Champion Points after Orsinium

This article is intended to explain how the Champion Point (CP) system currently works in ESO as well as some recent changes that were made with Patch 2.2 and the release of Orsinium. I’ll finish by discussing changes that are expected to affect the CP system in the future as more DLC & Patches are released. This article covers a lot of material, and I admit to drawing on the knowledge of others beyond my experience with ESO. I have listed my sources at the end of the article.

Players begin earning CPs once they pass level 49 and reach Veteran Rank 1 (VR1). From VR1 onward, players gain experience to continue increasing in level but that experience is also counted towards CPs. Only veteran rank characters can earn CPs, but those CPs are applied to all current and future characters of that player’s account regardless of their level. So if a VR4 “toon” has earned 100 CPs and that player also has a toon at level 3 and another at level 36, each of the three toons has 100 CPs that can be invested differently. CPs are invested into a new skill tree that grants various bonuses to players.

The Skill Tree

The CP skill tree is divided into three major constellations: the Warrior, Mage & Thief. These in turn are divided into three other minor constellations: Warrior – the Lord, Lady & Steed; Mage – the Ritual, Apprentice & Atronach; Thief – the Tower, Lover & Shadow. Players earn CPs for each major constellation in a rotation that goes from Warrior > Thief > Mage; players choose into which minor constellation they will allocate their CPs. Each minor constellation has four passive abilities into which points can be placed. As toons accumulate points in the minor constellations, bonuses are unlocked and applied automatically. The tiers for those bonuses are 10, 30, 75, and 120 CPs invested. The table below shows the CP constellation names, the skills and bonuses as they currently exists.

(Regarding this table, the bonuses that unlock at 10, 30, 75, and 120 CP do not have stated formulae I have been able to find. I have taken a shot at calculating a few of them, but I have left others in yellow to indicate bonuses that will scale to the player in some way I have not determined yet. Feel free to enlighten us in the comments below if you know one of them! Also, I have shortened some descriptions where possible to save space.)

The Hard Cap and Soft Caps

At the moment, no more than 100 CPs can be invested into any passive skill within the minor constellations. This results in a hard cap (upper limit) of 3600 CPs after which no further CPs can be invested (or earned, supposedly).

Since the release of Orsinium and Patch 2.2, a soft cap (referred to in other articles as a seasonal cap) of 501 CPs has been in place. Players can now see a counter in each major constellation showing X/167, which represents the number of CPs that have been invested into the Warrior, Thief or Mage up to 167 each. This means that among the minor constellations of the Warrior, Thief and Mage, players must choose how to divide their CPs. Players can continue earning more CPs beyond the soft cap, but they are currently restricted from investing those CPs that exceed the soft cap. A player with 801 CPs, for example, could invest 501 CPs and would have 300 remaining for later use when the soft cap is increased.

It will be obvious to most players that it is not possible to activate all current bonuses in each of the minor constellations with the current soft cap of 501. To get the 120 CP bonus for each minor constellation, at least 1080 CPs are needed. Thus, players are encouraged to take a strategic, long-term view to CP allocation and the benefits and bonuses their toons will accrue. It is possible to “redistribute” the CPs that have been placed into the minor constellations at a charge to the player of 30 gold per CP.

It is expected that the soft cap will increase by increments from 501 to 3600 over a span of time; it is not known how large those increments will be. There is speculation that the increases will occur quarterly and coincide with the release of major DLC packages. As the soft cap is increased, players will be able to invest up to that quantity of CPs. Each soft cap increase will also make it easier to earn CPs by decreasing the experience needed for each CP. Unlike the previous system before Patch 2.2 where every CP required 400,000 experience to earn, CPs are now earned with a sliding scale-formula which was presented by ZOS_RyanRuzich in the ESO Public Test Server Forum:

See the references at the end of this article if you would like to see a spreadsheet created by dominoid73 which shows how much experience is needed for every CP a player will earn and how that experience amount changes at different soft cap levels.

In a nutshell, what this change to earning CPs does is make it much easier to earn CPs starting out and more difficult once a player’s CP total approaches the current soft cap. This should allow late-comers to the game to catch up more quickly that would have been possible in the original mechanic.

Enlightenment

Before Patch 2.2, Enlightenment was a status that was granted (and stacked) to players every 24 hours which allowed them to earn one CP at a quarter of the usual experience cost. Nothing I’ve read suggests that the Enlightenment system has been changed. If I’m wrong, let me know in the comments!

Champion System Related News

Two interesting bits of CP-related news: plans for removing the Vet Rank system and creating PvP campaigns which negate the advantages of CP-given buffs.

Zenimax Online Studios (ZOS) has confirmed that they will eventually remove the vet rank progression from the game. This means that players will no longer progress from V1-V16 as they currently do. There is speculation that the progression players achieve once attaining veteran status will be entirely through the CP system. This may also mean that armor, weapons, etc. may eventually have CP requirements rather than player level requirements for veteran players.

Patch 2.3 will supposedly make all non-Vet PvP campaigns also negate the advantages some players have from CPs earned on veteran toons. There will also be at least one Vet campaign players may enter which will also block CP passive boosts. Cheers to a more even playing field!

Thanks for reading this article. Some of the information I have drawn on was posted by players in various forums rather than ZOS so if I have made mistakes, please make them known in the comments below. Also feel free to message me in game or send mail to Rhymnoceros.

Below is the source material from which I drew the majority of the information for this article.