/yawn

How about some new skill lines?

Three things that I would like to see:
More utility passives.
Could be anything that does not directly influence combat damage or healing in one way or another like most of the current passives.
Some examples:

• Acrobatics: Fall damage is reduced by x%
• Stuntman: Unmounting or falling from a horse does not take any time (that's pretty outdated anyways with the instant dismount when using a skill)
• Auto-Levitation: When you jump down a cliff you won't become a crater (maybe make the Ravage Health potions way more potent so people with that skill unlocked still have an easy way to suicide)
• Master Merchant: Tax for guild store sales is reduced by 50% (the 3.5% that disappear into Oblivion, not the 3.5% that go to the guild bank)
• Master Crafter: Containers received from Crafting dailies always drop a resource map.
• Trapper: Skills that are placed on the ground (e.g. Trap Beast, Fire Rune) can be applied in any quantity, but each trap beyond the first one reduces the current maximum magicka or stamina by 20% until the trap is gone. This reduction is multiplicative (2/3/4/5/6 traps -> 80%/51%/41%/33%/26%) and also applies to the damage output of the trap. Not sure if the damage is decided at cast time or when it is applied right now, but if someone placed 6 traps they all do their damage as if he only had 26% of his usual max stamina at that time.

Easy way to switch between a few different CP setups
For example unlock a new "deck" of champion points for every 500CP that we have.
I would love to use different setups for PvE and PvP but it's a hassle to put all those points in (without addons) and it would cost way too much gold if I did that every time I went from PvE to PvP or back. This could also be expanded to also change the normal skills, equipment, action bar setup and the quickslots.

Champion Ultimates
Every constellation gets an ultimate that unlocks when 250 (or maybe even more) CPs are spent on it. Those are then located in a new skill line in the world category of the normal skill menu.

I have read up to post #82 and will read the remaining posts after a rest. There are some good suggestions and analyses and some BS posts along the lines of "FIX IT!" There are also players making seemingly sound suggestions that ignore part of the playerbase's styles.

My playstyle is not meta nor mainstream nor popular or well known. Born from the games I played and refined in the games I enjoy, I develop my characters and parties in a set pattern. At the beginning of every game, all stats are low - offense, evasion, defense and healing. Some are none but game design rectifies them to low by tutorial's end. From there the first stat I develop is defense. I go from low to moderate to high, raising healing to moderate through regeneration if possible though not exclusively. I make mistakes affordable, I have the ability to recover from them. At high defense and moderate healing, I turn my attention to offense. Low may not be enough for future encounters so I increase it to moderate - upgrade my weapon or invest in a few offensive skills. I then increase evasion to moderate - damage avoidance is better than damage reduction. Reaching higher levels of skill, I increase evasion again to high. I learn how to dance around my opponents, amplifying my moderate offense with knowledge of weaknesses and forcing skirmishes into wars of attrition with my resilience. But with my build sufficient, I find more room to grow. Offense rises to high as I expand my arsenal and lastly healing, raised to moderate at the beginning, is taken to high when there is nothing left to increase. At play time's end I am a jack-of-all-trades. But I start every quest with a sturdy defense. A shield to last, a plate to deflect.

This is the playstyle I take to ESO. In the face of all the resource stacking, the damage stacking, the shield stacking... I pick protective plate and reliable regeneration. I progressed my build in ESO as a Templar, reaching the midpoint at high defense, moderate offense, moderate evasion and moderate healing. Heavy armor, a greatsword, drink, Willow's Path and my class abilities. But with Update 6 onward my build has been on the decline. With the removal of Blinding Light, my evasion dropped to low. With the meta shift towards damage and penetration, my defense began to follow. Some of these suggestions threaten to remove my playstyle altogether.

Fight as I might, ESO's balancing is leaning heavily towards DPS vs HPS, with defense being increasingly marginalized in the standoff. Balancing the Champion System is a chance to fight the tide.


Seven stars in the Champion System are missing counter stars, including the two most popular, Mighty and Piercing.

Wrobel wrote: »

Ensure every bonus has a counter weight:
For the Champion System, every offensive bonus should have a defensive counterpart and vice versa. For example: Offensive players can get increased spell penetration from Spell Erosion, while defensive players can get increased spell resistance from Spell Shield.

There are three offensive and four defensive stars missing counters, oddly enough. Bastion, Elusive, Thick Skinned and Mighty are lacking counter stars. Piercing, Befoul and Resistant have inadequate counter stars, requiring either two stars to counter one or has one ineffective counter star.

