Not sure how to spend the CP

Morgha_Kul

So... in my Templar's ongoing effort to do decent damage, I've been tinkering with his CP arrangement... but I'm not sure how to maximize his damage output, and I thought I'd ask here what people think.

I have 157 points to spend. I'm ONLY interested in boosting DPS using the MAGE CP. All other avenues are already allocated, and I'm not changing my stats or gear. The character is HYBRID. I do use light and heavy attacks a lot, perhaps more than others do, but I don't ONLY use those. Skills need to do damage too. Much of his defense comes from his healing, so he needs to have a decent ability to do that, too.

Given these limitations, where would you put the CP, and how much would you suggest? Remember the idea is to maximize the benefit of the CP to overall damage.

idk

One spot to look at is Alcasts builds

Morgha_Kul

idk wrote: »

One spot to look at is Alcasts builds

I get "Comment not found."

majorana

If you are on pc you can try the constellations addon, if you are not then it would be hard to help as hybrid builds are not common on the internet and no can comment on a specific build without knowing details. As mentioned, alcasthq,com has some nice builds (they are not hybrid though).

Hymzir

You will severely limit your damage by being hybrid. Tinkering with CP will not change that.

You can get a decent enough hybrid build for doing overland content, and with the right gear can get it to work okayish in dungeons too. You might even manage a fairly good build for non-CP PVP with a hybrid. But as far as CP go, you wont get a decent hybrid build even with capped CP.

You simply wont have enough points to get decent % values for both physical and magic damage. That's just the way it is.

If you still intend to persist with your plan, then you have to go with jab spam and as many dots as possible. That way you can place bulk of your points into Thaumaturge and benefit for both physical and magical dots. Also, as a templar, a large portion of your damage is tied down to Burning light procs, so you have to spam jambs anyway. The good news is, that ZOS has told us that jabs is gonna be changed to 1 sec channel with Elsweyr, making weaving light attacks more efficient. Bad news is, that jabs is still prolly gonna be lackluster skill. Especially in PVP.

Beyond that, there isn't much you can do CP wise. There are three CP stars for both magic and physical damage. One that gives a flat increase to the damage type, one that increases critical damage, and one that gives you penetration. To maximize your damage you need to get all three up for that damage type. For a hybrid, that means 6 stars to put points in, and you wont have enough points for that. Even though they are front loaded.

This is because the interaction between the effects is essentially multiplicative. The actual mechanism are fairly complicated, but the end result is that they each enhance the overall effect of each other. Thus if you add points into three stars to get... Let's say a 10% increase in nominal power from each, your over all efficiency goes up 33%. If you place enough points into 6 different stars to get both physical and magical damage up by the same amount, you will be limiting your damage by quite a bit. Let's assume that by placing all your point into just the three stars tied to one damage type, thus doubling the actual points allocated, you will get a 15% boost in nominal power from each star, your overall efficiency will go up by 52%. In sucha scenario a single damage type build would increase the overall damage they dish out by 62% more than a hybrid build.

That is why hybrids will never work in ESO, as long as CP work the way they do. Or unless we can grind up to 2000CP or so. At that point the front loaded nature of the system will start to even out the differences enough for a hybrid to be pretty much as good as a dedicated single damage type build. The single damage type will still do few percent more damage, but it will be made up by the flexibility that a hybrid offers. But since CP are frozen at 810 points that is not possible.

I could go into more detail, but it's kinda pointless unless I know more about your build. Stating that you are running a hybrid build wont really tell me enough. You have to go into details, and most importantly tell us your reasoning for running a hybrid build. What skills you are using and for what end? Do you use staves or physical weapons? Do you run Biting jabs or Puncturing Seep? How about your regen? How do you sort that out? It doesn't matter much, how high you can get your damage potential, if you are running dry on resources and can only spam light attacks.

Well... anyway, even with all that info available, there really isn't much we can help you with. The way CP system is build jsut doesn't support hybrid builds.

idk

One spot to look at is Alcasts builds

Morgha_Kul wrote: »

idk wrote: »

One spot to look at is Alcasts builds

I get "Comment not found."

try this

https://alcasthq.com/

Morgha_Kul

Hymzir wrote: »

You will severely limit your damage by being hybrid. Tinkering with CP will not change that.

