I agree with starting with Alcast. He’s detailed and knows his stuff. I’ll add a few notes as general guidance that might be helpful in understanding why he allocates like he does and how you might deviate from his based on your play style.

General CP rules in the current system

- CPs are MASSIVELY front loaded, meaning the first point spent is monumentally more valuable than the 100th in any given passive. For example, green...the lover...mooncalf (stam recovery). You can spend up to 100 points to get 15% stam recovery. HOWEVER, 75 points gets you 14%, so those last 25 points require a ton of CPs to get a small benefit.

Therefore, you’ll see most current builds spending 50-75 points in more of the passives, rather than spending 75-100 in fewer. And the first 300ish CPs you spend will give you 85% of the total power you’re going to get from the trees. If you don’t have max CPs you aren’t as handicapped as you were last year.

- There isn’t great balance to the different passives, and they tend to fall into one of two categories...awesome, or sucktastic. When alcast uses or doesn’t use a passive, that’s a big clue.

- where you might want to deviate is if warranted by your specific play style or the content you play. When alcast crafts a pve toon, it’s for trials and vet content. If you aren’t playing vet trials, you might ease off some that he tends to invest in heavily (dodge roll cost) and put a few more into areas you think would be useful.

- don’t stress. Allocation is important, but it’s not like two CPs are going to make or break you. If in doubt, copy Alcast or other expert builds, and by the time you ever need to change away from their recommendations you’ll be an expert enough player to know why you need to deviate and what you’ll gain from doing so.


Priority CPs (stam character) and why

(What if I’m a magic toon? Everything below applies almost exactly the same, just with different passives. There’s a magic equivalent to most any stam passive).

Blues

Mighty - increases any physical damage dps, it’s your core passive

Precise - increases crit strike damage. Lean a little more here for a crit toon like a nightblade, a little less for a dk or Templar.

Piercing - penetration helps you push through armor. So it’s a secondary passive because it isn’t used in every proc. If you’re hitting a shield, for example. Or casting a heal.

Thaumaturge - lean more for DOT intense builds, like sorc or Templar. Lean less for nightblade.

Master at Arms - one of the most confusing. Increases direct damage...what’s that? Basically any damage that isn’t an AOE or DOT, so this is pretty darn useful. It’s almost as important as mighty. And remember, some abilities include multiple types of damage. On your bow, snipe and poison inject both have an initial smack followed by DOTs. The initial hit is direct damage. This applies to most dual skills too, and many class skills.


Greens

Mooncalf (stam recovery) is your go-to. You want 75 here.

Tenacity restores more resources for a heavy attack...pretty important in the current game.

Beyond that, you have flexibility in greens. Alcast goes heavy into things needed in trials - reduce cost of break free, reduce dodge roll, reduce block cost. Spend based on your need. I don’t play trials with all my toons, so I ease off some of those and spend in health and magic restore. Especially on my stamblades...I need more magic restore for them.


Reds

These are a good example of what I was talking about earlier...red has a few great passives and a lot of garbage. So they’re about spreading points out relatively evenly between the good ones.

Elemental defend / hardy. These do the same thing, one mitigating incoming magic damage and the other mitigating physical. When they’re both up by 50-60 points each, your tankiness shoots through the roof.

Ironclad - the opposite of master at arms. It mitigates incoming direct damage. This is most of what hits you, so this is almost as vital as the previous two.

Thick skinned - mitigates DOTs. Important, but not a priority.

Spell shield - a low priority passive, but ok. Alcast throws a few in because at max CPs it’s a choice between a pretty tiny benefit in the others above, or getting a decent return by putting the first few into spell shield. I deviate from him by putting a few into medium armor focus too. It’s the same as spell shield, but for physical resistance. On my max cp toons, it’s a question of either like ten CPs for 1400 physical resistance, or reduce damage by an additional 0.2%...so I toss a few here.