EP Manifesto

Also: How to stop pinging Rou, because everything is here.

Disclaimer: while majority of stuff here is confirmed, if you have evidence on contrary, contact Theorycrafting discord with this.

Important: EP level ≠ total EP points. Some levels grant more than one EP (for example max EP level is 443, while max total EP is 500). This document will mostly talk about EP level, there will be table provided with total EP though.

EXP requirements

At its core EP system is simple: you gain EP exp and you gain EP levels which grant you points. EP exp needed for one level increases in jumps every ~70 levels as can be seen on this graph:

These jumps happen at 53, 131, 198, 263, 323, 384, 441, 497 total EP points for people lazy to look them up.

Total exp requirements are just an uninspiring curve: 

Another number for lazy people: it’s 3.956.368 total exp for 500 total EP points.

EXP gain from activities

First things people ask are: what is worth doing ? 

Vanguards

Vanguard requests give you a hefty chunk of exp, and are your primary source of EP exp. Here is a chart listing base exp gain from vaguards. Numbers in parentheses are after you use up daily limit of 16 vanguards:

BAM kills

Each 65 BAM kill awards you 10 EP exp, which is mostly worthless, but notable source.

Leveling

Leveling a char to lvl 65 will grant you: 1 EP exp if it’s your first character. 50 EP exp if second or more character. Or 3.5 if it’s a reaper. Sorry no easy gaming the system. 

Enchanting

Enchanting your gear also gives you a few EP exp. Sadly this source wasn’t yet checked troughtly, only all weapon enchantments from Guardian to HO+3 were checked. Here is table of findings (you get this exp when you enchant to this level):

There are reports of this no longer giving EP exp ! Take care if you wanna try this.

…. More sources ? Open ended question.

Modifiers

There are several modifiers that affect your EP exp gained. They share one common feature: they are calculated at the point you are currently at therefore if you come to a point just before where soft cap starts to apply, and finish one big vanguard, then you will get EP exp calculated without pesky soft cap getting in way, despite getting to a point far far beyond it.

All these modifiers stack multiplicatively, therefore if more than one currently applies, you multiply their effect together. Therefore no modifier is losing on its effectiveness

Event

As EP system came to other regions, we got 30% exp gain as semi-permanent event. What this event does, is simply increases your Vanguard EP exp gain by 30%. 

EP exp boost

During weekend we will be granted 2 100% EP exp boost. As you can imagine, this just increases all your EP exp gain by 100%. 

The Catch up system

Here is where it gets interesting. There is system to help newbies catch up to older players in talent level. This modifier goes from 3 (+200% exp gain) to 0.1 (90% less exp gain) depending what level are you. Catch up mod is calculated based on your level and % to next level (eg, your catchup mod can be different at lvl 55.1 than on 55.9)

Here is graph of how catchup mod looks on KR: This graph is outdated, for approximate current catchup mod see here. (updates automagically, thanks Ketoth)

For lazy, important numbers are: 

• Mod = 3 ends at 357 total EP
• Mod = 1 at 424 total EP
• Mod = 0.1 starts at 457 total EP

Values are of this mod are subject to change, as this system is meant to more or less equalize newbies and no-life farmers. Popular theories have it, that this mod evolves based on server average EP points. However this is not true, as we can see currently on EU/NA and other regions, we have confirmed catch up mod 3 on whatever level people have got so far, despite average being more or less 0 at patchday.

So far it is unknown how this mod evolves, but it is expected the boundaries will go upwards with time.

The Cap modifier

One of first things people note is the soft cap: There is daily cap on exp you can gain, and after you exceed it you will only gain 5% of exp values.

Cap modifier behaves similarly like catch up mod – but instead depends on value of the soft cap. At 100% of the soft cap the mod is at ~50%, value where the modifier starts to kick in is ~89% of cap value, and it doesn’t became 5% until after 109% of cap value. Here you can see this behaviour:

If you remember what I said about mod: they only calculated at point you are currently. We can therefore conclude from this information, that best way to gain EP exp is, doing small-ish vanguard so you end up at 80-85% of your daily cap, and then doing big vanguard to overshoot cap as much as possible. Plan your exp gains carefully! 

Common misconception is, that first vanguard of a day has really big benefit – in reality it’s only reaching the soft cap already, and as said above, you can squeeze in another small VG before it, depending on your level.

Some exp sources can ignore this modifier. Currently Leveling and Enchanting EP exp have been found guilty of this – you will always get exp value as if your cap mod was 1 regardless of what it actually is.

Soft cap 

While we are going away from realm of modifiers, soft cap is sadly a chapter on it’s own. While I already explained how do your exp gains depend on daily soft cap, the actual value of your soft cap is bit more complicated.

Base cap

First of all, you have base soft cap depending on your EP level as shown here: 

Disclaimer, the cap values are a (very close) approximation and can differ up to ~10 exp from real values, same applies in the sheet linked at the end.

If the jumps feel familiar, they should – those are very same values where EP exp per level required jumps. 

Base cap value is modified by catch up mod (and only this one) so at start of EP patch, everyone had 3000 base cap not 1000. (Also the fact that level 1-2 base cap is shown higher than till about level 50 isn’t a mistake, for some reason it’s like that)

Storing

You can store up your soft cap – if you don’t exhaust your soft cap in one day, it will be automatically transferred to stock until you use it. To talk numbers, your stored cap will be set to: next day stored cap = max(0, stored cap  + current base cap – exp gained today)

Of course you can’t have stored up less than 0 cap. Condition for this transfer to occur is currently unknown, but it is either tied to logging in that day, or gaining at least some EP exp that day. If this unknown condition is not fulfilled, your stored cap next day stays same as today – you won’t get the addition of base cap.

Each day your real soft cap is simply calculated as soft cap = stored cap + current base cap

Of course, as was said, base cap in these equations is already modified by catch up mod.

Magic

Because of course we aren’t done yet, another thing that can modify your soft cap is Leveling and Enchanting. Remember how it was mentioned they ignore soft cap ? When this in fact happens, the amount exp that would have normally got “lost” due to soft cap modifier, will in fact get added to current stored soft cap: 

stored soft cap =stored soft cap + exp gained * ( 1 – soft cap modifier)

Where exp gained is exp after all mods, gained from leveling and/or enchanting.

I have no idea why this happens, whatever purpose it serves, or whoever thought this was a good idea, but it happens.

Data

For the non-lazy people, here is link with data to each level of EP. Remember that base cap is mostly an approximation, can differ up to ~10 exp.,

Thanks

• Ketoth – for most of math and sheets, and good motivations to research, and grinding ep on ktera
• Austin – for easy access to vanguards ep exp table
• Nep – for behaving … mostly