all four borderlands. An acquired taste: players from another world can kill you on the way to the point.
Advice for a newcomer
Do not farm core Tyria points deliberately. They arrive on their own while you explore maps, and that is enough.
The real work starts after 80: buy an expansion, walk its maps, and collect ten at a time. Twenty-five points and the elite is yours.