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Champion Points and what to do with them
Iselin
Member LegendaryPosts: 18,719
So you've made it past level 50 and you started accumulating Champion Points, and now you want to know the best passives to put them in. Well this mini guide is for you.
First things first. CP allocation post-Morrowind saw a very big change with respect to diminishing returns. You can put up to 100 points in each passive but the increase that you get -- your "bang for the point" as it were, makes it wasteful to actually drop 100 into any one of them.
Let's take a look at Ironclad for example. This is a passive that reduces the damage you take from direct damage attacks by a %. With 56 points allocated the reduction is 20% and with 100 points it's 25% - the last 44 points you put in it add just an extra 5% reduction.
So keeping that in mind here are some simple tips:
1. Never put more than 56 points into any of them unless there really is nothing else useful to put those points into. In practice there really is only one situation where you might want to go higher and that: for either magicka or stamina regen, whichever of those is the important one for you.
2. It is always better to not take damage than it is to heal the damage you take. The defensive passives that prevent it should be your priority over the ones that increase your healing done or received.
3. Special role builds (tanking, dedicated healer) might need different priorities than the generic all-around and DPS choices I recommend below. Probably the best ESO resource these days is Alcast HQ. Take a look at his recommendations for healing and tanking builds especially.
4. The CP system uses a somewhat buggy rounding down system so beware: if you allocate enough points to get 19.97% of something, it will be rounded down to 19%. It's even worse than that: An exact 20% display will sometimes also get rounded down. Make sure you have just over your intended % target - 20.01% will be fine.
So where should you start putting your CP?
These are recommendations that work very well for me for Solo, PVP, PVE DPS and DPS/Healing builds. There will be some minor differences depending on specific classes (e.g. a class that uses damage shields a lot might want to buff those; if you want to emphasize crit damage you might also want to buff that, etc.) but the ones I'm highlighting below are proven all-around good selections.
The Warrior (red) is where passives that reduce your damage taken and increase healing received reside.
The two key passives here are Ironclad under the Steed and Thick Skinned under The Lady. They reduce damage taken from DD and DOTs respectively. This is the type of damage that will hurt you the most from bosses and other mobs in dungeons or the open world. You should try to get those up to 56 each with your first 112 points (CP336.)
Next best places to put points here are Elemental Defender and Hardy under The Lady and Expert Defender under The Lord. That's magic and elemental damage reduction from Elemental Defender, physical, poison and disease reduction from Hardy and light and heavy attack damage reduction from Expert Defender. This third one is perhaps a little less needed than the first two but a pack of adds doing light attacks on you can add-up
I personally like putting 43 points in the first two and 21 in the 3rd.
The Mage (Blue) is all about doing damage.
There is a lot more variation of recommended passives here. It's not just the obvious difference between magicka or stamina based damage, it's also your emphasis on DOTs or DD, damaging shields, critical damage, etc.
However there are 2 here that I also usually want to get up to 56 on all my characters: Master at Arms under the Atronach for +20% direct damage and Thaumaturge under The Ritual for +20% DOT damage.
Next in importance will be Mighty and Piercing under The Ritual for physical, poison and disease damage and penetration (Stamina builds) and their counterparts under The Apprentice, Elemental Expert and Spell Erosion for + magic, flame, frost and shock damage and spell penetration.
The Thief (Green) is all about the part of the game that gained extra importance after the Morrowind patch. It's something that you have to work at now much more than before by using heavy attacks to regenerate either Stamina or Magicka depending on the weapon type used.
The key passives here are one of either Mooncalf or Arcanist under The Lover for + Stamina or Magicka recovery and Tenacity also under The Lover to increase the amount of resources your heavy attacks regenerate. 56 points in tenacity is plenty for an extra 20% heavy attack recovery but the other two could be the only exceptions to the never more than 56 rule... maybe.
56 points in those will increase your natural recovery over time by 12% and 100 points by 15%. The only reason we are tempted to "waste" 44 points for a measly extra 3% is because for some builds recovery is just such a PITA these days that we do it out of desperation Personally I never go above 56 points for magicka builds since I don't find their resource recovery all that painful but I have taken it higher with Stamina builds where the problem is more glaring.
Other than those, there are many minor passives here that will reduce the cost of blocking, roll dodging, bashing and sprinting. With CP660, I typically have enough green points left-over to take all of those to 10% reductions.
So there you have it. Just one way among many to prioritize and to allocate champion points, but one I can personally recommend because it works for me.
First things first. CP allocation post-Morrowind saw a very big change with respect to diminishing returns. You can put up to 100 points in each passive but the increase that you get -- your "bang for the point" as it were, makes it wasteful to actually drop 100 into any one of them.
Let's take a look at Ironclad for example. This is a passive that reduces the damage you take from direct damage attacks by a %. With 56 points allocated the reduction is 20% and with 100 points it's 25% - the last 44 points you put in it add just an extra 5% reduction.
So keeping that in mind here are some simple tips:
1. Never put more than 56 points into any of them unless there really is nothing else useful to put those points into. In practice there really is only one situation where you might want to go higher and that: for either magicka or stamina regen, whichever of those is the important one for you.
2. It is always better to not take damage than it is to heal the damage you take. The defensive passives that prevent it should be your priority over the ones that increase your healing done or received.
3. Special role builds (tanking, dedicated healer) might need different priorities than the generic all-around and DPS choices I recommend below. Probably the best ESO resource these days is Alcast HQ. Take a look at his recommendations for healing and tanking builds especially.
