Weaker At Level 50! How Do I get My Power Back?

Klixen · April 2018

I'm about to hit level 50 (yay for me!). But I understand that I'll become weaker once I reach that milestone.

Apparently, all characters under level 50 are secretly scaled to be level 50 with 160 champion points (as are the monsters). But once you reach level 50, those 160 champion points are removed and you have to earn them back.

So what I'd like to know is this, does anybody know what those hidden champion points were invested in? Cause I have no idea what I need to replace to make my character as strong as she was at level 49.

Will I lose health, defense, damage......? What will I need to invest my champion points in to make up for that loss?

Thanks all.

VexingArcanist · April 2018

One of the things I noticed on my characters early on as I levelled around the mid 30s the pinch begins to come. By 50 its rather obvious.

The best way to deal with it is to get to cp 160 and get in some end game gear and start upgrading it as soon as you can.

srfrogg23 · April 2018

It is still incremental between 50 and CP 160. Just keep your gear current.

MLGProPlayer · April 2018

You aren't scaled up until level 50 only. You're scaled up until CP 160. You just need to wear gear at your level. If your gear is a lower level than you are, then you will lose power.

Kali_Despoine · April 2018

Get cp
Lol 50 is weaker than lvl3
50 is when the real game starts
Get geared up

OrdoHermetica · April 2018

Keep your gear current, make sure you're spending your CP (each one gives you a small boost to the relevant Attribute pool when spent, regardless of what you spend it in - i.e. CP spent in red trees gives you Health, CP spent in blue trees gives you Magicka, etc.), and - this is the really important one - eat food appropriate to your level. For my stamina DPS toon, almost half of my health comes from food.

You will never be as burly attributes-wise as you were at lower levels. But you make up for it in flexibility and specialization.

Algraxa · April 2018

L2P
Git Good
Noob

JUST KIDDING!
Yeah, I am with you. having leveled many toons, I remember the pre 160CP days and my best advice would be grind to 160 with AOE and grind spots, training gear, scrolls and xp potions. You will never feel powerfull as you did thanks to 1-Tam but it gets a bit better.

Klixen · April 2018

This is actually rather scary. I'm the worst player in ESO! So any loss of ability is really going to hurt me.

But it sounds like nobody knows for sure just how much power you lose when you hit level 50. So I think I'll take a screenshot of my attributes at level 49 and compare them to what I have at level 50 (maybe I can work out what I've lost).

Just a quick question; if I can't continue playing this character and I have to roll a new one, will my new character still have the hidden 160 champion points (while she is under level 50)? Or will she lose them as well?

In other words, once one of my characters reaches level 50, will all of my other characters be handicapped as well? Or will they still have their champion points as long as they are under level 50?

Algraxa · April 2018

Klixen wrote: »

a screenshot of my attributes at level 49 and compare them to what I have at level 50 (maybe I can work out what I've lost).

Just a quick question; if I can't continue playing this character and I have to roll a new one, will my new character still have the hidden 160 champion points (while she is under level 50)? Or will she lose them as well?

In other words, once one of my characters reaches level 50, will all of my other characters be handicapped as well? Or will they still have their champion points as long as they are under level 50?

Your CP is account bound, but it might be a good idea to roll a new one, just before deleting the old toon. I.e. CP counts for all toons on your account, a new toon will start at whatever CP your account has, even if they are level 1

OrdoHermetica · April 2018

You don't actually have "hidden" CP. The game scales you up to the point where you would be if you had a level 50 toon, and then CP is a bonus after that (and people cite CP160 because that's where equipment caps out; there's no other special significance to it). That scaling boost has been decreasing as you level since the start, so it's nothing new to worry about.

So, you won't get any CP if you retire a toon once you hit 50. But the good news is that you won't magically get a lot weaker once you hit 50. You'll be at roughly the same level of difficulty you were at 49. So if you're managing okay at 49, you'll manage okay at 50, and extra CP you earn will be a bonus (and it gets easier as you gain CP from there). The only real thing you should be aware of is that you'll need to upgrade your gear pretty much as soon as you hit level 50, because you'll immediately gain 10 CP, and the first 80 or so CP are earned very, very quickly, so it's easy to fall behind in terms of gear.

ManwithBeard9 · April 2018

Also, eat food to help boost stats.

GeorgeBlack · April 2018

You wont feel weaker.
You can wear the new items you pick up/craft and will be just the same.

Smasherx74 · April 2018

You're a classic example of one of my arguments for why levels and scaling was the single dumbest thing ZOS has ever done.

The lower level you are the higher your stats are scaled. I've made so many threads on this general topic. Sadly ZOS doesn't care about a constructive argument. In fact, neither does majority of the community. You're better off just dealing with it because that's how ESO is and they don't have any intentions of fixing it.

Robo_Hobo · April 2018

The scaling just buffed your health, magicka and stamina up. It's mostly just a cushion so you don't get stomped when doing content since everything is balanced for level 50 CP 160 characters.

Once you reach level 50 and get 160 CP, your health, magicka and stamina will no longer be buffed at all, but you'll have the benefit of all the skill passives you unlocked, all of your attribute points, all the champion points, all of the armor and weapons sets to choose from that you don't have to worry about outleveling anymore since CP 160 gear is the max level for gear. It more than makes up for it.

Just make sure you have your food buff up all the time, that single handedly makes the biggest difference in survivability after losing the low level cushion buff. Thankfully, it's also the easiest to get.

D0PAMINE · April 2018

Smasherx74 wrote: »

You're a classic example of one of my arguments for why levels and scaling was the single dumbest thing ZOS has ever done.