You can get a decent enough hybrid build for doing overland content, and with the right gear can get it to work okayish in dungeons too. You might even manage a fairly good build for non-CP PVP with a hybrid. But as far as CP go, you wont get a decent hybrid build even with capped CP.

You simply wont have enough points to get decent % values for both physical and magic damage. That's just the way it is.

If you still intend to persist with your plan, then you have to go with jab spam and as many dots as possible. That way you can place bulk of your points into Thaumaturge and benefit for both physical and magical dots. Also, as a templar, a large portion of your damage is tied down to Burning light procs, so you have to spam jambs anyway. The good news is, that ZOS has told us that jabs is gonna be changed to 1 sec channel with Elsweyr, making weaving light attacks more efficient. Bad news is, that jabs is still prolly gonna be lackluster skill. Especially in PVP.

Beyond that, there isn't much you can do CP wise. There are three CP stars for both magic and physical damage. One that gives a flat increase to the damage type, one that increases critical damage, and one that gives you penetration. To maximize your damage you need to get all three up for that damage type. For a hybrid, that means 6 stars to put points in, and you wont have enough points for that. Even though they are front loaded.

This is because the interaction between the effects is essentially multiplicative. The actual mechanism are fairly complicated, but the end result is that they each enhance the overall effect of each other. Thus if you add points into three stars to get... Let's say a 10% increase in nominal power from each, your over all efficiency goes up 33%. If you place enough points into 6 different stars to get both physical and magical damage up by the same amount, you will be limiting your damage by quite a bit. Let's assume that by placing all your point into just the three stars tied to one damage type, thus doubling the actual points allocated, you will get a 15% boost in nominal power from each star, your overall efficiency will go up by 52%. In sucha scenario a single damage type build would increase the overall damage they dish out by 62% more than a hybrid build.

That is why hybrids will never work in ESO, as long as CP work the way they do. Or unless we can grind up to 2000CP or so. At that point the front loaded nature of the system will start to even out the differences enough for a hybrid to be pretty much as good as a dedicated single damage type build. The single damage type will still do few percent more damage, but it will be made up by the flexibility that a hybrid offers. But since CP are frozen at 810 points that is not possible.

I could go into more detail, but it's kinda pointless unless I know more about your build. Stating that you are running a hybrid build wont really tell me enough. You have to go into details, and most importantly tell us your reasoning for running a hybrid build. What skills you are using and for what end? Do you use staves or physical weapons? Do you run Biting jabs or Puncturing Seep? How about your regen? How do you sort that out? It doesn't matter much, how high you can get your damage potential, if you are running dry on resources and can only spam light attacks.

Well... anyway, even with all that info available, there really isn't much we can help you with. The way CP system is build jsut doesn't support hybrid builds.

Outstanding post. I'll try to explain the root of the character.

The premise is that he's a man (me, in this case) from OUR world (ie. Earth) who has been taken to Nirn (initially by Molag Bal, as part of a plan to get access to Earth, which is normally too difficult to reach. The body could be brought to Nirn, but the soul could not. This would leave a kind of tether between the worlds, which Molag Bal would theoretically be able to transmit his power along, bypassing the barriers between worlds. Azura interfered, and his attempt instead dropped his target into Vvardenfell).

Initially, I played the character as a normal man lost in an alien world. That meant sticking to normal skills and weapons that I might be able to learn in our world. However, I'm a scholar, and would very likely learn magic if given a chance. More, I'm a psychologist, and would likely lean toward healing magic... though not exclusively. Thus, Templar.

So, this leaves the character built for both normal weapons (which I honestly use more often than magic), but he also needs to be competent with magic.

I'm L50, with somewhere around 460CP, and Breton. I'm wearing 5 pieces of Baraha's Curse (great healing!) and 5 pieces of Thunderbug's Carapace (great damage!). He's skilled with Heavy Armour, so that's what he's got more of.

My UI bar is set up with:
1 Self Heal (Honor the Dead)
2 Area Attack (Brawler/Elemental Wall)
3 Single Attack (Dizzying Swing/Pulsar) - I know Pulsar is AOE, it's just too useful not to include.
4 Ranged Attack (Reflective Light, though this varies with my whim)
5 Aura Effect (Ritual of Retribution, sometimes Volcanic Rune)

I like these skills on the bar because I like their look and general utility. I realize they may not be optimal, but it's what I like. I usually keep a melee weapon on one bar, ranged on the other.