4. The CP system uses a somewhat buggy rounding down system so beware: if you allocate enough points to get 19.97% of something, it will be rounded down to 19%. It's even worse than that: An exact 20% display will sometimes also get rounded down. Make sure you have just over your intended % target - 20.01% will be fine.
So where should you start putting your CP?
These are recommendations that work very well for me for Solo, PVP, PVE DPS and DPS/Healing builds. There will be some minor differences depending on specific classes (e.g. a class that uses damage shields a lot might want to buff those; if you want to emphasize crit damage you might also want to buff that, etc.) but the ones I'm highlighting below are proven all-around good selections.
1. Damage Mitigation
The Warrior (red) is where passives that reduce your damage taken and increase healing received reside.
The two key passives here are Ironclad under the Steed and Thick Skinned under The Lady. They reduce damage taken from DD and DOTs respectively. This is the type of damage that will hurt you the most from bosses and other mobs in dungeons or the open world. You should try to get those up to 56 each with your first 112 points (CP336.)
Next best places to put points here are Elemental Defender and Hardy under The Lady and Expert Defender under The Lord. That's magic and elemental damage reduction from Elemental Defender, physical, poison and disease reduction from Hardy and light and heavy attack damage reduction from Expert Defender. This third one is perhaps a little less needed than the first two but a pack of adds doing light attacks on you can add-up
I personally like putting 43 points in the first two and 21 in the 3rd.2. Damage Dealing
The Mage (Blue) is all about doing damage.
There is a lot more variation of recommended passives here. It's not just the obvious difference between magicka or stamina based damage, it's also your emphasis on DOTs or DD, damaging shields, critical damage, etc.
However there are 2 here that I also usually want to get up to 56 on all my characters: Master at Arms under the Atronach for +20% direct damage and Thaumaturge under The Ritual for +20% DOT damage.
Next in importance will be Mighty and Piercing under The Ritual for physical, poison and disease damage and penetration (Stamina builds) and their counterparts under The Apprentice, Elemental Expert and Spell Erosion for + magic, flame, frost and shock damage and spell penetration.
3. Resource Cost Reductions and Regeneration
The Thief (Green) is all about the part of the game that gained extra importance after the Morrowind patch. It's something that you have to work at now much more than before by using heavy attacks to regenerate either Stamina or Magicka depending on the weapon type used.
The key passives here are one of either Mooncalf or Arcanist under The Lover for + Stamina or Magicka recovery and Tenacity also under The Lover to increase the amount of resources your heavy attacks regenerate. 56 points in tenacity is plenty for an extra 20% heavy attack recovery but the other two could be the only exceptions to the never more than 56 rule... maybe.
56 points in those will increase your natural recovery over time by 12% and 100 points by 15%. The only reason we are tempted to "waste" 44 points for a measly extra 3% is because for some builds recovery is just such a PITA these days that we do it out of desperation
Personally I never go above 56 points for magicka builds since I don't find their resource recovery all that painful but I have taken it higher with Stamina builds where the problem is more glaring.Other than those, there are many minor passives here that will reduce the cost of blocking, roll dodging, bashing and sprinting. With CP660, I typically have enough green points left-over to take all of those to 10% reductions.
So there you have it. Just one way among many to prioritize and to allocate champion points, but one I can personally recommend because it works for me.
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Comments
Sz
I had fun once, it was terrible.
And for the record, I still do it this way this many months later.
Also... I still find magicka builds with lightning or resto staves soooo much easier for reource regen. The channeled nature of those heavy attacks just feel normal even if they take just as long as heavy attacks with a 2-HD or a bow or DW or S&B. IDK why. Maybe it's because something is happening the whole time and all the other ones have a wind-up phase before something happens. All I know is that I find stamina resource management with any of those weapons a PITA but with a staff it just feels natural to me.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
56 points in those will increase your natural recovery over time by 12% and 100 points by 15%. The only reason we are tempted to "waste" 44 points for a measly extra 3%
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Each point invested does not give you the same increase as the previous point -- it gives you less than the previous one.
So there comes a point where you might as well stop and start putting points somewhere else.
From 1-56 it's generally worth it but after that the diminishing returns really start to make it kind of wasteful.
As to the stamina builds I only ever do that for stamina regen. The Thief (green) is all about reducing cost of abilities and increasing regen and for DPS builds you're typically only concerned with one type of regen.
So you do end up with more "spare" points there than you do in the blue or red constellations. The need to block, dodge, break free, etc. is not as critical in PVE for non-tanks because you don't do it all that often. It's nice to have them but it isn't a big deal if you decide to reduce those less and "waste" some points taking your key stat regen beyond 56.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I had fun once, it was terrible.
The problem with actually using DW abilities and magicka abilities together is that they draw their potency from different pools. Everything DW does is based on your stamina pool and weapon damage.
There are ways of building hybrids properly but that relies on using Pelinar's Aptitude crafted armor which is a 9-trait set that can only be crafted by master crafters. The 5-piece bonus on that set makes your weapon and spell damage be the higher of the two. Only in that case is mixing stamina abilities and magicka abilities as good as just concentrating on one.
There's nothing stopping you from being in melee range with a staff though. As a matter of fact DKs specially have a lot of short range magicka abilities including their spammable Lava Whip and its morphs that have an 8 meter range that get you into melee range anyway. Pretty well all classes have some.
It's the safest spot in dungeons anyway. Playing near the tank behind the boss to get his group shield buffs and the healer's ground targeted heals is best most of the time as long as you get out of the red AOE when you need to.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED