How to unlock Skiffs in Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons

In Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, players got access to gliders, which allowed them to traverse chasms and save themselves from falling damage. Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire granted players the ability to use Mounts, making crossing the often large world map a little bit easier. With the release of End of Dragons, a new travel-based mechanic, Skiffs, has been released to make players’ time traveling across the many islands and areas of Cantha a bit easier. This is how you’ll unlock Skiff travel in Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons.

Skiffs are a Mastery skill tree that unlocks while you’re completing the 4th Chapter of the main story. You’ll need to complete the story until a certain point and then approach Hall Director Soohee to unlock the Skiffs. She’ll give you a Renown Heart mission set to compete.

To complete the mission, you’ll be asked to help out with the Aetherblades, who have taken several prisoners and generally made life for the locals more than a little bit miserable. To do this, you’ll want first to repair a Skiff. Many broken ones are located at the docks around the area, and once right next to the quest giver, Hall Director Soohee. Fixing the Skiffs requires an easy-to-complete memory game of symbols, and then you’ll be able to set sail across the water channels.

Prisoners are located both on land and in the water, and you can load them up into your Skiff as you sail by interacting with them. You’ll only be able to carry four passengers at a time before you have to return to the docks near Hall Director Soohee and sail to the delivery point. You can also earn completion bonuses by sailing your boat into floating debris to disperse it and fishing at Special Fishing Holes. Bright sparkly circles indicate these on the water. You can only fish once you’ve moored your Skiff right in the circle.

Once you’ve completed the Heart, speak to Hall Director Soohee again, and you’ll be able to purchase items from her. You can buy the Skiff for either Imperial Favour or Writs of Seitung Province and some Silver.