Guide - A How to For Determine the ideal use of champion points for your build.

Faugaun · April 2015

It is a long post I have bolded the most important parts:

Suppose you are placing champion points into two different stars within a single tree (we will use the warrior lord constellation in this example) and you consider two stars to be of equal value but you want to maximize the number of points that you place in each star to maximize your % benefit. Let's say the stars that I am trying to compare are Nourishing and Heavy armor focus. What order and how many points should I put into each star to achieve the maximum benefit (in reality all stars that share a common champion point pool can potentially be compared). In addition there are hidden decimal points creating rounding errors so it cannot be easily seen by clicking in the champion system because two benefits might appear to be equal when in fact they are not....for several consecutive points and these rounding errors add up over 20 CP to make up to %2 difference in a worst case scenario situation....now I dunno about you but a %2 difference in stats using the same number of champion points. That's just the potential savings between two stars, now imagine you have points in 3 stars in the warrior trees? This is a maximum of %4 stat bonuses difference between best and worst case scenario....now imagine that you have points in 10 stars? I didn't do the math but its somewhere between 4% and 20% difference in benefits that can potentially be lost in the most complex scenario.

20% is a huge difference in power when two players are using the exact same number of champion points. This means that it is beneficial to be able to compare two stars (or more) to determine the exact ideal points distribution. Now sadly there are way too many combinations for me to simply make a chart where you can look up your star combination and just put points in following the sheet. What I can do is tell you how to use my calculators to compare different stars.

I am adding in an additional data display on each calculator today (should have them finished a few hours after this post) I have done two so that you can learn the technique while I finish updating the remaining stars.

Suppose I want to put all my points into two warrior stars, Nourishing (N) ( http://asolutionaday.com/elder-scrolls-calculators/warrior/lord/nourishing-star-calculator/ ) and Heavy Armor Focus (HAF) ( http://asolutionaday.com/elder-scrolls-calculators/warrior/lord/heavy-armor-focus-star-calculator/ ) the ideal combination is:

1 point in HAF, 4 points in N, 1 point in HAF, 4 Points in N, 1 point in HAF, 5 Points in N, 1 point in HAF, 6 Points in N, 1 point in HAF, 7 Points in N, 1 point in HAF, 7 Points in N, 1 point in HAF, 8 Points in N, 1 point in HAF, 9 Points in N, 1 point in HAF, 9 Points in N, 1 point in HAF, 9 Points in N, 1 point in HAF, 10 Points in N, 1 point in HAF, 10 Points in N, 1 point in HAF, 10 Points in N, 1 point in HAF, 2 Points in N, the rest of the points are put in HAF.

Example: So after 110 warrior champion points I would have 97 points in Nourishing and 13 points in Heavy Armor Focus: this means Nourishing would be giving me a 24.47% bonus and Heavy Armor Focus would give 4.17% bonus for a combined bonus of 28.64% (24.47+4.17) using the ideal champion point placement. Now if I used the worst possible Champion Point placement (100 points in HAF, 10 points in N) then my total bonus is 17.97% (4.99%+12.98%) this is a potential difference of 10.67% (28.64-17.97) in bonus using 110 points and only two stars. A more likely mistake would be to just put 55 points into each star so that they progress evenly the total % bonus this way is 25.76% (9.31+16.45) which is still 2.88% (28.64-25.76) weaker than the ideal usage of champion points.

As you can see it can make a big difference how points are spent and distributed within stars. The best way to see the actual impact of a single point added in a star is to visit my calculators then open the calculators for the stars in question in separate windows. Then adjust the values until the % bonus added from the last one point is equal in all calculators concerned and the total points is equal to the number of points that you wish to spend.

ElSlayer · April 2015

Insightful observations. Thank you.

Nestor · April 2015

How I approach the Constellations is to look at the L10 and L30 passives that unlock. If those are of interest to my character, then I pick something from that constellation. Those are more important to me than the fractional increases in character powers. I then pick the buffs that will help my character the most in those constellations.

I have also decided that redistributing the points is something I am going to be doing more often than I do with my skills. Reason, I will make certain decisions on constellations if I only have 20 points to spend vs if I have 30 or 50 points to spend. In the first case, I may chase the two L10 passives in different trees, when I have 30, I may chase the L30 passive in one tree. Some of this has to do with the L10/L30 passives, some has to do with how much of an increase I could get at the time with what points I had to assign.

I am also not a Min/Maxer, I just want an Efficient character. Which basically means, when the mobs are dead, do I have any resources left over for the next mob. Or, do I have to wait for regen.

However, once I ever get 60 to 100 or more points to spend in constellation, then I will look more closely at the total effect on the character from the choices I make.

Faugaun · April 2015

Nestor wrote: »

How I approach the Constellations is to look at the L10 and L30 passives that unlock. If those are of interest to my character, then I pick something from that constellation. Those are more important to me than the fractional increases in character powers. I then pick the buffs that will help my character the most in those constellations.

I have also decided that redistributing the points is something I am going to be doing more often than I do with my skills. Reason, I will make certain decisions on constellations if I only have 20 points to spend vs if I have 30 or 50 points to spend. In the first case, I may chase the two L10 passives in different trees, when I have 30, I may chase the L30 passive in one tree. Some of this has to do with the L10/L30 passives, some has to do with how much of an increase I could get at the time with what points I had to assign.

I am also not a Min/Maxer, I just want an Efficient character. Which basically means, when the mobs are dead, do I have any resources left over for the next mob. Or, do I have to wait for regen.