My CP are fine in Thief and Warrior lines, but I'm finding the effect of the Mage line to be harder to predict. Thus, I came here for advice.

I get that there are a bunch of nodes to invest in, and that doing so limits my damage output. My goal is to maximize it as well as I can, keeping my conceptual limitations in mind. Do I sink everything into one node, like Man at Arms? Do I split between two, like Elemental Expert and Mighty? Do I divide it up among all six? If I do, how much do I put in each before it's better to invest elsewhere?

I hope that's clearer.

vesselwiththepestle

As a hybrid you need to understand that you only are half the CP worth, because you need to distribute them to magicka and stamina based stars. Also there are diminishing returns, so it is not recommended to put all the points into one star.

This is especially true for "Piercing" and "Spell Erosion". Those increase your "Penetration", your ability to hit through armor. You should put ~30 points in both (so 60 in sum), when you are using both magicka and physical damage skills. You can put fewer points here, if you are using the Lover mundus stone and/or Sharpened Weapons. It is possible to calculate how much points you need to put here for optimal DPS, although it depends on buffs provided by the group, too and the content you are running. Increasing your penetration is one of the best ways to increase your damage - until you reach the cap and further increases don't have any benefit. With 30 points you'll probably be fine.

Then I'd have a good look at Thaumaturge and Master-at-arms. Both are buffing BOTH your Magicka and Stamina Skills, all your DOTs and Direct Damage.

Because of diminishing returns you don't want to put ALL your points there! But because you can benefit here greatly, I'd put like at least 60 points again here in sum, although it doesn't need to be 30/30. I think you are using more direct damage attacks than DOTs, so you might consider putting more in master-at-arms than in Thaumaturge.

You can distribute the rest of your points on Mighty, Precise Strikes, Elfborn, Elemental Expert and Staff Expert.

You need to keep in mind, that although the game suggests otherwise, there are no decimal numbers in CPs. 16.7% is the same as 16.0%. So there are so-called "jump points". Alcast has a list of those points: https://alcasthq.com/eso-championpoints-jumppoints/ You'll want to use the CP to reach jump points, but not numbers in between. There are few CP stars without jump points. If you have at the end like 3 CP you can't put anywhere to reach a new jump point, you can put them into Spell Erosion and Piercing.

Those are just starting point. To truely optimize you would have to do testing, trial and error.

Morgha_Kul

vesselwiththepestle wrote: »

As a hybrid you need to understand that you only are half the CP worth, because you need to distribute them to magicka and stamina based stars. Also there are diminishing returns, so it is not recommended to put all the points into one star.

This is especially true for "Piercing" and "Spell Erosion". Those increase your "Penetration", your ability to hit through armor. You should put ~30 points in both (so 60 in sum), when you are using both magicka and physical damage skills. You can put fewer points here, if you are using the Lover mundus stone and/or Sharpened Weapons. It is possible to calculate how much points you need to put here for optimal DPS, although it depends on buffs provided by the group, too and the content you are running. Increasing your penetration is one of the best ways to increase your damage - until you reach the cap and further increases don't have any benefit. With 30 points you'll probably be fine.

Then I'd have a good look at Thaumaturge and Master-at-arms. Both are buffing BOTH your Magicka and Stamina Skills, all your DOTs and Direct Damage.

Because of diminishing returns you don't want to put ALL your points there! But because you can benefit here greatly, I'd put like at least 60 points again here in sum, although it doesn't need to be 30/30. I think you are using more direct damage attacks than DOTs, so you might consider putting more in master-at-arms than in Thaumaturge.

You can distribute the rest of your points on Mighty, Precise Strikes, Elfborn, Elemental Expert and Staff Expert.

You need to keep in mind, that although the game suggests otherwise, there are no decimal numbers in CPs. 16.7% is the same as 16.0%. So there are so-called "jump points". Alcast has a list of those points: https://alcasthq.com/eso-championpoints-jumppoints/ You'll want to use the CP to reach jump points, but not numbers in between. There are few CP stars without jump points. If you have at the end like 3 CP you can't put anywhere to reach a new jump point, you can put them into Spell Erosion and Piercing.

Those are just starting point. To truely optimize you would have to do testing, trial and error.

Exactly the advice I was looking for, many thanks!
I've seen the Alcast videos, so I knew about jump points. I wasn't sure where the break points were for diminishing returns, so finding out the exact number of points to spend was a problem. You've offered me a solution to that problem.