The lower level you are the higher your stats are scaled. I've made so many threads on this general topic. Sadly ZOS doesn't care about a constructive argument. In fact, neither does majority of the community. You're better off just dealing with it because that's how ESO is and they don't have any intentions of fixing it.

Yeah it's absolutly terrible being able to go to any zone at any level to do content.

red_emu · April 2018

Don't worry. You will gain your first 160CP really really quick. When I first hit CP it seemed like maybe a few days playing and I don't even play a lot. Definitely do a daily random dungeon. XP reward from that is huge. I find that running dungeons on a new character gets you leveled up really fast, since all dungeons have quests attached to them - and those give you the biggest chunks of XP. Running dolmens is also a good idea, albeit a bit tedious, but you get around 5.5k XP for each dolmen.

davey1107 · April 2018

@Klixen

Maybe this explanation will help. The bottom line...keep your gear close to your level. For under lvl 50 this means within about 6 levels of your toon, for vets you can slow down the upgrades and make one or two sets between c001 and C160.

How do the “handicaps” work?

The game sets all monsters to c160. To kill a monster this powerful, let’s say a character needs to be doing 5,000 damage per hit (let’s just assume this is a standard value to make this simple).

If you’re a level 20 character with a level 20 sword, the “natural” power of that weapon is like 500 damage per hit. You would get slaughtered by a c160 monster. So the game says “oh my god, they’re going to get killed. We better give them an extra 4500 per hit, and we better boost their armor too.” This allows you to kill that monster.

Now you level that toon to 40, but keep the level 20 gear. The monster is still c160 and still needs 5k per hit. In this case, the game thinks you should be using a level 40 sword, which hits for 1500 - a thousand more than the low level sword you’re using. So the game says “I’m going to give them an extra 3500 per hit to help.” Now you’ve lost power because your weapon’s power plus your handicap buff is only 4,000. A level 40 sword is needed to bring the hits back up to 5k.

This applies to armor too. As you outlevel your gear, your resistance handicaps are lowered because the game assumes you’re going to replace them with better gear.

So to answer your questions:

- this mechanic only applies to the character in question. It has no effect on other characters on your account.

- it has nothing to do with champion points. Your low level toons may spend as many CPs as you have on their account. These CPs make them significantly stronger, but they don’t affect the handicaps. If you use level 20 gear on a level 40 character, you’re still losing power. It might just not be as noticeable because the CPs are keeping them from getting too squishy or weak. My account is max cp. when I level a new character, I can go 10-20 armor levels and survive fine. When I help my friend without many CPs level a new character, replacing the gear is more important because he gets squishy once he’s 8+ levels over his gear.

Klixen · April 2018

davey1107 wrote: »

@Klixen

Maybe this explanation will help. The bottom line...keep your gear close to your level. For under lvl 50 this means within about 6 levels of your toon, for vets you can slow down the upgrades and make one or two sets between c001 and C160.

How do the “handicaps” work?

The game sets all monsters to c160. To kill a monster this powerful, let’s say a character needs to be doing 5,000 damage per hit (let’s just assume this is a standard value to make this simple).

If you’re a level 20 character with a level 20 sword, the “natural” power of that weapon is like 500 damage per hit. You would get slaughtered by a c160 monster. So the game says “oh my god, they’re going to get killed. We better give them an extra 4500 per hit, and we better boost their armor too.” This allows you to kill that monster.

Now you level that toon to 40, but keep the level 20 gear. The monster is still c160 and still needs 5k per hit. In this case, the game thinks you should be using a level 40 sword, which hits for 1500 - a thousand more than the low level sword you’re using. So the game says “I’m going to give them an extra 3500 per hit to help.” Now you’ve lost power because your weapon’s power plus your handicap buff is only 4,000. A level 40 sword is needed to bring the hits back up to 5k.

This applies to armor too. As you outlevel your gear, your resistance handicaps are lowered because the game assumes you’re going to replace them with better gear.

So to answer your questions:

- this mechanic only applies to the character in question. It has no effect on other characters on your account.

- it has nothing to do with champion points. Your low level toons may spend as many CPs as you have on their account. These CPs make them significantly stronger, but they don’t affect the handicaps. If you use level 20 gear on a level 40 character, you’re still losing power. It might just not be as noticeable because the CPs are keeping them from getting too squishy or weak. My account is max cp. when I level a new character, I can go 10-20 armor levels and survive fine. When I help my friend without many CPs level a new character, replacing the gear is more important because he gets squishy once he’s 8+ levels over his gear.

Thank you Davey! That's a terrific explanation. I understand how it works now.

And thank you to everybody else who replied. You were absolutely right, I did become weaker when I hit level 50. But it wasn't as bad as I feared it would be.

When I looked back at my old screenshots, it seems I was becoming weaker and weaker every time I leveled up (and didn't upgrade my gear).

But this is something every new player needs to be told, the 'overwhelmingly profound importance' of gear! Nothing else really matters, not race, not class, not skills. All that matters is gear!

Without good gear the game is unplayable (for me at least) but with good gear you become almost Godlike!

SydneyGrey · April 2018

Once you're past CP 160 and can wear matched armor sets that your character won't outgrow, you'll start feeling strong again. You'll have fun putting armor sets together, and once you have some good sets, you'll start feeling more and more powerful from that point onward.

JKorr · April 2018

If you're in a guild, check with any crafters in your guild. Most crafters will make items for guildies at a guild price/low cost/for mats. I'll make gear for guildies every 10 levels for free under cp160. Cp160 I'll craft for free, but I do ask for the mats.