• Bastion lacks a star to counter damage shields. Capping out at 24%, this is one of the forgotten causes for shield stacking's power. A star that increases damage against damage shields in the Mage constellations with the same cap of 24% should rectify it. Reducing Bastion's effect to 15% is an alternative option to finding room for a counter star.
• Elusive is the counter to CC duration. Capping at the same 24% as Bastion, it is lesser used thanks to the effectiveness of Purge and Break Free. But that does not change the fact it lacks a star to counter it.
• Thick Skinned caps at 24% reduction to Damage Over Time effects, rendering them even less useful. Purge aside, creating a counter star for Thick Skinned may make DoTs viable. A damage increase to DoTs, as suggested in another thread, would mandate the investment of this star.
• Resistant almost does not belong on this list. Capping at 25% critical damage reduction, Precise Strikes and Elfborn also cap at 25% increased critical damage. What puts Resistant on this list is because it has two stars to counter it, one for Stamina builds and one for Magicka builds. The kneejerk reaction is to divide Resistant into a Stamina and Magicka variant but that would hamper the possibility of hybrid builds. Rather, merge Precise Strikes and Elfborn into a single star that increase all critical damage.
• As already calculated several times in this thread, Befoul has two stars to counter it that added together do not quite match Befoul's maximum effect. Blessed and Quick Recovery augment self-healing. A way to balance Befoul is by placing a restriction on Blessed to "Increase the effectiveness of any healing you cast on others by x%" and buffing Quick Recovery to match Befoul. Alternatively remove Quick Recovery to make Blessed the only healing focused star, buffing it to counter Befoul or decreasing Befoul to match Blessed; or vice versa, removing Blessed to have Quick Recovery as the sole healing related star, rebalanced to match Befoul.
• Mighty, as already pointed out several times, lacks a counter star that directly reduces physical damage like Elemental Defender reduces fire, frost and shock damage.
• Piercing has a counter in the armor focus stars: Light Armor Focus, Medium Armor Focus and Heavy Armor Focus. But each Armor Focus star maxes at 13% while Piercing maxes at 25%. The Armor Focus stars, while a nice touch towards player specializing, are redundant in the grand scheme. One ought be replaced by a star that increases Physical Resistance by up to 25% and another replaced by a star to counter Mighty.

When applying these changes and combining a redundant star or two, two openings in the Mage constellations and two openings in the Warrior constellations are made. Other lesser used stars could be replaced as well, creating more room for new stars. For example, one of the open Mage slots could be used to counter Bastion, perhaps the slot Precise Strikes or Elfborn filled.

To list redundant stars:

• Heavy Armor Focus
• Medium Armor Focus
• Light Armor Focus
• Quick Recovery
• Blessed
• Nourishing
• Precise Strikes
• Elfborn
• Blade Expert
• Heavy Weapon Expert

Some of these are not minor variations on each other but fill the same niche (i.e. Quick Recovery and Blessed).

Not as popular stars:

• Nourishing - 45 second cooldown and marginal benefit makes this a lesser version of Quick Recovery.
• Bashing Focus - Bashing builds do exist but in general bashing is used infrequently enough to not necessitate cost reduction.
• Sprinter - Likely the most popular of the least popular, players sprint more often than this plate-wearer thinks wise but sprinting is used less frequently than bashing in combat, not necessitating cost reduction.
• Tenacity - The resources returned by heavy attacks are outside the thoughts of most players. The increase is not enough to overcome the apparent benefits of increasing recovery stats.
• Shade - Legerdemain and medium armor passives decrease the cost of sneaking by rather dramatic amounts, rendering this star redundant.
• Elusive - Due to the aforementioned efficacy of Purge and Break Free, most players will not sit through a CC if they can help it.

The Armor Focuses have been excluded for redundancy.


