The Elder Scrolls Online Update 29 (AKA Patch v6.3.0) has recently deployed to the PTS, and it includes the long requested Champion Points 2.0 overhaul. There’s plenty in common between the current Champion Points system and the upcoming CP overhaul, but the changes have been dramatic enough to throw all of our builds into disarray. In this guide I’ll break down the basics of the new system, so you can jump in with both feet once the Champion Points 2.0 overhaul debuts alongside Update 29 in March. Do consider that all information is from the v.6.3.0 PTS server, and is subject to change.
The Elder Scrolls Online Champion Points 2.0
Champion Points 2.0 functions similarly to the existing CP system in The Elder Scrolls Online. You’ll still earn points from accruing experience after level 50, and they are still broken down into three categories. You’ll continue to assign your Champion Points into stars within a constellation to unlock passive stat increases, and there will be a cap to how much CP you can earn and invest. The basic principles behind the Champion Point system are not changing in Update 29, but the constellations and the stars within are a departure from the CP system currently in The Elder Scrolls Online. Let’s boil down the largest changes into an easy to read format:
- There remain three categories of constellations, but there’s only one constellation for each instead of three.
- Green is now Craft, Blue is Warfare, and Red is Fitness.
- Craft features passives that boost trade, crafting, gathering, stealth, and thievery.
- Warfare is all about boosting damage and healing.
- Fitness passives bolster evasion, blocking, regeneration, and overall defense.
- Stat increases are no longer earned with every point invested, instead by crossing certain point thresholds.
- There’s a flat increase at every threshold, meaning there are no diminishing returns on points invested.
- Each passive has an CP cap.
- Passives are aligned in the constellation in such a way that some are blocked off until you invest points in a preceding passive.
- Think Skyrim’s constellations.
- There are “Active” passives that have to be equipped.
- Each constellation can have four slotted at once.
- Changing out Active passives is free.
That’s still a lot to take in, so allow me to explain Champion Points 2.0 in a little more detail. In Update 29, the nine existing constellations you dump CP into will be compressed into three. They will still be separated into three categories, and you will continue to cycle between them as you earn Champion Points while playing The Elder Scrolls Online. Since there are only three constellations in the Champion Points 2.0 it’s easier to understand what benefits each provides.
The Green – Craft – provides boosts to crafting, gathering, and trade, though it does feature stealth and thievery-oriented passives. The Blue Warfare constellation in Update 29 will host the majority of damage and healing augmenting passives, whilst the Red Fitness constellation will provide increases to health, regeneration, evasion, and other “tankier” stats. In other words, Warfare is for damage dealers and healers, and Fitness is for tanks, though all three roles will benefit from passives in each. It’s just easier to parse what passives benefit your build in The Elder Scrolls Online now.
We will continue to earn and dump Champion Points into these constellations once Update 29 goes live, but instead of earning a small statistical increase that diminishes with every point invested, we’ll instead have to clear certain point thresholds. For example, Tumbling in the Fitness tree reduces the cost of Dodge Rolling by 120 Stamina per stage. There are four stages total in Tumbling, each reached at 15 CP thresholds up to a cap of 60 (passives now have hard ceilings). So, at 15 CP invested my Dodge Roll will cost 120 Stamina less, but if I invest 60 CP my Dodge Roll will cost 480 less stamina.
This change should make figuring out builds and Champion Point investments in The Elder Scrolls Online easier to understand. That said, not all of the passives in a constellation can be invested in from the start. Likes stars in an actual constellation, each passive is linked to another, and you’ll have to invest a small amount in some to unlock better, more powerful passive deeper within the constellation.
There are “Active” passives now as well, which have to be slotted in one of the four nodes assigned to that constellation. That means you can have four Active Craft, Warfare, and Fitness passives apiece. These Active passives are easy to identify within a constellation: yellow stars are standard passives, whilst Active passives will shine in the same color as the tree they are in (red stars for Fitness, etc.). You can have more than four Active passives in a constellation unlocked at a time, but you can have only four equipped. These can be swapped around without a penalty.
There are two final notes I want to go over before wrapping up this Champion Points 2.0 explainer. First, the CP cap in The Elder Scrolls Online will be raised to 3600 (up from the current 810 cap), and the experience curve will be adjusted to make earning Champion Points faster when Update 29 lands. Finally, there are currently two “sub-constellations” in the Warfare tree. Selecting these purple stars will zoom the screen in to a smaller constellation within the parent one, both featuring a handful of Active and standard passives with a specific theme. Zenimax has stated they intend to use these sub-constellations to further expand on Champion Points 2.0 as The Elder Scrolls Online ages, and the CP cap will rise as needed to support these.
That’s the long and long about The Elder Scrolls Online’s Champion Points 2.0 coming in Update 29. You can download the PTS right now on PC from the regular Elder Scrolls Online launcher if you want to see the changes for yourself. Remember, the PTS is a testing environment, and you are encouraged to provide feedback (in the forums linked here). There are some bugs and issues with Champion Points 2.0 right now in patch v6.3.0, but so far it’s looking to be a solid improvement over the existing CP system. Champion Points 2.0 will arrive in The Elder Scrolls Online (live) when Update 29 ships sometime in March. The next Chapter, Blackwood, will launch June 1st on PC and June 8th for consoles, and you can read all about the different editions for sale here.
