Champion Levels have more in common with Artifact leveling than with their predeccesor, Master Levels. You don't complete encounters, you don't do raids, there's no specific list of tasks to do... you just need to earn experience. A lot of experience.

You start Champion Levels by talking to your King after you reach level 50 - you will also need to return to the King each time you have earned enough experience to advance a level (you can earn experience toward the next CL without talking to the King, but won't get a point to spend on a CLA). After you've talked to him, any experience you earn - ANY experience - will count toward Champion Levels. (You can view your current experience by clicking on your experience bar twice; the first time will switch it to show realm points, the second Champion Experience. Custom UIs will only have that ability if they have been updated for DR.)

Each Champion Level requires 32,000 Champion Level experience (CLXP). In PvE, you gain one point of CLXP per 2 million normal experience, meaning a Champion Level takes 64 billion experience. However, quest experience and all bonuses (outpost, artifact, guild) count toward CLXP. Some Catacombs quests earn several billion experience, and Chapter 3 of the Champion Quests should earn you almost three Champion Levels. But, if you can't take PvEing to get it, you can RvR...

In RvR, you gain one point of CLXP per 333k normal experience - one sixth the amount needed for a point when in PvE. A single solo kill in RvR can earn you over half a bubble of CLXP, the equivalent of 15+ capped monsters. The downside to exp'ing in RvR is that your kills are not going to come with the kind of regularity that they will in PvE, but it's obviously assumed that many people will continue to RvR as normal and gain CLXP while they do so.

Other benefits for Champion Levels include titles and access to the King's Quartermaster, who sells special mounts, respec stones (ML and skill), and other useful items. At Champion Level 5, you can get your Champion Weapon with all of its abilities unlocked, and can ignore the quests completely.

Shepherding does for CLXP what it does for MLXP - provide a reason for those who have done the encounters before to help others with them.

To receive shepherding experience, you have to:

• Have completed the Champion Quests.
• Be grouped with a player who will receive the large CoF/boss experience bonus (someone who hasn't killed that mob before and is on the CoF or final fight step).
• Be within 2000 units.

You won't receive nearly as much experience as the player doing the encounters for the first time, but you will get half a level if you shepherd someone through the entire process. The experience bonus will not change depending on how many in the group need the encounter (assuming there's at least one, anyway).

CL1: Seeker
CL2: Enforcer
CL3: Outrider
CL4: Lightbringer
CL5: King's Champion