Overall, the 'expendable' stars are:

• Heavy Armor Focus Well-Fitted - Increase Physical Resistance by (25)%.
• Medium Armor Focus Steel Skin - Decrease Physical Damage by (25)%.
• Light Armor Focus - Change to Blessed and increase to match Befoul or decrease Befoul to match Blessed.
• Quick Recovery - Replace with Elusive's effect.
• Blessed Poison Expert - Increase the damage dealt by damage over time effects by (24)%.
• Nourishing
• Precise Strikes Practiced Form - Increase critical damage and healing by (25)%.
• Elfborn Anti-Mage - Increase damage against shielded enemies by (24)%.
• Blade Expert Melee Expert - Increases damage with Light and Heavy attacks with Swords, Greatswords, Axes, Hammers, Battleaxes, Mauls and Daggers by (25)%.
• Heavy Weapon Expert Training - Decrease the time it takes to fully charge a Heavy attack by (25)%.
• Bashing Focus
• Sprinter
• Tenacity
• Shade
• Elusive Ensnare - Increase the duration of snare, fear and disorient effects on enemies by (24)%.

Bashing Focus could be combined with Shield Expert, like the Shieldplay enchantment. Tenacity could see a buff in the percentage, though I have no math on how powerful it can become currently. Nourishing is a bit trickier to buff but there are some good spitball ideas already posted.


The secondary stars unlocked by investing a set number of points can have some tweaking but are mostly balanced. Butcher, Mara's Gift and Inspiration Boost could use tweaking. The majority of passives, despite player posts I have read, are balanced for their given conditions. To buff Foresight, for example, would also mean limiting it to after Break Free or expending a certain amount of Magicka in a single spell or time period. It would also raise it to the 120 tier, forcing Arcane Well down and require rebalancing for the 75 tier.

Inspiration Boost, as several have posted prior to comment #82, should be moved to the 10 tier. Most players have their crafts at or near 50 by the time this passive is unlocked, rendering it ineffectual. Ensnare can take its place in the 30 tier, neither requiring rebalancing as the 10 and 30 tiers are easy to reach. Mara's Gift under the same constellation of the Tower has an ingame value of 3300 for me. This is a small heal over a relatively small radius of 8m. Increasing the radius up to 15m is debatable but the heal value needs an increase. Doubling the heal to 6600, comparable to a healer's spell, is more worthy of the sacrifice needed to activate this passive. And Butcher... Having invested 100 points into Blade Expert, I have experience with Butcher. I do notice a slight difference in damage but my heavy attacks deal around 8000 damage, more than the average player. Buffing it to a 10% increase in light and heavy attack damage against enemies below 30% Health should make it noticeable for average players.


Readability is a lesser issue and one already covered sufficiently by previous posters. Standardizing the language used in tooltips (including capitalization) will make it easier to understand for novice players while making calculations on the character sheet transparent will benefit advanced players in build crafting. A job for the UI people.

I said I'd rest at the beginning of this, didn't I? /sigh, when the gears start turning...

Welcom back @Wrobel , the champ system is nice but i find lack lusting for roles. Im a tank and just dont see or feel like im gaining any thing worth while for example all are base increase to x stat. As im on ps4 we dont see stats so we dont feel it like plus healing or bastion - the cp ability should unlock a visual so you can feel the progress.
Maybe allow cp to impact the way you play like give an ability in the red tree that allows more mitigation when blocking with a 2hander or allow more mitigation the more health you have.

All the cp seem to be geared heavily to dps again - im armour capped and spell capped with out cp, my few options are less spell damage or blocking.... Not the most fun or reactive way to spend points... I can reduce the damage numbers i carnt see .

Maybe look into having the end 120 change the style you play like have a healing one that aoe heals you cast do aoe damage or tank with 2h or dps buff that gives resource after every x amount of kills.

My opinion of the current state of the Champion System.

Warrior
Steed:
Useful 0-100 passives for tank/stam builds.
Shield Expert (rank 75) some might find the description unclear.

Lady:
Elemental Defender and Hardy are useful passives.
Thick Skinned feels underpowered because dots are usually not that strong or get purged.
Light Armor Focus, the most useless passive in the CS. This could be changed into reducing physical dmg by 0-16% [0-100].

Lord:
Nourishing, the second most useless passive in the CS. This could be changed to a passive that reflects physical dmg by 0-25% [0-100]. The rest of the 0-100 passives are useful.
Field Physician (rank 10) is too good in pvp, especially in combination with Templar, Kagrenacs or Support passives. The rezzing in pvp is out of control so this definitely needs to be look at.
Determination (rank 120) feels to weak for a 120 CP passive.

Mage constellation
Apprentice:
Useful 0-100 passives for mag builds.
Foresight (rank 75) feels useless.
Arcane Well (rank 120) not sure if it works because the animation is not clear.

Atronach:
The 0-100 passives feel underpowered.
Unlockable passives (rank 10-120) mainly favor stam builds.

