ESO PvP Campaigns guide, and what to choose, CP or no-CP?

In The ESO PvP Campaigns guide, we describe all campaigns and give you a better understanding of the campaigns system in ESO.

The Campaigns guide provides the tools so next time, you can easily decide which camping you should choose for your character.

The guide presumes that you already know the basics about Cyrodiil and Imperial City. If you would like to know more about Cyrodill and how to enter the zone click HERE, Imperial City HERE.

Introduction

Cyrodiil is a zone in the centre of Tamriel, with wide plains and many cities, outposts, bridges and castles called the keeps. Players from three factions fight for domination over the map and the Emperor’s throne. The three factions are Aldmeri Dominion (yellow), Daggerfall Covenant (blue) and Ebonheart Pact (red). The goal of every alliance is to control as many keeps, outposts, scrolls, resources or cities as possible to get Campaign Points. The score evaluation is every hour.

The Imperial City is a high-risk, high-reward PvP instanced zone. It is located in the centre of Cyrodiil and accessible from the Cyrodiil zone or by a separate queue in the Alliance menu tab, similar to Cyrodii. Furthermore, IC has just like Cyrodiil different types of campaigns. However, the IC campaign never ends so doesn’t offer any extra campaign leaderboard, or score.

Types of campaigns

Which campaign you should choose is related to how levelling system in ESO operates (click HERE for a comprehensive beginner and levelling guide and builds). Also what gear are you wearing and what other PvP alliance characters do you have? Let’s look at all campaigns and which one you should choose.

Campaigns are timed 7 days or 30 days. When the campaign ends, all players that took part in it will receive the “end of campaign rewards” which are based on how much AP they earned during this limited time and their “End of Campaign Reward Tier”. A new campaign starts when the previous one ends. In the gif below you can see the Cyrodiil campaign menu and how to enter any of the campaigns.

ESO How to enter Cyrodiil
ESO How to enter Cyrodiil

Below-50 campaigns

Before you’ll hit level 50, ESO offers below-50 campaigns in all three modes: Cyrodiil, Imperial City and Battlegrounds, that’s why you need only level 10 to start PvP in ESO. The choice here is easy. However ESO will allow your low-level character to enter the above 50 campings, but it doesn’t work the other way around. As a character above 50, you can’t enter the below-50 Campaigns.

No-CP vs CP campaigns

After you’ll hit level 50 you start to collect so-called Champion Points (CP), and now you have access to all campaigns (the champion points guide HERE). Cyrodiil and Imperial City campaigns can be CP-enabled, which means all of your CP buffs will be applied to your character in that campaign. In non-CP campaigns, CP benefits are disabled and not applied to your character. It doesn’t mean the no-CP campaign is bad or worst. In fact, some players prefer it over CP campaigns. However, you need to remember that if your CP level is low you will have fewer CP buffs and thus you’ll have difficulties fighting against players with higher CP levels. Regardless of your CP level, you can enter all campaigns, just keep it all in mind.

You should choose the no-CP campaign if you aren’t at least level 800 CP. You’ll lack the passive buffs and survivability that the CP offers and you will have a hard time keeping up with the rest of the players. Sometimes the non-cp campaign is also a good choice if you want for example avoid gankers who are much less strong there.

In the CP campaigns, combat is much faster, because you can kill huge groups and earn AP faster. In the No-Cp the combat is slower, but you can’t blow up massive groups, as a result, zerg groups and the largest population dominates. No-CP campaigns are technically new player friendly because they limit the item sets and allow only the use of static boosts to character’s statistics. Moreover, without proc sets (more in next section) which increase the time to kill, so players have more time to react.

Non proc sets campaign

The second campaign factor depends on the “item sets with process effects” (proc sets). The “proc sets” are an armor group that performs an action for you when certain conditions are met. An example: whenever you complete a heavy attack, the armour set heals you for a specified amount. We have various campaigns with both options. On “no proc sets campaigns” the effect will simply never happen and your proc armor may be ineffective, so make sure you are wearing the correct gear for the correct campaign. (PvP builds with proc, and no-proc gear sets HERE) You can always check the campaign rules in the alliance menu before you enter.

ESO campaign rules
ESO campaign rules

As mentioned before proc gear sets make combat faster, which gives you less time to react, however, in the proc-sets campaign all the item sets are allowed so you don’t need to worry about your gear. All the PvP builds on the website have no-proc/no-cp camping gear options, click HERE.

Home Campaign

Before you enter any of the campaigns it’s good to decide which one will you play the most often, and make it a “home campaign”. If you did this right, the home icon will appear next to chosen campaign. You can have only one home campaign, however, this setting resets every month and can be changed at any time. We do this to earn campaign points, progress on the campaign leaderboard and receive tier rewards at the end of the campaign. And you can do this only on your home campaign. If you enter as a guest you’ll still receive AP, and can help your faction win but your character will not advance in “campaign tier rewards”.

In the picture below you can see I set “GRAY HOST” as my main campaign, now I can see campaign duration, points of the whole factions and my tier rewards progress bar, marked in the picture. By playing in the Grey Host campaign I’ll finally reach level one “End of Campaign Reward Tier” and as a result, I’ll receive by mail gold, lots of transmutes and gear. I’ll discuss Cyrodiil rewards and collectibles in detail later in the guide.

ESO Aliance war
ESO Alliance war

Alliance locked campaign

This is usually the main campaign with cp and proc sets enabled. This campaign will be locked to your character alliance and only available to other characters from the same faction. Example: If you enter this campaign as e.g Altmeri dominion character the game will ask you to make a decision: “Do you want this campaign to be bound to Aldmeri Dominion only?” If you refuse you’ll be removed from it. If you agree this campaign will be available only for your Aldmeri Dominion characters until the campaign end. Every time a new campaign starts you can select the new faction you want to fight for.

During the camping duration objective of any alliance is to capture as many keeps cities, scrolls or keeps as possible and hold them for as long as possible. At each score evaluation factions receive points based on how many locations they control. The faction with the most points will win the campaign and receive bonus “end of campaign rewards”.

 

Now you should have a good understanding about the PvP campaign system in ESO. If you have more questions check out our other guides or consider watching me on twitch at twitch.tv/deltiasgaming.

Useful Information and tricks

  • Battle spirit – This passive you’ll have automatically applied to your character when entering Battlegrounds, Imperial City or Cyrodiil. It adds 3 000 health and reduces healing and damage.
  • In Cyrodiil, you can respawn at any Transitus shrine that belongs to your faction even if not connected to Transitus Network
  • Players can resurrect players from their faction in Cyrodiil
  • Use the surroundings that Cyrodiil offers, to survive or kill players. Hide behind the objects, use speed or stealth, knock players from the edges or stun them! If they don’t see you they can’t hit you!
  • Teamwork is essential to win!
  • ESO PvP Tips, Tricks and Hints – written guide and YouTube video
  • The Best PvP Ultimates in The Elder Scrolls Online – YouTube video
  • The reasons you’re dying too much in ESO PvP – YouTube video

 


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