However, once I ever get 60 to 100 or more points to spend in constellation, then I will look more closely at the total effect on the character from the choices I make.

And in my example Nourishing and Heavy Armor Focus are in the same Constellation so you can still benefit from the fractional increase. Also the effect is significant with only 30 points in a constellation as well, I used close to 100 to demonstrate a worst case scenario.

Since you use the info a bit differently is there a data output that I could add that would help you?

Faugaun · April 2015

Oh yeah all the thief calculators have been updated with the new line, warrior will be done soon and for the mage constellation this particular line is not to relevant at this time since all mage constellations are currently on the same curve. This means for mage the ideal distribution is an equal spread among the stars that you are interested in (if maximizing for all stars is your goal).

Dagoth_Rac · April 2015

I have said this in other threads, but thanks so much for these online CP calculators! Very useful.

Faugaun · April 2015

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

I have said this in other threads, but thanks so much for these online CP calculators! Very useful.

Not a problem glad they help

ElSlayer wrote: »

Insightful observations. Thank you.

You're welcome

And warrior stars are all updated

Nestor · April 2015

Faugaun wrote: »

Since you use the info a bit differently is there a data output that I could add that would help you?

As I alluded to, I think the CPs should be looked at differently if you have just some points as opposed to having more points. So, your calculator as produced will help me make the decisions when I have more points to spend.

However, the net effect of the L10/L30/L75* passives should be included in the total calculation. While the passives that unlock may not have much to do with the Stars you put your points into to unlock them, they do have an effect on the overall character.

Sure, some like the Harvest one does not help combat, and would probably be difficult to incorporate into a "character prowess score" (for lack of a better term) most of them do have an overall impact and should not be ignored when trying to figure out where the points should be assigned.

*Note I left off the L120 passives because at that point, your pretty OP.

Faugaun · April 2015

@Nestor I guess I am still confused. I agree some of the 10,30,75,120 point passives should be considered when deciding where to put points. Especially ones like +12% spell crit rating and +12% weapon crit.

But (assuming you haven't put points in the CP that modifiy crit %damage), now a standard critical attack increases damage by 50% but only 12% of the time. This amounts to a 6% increase in damage (0.12*0.5) compare that to a skill like Staff expert where 30 points will increase your damage output by 10.77% ....given the staff expert is on normal attacks while the 6% is on spell or stamina attacks. Suppose this is on my Templar healer then the question becomes is this 30 point skill that improves my healing by 6% best or the ranged heavy staff attacks that refill my magicka doing 10.77% more damage?

So it's not only about the 10,30,75,120 point passives (which are worth considering) but its also about the combined effect of those passives with the other passives and how you are playing your character which will help you maximize the overall effect.

I'm not really sure how to put every possible outcome into a calculator though and it requires you compare values from the relevant calculators to make an informed decision.

Agobi · April 2015

I use the highly scientific method of ; " yea,that looks cool! *click!*"...

Then again I will most likely be bored out of my mind and quit playing this game looong before I ever reach VR 14 ,so I'm probably not your target audience

Nestor · April 2015

Faugaun wrote: »

I'm not really sure how to put every possible outcome into a calculator though and it requires you compare values from the relevant calculators to make an informed decision.

Its probably something to be more aware of when ultimately deciding what to do, rather than trying to create a spreadsheet/program that chews on all the permutations.

Faugaun · April 2015

Agreed, now I think we are trucking on the same highway

Faugaun · April 2015

Finished up the mage constellations.

All Calculators are up to date and now have improved functionality.

HungryHobo · April 2015

Basically, take into consideration the max% out of each star. Your two examples maxed at 15% for HAF, and 25% for N. The takaway is if there is this ratio (15% : 25%), the ideal distribution is the 13/97, or approximate it for 1:7.

Now if the max stats on two are (25% : 25%), the distribution should be 55/55, so go 1:1.

for a 3 start system... its probably something to 1:5:5 in terms of distributing CP's between maxes of 15% : 25% : 25%.

BUT, the most important factor in all of these is the relevance of the trait you're raising.
Ex. - I think I saw somewhere that if you raised the Crit Dmg % up to 120 CP's, your effective damage would only raise 11%. Likewise, in the same constellation, you could simply raise your flat Phys Dmg by 25% with 120CP's. The importance of the 2 is comparable to the (15% : 25%) situation... so if it was me I wouldn't go 55:55 even both max at 25%, I would do a 13:97. That is assuming I'm working in the same constellation so the passive rewards are moot.

Faugaun · April 2015

@HungryHobo or you could go to:

http://asolutionaday.com/calculators-index/

And click on the appropriate stars and calculate or the exact ideal sequence fairly quickly. Ratios will get you into problems because you are dealing with two curves so at lower points the ideal might be 4 to 1 and at the very end it might be 11 to 1 and in the middle it might be 7 to 1 ...but you will never get all that info just using the ratios of the final number.

Further with the calculators it is easy to use the line with "from the last one point" and have multiple calculators open and get them all as close to an even change as possible. Use the two stars above and the schedule I posted and you should see it quickly.

Inarre · January 2016

I hope I don't get in trouble for a necro... But thanks for your work on this OP. I'm still working through it since I am not mathematically inclined at all (theres actually smoke coming out of my ears) but this gives me a great place to start with min-maxing my points and gives me a better understanding of how the system works.

Faugaun · January 2016

@Inarre no problem my friend. Glad someone can find some use from it. Cheers!