Ritual:
Useful 0-100 passives for stamina builds.
Unlockable passives (rank 10-120) are good for this tree.

Thief constellation
Tower:
Bashing Focus and Sprinter are pretty useless, the other passives are useful.
Mara's Gift (rank 75) feels useless because the heal is so small.

Lover:
Healthy should give a bigger percentage health regen, 0-40% [0-100] for example.
The rest of the passives are useful.
Synergizer (rank 30) is not always working, if there's a cooldown on the effect is should be added to the description.

Shadow:
Elusive is useless because players break-free of these CCs, if they dont have enough stam to break-free 0,2 seconds isnt going to make a big difference. It would be more useful if this passive would reduce dmg during CC, just like the Reactive Armor set.
Shade should increase stam regen while sneaking, you can get more than enough sneak cost reduction from meidum armor and Legerdemain passives.
Nimble could be changed into a passive miss chance, 0-16% [0-100] for example.
Merchant Favorite (rank 30) the percentage should be increased to 25%.
Treasure Hunter (rank 75) I havent tried this passive but it seems kinda pointless.
Shadow Strike (rank 120) I havent tried this passive but it seems good if there were more useful 0-100 passives in the Shadow tree.

Great the Champion System gets an overhaul, hopefully this will restore the balance between magicka and stamina builds.

Reducing physical damage should absolutely not be an option. People are forgetting that sorcerers can already ignore:

• Resistant due to shields being uncritable.
• Spell Ward/(Light|Medium|Heavy) Armor Focus because shields don't take into account resistances (and also because they're trash).
• Hardy/Elemental Defender because of Annulment

This makes it a no-brainer to dump 100 points into this theoretical new star, and we suddenly have light armor sorcerers that are harder to kill than other classes in plate.

Not that it isn't already that way, mind you, I'd just not rather have us fall even further back into Elder Staves Online.

Actually I can think of one improvement to CS.
Add a "details" hyperlink on all tooltips that redirects you to a thorough explanation of each and every intricate detail in fine point.
You can never over inform people....only under inform them.
This gives you scope for full disclosure without cluttering the screen.
eg. forumulae, counter skills, etc.

Many stars that are now not used is because we have yet so little CP available.
For my main character it is only after 900 CP that I have plannen to spread more points over several stars.

You buff physical damage after adding damage reduction. The idea is you can now achieve some semblance of balance between PvE and PvP.

Alucardo wrote: »

I'm a little disappointed.

Seeing a lot of feedback regarding lack of physical resistance in CPs. I have the feeling you're going to buff sorcs and magicka nightblades, who already have ridiculous damage and survival, when you should be asking us how we want to buff DKs and Templars.
The Champion System isn't in such a bad place right now as class balance is. That's the real issue. Can we look at this after we know what's going on with the classes?

Every class needs one ultimate morph scaling with physical dmg when there is a physical dmg mitigation passive added.

For NB my choice would be incapacitating strike.
Power overload (melee only with an added charge mechanic) for sorc.
The templar spear thing ultimate needs a complete rework imho - it´s just a really bad dawnbreaker - but after that one morph choice of it.

juan0316 wrote: »

Alucardo wrote: »

I'm a little disappointed.

Seeing a lot of feedback regarding lack of physical resistance in CPs. I have the feeling you're going to buff sorcs and magicka nightblades, who already have ridiculous damage and survival, when you should be asking us how we want to buff DKs and Templars.
The Champion System isn't in such a bad place right now as class balance is. That's the real issue. Can we look at this after we know what's going on with the classes?

So much this

No that is actually the wrong way to go about it. You first need to balance out what´s same to all classes - which happens to be the champion system - so it does not show bias towards certain specs/classes.

After everyone is on a level playing field with the cp system you can adjust the performance of the classes and magica/stamina balance.

If you balance classes based on a borked system favoring certain playstyles for certain activities you have to rebalance the classes again when you adjust the CP system afterwards effectively doubling the work. Not smart.

Wrobel wrote: »

Ensure every bonus has a counter weight:
For the Champion System, every offensive bonus should have a defensive counterpart and vice versa. For example: Offensive players can get increased spell penetration from Spell Erosion, while defensive players can get increased spell resistance from Spell Shield.

@Wrobel

Do you not think having both Spell Shield AND Hardy tips the scales a bit too much? Especially if there is no physical counterpart of hardy.